Porcelain

Chapter 20

Dally laughed a humorless chuckle. "Bullshit. You'll get over it."

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Maybe it's infatuation. Maybe I'm just crazy. But I can't just let you go."

"You will."

"I'm sorry everyone in your life has left you, Dally. But I won't. I promise," she said, still drinking the whiskey as fast as she could.

He grinned a wry grin. "You're getting pretty close to it with how fast you're drinking that."

"Oh, no," she smiled. "I'm just leaving behind myself. Not you."

He had nothing better to do, so he cracked his bottle open, and started drinking as well.

_____
A few hours later, the pair were completely gone and drunk to the point where they wouldn't have any memories waking up, just regret.

"Did you know you've got really pretty eyes, Dally?" Estelle slurred.

"No. No one's ever told me that."

"Well, that's too bad. Maybe they did, but you just don't remember."

"You calling me dumb?"

"No, drunk. See, we have courage in a bottle! But I don't think I'm gonna remember this," she pouted.

"Then do something dumb so you won't have to remember it."

She smiled, before planting a sloppy kiss onto his lips.

"What'd you do that for?" He demanded.

"You said to do whatever I wanted. And I felt like kissing you. So I did."

"Well I didn't want to kiss you."

"Oh. But you didn't."

"I feel like a boy just kissed me."

"I'm sure you've kissed a boy before, what's his name? Tim? Haven't you kissed him before?"

"No."

"I think you're lying," she giggled. "I've kissed Tim. He's a better kisser than you."

"But everyone thinks you're a guy too."

"And? Nothing's wrong with kissing. You're just touching your lips together. It's just skin."

"Huh. I never really thought about it like that."

"You should, makes it all more fun."

"But when I touch you I feel happy, inside..." She sang off key.

"Shut up, the Beatles fucking suck," Dally growled.

"No they don't, you're just no fun."

"You act like you're so much better than everyone else but you're actually just any other pretty little girl who can't see past her daddy's wallet," Dally snarled.

Against her will, Estelle's eyes started selling up. She jumped up and struck Dally's face.

"In no world, at no time, is that ever okay to say!" She yelled, suddenly not sounding drunk at all. "Fuck you, Dallas Winston! Fuck you!"

He just smirked. "Fine by me."

"You're drunk, or I'd take you up on that," she replied, only halfway sarcastic.

"No I'm not," he slurred. "I'm just fine, doll."

"Whatever, I'm sleepy."

"Then go to sleep, dumbass."

"But what if you get lonely?"

"I'll be fine, now shut your trap and go to sleep."

_____
Dally was woken rather rudely several hours later with the sound of a piercing scream. He immediately shot up, frantically looking around, before his eyes landed on the distressed form of Estelle, lying on the floor. He was on the couch, of Estelle's family house.

She didn't look to be completely awake, but she was pulling herself into a tight ball, still whimpering.

He made no move to wake her up, since his head was pounding and it didn't look like she was going to be screaming again.

"No! Johnny! No!" She said, sounding like she was about to sob.

Dally frowned. Even if he didn't care much for the girl on the floor, he cared at least a little bit, and he understood her pain.

He didn't feel like getting up, so he gently kicked her shoulder until she woke up.

Much like he did, she immediately shot up and tried to shield herself from a nonexistent attacker.

She calmed down a bit after she took in her surroundings.

"Oh," she said simply, before laying back down. "That wasn't real. Can I tell you about my dream?"

Dally just grunted in response, already halfway back to sleep.

"My dad, he was beating me with his belt again. And I grabbed a knife, and I killed him. But I felt bad, and then I knelt, and it was Johnny. Johnny dying in my arms, because I stabbed him. But as I cried, I looked back, and it was you, dead in my arms. I'm glad you're okay though, it means it wasn't all real."

It troubled him, how much she seemed to care. About all of them. She obviously felt at least some remorse about killing her dad, she still had trauma about it, which was understandable. But Johnny dying had really affected her, even though she'd known him for around a week. She'd never really known him. Not the way he did. The way the gang did. But then, he was there too. He too was dead in that dream, she'd been too late and lost someone she apparently cared about. But why? He'd never done much for her, and now she pretty much dedicated her entire life to him. And they didn't even know each other that well. Did he care about her? At least a little bit. She was weird, she pissed him off, and he didn't owe her jack shit. But she cared about him. He just didn't know how he felt about that, or how he should.

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He wasn't awake enough to be thinking about those kinds of things.