Too Bad to Die [The Outsiders fanfiction]

9. Pathetic

DISCLAIMER: This chapter contains some of the attitudes about gay people that were common in the 1960s. Obviously, I do not agree with these views.

This chapter also has more language than previous ones have. If you don't like swearing, then don't read it.

This is a short chapter. Sorry :(

Dally's head felt like a spike had been driven through it. It hurt to open his eyes.

"You're pathetic." Sylvia stood over him. She was very pretty. Really. Very. Pretty. Her voluptuous figure fit into her clothes in a way that adults found scandalous but young people found very appealing. Her deep brown eyes were lined with eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man.

Those eyes...

Dally brushed away the thought.

"What're you doin' here?" He said, throwing an arm over his face as she pulled up the blinds, torturing him with sunlight. What was here? He was in Buck's place, in one of the rooms, extremely wasted.

"Tellin' you how pathetic you are." She said, turning around long enough to give him a derisive look. "How extremely pathetic."

What the gang didn't know and what the gang would never know was what Sylvia really was to him. From the outside it might've seemed like he was the one in charge, but Sylvia was reigning queen and master. She took no shit from him. She called him pathetic on a daily basis. She slept with other boys if he was frustrating her. She got what she wanted and Dally had no power to object. How girls were attracted to dangerous boys, Dally was attracted to girls who didn't fall all over him.

"What'd I do this time?" He mumbled.

"Well, I thought we were gonna have some fun." She swept various objects from the edge of the bed and sat down, making the frame squeak. "Party, beer, lawbreaking, fun." She ticked each item off her manicured fingers. "Then you get drunk and suddenly you're breakin' down. So much for a party."

He was suddenly very alert. He sat up, his hair fanning around his head in a golden blond halo, though he was about the least angelic somebody could be. "Breakin' down?"

He realized there were dried tears on his face.

Damnit, damnit, damnit.

Shit.

"Goin' on and on about Johnny and Johnny's dad and how you just want to keep Johnny safe and Johnny, Johnny, Johnny." She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Dallas, why don't you just date Johnny if you love him so much?"

He threw a pillow at her but his mind was screaming NO!

"Sylvia," he said, "we'll never talk about this again."

"Maybe you won't." She said. "I know your weakness now."

"I don't have a weakness!" He tried to yell but remembered how hungover he was and instead flopped back onto the squeaky bed, pulling the threadbare blanket above his shoulder.

"Johnny's a nice kid." Sylvia observed, applying a new coat of red lipstick. "On the small side, but cute. Quiet, though."

"Shut up." He said.

"Real big eyes."

"Shut up."

"Like a puppy."

"Sylvia, I swear-"

"You're pathetic." Sylvia pulled the blanket off and revealed Dally's rumpled clothes.

"You're a bitch."

"I know." Sylvia grinned. "Are you a homosexual?"

The question caught him fully by surprise. "What?"