Archive of Our Own ^beta

October, 1967.

A hand is on the back of his neck, massaging at the skin there, the scent familiar and welcoming and Ponyboy realizes with a start that his cheek is on a wooden surface, not a soft, cool pillow. The hand on his throat has something cool running through it — a sure sign of who it is as he groans out, "Dally?"

"C'mon, we gotta go before the librarian calls Captain Valance," he says it like it's a joke, his voice deep from what Ponyboy was sure was a recent smoke. It is and it isn't a joke, Ponyboy lifting up his head a feeling of bleariness on his shoulders, seeping against his eyes. The library comes into full view: the displays advertising the Homecoming Dance in a few days, the faded posters displaying little things about recent events, the newspaper clippings that showed the clubs that still used the library, the cluttered shelves of books, and to his right side, Dallas Winston.

Ponyboy peers up at him, trying to blink some of the grog out of him: Dallas is in his black shirt again, his hair still halfway grown out of its fresh cut, his cigarette end burning as he withdraws his hand from Ponyboy, dark eyes searching over Ponyboy. There's a hint of pink to his pale skin – probably got hit by the blast of ice cold coming from the library when he strolled in.

"S'time is it?" He asks, pulling back from the desk, looking at all the papers there: the envelopes he still had to send out with the addresses to the campus offices for college, the personal statements he'd already handwritten, the forms that he had half filled out, all mingled up with his homework.

"Almost nine," Dallas points to the mess in front of him, and Ponyboy springs into motion, starting to get all his papers together as best he can. "Darry didn't know where you were when dinner got on the table and I figured I had a good idea of where you might be. I told him you'll be staying with me tonight."

Nodding, Ponyboy hastily finishes cleaning up the space he'd taken up on the study table. All of his books and papers get crammed into his backpack as best he can, forcing himself to get his stiff legs moving from his half hunched position from sleeping. "Can we get somethin' on the way over or d'you already have something cooked?"

"I got it cooked," the lights start flickering off and Ponyboy moves quicker. It takes a minute or so more for him to check he hasn't left anything, shove his chair back into the correct place, and follow Dallas out from the study area and to the front of the library. Already, he could see some of the older patrons there shuffling out, from an older beta man holding the hand of an equally older beta woman to a young Black alpha girl chatting excitedly to who was pretty sure was Slick Martinez's older sister.

They all make their way to the exit, into the chilly blue black dark of the evening, lit only in spots by the bright streetlights of the parking lot. Dallas' car is half on the curb as usual, Ponyboy rushing over to get in the passenger side before the cold really nipped at his elbows. Dallas coolly gets in the front, turning the engine over the moment he gets settled.

Hunger laces up Ponyboy's stomach as he settles in, flicking on the radio as he goes. It blares to life: No parkin' by the sewer sign / Hot dog, my razor's broke / Water drippin' up the spout / But I don't care, let it all hang out!

The wind whips through the car as Dallas gets them out of the parking lot, flicking out his cigarette butt as he goes. "You finish all those applications? Darry's got the money and everything to send 'em off."

Of everyone, Darry was the one who Ponyboy had been most fearful of when all of the wheels started turning, to really get in gear for college. All the nagging, all the fights, all the years of butting heads on and off had felt as if they had been building up to this... only for Ponyboy to realize that Darry had quietly backed off instead the moment things had really turned up. As everything had gotten past the initial tests, as catalogs started to come in, Darry had seemed more ready to let the counselors handle it, to be hands off and let Ponyboy do what he could with the process. As if he'd been protecting himself a little, or trying to tell himself that Ponyboy could do it on his own, only butting in every so often.

Ponyboy still hadn't decided for himself how he felt about it; that it was good he was getting so responsible he was mainly doing this on his own or that maybe Darry was feeling differently about it, secretly testing if Ponyboy could handle all this or not.

A groan goes through Ponyboy's throat as Dallas reaches the first stop light in the street. It's not a very busy night – most people were getting ready for the homecoming shit or if they weren't doing that, they were getting ready to go to the homecoming parties or jobs. To say nothing of the people in Tulsa getting ready for the other fall festivities.

All of which he wasn't going to be attending to if his homework had anything to fucking say about it. "I finished the ones for University of Texas yesterday, I just need you to go over my essay. Texas A&M, I was halfway done before I fell asleep. I still have NYU, Oklahoma State, and St. Gregory's." He counts each one, trying not to think about how much all of this was even costing Darry for him to apply to. It couldn't have been anything less than a hundred dollars, and even with Darry's latest raise at work, that was still a lot of money.

The money is easier to think about at times than thinking about what he felt whenever his eyes hit those catalogs, where he read descriptions of places he'd never been, where he read about what kind of students they wanted, about what kind collegiate they could be.

Omegas with flowing hair. Alphas in studious roles. Betas leading classes. All of them conjured up images not of Ponyboy in sneakers and holes in his jeans or flannel that had been passed down from Soda and Dallas' brown jacket with the burn stain on it but of people who looked like Dick Sheldon or Randy Adderson or Cherry Valance. Those were the types of people that were cut out for what those inserts had, the kind of people that usually went to these places, got these opportunities.

