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Sodapop’s favorite part of winning a rumble was what happened after. Darry, who was almost always frugal with their food, had scrounged up the money for two whole chickens; one was for pre-rumble festivities and one was for whatever went on when all was said and done. He was waiting on heating up the second one until Dally and Ponyboy came back from the hospital, where they would visit Johnny and get Pony checked out. Darry hadn’t been huge on the idea of letting their little brother out of his sight, but at the end of the day Dallas had saved all their skins. It was only fair to trust him with Ponyboy, at least for a short time.
Right now, Steve, Soda, and Two-Bit were taking turns arm-wrestling and showing off their new tuff battle wounds- currently, Soda was the one sitting out the match, cheering on both friends boisterously.
“It’s like you don’t care who wins!” Two grunted out in the middle of their battle for dominance.
“I don’t,” Soda said, grinning ear to ear, “I’ll be entertained either way!”
The phone suddenly rang shrilly, causing Two-Bit to startle. Steve took the opportunity to slam his hand down on the table, laughing victoriously. Soda joined in on the fun, teasing him loudly until he heard Darry’s voice change.
“Shut up,” he whispered, “Shut up!”
His friends must have seen the look on his face or heard the sudden shift in his tone of voice, because they immediately did as they were told.
“Mhm? Where’s Ponyboy?”
Soda strained his ears, trying to hear what was happening on the other end. Unfortunately, he was not superhuman, and he had to parse together the conversation from one side like everyone else in the room was doing.
“The fuck do you mean he ain’t with you, Dal? You told me you were takin’ him to the hospital. You said you were gonna take care a’ him!”
Soda’s stomach dropped.
“No! I don’t care what you just did! Go find my brother!”
He could see Darry’s shoulders tensing from here. He’d never heard him in these hysterics before, not even after the hit from a week ago. Sodapop looked to Steve, whose hollow, horrified expression likely mirrored his own. Dally had lost him. Ponyboy was all alone.
And no one knew where he was.
-
He was walking aimlessly down a street with a name he couldn’t read. It looked vaguely familiar, and that was enough for him. He just needed to go home. Johnny was . . . gone. He couldn’t convince himself that it was true. A beat-up car pulled up next to him, and he almost remembered getting jumped just like this a little while ago. He wanted to run (if he could have, he probably would’ve), but then the window rolled down, and he saw Johnny Cade sitting in the driver’s seat.
Ponyboy giggled.
“Hey, Johns,” he said. He couldn’t comprehend the face of his dead friend’s father staring back at him, speechless.
“I though’ you died. Din’ you just die back there?”
Unbeknownst to Pony, this was the first Andrew Cade had ever heard of his son’s death. Johnny's father, in his own twisted senses of love and hate, so tied together he couldn’t tell them apart anymore, did the only thing he knew how to.
He took it out on whoever was closest.
“Get in the car,” Johnny demanded, and who was Ponyboy to say no to his best friend? There was no dread in his stomach, at least, none that hadn’t dissipated the moment he saw him. Never mind that Johnny didn’t have a car, didn’t even have a license.
“We gotta go,” he slurred, “The fuzz’re gonna be after us again. I heard they don’ like it when people leave hospitals . . .”
He trailed off, feeling his eyes slipping shut. Glory, it was warm in here. And he was safe, sitting next to Johnny. And so, so tired . . .
Suddenly, Johnny was squeezing his wrist hard enough to bruise. They were running somewhere- well, Pony was being dragged somewhere- and they had just passed through some low door. He was too tired to really be able to tell where they were. It was like when they’d first hopped off the train at Windrixville and he had barely been awake enough to jump, only that time his stomach didn’t feel like a hunk of ice. He was shivering, he realized. It was real cold out here.
-
Darry stood authoritatively over the group. Everyone was looking up to him from their spots on the ground except for Soda, whose face was buried in his shaking knees. Steve was brushing his fingers through his hair absent-mindedly as he awaited their leader’s instructions.
