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Everything was supposed to be better. It was supposed to be normal.
He froze up mid-argument. It was a small one, Soda knew, one that would be resolved without any yelling, even, but Ponyboy still darted behind him as his body moved abruptly.
“Somethin’s wrong,” Pony said, “Darry ain’t s’posed’ta move like that.”
“Take a breath, honey,” Sodapop soothed, “I’m sure everything-”
He heard an inhuman laugh bubble out of Darry’s body. Pony squeezed his waist tightly, staring up at their protector.
“Dar?” Soda whispered, feeling the tears pooling in his eyes.
Whatever looked back at him before it left wasn’t his brother anymore.
-
Darry felt his body move against his will, over and over and over again. He tried fighting it, at least at first, but it quickly became obvious that there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t brute force his way out of this. He needed to bide his time.
So that was what he did.
As he watched something walk around wearing his skin in the dead of night, he tried, cautiously, to test his limits. He couldn’t tell what the creature occupying him was feeling, no, but he could still feel every nerve in his body. He didn’t eat anymore, but he felt hungry until he felt rays of moonlight touch his skin. He could feel a drop in his stomach every time the creature perceived a threat. A threat to the creature meant it had some sort of weakness, one that Darry needed to figure out how to exploit as fast as possible.
He needed to get back to his brothers. All they had left was each other. The thought of Pony and Soda, all alone, fearing for their lives and each other, maybe even for him, was enough to make his lower eyelids sting with . . . tears.
It was the first time his body had responded to him in days. For a moment, Darry felt elated- and then he felt a drop in his stomach that couldn’t have come from anywhere but the creature. His eyes squeezed shut. Was his body trying to stifle his crying? Was this a crack in the creature’s armor? He thought about Ponyboy in Windrixville, the way his hand had felt after that goddamned slap- and he managed to squeeze out a single tear.
The moment it touched his skin, everything burned. It felt similar to Darry’s first time roofing in the summer, when he’d tried to pick up a metal tool someone left in the sun for a while and spent the next hour in his boss’s truck trying to will the pain away. His vision went white for a second, and he reflexively smacked his face, trying to wipe it away.
Wait. He had done that.
It was less than a second before the creature took over again, but that little sliver of time filled Darry with something he hadn’t felt in ages.
Hope.
He was only a few miles away from the house when it happened- a car drove past him and over a puddle, splashing his feet. Darry snapped back into his own body, and immediately took off for the house. He had to tell his brothers. He wasn’t strong enough to fight this alone. But by the time he got back, by the time he pushed open the front door, he was exhausted. And the creature realized that Darry’s saviors were a threat.
He blinked, and he was standing in the doorway of Ponyboy and Sodapop’s shared bedroom.
-
“Soda!” Pony shook his shoulder frantically, “He’s back! It’s back!”
“Shit!” Soda shot up and stared at Darry’s menacing silhouette in the threshold. It was just . . . standing there. That wasn’t right. His eyes were violent and his body was jerking like it wanted to move, but it just wasn’t.
“He’s not movin’, Soda. He’s just starin’ at us.”
“I know, honey, I know. But that means he’s gotta be in there somewhere. We just gotta give him the time to fight it off.”
Soda clutched his brother tightly. It was up to him to be the protector now.
-
Desperately, Darry thought back to the worst days of his life. His parents’ bodies in the morgue. Holding his Mama’s hand and realizing how cold it was. The cold air blowing in from the front door Pony hadn’t bothered to shut as he ran away to Johnny’s death.
He felt it on his face and recoiled.
-
Darry’s body writhed around as more tears fell down his cheeks. Ponyboy gasped, laughing in disbelief. His brother really had figured out how to fight back against whatever had made its way inside him, and it looked like he was doing a damn good job of it, too. They watched as he shoved his hand into the glass of water Soda kept on the bedside table, holding it in place with as much force as he could muster.
“Water!” was all he could shout before his body jerked back, arm hitting his chest with a wet thump. He coughed, then gagged, spitting out blood that didn’t look like his own. Glass shattered on the ground. Sodapop screamed.
“Darry!”
But the raw terror in his brother’s eyes had already gone away as the creature took hold of him again. It seemed like the one act of resistance had exhausted his willpower- he wasn’t even crying anymore. Darry’s body stalked away.
