Chapter Text
Curly has the absolute delight of being there when Darry mutters to himself (and Soda) about how much of a damn idiot Ponyboy is.
“Infection in his lungs, infection in his side. One of ‘em must have spread to his damn brain for him to keep something like this secret.”
“Calm down, Dar,” Soda says from one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting room. “They said he should be fine. It didn’t advance into sepsis.”
Darry glares. “Regardless, he had an infection and didn’t say a damn word.”
Soda holds his hands up with a grin. “I’m not arguing with that part.”
“He’s lucky he didn’t get it worse at the rumble.”
“I’m surprised he was conscious at all when it ended.” Curly pipes up and both Curtis brothers turn to stare at him. It’s unnerving.
“Why are you here?” Soda asks blankly.
“Seriously, why are you here?” Darry echoes, neither of them looking away.
Jeez, you help them out in a rumble and they still hate ya.
“Just.. Y'know. Nowhere else to be.”
“Can you find somewhere else to be?” Soda asks, no hint of joking in his voice.
Curly laughs anyway. It’s awkward and stilted and Soda doesn’t crack a smile. But it is a laugh. “I... uh, I guess I just won’t bother you guys.” He eventually mutters and moves a few chairs down. They’re just as uncomfortable down here.
He’s closer to the doors, though. There’s not much else he can see besides a sea of cars, and a little camp of reporters. He should just go home. It’s not like he’ll see Pony. Not when his brothers seem extra prickly. Not that he blames them. He’s feeling pretty prickly himself because what the hell was Ponyboy thinking?
And it’s not like they like Curly on a good day when they’re more cuddly teddy bears and rainbows than cartoon castle on a dark, stormy night.
Nor can they tolerate him, really.
He sighs and crosses his legs at the ankle, looking out at the reporters. Not all of them are here for Pony. Curly’d estimate about half. The only reason he knows is because he took great joy in counting the number of people Darrel yelled at to leave them alone. Technically, he only yelled at one, but Darry can be very, very scary when he wants to be. It kind of gives off the impression of yelling anyway, even when he’s hardly got his voice raised past normal talking volume. Curly isn’t sure he’s ever met anyone else who can do that. Maybe Tim.
Soda seems to hate him more and more as each second goes on, until he’s got an outright glare on his face. It’s a lot different than the Soda Curly’s accidentally gotten used to over the past week or so, with Pony’s trial.
He’s less... mopey. It’s more like he’s angry all the time now, especially when it comes to Curly. That might have something to do with Curly going on the run with Pony without either of his brothers knowing.
He isn’t sure they’d be much better if they’d known, actually. They’ve always been protective, even though Pony isn’t 5 anymore.
He wasn’t around when Pony was 5 (or, he was, but 7 is hardly old enough to remember things. Curly doesn’t think he has any memories until after he fell off that telephone pole when he was 9.) but he heard some stories from Tim about how they used to act like Pony was made of glass. One time when Pony was 10, he got a scraped knee and Darry carried him all the way home even though he could walk just fine.
“I’m gonna go.” He announces to no one. The Curtis boys don’t look over. Though... that might be partly Curly’s fault. He was the one to burn that bridge with Sodapop, after all.
His knees crack when he gets up and he almost stumbles. When he walks out of the hospital doors, no one swarms him. No one does anything, in fact. The journalists stay where they are and the parking lot stays full.
Walking away from the hospital feels a little bit like he’s getting his arms and legs ripped off and his chest torn apart. Not to be dramatic.
He just... feels guilty. For the whole thing. Even though Pony’d come to him for help, he can’t help feeling like an all-around awful guy for getting all the Curtis boys in trouble and now Pony’s in the hospital and it feels like that’s his fault too. He’d gone up to Pony before the fighting started. Seen the way he looked about ready to topple over. And what did he do? A whole lot of nothing is what.
He could’ve forced the kid to go home or at least talked to his brothers.
He could’ve done a better job hiding him away and they wouldn’t be back here at all. He could’ve done a million things and he’d done exactly zero.
