「my boy」 | Johnnyboy

The Talk.

( Johnny's POV )

I was kind of nervous about talking with Ponyboy. After my breakdown the other night, he'd been waiting for me to open up more, and that was obvious. I wanted to trust him more. I wanted to cry to him and tell him every single detail of my life before he came along, but I was terrified. What if he judged me? What if he saw how disgusting I really am?

On top of that, though, I know he had some things he was keeping in, too. If I talked to him, maybe he'd be able to trust me enough to open up to me. All I wanted was to comfort him. I didn't give a shit about me if he wasn't okay. His feelings, his thoughts, his everything meant more to me than anything else.

I knew today was the day. I kept trying to prepare myself, but in the end I knew I'd just have to dive into it, head first. Taking a shaky breath, I fixed my jacket and brought a shaky finger to the door bell. I heard the ring of it juggle from wall to wall inside of the house. Then, it sounded like two people rushing downstairs. "Stop it, it's for me!" Sodapop said frustratedly. There was some rustling.

"No, it isn't, Johnny's supposed to come!"

"Well so is Steve!" Sodapop was the one to make it to the door, a wide smile on his face. When he saw it was me, he sighed. "Hi, Johnny." He sounded a little disappointed, but it was almost hard to catch because of how chipper he still looked. He moved back so I could step in. Ponyboy was picking himself up from the ground, and I could only assume the two had been shoving each other. Of course Sodapop would win the strength war, though.

"I knew it was you!" He grabbed my hand and quickly tugged me upstairs with him. He shut his door behind us, moving to sit on the bed and grabbing my other hand as he looked up at me. "What'd you wanna talk about?" It was clear he was nervous, but trying not to show it.

"So..." I started, sitting beside him and taking a deep breath. He turned pale.

"Are you breaking up with me?"

"No! God, no, Pony, don't ever worry about that. I'm not going anywhere." He sighed in relief, nodding for me to continue. "So I know you've been wanting me to open up about things more and... I think I'm ready."

"We don't have to until you know you're ready, baby..." I shiver slightly at the nickname. I'm happy I was sitting down because I always go weak at the knees when he calls me that.

"I know I'm ready, I'm just trying to trust you... I don't want you to think differently of me..."

"There's nothing in this world that'll ever make me think differently of you. You could kill someone and I'd still think you were the best person in the world." I laughed a little, blushing.

"Stop, I'm being serious..."

"So am I." He didn't break his gaze for even a second, letting me know with a straight face that he meant it.

"Okay..." I took another deep breath, then gradually began telling him my story. My exes. My uncle. My parents. All of the bad. I told him how disgusting and worthless it all made me feel, and he sat with me and listened the whole time.

He told me how it wasn't me that was disgusting, but everyone else around me. He said that, to him, I was worth "the sun, the moon, and all the stars" in that silly "author type" way he always did. He always found ways to make things sound so much more important than anyone else ever could, at least to me. It seemed like he always made me speechless in the most random ways. He'd be laughing so hard he was snorting and I'd just have a moment where I had to stop everything and watch him because I thought he was so beautiful. He'd be telling a story and using all of those crazy hand gestures he always does when he gets worked up and I'd feel like I was in a dream.