Archive of Our Own

Gone With The Wind.

The book rested on the coffee table, which was covered in far too many stains, making the original colour a mystery. Its paperback was uncomfortably close to a water spill that no one had bothered to clean up. It felt light in his hands, like one simple motion of his calloused hands could send it flying across the room. His finger tapped against the spine thoughtfully as he was reminded of a time he did just that, but not to a book.

But his own baby brother.

Darry took a deep breath and turned on his heels to go into his brother's shared room.

It was messy, like it usually was. Random socks discarded on the floor, the bed unmade and the blinds were still closed for God’s sake! Darry immediately busied himself by cleaning around the room, ignoring the fact that he had just popped in to drop off Pony’s book. He also disregarded the nagging voice in his head telling him he could just leave it for them to do themselves.

Right, as if they’d ever do that.

After a couple minutes of his spur-of-the moment cleaning, he found a thick stack of papers poorly bound together under supposed homework, filled with senseless scribbles.

The Outsiders.

The man inspected it carefully, mindful of how any wrong move could risk it all falling apart. It was a story of some sort, written by Ponyboy; he knew that much from the cover alone. Then he opened the first page, and despite the guilt in his chest about how it felt like an invasion of privacy, he began reading. He always had wanted to get closer to Pony, and he thought that it just might be the way.

It was written from Ponyboy’s view, which made it feel all that more personal, until Darry noticed he was writing about himself and a real story.

His story.

Darry felt his heart skip a beat once he got introduced into the story, feeling bashful; at least he did, until he read on, and saw how he had been described.

“Always rough with me..”

“Darry isn’t ever sorry for anything he does..”

“But you just don’t say that to Darry..”

“He just hollered at me..”

“Darry thought I was just another mouth to feed and somebody to holler at. Darry love me?”

“I didn't hardly think of him as being human. I don't care about Darry.”

He snapped the book shut, eyes darting around the room wildly as if he was a wild animal who’d been caught in a trap, as his brain tried to piece together what was happening.

Sure, they’ve had their squabbles here and there recently, but they’ve gotten better now, haven’t they? ..Did they?

Darry bit his lip as he remembered how Soda bolted out of the house, and got them all to make up, but maybe Ponyboy hadn’t really meant what he said that night?

Glory, Ponyboy hates him.

Being as careful as he was earlier, despite the edges of the world being blurry, he put the story right back where he had found it. He even took the extra measure of putting the random papers back on top, which had been hiding it.

Ponyboy didn’t need to know that he knew. He didn’t have to know that his oldest brother now knows the extent of his feelings. Why should he? He probably wouldn’t care, anyway.

Darry’s head felt fuzzy as he cooked dinner that night, his mind addled by Ponyboy’s story.

He knew he was overreacting, maybe just a little. The story takes place when they might’ve been at their worst, when every conversation with each other ended snippy. Pony had felt like that then, but did he still?

Questions haunted his mind, and before he knew it, it was Friday. Two-Bit had somehow won a bet that ended with him scoring a free bowling game, and invited all of them over to play. Darry had declined even when he truly wanted to go, but now he had a reason to decline.

He needed to read more.

Morbid curiosity crept near the back of his mind until he finally made a plan to read it once the house was mostly vacant. He almost felt like he was a kid again, sneaking around and peeking at stuff he wasn’t supposed to.

His heart raced as he burst into their room, it being considerably messier than how he had left it a couple days ago; but nothing was stopping him from reaching the book, not this time. Darry lifted a separate stack of assignments to try to uncover it like last time, but it wasn’t there. Or anywhere on the desk, for that matter.

He felt pathetic reaching under the bed, tickled by the soft webs - ones which made him flinch at the possibility of spiders lurking around. He couldn’t find it in him to be mad that they never even cleaned under there, his mind still on the damn book he was searching for.

If he had thought their room looked bad then, after his rampant search it appeared as if a tornado had run right through the room.

But the book was in hand, having found it hidden under a pillow.

That should’ve been enough of a warning that he shouldn’t be reading it. He could recall plenty of things he’d put under his pillow so they wouldn't be found. His secrets ranged from a stolen shirt from his dad to an empty bottle of vodka he’d polished off by himself.

The pages flipped through his calloused fingers as he went back to the page he had left off; continuing reading the moment his eyes focused on the words.

An unsettling feeling settled in his gut as he read about his two deceased friends, a story he had never heard the full version of. Yet here it was, written in full detail right under his nose.

It was odd in a way, seeing how the world worked in Pony’s head. It was all real simple to him, even though his life was anything but. Innocence might’ve been a good word to describe it, until Cherry appeared in Pony’s writing.

Darry wanted to skip past it, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to handle it.

“I bet he wishes he could stick me in a home somewhere, and he'd do it, too, if Soda'd let him.”

And he was right.

Goosebumps rose on his arms as he read the same sentence over and over. Darry wished to stick Pony in a group home somewhere. He’d do it if it weren't for Sodapop. Darry wanted to send him away, and he’d do it, too.

He’d do it.

