Chapter Text
ages zero and two
Soda doesn’t know what’s happening, but he doesn’t mind getting held by Dad. There’s a lot of noise and then none and then a lot again. Darry is holding something and Soda doesn’t know what it is but then he turns to Soda and Dad, holding it, and all Soda can see is green eyes. The baby starts crying and Soda does too. Later, they laugh, saying how Soda was already protective over Pony, crying because he was crying, but Soda remembered how he felt what Pony did. He felt it then, and he was pretty sure Pony did too.
ages two and four
Soda doesn’t know how to hold his brother. He’s crying, wrapped and the sight makes Soda want to cry also, like he did in the hospital, but his mom is rubbing his back and Darry is telling him he’s doing a good job, so he makes himself be strong for them (big boys don’t cry, his dad had said, and then his mom followed it up with, you only cry when you really have to, and they laughed).
After a while, Darry takes the baby from him and Soda grabs for him back, Darry laughing. He had gotten used to having a brother, he decided. His dad picks him up, saying how he’s doing a good job helping, how he had to always be a good example. He plays with Pony later, talking to him slow and sweet. Soda already knows he’s gonna be the best brother ever, like Darry is to him.
ages four and six
Steve is an only child, so Soda doesn’t really blame him for not knowing how to play with kids, but he is really bad at it. Pony wasn’t used to both Darry and Soda being gone all day, so the second he got home, he clung to both of them. Darry found it kind of annoying because he had ‘serious homework’ to do, but Soda didn’t mind, so Pony learned to hug both of them and then follow just Soda around instead of Darry.
Even though Soda didn’t care, Steve did, but Soda tells him he just didn’t get it. If he wants to play with Soda, Pony has to also. Steve eyes the kid funny, but decides he’d rather have to share Soda than not have him at all. Besides, Pony always had fun stories when they played with their toys. Steve made out like he was annoyed, but Soda sees how much he likes hearing what Pony had to say.
ages six and eight
Pony hates school, and not for the reason Soda did. Pony is super smart. He hates it because of the other kids, which Soda didn’t understand. The best part of school for him was talking to other students. He could understand people’s feelings, not words on a page. He knew if mom was tired from the way she smiled, pinched but caring, could tell if Steve had a bad day from the way he talked quieter and meaner. Words and numbers ran around the page, and he didn’t get them like Pony or Darry did.
While Pony helps Soda with his homework, he tells him how the other kids would make fun of him and wouldn't play with him. The next day, he decided he would talk to Pony about how kids be dumb and mean sometimes, how he should just ignore them, and he told mom and dad to talk to Pony’s teachers about it, begging them to not tell Pony he was the one to do it. That night, though, he just lets Pony read to him, cracking little jokes in between sentences, tickling Pony to make him laugh. Pony’s giggles were high pitched and carefree, and Soda didn’t understand how anyone could be mean to his little brother.
ages eight and ten
Dally and Johnny are over to play (or ‘hang out’, as Dally insisted for them all to call it), and Pony is more full of energy than normal. Johnny seems a little scared, but still happy to play, and Dally frowns and crosses his arms.
“Do you wanna come draw with me?” Soda asks. Dally stares at him like he just insulted his whole family line.
“No.” He says. Soda knew Dally was kinda like that, but it was still rude.
“Dallas, go color with him,” Soda’s mom ruffles Dally’s hair, and Soda was scared for a second Dally would do something bad.
Instead, he smiled a little and then frowned again.
“Whatever,” he said, sitting down on the floor, and while he had his back turned, Mrs. Curtis whispers, “Be nice, honey,” winked, and walks away. If anyone needs to be nice, Soda thinks to himself, it's Dally, but he’s telling Soda to hurry up and join him so Soda just sits down and starts drawing. He draws his whole family. Dally starts drawing horses, and when Soda asks about it, he doesn’t answer. Soda flips his paper over and starts drawing horses too. He loves drawing animals, even though he isn’t that good.
Soda notices that Dally stopped drawing and looks up at him, and sees Dally is looking at Johnny and Pony playing together with so much admiration he wonders if Dally is joking, but when Dally glances back down at his paper and sees Soda looking at him, he turns red and says, “Shut up,” and Soda just smiles. Even if Dally was tough on the outside, he was more than just mean.
“Didn’t say anything,” Soda hums, and goes back to coloring his horses, white and black and orange, flowing and short manes. He gives them to Pony once he’s done, and Pony hugs him so tight he swears he can’t breath, Dally and Johnny giggling in the background.
ages ten and twelve
Soda had always loved animals, but Mickey Mouse is different. Soda finds some of his old drawings of horses and laughs. They looked more like deformed dogs than horses, but he shows Pony and Darry and his parents and his mom jokingly hangs it up on the fridge. Pony comes with him to visit the horse, stroking it carefully. Soda had warned him not to get too close for too long, that Mickey could be mean. Soda loves brushing through Mickey Mouse’s mane with his fingers, feeling the strands. Pony loves that horse almost as much as he did.
They both cry when Mickey Mouse was sold. Soda lets Pony believe that he could buy the horse back for a few days, but he knows the truth. He hates how giving Pony false hope. He thinks about how unfair it is, that the rich kids could get anything they wanted, and the one thing Soda wants desperately he can’t have. Darry hugs him hard and long, telling him he’s sorry, and Soda lets him. Darry hugs Pony too, rubbing his hair gently.
He might not have the horse, but he had his brothers. Not everyone could have a family as good as his, he thought, somewhat sullenly. At least he had them.
ages twelve and fourteen
Pony starts smoking too much. Soda notices, because of course he does. He thinks it might be because of middle school, maybe kids around him smoke a lot. Soda certainly has been influenced by his peers (he thinks of pretty girls climbing over him, nervous glances, uncomfortable kisses, bitter cigarettes, smoke sticking to his teeth for days, and hopes Pony doesn’t have to deal with anything like that). He and Darry fight sometimes now, which is out of the ordinary. He doesn’t understand why. Their parents try to regulate it, but they don’t know why it’s happening either.
Darry is spending more time with the football team and less time with them, which, good for him, he’s graduating soon and all that. Pony and Johnny spend a lot of time together, which Soda is glad they both have each other, but Soda knows Pony doesn’t idolize him the way he did when he was younger, which is probably good. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt though, kind of like the way you press on an old bruise.
He tells Pony and Darry separately to be nicer to each other for their own sakes, and they both say they will. He hopes they aren’t lying.
ages fourteen and sixteen
Soda doesn’t know how to hold his brother. He’s crying. Soda wraps his arms around him, whispering in his ear that he’s going to be okay, that everything will be fine. He knows that it won’t be, that things will never be the same, but Pony doesn’t need to hear that. Darry is in his own room, God knows he needs to sleep, and Soda can handle it. He didn’t know much, but he had always known his brothers.
Pony seems so small in his arms. He really is just fourteen. Soda tucks Pony’s head into his chest, holding him firmly. Pony eventually tires himself enough that he falls into a fitful sleep. Soda thinks that he needs to talk to mom and dad about this, and then he remembers. He stifles a cry into Pony’s neck. He always misses them, but tonight it hurt the way it did eight months ago.
“I love you Soda,” Pony mutters.
“I love you too, honey,” Soda said.
He still doesn’t know how to hold Pony, but neither of them complain when they fall back asleep together, clutching each other tight enough to leave marks.