Tulsa (Johnny Cade x Reader)

pilot

I cringed as the burning sensation melted my skin and fingertips. Sweat was sliding down my forehead as a ground my teeth together. Occasionally I would open my eyes to see pony doing the same, only he seemed to be feeling worse. This sucked, we were playing chicken if you haven't guessed by now, and I was determined to win.
However, I knew I was almost at my limit, 10 more seconds and I would have to give it up. Thankfully about 4 seconds later Ponyboy dipped. I looked at my finger and shivered, there was pieces of dead and singed skin hanging off, under it was red and sensitive skin. I knew it would have left a scar on both me and Pony. At least I won.

When I was pretty young, me and Johnny would go out and play in the lot. I think we were maybe 11? I took some of my moms hair pins and played with his hair while he drew on a piece of paper. I gave him 2 pigtails and strung some beads on his hair. It was cute, he didn't care if the others said it was girly, he said he liked it. His dad made him take it out the next day though.

This year Dally taught me how to get a fake id, I've found that it's rather useful whenever my friends need me to get them booze for a party. Once Dally and I were shoplifting a switchblade for me to carry around. When we got caught he took the switchblade and pulled it on the owner. We're both banned from that store now, but he gave me the switchblade after. I like the switchblade, it was black with a silver engraving of the Andes mountains on it. The blade is in my pocket right now actually, however the only time I really used it was when I carved my initials along with my first girlfriend's into a tree.
We broke up a week later because her dad looked through her bag and found the notes we wrote to each other, he was pissed. She was sweet, but now she's back to dudes, I feel bad for her.

Basically what I'm trying to get at is that I've been friends with these guys for a while, as I'm laying on my roof with a weed resting on my lips, I think about the fun memories I've shared with all the other greasers.
I love them, truly, they're like my family I guess?
I've learned different things from different people, as if they played a role in shaping my moral compass. Which they did.

There was one problem to that family dynamic though,
I never saw Johnny as family.

I thought of him as something more, and he felt the same, I think.
Back when we were 10 years old, he snuck me into his house to just mess around and do normal kid things. It got really late and once his dad came home from the bar and found me in the house, he seemed pissed.
I never knew about Johnny's dad until that night, he probably hadn't told me because he was ashamed.

Johnny's dad put down the bottle and began to unbuckle his belt, once he had removed it, he formed it into a combination of an O and P sort of shape.
Before I could piece together what he was about to do, Johnny grabbed my hand and pushed me out of the window. A few seconds later he came tumbling out behind me, he grasped my hand and told me to run, so I did.

After a few minutes, we reached a little teepee he made in the woods and I gave him some matches so we could start a fire.
I was at a loss for words, I felt so much pity for Johnny, he didn't deserve a father like that. After lighting the fire, Johnny sort of looked away, I could see the tears wet his eyes.
Without thinking, I had pulled him into an embrace, he looked down at me with a weak smile, and it was as if I was under a spell.

The way the moon lit up his tan skin, his eyelashes clumped together from the tears, and his face dusted with a light shade of red, due to his fear.

I gave him the quickest kiss ever, and he gave me one back! We spent that night in the teepee and I comforted him.
The next morning I woke up in Johnny's embrace and let him stay at my house for a few days until his dad calmed down.

We never really talked about it after that, and we never told the gang about it. What would they think?
I don't see Johnny as family, because I see him as more.

But does he feel the same?