Porcelain

Chapter 24

Estelle was silent as Dally took her by the arm and dragged her into the other bathroom, albeit pretty gentle for him.

He didn't speak, he just silently took her hands and turned them palms up, picking out the largest pieces of glass and throwing them into the trash. He then ran the faucet, and rinsed off the blood. He then carefully looked for any last glass shards, before covering the biggest cuts with bandages.

"Don't let those get infected," he said gruffly.

"I won't. Thank you," she replied quietly.

He just grunted in response.

"Thank you for helping me," she said awkwardly.

"You're welcome," he replied shortly.

She didn't know what else to say, so she silently left the bathroom and went to her room, falling onto the bed. Now that she had no idea what to do, the best she could come up with was sleep.

_____
Dally swept up the shards of the broken mirror off of the floor in the bathroom. As he cleaned, he tried to piece together more of what had happened.

She had seemed fine while they were, fighting, but then just moments later she was losing her fucking mind.

Of course he didn't really know what she was thinking, and he probably never would, but he'd spent enough time around her to at least get a general idea.

Even though she'd been eating more, revealing more of her actual self, just living better, she never really changed the way she carried herself or the way she thought. She still moved like a man, dressed like a man, and used the same logic for herself as she did when she looked like one too. So now that she was looking like a woman for what would be probably the first time in her life, it would snap her fragile little mind in half.

But she was starting to use her feminine side too, wasn't she? She knew what she was doing, wrapping her legs around his torso, and moving like she did.

But then again, Babydoll was known for being a party animal, doing something wild at a party almost every night, and he vaguely remembered her, him, grinding on Tim Shepard while Tim himself and the crowd was all drunk.

He paused. She had mentioned Tim before, something about them kissing or something? Was that because he-

The thought of what happened between them made him cringe. He and Tim had shared a room before when the other beds were taken, was that why she thought they had done something together?

He then remembered a time he shoved a drunken Tim Shepard off of him, at the time he thought he might of thought he was a Greaser chick in his drunken state, his hair had been relatively long at the time.

The implications made him want to clap his hand over his mouth like a schoolgirl. He'd grown up on the streets, sure, but this was directly between him and one of his buddies. It was disturbing.

He heard a door slam, and then the sound of retching.

Dally swore before walking back to the other bathroom.

Estelle was kneeled over the toilet, puking her guts out.

"What's wrong now?" He asked, not being able to sound gentle this time.

She shot him a look from the side, like he was an idiot.

She didn't answer for a moment, but after she seemed to be done, she wiped her mouth off and rinsed her mouth out in the sink.

"I just felt gross. I feel better now. Don't worry about it," she replied, brushing off any concerns he had.

"Well, you should probably eat something now."

"No, I'm not that hungry. Stop worrying about me and go back to bein' all tuff."

"Then go back to making your life go right so mine can too," he shot back.

"Quit centering your life around me and live your own life."

"Well if it was up to me, I'd be dead right now, it's a little hard to live my own life when it's.your fault I'm living at all," he snapped.

She looked at him, hurt.

He softened his glare a little. "Look, I'm gonna cook myself something, you should eat something too. If we're gonna be stuck like this together for who knows how long, we'd better stay on good times."

She looked surprised. "Since when did you know how to cook?"

He rolled his eyes. "I watched Darry plenty of times, it'll be fine."

"Oh. That makes sense. Well, I'm not much hungry, just make enough for yourself."

Dally wanted to smack sense into her, she wasn't letting herself be helped, and that was dragging him down too. "Look, if you can't get your shit together, I'll call Darry and have him get your shit together for you."

"Do it," she taunted. "He's a whole state over, what a threat. What can he do, Dally? Please do tell."

He smirked. "I know you're scared of him. You'll listen to him."

She sighed. "Do whatever you want, just fuck off for now."