Chapter Text
Their service was bleak.
The church was almost empty when Darry took this stand at the head of the building, eyes scanning through the pews to note who had taken time out of their day to come.
A lot of people who said they’d come never arrived.
Darry couldn’t muster up any anger to hold against them. Not when his life got pulled out from under him, mind scrambled and confused since the cops showed at the door.
So he glanced at the closed caskets of his parents and swallowed thickly, remembering how everyone had warned him to keep it a closed casket funeral, bodies too mutilated for viewing. He nodded along wordlessly; the images of their dead bodies still burned into his retinas from the few seconds the sheet covering them was moved.
His brothers didn’t deserve to see that.
Then, he opened his mouth and said something, something, something..
The cold breeze of the afternoon wind combed right through strands of his hair, warming up the skin beneath before the last portion of the sun was covered up by clouds.
Those same clouds were dark, powerful, and bearing threats of nearing rain; but Darry didn’t find it in himself to care. Not now.
Darrel Curtis and Magdalena Curtis.
Their names were etched into the stone, and they were to forever remain. Each letter carefully carved out to be the same size. For a second Darry let his mind wander; how had they managed to do such a thing? Was there some sort of special tool for carving out the names? Maybe he could ask the company, seeing how friendly they were when he reached out to buy a tombstone with two names.
He wouldn't have been able to afford separate stones even if he had wanted to, but thankfully he knew that his parents would’ve wanted to be buried together in their demise. His father had always made it clear; almost like he made it his mission to somehow always bring up death to him whenever Darry seemed to have a good day. It confused him to end on why his father was so insistent on telling him what to do with his body for when he departs from Earth. He thought it’d be ages until he’d have to even think about that; he was proven wrong on his twentieth birthday though, and suddenly it felt like maybe his dad knew this would happen.
That somehow, he had expected that Darry would need to know all this information at his age.
How come he didn’t predict the accident too?
His brothers didn’t accompany him to the graveyard. Darry was secretly grateful when they stayed behind in the truck (that now belonged to him), thinking that he’d be able to bawl his eyes out in peace, yet he couldn’t muster up a single tear. He didn’t cry at the service nor at home - not when he needed to stay strong and together to plan the funeral - and be there for his brothers. So why was it that when he was given a chance, a God-given opportunity to cry for once, nothing happened?
Feeling frustrated, he brushed his fingers through his hair, pulling at it as he did so. He had been so prepared to start crying right then and there, but nothing dared to flow out from his eyes - why? What was happening? His mind was riddled with confusion, before his focus snapped to how tight the suit he had on felt, and somehow not the sadness of his own parents’ passing.
The cuffs were riding up above his wrists, no matter how many times he tried pulling them down. The shoulders were too narrow, and the pants left his ankles exposed. It was his dad’s suit, which he'd only seen worn in photos; he understood why now.
Despite it looking smoothly clean on the outside, the seams on the shoulders were uncomfortably pushing down on his skin, scratching, digging.
When he was little, Darry was always running around destroying his clothes one way or another, claiming it was him trying to remove tags or uncomfortable seams. At least his mom always said that. He believed her now, noting how bothered he was by clothes at that moment.
The almost silk-like feel of his shirt didn’t help shelter him from the seams and tags at all, and if anything, it contributed to the insanity by its collar starting to choke him.
Hooking his finger into the collar, he tried to pull it apart looser; but it failed to do anything. So instead, he grabbed at the knot of his tie and quickly undid it, hoping that in the end it actually was the tie that was so annoying, and not the shirt itself.
Darry gasped at the small relief, wondering why he was out of breath. However his confusion was short lived, as the grave of his parents’ started getting darker; and that’s when he started feeling the soft droplets patter down on his face.
The very rain he knew to be wary of started pouring down; hitting him in the face and making its way down his cheeks. Darry was quick to delight in the fact that they acted in place of the tears that his stubborn eyes refused to release, and if he closed his eyes and blocked out his thoughts, for a split second, he could truly believe he was crying. That he wasn’t insane and actually felt miserable for the loss of his parents.
A gust of wind then traveled through the gaps of his sleeves, the illusion was shattered. He didn’t see a point in staying any longer.
Ponyboy and Sodapop were curled up in their seats, the heater on blast as he shut the door behind him. They were both awake, their sobs filling the truck, but none of them had anything to say.
So he switched on the ignition, and drove home.
No coaxing was needed to his brothers, they made their way to their room silently without being told. There was nothing else for Darry to do, at least not for a couple hours until dinner time; so he got back into his new room, stripping out of the suit immediately.
Despite the pain it brought him, he hung it up on its hanger, instead of letting them drop to the floor and crease. After opening the wardrobe to put the suit back, something dawned on him.
He just spent the last moments of his parents’ time with him by moaning and whining about his suit.
He was suddenly spluttering and gasping, but not because of grief, but guilt.
Apologies ran through his head as he settled on the edge of their bed, the pillow in his hold still smelling like mom’s perfume. Like the moment of bliss he felt running into his mother’s arm after a game or a little scrape on his knee as a kid.
He pulled it close, buried his face in it, and then just as quickly cursed himself for being an unfeeling selfish prick; but once again, his eyes were dry.