He knows if he were saying all this to Tim or Angela they’d tell him any of that would’ve just been delaying this (meaning Pony in the hospital and Curly feeling like the biggest asshole in the word), but Curly knows it isn’t true. Not this time, anyway.
If he’d left the first time they saw those kids, Pony would’ve never gotten scratched so they wouldn’t have to worry about the hospital and he’d never have wanted to come home and they could’ve just kept moving until eventually he got Pony away for good.
That’s what could’ve happened. What should’ve. But instead, Pony’s in the hospital and Curly’s walking home.
His feet are carrying him back without him even having to think about it, which is usually pretty neat but now seems like a punishment when his thoughts are still a tornado of the same three things.
He turns onto his street. The thoughts don’t die down at all. They’re still screaming for attention. Screaming for him to go back in time and fix everything.
He walks into his house and everything abruptly stops. He’d like to say it’s because his home has always been a sanctuary or any of that other poetic, dreamy bullshit English teachers love, but really it’s the sight of Tim out cold on the floor.
“What the hell?” He mutters, walking over to the middle of the hallway and nudging Tim.
He stays asleep. He’s definitely not dead, though, his chest is rising and he’s letting out tiny little half-snore, half-sleep-talking sounds. Curly nudges him harder. “Tim.” He’s whisper shouting, so the guy his mom is screwing lately doesn’t hear them and decide to come out and teach them a lesson on respect. He’s been on a real power trip, even though he’s hardly been around a full week.
Tim’ll get rid of him eventually. He always does.
Tim jerks awake once Curly finally full-on kicks him. “What the fuck?” He asks, blearily looking up, squinting against the light.
“Why were you asleep in the middle of the hallway?”
“Was waitin’ for you.” Tim groans when he sits up. “I got tired, laid down on the floor. Not my brightest idea.”
“I don’t need you to wait up for me.” Curly says stormily.
“Maybe not, but that cut on your temple won’t fix itself up and you seemed just a tiny bit too busy with Baby Curtis to care about your own overall health and wellbeing.”
Curly brings his hand up to his temple, feeling around. Nothing there.
“Other side.”
His other hand flies up and he feels it immediately. It’s a cut that extends from his hairline down to his cheekbone. It doesn’t seem too deep, but it’s bleeding like crazy. It doesn’t even hurt much, even though his hand is slick with blood when he pulls it away. “Ow.”
“Yeah, now you notice it. C’mon.”
“When’d I get hit like that?”
“I dunno. Not my day to watch you.”
“It’s always your day to watch me.” Curly grumbles and Tim pushes him into the bathroom. He hops up onto the ledge of the sink before Tim can lift him. His legs still swing.
Tim huffs out a tiny laugh. “I guess it is. Now stay still, I know how you love to be dramatic.”
“Oh, yeah. Real dramatic. Hissing a little when you put something on a cut that makes it burn.”
“I dunno. I never react like that.”
“You’re a weirdo.”
Tim takes advantage of Curly talking and presses an alcohol pad to the cut.
“Ow!” he shouts, just to be spiteful. Tim glares and presses a hand over his mouth.
“I’m not fighting mama’s new boyfriend because you want to be a little asshole. So shut your mouth.”
Curly glares and tries to say something back which ends up sounding more like “Mmrph thm ammomph.”
“Yeah, yeah, just hold still.”
The alcohol pad really doesn’t sting much after Curly starts poking his leg as hard as he can with his (abnormally pointy, according to Angela) middle finger.
“You don’t look very concussed.” Tim says, finally taking his hand off Curly’s mouth so he can pick up a couple butterfly bandages. “Are you concussed?”
“Does it look like I’m concussed?” Curly glares while Tim forces his head to the side so he can bandage him up the right way.
“I just said you didn’t. Do you feel concussed?”
Tim lets go of his head to grab a few more bandages and he looks forward again. “What the hell kinda question is that? What does concussed feel like? I’ve never had a concussion.”
“Never mind, you’re alright.” Tim says, forcing Curly’s head to the side again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t get an answer.
Tim finally lets go of him five minutes later, and he hops off the counter, ‘accidentally’ shoulder checking Tim on the way out (Which doesn’t end well for him, because he just gets a box of Band-Aids thrown at him.)
