~My Cade~ // Johnny Cade x Reader ("the outsiders" plot base)

Gone with your Hair

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1230

My eyes fluttered open and I sat up frantically. Johnny was gone. His jacket had magically appeared on top of me. Pony was here though. 

"Johnny?" I whisper-yelled. The church echoed my voices and I stood up, brushing the dust off. I was about to start freaking out, when I saw a little message written in the dust. 

'went to get supplies, be back soon. J.C.' 

I sighed and sat back down, clutching his jacket tightly. It smelled like him. Wait, why am I smelling it? Don't be weird, Y/N-. I threw the jacket over Ponyboy and went to the dust ridden floor to draw. I had been doing art since I was little, and I'd like to say I'd gotten pretty good. Whenever I draw, I don't think. My hand takes over and my mind wanders into my own reality. Time passed quickly and soon, the sun was up. Then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I jumped, and whipped my head around, ready to punch. 

"Easy, it's me, Pony!" he said, hands up. 

"Sorry," I said, loosening up. 

"What are you drawing?" he asked, sitting down next to me. "Gee, it looks an awful lot like Johnny." 

"What?" I asked, frantically, turning beet-red. I looked down. I was drawing Johnny. The dust image even had the same scar. "No, no, I was just-" 
I quickly ran my hands through the dirt, covering up the face. "Just drawing a kid from my old neigborhood-" I was an awful liar, but Ponyboy shrugged and seemed to believe it. 

After a few minutes, I heard leaves crunching and I grabbed Pony and we ducked behind one of the pews. Then came a low whistle that ended in a sharp high note. Pony and I exchanged glances and simultaneously returned the whistle. That was all I needed. I bolted away from the pew and Pony followed. Pony pulled ahead of me and ended up tripping off the steps, causing me to trip over him. I felt Johnny's arms around my body, keeping me from falling. 

"Are you alright?" he asked, helping me back up and examining me, making sure I didn't have any scrapes. 

"Yeah, I'm fine," Pony and I said simultaneously. Oh, yes, of course. He must have been talking to Ponyboy.

"Fancy meetin' you here," Ponyboy continued, grinning.

Johnny set me down and said, "I swear, Ponyboy, you're gettin' to act more like Two-Bit every day." 

"Who's acting?" Pony replied, trying to cock an eyebrow (and failing). "What did you get?"

"Come on inside. Dally told us to stay inside," Johnny said, gently nudging me inside the church. "Can't let anything happen to you." 

After we got in, Johnny dusted off a table with his jacket and took some things out and organized them. "A week's supply of baloney, two loaves of bread, a box of matches..." Johnny listed some more things until Pony rudely shoved him aside and dug through the bag. 

"A paperback copy of Gone with the Wind? How'd you know I always wanted one?" 

"Oh, Y/N told me something about it while we were hanging out. I thought you could maybe read it out loud and help kill time or something." 

"Gee, thanks," Pony said, flipping through the book anxiously before deciding to set it down. "Peroxide, a deck of cards- wait, peroxide? Johnny, you ain't thinking of-"

Johnny sat down and pulled out his knife. "We're gonna cut our hair, and you're gonna bleach yours. They'll have our descriptions in the paper. We can't fit 'em." 

"You don't gotta, you didn't do nothing-" I said, but Pony interrupted, seeming to not have heard anything.

"Oh no! No, Johnny, not my hair!" 

"We'd have to anyway if we got caught. You know the first thing the judge does is make you get a haircut," Johnny pressed.

"I don't see why, Dally could just as easily mug somebody with short hair," Ponyboy complained, sulking.

"I don't know either - it's just a way of trying to break us. They can't really do anything to guys like Curly Shepard or Tim; they've had about anything done to them. And they can't take anything away from them because they don't have anything in the first place. So they cut their hair. I'm gonna cut mine too, and wash the grease out, but I can't bleach it. I'm too dark- skinned to look okay blond. Oh, come on Ponyboy, it'll grow back."

"What about Y/N! Why doesn't she have to bleach hers?" Pony pleaded.

"Cuz she don't have to," Johnny snapped. 

"Okay, get it over with," Pony said. Johnny flipped open his switchblade and picked up a piece of his hair to saw off.

"Wait!" I said. "Hang on, let me do it. I've cut my brother's hair before." 

Johnny handed me the switchblade and I grabbed a chunk and cut it off. "Here," I said to Ponyboy, dropping the clump in his lap. He looked at me like I was nuts, so I just went back to sawing. Soon, it was finished. It didn't look half bad, actually. 

"It's lighter than I thought it was," he said. "Can I see what I look like now?"

"No, we gotta bleach it first," I said. Johnny and I worked the peroxide into his hair, and he sat in the sun for fifteen minutes before we finally let him look in an old cracked mirror. His eyes widened as he gaped at the reflection and I could see his pain. Johnny handed me the knife.

"Here, cut the front and thin out the rest. I'll comb it back after I wash it," Johnny said.

"Johnny, you can't wash your hair in that freezing water in this weather! You'll get a cold!" I said, worried. 

"I'll be fine," he said, reassuringly. "Go ahead and cut it." 

It was done. As much as I pressed that he shouldn't wash his hair, he insisted and went to wash it with a bar of soap at the pump. When he came back, he looked a lot different. Kind of, good-. I handed him the knife and sat down in front of him.

"No, Y/N, I ain't gonna mess up your hair! It looks so good-" he said, handing the knife back. "Go cut it yourself." 

I sat in front of the cracked mirror at my hair. It had taken so long to get perfectly. (Note- sorry, I'm giving you long hair right now) It sat down in my lower back and I took a deep breath. This wasn't going to end well-. I sliced the knife right through. First cut, finished. Then I went inch by inch, doing my best to layer out my hair. When I was finished, I gawked at my reflection. I looked... pretty good. My hair was pretty shiny with no more split ends. It stretched down to my upper chest with some voluminous layers. 

I walked back into the church where Johnny and Pony were talking. 

"Wow, Y/N, you look-" Johnny began before turning red. "Great-" he squeaked. 

"Yeah," Ponyboy said. "You look beautiful!" 

Johnny made the same noise as before, that grunt-whimper. It was really cute, actually. "So," I said. "I guess we're disguised."