Not Ponyboy. Not a hood.

"Long as you get 'em out by November, I think you should be okay kid," with a flick of his fingers, Dallas turns down the radio, bobbing his head along with the music. The light from the streetlights makes his fangs bone-white in his face again, and Ponyboy loves the sight, loves how wild it makes him look as they glide along the streets. "I'll look over it while you eat, have it all marked up for you tomorrow. You ain't goin' anywhere 'cept back to the library, so it'll be fine."

There's a little bit of excitement in his voice – or, excitement in Dallas' own way. Where Darry always seemed to be nervous and wanting and strangely distant at times about Ponyboy applying for college, Dallas was outright much more hot and cold about it all.

Sometimes, he seemed to be on his own toes, cautious about what he said about it or how he said it. Other times, he seemed to not want to even touch the subject no matter how it came up, whether it was Johnny asking out the scores Ponyboy had gotten earlier and Dallas not asking about the numbers at all or Two-Bit commenting about how Marcia had gotten all her college stuff together with some wistfulness, and Dallas seemingly annoyed at the mention of the now long gone Soc.

Now at least seemed to be one of those moments where he did want to talk about it, did seem a little excited as Ponyboy yawns on his side of the car. "Yeah, you don't have to remind me. The last year here and I'm barely gonna qualify for anything when it comes to track if I'm lucky." He huffs out, keeping his eye on Dallas' form, raking over how his shoulders look in his shirt, the bareness of his neck with the mating mark a dark red on his neck, the kick of his brown hair over the nape of his neck.

Ever since that bust up with Shepard over the summer, Dallas has been steadily doing more on his own without Tim. While Darry still mostly bought his stories of the little things he did around, Ponyboy knew better: he went to the billiards to sell, ran bootlegging where he could, and always seemed to be collecting more money than what he talked about, going to sketchier places or going to other parties that Ponyboy only heard about in whispers of the aftermath.

There's no hint of where he's been – not the telltale scent of any parties or the weed or alcohol or nothing. Just the normal scents of the town, the day together, a little bit of motor oil and that was it. It's nice, Ponyboy decides, as he allows a quiet lull in the conversation.

It's a lot lately, all this drive to do more, to get everything done for college. If he wasn't rushing to classes to make sure all his work was done, he was in the library working on the personal statement they all demanded or reading up on campuses or trying to figure out what to put down on the essay forms the schools asked of him.

Sometimes he felt paralyzed there, looking at the catalogs he'd gotten. Always those images of who fit in kept insisting itself as he'd flicked through them, feeling a low anxiety well up in him whenever Ponyboy considered it too long.

Over the summer, he'd had to write the colleges for the applications and catalogs, waiting for them to show up in piles at the mailbox, heavy and thick in the envelopes. They all had gotten stacked together, and the instructions had all been about the same after awhile:

1. Write Admissions Office for Forms.
1. Complete in full and return all forms. (Including: personal application fee of $10.00 deposit and picture)
2. Housing reservation. (A $25.00 deposit)
3. Medical record and examination (No registration is complete until these records are on file).
4. Official transcript (high school and if a transfer student, transcripts from all previous colleges.)
2. Confidential report.
3. Notice of acceptance is sent when all materials are received and requirements met. All admission forms are held by the college and not returned.

There was usually an extra bit about high school graduates in state, and out of state – some had introductions that declared more, and all of them had been occupying Ponyboy's mind for weeks now. Everything he'd been working hard for, everything that people had wanted him to do, everything about the future he'd been concerned about was here, it was now, it was real.

It was all in front of him, tangible beneath his fingers and it's so much to keep up with. Even with everything that had happened in the years before, his parents death, the trial, it had faded a little by little. Not everything was life or death in the way it had been two years ago, not everything was as Earth shattering in its immediacy and terror.

Not to say things were dull — he knew that Tim Shepard would never live down a little omega giving him a harsh slug out the way Ponyboy had months ago, and he knew that everything that was going on with Dallas' new job was always going to keep him on his toes so long as Ponyboy participated at times.

But all that old feeling — waking up to nightmares, thinking of smoke in his lungs, the fear that he'd turn around and wake up and he really was going to jail for Bob's death — rises up in him sometimes when he looks at the papers, the stacks in front of him. Every time he reads about what they want in students, about the kind of person who belonged in college, it makes it all worse.

It gets caught up in his throat, makes his hands clammy with the thought that his future was changing again, that there was no changing it, and it all rested on him in an entirely different way than it had before. To be judged as a greaser in front of others was one thing – this was not the same.

There was no lawyer here to argue for the staff to see past his greasiness, no judge who was lenient to do the fighting for Ponyboy to decide his fate. What he had was his own ability to impress a bunch of men in suits, to convince them that he deserved to be in college the same as any Soc did or any middle class kid with decent enough grades, deserved to get an education that everyone had been hoping for ever since he started reading earlier than everyone else in his kindergarten classes. This was all on him, and he had everything riding on this, everything that could work out for him.