“Hey!” He looks down at the Band-Aids on the floor before leaning down to snatch them up. “I’m keeping these. All. By the way.”
“What the hell are you gonna do with that many bandages?”
“I’ll figure something out.” Curly says before he bounds off down the hallway in a very Angela-esque way.
Almost all his thoughts about Pony had gone away. The bad ones at least.
As soon as that door closes behind him, though, there’s nothing else. No shelter to take. No ditch to hunker down in.
Just a raging tornado with the sharpest debris in the world. Curly drops the bandages, not caring where they land.
He lays down, his mind not quieting at all. He falls onto the bed, pressing his face into his pillow until it’s hard to breathe through it.
Not even that helps.
“Is Pony out of the hospital yet?” Curly asks and Dallas nearly jumps ten feet into the air.
He whips his head around. “Jesus! What the hell?”
“I live here, you shouldn’t be shocked to see me.”
“Oh, shut up.” Dallas mutters angrily. “I should be shocked when you pop up behind me.”
Curly rolls his eyes. “Scaredy cat. Now answer my question. Pony in the hospital?”
He flashes a thumbs up and then a thumbs down.
“No. He got out a couple days ago. Darry’s being a real pain about the bedrest though. Which is probably for the best, honestly. Apparently, Pony won’t say a damn word when something’s wrong, even though it’s only giving himself trouble.”
“He was like that up in Windrix too, at first. I had to practically force him to sleep off whatever illness he had back then.”
“Probably the starts of the pneumonia.”
Curly shrugs and sits down heavily next to Dallas, grinning when it makes him bounce a little. It’s funny seeing a hood like that be thrown around by a couch cushion. “Probably.”
“Pony’s still acting weird, though.”
Tim walks into the room, with a beer in one hand. “Why is it news that the Number One Weirdo is acting weird?”
“Well yeah, but it’s not normal Pony weird.”
“Pony isn’t weird.” Curly pipes up and both Dallas and Tim stare at him until his shoulders rise up to his ears. “Yeah, maybe a little.”
“Uh huh.” Dallas says absently before looking past Curly to Tim. “He’s being all withdrawn and quiet. Beyond normal. Hell, he’s acting more like Johnny than Pony.”
Tim sighs. “Kid has had a hell of a couple weeks.”
Dallas nods before standing and walking over, just to grab the beer from Tim’s hands and take a mouthful.
Just like that, they stop talking about it. But the thought stays in Curly’s mind, circling like one of those stupid doors on big office buildings.
A million things could be causing it. He could be not sleeping well or eating well or he could be just plain sad.
Or maybe it’s none of those things and he’s just being a weirdo, like Dallas says.
It’ll be impossible for Curly to find out considering that the Curtis brothers would probably incinerate him before he could get within ten yards of Pony.
So, he’ll just have to catch Pony when neither of his brothers are around.
What a famously easy thing to do.
Curly sighs and slumps down on the couch.
Pony’s sitting on half a brick wall by a park near the school. For a second, Curly thinks he’s alone, but then he sees Dallas lurking around the edges of the grass.
“Hi, Pony.” He says, hopping up onto the wall next to him.
“Hi, Curly.” He sounds just as miserable as he has the past couple of days, his throat rough and scraped sore.
“What’re you doin’ around? Don’t you got school?”
Pony sighs. “They sent me home early because I almost passed out in History. They say I’m not healed enough.”
“And Dallas picked ya up?”
“Well, Soda would’ve but he’s working all day, and I lost the piece of paper Darry wrote down the number for his new jobsite on it. Two and Johnny were both in school. And Steve’s workin’ with Soda.”
Curly huffs out a laugh. “Just running up the school’s phone bill, Baby Curtis.”
“I’m sure their pockets won’t be hurtin’ for it.” Pony replies, rolling his eyes.
“Dal looks like he’s hunting.”
“Who knows what he’s doing?” Pony says with a sigh right before there’s a smacking sound.
“What was that?”
Pony looks down before straightening his legs, revealing one socked foot and one shoe. “My shoe fell off.”