“Okay. I’m gonna go look for him. Anyone else who wants to needs to have a buddy. I don’t want no Socs getting us alone.”
Two-Bit stood up. It seemed like a switch had flipped; the situation had sobered him completely.
“Wait,” he said, “We’ll be able to search better if we take shifts. Then we can come back and no one will hit the same place twice. I’ll go get Dal and make sure he comes back here safe, and then we can make a plan and start looking. I’ll poke around on the way, too.”
Darry sighed. He knew Two was right, but he hated having to do nothing while his baby brother was all alone, probably scared out of his mind. His judgement forced him to relent anyway.
“Okay. Be fast.”
Two nodded and sprinted out the house.
-
Pony cracked his eyes open and groaned. Johnny shushed him forcefully.
“They’re gonna hear us,” he whispered, “We gotta hide. Get in there.”
He climbed into the black bag without a second thought. It was probably big enough to fit him and Johnny if they squeezed in tight enough- both of them were pretty small. But then the bag started closing, and Johnny was still outside.
“Wait, where’re you gonna hide?”
“I got a place,” Johnny said, “Don’t worry about it.”
Ponyboy nodded, closing his eyes again. The sticky fabric was blocking his view anyway, so he might as well just get some more sleep. He was awful tired, and Johnny would take care of him. He always did.
-
Two-Bit came sprinting through the front door harder than anyone had ever seen him do so before; there was a wild look in his eyes resembling that of a cornered animal. Darry snapped to attention instantly, waiting to hear what he had to say.
“I saw-” he started hacking from the attempt at speaking while he was so out of breath, but it didn’t stop him for long. “I saw Johnny’s piece a’ shit dad carrying a big bag down the highway. It looked like a kid was in there. A kid Pony’s size. I- I sent Dal after ‘im. An’ I called the fuzz. I’m sorry, Dar, but we gotta get our stories straight right now.”
Soda had already tossed him the keys. “We’ll do it on the way,” he decided, fixing Two with a determined look.
“You did the right thing,” he added as the most boisterous member of the group dissolved into uncontrollable sobs. Steve grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and led him to the back seat, and they were off before the doors to the truck had even shut all the way. Darry drove straight over the same train tracks his parents had died on without a second thought. He had to get to Ponyboy.
-
“I’ll fucking kill you! Take one more step!”
They heard Dally’s enraged shrieking long before they saw him or Cade. In a way, Darry was relieved that the scared kid he’d heard over the phone was gone, even if he definitely needed to have a talk with him about that later. His eyes drifted to the hunched form of Andrew Cade; he looked even more angry than he usually did, not that anyone saw him out of the house enough to know his baseline that well. Darry didn’t have any time to wonder about that now, though. His focus was on the heavy-looking bundle of black tarp in Cade’s arms.
“He’s a murderer! I’m doin’ you bastards a favor!”
All the yelling made Ponyboy start to stir. He blinked. It was all dark in here. Dark and hot and stuffy, just like . . .
The argument Darry and Soda were racing towards was suddenly cut off by an ear-splitting scream.
“Johnny,” Pony wailed, “Johnny! It’s on fire, I can’t see you! Where are you?”
Everything froze for a second, which was all the time Darry needed to football tackle Cade to the ground, carefully twisting to keep what he presumed was his little brother’s head as far away from another concussion as possible. There were sounds of commotion behind him, from Steve and Dally especially, as the air cracked with the sounds of skin meeting skin hard. Darry didn’t care. He was trying to open the knot on the body bag (God, why did Johnny’s dad even have a body bag in the first place?), but his shaking hands couldn’t have undone a kindergartner’s first bow, and Ponyboy was still screaming bloody murder, ripping his heart in two.
“Oh, baby, baby,” he cooed as he gave up and ripped the bag apart from the top, thanking whoever was up there that cared enough to listen that he didn’t catch any of his brother’s ruined hair along with it. His hands cupped his cheeks ever so gently, feeling the way his skin was a bit clammy. It must have been brutal inside of that bag; no ventilation and a good long time out in this August heat?