He had to hope for himself, hope that one greaser on the edge of being a little hood was going to impress them.

And, he knows, he has to do this for everyone else. Has to do it for them.

Even if he didn't know that he could.

Ponyboy runs his fingers through his hair as Dallas fishtails the car around to the main street, not far from his apartment. At least this side of town was a little better than back home; still clearly in the ecosystem of greasers and hoods and the new category of dealers, yet clearly meant for the ones in their late teens and twenties, kept up better than other bits of Tulsa. It's well lit enough, only a short walk away from the market, and more importantly to Ponyboy, the movie theater.

Dallas parks the car in front of his place, grabbing Ponyboy's backpack for him. Ponyboy gets out with a stretch, able to hear dogs barking in greeting, seeing a couple beneath a streetlight all but fucking each other with how hard they're pressed against each other, the air ripe with the scent of their hormones. He doesn't spare them too much of a glance, following Dallas to the walkway of his place.

It's nice to step inside the lobby, walking past the main desk where there was an older woman looking down at a puzzle she was working. This part of town wasn't for the rich, so much as it was for people a little on the up and up. Everything was just slightly better, slightly well lit.

Dallas strides past into the main hallway, pushing the button to the elevator with a hum. "Darry got you tired of chicken this week again?"

"God, yeah," Ponyboy groans as the elevator dings open, reaching out for Dallas' hand the moment he can see the elevator is empty. His fingers wrap around Dallas' own, tugging him inside with one pull.

One of the best things about being so far flung from the rest of the pack was the implicit privacy here on the other side of town. After everything with Bob and Randy, Ponyboy had turned into something of a local fixture, for what seemed like an endless parade of months. People knew who he was, knew what had happened, knew about the case — it always made things prickly, strange. Eyes watched him, knew him, people whispered and talked.

Two years on though, and his hair finally back to normal had lessened it, people no longer looking out for the greaser with two-tone hair, no longer fixated on him as a hood, as the omega who had escaped all of that. He blended in with the crowd more, and especially out here, all anyone thought whenever they saw him and Dallas was that they probably were just some young, married couple heading home together.

Always, always that thought sent a little thrill up his belly.

Married.

Holding that in, those secret vows they'd exchanged together, for almost two years now always felt like he was holding his breath when he was around the rest of the pack. Always having to swallow down the urge to throw it in Sylvia's face or to snap at Darry that he didn't have to listen to when he was married got hard to do.

Strangely though, holding onto that secret, that they were more than just mates always felt like it was taking a toll on him at times. A quiet, odd toll; in his brain, he knows that any greaser looks at them and just knows they're mated. That's the same thing to them here, the idea of marriage not popular among most at best and frowned upon at the worst.

Yet. Yet it's the secret that makes him smile, that they didn't know there was another layer, a deeper one. That on paper, it was as good as their skin as a promise to what they had, who they were.

Anyone outside of here would call it backwards, crazy. All Ponyboy feels is that thread of happiness when Dallas squeezes on his hand, knowing he needs it, that the cool of his skull ring on Ponyboy's finger is just as good as a real wedding band – even if the golden Miraculous Medal that sat next to the St. Christopher on his neck was it in and of itself.

"You got burgers. Or that ziti you made?" Ponyboy asks, the elevator creaking as they make their way upwards. "I had that last time and it was good."

"I got everything in there for ziti, yeah," there's a scuff of his boots against the bottom of the elevator, rotating his shoulder, "Might take a little longer, but I figure you can settle in. Do all that houseomega shit you should be doing for me already."

"You complain about my cleaning!" Retorts Ponyboy, Dallas giving a friendly, pleased sneer with it. It was true, which was the worst part of it all. The elevator opens, Ponyboy surging to press a kiss against Dallas' mouth, pleased at his scent, at the feel of his lips against his. They stumble out together, Dallas grabbing for his neck, digging his hands into Ponyboy's scalp.

It's a sharp, welcomed feeling, Ponyboy kissing along Dallas' lower jaw and chin, feeling that stir of need in him as they make their way down the hallway. Once he hears a door open, Ponyboy buries his head against Dallas' neck, not wanting anyone to see them as they make their way down.

It takes a slight fumble for them to pull into Dallas' apartment, the cool air hitting him.

The last thing he cares about for a while, though, is the sound of the door shutting behind him, the sound of his backpack hitting the floor, his hands coming up to fist Dallas' shirt, dragging him closer, allowing his tongue to lick inside of his mouth.

What was the point of having a mate, having a husband if you couldn't kiss him when he got home?

By the time Dallas has started turning on the water on the stove, a new episode of Dragnet is playing on the television, and Ponyboy has to hurry up and set his things down when it cuts to commercial. His mating mark is a dark pink on his neck, the sight flashing in the mirror as he sets down his bag on Dallas' bedside desk.