Curly leans over and looks at the ground. Sure enough, the other shoe is lying there innocently. “What, you didn’t tie it or something?”
“No, I tied it real good.”
“Then why’d it fall off?”
“Cuz it ain’t my shoe, dummy.”
“Why are you wearing someone else’s shoe?”
“I don’t know. They’re just the ones I picked up today.”
Curly sighs and runs a hand through his hair. Pony must be sicker than he’d thought. “Whose are they?”
“Yours.”
“I never gave you my shoe, how do you have my shoe?”
“I had to have someone’s shoe.”
Curly sighs. “You must still be sick.”
“Huh?”
“‘Cause... ‘cause you’re not making any sense.” He says, getting a feeling like when he says a joke that doesn’t land.
“I left the house that night without any shoes on, so I took yours.”
“Shit, man, I’ve been lookin’ for those.”
Pony sighs and stares down at the shoe longingly. “If you get it for me, I’ll give them back.”
“I’d get my shoes back either way.”
“You sound quite confident in that and I’m not sure why.”
Curly could push Pony a little, but he’s not entirely sure he wouldn’t just topple off the wall entirely. “Whatever, man.”
If it were still a few months ago, this would be the time Pony started rambling about something or other, but it’s not a few months ago and Pony seems infinitely distracted by everything.
More than half the time it’s stuff Curly can’t even see.
“You feelin’ alright?”
Pony hums like he’s deep in thought. “Not really, no.”
Curly glances over. Pony’s got his head all the way back, looking straight up at the sky in a way that’d give Curly vertigo. “Talk to me, man.”
Pony stays silent for a minute, because that’s what Pony does. He gathers his thoughts instead of saying a bunch of things before he can be sure that what he’s saying makes sense and having to backtrack. He’d always been like that with his feelings. He takes them real serious, unlike half the guys Curly knows who treat anything that isn’t liquor or girls or fighting like one big joke.
Right when Pony’s about to open his mouth, Dallas comes over and pulls Pony off the wall and brings him somewhere. Probably his house.
Curly can’t even bring himself to protest, he just watches them walk off with his mouth a little open.
He hardly moves for another hour or two. He just stares up at the sky, trying to find the exact spot Pony had been looking at.
It just looks blue.
When he gets off the wall, the world spins like crazy and he has to sit down for another ten minutes before he can walk home.
But the next morning when he wakes up, his shoes are resting right by the front door.
Curly can’t sleep.
It might have something to do with the sudden cold shoulder Pony’s been giving him, or it might just be that he suddenly sucks at sleeping. Either way, it’s not ideal.
He’s been trying to ignore it. Everyday since coming back from Windrixville, he’s been trying to ignore it. But earlier, Angela pointed out the dark circles under his eyes and now he can’t anymore. There’s only so much staring up at the ceiling a guy can take, after all.
After he started seeing things that weren’t there, he couldn’t take it anymore.
He stands up, still in his pajama pants and ripped white shirt that he wears to sleep. He gets some socks off the floor, not really caring if they’re dirty or not. He pulls his jacket off the chair by the door and pulls it on before grabbing the shoes he’d gotten back from Pony and stumbling out of the house, still trying to shove his feet into them.
The door slams shut behind him, but this far into the night, everyone’ll be too asleep to care. He almost takes one of the cars, but he doesn’t think that’s the greatest idea when he’s hallucinating stuff. It’s purely muscle memory that leads him to the Curtis house, because one of Tim’s suppliers lives right down that street.
He stops right at the edge of the lawn, past the gate still. It had seemed like a good idea, like maybe crashing on the Curtis couch would help him sleep somehow. But now he’s starting to wonder what the hell he was thinking.
2 of 3 of those boys are still mad at him, he ain’t injured, he’s never crashed here before, and there’s no other good reason he’d ever need to crash here.
He sighs and steps back, sitting on the curb.
It’s cold out. The concrete is practically freezing. If it weren’t so cold, he’d consider going to sleep right here. Which probably would be less well-received than just going inside to the couch.
