Chapter Text
Walking alongside the tracks, hunching his shoulders against the bite of December air while he waited for a wayward train, the irony of the situation was not lost on Ponyboy that his life was ending in the same way it had the first time: He failed to complete an errand.
The Curtis brothers were rapidly approaching the one-year anniversary of the day they lost their parents to a car accident– an accident which Ponyboy knew shouldn’t have happened, if only he had remembered to get the frosting. The first errand, the first mistake, and it stole his parents, and then months later the snowball of his misfortune kept rolling, and rolling, until it was so monstrous it swallowed Dallas and Johnny, too.
But then, after three months, he thought it had melted. Or met a wall, or broken up, or at least left him alone to enjoy whatever he had left, his brothers, Two-Bit and Steve. They had even found the heart to decorate for Christmas, taking out all the crumpled boxes in the back of the closet and stringing some lights, dealing with Two-Bit’s obnoxious discovery of the sprig of mistletoe hidden beneath the ornaments. Ponyboy was smiling, and Darry was smiling, and Soda was beaming, more excited than anyone else, and then Ponyboy ruined it by being himself. The second, life-ruining errand.
An envelope full of money, and instructions from Darry to take it straight to the bank after school. Darry had worked up the nerve to ask his boss for a cash advance of his January paychecks in order to pay December’s rent and the gas bill that had soared with the cold front Tulsa was stuck in. Darry was content to let the house be an icebox for a week or two in order to save a few dollars, but when Soda started sneezing he jumped for the thermostat. Ponyboy thought Darry must have sat at the table and weighed out what would cost more, splurging on warm air or taking Soda to the doctor, and he knew firsthand how much the latter would amount to. Then he took the risk by asking, and his boss had the envelope ready for him by the end of the week.
All Ponyboy had to do was get the cash to the bank so Darry could send out a check, and then they would be okay. Darry would pick up more shifts at his oddly secret second job, and they might even be able to get ahead of the bills for once.
It was simple.
It was doomed from the start.
Ponyboy went to school with the cash. He left the school with the cash. He was on his way to the bank, and he was walking briskly because he had forgotten his jacket even though Darry had yelled at him to put on the jacket as he ran out the door. He paused only three times: once to watch a gaggle of kids make snow angels, once to shake his hair free of the snow a gust of wind had convinced a tree to drop on him, and once to catch a poster for the film the movie house was featuring that week. It’s A Wonderful Life, a re-release from 1946. Ponyboy kept walking; he hadn’t heard of it.
He was almost there, and because he was almost there and the walk had left him shivering and he could only focus on getting his feet to move faster, he didn’t hear the different set of quickened steps behind him, the disruptions of the slushy path, nor did he hear the words spat at his back, meant for him, lost on him.
He was almost to the bank when he got pulled into the alleyway, off guard and sluggish, and his reactionary punch was smacked away as if he were nothing larger than a fly. Then a meaty fist drove into his stomach and doubled him over before he could see his attacker’s face. But he heard him, now, heard his muttered, garbled words as the blows began to hail down on him, and he smelled the sharp, earthy lingerings of barrelled whisky on the man’s breath as he snapped in his ear,
“Lot of nerve, showing your face–”
“Coming round here, like you deserve–”
“All the same, but you’re the worst–”
“You killer, you fucking little–”
“This is for my son.”
It clicked, eventually, that Robert Sheldon was beating him to a pulp, and that Robert Sheldon was probably having a very rotten Christmas. There was a part of him that considered he should do more to get away before something permanent happened, and then there was a part of him that was suddenly very raw and aching, and it told him he should let that horrid man use his fists until they both felt better. He curled into himself, and the sloppy beating continued.
At last it ended, and Ponyboy heard sniffling and choking from the man standing over his trembling body. Mr. Sheldon let out a sound, a half-gasp, half-growl, and tore something out of Ponyboy’s pocket.