It's a nice desk – it's oak, with a red chair that Ponyboy sets his back into with a grunt. The mirror above the desk is freshly clean, the sight making him chuckle to himself. It's still got pictures tucked on the sides – one of Katie and Two-Bit pulling faces with Johnny, the article from the fire taped beneath it with Ponyboy's face prominent, a picture of Ava Gardner smiling on the side – with a stack of tins, some of them full of money, cigarettes, a lighter, and a pad and pen on the left side.

It's immaculately kept, and he flicks the cigarettes down just to mess with it. Smirking, he goes to the bathroom, taking a piss, and washing up enough to come back right as Dragnet comes back on.

Dallas' apartment is something less cobbled together and more neatly, meticulously decorated now – there's a pop of color around, whether it was bright reds or bright greens, mixing with the natural warm light. The television he'd gotten is nicer than the set at home, the couch a nice pop of red. In the kitchen he can see Dallas pull out the pot of tomato sauce he'd made earlier that week – just scenting it made Ponyboy's mouth water.

He slips inside of the well lit kitchen, going to open the fridge. "Yes, you still had some Yoohoos!"

"I don't know how the fuck you drink it. It's worse than a Coke," Dallas sets the sauce into the pot he has, scraping some of it out with determination. "I got sausage in there, can you pull it out and cut it up?"

"Yeah, sure," he sees the sausage links, shining in the fridge and pulls them out.

Slowly, the kitchen fills up with sounds of cutting and stirring, the scent of the cooking food making Ponyboy's stomach clench in anticipation, both of them pausing sometimes just to kiss or hold each other or, in Ponyboy's case, watch Dragnet with fascination until it cut back to commercial or Dallas swatted his ass to make him move.

By the time they're done, the episode is over, Ponyboy grumbling to himself. "I missed Bewitched!"

"Sorry kid. You'll catch it again later," Dallas says, even though he knows that's their favorite show to watch together. He sits down at the kitchen table they have, popping his shoulders, setting down the pitcher of water for himself. "You gotta work on all that college shit more than anything."

"I'll be glad when it's over," he digs into the ziti with gusto, shoving it in his mouth with a groan, then a half squeak.

Dallas huffs, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, kid! You gotta blow on it, you know that!" He shakes his head as Ponyboy fans his tongue, swallowing down once he'd gotten past the slight burn. "I'll drive you wherever you need to go, come get you for lunch when you need. You haven't had a heat in awhile, right?"

"Not since about...," he counts on his fingers, "Four months ago. I don't know when it'll come."

"If you get it, just get here. Don't worry about anything else," Dallas scoops up more ziti, blowing on it in exaggeration. Ponyboy kicks at him, "My rut's still on schedule, so you don't have to worry too much either. Shouldn't be around til January."

"Good, at least one of us gets to be regular," he scoops up more of the ziti, enjoying the sausage. It's such a nice break from the usual dinners at home, Ponyboy humming at the taste. It's a nice break, too, to just be here with Dallas, be in this apartment he'd worked so hard to get, to keep decorated.

Nicer, still, to think of it as their own little home, their own nest as he watches Dallas clear his plate with determination. The way his hair falls across his face, the sharpness of the tips of his ears, the flash of his teeth as he bites at the food all make Ponyboy feel warm, happy.

There's something just good about the simplicity of it, Ponyboy leaning back as Dallas goes on, "While you're out here looking to be Mr. Collegiate, Buck's still pissed I ain't hopping back up on the ponies this year." He takes a swig of water, sucking at his teeth at the end, "He keeps trying to tell me how much I'm gonna make, doesn't believe the shit I sell is something to keep doing. As if we both don't know he rigs the shit himself anyway."

"If I wasn't lookin' to get my hips broken, I'd do it," the ziti is about gone from Ponyboy's plate already, and he stands to cross the floor to get more, putting it on his plate in a huge scoop. "Shepard still pissed at me for giving him that crooked nose?"

"Hell if I know. I only get his money from him, and sometimes run into him when Curly's around," there's a clear note of annoyance in Dallas' voice, one that's deeper than usual when talking about either Shepard brother now. "I'm getting to thinking that Curly is starting to get on everyone's nerves. That horse he's taking is getting to his brain – I heard about him getting mixed up with Mark Jennings before he went to jail and now rumor is he's trying to work himself in with the Tiber Street Tigers."

Ponyboy comes back to the table, a frown on his face. "Tiber Street Tigers? They got real bad blood with the River Street Kings, is he crazy?" There's a red stain on the side of Dallas' mouth, his tongue darting out to lick it up as he nods. "They ain't gonna throw him in with the other kids in reformatory if he's doing that."

"I don't think he cares, long as he can score," there's a scrape of the fork against the plate, and Dallas checks his watch. "I'll go take a look at the essay, you should probably get a shower, get to bed if you're gonna be back at the library soon as it opens in the morning."