He sits there, going numb from the cold. He can’t feel his fingers or his nose and he’s starting to lose feeling in his feet when a familiar car comes rolling down the street. He shoots up, almost falling right back over when his head starts spinning.
He steps right in front of the car, which rolls to a stop.
A second later, a voice yells “Get out of the road!”
He walks toward the window. “Heya, ol’ Marley.”
Marley sighs, letting his head fall back against the seat. “The hell do you want, Curly?”
“I need a favor.”
“Don’t think I forgive you for getting my idiot cousin busted.”
“Oh, please, Kash stole all by himself like a big boy.”
“I will run you over, Shepard, and don’t think for a second I won’t.”
“I’d never dream of it. Now, get out of the car.”
“Oh, God, this is a robbery, isn’t it?” Marley says, but he gets out of the car anyway.
Curly kicks the door closed. “Yeah, yeah. Listen. You’ve gotta punch me in the face.”
“What?”
“You’ve gotta punch me in the face.”
“No, I heard you. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m not repeating myself again.” Curly says bitterly.
“Fine, I’ll put it this way. Why the hell do I have to do that? All that’ll do is get me right back on Tim’s shit list.”
Curly sighs and starts digging through the pockets of his jacket. “Hold on.”
“What are you lookin’ for?”
“I coulda sworn I had a five in here.”
“Why would you have a five in there?”
Curly grabs the only thing he can find in the pockets and pulls out 85 cents. “‘Cause it’s my jacket, you idiot.”
Marley gives him a sideways look. “Are you sure you’re feelin’ alright?”
Curly glares and throws the 85 cents at him, smiling when he hears it all hit the ground. “I’m fine, now punch me, you bastard.”
Marley raises his eyebrows. “If you’re sure.”
“Positive. Do it.”
The hit is hard, fast, and clean. Hard enough to make Curly’s nose bleed but not break it. Still hurts like hell though.
“Fuck!” He shouts, holding his nose and stumbling backwards. “Son of a bitch, that hurt.”
“That is the general idea of a punch.” Marley says and Curly wants to hit him right back in his stupid, smug face. But it was his fault. Technically. So he can’t fight the guy.
“I’ll show you the general idea of a damn punch.” He grumbles.
“Hey, Curly, you agree not to tell Tim about this, don’t ya? Lord knows he’d kill me.”
“I oughta kill ya, man. That fuckin’ hurt!”
“Remember, if Tim asks it wasn’t me.”
Curly finally straightens up, keeping his hand below his nose to catch the blood. “Yeah, yeah.”
Marley leans against the hood of his car. “Now, will you tell me why you got it into your head to pay someone to punch you in the face?”
“I need an excuse to crash on the Curtis’ couch.”
Marley stares at Curly like that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. “Their door’s unlocked for a reason, y’know?”
“Yeah, but I’m not on the greatest of terms with Sodapop or Darrel right now.”
“It’s hard to get on the bad side of those boys. How’d you manage that?”
“None of your damn business is how.”
Marley holds up his hands and steps back, walking back to his car door. “Alright. Remember—”
“I know. No Tim.”
Marley shoots him a stupid, crooked smile and three seconds later he’s back in his car and rolling down the street again.
Curly hops the fence and winces at how loud his heavy steps sound on the stairs up to the house.
As soon as he’s inside, he kicks his shoes off and walks to the kitchen, stopping to grab one of the paper towels in the middle of the table.
“Socs?” A voice says from behind him and he jumps, his whole body flinching.
“Jeez!” He spins around, to see Pony leaning down with his chin resting on the counter. He’s got a full glass of water in front of him. Curly presses the paper towel against his nose. “Warn a guy next time, would ya?”
“Sorry.” Pony says, not sounding sorry. Not sounding like he’s really feeling anything. “Was it, though? Soc trouble.”
“Nah. We just rumbled, they wouldn’t break their word that quick.”
“Yeah, well. Their word isn’t worth a plug nickel.” Pony says venomously, looking all stormy and serious.
“Seems a bit personal, there, Baby Curtis.” He glares at the glass of water in front of him but doesn’t say anything else. “What are you doin’ up this late?”
“Early.”
“Huh?”