“Who’d you rob to get all this cash, you piece of shit?”
Ponyboy’s eyes snapped open, and he scrambled to his feet even though his skin felt flayed open by ice and gravel, his bones cracked by all the abuse. His arms had protected his head and face, but his forearms were not meant to be shields, and already they were swollen with a damning shade of purple. Still, he raised a hand to the man before him.
“Give it back,” Ponyboy coughed out, and thinking of his mother’s teachings meekly added, “please.”
Robert Sheldon sneered down at him, a five o’clock shadow smudging his large face like chimney ash. He wore a long, black wool coat, and a red scarf which hung off one shoulder in a dragging train that ended in a slush pile by his sleek winter boots. Ponyboy glanced at his feet and saw two leather gloves discarded and partially submerged in opposing snowbanks. Mr. Sheldon was a rich, rich man who could buy another scarf and another pair of gloves and it would all mean nothing to him. He didn’t know what it was like to pin the well-being of his whole family on the delivery of one envelope filled with cash. He probably spent that much in one day.
Ponyboy couldn’t let him have it. He stretched his hand further.
“Sir,” He tried again, and his voice came out thin, “it’s all we have.”
Mr. Sheldon swayed on his feet. He was a spoiled, proud man. But he was a spoiled, proud man that followed the law, and Ponyboy thought this would be enough to keep him from robbing him.
He forgot he was a spoiled, proud drunk man, and that the law doesn’t feel as rigid to people when whiskey filled their heads more than their good sense did.
Instead of the envelope, he got another slam into his stomach and the parting words, “Stay out of my city.” If he hadn’t been busy gasping for air, he would have run after Robert Sheldon and gotten the money even if it turned into an all-out brawl that drew a crowd, the police, because it was Darry’s paychecks for the next four weeks and it was a lot of money and Darry had told him, had trusted him, and–
The sun was setting behind a sea of clouds, turning a grey day into a blind night. He had no other choice but to go home.
Ponyboy was freezing without a coat. His eyes caught on those nice, warm leather gloves. They were big on his smaller hands, but they reeked of luxury, and he was tired, and hurting, and withering away with guilt over the envelope and he made it home in a thoughtless flight across the city. He didn’t have the cash, or the bank receipt proclaiming he had deposited the cash, but his hands were warm. At least his hands were warm.
He was planning ways to make the money back as he forced his body up the porch steps. He would sell the gloves, and sell some old clothes, sell whatever junk was in his desk– sell the lamp on his desk– sell the damn desk– anything to fix his mess. Ponyboy was so focused on what he had to do next that he forgot about the now. The immediate fall-out. The looking-his-brothers-in-the-eye-and-telling-them-what-happened part.
Pushing through the door, a pair of dark brown eyes swarmed his vision before he could even get a foot into the house. Soda jerked the door the rest of the way open, slapping a hand onto Pony’s shoulder and pulling him inside.
“Ponyboy, where the hell you been? I was just about to go out looking for you– and look at you, you’re a mess, covered in slush– you take a spill somewhere?” Soda swiped some debris from his shoulders and down the front of his shirt, and it took everything in Ponyboy to not flinch in pain. He drew his hands behind his back while Soda’s focus was elsewhere, self-conscious of his gnarly forearms and the leather gloves he still had on.
Soda pressed too hard on a pass at his ribs, and Ponyboy flinched into the door, pushing it all the way closed. The handle slid into place with a damning click. Soda put his hands out, his brows knitting upward as those warm eyes turned scrutinizing.
“Pony, what’s wrong?” Soda asked, fingers reaching for his shoulder again like they were magnetized to be there.
He couldn’t get his tongue to work all of the sudden. Ponyboy tried to open his mouth and explain himself, even a little bit, but the words weren’t coming out. It was shame, he realized, a great shame for having lost the money, and for letting himself get beat up by a drunk man when he was a fighter good enough to hold his own in worse circumstances.
