Chapter Text
Ponyboy knew, from the very moment Darry told him that Steve Randle was the only person who could grab him from the bus stop, that he would have an awful day. It's not that he hates Steve. Will Rogers was a personal hell for everyone, even the socs, and once Pony matured enough to realize that not everyone was living their lives with a vendetta against him, it became pretty clear that Steve wasn't any more of an adult that Ponyboy himself was. Steve apologized, too, the night before he walked the stage for graduation, for all shit he said to Pony when they were younger.
"I was a dick," he admitted, his lips still half-wrapped around the rim of his beer bottle. "But, if I'm set on bein' a better man than my Pop, I gotta' own up to that. I ain't gonna' do you like that again, kid. Promise."
He might not hate Steve, but Randle still made for such lousy company when it was just the two of them that Ponyboy can't comprehend how Sodapop ever chose him for a best friend. Steve sat around like he was scared to talk to Ponyboy; he liked to pick his blunt nails against the callouses lining his palms and rub at the grease stains on his uniform, like twiddling with his flaws was more interesting than whatever new book Ponyboy had borrowed from the library. He's pretty certain Steve doesn't mean any harm by it. His hesitance is born from a place of fear that he'll mess things up with the kid again. Ponyboy doesn't mind, even when Steve does fuck up every now and then. He doesn't hold it against him.
When Ponyboy steps off the bus in Tulsa, his backpack slung over his shoulders and his duffle gripped tight in his hand, the first face he recognizes is Curly Shepard. Curly hasn't gotten much taller since Pony last saw him almost a year ago. He's got a new shiner on his left eye; faint bruising bleeds out into his cheekbone and his leather jacket has a few new patches adorned across the shoulders. He must've gotten locked up at least once or twice since Ponyboy went off to college. Curly always looks meaner when he gets back out, and with the way his eyes are narrowed into hairline slits at every person that walks by, Ponyboy's not sure if he should try to keep track anymore. Curly was born knowing he'd never make it out.
He prays, silently, that Dally kept his promise. Ponyboy likes Curly Shepard, but he lost hope that Curly wouldn't be a lost cause in the ninth grade. Dallas wasn't too-far gone, not when he saved him. Pony saw it in his face the night Dally pulled him from the fountain. Once he finished vomiting a mix of lukewarm water and bile, coughing like he couldn't get a single breath in, he noticed that Dally was shaking harder than he was. Ponyboy's chest ached in a shape that matched the size of Dally's hands when they were overlapped. Dally's eyes were red and watery, matching the faint tear tracks on his face, and even as Johnny ran over shouting his name, Dally wouldn't move, frozen like a marble statue buried in the grass.
"That you, Baby Curtis?" Curly shouts, pulling Ponyboy from his memories. He blinks a few times before waving with his free hand. Pony ducks through the endless sea of Oklahomans, weaving around the mindless workers getting off their shifts and the sparse reunions of kids coming back from college, just like Pony is. Curly rolls his eyes when he gets close. "Christ, Horseman. You grow like a fuckin' weed. I oughta' kick out your knees just to chop ya' down a notch."
"Nuh-uh, you ain't touchin' my knees," Ponyboy protests, shaking his head. He can't help but laugh, which does wonders in making him look like the least intimidating greaser to ever step foot in Tulsa, but Curly's absurdity always makes him chuckle. It even makes his friend crack a grin, and his eyes stop looking so sharp for a moment as they curl up with his smile lines. "I' been runnin' in with the track team on the weekends. The coach said if I can get my mile time down ten seconds over the summer, he'll let me on," Pony rambles.
Curly snorts, flicking a cigarette between his lips. Ponyboy fishes out his lighter before Curly can even blink. Pony doesn't smoke much anymore; between the dry period he had after his drowning scare, Darry's overbearing worry, and track, his brothers made sure he hadn't smoked more than three sticks a day, even when he was intolerably stressed. His friends at school were good about it, too, and would snatch away his pack if he got carried away. "Sure, Curtis. Come back in a letterman, an' I'll skin ya' before you can blink," Curly mumbles, puffing his smoke out towards Pony's face.
Pony rolls his eyes, wafting the smoke away with his waving hand. "You seen Steve 'round here?" he asks. He peeks his head over the waves a people and around the square lines of cars in the small parking lot, but he doesn't see Steve's car anywhere. Curly shakes his head as he taps away the ash off his cig. "The hell are you doin' here, anyway?"
"S'posed to be meetin' a broad. She said 'er brother wouldn't drop 'er off anywhere that wasn't on the west side of Tulsa," Curly explains. "I don't think she's comin', an' neither is Randle, pro'lly."
"Hang on, you're meetin' a soc girl?!" Pony jumps. His bag nearly slips out of his hands and onto the dirty sidewalk. Pony stopped caring about the social divide before he reached his sophomore year at Will Rogers, but the Shepards held big grudges for the poverty streak they'd never break. Ponyboy couldn't find it within himself to blame them, but it's all the reason to be utterly shocked that Curly would ever try to hook up with a wealthy girl.