He’d stick him in a home.

Darry slammed the book, shoving it back under some pillow. He was no longer worried about returning it to its original hiding place.

It was as if Ponyboy had cut into Darry’s organs and had a grip on his stomach himself, squeezing slowly with a grin as Darry tried to gather his thoughts. It became unbearable, and Darry clutched the toilet seat as he coughed up the last of his sickness.

The toilet was filthy, and he definitely shouldn’t have been touching it at all. But it was the seat or ripping his own hair out, and he wasn’t planning to go bald at the ripe age of twenty.

Was working on roofs all day to put clothes on their backs and food in their bodies, something he thought Darry only did because ‘he had to?’

Not because he wanted to keep his brothers fed and safe?

Not because he loved and cared for them?

Not because he needed them?

The small bathroom he was in suddenly felt much, much more cramped as his breaths came out in shallow gasps. If his brain could’ve held a thought for longer than a mere second, he’d think he was dying.

Darry curled up, resting his head backwards on the cool wall of the bathroom as he waited for the wave of panic and nausea to pass.

Even if he knew they wouldn’t.

The window screen creaked ever so slightly, alerting Darry someone was right behind him.

He knew it was Ponyboy.

But his red eyes and wet cheeks weren’t something he wanted to show, so he remained still on the steps. What a pathetic sight he was.

It was late, or early in the morning, depending on how you looked at it, and there was only one reason his baby brother would have woken up at this hour. A nightmare. Why he hadn’t just hugged Sodapop for comfort puzzled Darry. Did Ponyboy look for him?

Ponyboy sat down next to Darry on the cold steps, rubbing his bare arms as he stared at the sky, stars shining brightly through the dead of night. He had something to ask, something that had been picking at him throughout the past day, but instead he paid attention to the cigarette in Darry’s mouth.

Darry almost cursed himself as he snuffed out the cigarette on the ground. Ponyboy had written about how he never smoked for pride of his athletic health - but he had simply never seen him do it. Whoever or whatever put that idea in his head wasn’t really wrong, but sometimes he just couldn’t help but rely on it to ease his nerves. Whether it actually worked or was simply a placebo effect didn’t matter to Darry as long as it helped.

At this moment, it didn’t.

It wasn’t like Darry to start a conversation, and it wasn’t his baby brother’s instinct, either. Only Sodapop had that title, being the one to start almost every game and conversation in the house.

Both brothers had often wished for his gift.

But then Ponyboy did something he didn’t expect.

He spoke up.

“Did you read my theme?”

Time slowed down in Darry’s eyes, and he moved his head ever so slightly to take in his brother’s worried look. So he’d been found out, he knew it was bound to happen. Yet he still felt like a little kid that’d been caught stealing a fresh cookie off a hot tray.

Not trusting himself to form words, the man nodded. A shadow of a frown appeared on Pony’s face for a second before his mouth opened again.

“Well, how much did you read?”

He swallowed down any pride he had felt. “You just left the movies with those two girls. Car passed by.”

Ponyboy frowned visibly this time, an eyebrow quirked up as cogs turned in his head. “I finished it yesterday, made some edits too.” Edits because Darry read it. He didn’t have to say it, and it lingered in the air as Darry tried to make sense of what he was trying to say.

“Please finish it Darry. I’m sorry.”

A thin arm wrapped around his, providing warmth he hadn’t realised he’d been missing that entire week. He let himself lean into it, an unconscious sigh leaving his lips as he wordlessly agreed with yet another nod.

They stayed out on the steps for a couple more minutes before heading back to bed, the whole exchange wordless. The thick tension that Darry had been feeling around his brother seemed to lighten, and when he came back from the bathroom, the bedside lamp was on.

And “The Outsiders” laid right beside it.

Darry didn’t sleep that night, no matter how much he knew he’d be sore and tired at work that following morning.

It was hard at times, having to read what happened to his brother so explicitly, but it wasn’t close to anything like going through it first hand; so he powered through.

Sunshine peeked in from his blinds, leaving warm kisses on his face as he read the final chapter.

His cheeks must’ve been wet, he had been blinking away any tears that dared showing up as he read. He had no time to wipe them away, Pony’s request being of most importance.

Then there it was, the night with Sodapop. (Which followed the hearing, which was a drastically different point of view than his own, it didn’t even fill up a full page when Darry’s worries could’ve easily filled fifty.)

They listened to Sodapop, and it was as if their situation finally clicked in their heads.

Ponyboy acknowledged Darry,
And it was like he could breathe again.

It was like light at the end of the tunnel, air in a vacuumed space, water in a desert, brothers when at the lowest.

Ponyboy was standing expectedly at Darry’s door frame, and once he dropped the book down, he bolted into his arms.

They squeezed each other as if they might disappear at any moment, and even though Darry had wanted to apologise, or ask questions about the theme, or just say he was proud of his baby brother for writing a whole damn book, he did none of that.

Because it didn’t need words. Ponyboy knew already.

So they pulled apart, and smiled at each other.

They’d be alright.