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Three months ago, his parents had died. Two weeks ago, Ponyboy had been placed into his first foster family. One day ago, he called someone his brother for the first time. Half an hour ago, he feared for his life for the first time. And right now, he was limping across the sidewalk, trying to figure out how to lie to his new brothers for the first time.
He should’ve known better. He should’ve been better. If he didn’t stay out of trouble, he’d get taken away, and then he’d have to live in an abandoned train car where there was no shelter from the cold or rain and no Soda or Darry to make him feel safe and loved. He knew that- he was told that! His social worker had told him, under no uncertain circumstances, to never get into any fights, and what had he just done? They wouldn’t care if he didn’t start it, they never did, because his assailants without a doubt could buy out any lawyer they wanted and win the case in a heartbeat.
He trudged through the front door looking like a ghost. A beat up, traumatized, pathetic looking ghost.
“Holy shit!” Soda exclaimed before he could stop himself.
“Language!” Darry shouted from across the house.
“No, Dar, this is a shit moment! We need you!”
Pony felt his stomach twist into fifteen sailor’s knots at once as Darry came rushing into the living room.
“Holy shit,” he breathed, turning around, “Soda, get the first aid stuff, would you?”
“Already on it!” he said from the bathroom. Ponyboy didn’t even notice he’d left. He looked back to Darry.
“I’on need any stitches, do I?” He asked. Pony really didn’t want stitches. He had gotten them once, after an accident during a game of football in a backyard with friends he’d long forgotten the names and faces of. He still had the scar on his chin, but it had gotten all marred when those Socs attacked him. Now, he had scars everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
Last time he had gotten hurt like this, his parents had used the last of their band-aids on him. A week later, one of the old wounds split back open and bled so much that his parents planted him on the couch and went off to the store to get fancy butterfly bandages. They never came back.
“No stitches, little buddy,” Darry promised, “Not unless you got somethin’ worse I can’t see.”
Ponyboy shook his head, but he had a feeling they would check anyway. The idea made him feel warm in a way that was too familiar for him to like. Sodapop returned with armfuls of peroxide and band-aids that were far too small for most of his cuts.
“They didn’t pull a blade on ya, did they?” he asked, worry clear on his face as he gave Darry some cotton pads. Pony shook his head again. No one, thankfully, had managed to keep him still enough to get a blade out; he might not have been very strong, but he was fast and stubborn, and in moments of desperation those two things had saved him many times.
“Good,” Soda muttered, uncapping a halfway empty bottle of peroxide and handing it to his older brother with a practiced ease that made Ponyboy wonder just how many of their friends came to them before the thought of going to a hospital had even entered their minds. He tried his best to stay still as Darry gently cleaned his wounds, even when the peroxide felt like it was lighting them on fire.
“Where were you?” he was asked, “Where were they?”
“I was by the tracks,” Pony answered honestly, “I jus’ wanted to draw the old boxcar they have sittin’ out there. I was too close.” He’d just finished reading a worn copy of The Boxcar Children Soda had found for him, and books like that always made him want to draw things. It had seemed like a stroke of genius on his part when he remembered the abandoned rusty boxcar by the side of the train station.
“Maybe,” Darry said, brows furrowing, “But so were they.”
“It’s okay.” Ponyboy took a deep breath. “I’m okay.”
“You are this time. What if there’s a next time?”
If there was a next time? He hadn’t thought about that- if there was a next time, he’d probably end up in the hospital! And then someone would call his social worker, and she’d say you’re clearly not safe here and then he’d be whisked away from his new big brothers faster than he could even blink, much less beg her not to. Eventually, there had to be a next time. Pony was sure of it. He couldn’t live where he was living now and avoid that inevitability.
What would he do then?
The thought stuck with him, even as he was pulled into strong hugs and given something warm to eat. It followed him into the bathroom as he got ready for bed and wormed its way under the covers as he snuggled up next to Sodapop that night and fell into a fitful sleep.
There would be a next time. And when that happened, Ponyboy would never get to see his new brothers ever again.
-
Sodapop wasn’t sure why he woke up at first. He could feel Pony’s weight beside him, and it was clearly still dark out. Upon straining his ears, he didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, and there were no weird smells in the house either. He decided to go get some water, but a small arm on top of him stopped him from leaving the bed. He looked to his left and smiled. Damn kid was filling his heart with love, even in his sleep.
His eyes drifted up to Ponyboy’s face and any joy he felt evaporated instantly.
He looked to be in pain- lots of it, perhaps more pain than Soda had ever seen anyone in before. Were his injuries acting up? He hadn’t actually managed to hide anything from them, had he? Soda and Darry had checked over and over to make sure there was nothing Pony could have lied about, looked over nearly every bone in his body, and they had both been watching him like hawks for hours before this. If anything was there, there was no way neither of them noticed it.
“Pony,” he whispered, “Pony, wake up.”
His heart dropped into his throat as his little brother didn’t even stir. Soda frantically checked to make sure he was breathing- he was, thank god, but Sodapop sure as hell hadn’t been until he knew for sure. Ponyboy was alive, at the very least. Somehow, that thought wasn’t very comforting to him.
Was he having a nightmare, then? Usually with those, he’d wake the whole house up with his screaming, but maybe it just hadn’t gotten that far yet. He knew the kid was a real deep sleeper- just one day trying to rouse him and get him up and ready for school could tell anyone that much. Pony started whimpering in his sleep, and Soda’s insides clenched together. It had to be some kind of nightmare if that pitiful sound was anything to go by.
He shook his shoulder, hoping that would rescue him. Instead, he started speaking, still unconscious.
“No,” he begged, “No, no, no . . .”
Soda shook his shoulder harder. He still wouldn’t wake.
“Darry,” he shouted, “Darry!”
