Chapter Text
Ponyboy takes the longest breath of his life, grits his teeth, then says, “Hey, Darry. Got a pretty funny story for you.”
“Yeah? I’ve got one for you, too. I get home from work today, expecting to find dinner started and my little brother home, and you’ll never guess what I found instead.” Darry’s voice is steady, deadpanned, just like it always is when his anger is building up. Ponyboy can practically feel it vibrating through the payphone-line.
“So, about that--”
“I found Two-Bit, alone, drinking half the case of beer that I bought for myself, no dinner, and-- get this-- no little brother.” Darry goes quiet, waiting for Ponyboy’s response. Ponyboy waits too, knowing that if he makes Darry wait too long, he'll probably start yelling at him, but his response probably won't make things any better.
“Look, I lost track of time--” he starts, knowing it's the wrong thing to start with, and is quickly interrupted.
“Doing what?” Darry asks in an accusatory voice. “School ended two hours ago!”
Ponyboy winces. “I know! I know, I was just--”
“Two-Bit says he assumed you had walked home, considering he waited twenty damn minutes for you and you didn’t show up.”
Ponyboy swallows down a groan. “I just wasn’t thinking--”
“I could have told you that!” Darry roars, his voice grating against the payphone.
“Darry, c’mon, I lost track of time, okay? I’m sorry.”
“You still haven’t told me how.”
Ponyboy rolls his eyes. “It ain’t like you’ve given me a chance! I told you, I just-- I just--” he stutters over his words like an idiot. He doesn’t want to tell Darry what he was up to, because he doesn’t even know how to define it himself, and he feels his ears heat up when he thinks about it for too long. He stifles another groan and sighs, “I was just being dumb, alright? Wasn’t thinking--”
“Ponyboy.” Darry's voice cuts off the rest of his explanation, and Ponyboy winces again. He knows there are times Darry gets so angry that it's hard for him to hear anything else, but usually he keeps himself together long enough to let Pony finish talking first before he snaps back. “You know, I really don’t ask a lot of you.”
“I know,” he replies, trying not to sound absolutely miserable.
“I didn’t even say you had to finish dinner, just to start it,” Darry rambles on, clearly not in the mood to hear anymore of Pony’s stuttering apologies.
“Darry, c’mon, you know I didn’t do this on purpose,” Ponyboy argues. He’s gonna have to put another coin in if Darry keeps on with this. “I just forgot.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sick of you forgetting things. It’s all you ever seem to do.”
There’s an edge to this one-- something about the way he says it feels sharper than anything else Darry could say at a time like this. Ponyboy knows he’s just mad, frustrated from what was probably a long day at work for little pay. But in Pony’s mind, he might as well have said like how you forgot the frosting for my birthday, you know, the reason Mom and Dad got killed? Darry and Soda have talked him down from the ledge a thousand times. It never really made him feel any better about it. And leave it to Darry to bring it up anyway, even if he’s the one to deny it the most.
Darry must sense the reason for Ponyboy’s sudden silence, because he sighs on the other end. Ponyboy can all but see the fingers he puts to the bridge of his nose. “Pone--”
“I’m gonna start walking. Look, I’m sorry, alright? I’ll see you at home.”
“No, Pony, just-- Soda gets out in a half-hour, just wait for him. The weather ain’t looking so good and I don’t want you to get stuck in the storm.” His voice is softer now, calmer, all the fight slowly draining out of him. This is how most of their fusses go these days-- short, explosive, then faded by the time they’ve cooled off.
Still, after the afternoon he’s had, Ponyboy can’t help but still feel a simmering of emotions in his chest. He just isn’t as good as Darry is about letting things go.
“It’s just rain,” he says in a flat, uninterested tone.
“And you catch colds if someone breathes near you for too long. I bet you don’t even have a jacket on.”
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s May, Darry. The hell would I need a jacket for?”
“The rain!” Darry exclaims, getting frustrated again. His older brother makes a sort of growl from the back of his throat, and when it dies, says, “Just wait for Sodapop, okay? I’ll phone him. But you’re doing the dishes. All of ‘em.”
Ponyboy rolls his eyes. It’s better than being grounded, and a few months ago, he probably would have been. But since the fall, Darry’s been more… malleable, to say the least.
