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“Everybody out.”
The room froze. Even Darry.
Because when Dallas Winston sounded like that, you shut the hell up and did what he said. Socs knew it. Other greasers in their hood knew it. Hell, even the fuzz in this part of town would have probably moved the hell over if Dally talked to them like that.
Soda was looking at Darry, his own eyes still blazing and furious, and then he grabbed Ponyboy by the arm and pulled him with. “We’re going to the Dairy Queen,” he said, to nobody in particular. “Come on.”
Steve and Two-Bit followed wordlessly, until it was only Johnny and Dally and Darry.
“Dall,” Johnny said quietly.
“It’s okay,” Dally said.
He wasn’t too good at reassuring. He had the kinda voice that made people run. Not exactly the kind of voice that calmed people down.
No, that was usually Darry’s job. Sure, he was usually scolding them, too, or swatting them for cussing or even tanning their hides for them when they needed it. But he was the one who comforted them, who sat Pony on his knee and called each of them honey or baby when they needed to be.
Not that Darry was in any shape to do it today. Not after the blow-up with Soda that was like nothing else, and on the anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. C’s death too, and then the drinking—Dally squared his shoulders as he looked at him now.
Darry was still staring back at Dally, his eyes hard and angry and—and something else underneath.
And if Darry had looked at a no-good piece of shit like Dally and seen beneath all the layers of tuff and all the layers of anger about a thousand times, Dally figured he owed it to him to do the same for him now.
Dally was used to people hollering and cussing at him to get him to behave. It had never really worked. Nothing had, except Darry being firm—and stern, lots of the time—and kind, too. Dally wasn’t sure he knew how to do that last part, but he had to try. He owed Darry that much.
“You know what I’m gonna do,” Dally said, hoping his voice sounded tuff but not mean. “Same thing you’d do if any of us acted up a storm and spent the night out drinking. And you ain’t gonna fight me on it, either.”
Darry stiffened, glaring back at him. “The hell you are,” he said. “I made this mess. I’m gonna fix it. Lemme go talk to Soda.”
“No, what you’re gonna do is get your butt out to the garage,” Dally said. His palms were sweating and his heart was racing as hard as if he’d just been jumped, but he stood his ground. Because Darry Curtis needed him, and he was family, and that was simple enough to Dally.
Darry opened his mouth to respond, but then his face just crumpled. “I messed up,” he said. “Dally, I messed up big time.”
There was no way around it, and watching Darry Curtis chew himself up for it was the worst thing Dally had seen. And he’d seen a lot of shit in his day.
“Yea,” Dally said. “You did. And I’m gonna—” he swallowed hard. “I’m gonna take you to task for it like you’d do for us. And then it’s gonna be done.”
Darry had tears in his eyes, but he looked calmer than he had in the last twenty-four hours. “Okay, kiddo,” he said softly. “Garage, huh?”
Dally nodded his head, steeling himself for the task ahead of him. “Garage.”
It could have been Soda who handled this, maybe—but the argument Soda and Darry had had was a vicious one, and Darry had said some pretty cruel shit.
Usually Dally was the one saying the real vicious shit. So he had a pretty good idea of how guilty Darry was feelin right about now.
Darry didn’t say anything—or even look at Dally—as he pulled the sawhorse into position. And then neither of them said anything for a moment, the silence strange and heavy.
Dally realized that for the moment, he was in charge. It was a discordant thought here, where usually he was the one preparing himself to get his own ass beat, Darry usually the one impatiently waiting for him.
“Over,” Dally said hoarsely, pointing to the sawhorse.
Darry walked past him and squeezed Dally’s shoulder as he did, the gesture a reassuring hint of his usual self. Then Darry shoved his jeans and briefs out of the way and bent over the sawhorse, waiting.
Dally pulled his own belt off and doubled it over in his hands.
“Get on with it,” Darry said roughly, but he did not shift his position or even turn his head to look at Dally. “Please.”
Dally took a sharp breath in and brought the belt down on Darry’s backside, wincing more than Darry did when he saw the fiery red stripe it left behind.
Darry grunted slightly, but did not move, and Dally knew he had to get on with things now.
He brought the belt down a few more times, covering more ground and leaving more red stripes he didn’t want to look at. He’d swatted Pony a couple of times—and even spanked Johnny once—but it was nothing like this.
He kept swatting Darry with it, again and again, until he’d covered Darry’s backside with sharp licks of the belt.
Darry Curtis was bout as tuff as they came. He’d held a family together for years, and kept them all alive—and hell, he’d kept Dallas Winston out of jail, which was a miracle by all accounts. But a whipping was a whipping, and Dally wasn’t going easy on him.
He knew he couldn’t, knew Darry wasn’t gonna let go of the sharp, pointed guilt eating at him if someone didn’t help him do it.
So Dally kept right on whipping the belt down, realizing with a jolt that he had to do that god-awful shit Darry was always doing to them when he punished them. A fucking lecture.
“Why are we here, Dar?” he asked quietly. And maybe it wasn’t stern enough, not really, but hell, Dally was out of his depth here.
“Because I—” Darry choked out the words. “Because I hurt Soda.”