Darry didn’t think he’d ever truly believed in God until he watched the sharp rise and fall of Pony’s frail chest. It was a miracle his boy was still breathing after all that.
-
“Ponyboy!”
He jolted awake to the sound of his name melding with sirens in the distance. Someone was holding his face; it was so gentle that he knew it was Darry before he even opened his eyes. Why did he sound so scared, though? Everything was okay.
“M’ fine,” he mumbled, “M’ with you an’ Johnny.”
There was a starry sky above them. He broke into a grin at the sight. The sky was by far his favorite piece of Tulsa.
“Cassiopeia,” he murmured deliriously, pointing vaguely upwards before passing out again.
“Shit,” Darry hissed upon pressing a hand to his forehead with more attention than before, “He’s burning up!”
“The ambulance is here!” Two shouted. He whipped his head around. Did he really have the foresight to call an ambulance? Darry owed him a whole lot of beer after this.
“Is it over?” Soda turned to him with a pleading look. When had Soda gotten there? When had he pried his hands off of Ponyboy?
“I think it is, little buddy,” he choked out as he backed them away and watched the paramedics get to work.
-
They’d been waiting in the hospital for almost an hour before someone finally said something. A doctor had suggested they all go home and get some rest, but none of them would have been able to sleep, so they all crowded wordlessly into the waiting room of the same hospital where Johnny was. Two-Bit had been acting off, but hell, everyone had been acting off these past few days. Darry was far too stuck in his own thoughts to notice anything out of the ordinary anyway- until the younger Greaser pulled him aside. That was when Darry finally got a good look at him, and glory, it was an awful sight.
“Two? Are you okay?” he asked tentatively.
His lower lip trembled and he burst into tears.
“It’s all my fault!” he wailed.
“What? No! Why on Earth would you think that?” Darry was shocked. Two had saved Ponyboy- how could he think this was on him?
“I- I knew,” he blubbered, “I knew ‘e was sick. He told me not ta tell you, why did- why did I listen?”
“Okay, okay. Calm down, buddy.”
“But- but-”
“-shh. It’s okay. You’re okay. Yer okay.” It wasn’t like Two-Bit to cry in front of people. Darry rubbed his shoulders. When did he grab Two-Bit’s shoulders? Did someone hit him harder than he thought? He was supposed to remember more than this.
“Come on,” he continued, “Let’s get you some water. Ain’t nothin’ that happened today was yer fault.” Darry’s accent made its way into his words the more he talked, but he found he was too tired to care, not when it was a friend he was talking to instead of a social worker. Of course, it wasn’t long until he had to hide his accent again- a few minutes after he’d finally gotten Two settled again, two cops came strutting in. Darry’s stomach dropped as they made a beeline straight towards him. They couldn’t take Ponyboy away now, not when they’d just worked things out!
But before they could ask him any real questions, they were interrupted.
“It was my fault,” Dally said suddenly, “I snuck him out. He didn’t want to go. Darry didn’t know a thing ‘cause he was cooking them dinner. Cooks it at the same time every night, it’s how I knew when to get the kid without him knowing.”
Darry’s heart leapt to his throat.
“Then Cade knocked me out an’ took the kid. No one knew until I woke up, and by then he was long gone.”
The cops eyed him with suspicion.
“Where were you going?” one asked him. Dally sighed.
“I took ‘im to the hospital. His best friend was about to die after he saved some kids in that church fire. An’ then he did. It couldn’t wait. Darry knew he was already sick, so he was tryna get Pony to keep resting.”
When had he gotten that good at lying? Or was he just telling the truth? Darry couldn’t figure it out.
“Shit,” one of the cops whispered to the other, “That’s them hero kids.”
It wasn’t long until they were free to go, guardianship left unquestioned. As soon as he knew they were really out of earshot, Dally hissed suckers! under his breath, but he didn’t look as happy to dupe them as he normally would have.
