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He was outside, at the station, looking at the stars, waiting for his best friend. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him lately.
He couldn’t stand himself. He simply couldn’t.
Sodapop knows it’s wrong, and he’s tried, he’s tried to stop, by every means possible. It’s not natural.
But every time that Soda gazes into his, piercingly blue, eyes, his heart is just not his, it has no consciousness. Every time Steve grins, he swears that his eyes have a mind of their own, and that’s why he looks at his lips (hoping for a kiss).
He finds Steve’s muscles just as attractive as any girl’s curves. His rough chuckle, as pleasant to hear as Sandy’s small giggle (perhaps more).
Steve has been there through thick and thin , his oldest friend. Who was there when his parents died, when he dropped out, when Sandy left.
He could never risk losing him, no matter how much it aches when Steve talks about his latest hook-up or when girls at the DX stare at the blue-eyed boy longingly.
This dirty feeling, residing like the sticky sensation of tar even after washing it out several times.
He was rubbing his chest, to calm himself, hoping to get rid of his abnormality, to get rid of the stickiness. Fat, ugly tears were now running down his cheeks, his lips quivering, his throat threatening to break into a sob.
A finger tapped on his shoulder, and there he was. Soda quickly brushed his tears out his cheeks, if it wasn’t dark out, his tear-stained face would’ve been apparent.
“How you doin’ Pepsi,” Steve Randle smiles, his tooth gap quite obvious. That smile, it really took the breath out of his lungs, the thumping out of his heart.
“Just dandy.”
“ Just dandy? What’s got you down, Soda,” he says teasingly as he places his hand on the Curtis’ shoulder.
He flinches at the sudden touch, pushing his hand away, “It’s nothin’, Randle. Quit buggin’ me.”
“Huh, ok, I’ll quit buggin’ you” Steve starts to get up, a surge of guilt enters Soda, he never meant to push him away. He grabs Steve’s hand, then realizes how much of a pansy he must’ve looked like, so immediately he lets it go.
“Wait, I… I didn’t mean it. I have been down lately.”
The tooth-gapped boy sat back down, next to Soda, a bit closer than Soda would like him to be. Instantly, he began feeling hot, he really didn’t want this to be happening now.
“Is it because of Sandy? Because I already told you that she don’t deserve you, and that it’s good she left for Florida anyway.”
He appreciates that Steve really thinks that, but it just isn’t true, Sandy was right to leave, she couldn’t stay with a bum with no future, no brain, and he guessed that she might’ve found out about his love for his best friend.
But honestly, lately, he hasn’t been thinking of her.
“Not Sandy.”
The boy next to him is surprised, if it wasn’t Sandy, what could it be? And why is Soda not telling him upright?
“Y’know you can trust me with anything, right, Pepsi?” Steve leans in closer, so Soda gets the message that he’ll always be right there (get it because he’s close).
“I do know, and I’m really sorry.”
“What’re you sorry for?” Steve couldn’t even finish his sentence before the boy next to him ran away. He stayed there, dumb-founded.
Soda had to go, they were leaning in too close, and Soda thought about closing that tiny gap they had. So he ran, now he’s heading home, hopefully, Steve wouldn’t follow him this time.
He opened the front door, Darry was in the kitchen, sweeping. “Back so soon?”
“Yeah, y’know, got work in the morning, and whatnot,” Soda briefly informed as he was rushing up the stairs. He knocks on Pony’s door, letting him know that he’s going to take a shower.
Pony’s been weird lately, always has his door closed, and at school, he’s been hanging out with the youngest of the Shepard’s. Curly was a bad influence, him and Darry had told Ponyboy a thousand times, but no matter how many times they told him, Pony’s always around him.
Pony slightly opens his door, he looks flustered, “Yeah, I wasn’t… planning to shower anytime soon, so yeah.”
As soon as he finishes his sentence, Pony slams the door, a boy chuckles, his brother whispers ‘Shut up’, Soda will ask about that later. For now, maybe scrubbing his skin in the bath will get rid of this stupid sticky tar.