“That’s gotta be its weakness,” Pony choked out through his own crying, “We need to get him in water. A lot of it.”
“But we don’t have a pool or nothin’. The only body of water big enough to put him in is-”
Soda turned to him, realizing what he was planning.
“We have to throw him in the lake,” Ponyboy said, eyes steely with determination.
“He’ll never go there on his own. We’re gonna hafta strike him down for long enough to drive him there.”
Soda saw the gears turning in Pony’s head before he grinned for the first time in days.
“How good is your aim?” he asked.
-
It took hours before Darry could remember anything after that. It was like he’d passed out, but his body kept moving- he shuddered to think what he might’ve done during that time. But the creature probably didn’t like to wash itself if it was afraid of water, and he couldn’t see or feel any blood on him. For now, he just let his body wander. He was exhausted from what little he’d managed to do. He needed to have faith that Pony and Soda could handle the rest.
He felt a wet rag hit the back of his head, and had he been able to move his body he would have danced. His little brothers had come back to rescue him. He was going to be okay. His body whirled around to see Sodapop, arm extended, in the driver’s seat of the old truck, Pony sitting behind him with an armful of wet laundry. The creature charged towards them, and Ponyboy rolled down the window, hitting him straight in the face with a sopping sock.
Darry blinked, then ran to the car and shoved his arms into the bundle of wet clothes through the opened window. He didn’t have long, and he knew it. He felt dizzy. Was it the pain?
“You gotta restrain me, Pony! It won’t let me stay in control!” he yelled over the screaming in his head.
“I can’t!” His poor brother was sobbing. Darry pulled his brother’s face over his own, the shock of the added water hitting his skin just enough to give him a few more seconds of lucidity.
“You have to,” he whispered before everything went dark again.
-
The next time Darry clawed his way back into consciousness, he couldn’t move. He was soaked- he could feel wet clothes sticking to his body, making the night’s chill even worse. He felt every bump in the road Soda sped over tugging at his wrists. He opened his eyes. There were signs of a scuffle all over his body. Ponyboy was beside him.
His arms were tied to the headrests in the back seat, and his legs were bound together with the emergency bungee cord from the trunk. Pony had been smart with it- no matter which way he moved, Darry didn’t have enough leverage to break himself free, and the creature could only take over the strength he already had; there were no superhuman feats it could use to force him out of this.
“Pony,” he rasped, “Soda. I love you.”
“Don’ say that,” Sodapop begged from the driver’s seat, “Don’ say that now.”
Darry shook his head. He was sure he would die tonight, and they needed to know. He could feel his control being pulled away from him again- they needed to know right now.
“It’s not your fault,” he continued, “Not yours, not Pony’s, not anyone’s. If this is what has to happen for me to keep you two safe, I need you two to know I will never regret it for a single moment.”
“Dar, please,” Ponyboy whined from beside him.
“I love you both,” he said one final time, before the creature took him again. This time, he didn’t fight it. There wasn’t anything left for him to do but drown, and he didn’t want to be awake for that part.
-
Soda watched as the calmness melted away from his brother’s body.
“He’s gone again!” Pony warned him as the thing inside him thrashed around in its restraints.
“Okay,” he breathed, parking the car by the shore and steeling himself for what came next, “Okay.” He looked at Darry, then at Ponyboy again.
“If we want him to live,” he said, “One of us needs to pull him back up after he goes under.”
“No,” Pony protested, “He’s too heavy. We both need to.”
Sodapop paused for a moment, thinking. Then, he nodded. Darry’s body was shaking the car now with how hard it was rocking back and forth. Did it know what was coming? He unbuckled his seatbelt and turned to figure out how he could transfer him out of the car, but flinched back as he lunged at his face, teeth bared and eyes hateful.
Ponyboy looked at him as they both came to the same realization.
“We have to drive the car in,” Soda whispered, voice hollow. All he got in response was a heartbroken nod. Whatever was inside of Darry snarled at him. His stomach dropped as he realized the improvised restraints were loosening.
“Pony,” he said urgently, “Get out of the car.”
“What? No, I can’t-”
“Get outta the car, Ponyboy!”
His little brother jerked his arm away from Darry’s gnashing teeth and did as he was told.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do!” he shouted over the growing commotion in the backseat, “I’m putting the car into neutral, and we’re pushing it into the dock! If we keep enough of it outta the water, we might be able to pull it back out when it's done!”