Johnny was dead.
Darry’s knees felt weak. He took a seat next to Soda and cradled him close, getting just as much comfort as he gave. He couldn’t believe Johnny had died- he couldn’t believe this was how he was finding out. Steve curled into himself, falling to his knees on the dirty linoleum floor. Two-Bit went completely silent, his tears from before quickly returning.
“He’s dead?” Sodapop squeaked out. Dally froze.
“You din’ know?” He was pale as a ghost.
“ . . . that’s why you robbed that place,” Darry realized. Dally nodded. No one else said anything. Right now, there just wasn’t more for them to say.
“I won’t do nothin’ stupid no more. Not with Cade still alive,” he promised. It was good enough for the moment.
“I can’t believe he’s dead . . .” Soda’s voice cracked. Darry held onto him tighter.
Two-Bit made a sudden gagging sound, then ran to the nearest trash bin to throw up.
-
Three days passed in the blink of an eye. It was like Sodapop had been watching the world from outside himself. They’d managed to get Pony home, thank the lord, but he hadn’t really been lucid yet. Soda had cried so much. How could one person cry this much? One second, he was eating something he couldn’t taste. The next, he was shaving in the bathroom, ignoring the way Darry’s eyebrows pinched up when he saw him.
“I gotta get the Aspirin again,” he said, gently guiding Soda out of the way, “The doctor said that’s the best way to get his temperature down.”
-
It took another twelve hours for Ponyboy’s fever to break. The second it did, his older brother slumped down like he hadn’t felt any fatigue until that exact instant. Soda rushed to his side immediately, resting an arm on the bed and sinking to his knees to look him in the eye.
“Dar?” he asked, “What’s goin’ on? Are you okay?”
“It’s gone. Feel his forehead. It’s gone.”
Soda gasped when he touched a hand to Pony’s sweaty skin. It was cool, actually cool, for the first time in ages. His heart leapt up in anticipation when his little brother’s eyes fluttered open at the contact, even though he was clearly half-awake at best.
Darry watched as Ponyboy poked at six random spots on Sodapop’s arm.
“Tha’s a Dipper,” he mumbled, “Big Dipper.”
When they were younger, Pony loved to find constellations in his freckles. It was a thing they had done in the middle of the night when one of them couldn’t sleep, a thing that Soda brought back after he started to get night terrors again. His eyes felt prickly at the corners, but for once he didn’t feel the need to repress it.
“I think things are gonna turn out alright for us,” Soda said, watching as Ponyboy poked at more random freckles on his arms and murmured Greek names he hadn’t heard since Ma and Pa died eight months before. His formerly fever-flushed cheeks were starting to turn back to a healthier color; it looked like all that Aspirin had really started to do its job. Before long, their little brother was finally resting peacefully, cheek squished into his arm as his hand trailed off in the middle of finding another pattern.
“You okay?” Darry turned to ask him once he was sure he was asleep. Sodapop nodded.
“With Pony home, I got everythin’ I need. How ‘bout you? I ain’t even seen you cry yet. I know you want to.”
He watched his brother slump down some more.
“I don’ feel anythin’ but bone tired right now, Pepsi,” he admitted, “I think I’ll get to the cryin’ tomorrow.”
“Hm.”
Soda stood up and left, ignoring how his brother eyed him curiously, and returned to the room with Ma’s giant old quilt. She’d used it all the time when Ponyboy had his night terrors, back when they were all more innocent. Without another word, he settled onto Darry’s lap, draping it around both of them with ease.
“If you’re tired, you should sleep. Pony's doin' it. He knows what’s up.”
Darry chuckled, breaking into his first real smile of the past week and half.
“Okay,” he said softly, shifting to wrap an arm around Sodapop. He was pretty sure he managed to mumble something back, but both of them joined their youngest far too fast for him to really remember, falling asleep just minutes after sitting down.