Midnight Cigarettes ; The Outsiders fanfic {UNEDITED}

32.

Elliot's P.O.V

I walked out of the DX with an orange crush soda bottle in hand.

I popped off the cap and took a short swing of it as I made my way to the garage and over to the three boys sitting down and drinking soda.

I walked over and leaned against the wall. The boys looked over to me as I set the soda down and pulled my scrunchie out of my hair and around my wrist. I parted my hair to the side and then picked the soda back up.

I took a swig of it and looked back to see the boys talking to each other about whatever.

Just then Soda looked over at me "I like it when you have your hair down" he randomly said.

I smiled softly "I hate it, my hair is so poofy and wavy and annoying" I shrugged "I've got more worries than my hair though, that's why I keep it up".

"You look pretty with it down, you look pretty either way though" he played it off.

"Thanks" I chuckled.

"Hey Ponyboy, where's Johnny?" I wondered, the two were together a lot.

"He went on home after school, he didn't exactly say why" he shrugged.

It was almost dark already and time to close up the DX for the day. I had to admit, I was kinda worried about Johnny. I knew he was normally with one of us, I felt bad for the conditions he had to live in.

"Hhmmm Okay" I shrugged "Hey, can I get the keys? I'm gonna go close up".

Soda took the keys out of his pocket and threw them up to me "there ya go".

"Thanks" I said, walking back to the inside of the DX. I turned all the lights off and walked out, locking the door behind me.

Once I got back out, the boys were closing the garage. When they walked over to me I threw the keys to Soda and he easily caught them, stuffing them into his pocket.

"Ready?" Steve asked as we began to walk back home.

"Hey Pony, you think Johnny might be in the lot?" I wondered, I hated it when he would spend the night out there instead of coming to the Curtis's house. I felt like a mom worrying about him, but I couldn't help it.

"I don't know, he might be. Think we should check?"

I shrugged "I'm just worried about the kid is all, maybe we should check just in case".

We walked by the lot on the way home anyways so we didn't have to take a different way. Once we made it over there I looked over the lot but didn't see anyone.

"Hey it's Johnny's jacket" he said, picking up an old jean jacket up off the dirt road.

"Wonder what That's doin here" Soda cocked an eyebrow.

Steve inspected it more closely to see a blood stain across the collar.

As he said so, we heard a few low groans coming from the other side of the lot. We looked back to see a 'motionless hump'.

I think we all knew what was going on in that moment because we all ran over to that side to find Johnny laying there, face down.

Soda got there first. He turned him over gently and it was pretty bad. I looked over at Ponyboy who looked almost sick.

God, I had never seen Johnny look so awful before. Of course he had the few bruises and all from home but never like this.

Steve groaned and dropped to his knees beside SodaPop. Suddenly Two-Bit was running up next to me, along with Dallas and Darry.