"I'll go after I have dessert," is the reply he gives, Dallas standing up, with his plate, nudging at Ponyboy as he goes to the kitchen. "I wrote an outline for it, and wrote the essay. Outline's in my bag too – just thought I'd bring it along, make sure it makes sense."

"Did you choose what you were gonna write about?" The faucet flicks on, Dallas' tone full of curiosity and not that strangeness he had sometimes where Ponyboy wasn't sure if he really wanted to know or not.

The questions run around in his head, the prompts they'd given him, the meeting he'd had with his advisor. "I – I meant, they ain't give me much to write about." Ponyboy looks down at the rest of the ziti, poking his fork at the mixture of cheese and tomato sauce. "Most of them had it to be two-hundred fifty words or less — longest is five hundred words. All they wanted was a personal statement– essay — like – I don't know, my first time at the zoo or something?" Ponyboy spears his fork through the ziti, feeling his discomfort mount. "I'm not sure what all I have to say, not sure what they want. Or, I guess, what I want to say."

"Your counselor, what he'd say about it?" He can hear Dallas turn around in the kitchen, put his plates in the sink where he'd get them. As nice as the place was, the dishwasher was out again, which meant they'd be handwashing. "I know you talked to him and Eugene."

His counselor's face materializes: friendly, Soc like with dark brown hair, bright blue eyes and a kindness there whenever he spoke to Ponyboy. "Mr. Aldridge said that a personal essay just had to let them know that I can read, I can write, and I know what I'm doing. Show 'em that I really wanna be in college. Eugene said that when he applied for college, he was walked through it by an older brother, and they mostly was concerned about paying with a mule. He said most of his writing came after he got in."

Dallas' shadow passes by the corner of Ponyboy's eye, his voice floating as he goes, "Then it ain't too hard. You know how to do all of that blind. You been wanting to go to college long as I've known you." There's the sound of the light flicking on in his room, and Ponyboy sighs, letting his eyes fall back to his plate.

Technically — was Dallas wrong? He was the top of his class there, smartest in all the neighborhood. Everyone knows he's wanted to go to college, to learn more, be more. Everyone knew he belonged there.

It still feels a lot like he'd been thrust into a rumble of a different choosing, where instead of holding up fists or snarling at each other or whipping out blades and chains, he has to perform differently. There's no stabbing or flashing of blades, it's being able to smile at them correctly, being able to impress them with just a few sparse words, being able to show these faceless people he was like them, in a way.

A performance of a different, kind one that demanded so much more out of him, because what he could get out of it was innumerable.

And still... still Ponyboy wonders if he deserves to be there, if he really could fit there. He's always thought of it as inevitable, the only way to go after all this.

He could fail. He could still fail, though, and then what?

The weight on his shoulders of that question is almost crushing as he hears Dallas move around in his bedroom, getting everything together. A part of him doesn't want the rest of the ziti, and still, Ponyboy shoves it all in his mouth, swallowing it down.

He wasn't so much removed from a greaser he'd waste Dallas' food.

His husband's food.

Ponyboy is meant to savor every drop, so he does.

It's closer to one than it is midnight by the time Ponyboy manages to get from the warmth of Dallas' couch to the nest where he's already half awake, his back curled towards the door. Dallas is getting taller – he's at least an inch and a half taller than Darry now, his limbs long and pale against the bed, grunting when the bed bounces beneath Ponyboy.

"About time you got –" Ponyboy shuts him up with a kiss, not wanting to hear anything else from him right now, just wanting to have one little nightcap.

Dallas kisses him back, moving his legs, his sweatpants chafing against Ponyboy's own thighs. The warmth of his skin encourages Ponyboy to fully get between his legs, trailing his mouth over his jaw and his throat, feeling that pleasurable warmth start to grow, loving how it is here, the privacy, the darkness.

Here, he can say, I love you, Dally.

Here can hear Dallas call him that word, amante that he never explains yet Ponyboy picks up on with the way he says it with all the need in the world, all the rough affection he wants.

Here, he can groan when he sinks himself on Dallas' cock without fear of his brothers hearing him, here Dallas can swear beneath his breath and call him a knotslut while he grips Ponyboy's hips.

Here, he can be himself, he can feel Dallas' hand gripping his chest, running his thumb over the Miraculous Medal glimmering, the cold there flashing.

Here, in the darkness, Ponyboy can see that the adoration on Dallas' face isn't for the Saint hanging from his neck, but for Ponyboy and that makes all the difference in the world when Dallas knots him.

Here, they can be together, bodies intertwined, from shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, Dallas inside of Ponyboy the way he should be. It's everything he could want, and the dreams he has are quiet, never too far away from something pleasant, from the taste of sunlight on his lips.

When the morning dawns, they wake up together, slow and happy and Ponyboy wishes he could stay right there.

He can't though – not with the alarm coming on a few minutes later, and not with another half day of schoolwork waiting for him. It has Ponyboy moving quicker than he means to, shoving on the clothes he kept as a spare, Dallas cursing under his breath as they fumble around, trying to get ready.

