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Johnny Cade was tired. More tired than a boy his age should be, he was only sixteen and he was so...tired. Johnny sat in the abandoned lot, his head leaned back against the worn out couch beneath the gnarled old tree, staring up at the stars. He looked up into the sky, but he wasn't really seeing. The bright dots of the constellations decorated his vision, but he paid them little mind. The dull sensations coursing through his body were at the back of his mind as he looked up absently.
To say it was a bad night wouldn't be the right sentiment. Calling it a 'bad night' might imply it was an exception rather than a rule. Tonight was a night like most others. Johnny had put off coming home as long as he could, but he hadn't been back in days and he needed fresh clothes. He knew that he could have asked Dallas for some of his or borrowed some from Ponyboy, but Johnny was already convinced he was a burden on all the other greasers as it was. He had tried to be quiet, slowly opening the door and tiptoeing over the creaky wooden floor, but his efforts had been in vain. His parents had evidently just gotten done fighting and Johnny's father was sat in kitchen. As soon as he saw Johnny, it was like he saw red.
Somehow, this beating had felt worse than the others. Johnny didn't quite know what made it feel that way, maybe it was just the way his dad was yelling or the fact Johnny was already so tired or because he'd known he could've just gone and bothered one of his friends and avoided this all together. By the time his dad had tired himself out, Johnny was shaking on the ground, poorly suppressing the sobs in his throat as blood trickled down the side of his face and his ribs throbbed a stinging pain. His dad had grumbled at him to get out and Johnny didn't waste any time getting out, not even bothering to grab the clothes he had gone there for in the first place.
His chest burned as he fought to keep his composure as Johnny ran from the house. He tried to think of somewhere to go, but the only place he could convince himself to go was the lot. The sun was beginning to set as Johnny's legs carried him to the lot on muscle memory alone. He was slower in getting there than normal, his leg dragging in a limp from where his father had stomped on it. By the time he finally arrived to the abandoned plot and fell onto the old sofa, his body screamed out in pain. Johnny took deep breaths, trying to steady himself, but he couldn't keep it together anymore.
In the quiet solitude of the back of the old lot, Johnny began to sob. He gasped for air as hot tears poured down his face and painful hiccups pulled from his throat. He felt ridiculous. Greasers weren't supposed to cry like this, they were supposed to be tough, tuff. This wasn't tuff, this was pathetic. Johnny tried to wipe away the emotion from his face, but it was pointless. Jesus, he was tired of this. He was tired of living in fear, in this isolation he had formed for himself. He was tired of being a burden for his parents and feeling like one for his friends. He was tired of greasers and socs, tired of always feeling less-than.
As the hour ticked on, Johnny looked into the sunset. Colors spread across the sky in hypnotizing arrays, the one thing in life he found he could truly enjoy. The sunsets were constant and they were beautiful and they were real and personal and yet so, so big. He wasn't sure he could say the same about anything else. The sunset was beautiful, but right now, it wasn't enough. Johnny felt a sense of defeat when the sunset that had always calmed him failed to do it now. Was it just too much this time? Had the sunset lost the sparkle it had had for so many years? Or had Johnny just lost his ability to see it? Maybe Johnny didn't want to live in a world where he couldn't see the sparkle.
As the sky began to turn from the brilliant, yet unappreciated, colors to a deep blue, Johnny reached into the back pocket of his jeans. His fingers searched then closed around the smooth and shiny handle of the six-inch switchblade. Pulling it out, Johnny pressed the release button and flicked open the knife. He slowly moved it around, watching the fading light reflect off the steel blade. He felt transfixed on it, his eyes following the slow movement of the metal. Johnny set the blade down on his thigh for a moment. Despite the cold autumn air, Johnny shrugged off his jacket and threw in onto the back of the old couch. Goosebumps began to pop up on his arms as the wind hit him.