“Okay!” Pony yelled back as Soda jerked the gear into reverse and backed the car to the edge of the lake, hoping to god he was positioning it just right. He put it in neutral, jumping out as Darry’s guttural screams filled the air.
“On three!” he cried, “One-”
“Two-”
“Three!”
It was the loudest splash Sodapop had ever heard.
-
Darry’s eyes shot open as suddenly as he was submerged. He was underwater for sure. Relief mixed with fear, but at least the fear was his own, and not the doing of some demonic thing puppeting his flesh. God, it hurt so much. He knew he had to be screaming his throat raw at this point, but all that came out of his mouth was bubbles before even those stopped. He gasped, coughing an unfamiliar black fluid out of his lungs and sucking in water like it was the oxygen his body so desperately craved. Darry felt a pain in his chest that had nothing to do with drowning or the creature.
A red haze filled his mind and he slowly relaxed.
-
The next thing he knew, he was laying in an unfamiliar bed, two hands resting atop each of his own. Darry blinked. His eyelids felt heavy, and everything was so hazy . . .
“Dar?” Soda asked before he could close his eyes again, “Is that you?”
“It’s me, Pepsi-Cola,” he tried to say, but his vocal cords felt like they were made of sandpaper. He lifted his head up as Sodapop leaned over to shake Ponyboy’s shoulder. Sunlight was streaming in through the window.
“He’s awake, Pony, get up.”
Their youngest brother shot up and immediately went to tackle him, but Soda managed to hold him back.
“Watch the ribs, honey,” he warned, “The doctor said they’d be mighty sore.” Pony nodded seriously before scooting his chair closer to Darry’s head and putting his hands in his hair instead.
“What ‘appened?” he managed before Soda shushed him.
“Don’ talk too much. You gotta rest up if you wanna heal.” Darry looked at him again, pleading in his eyes, and Sodapop suddenly understood.
“You don’ remember anything?” he asked. Darry shook his head.
“You’ve been out for a few days,” Pony said quietly, “There was this weird thing goin’ on around town. It’s over now.”
“I don’t understand,” he rasped, “What happened?”
Soda smiled at him, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You just got real sick for a little bit,” he said softly, “But you’re okay now. We’re not gonna let anythin’ hurt you again.”
Darry smiled weakly, feeling the warmth of his brothers surrounding him. He closed his eyes again.
(Wake up.)
Everyone else was there, too. Dally laughed as Steve whispered something to Sodapop. Johnny was resting his head on Pony’s shoulder. It was so warm.
(Wake up, Darry! Dammit!)
Johnny turned to him. His eyes didn’t look right. They were . . . real. Everyone else’s faces were blurry, he realized suddenly. Too blurry.
(Darry, please!)
Dally’s face came into focus as he put a hand on Darry’s knee. His and Johnny’s mouths both opened at the same time.
(We’ll protect you,) they said, (Just-)
“Wake up!”
Darry’s eyes shot open and he immediately coughed up black water. He was shivering, he realized. He fought for air, chest heaving as he forced it into his lungs. Everything was soaked. His ribs hurt. His whole body hurt. He heard a strangled sob above him, but didn’t have the strength to turn his head. He was in recovery position, he realized. He moaned weakly. It was all so blurry.
“There ya go, come on, you got it,” he heard Soda say, “You’re almost there. We’re almost there.”
He felt a warm hand gently pull his face away from the wet ground.
“You did it,” he said, “It’s gone. We got it out.”
“What was it?” he asked, voice feeble.
“We think it was some kind of ghost. I’m not sure. It don’t matter, we killed it dead.”
“You sure?” Darry didn’t think he could go through that again.
“I’m sure,” Soda replied, smiling real and true, “Pony an’ I’ve been lookin’ into some things since it all started. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t human. An’ we just did every single kind of exorcism the library could find on ya.”
“Pony . . .”
“Is gettin’ an ambulance. We’re sayin’ you started sleepwalkin’ suddenly. We had to tie you to the bed, an’ it didn’t work. You drove into the lake in your sleep. Can you remember all that?”
Darry shook his head.
“Jus’ the sleepy part,” he murmured.