A choked sound popped out of his throat, but nothing to justify his state, or his lateness, or his lack of confirmation that he had done what Darry asked of him.
Darry wandered out of the kitchen, working his fingers over with a dish towel. His head was already turned, an easy smile on his face, so at ease in their home, and a knife twisted in Pony’s gut.
“Hey, kiddo– you took a while getting home, everything alright?” Darry asked as he gave him an up-down, no doubt taking in his ruined jeans and soggy shirt. “You fall?”
“I–” Ponyboy got out, his eyes darting to Soda, “Darry, I–”
His jaw moved, pulled on a fraying string, and it snapped shut with a clack of his teeth. On the inside, he began to panic. Talk, dammit, tell them what happened!
Darry flipped the towel over his shoulder, and he was closing in on Pony right next to Soda. He felt crowded, like an animal in a cage, his spine straightened against the door. He still felt cold, but that didn’t stop his body from sweating.
“Ponyboy, you sick?” Darry’s face mirrored Soda’s, unmasked concern, and he reached out his palm like Soda had done. But that hand wouldn’t be so kind once Darry found out what Ponyboy had let happen, and he screwed his eyes shut and shrank into himself.
“Darry, I’m sorry!” He squeaked out. “I messed up!”
Darry shifted back, and Soda rubbed at his shoulder but comfort couldn’t pierce the thickening skin of his distress. Ponyboy felt dizzy, like the air was thin, like he was going to fall and pass through the floorboards as he went down.
“Ponyboy, what happened?” Darry’s voice was carefully neutral, and when Pony risked looking at him again, he saw his face matched his tone. Blank. Contained. “Is this… is this about the money?”
His mouth was dry, and it might as well have been stitched shut for all the good it was doing him. Ponyboy nodded, a twitch of his chin which sent his too-long hair over his face. Bleach blond curtained around his vision, and his breath hitched.
“C’mon, talk to us,” Soda encouraged him. He pushed Pony’s hair behind his ears, and he must have seen some of the awfulness Ponyboy was feeling because he stepped away, giving him more space.
“The money, Ponyboy,” Darry repeated, and a sharpness laced into his tone. “Did something happen to the money?” Concern withered in favor of panic; Ponyboy knew well what he could expect after panic became disbelief, rage, violence.
What’s done is done, Ponyboy thought, and in a flash he thought of everything lost that was never coming back. This money, his friends, his parents.
Ponyboy pulled his hands out from behind him, but he kept them down at his sides. The movement drew Darry’s attention, and his eyes narrowed onto the gloves. A second later, his right hand was latched around Pony’s wrist, dragging the leather glove into the light.
“What’s this?” Darry huffed, giving the same treatment to his other hand.
“How’d you get those bruises, Pony?” Soda gasped, but Darry was only looking at the gloves now, and he yanked them both off his hands.
“Where’d you get these gloves?” Darry asked, turning them this way and that in the dim room. “Did you get the money to the bank?”
Here we go.
“No,” Ponyboy forced out. “No, Darry, I didn’t. I–”
“You didn’t? You still have it?” Darry loomed over him, ice-blue eyes flashing, and he looked like he knew the answer but still had the hope he could be wrong. That Ponyboy would prove him wrong.
“Darry, give him the space to tell us–” Soda started, but Darry cut him off with a grunt.
“He don’t need space, he needs to answer the question. Yes or no. Ponyboy, you got the money?”
Ponyboy swallowed, his gaze sinking to the floor. To his dirty sneakers. “I don’t got it.”
Darry’s mask crumbled.
“The hell does that mean?” Darry yelled, and he began to pace, clawing through his hair. Even Soda looked tormented by the news, his face losing color, but he stood by Pony, poking gently at his damaged arms.
Ponyboy winced when Soda’s finger grazed over a scab where he though Mr. Sheldon’s boot must have collected some gravel before it collided with him. The pain helped him find his voice. “It means I don’t have it, Darry.”
