Chapter Text
Next thing Rusty-James knew, there was a slice of chocolate cake on the living room table, next to the copy of Gone With the Wind. His throat burned a little, but when he took a bite of the slice of chocolate cake, he found that it tasted really good. Frosting squeezed all over his fingers, he wolfed down the slice in ten seconds flat. Michael, sitting in the chair opposite him, smiled a little. "My brothers used to make chocolate cake for breakfast," he said quietly.
Rusty-James swallowed. "I had a brother, too." The sentence came out sort of strangled, and he imagined the thread of memories tangled around the words. "I had a brother, but..." He found himself telling the whole story to Michael: about his mother and his father; about Cassandra and how the Greeks didn't believe her, and the Motorcycle Boy didn't either; about his brother stopping the rumbles, and the scar along his side from the switchblade; and the fish, flipping around, so close yet so far from the river. Rusty-James wondered whether they'd swam in the blood. Whether it had felt like swimming in water. He wondered why it hurt so much, when he'd done so much to keep the pain away over the past four years. All the pills, the needles, the blunts... hitch-hiking with truckers and sleeping with girls in motels until he reached California... he sort of forgot he was telling all this to Michael. "I thought that if I came here, I might find him..."
After all this, he looked at Michael. He simply nodded. "I knew you were from Tulsa - I could recognise that accent anywhere. It's why I let you in here, to be honest..." The older boy paused. Was it just Rusty-James' imagination, or did his eyes get a little darker? For a minute, Michael's eyes looked midnight blue. Finally, the words fell out onto the coffee table, and waited in front of Rusty-James expectantly. "I also lost two people I considered brothers."
Michael began to tell a story. Rusty-James listened as he talked of movies, and Paul Newman; heavy gold rings; Socs; switchblades; beautiful, beautiful cars. Bleached hair, a burning church, a book. A last golden promise. The warning shot, and then one more. Wolf-like Dallas Winston, and puppy-like Johnny Cade - two sides of the same coin.
"Not real brothers?" Rusty-James asked, when Michael had finished.
"Nah, not by blood... but they were as good as, to me."
"My brother was my brother by blood, but... sometimes it felt like he never let me in properly." Rusty-James didn't know what he meant by that really, just knew that the Motorcycle Boy had his own place, where Rusty-James could never have gotten to even if he tried. "I mean, I don't even remember his real name. He was the Motorcycle Boy to me, like everyone else."
"Well," Michael leaned back, "big brothers are like that, I think. When they think they have to do everything by themselves. When protecting the things they love most means distancing themselves from them. I should know, I used to think having my oldest brother Darry was the most annoying thing in the world."
"I used to think having my brother was the best thing in the world." He was a prince, alright. Rusty-James remembered his father suddenly: I hope you're never like your brother. You poor baby. Rusty-James thought maybe he understood now.
"Kid, you know who you look just like?" Michael asked. And for once, Rusty-James didn't think Michael was referring to the Motorcycle Boy. "I don't want to leave another Dally behind on the streets of California."
Rusty-James laughed a little. "You're crazy, ya know?"
"What can I say? I'm a dreamer," answered Michael. He'd let his Tulsa Greaser accent slip through a little.
"Never was much good at dreaming. That was the Motorcycle Boy's thing."
"I dreamed my way to college here... left behind everything I ever knew, everyone I ever cared about, came over here to start a new life. Is it bad now, that I still have dreams about that church, that fire, the rumbles? Sometimes I wonder if I've stayed as gold as I was, all those years ago." Michael paused, and thought about it. "Ya reckon real names are important?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Hmm."
Rusty-James found himself staying at Michael's house for the next two weeks. Michael didn't seem to mind, actually: he seemed to like the company. There wasn't much to do, so Rusty-James thought a lot; he didn't know why, but it felt good to remember the past. Well, maybe not good, but a good sort of difficult: like every time he thought about it, a new layer of skin grew over the scab in his mind. Healing.
"Hey Michael?"
"Yeah?"
"I been doing some thinking... I've realised - I ain't never gonna go back to Tulsa."
Michael sighed, and turned towards him. "I figured you were gonna say that. Things are different there now, I reckon, from when I was fourteen... drugs, senseless fighting... I get why your brother stopped it all. Johnny hated that kind of stuff - he'd fight in rumbles, 'course, but we'd do it real fair and honourable. We weren't just a gang, we were brothers... I get the feeling that's been lost somewhere along the way. Y'all forgot what it was you were fighting for - to protect each other."
Rusty-James thought about this for a minute. "I never got to feel that way," he said slowly. "It was just me and the Motorcycle Boy. And then it was just me." He smiled. "Maybe if I had a Twobit, or a Johnny, things woulda turned out differently.
"But for now," Rusty-James continued, "I wanna find out the truth. I wanna know who my brother was... why my mother ran off... why people sell dope to boys. I wanna understand, and then I can move on with my life."
Michael looked at him for a second with an odd expression. "So you're leaving now?"
For once Rusty-James felt calm. "Yeah, guess I am." He made his way towards the door, but Michael stood up.
"Wait- Rusty-James."
"Yeah?"
"I just thought u might want to know..." Michael looked him in the eyes. Rusty-James could picture them as a clear blue-green. "Michael is my middle name. My real name is Ponyboy Curtis."
Ponyboy Curtis. Rusty-James had a smile in his voice. "Nice name ya got there. It's tuff."
"Names are important, I've realised." Ponyboy waved Rusty-James off cheerfully. "Go on now. You're always welcome back here."
Rusty-James laughed suddenly. "Boy do I know it." He felt oddly light, and his heart was beating a little too fast. But a good sort of too fast. "You stay gold, Ponyboy."
Ponyboy's eyes shone just a little too brightly. "Yeah, you too, kid."