Chapter Text
The room was quiet aside from the concurrent buzzing of the bright light fixtures. The memories of the previous weeks flew through his head in shambles while he tried to make sense of them all. Writing that letter to his brothers, finally getting to see Steve, trekking through the underbrush, the cracks of shots, the ground coming to meet him all too fast. It was all so weird, it felt like a fever dream.
Sodapop Curtis, the happy-go-lucky handsome greaser from the East side was confused, alone, and laying in a hospital bed with his head wrapped in bandages.
He hadn’t seen his brothers in what felt like years. Hadn’t seen the gang in what felt like years. Hadn’t seen Tulsa in what felt like years.
The entirety of the situation sounded too good to be true. Was he finally home after all this time in Vietnam? Did he actually survive it? Was the war over? Would he finally be able to have a full conversation with his best friend? Was Steve home too? If so, did that mean he was hurt?
He couldn’t remember anything that had taken place in the last week or so. There were some fragments of being in the stationary hospital overseas and random snippets of a nurse with red hair talking to him and asking him questions. She has listened to his random babbling and tried to make sense of it all. He couldn’t remember her face though, or what her name was.
Throughout the next few hours, he slowly drifted in and out of consciousness as his thoughts floated about. His brain was all jumbled up and he kept getting confused by his own mind. There were a few moments he believed he was back in Vietnam; trying to coax himself to get out of his barrack in the young hours of the morning. Suddenly, the door knob turned slowly. You could tell the person was trying their best to be absolutely silent as it leisurely opened and he was met with a pair of pale blue eyes he knew all too well.
“Hey little buddy, how’re ya feeling today?” The blur whispered in a hush voice, not expecting a response.
“Darry?” Soda said hoarsely, squinting so he could hopefully make out his brother’s figure.
The eldest’s eyes lit up as he immediately hurried to the left side of the bed, slowly and delicately picking up Soda’s hand.
“Hey, Hey, Hey Pepsi, you’re finally awake.” He whispered.
“Uh huh,” was all Soda managed to say before a stab of pain shot through his body, making him wince and want to curl in on himself.
“Easy there kiddo,” Darry spoke, sounding like he was trying to calm down a horse, “take it nice and slow, you’ve got all the time in the world. I’m just glad you’re finally with us.” His brother’s face creased as he smiled, causing a wave of nostalgia to wash over the younger boy in the bed. His brother was genuinely smiling after the past 3 years of hell.
“It’ll be okay, I promise. I’m gonna go phone Ponyboy and let the nurse know you’re awake.” As he stood up to leave, Soda grabbed his hand in a sad attempt to get Darry to stay just a little longer.
“It’s okay, Sodes, the phone’s just outside your room.” Darry murmured audibly as he tilted the doorknob with a click. Once again the room was engulfed in the drowning silence that slowly crept through the air.
He tried to keep his eyes open, but the next thing he knew the world went black once again and he was brought back to the field.
“Jesus H. Christ-” he mumbled as he tried to hide the flinch that wracked his body. The trench he and other boys were in was about 6 feet deep, causing a couple of the taller men to duck a little.
“You alright, Curtis?” A voice asked from beside him. The voice belonged to Georgie, a kid who was just a tiny bit younger than Soda, both far too young to be fighting in a war. The two had become quick friends during training, and had been knit together ever since.
He had big, round, and dark looking eyes that reminded Soda of Johnny Cade. His hair was short and light brown because of the shaving protocol at boot camp, but was slowly growing back into loose brown ringlets. Even though he had sad eyes, his face had small smile creases from years of childhood memories and whimsy.
“Yeah, ‘M fine..” he mumbled, squinting through the dust that suddenly encased the ground. He wasn’t okay though. Every shot and crack reminded him of the lot, watching the blond-headed, New-York hood crumple to the ground. Other than the emptiness and grief that filled the Curtis household, Soda really thought he hadn’t been affected by his death. But he was wrong, oh so wrong. Ponyboy had always been the consciously emotional one, sure, Sodapop was the bawl baby, but his little brother felt things differently. Ponyboy would let his grief swallow him whole. He wouldn’t come out of his room for weeks and would get terrible nightmares that left him terrified. Now that’s how Soda felt as he sat in the trench awaiting the bang that’d put him out of his misery. He wasn’t still grieving the death of the boy with the leather jacket, but the silence that followed. Nothing had been right since Dallas WInston and Johnny Cade died. Things were finally inching towards normal after the train wreck, but as soon as things got to be okay it all plummeted once again. He was scared out of his mind, he just wanted to go home but he was ready to greet death with open arms.
The memory slowly faded as Soda woke up to the bright sterile setting he found himself in. Darry had since planted himself right back at his brother’s side, and was rubbing the back of Soda’s hand with his thumb. The expression plastered on his face was all too familiar too. It was the same way Ponyboy would look whenever he zoned out, that blank expression that gave no detail to anyone on the outside on what he was thinking about.
“Hey bud,” Darry mumbled in a soft tone.
“‘Darry? Darry? Oh lord, I haven’t seen you in years. How long’ve you been here?” Soda asked, completely unaware of the quick conversation he had prior.