“Fine. We just can’t let Soda use too much food coloring tonight. He’s gonna stain all our dishes, and I nearly scrubbed my skin off trying to get all the red off of ‘em.”
Darry lets out something like a giggle. They were all made up now. “Right, well, take that up with him. See you soon, kid.”
“Bye.”
He puts the phone on the hook and presses his forehead to the box in frustration. Fights like these between them were rarer these days, but they still took just about everything out of him. He didn’t like fighting with his brother, even if Darry might suggest otherwise.
Pre-Windrixville, Ponyboy had never been one to be all that defensive. He really just didn’t have it in him to fight back-- nothing to fight for, in his opinion. But lately, every shot taken seems to be a personal one. How could they not be? In some ways, his brother had a right to call him out on all the shit he’s pulled the last year or so. He’s been up and down, in and out, loud and quiet. He hasn’t exactly been the easiest to get along with. Grief just didn’t sit right with Ponyboy.
When he was a child, death fascinated him. It was terrifying, and mysterious, and uncharted, and beautiful. The cowboys riding off into the sunset, the soldiers riding into battle. It filled every inch of the stories he was told. Fairy tales, myths, cowboy ballads-- his father sang him Streets of Laredo as a lullaby every night until he was six. He only stopped because it always made Soda too sad.
He had spent lots of time thinking about death-- anytime he’d look at the stars, it wouldn’t be long until he found himself wondering and yearning for something he couldn’t place. What was beyond them, if anything? What were they made of? Where did they go in the daylight?
He’s got vague memories of asking his mother about it-- trying to gauge what questions he was allowed to ask, what questions he would have to keep to himself. He can never remember her answers to them, just the way she would wrap him up in her arms, rocking him on the porch as they’d traced the constellations together. If there really was something beyond the cosmos waiting for him when he's gone, he hopes and prays it’s his mother’s arms.
Death, to him, was an art piece. Something to think hard about, to stare out, to make something of. Something untouchable, something he wasn’t allowed to hold in his hands, but something he could sit and chew on for as long as he was allowed to do. And for most of his life, that’s all death was. Sacrosanct.
Until it wasn’t. Until it was the most tangible, corporeal thing he’s ever felt. Until it seemed to follow him wherever he went, and still couldn’t be shaken. He wondered if in some ways, he’d brought it on by yearning for the answers, if he somehow willed death into his life by always thinking about it. It wasn't his intention. He hopes the bodies on his conscience know that.
Wherever death went, grief followed. And since Ponyboy and death were well acquainted, he soon knew grief just as well. It could wrap itself around his lungs in the blink of an eye, pushing and pulling him out of his mind and out of the classroom. Like today, for example.
He knew he had to meet Two-Bit by three if he wanted to get home in time to do all the chores Darry’s been more or less harassing him to get done all week. He knew it, he hadn’t forgotten. In his head, it’s much easier to tell Darry the thing he already believes about Ponyboy than to have to explain that he missed his ride because he was shaking on the bathroom floor.
He couldn’t tell you what set him off today. Grief always comes for him quickly regardless, holding him in its arms in a vice grip. He had stumbled out of last period, tripping over his feet to get to the locker room bathroom on the ground floor before he lost his lunch in the hallway. At least there, he knew no one would find him-- all the gym periods were over and the baseball team was away at tournament. He heaved until nothing else came out of him, clammy and sick with a cold, unforgiving darkness in his chest. Gosh, it drives him damn near crazy-- he’s almost fifteen. It shouldn’t still feel this heavy. Then again, everything always felt so heavy to him anyway. Why would this be any different?
He doesn’t remember much after that, and by the time his heart stopped pounding in his chest and he could feel his limbs again, it was well past the time for school to end and Two-Bit was long gone. He emerged from the locker room in a daze, fumbling around for the coins in his pocket, the phone ringing until someone in the house picked up. And, curse his luck, of course it was Darry.
He sets himself and his backpack down on the ground near the trees, reaching into his pocket for a smoke while he waits for Soda. It helps with his still-shaking nerves a whole lot, and he takes in the peace. If he couldn’t quiet his mind, he could at least enjoy the quiet of the outside world. He always loved the spring-- new beginnings, new life. The almost summer-like air felt lit with some sort of electric current, and he couldn’t tell if it was the world waking up after a long winter, the impending storm ahead, or his body still trying to find a comfortable spot in it. Either way, it settles over his skin as he leans his head back against the tree.