“Someone jump you, Pone?” Soda asked gently, giving Ponyboy the opportunity to be comforted instead of confronted. Darry paused in his pacing; a scoff pushed out of his lips.
Tell them why, Ponyboy’s voice of reason scolded him. But he held off, biting down on the shameful truth and his confusing acceptance of what had occurred.
Besides, Darry’s anger stirred the fires of his old resentments. This was a fight he was better equipped to throw himself into.
So he didn’t answer with words. He shrugged. The shrug had the same effect as a molotov cocktail as Darry received it.
“Glory high, I trust you with one job, one little thing–” Darry pinched the bridge of his nose, his forehead shriveling with stress wrinkles as he kept up a stream of mutters.
“Pony,” Soda tried, reaching for his bare hand now that the gloves had been dropped onto the floor. Ponyboy turned his head away. “Pony, c’mon.”
“And fuck– if it’s not your memory, it’s your sheer disrespect, it’s like responsibility doesn’t exist for you–”
“Darry don’t mean all’at, if you could just tell us what happened? Hm?” Soda gave his hand a shake, and it rattled up his arm, into his collarbone, sending his heart thumping inside his chest. Every inch of his body that had been struck by Mr. Sheldon’s hateful blows throbbed, and his bitter words rang in his ears as the volume of the room increased.
“Lot of nerve, showing your face–”
“I can’t, Soda,” Ponyboy whispered.
Darry kept on, “You better not have bought those gloves with my money– are you even listening right now?”
“Coming round here, like you deserve–”
“See, you don’t even listen!”
“All the same, but you’re the worst–”
“Maybe he’d listen if you stopped yelling, Dare, and if we could just sit down–”
“I thought you were better!” Darry ignored him. His hand was swinging wildly. Ponyboy didn’t think he would ever be afraid of Darry again, but here he was, three months later, paralyzed at the sight of his shaking fist.
“You killer, you fucking little–”
“Darry, stop–”
“You’re supposed to be better!” And Ponyboy heard better, and he heard supposed to be different, supposed to be able to do this, live life, not be a burden, not be traumatized, not let drunk men beat him into giving up a month of his brother’s pay. “You’re– c’mon!”
“This is for my son.”
Ponyboy cracked. It was his fault, again, it was his fault in the way it was always his fault and if only he hadn’t been here, and if only he had never been here–
“I wish I’d never been born!”
For a moment, the room was frozen. Soda’s hand stopped prodding, and Darry’s pacing came to a startling pause mid-step, hand stuck in his hair, both of their faces stilled in expressions of shock as if they had been replaced with photographs. Even Ponyboy stopped breathing once the words cleared the air.
“What?” Soda sounded strangled, and Ponyboy found himself grabbing for the handle of the door. Worse, another way to make it worse. Even speaking the truth could hurt the people he loved– what else could he do but wish to be undone?
Darry hadn’t moved a muscle, save for his eyes, which closed, pressed in tight. Almost like they were sinking back into his face. But he didn’t speak.
He knows. He’s not saying anything ‘cause he knows I’m right.
Soda was, for the first time in a long while, the one prepared to fight him.
“If I was never born, Mom and Dad would still be here–”
“No, Pony, that’s not–”
“And Darry’d be off to college, you’d still be in school–”
“Your life matters more to me than math class, you–”
“Dallas would still be alive! And… and Johnny!” Ponyboy’s voice cracked, and his hand clenched around the handle. He was making his mind up.
Soda glanced back at Darry, signaling he needed support. “If you could just slow down and stop talking like this–”
“Even Bob,” Ponyboy admitted. “Even Bob would still be here.”
“Jesus, fuck Bob, Ponyboy! And fuck this– whatever this is– calm down, and let’s talk like adults.” Soda cried, tugging at Ponyboy’s arm to lead him over to the couch. But Pony’s grip on the door was stronger, and he yanked away when Soda’s feet touched the rug.