'What am I doing?' Johnny thought as he picked up the blade again, but Johnny knew exactly what he was doing. He was going to find another world, one where he could still see the sparkle. A world where his dad didn't beat him senseless every time he saw him, one where he didn't keep convincing himself he was a burden on everyone he loved. Johnny's breath was now coming in sharp gasps. He hated to admit it, but he was scared. He held out his arm in front of him.
Shutting his eyes and turning his head away, Johnny placed the sharp edge of his blade against the skin of his wrist and pressed down. He couldn't help the yelp that escaped him as the blade broke into his flesh, beads of deep crimson sprouting from the metal, but he pushed deeper, deeper until he couldn't anymore without threat of being sick. Then, in one fluid motion, without giving himself time to think, Johnny pulled the blade back towards himself, elongating the slit in the skin almost to the inside of his elbow. Then, Johnny did vomit. Only a little, bile spilling from his stomach and dribbling from his chin and onto the ground. With fraying vision, Johnny looked at the knife. Almost all of it was stained crimson.
Johnny looked at the damage he had done. His forearm was a wreck, a deep gash in his tanned skin, revealing bloodied muscle and tendon, still beating with his rapid pulse. If he had wanted to squint closer, Johnny would see bone, but he didn’t want to. The pumping blood running off his arm and coating his jeans and the leather couch was already too much for him. As much as he tried to work up the courage, Johnny couldn't do his other wrist. He would just wait until this one bled enough to take him.
Johnny dropped the dripping knife onto the couch next to him and leaned back, looking up into the sky, past the stars and into the black, trying not to think about the roaring pain. In the background, faintly, Johnny heard the sound of a car, its wheels ripping up grass as it drove over dirt. He didn't look as he heard it park and a door open and close. He didn't even look up as he heard a familiar voice call out to him.
"Johnny! There you are, man." It was Dallas. Good old Dally. Johnny tried to lift his head off the couch to look at Dally, but his strength was fading. "Soda told me he heard some shit from your house and he called when you didn't make your way to his. Now, come on, let's go grab some...Johnny?" Dally paused as he saw Johnny's slack form, his breathing unsteady.
"Johnny, buddy, hey, you alright?" Dallas approached Johnny, but then his steps suddenly stopped as the cloud that had been obscuring the moonlight moved away.
The sight was even worse to an outsider. The mutilated flesh of Johnny’s arm was sickening to look at. It was hard to believe that shy, little Johnny could have done this to himself, but the evidence was all too plain. Johnny's eyes were only half open, looking at Dallas. The bloody knife sat next to him, glinting in the light.
"Jesus fuck, John!" Dally cried as he ran to Johnny. "Christ, baby, what'd you do?!" Dallas looked at the damage Johnny had done to himself, and with gentle hands, picked up his slack arm to examine it. Maybe the cut wasn't too deep, maybe he could take him to Darry and he could stitch him. No, he couldn't. This was too deep. Dallas could see the blood pumping out, the veins and tendons and exposed muscle through the length of the cut. He had been brave enough to see the bone. Dallas looked up at Johnny, a helpless look in his eyes. He had to try.
"Come on, baby, let's get ya to Darry. He can fix you, he's gotta. He can save you," Dally said in a frantic voice. It wasn't clear whether he was assuring Johnny or himself. He went to put his arm underneath Johnny's to pick him up when Johnny made a sound of both pain and protest.
"N-no," Johnny choked out. "Please, Dal, don't." Dally looked at Johnny with an expression of hurt confusion.
"Johnnycake, please, you're not thinkin' right," Dallas pleaded. "We can save you, there's still time, I know it." That was a lie, they both knew it. There wouldn't even be time to take Johnny to the Curtis house, let alone enough for Darry to try and fix him. Johnny was fading fast.
"Sit with me," Johnny said quietly, his voice raspy. "I wanna be next to you when..." Johnny trailed off, but Dally knew what he meant. Johnny wanted Dally there when he died.
With more reluctance than he knew how to feel, Dally shakily sat down on the couch next to Johnny. Dallas’ face contorted like he was about to weep, but no tears formed. Dally had forgotten how to cry years ago.