“Gotta light?”
The only voice that always seemed to interrupt his peace cuts through his silence. Curly Shepard.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, reaching up to light the cigarette Curly already had in his mouth.
He plops down in front of Ponyboy, taking a long drag of his cig before shaking his head. “Just got out of detention. I’m telling ya, Mr. Syme has got it out for me.”
“You lit your copy of Hamlet on fire,” Ponyboy reminds him.
“Yeah, but I did it in the science lab,” Curly retorts, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “He’s an English teacher. He don’t get a say in what goes on in the science lab. Besides, he’s making us act it out next class. Do I look like the theatrical type to you? Nah, no way.”
Ponyboy fights a smile. “And your solution to this was to burn your book instead of, you know, just not showing up to class? It ain’t like you want to be there anyway.”
“Says who? Ain’t like I got anything better to do. ‘Sides, Tim’s making me keep an eye on Angela. He’s worried her and Bryon are gonna kill each other,” Curly tells him, flicking his ashes on Pony’s shoe.
“Bryon?” Ponyboy asks, dragging his own cigarette.
“Douglas. Her boyfriend. Tall guy, next grade? Lives with Mark Jennings. You know him?”
“Kinda. I think I gotta couple classes with the two of ‘em,” he replies. “Doesn’t sound very romantic, if they’re always at each other’s throats.”
Curly grins wildly. “Passion, Curtis. It’s all about passion.”
Ponyboy rolls his eyes, but doesn’t make any argument. He doesn’t know any more about romance than Curly does. But it’s better not to disagree with a Shepard.
He takes out his own copy of Hamlet, waving it in Curly’s face. “I suppose you’re better off than me. I have it on pretty good authority I’ve nabbed the lead role in class tomorrow.”
“That’s what you get for giving a damn about your schoolwork,” Curly smirks. “Again, why skip class when I can see a truly spectacular performance from one Ponyboy Curtis?”
He fights back a laugh. You don’t argue with a Shepard, but you shouldn’t entertain them, either. Like wild dogs--- they’ll only come back. And yet, Ponyboy never seemed to be able to deny Curly Shepard his attention. He couldn’t tell you why. Maybe he didn’t care to know.
“Hey, what are you doing out here, anyway?” Curly asks suddenly, like it’s just dawned on him to wonder.
Ponyboy opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. If he couldn’t explain himself to Darry, there was no way in hell he’d be able to explain himself to Curly. He finishes off his cigarette and grinds the rest against the tree trunk.
“Had some stuff to do,” he settles on, trying to sound confident in his answer. “Soda’s on his way to get me. Wanna hitch a ride? You’ll have to pay the fee, though.”
Curly considers this. “What’s the going rate for rides home from Curtis’ these days?”
“Keep your trap shut when I’m reading tomorrow. I’m already dreading it enough.”
Curly nods slowly, weighing his options, then sticks out a hand. “You got yourself a deal, Kid Curtis. I’ll be on my best behavior.”
Best behavior hardly meant anything to Curly Shepard, but Ponyboy supposes he’ll take what he can get. He’s been so distracted by their conversation, he hardly began to notice when the wind began to pick up around them. It felt kinda nice in contrast to the warm May air, the faint smell of rain being carried on it.
“Glory, would you look at the sky,” Curly mumbles, a new cigarette between his teeth.
Pony picks his head up to look. The world has turned green-grey around them, all hazy grey clouds and hard, dangerous feelings in the air. For some odd reason, Pony feels his heart drop into his stomach. He grabs his bag and stands up swiftly, the wind beginning to get stronger and more unfeeling. Curly stands up with far less vigor, but he follows Ponyboy as he begins to walk into the parking lot, staring up at the sky like it’ll speak to him. Like it’ll spit out a warning or something equally sinister that will give Ponyboy an inkling of what’s coming. He doesn’t know how he knows, but something big is coming.
“Forecast said there was a thunderstorm coming,” Curly provides, though his bravado has been stripped to the bone. He sounds younger than Ponyboy’s ever heard him.
“That ain’t a thunderstorm.”
The tornado sirens begin less than seconds later. They may as well be death rattles in Ponyboy’s ears.