Curly rolls his eyes and jumps off the curb. He doesn't bother looking back over his shoulder at Ponyboy. Ever since they were kids, Curly would march wherever he wanted to go without thinking about the repercussions, and Pony would trail a few feet behind him, too scared to walk in line, but too intrigued to leave. He did the same now, weaving through cars and people scattered around the pavement as Shepard scanned the lot. "You got a broad?" Curly asks. Ponyboy shakes his head, forgetting that Curly can't exactly see him, but Curly hums anyway. "Good. Keep it that way. They ain't good for nothin'."
"Just 'cause no girl wants you, Curl, doesn't mean they're evil. Maybe you should start thinkin' 'bout why you can't get one," Ponyboy counters.
Curly turns around as his face scrunches up in disgust. "Shit. You become a shrink or somethin'? Or, worse- a hippie?" Even as he shakes his head, Curly scoffs, slowly walking backwards to maintain eye contact. "I gotta' hand it to ya', Curtis, you're fixin' to be the first grease I know who finished school. Maybe I oughta' let you talk your craziness, huh, man? You know a lot more than I ever will," he jabs. His words are full of sarcasm, but Curly's hated the world since the first time he stepped foot in the reformatory. Ponyboy learned pretty quickly from that and Dally's stone-cold heart not to take some people too seriously. "You gonna' quit followin' me soon? You're like a damn-"
It only takes a second from when Curly's strayed into the middle of the lane for the nice Mustang sitting at the end of the road to slam on the gas pedal. Ponyboy can't see who the driver is from here, but he's not sure it would've mattered, anyway. No greaser is going around driving a car like that, shiny new rims paired with an unscratched custom paint job on a car from this year. Within those few moments, the soc has already gained enough speed to be flying at Curly with what Pony thinks is at least thirty-mile-an-hour momentum, and Curly's none the wiser.
Ponyboy doesn't think, which wouldn't surprise Darry in the slightest. His hand loosens up and drops the duffle at his feet. Momentarily, he's glad for all the track practices he spent just rehearsing his start over and over. Pony launches himself across the road as fast as he can, wrapping his arms around Curly's torso and dragging him towards the ground. It makes him think about that time Sodapop went running out of the house after Pony got in a nasty argument with Darry, and his oldest brother set him off like a police dog to tackle Soda to the ground. At the time, his middle brother said he should've set out for football instead of track, but Ponyboy hadn't believe him until now.
Curly hits the pavement hard on the over side of the road, only a few inches from the bumpers of the parked cars, seconds before Ponyboy meets the ground. He tries turning his body to the side to avoid landing smack on top of his friend. As Pony keeps falling towards the ground, he hears the sound of swerving tires and screeching brakes coming closer. The brush of cold metal hits his jacket and the heel of his shoe gets flattened by the edge of the car's tire. Pony yelps in surprise. He loses any balance he had left and crashes to the ground, half-sideways and twisting. His shoe, though, is still stuck under the tire, so when he turns to land on his back, his knee twists without the lower half of his leg moving.
Ponyboy can't hear it over all the ruckus- ears lost between the cacophony of Curly shouting complaints, some soc girls screaming in terror, and the Mustang blowing its horn to speed away from the crime scene- but he feels the moment his knee twists just far enough to make this awful, loud pop. His entire leg jolts. Then, there's a momentary gap where Pony's knee goes entirely numb. Curly's hands start pressing on his arms until he gathers Pony's hands into his own. "Fuck, man, don't make me pick you up," he grumbles. Ponyboy stumbles onto his feet. A wave of nausea rolls in his stomach as he presses his right leg down. His muscles feel like jello, while his kneecap feels like someone drove a train spike right through the center. "You good, Curtis?"
"Peachy," he grumbles, blinking until Curly's face comes into focus. If Ponyboy didn't know Shepard so well, he wouldn't have been able to identify the thin layer of concern hiding beneath his anger. Pony reaches up to brush his hair back. He cringes when the heel of his palm hits the new bruise forming into his cheekbone.
"Good. You're a fuckin' idiot, you know that?" Ponyboy wants to argue or, at minimum, ask Curly what he wanted Ponyboy to do instead, but he knows better than to start a senseless argument with a Shepard. Across the road, two guys from Curly's gang scoop up Pony's bag and start jogging towards them. Curly snatches it from their hands the second the duo is close enough and shoves it into Pony's chest. "Thanks, Ponyboy. Tim would've killed me if I called 'im from the hospital."
Ponyboy snorts, clenching his hand around the bag. He digs his fingers in so tightly that his knuckles go white in a futile attempt at transferring the forming discomfort in his knee to his hands. "Don't mention it," he mumbles. Ponyboy fixes his backpack straps to rest tight and even on his shoulders. "Who were those guys, anyway?"