How he feels for Steve will affect everything, it’s already affecting normal conversations with him, he can’t even say one sentence without acting like a wimp.
His best friend can’t even touch his shoulder without him shuddering, if a simple touch like that causes that now, imagine what would happen if he stayed there longer.
He didn’t realize he was scrubbing so long and so roughly, too, his skin was red and, some of it, peeling. He gets a towel, places it below his torso. Then, he walks to his room.
He walked into his room, his clothes were here, he was going to change. But on his bed, there he was, his blue-eyed best friend he was in love with.
Soda stands there shocked, and slightly pink since he had no shirt covering his torso. “I saw Pony and that Shepard boy walkin’ out the door, did you know that he was here?”
He stands there, no words coming out, partially because he was half-naked, also because Curly was in his brother’s room (with the door closed!), and lastly, just because of Steve Randle.
Soda got out of his trance. “Um, Curly was here? I’m definitely going to have to talk to Pony.”
“Ha, I’d like to see that. But knowing you, you’d probably pussy out and tell Darry to do it,” the boy in his bed laughs, still looking at him, his eyes, at times, drifting down to his torso. Soda was sure that he was red as a tomato right now.
“Well…what are you doing here?”
“You left me at the station, apologizing for god knows what, and you expect me not to follow you,” Steve says, staring into his eyes (his heart falters again just for a little).
“I’ll tell you, after I get changed, ok?”
“Okay, but I know when you’re lyin’, I know you better than anyone,” his eyes, concerned (and still very breathtakingly blue), his eyebrows furrowed with worry. He closes the door, allowing Soda to change in peace.
He puts on his clothes, drying his hair with his towel, it was night so he didn’t need to grease it. His heart’s beating, hard, Steve’s going to find out, he knows that one way or another he is.
His stomach aches (like he just ate a bucket of sticky, black tar).
Sodapop opens the door, lets Steve back in, nerves crawling all over him, inside and out. He sits down on a corner of a bed, Steve sits on the other.
Whenever Soda gets anxious he starts cracking his knuckles, Darry tells him that it’s a nasty habit, but he just can’t seem to help it.
“Sodapop, what’s been goin’ on.”
His tongue’s stuck to the roof of his mouth, he can’t talk. He just continues to crack each knuckle, hoping that maybe that when he’s cracked every single one, this will be done with. That he wouldn’t be in love with his best friend, that he was still with Sandy, that he was as smart as Pony so that war he’d leave Tulsa, that he wasn’t a Greaser, that his parents never died.
A strong hand grabs his own, bringing his rambling daze to an end.
Those hands, he knew the history, those callouses caused by working at the DX (his hands were truly a gift from the gods when it came to handiwork), a scar along his thumb, made when they were in grade school, they were learning how to maneuver a switchblade, obviously it didn’t work out well at first. Bruises on his knuckles from fights, sometimes not even with the Socs.
“Steve, I love you,” Soda murmured, the other’s hand in his, it seemed appropriate, but he still felt that terrible feeling, he still might lose his best friend And right now he seemed to be unreadable.
“Huh? Say what?”
He’d already said it once, so what’s one more time, he slipped his hand out of Steve’s grasp after, he was ready to get slugged, he deserved to get punched square in the face.
“Soda, y’know that you can’t, we can’t, as much as I love you too, we can’t,” Steve gulps, and he grabs Soda’s hand again, ad looks at him with those eyes, and Soda just has to lean in. As much as it’s prohibited, it’s like Randell’s a magnet, and he’s metal, he just needs to be closer.
Steve seems to be closing in too.
His own lips are chapped and so are his best friend’s, he doesn’t mind. Because at last, that sticky feeling, just for a moment is like honey, no longer dirty, it’s sweet. He grabs Steve by his jawline, deepening it.
His hands are at his waist, and his brain spins around the world for a minute. It’s just so sweet, like honey (now so unlike tar).