“‘Bout 2 hours. When I got off the phone you were knocked out again. You remember seeing me? Right, little buddy?”
“Hm?” Soda mumbled, unable to form a sentence as he attempted to get his brain to work. There was something he’d wanted to ask someone, now putting the pieces together that the someone was his older brother. “Where’s Georgie? And Steve?” he asked, attempting to make eye contact.
“Georgie? Who’s that?” Darry’s eyebrows were now knit together as he tried to make sense of what Soda was talking about.
“‘M friend, he was with me,” it all hit Soda at once, the true gravity of what could have happened to him. “He ain’t dead, is he, Dar?” He asked, still in that hoarse tone that was now riddled with concern.
“I don’t know, I can try to see if I can ask, if you’d like?”
“Yeah, yeah, please” he mumbled. “Wait- where’s Stevie? I-I need to talk to him-” Soda at that moment, tried to sit up, but was reluctantly pushed down and stuck back to the bed.
“Woah there- you’re in no shape to be looking for him. Besides, he ain’t here” Darry took a pause and sighed, “he’s still in ‘Nam. We haven’t gotten a letter from him in weeks, but he’s alive, I can tell you that much.” He tried to give a reassuring smile like Soda would always do, but it just came out lop-sided.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Okay…” Soda paused. “Darry?”
“Yeah Pepsi?”
“How’s everyone doing?”
That made the eldest Curtis brother pause for a moment. The truth was, he really couldn’t tell anymore.
Pony would rarely go into his slumps anymore, but he still did, and each time it was worse than the last. He really hoped his brother would stop falling apart after he finally realized what life meant, but that wasn’t the case. Ever since the draft notice came in the mail, Pony had just started to crumple again. He’d lock himself in his room for days on end without coming out to eat. It’d gotten to the point where Darry had to force feed and threaten him.
Starting college helped him, alongside the constant reassurances the letters from his brother would bring, but he still wasn't the same. He was lost in his head more, the same way he’d been after the passing of his two best-friends. The same way he’d stare up at the ceiling for hours on end without making a peep.
Two-bit was a rare encounter anymore. At first, after Johnny and Dally died, he started drinking more than he usually did, which was already a lot. He’d often get to the point he was blackout drunk and had to crash on the Curtis couch. Tensions were high and Two-bit Mathews wasn’t acting like himself anymore. He kept getting in trouble with the fuzz where he’d usually have to shamefully call Darry for help. He couldn’t talk to his mom, he hadn’t had a solid conversation with her in weeks. “It’s like you're not my son anymore. I hardly recognize you anymore, Keith” that was the last conversation they’d shared, and it hit him like a freight train. His little sister had been asking for him, at least that’s what Ponyboy would say on the rare occasion he talked to him. She was worried sick for her older brother, and couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t come home. Someday’s were better than others, but the untouchable and funny Two-bit was falling to pieces and he couldn’t find a way to make it stop.
Darry and him had recently gotten into a fight, the first one they’d had in 6 years. He’d consistently been found out-of-it drunk on their couch early in the morning; it was driving Darry insane. He hadn’t had a conversation with a sober Two-bit in over six months and it just continued as he threw himself deeper into the holes of grief.
But just as quickly as it started, it ended. After a full 9 months of an endless cycle, something must have happened to Two. Someone must have done or said something to him that finally knocked his head right. Suddenly no one could track him down, this time for a better reason. He somehow managed to finally finish high school, and was working a job while trying to save up for some kind of engineering class. No one exactly knew what happened, but he suddenly turned his life around. He wasn’t the same though, he’d never be. The wise-cracker that was once Two-bit Mathews was now a soul you couldn’t track down. Sure he still joked sometimes, it was in his nature and would never go away, but it wasn’t the same. He was just a shell, a person that no one could bring back.
So no, Darry truthfully couldn’t give a solid answer. He wanted to give his younger brother as thorough of an answer that he could think of. He wanted to lay it all out and ask Soda for guidance on what to do and what to say. Even though he was supposed to be the eldest, he wanted to crawl into the hospital bed next to his brother and just cry. Darrel Curtis, the strong and unbreakable superman, wanted to cry and be helped for once. But he couldn’t, because in that moment Soda couldn’t handle that. He didn’t want to burden his brother with the problems that arose in the outside world. Truthfully, he wished things could stay as serene as a simple room with just the two of them. Preferably not a hospital room, since that meant one of them was hurt, but just a calm setting where he could forget about all his challenges.
Instead of spilling his guts out to what was left of his little brother, he just smiled and said “Everyone’s doing well. We’re real happy you’re back.” Because that was half the truth. Everyone, and by everyone he meant 3 people, was absolutely ecstatic Soda was finally home from his tour. Pony had spent hours upon hours just talking to the unconscious boy who laid in the hospital bed beside him. Two-bit had spent every waking hour helping out one of the Curtis boys when he got the news Soda was coming home. Everyone was more than overjoyed that the middle Curtis boy had made it home, but things were still falling apart, and there wasn’t much anyone could do.