The morning air is cuttingly cold as he runs out, hopping into one shoe as best he can. The coffee he'd taken a swig from already felt like molten lead in Ponyboy's stomach as he gets to Dallas' car, throwing his things in the back, and then hopping inside.

Just in time, Dallas slides in, jamming the key inside of the ignition, turning it over with a grunt. Of the two of them he's the one who forgot his shirt for once, just remaining in an old pair of sweats and shoes, snapping, "C'mon, c'mon. We're gonna get stuck in traffic at this rate — you ain't got a test or nothin' do you?"

"No test, just study hall and some other stuff," jamming his hands in the pockets of his jacket, Ponyboy withdraws some of the toast he'd made on the way out, tearing into it as Dallas reverses out of his parking space. The car roars, bounces as they sling into the roads, Ponyboy not caring about much else than quelling his stomach for a mile out.

As predicted, they do slam knee deep into morning traffic, Dallas grumbling beneath his breath. He slams on the horn, Ponyboy leaning back, feeling half bloated from the food. "Don't sweat it, Dal," he swats at him, "I can always sneak in on that one."

"Yeah, yeah, Darry's still gonna look for an excuse to roll heads," comes muttered out, even though Ponyboy privately thinks that Darry would be an idiot to do it now.

With nothing else to do, he pulls open his bag, going through it for the typed essay he had, now marked up with Dallas' crooked, often blocky handwriting. He'd known that it'd be marked up; for someone who hadn't attended school since he was ten, Dallas sure enjoyed acting like a school marm when he was called on to help.

Ponyboy runs his eyes over the paper, frowning. "Dal, you chopped up half of it."

"They said it only needs to be up to two-hundred fifty words. You were hitting almost three times that," he turns down the radio as he speaks, the traffic slowing down around them. Cars are on either side, the dusklight starting to peak into orange and purple against the sky, illuminating Dallas' dark hair ends like soft embers. "They just need you to introduce yourself, right? So you don't need all of that."

"They need enough to actually know who I am," frustration bubbles up in Ponyboy's chest as he runs his fingers over the paper, "I gotta give them a little more."

Dallas gives Ponyboy a sharp look from his side of the car, his dark eyebrows shifting downward. "C'mon, Kid. You got the grades, you're gonna be that salute thing—"

"Salutatorian, and it ain't a guarantee–"

Dallas bulldozes over his words, "—so it ain't like you're at the bottom of the pack, fighting for scraps. You got the grades, they already wanna admit you cause you run track and you got that whole saving kids thing. You mention that, they're gonna be driving up to the house, begging to get you to go to school." He nudges the paper impatiently, as if he could make the school admit Ponyboy on the sheer force of his own will. "You're getting yourself up into knots."

Exasperation wells up in Ponyboy, fear mixing with it. "Dallas, that isn't gonna be enough. I can't meet 'em, I have to send this in and hope they want me. There's hundreds, thousands of other people applying —"

"Omegas with your grades aren't," argues Dallas back now, stubborn in that way he gets sometimes, where Ponyboy can feel his patience getting pricked at. "They want omegas there, with the damn war and everything. It doesn't matter so much as the rest, kid."

"Yes it does," he turns against the window, frowning deeper. "If I don't impress them here, I ain't gonna get in. You – You know what it would do if I didn't get in? What it'd do to Darry, to Soda?" He hates the thread of fear in his throat as he speaks. "I'd disappoint them, disappoint our parents if I don't get this."

He can tell that Dallas wants to say something else, something cruel and mean and over the line and Dallas snaps his jaw shut, the anger simmering in the air. His scent has that turn to it, on the rare times they really argue. It lingers heavily as they get through the morning traffic, until they're at the last stoplight at the school, Dallas starting up again.

"Kid – those places can do whatever the hell they want, no matter what you say or do," he turns his head, his dark eyes focused on Ponyboy, boring into him with a need to impress his words on them, "The grades and all that matter more than what you'll say in those words. You don't need to sweat that, you already did the hardest shit.I ain't – I ain't an academic or nothing, but I bet even Darry would agree with me. He got in, and I remember he didn't write half of what you did." Dallas gets a stubborn expression on his face, that meanness slipping out, "Darry ain't as smart as he thinks he is on a good day and you are. I don't see why you're this twisted up."

A thread of doubt flickers in Ponyboy's chest, grows. "You're just sayin' that cause I'm your mate."

"I ain't wrong," Dallas flatly replies.

Ponyboy goes silent again. He wouldn't put it past Dallas to exaggerate about Darry – he also had no reason to disbelieve him about Darry, really.

Really, though, as they get into the school parking lot, he finds that he's drained. Just a small little spat like this is another reminder that everything, everything was a stake. All down to just a few hundred words, a check, and an envelope with a stamp on it.

His future was right there, uncertain and scary, and Ponyboy just wants safety.

So he just gets his bag, scents and kisses Dallas goodbye and trudges back inside of the school without him, his head stormy.

It's not until second period, though, that he considers what Dallas said at the very end.