Horror uncurled at the pit of Dally’s stomach as he realized that although Darry had been quiet except for a few pained grunts, he was already crying. Shit. Fucking shit. Had he been belting him too hard?
A flash of panic caught at Dally’s throat, memories of his old man hitting him, and he paused for a second.
“Yea, you did,” he managed, still quiet, though his voice was a bit unsteady now. He managed to give Darry another lick with the belt, though not nearly so hard as before. “You wanna tell me what else you did?”
Darry took in a deep breath. “Cause I cussed Soda out and then got myself drunk,” he said sharply, more judgment in his voice than he ever had when talking to any of them. “Cause I got a responsibility to y’all, and I neglected it.”
Dally paused, his hand clenched so hard around the belt that his knuckles had turned white. “Dar,” he said. “You know we all forgive you, right?”
Fuck, if this Curtis family hadn’t turned Dally soft.
Forgive—that ain’t a thing where Dallas Winston was from.
But it was true here, in the quiet of the Curtis’ garage. So Dally said it anyway, strange as it felt.
Darry turned his head to look at Dally now, the expression in his eyes soft. “It’s okay, little buddy,” he said. “You don’t gotta go easy on me. You can give me a lickin’. I earned this.”
And then he turned back around, which was just as well, because Dally’s eyes had gone all blurry.
But he brought the belt down hard, anyway, and then again and again. He kept on whipping until he heard a low sound from Darry’s throat, something like a sob, and then he stepped close and put a hand on Darry’s back and brought the belt down across the top of Darry’s thighs, real hard.
Harder than he wanted to.
It was like watching Johnny or Pony be sad or hurt when he couldn’t stop it. It just about cracked his heart in half to do it.
“It’s okay,” Dally said quietly, trying to make his voice real soft like Darry’s always was when he was comforting them. “You don’t have to carry us all the time. We got you, too, man.”
At that, Darry went almost limp over the sawhorse. He wasn’t sobbing—not the way Ponyboy did with all his theatrics, or even the way Dally himself did with sharp, gulping sobs—but he was crying hard all the same.
“I miss them,” Darry said, his voice muffled, but the words still painful. “I miss them.”
Dally pulled Darry roughly up and wrapped his arms around him, his grip crushing. Because the hell could he say to that? Mr. and Mrs. C had been good people. They’d raised good people.
And Darry had deserved to have them around to raise him a little longer.
When Darry had pulled up his pants and dried his eyes, Dally replaced his own belt and looked back at Darry, a bit awkwardly.
Darry’s eyes were red, but he looked settled, calmer than he had. “C’mere,” he said, and pulled Dally into a hug that enclosed him completely, Darry’s strong arms holding him tightly.
“I’m s’posed to be comforting you,” Dally said.
Darry chuckled and pressed a rough kiss to the side of Dally’s head. “You are,” he said.
If it was anybody else—and he meant anybody—Dally would have pulled out his switchblade and gone after them for that.
But it was Darry. And it felt good to be held.
He hugged Darry back, hard. “You don’t gotta be tuff all on your own,” he said.
Darry didn’t say anything, just tightened his arms around Dally. “Alright, honey,” he said. “I gotta go talk to Soda. You take care of the others for me while I do that?”
Dally nodded, squaring his shoulders. He could do this for Dally. Keep those damn kids out of trouble for a change. If he still had his heater they could shoot bottles in the empty lot out back of the theater, but as it was—now that Dally was on the straight and narrow and all that—maybe he’d just go to the movies with the boys instead.
“They all went to Dairy Queen,” Dally said. “Want me to go send Soda home?”
“They’ll be back by now,” Darry said. “Soda didn’t wanna be gone long. He was gonna be stressin’ the whole time.”
Dally shot a glance at him as he followed Darry back to the house.
Sure enough, Pony and Johnny were sitting on the porch swing, though Steve and Two-Bit were nowhere to be seen.
“The other two went off to get some dinner for us,” Johnny told Dally in answer to his questioning look. “Soda’s inside.”
Darry went in, squeezing Ponyboy’s shoulder as he did, and the other two looked back at Dally.
“Did you actually get ice cream?” Dally asked them.
Pony stood up purposefully and walked to Dally, and then wrapped his arms around him and held tightly. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re all okay.”
Dally resisted the urge to shove the kid off the porch for the unexpected physical contact, and instead wrapped his arms around him and squeezed, briefly, before he stepped away. “Yea,” he said, clearing his throat. “Yea, we’re good. Come on. We can go down to the corner store and buy candy.”
“Darry wouldn’t want me to,” Ponyboy said, a small pout appearing on his face. “Not right before dinner.”
“Well I say you can,” Dally decided, chancing a grin at him. “Come on. Just this once.”
The two younger boys started off the road, but Dally hesitated, glancing back into the house. He wasn’t gonna eavesdrop or nothin’, but he waited long enough to hear Soda say—
“I miss them too, you know.”
And then Darry opened his arms.
Dally let out a long breath and then lit a cigarette as he followed Johnny and Pony down the street towards the corner store. Family, huh? he thought, and blew out a breath of smoke.