Work Text:
Ponyboy woke up to the sounds of muffled talking in the other room. He lied in bed for about a minute or so, at least that’s how long he thought he was lying there for. He had a horrible sense of time. Before he sat up, his brother, Sodapop, stuck his head through the doorway. He was already in his DX uniform, just without his hat.
“Oh, you’re awake. I thought you were never gonna get up.” He said.
Pony rubbed his eyes before sitting up, “man, I wasn’t asleep for that long, was I?” He knew he had stayed up late the night before to write his composition for English.
“Nah, it’s not that late.” Soda assured him, “but me and Darry oughta head out for work now. Your breakfast is on the table.”
Pony nodded before he tossed the blankets off himself and got out of bed. He followed Soda into the main room where he saw Steve leaning on the arm of the sofa and Darry sitting on the actual, y’know, sofa part of it, reading a newspaper.
Darry looked up from it when he heard footsteps coming into the room. “Morning, Pony.”
“Mornin’,” Pony said back before he headed over to the table. “Why aren’t you guys at work yet?” He looked at the clock.
“‘Cause we’re still looking for someone to look after you while we’re gone.” Darry responded blankly.
“What? Still?” Pony groaned as he started scarfing down his breakfast. “I mean, I’ll just be in my room writin’ the whole day. I already told you, I don’t need no babysitter.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Steve crossed his arms, “just let the kid stay alone, man, we gotta go soon.”
Darry let out a short ‘hmph’ in response, which could mean anything but Pony assumed it meant, “no.” He swallowed a large bite of his food before he tried to help convince him, “yeah, listen to Steve, Dar’.”
“I might just stay home myself.” Darry mumbled.
“You don’t have to do that. C’mon, please??” Pony pleaded.
Maybe if just a second longer lasted, Darry might have allowed it but, as if someone was waiting outside for a grand entrance, the door was kicked open.
“Hey, guys, what’s the haps’?” It was Dally. He leaned against the open doorway, thumbs through his beltloops.
“The hell?” Steve said, confused.
“Uh, how’s it hangin’?” Dally repeated before he scoffed, “man, forget ‘bout it. I’m just here ‘cause I left my ring somewhere last night.”
Darry then dropped his newspaper on the table before he stood up quickly, seeming to have a light flicker on in his head. “Dallas. Look after Pony today.”
Dally paused at the sudden request. He almost immediately declined. “Man, I ain’t no damn babysitter.”
Dally had looked after Pony maybe once or twice in the past but it took a couple minutes to convince him to do so those times.
“How ‘bout for a quarter?” Darry offered, taking one out his pocket.
Dally thought for a quick moment. Apparently he was in a pretty good mood at the time because he said, “‘How ‘bout,’ you make it two quarters?”
It was kind of odd to bribe Dally with money since he basically pays for nothing but, weirdly enough, he still takes the money. No one really knew what he used it for other than drive-thrus where you had to pay before they handed you your food. Or there were some days where he was in a “not in the mood to steal” kind of mood but those were rare.
“Sure.” Darry agreed and handed him his dough, “C’mon Pepsi-cola. Steve.” Dally moved out of the doorway as Darry headed out the door and the other two followed.
“See ya, Pone’!” Soda waved to Pony, who was just finishing up his food, “you make sure no one don’t burn the house down or somethin’!”
“Hey, I’m the one babysittin’ the kid, man.” Dally frowned and rolled his eyes, annoyed but Soda was already jumping off the front porch steps.
Dally shut the door behind him and he turned towards Pony, who was cleaning up his plate already. “So, what do you wanna do, man?” He asked.
Pony only gave him a shrug back which caused him to let out an exasperated sigh. “Whatever, man, I’m just gonna find my ring."
For about a minute, Dally searched the living room, on the table, between the sofa pillows, and on the ground but it wasn’t anywhere to be found. He groaned, “hey, Pony, you got a cancer stick?”
Pony headed into the living room and shook his head. “Nah, I was gonna get some more later today. Besides, Darry’d probably get angry at both of us if we smoke in the house.”
“Yeah, if we get caught. And we could just smoke out in front.” Dally stated out flatly.
“Oh, right.”
Dally left Pony in the living room and headed over to the bathroom. He assumed he probably took it off while washing his hands. Luckily, his guess was right and he saw the silver on the counter in the corner of his eyes.
He grabbed it, but felt something clear on it, like a really thin string. He just thought it was grime and tried to dust the string off but it stuck to his hand. Weird. Dally looked down and inspected it. No. He just tried to ignore it. He waved his hand to the side and shook it off himself.
But once Dally looked up, Pony had heard the most goddamn ear piercing, high pitched shriek so loud from the other room, he jumped and slammed his hands over his ears. It was so sudden, Pony took a minute to realize it came from Dally. But it wasn’t Dally, right? He thought that scream couldn’t have come from tough cold-blooded Dally. He’s witnessed fights, muggings, and murders, so what could be so horrific that would cause Dallas Winston to scream like that? It was concerning.