Johnny is a good friend, because he doesn't pull the Well, obviously expression on his face that Two-Bit does when Ponyboy voices his idea. Instead he just nods in that slow way he does, where he's turning over an idea in his head first. "That does seem like a good idea. You really think Darry kept a copy or two of his letters?"

"I remember Mama saying something about copying them down, just in case. Maybe this is that just in case?" Ponyboy leans back in the backseat of Two-Bit's car as they make their way towards the neighborhood in the afternoon sunlight.

"And you never thought of that before all this?" Two-Bit asks incredulously still, turning the truck down the road, past the DX. The sideburns on his face look freshly trimmed, and Ponyboy grouses in the back. "That'd have been the first place I'd have looked!"

"Shut up," turning his attention back to Johnny, Ponyboy offers him a cigarette that Johnny takes with a steady hand. The scar on his face makes him still look tuff, even if Ponyboy knows the truth of it as Johnny waits for him to offer a light. "Dallas slashed it all to ribbons, and I just – I can't find a good enough example anywhere. Darry got into all of his, though."

Two-Bit shakes his head, Johnny lighting up his smoke. "He only got into two, actually. I remember he applied for five of 'em." That's a shock, Ponyboy almost dropping the match to the bottom of the truck. "I know the big one he really wanted, he and Paul were both supposed to go together." A thread of hesitancy laces Two-Bit's voice, his eyes glancing nervously in the mirror at Ponyboy. His next words come out slower, more measured than before, "They were talking about it for the longest until it came out they weren't gonna give Darry the ride he wanted. I remember he was pissed afterwards, no matter how much they tried to work it out."

The memories around that time, Ponyboy can hardly recall. That was when he could afford to pay a little less attention to his brothers, to his surroundings. Frowning, he leans back, watching as a pack of younger not-so-quite greasers walked down the street next to them, a pair of hippie girls mingling between them. "I had no idea. Did you, Johnny?"

"Hell no," Johnny about squeaks the words out, his eyes huge as saucers at the revelation Two-Bit drops into their lap. "I wasn't thinking about college or nothing. Were he and Paul supposed to go together? As teammates?"

Two-Bit shrugs as they approach the last hill before the house. "Now that, I don't know. I suspect it, just can't say for sure. I remember Darry was real upset about it, couldn't hardly look at nobody." Weariness wedges itself into his voice, and Ponyboy thinks back to that time.

He'd only been excited that Darry, his cool older brother, had the option. Only had been excited that maybe he'd get his own room again, and when it slowly dawned on him that Darry couldn't go, a shame, a confusion had welled up in him. It was enough that at the time, he'd noticed his parents were taking Darry different places for awhile, that soon Darry was working at the ranch and his Mama had taken on more seamstress jobs.

Had they been hoping themselves? Did they stay up at night, upset that they couldn't give Darry what he wanted? Had Darry just... been hoping no one would notice?

Again, that knotted, scared feeling seeps into him. That he needed this, needed the full ride, needed to do what Darry hadn't accomplished.

Getting out of the car, going inside the house is welcome though. Chiefly because no one was home, making it easier for all three of them to wedge inside. It's cleaner than what it had been looking lately, Ponyboy relieved as he goes to the back room.

Darry's room, that had once been their parents.

As usual, he'd barely touched much, barely changed anything. He can scent Johnny behind him – faint as ever from the destruction the fire had wrought to his body – in his wheelchair. "It might be in the old boxes. You mind helping?"

They work silently around the room, Ponyboy looking as best he can for the boxes his Mama used to keep full of photos and other papers. Johnny is moving things around, and it's him who says, "Got it!"

Ponyboy rushes away from the dresser, looking at the shoebox Johnny has in his lap. It's crammed with various papers, clearly shuffled through recently, and there earmarked together are a few papers. He can see Darry's clear handwriting on it, along with his mother's longhand, in loopy, precise cursive that takes Ponyboy's breath away when he sees it.

It's been so, so long since he's seen his mother's handwriting. Almost three years on, and it still takes the wind out of him sometimes, to see the little bits of her that remained where he least expected it. His hand trembles as he takes it, pulling the paper from Johnny's grasp to look at her notes: You need to say a little more. You've misspelled the State, you're so nervous. Don't worry.

Indeed, Oklahoma has an extra 'a' between the 'O' and the 'k' in Darry's blockier longhand. It's woefully short, too: Only about a hundred and twelve words, introducing Darry's name, his grades, his extra curriculars. Most of it, really, is about his football career and that he wasn't sure what his declaration would be for school, only that he wanted to pursue it.

That was one thing, at least, Ponyboy knows he has above him, as he looks at the paper, looks at the vestiges of a past his brother could no longer touch. He knew exactly what he wanted to pursue, knew exactly what career he wanted.

Ponyboy flips over the paper, finding the final version there that had been typed up and copied. "He put down he wanted to get in for Health and Physical Education." It's a little incredulous to read, and he wonders if their mother or their father had pushed him to just put something there.

"That doesn't really sound like him," Johnny says.