With a look of defeat, he wrapped his arms around Johnny as best he could and pulled him to his chest, resting his chin on top of his head. Tears now flowing freely, Dallas pressed a kiss to the top of Johnny's head, feeling the slick scratchiness of his greased hair. Dallas couldn't live without Johnny. Sure, he cared about the other guys, but none of them were Johnny. He didn't love them like he loved Johnny. He hadn't spent so much of his time in Tulsa thinking he would spend the rest of his life with the other boys, only with Johnny.
In a movement so fluid, so swift that it appeared no thought went into it at all, Dallas picked up the bloodied knife and, pulling back his sleeve, stabbed it into his own wrist and sliced open the delicate skin, mirroring the movements Johnny had made minutes prior. He barely flinched as he tore open his arm, his years of violence having well prepared him for this. The gushing blood and torn muscle hurt, but they hurt less than what living without Johnny would be.
Johnny was too far gone to be able to do anything to stop Dallas.
"No...Dal...Don't," Johnny said weakly. "Dally..." Looking down at Johnny, who was minutes from the grave, Dally didn't regret what he'd done. There was no one else in the world for Dally but Johnny. If Johnny wasn't in the world, Dally didn't want to be there anymore. And above all else, Johnny wasn't going to die alone.
After only a couple more agonizing minutes, when Johnny's breath hitched and escaped in a rattling sound, Dally knew he was gone. He held Johnny closer to his chest, the unnaturally still body against his own, rocking gently. All he could think was 'why?' Of course, he knew why. Johnny had been suicidal for years. On some level, it was a wonder he'd made it this long.
"Oh, Johnnycake," Dallas cried quietly. As the pulsing pain in his own wrist began to grow duller, Dallas knew he wasn't too far away from his Johnny. He leaned back against the couch, Johnny tightly in his arms, and did his best to relax. Dallas closed his eyes and breathed as his body began to slow. This was it. Dallas Winston's seventeen years were concluding not looking down the barrel of a policeman's gun or at the end of a switchblade or underneath Tim Shepard’s fists, but staring up at the stars, the love of his life in arms.
As the world began to slip away, Dallas' last thought was he was sorry, he was sorry he couldn't get Johnny out of that goddamn house or that he couldn't have gotten here 20 minutes earlier or that he couldn't have made things better. With a choke, death came for Dally, his Johnny against his chest and a dulling pain in his arm and a switchblade next to his thigh.
The next morning, when Darry and Soda would drive by the lot to get to work, they would stop. They would call to Dally and Johnny, but they would get no answer from the boys they thought were sleeping. Soda would make Darry stop so he could scare Dally awake, something he thought was awful funny when he did it right, but as he approached, he would stop. His face would go pale as he took in the scene, one now illuminated in the morning sun, and he would shake. He would scream for his older brother and fall to the ground, holding his head in his hands. Darry would rush over, fear filling his heart, and he would stop when he saw it.
Two boys tangled with each other, their eyes closed and their chests still, strangely peaceful looks on their faces contrasting the slashes on their wrists and the blood soaked scene beneath them. It would be too late to do anything for them as the insects began making their way to the couple. Soda would begin to sob and Darry would stand there, his hands in white-knuckled fists and his face hard. Two of their best friends were dead, there wasn’t anything they could do but stand there. Darry would walk home in a daze, and he would call the police, and then Steve, and Two-Bit. He would look at Ponyboy with such a sad expression, unable to even begin telling him what had happened.
Dallas Winston and Johnny Cade had wanted to be dead. Life had punched them down and they couldn't take it anymore. Johnny had decided to take the quick way out and Dally had followed him. Their years together had culminated in this. They had loved each other and now they were dead, and that love had died with them. No one would know the whole story. People could guess why each boy might have done it on their own, but no one would know what had really happened that night in the lot. All that mattered was that Johnny and Dally were gone, and they had left this world side-by-side, entangled together, staring at the stars.