It took less than thirty seconds for him to come sprinting into the room. Darry’s heart stuttered in his chest as he watched his new little brother writhing and tangling himself in his bedsheets.
“I can’t wake him up!” Sodapop was on the verge of tears at this point, unable to think of another way to try and help.
“Is he havin’ another bad dream?” he asked, trying to take stock of the situation.
“I think so. He was scrunchin’ his face up real quiet when I first woke up, but then he started makin’ sounds like he was hurt! An’ I tried to get him up, but he ain’t hearin’ me!”
Darry put one hand on Soda’s shoulder, keeping his gaze on Ponyboy.
“You must’a caught one early,” he said, rubbing circles with his thumb and reaching for his youngest with his free hand. Pony started to kick wildly in every direction, arms shrinking in to guard his chest.
“Hey, little buddy,” Darry called out louder than normal, “Where’d ya go in that head a’ yours?”
Soda was right. It seemed like Ponyboy couldn’t even hear him. It made sense, if the shouting from earlier hadn’t woken him up, but the confirmation worried him more than he wanted to admit at the moment.
“Pepsi,” he asked, “Can you do me a favor? Go get me some ice.”
His brother looked more than a little disturbed at the proposition, but to his credit, he nodded and rushed out of the room. He came back in a minute or two later with a cup full of ice and wet hands.
Please work, Darry prayed as he stuck a chip of it into the crook of Pony’s elbow.
To their immense relief, Ponyboy shot up with a gasp and slapped Darry’s hand away. The ice clattered in some faraway corner, but none of them really cared about it in the slightest. It had served its purpose. It had woken him up.
“There he is,” Soda sighed, shoulders sagging suddenly.
“Hey, Pony. Were you havin’ one of your dreams again?” Darry asked him, putting the cup of ice on the bedside table. His little brother gave him a curt nod, which was about all he’d been expecting in response. Nightmares like this often made him clam up, and it could take him a while to relax enough to actually talk again.
Fat tears abruptly started to roll down Ponyboy’s cheeks, likely against his will.
“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Darry asked instantly.
“You can talk to us, honey, it’s okay.” Sodapop carded his fingers through Pony’s hair, even as he turned away to face the wall.
“No, no,” he mumbled, hollow and devastated, “I can’t.” It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than anyone else.
“Why not?” Soda asked, looking like his heart was breaking in two.
“They’ll take me away,” Ponyboy whispered, voice thick with a fear he couldn’t name, “They’ll take me away and I’ll be alone again.”
“They won’t,” he promised, but it was clear Soda’s little brother didn’t believe him.
“You can’t know that.” Pony curled into himself more. “You can’t know.”
Sodapop looked to Darry, eyes pleading for help he didn’t know how to give.
“Was the dream about your parents?” he asked.
Pony flinched with his whole body, then went completely still. Soda stared at him with huge, disbelieving eyes. None of them had talked about either of their parents, almost in some sort of unspoken agreement. It was a shared trauma they would never acknowledge, he’d thought.
“When our Ma and Pa died,” Darry said, looking at his hands, “I din’ know what to do with myself. I knew I wanted custody of Sodapop. I fought for that for a while. An’ then I had him, and I had nothing else. That feeling was one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever experienced.”
He glanced at Pony, whose shoulders started shuddering with more unshed tears.
“It was bad in those first few months. I got angry at him a lot, sometimes ‘cause I was mad at myself, but mostly it was because I was real scared a’ losin’ him too.”
Pony sniffled. The sound cut through the darkness.
“It’s true,” added Soda, “I could barely stand the sight of ‘im for a while. But you know what changed?”
Ponyboy shook his head. Darry went on.
“We were really goin’ at it one day. It had been bad before, but it was even worse that day. An’ he got right up in my face and yelled, ‘What’s wrong with you? You used to be my brother.’”
Soda inhaled sharply, squeezing his eyes shut. Darry put a hand on his shoulder. He knew it wasn’t a proud moment for either of them, but it was necessary to share and they both understood that.
“An’ I jus’ broke down,” he continued, “All I did was cry. I cried for hours, kid. All that built up grief had to make its way out sometime, and it just turned out to be that day for me.”
“Did you ever cry before then?” Soda asked, and Darry had a feeling that question wasn’t for Ponyboy.
“No,” he admitted, “Not since I got the call.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, “Tha’s what I thought.”
“Point is, it gets better.” Darry looked up at Pony again. “But sometimes you jus’ have to cry it out first.”
It started with a small whine in the back of his throat. Then it grew, slowly, into short hiccups. He pressed his hand over his mouth, trying to stifle them, but Sodapop gently guided his hand away.
“Let it out, baby, let it out.”
Even as he shook his head, Ponyboy’s sobs intensified. Soda slipped back next to him in the bed, hugging him from behind. He couldn’t find the right words to fix anything, but he could at least do this. Darry maneuvered in as well, slotting himself between Pony and the wall.
“No one’s leavin’,” he whispered as he brought his hands up to his brother’s face, “An’ it don’t matter if somethin’ happens one or a thousand times. You’ll never be alone again. We’re gonna make sure of it.”
For a long time, they just stayed there, Darry wiping away Ponyboy’s tears as they came, Soda grounding him with his touch, murmuring assurances like good job and there you go. Slowly, his eyes lost their glazed look. His breathing slowed to a comforting rate. In the calm, no one cared to break their shared silence; nothing needed to be said that hadn’t already left their lips. Over the course of several minutes, maybe even hours, Pony’s eyes slipped shut and he began snoring softly. There was no tension in his face this time, no rigid limbs or pained cries. He was simply sleeping peacefully.
Darry and Sodapop looked at each other, smiling tiredly, before closing their eyes and joining him.