Ponyboy agrees, running his finger over his mother's handwriting, thinking of her steady hands, her soft hands. He reads her note over again, reads over Darry's words, and tries to insert it in himself, tries to condense everything he's feeling into just a few words.

Instead, that night, he thinks about Darry. Thinks about how he'd worked to get those words on paper, thinks about how he worked hard to get into a school he couldn't afford, how he wanted to go to school with someone who was supposed to be his best friend.

And mostly, as he rewrites the words over and over again, slotting Ponyboy in for Darry and English for Health and Physical Education and sixteen years old for seventeen-going-on-eighteen, he thinks of his mother. Thinks of how she would dance in the kitchen with Ponyboy when they were alone, thinks of how she told him that he needed to get up and get to school on time, thinks of how she would sit down with him and make him learn multiplication while she chopped up onions for dinner, thinks of how she showed him how to write before all of his peers and all he can do is miss her.

All he can do is dream about her, about her smile, about her cupping his cheeks and saying, You have to do this for me, and you have to do this for yourself.

Even in a dream, his minds turns. Do this for yourself.

That was the scary part, that every time he turns over a catalog, every time he looks at the courses, it's hard to think of himself there, outside of Tulsa. It's hard for him to think of himself no longer as an omega greaser, expected to live up to other people's wildest dreams of him – because his own dreams, his own wants always seemed secondary, always seemed to not matter so much as the idea of it all.

It was solely on him to make it now, solely his own drive. To do this, to do all of this for himself, to reach out to belong in a place that not even his brother had thought he belonged to.

Ponyboy knows that he has to. Has to prove it for himself, that he could do this, that he could want this.

That's what he wakes up with the next day, on a cool Saturday, hearing Ivy talking with Soda in the kitchen, and Dallas slamming the door. All he can hear is his mother's words as tears cool down his cheeks, is that he has to do this for her, and for himself.

No matter what. He had to do it for himself, more than anything.

The bed sinks in, and Dallas' mouth presses against the salt tracks on his cheek, a hum low in his throat.

"M'okay, Dal," he swipes at his cheek, sniffing, "Just had a dream. I'll go to the library this afternoon."

"You want me to stay?"

In answer, Ponyboy turns over, facing Dallas, wiping at his face again. Dallas is in his denim jacket again, his face still pink from the weather, and he settles into the bed with little other need.

All the while, Ponyboy thinks of his mother, thinks of her words. Shuts his eyes as Dallas nestles against him, and thinks of himself there, of himself at college. Not there because Darry pushed, not for his parents: there because he wants to learn what it's like to read books he couldn't get in a small library here, because he wants to see people he's only heard of before, because he knows that he deserves to be there as sure as anyone else.

He strokes Dallas' hair, and thinks of what it would be like, to earn it all. To have a place there, where no other greaser had been able to achieve, and Ponyboy feels his determination set in, feels his resolve grow stronger even though he can still feel that anxiety, that fear.

Do this for yourself.

He could try.

In the end, the personal essay clocks at exactly two-hundred words. It's five more than what Darry had used, and when Ponyboy lets Darry look over them a week later, he doesn't seem to recognize where Ponyboy has slotted himself into his old words.

He simply looks anxious, a little tired as he goes over them, counting the envelopes, the money looking at all the applications. Soda is hovering, but careful not to touch anything, some fear of getting grease or food on them in his head. Ivy is just beyond in the living room, her voice quiet as she exchanges words with Evie. "Is that it? We just need to put it all together like this?" Soda's voice is high, uneasy, even beneath Ivy's scent on him.

"That's it," Darry says, huffing out. "Just put them all together, and put it in the mailbox. You probably won't hear anything until January, at earliest if they really want you." There's a resentful look he throws at the most expensive application to St. Gregory's. "They keep saying they want more omegas on campus, and still want you to pay an arm and leg to apply."

"Did – did you have to pay much?" It's the first time that Ponyboy has asked a question so directly about all this, the first time he's felt brave enough to. All the other times, in all the days since he'd seen the letters, since he thought about it all, he hasn't been able to, the words dying behind Two-Bit's clear secret divulging and his own cowardice.

"We had to pay about the same, we just had some help," Darry breezes past Ponyboy's question, running his hand over his hair. "You sure –"

"I got everything. I checked three times," Ponyboy nods, and Darry's eyes dart over him, searching in their facsimile of their father, colder and more hurt than what their father ever sustained in life. "I can do this, Darry. I'm gonna do it."

There's no hug, no congratulations, no well wishes. Just the sound of the house as everything is put together, addressed, stamped, and put into the mailbox.

Ponyboy thinks for a moment he should sit out there, watch the mailman the next day.

Instead, he walks away from it, goes back inside and understands that all he can do now is wait.

He's done what he can for himself.

The first letter is early decision. It arrives the last week of November.

The second letter arrives the second week of January, and the third comes two days later.

The last two come in March.

All of them start with, Mr. Ponyboy Curtis, we are pleased to welcome you...