“Dally?! What’s wrong!?” Pony came running into the restroom panicked. He saw Dally sitting on the floor, back to the wall with such a terrified expression painted on his face that Pony had never seen on Dally. He noticed his eyes were targeted at something past him.
Pony slowly turned around until he saw it. He saw the spider on the wall. He flinched and quickly backed up. It was a huge black spider, twitching on the wall.
“What the hell are you just standin’ there for?! Kill it, man!” Dally screamed frightened.
“Me? You’re the one who saw it!” Pony retaliated also a bit scared but not as loudly as Dally had.
Dally stuttered to come back with a good reason, “W-well, it’s your damn house!”
Pony paused for a moment, he didn’t feel like he should be the one to kill it but he didn’t want to argue with Dally the whole time, so he let out a sigh. “Fine but keep your eyes on it." He ran out the room and into the kitchen. And he swore he was only gone for a second before he heard a bunch of squeaky babbling. He snatched the kitchen towel before he hurried back. And— oh no. “Dally, where’s the spider?” Pony spoke slowly.
“I don’t know! It crawled away!”
Pony tensed up. He didn’t know if he should be pissed at Dally for letting it go, (That was funny. Pony being pissed off at Dally. He didn’t usually like him but he never really got full on mad at him.) Or he should panic. “Well, I don’t know if we can look for it. We…might just have to forget it.”
Dally shot up immediately and pushed past Pony to the main room, “No. No no no no. Fuck this! I’m outta here!”
“What?! Are you scared of spiders or something!?” Pony followed him.
Dally forced himself to laugh, gritting his teeth, “Man, I ain’t scared of no damn spider! I just don’t like them! I just…don’t! Okay?!” He headed straight for the front door.
“Are you sure? Because you sure are actin’ it.” Pony retaliated, rushing past Dally to block the door.
“Man, I ain’t actin’ for nothin’!” Dally pushed Pony out the way and threw him on the couch. Pony felt a hard blow as he hit the bottom of the sofa and sprung back up. Pony looked back up at Dally and his eyes widened.
“What?” Dally asked with a slightly shaky voice.
Pony pointed to what he saw and Dally snapped towards where he pointed. “Glory hallelujah! This house is fucked!” He screamed before he ran out the door.
“Dally, wait! Don’t leave me here with both the spiders!” He quickly switched his attention back and forth from the door to the two spiders for a second before he sprinted out the door soon after.
Pony jumped off the steps and saw Dally standing in front of the fence with a lighter. “The hell you think you’re doin’?” Pony asked, eyeballing the lighter in his hand.
“I ain’t takin’ any chances, man.” Dally said in a low voice.
Pony shook his head, “are you crazy? You ain’t gonna burn my house down!”
Dally ignored him. The two stared down at each other like they were about to have a showdown, like they had heaters by their side and at the ready. Dally initiated it when he ran back towards the house and Pony grabbed him. He grabbed Dally’s arms and held him back. They wrestled at each other for a while. Pony almost lost his grip but held on.
“C’mon, Dal’!” Pony pleaded, “y’know those spiders could be gone by now!”
“I already told you, kid! I ain’t takin’ no chances!”
They kept at it for a while.
“I’ll get you another quarter!” Pony later suggested. “Man, we don’t need another fire!”
Before Dally could respond though, the two heard a couple quick footsteps running and a voice that yelled, “hey! What are you two doing?!” It was Soda, he hopped over the gate and split them up.
“He’s tryin’ to burn down our house!” Pony pointed.
Soda stared dumbfoundedly at Pony and Dally, “what? Dally!”
“Your house is infested, man!”
“Infested?” Soda tilted his head. “When I said, “make sure no one don’t burn the house down,” I didn’t think you were actually gonna do it!”
“Just come take a look.” Pony walked back towards the house, ushering Soda to follow him.
The two brothers stood in the doorway, seeing the two spiders crawling on the floor. “Oh!” Sodapop exclaimed. He grabbed the towel on the sofa and quickly grabbed the spiders with it before running outside and dropping them into the grass.
Dally kept his eyes on the spiders in the grass. They didn’t seem to be moving much but you never know.
“Anyways, Soda,” Pony began, “what are you doin’ back? I thought you had work?”
“Oh, yeah. I just left my hat.” He quickly ran back inside and came back out with said hat in his hands. “Well, I’ll see you guys later, please don’t actually burn the house down, now.” And he was off.
“You hear that, Dal’?” Pony sassed, “Now c’mon.” Pony made his way back into the house, expecting Dally to follow him.
Dally rolled his eyes and started to follow him when he paused, looked down, and stomped his foot down onto the two little creatures before he called out to Pony, “Nah, man, I need myself a weed right now.”
Pony looked back and shrugged, he thought he could also go for a cigarette. So, he kicked the door closed and followed Dally out the gate.