Pony sighs and looks at the clock on the wall. “It’s 3:42. It’s early, not late.”
“It’s late for me, I never went to bed.”
“That sucks.”
He doesn’t say anything else even though Curly’d been expecting him to. He just stares into his water. “Yeah, I guess.” Curly says, just to fill the silence.
Pony finally straightens up, abandoning his glass of water as he comes over to sit on one of the chairs around the kitchen table, in front of Curly. “What happened to your face if it wasn’t Socs?”
“I’ve pissed off a ton of people, I’m not just limited to Socs.” Curly says in lieu of a real answer.
“Cool. What happened to your face?”
Curly sighs, leaning back against the table. “I got into a crazy fight. You should see the other guy.”
Yeah. The other guy, probably safely asleep in his bed with nary a bruised hand by now.
“Wow. Sucks.”
“You feelin’ alright?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that.”
Curly looks up, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. “Huh? Why?”
“Maybe because you just showed up at my house at 3 in the morning with a still-bleeding nose—”
“Like half the guys in town have done that!”
“Keep your voice down, I don’t think you want to wake up my brothers.” Pony says giving Curly a cool look. It’s not joking like he’d gotten used to over the whole Windrixville debacle. He just looks... rough. Mean, like Dallas when he wants Curly to just shut his damn mouth. “And most guys don’t have pajamas on with their brother’s jacket.”
Curly looks down at the jacket he has on. “This is mine.”
“It’s more rigid and it’s falling half down your thighs.”
Curly shrugs. “Why are you paying that much attention anyhow?”
Pony sighs and stands. He doesn’t walk away. He just kind of stays there, not moving at all. It's like he got frozen halfway through his whole ‘storming-off’ routine.
He sits back down like a puppet who’d gotten its strings cut. “Why are you here, Curly?”
“Just couldn’t sleep, I guess. Why are you up?”
Pony looks at the ceiling. “Same boat.”
“Woulda thought you’d sleep like a baby once you were finally back with Soda. You would always whine for him in your nightmares.”
Pony doesn’t even shoot back an ‘I don’t whine’ which is when Curly starts thinking something might actually be wrong.
“You haven’t seen it yet, then.” Pony says with conviction thick in his voice.
“Seen what?”
Pony rubs a hand down his face. “You’re the one who gave the damn interview, and you don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“Interview?”
Pony leans forward, blinking like he hasn’t slept in years. “Never mind.”
“No, I wanna know n—”
“Never mind, Curly. You can figure it out later. I’m not explaining it to you at 3 in the morning.”
They stay silent for five minutes and then Pony stands abruptly and starts walking stiffly down the hall. Curly isn’t exactly sure what it is, but something screams at him to follow, so he does. Pony doesn’t stop at his own room. He walks right into the living room and lays down on the couch. Curly isn’t sure what he’s supposed to be doing until Pony lets one arm dangle off the couch. Curly grins like an idiot, his cheeks hurting as he walks over, shedding his jacket to use it as a pillow.
I should be annoyed. He thinks as he lays down on the hard floor next to the couch. But he isn’t. He takes Pony’s hand.
The couch is a lot shorter than the pew had been, so it’s easier to grab it. The weight—warm and familiar even after weeks of going to bed empty-handed—is like a breath of fresh air.
As soon as he has his head resting on the jacket, he realizes that it is, in fact, Tim’s jacket because it feels a lot stiffer under his cheek.
Pony does not seem to have that problem with the couch, knocked out after hardly a minute.
Curly keeps almost slipping under, his eyelids heavy and his blinks a little too long. But he can’t bridge the gap between almost sleep and real sleep. Something about what Pony had said (the interview) is catching in his mind and forcing him to fixate on it. He’s never seen Pony that mad at him, but he can’t remember any interview besides that one with the journalist chick a couple weeks ago. And he can’t remember anything he’d said that would’ve gotten Pony mad.
Still, guilt coils low and heavy in his gut.
Without thinking, tiredness clouding his mind, he pulls Pony’s arm closer to him and presses his lips to the back of his hand, mumbling out an apology.
Sleep comes real easy after that.