Dallas Winston Has A Sister? (Outsiders Fanfic)

To Serve The Future Men In My Life...

        I saw movement through the screen door, and I pushed it open slightly to see Ponyboy, with his back to me, leaning on the railing of the porch.  I remembered what Soda'd said, that Ponyboy had been worried about me most the whole while I was out with a fever, which had been three days.  Wednesday morning to early Friday afternoon.

        A small smile crossed my face as I thought it'd be fun to surprise him, and I eased the screen door shut quietly behind me, padding silently across the porch in my bare feet.  I wrapped my arms around his waist from behind, giving him a quick squeeze before letting go.

        Surprised, he turned to see me and a grin broke across his face before he hugged me back tightly, like he never wanted to let me go.

        But I'd had enough after about two seconds, so I said, "You can let go now.  I'm not going to die or disappear anytime soon."

        He seemed reluctant but he let go and asked, "How are you feeling?"

        "Well enough to not want to sit in bed for another three days.  And next time remind me to stay out of alleys behind garages cause there's gasoline," I answered, recalling a very unfortunate event that involved a lighter and some Socs.  They had jumped me, or tried to, in an alley, and I ended up landing in a puddle of gasoline leaked from some discarded containers or old car parts that were left in the alley.  The Socs had thought it'd be funny to try and start my clothes on fire, and they ended up being a lot more flammable than expected by both of us.

        "That's what happened?  I thought they were just trying to burn you alive," Pony half-joked, cause if you think about it it wasn't that funny of a concept.

        I shrugged a shoulder and sat down on the porch swing, hugging a knee to my chest and trying to ignore the aching in my arm that was the result of the encounter with the Socs I'd just mentally recounted. 

        Pony sat down next to me, stretching one arm across the back of the swing so it was right above my shoulders, and he kicked at the planks making up the floor of the porch, setting the swing in motion.

        "Aren't you cold?" he asked me.

        "No," I answered, even though I was wearing my pajamas, baggy pajama pants that barely stayed up on my waist and a loose T-shirt that was a size too big.  Ponyboy had on jeans and a T-shirt, so he was wearing pretty much the same thing as me, except for he had shoes.

        "But I am hungry.  Have you eaten anything the past three days?" I asked him, because he had a tendency to not eat if he was really worried about someone.

        "I had a sandwich yesterday," he admitted, stopping the swing.

        I rolled my eyes and got to my feet, heading in the house.  I was starving, so I was surprised he hadn't eaten like a whole chocolate cake or something already.  Ponyboy followed me into the kitchen, but I had already started getting out stuff to make myself breakfast.  It was two in the afternoon, but I had just woken up and was still in my pajamas, so it seemed like I should be making breakfast.

        I got bread out of the cupboard, and eggs, milk, and of course the chocolate cake, which surprisingly enough wasn't entirely gone, out of the icebox, putting them all on the table before grabbing a bowl out of a cupboard, a spoon out of a drawer, and banging a small griddle down on the stove-top.  Pony just watched me basically take over his kitchen.

        Four eggs--three broken shells in the garbage and one on the floor that I'd pick up later--and a little milk later, and I was mixing them in the bowl until it was all the same pale-yellow color.  I coated both sides of two pieces of bread in the egg-milk mixture and then put them on the griddle, and while they were cooking, along with the four other pieces I made after that, I cleaned up and set out two plates, two forks, two cups, and syrup, leaving the milk out as well.

        In fifteen minutes I had a plate of six steaming slices of French toast, and I set it down and told Pony, "It's not gonna disappear if you keep staring at it, so you might as well eat some," before sitting down myself and throwing one on my plate, dousing it in syrup.

        "Since when can you cook?" Pony asked me, sounding a bit amazed.

        "I'm a girl.  Aren't I supposed to know how to cook and clean and raise children to serve the future men in my life?" I asked, mockingly bitter.

        "I didn't think you were the kind of girl that would do that..." he said, trailing off.  He was right though, even if you knew me well, like Dally, you'd never think I'd be one to cook.

        "Think again.  Someone has to take care of myself if my mother, father, and brother won't," I answered, referring to when I used to live in New York.

        He didn't say much else while he was eating after that, and neither did I.  When I had finished my three pieces of French toast, I threw my dishes in the sink, along with the now-cooled pan I had left on the stove.

        "You can clean too?" Pony teased, still watching me.

        "Can and will are two different things.  Everyone can clean, but it doesn't mean they're going to," I responded as he threw his dishes in the sink as well.

        "What about kids?" he asked, obviously just out of curiosity in relation to what I had said, sarcastically, before, but I really wished he hadn't.

        I never hugged him or kissed him in public, and hardly ever when we were alone, much less anything beyond that.

        "I hate little kids," I snapped and then wrenched the handle of the faucet, water gushing over the dishes and filling the sink, preventing me from saying anything more that I might later regret.