Darry remained a statue, but his breathing was all over the place. Ponyboy thought if he stayed, Darry would explode.
He didn’t want to be there. He shouldn’t be there.
Tears gathered unbidden in his eyes, and he gave one last sorry look to Soda.
“Mr. Sheldon was right,” Pony whispered. “I’m the fucking worst.”
“Pony, what–”
Ponyboy didn’t want to hear it anymore. He threw the door open behind him and started to run. The tears on his face were amplified by the snapping wind, and he cried freely, letting his feet take him where they wanted to go while his mind took a backseat.
He ran all the way to the train tracks and couldn’t find a train. So he began to walk, and walk, and walk, waiting for one, and the more he walked the more confused he felt about whether he should jump on the train or jump in front of it. He walked until he was scared of both options, then walked until he was so cold he was hot, and the answer became clear in that space between living and dying, and at last the train was barreling down from the north and he was ready, and–
“Woof!”
And there was a dog standing on the tracks.
Ponyboy glanced between the oncoming train and the dog, and he yelled at it, flailing his arms.
“Dog, get off, shoo–” The dog ignored him, and Ponyboy couldn’t watch a dog die. He ran up the track and blinded himself on the train light as the conductor laid on the horn, and the dog wouldn’t be pushed or pulled so Pony panicked, scooped it up and leapt off the tracks as the train sped past them at their backs, his opportunity to do something leaving with it.
He collided into a snowbank, grunting as the dog’s weight slammed into his chest a second later. The dog recovered faster, and it rolled off his stomach and got to work painting Ponyboy’s face with a slobbering tongue.
“Ah, ah– stop it!-- That’s disgusting, stop–” Ponyboy begged the dog as he pushed weakly at its face. He half-resented the dog for having a death wish and fully resented himself for having the same thing. Maybe he would lay there until the next train, and maybe he would be ready again. Or maybe he would lay there letting the cold pick apart all that he was until he was remade into a block of ice.
It seemed the dog wasn’t willing to let him do either option. Its tongue slapped wetly against his eye, and he yelped, sitting straight up and scrambling to put some space between himself and the beast.
He rubbed his face, a sleeve pulled over his fists, trying to mop up all the saliva freezing onto his skin. “What gives? Huh? Whattya think you’re doing?”
The dog pawed at his thigh, whimpering, and Ponyboy relented with a heaving sigh. He looked at the dog, really looked at it, for the first time without the pressure of a train bearing down on them. A Black Mouth Cur. He furrowed his brows, taking in the tan hair and the white, fuzzy chest, the lollygagging smile, a pink tongue stark against a dark mouth, and he lifted his gaze further to see two brown eyes trying to melt him with warmth.
On impulse, Ponyboy shuffled up to his knees and stretched over the dog, using two hands to feel its left flank, and it couldn’t be, but his fingers brushed over a long, thick mark where the hair wouldn’t grow. Like a switchblade scar. Exactly like–
“Daisy?” Ponyboy gasped, and he had no time to prepare for the flying tackle he received as the licking resumed with much more fervor.
“Daisy– Daisy!-- Okay, enough, Daisy, my god, just–” Ponyboy rolled away with a disbelieving laugh, escaping only so that he could take a turn pinning the dog into the snow. He began to rub all over her belly as she wiggled in delight.
“Oh, Daisy, Daisy, good girl, she’s such a good girl, she’s such… how are you here?” Ponyboy grabbed her head with both hands and turned her this way and that, looking for the trick, feeling for an illusion– but the dog kept panting happily, her sharp teeth appearing dulled in the limited light, her hot breath as rancid as it had been nine years ago.
Nine years ago when she died, hit by a car while chasing a squirrel through the park.
“If you’re here, am I–” Ponyboy lurched to his feet, stumbling to find his balance in the uneven snow. He whirled around, scanning the tracks, though he didn’t know if he was looking for a train or his own body. His dead dog was here. He had to be dead. Right?