“Thas’ good enough,” said Sodapop. Sirens wailed in the distance. He was pulled into a hug.
“Don’t you ever do that to us again,” Soda whispered, voice choked with tears. Darry started crying, too.
It doesn’t hurt this time, he realized just before he fainted.
-
“This is a dream,” Johnny said, “But we’re real.”
Darry nodded.
“We don’t have much time, so just listen,” Dally added. He nodded again.
“Soda’s right. They killed it. It’s gone now, and Dal an’ I are gonna make sure nothin’ like this ever happens to any of y’all ever again, okay?”
“Tell everyone I’m sorry,” Dally said, looking at the ground, “But I’m with Johnny now, an’ I gotta be okay with that.”
“We miss you,” Johnny whispered, “Stay gold, Darrel. Stay gold.”
-
When Darry blinked his eyes open from a hospital bed, it felt like someone had turned back time only for him. Both of his brothers were still there, but there was no sunlight, and he still didn’t feel warm. At least this time, he knew it was real.
“Hey, Superman,” someone said from out of his line of sight, “You gave us a big ol’ scare.” It sounded like Steve. He hummed in response, turning his head to the left.
“Should’ve known that mere human restraints couldn’t keep him in bed,” Two-Bit added, giving him a tired, cheeky grin.
“How long?” Darry asked, internally delighted to feel that his vocal cords were not quite as swollen as they were in his dream.
“Only a few hours. You got a bit of a fever, so make sure to tell someone if you start feelin’ worse.” Darry hummed again. Two’s eyes softened.
“Go back to sleep,” he said, “We’ll be here when you wake up.”
He nodded, closing his eyes and slipping into a dreamless slumber.
-
“You didn’t tell us?”
“He was barely holdin’ his eyes open. It wasn’t worth wakin’ you two up.”
“Why don’t you let me an’ Soda be the judges of that, huh? You din’ have to see him when we pulled him out!”
Darry rolled over, trying to ignore them. Silence fell over the room.
“Darry, wake up,” Pony said.
“I’m gettin’ real tired a’ people tellin’ me that,” he muttered, opening his eyes anyway.
“You don’t get to say that when you’re the one who sleep-drove into a fucking lake,” Steve snapped. So no one had told them.
“Good morning to you, too,” he replied simply.
“How do you feel?” Soda asked, leaning forward. Darry sighed.
“Not great,” he admitted, “But Johnny says hi.” He paused. “An’ Dal says sorry.”
That was all it took for Ponyboy to burst into tears, wailing as he bowed his head onto Darry’s chest. It only took a few moments for everyone else to follow suit, including himself; the water felt soothing on his skin, which was still salty from the lake water.
“God,” Soda mumbled, “We thought we lost you for a second.”
Darry shook his head.
“I wouldn’t leave you,” he murmured tiredly, “Not now, not ever, and especially not with Johnny and Dally lookin’ out for us.”
For a small moment, he felt the presence of six people in his hospital room, not just four.
-
They all should have expected the nightmares that came from that. It wasn’t just limited to Pony, either- now all three brothers took turns knocking on each other’s doors in the middle of the night. It took less than a week for Darry to give up and tell them to just sleep in his parents’ bed with him, which was where they were now.
“Hey, Dar?” Pony asked quietly even though no one was asleep yet, “Why do you think you didn’t see Ma and Pa?”
He sighed.
“I’ve been askin’ myself the same question. I think Ma an’ Pa might be up in heaven already.”
“And Johnny and Dally aren’t?”
“I think,” Darry began, “That Johnny and Dally could have gone up there. Maybe they did, for a little while. But their place is with us, Ponyboy, an’ it always will be.”
“Ma and Pa din’ need to come down here,” Soda chimed in, “They knew Johnny an’ Dal could take care of us.”
Pony nodded, seeming satisfied with that answer. Darry closed his eyes. He’d been slowly building up his strength after the incident a few weeks ago, but it would take a while before going to work didn’t make him want to crash into bed the moment he got home anymore. Soda and Pony had both warned him to take it easy, but that just wasn’t in his nature, and they all knew it.
“Let’s get some shut-eye,” he said. Darry felt Sodapop nod and shift closer to him, throwing one arm overtop his chest. Ponyboy did the same thing, and he huffed at how similar his little brothers were to each other.
Yeah. Things would be okay.