Daisy barked, drawing his attention back to where she was sitting. Her tail swished back and forth over the snow, clearing a fan-shaped indent behind her. She bounced up to Ponyboy and nudged at his hand with her cold nose until he got the message to scratch behind her ears. He didn’t feel scared. He felt oddly calm, and he would have sank back into the endless stretches of white if Daisy hadn’t begun to push at his leg, forcing him to take a step back.
“Hey, what’s–” He tried to ask, but she pushed him again, and again, turning him around to walk forward, and once he was on the path Daisy had chosen, she moved up to trot alongside him. Ponyboy shrugged. Daisy was just as stubborn in death as she had been in life, and she wanted him to go somewhere. He was trying to go somewhere, anyways. Somewhere far away. A place where he couldn’t mess things up, or get his friends killed, or make trouble for his brothers.
Maybe Daisy knew that place, too.
He let Daisy lead him away from the tracks and away from Tulsa, walking into a snowy white plain that became darker and darker to see through as they strayed from the lights lining the tracks. He walked on, until he couldn’t even see his feet anymore, let alone Daisy, and this didn’t scare him as he thought it might.
He walked, and his eyes grew heavy, and his blinks grew slower, eyes opening and fluttering closed, staying shut for a few steps, then they would flick up again for a second before shuttering.
Blink.
He thought about his last words to his brothers.
Bliiiiink.
He really meant them, he realized. They would be better off without him. The whole world would be better off if it had never met Ponyboy Curtis.
Bliiiiiiiiiiink.
He just wanted the world to be better.
Bliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink.
Ponyboy would have kept walking with his eyes shut if Daisy hadn’t barked and startled him into awareness again. His eyelids flew upwards, but he was assaulted by a bright light, forcing him to slap a hand over his face to protect his sight.
While he was still processing the sunlight, his other senses filtered information in bursts: more dogs barking, bacon grease wafting through the air – and his lack of jacket wasn’t as much of a problem as it should have been. As it just had been.
Daisy barked, pushing at the back of his knee with her nose until he stumbled, stopped walking, and looked at the world around him.
“The park?” Ponyboy whirled around, taking in the early morning hour, the sun barely coming up over the trees. A man with a hound was jogging around the park in a long sleeve top, a woman was stretching her legs by the back fence while her poodle yipped away in Daisy and Pony’s direction. The woman looked up and squinted at them, so Ponyboy tried for a wave.
She turned away, dropping her leg and giving the poodle’s leash a yank.
“C’mon Lucy, there’s nothing there. Quit.” The woman gently scolded her dog, and they were off, following in the same loop the man and his hound had bounded off on.
“That’s a little rude.” Ponyboy pinched himself, feeling very real and very ignored. He scanned the park again, and he wondered how the snow could have melted so fast. But if this was the park by his house, then his house would be just around the corner– Ponyboy jogged up the block with Daisy at his heels, tripping over himself when he saw his brother coming out onto the porch with a wet head of hair.
He didn’t look mad about the money. He didn’t look very much at all– his muscles were still as big as the house himself, but he was pale. His hands had a slight tremble as they grabbed the newspaper and gave it a quick scan before scoffing, going to retreat back into the house.
Ponyboy couldn’t handle being ignored anymore, not after everything he had said. So he yelled, “Darry!”
Darry didn’t seem to hear him, and he finished withdrawing. The screen door slammed behind him.
Daisy barked at Ponyboy, then burst through their gate and ran up the porch steps. Ponyboy shushed her as he pursued, but she didn’t scratch at the door to get in. Once Ponyboy was next to her on the porch, she pushed the newspaper at him with her nose until he got the message to read the front page.
Friday, September 10, 1965
His heart stopped beating. He knew this day, he remembered it all too well, even if it didn’t make any sense how he had gotten back to it.
This is the day Bob died.