One of Curly's friends- Pony never learned his real name, but all the greasers call him Bear anyway- throws his chin out towards the main road. Tire tracks leading out of the parking lot are burned into the pavement. "Clara's brother. Looks like he wasn't fixin' to drop her off for ya', huh, Shepard?" Bear takes a step to the side before Curly can throw his fist and sets a hand on Pony's shoulder. "Your friend Randle is on the other side of this place lookin' for ya. He's in your brother's car, got it?"
"Got it," Pony nods. "Thanks, Bear. See ya', Curly." He ducks around the trio and into the first line of cars he can see. Ponyboy doesn't realize that he's sort-of limping, because he can't feel any pain radiating from his leg. His muscles feel like they are on fire, tired and exhausted like they would be after running 3000-meter race, but it doesn't hurt like it did a few moments ago. His face aches, though, where it has made contact with the pavement. Pony squints his eyes as he catches view of Darry's truck waiting idly in a parking spot. He rushes across the final lane separating them and throws open the passenger door.
"Finally," Steve mutters, pinching at the bridge of his nose. He throws his right and out and catches Pony's duffle before tossing it mindlessly into the backseat. "I've been waitin' here for God knows how long, your damn bus was late, I got two greasers tellin' me you're wastin' time with Curly Shepard, and-" Steve's words come to a halt when he finally looks over. Instead, he hisses. Steve's fingers grab a tight only on Pony's chin, angling his face up as Ponyboy slams the door shut. His fingers pokes around the scratch on his cheekbone. "That's fresh. Do I gotta' go kick someone's ass? Was it Shepard?"
Ponyboy yanks his chin away. "It's fine, Steve. Only fight I got in was with the pavement," he grumbles. Ponyboy reaches back and grabs his seatbelt, staring at the strap to avoid Steve's judgmental gaze. "I'm fine, alright? I just tripped. Ain't nothin' important 'bout it."
Steve scoffs, throwing his hand onto the key. "Fine, kid, be like that." The truck sputters while Steve holds the ignition on, but the moment it starts, he's peeling out of the spot as though he'll get burned if he stays there any longer. As they drive through the parking lot, he catches one last glance of Curly rolling out his shoulder before they're steady on the main road. "Just make sure you explain to your brothers, when they get home, that it wasn't my fault, okay?" Steve insists.
Grunting, Ponyboy presses his head into the window. "Yeah, sure," he mutters. His eyes slip shut as he focuses on the drumming sound of Darry's engine. "Sorry, Steve."
"Shit," Steve mutters. Even with his eyes closed, he can feel the way Steve's gaze cuts back and forth from the road and to the kid in his passenger seat. "You must feel awful if you're apologizin' to me."
Ponyboy huffs, cracking an eye open. "Whatever. Why do you even have Dar's truck, anyway?"
"He needed an oil change. Told 'im I'd drop 'im off at work today, then take it in with me," he explains, turning the radio down to a silent mute. His hand falls down to the clutch, which he cradles gently within his hand. "I'm dropping it back off at his job once you're home, and Soda's gonna' grab me durin' his lunch break. It's a whole mess of musical cars, I'll tell ya', and Darry really oughta' get rid of this shitbox soon, 'fore it kicks the bucket going breakneck down the highway."
"It'd help if you stopped drivin' it," he mutters. Ponyboy pulls his sweatshirt sleeves taught around his fists, piling his hands beneath his head like little pillows. "You're probably killin' this thing faster than three packs a day would've."
Steve laughs, even if he pretends he didn't. He tries to hide it behind a sneer paired with a sharp eye roll. "Yeah, yeah. Glory, you're just as mouthy as when you left. Keep talkin', and I'll leave you to walk home."
Pony shuts his mouth tight after that. With the way he can barely feel his knee, he figures he ought to stay in the car.
Despite Ponyboy moving onto college, his brothers still work themselves like dogs. It makes him worried. He thinks about them late at night, sometimes after a nightmare leads to him waking up half the dorm hall, or when he's been studying for the same exam for four hours straight and his eyes will barely stay open any longer. He wonders if Darry's also half-asleep, stumbling on exhausted feet on a double shift at the factory trying to make enough money to pay the months' mortgage. Sometimes, he figures Soda's gotta' be stuck manning the nightshift at the DX, and Ponyboy can only hope that his brother has a blade on him for when some drunk socs burst through the door looking for a think to play with.
The note stuck to the front door says that Darry will be at work till half an hour after sundown, while Sodapop's shift is scheduled till midnight. Ponyboy usually busies himself with chores the moment he gets back from school; that's what he did when he returned for Christmas, anyway. He feels back pushing all his slack onto his brothers while he's gone. Today, though, the house is already tidy. He wonders, distantly, if Darry made the gang clean up the house like he used to before visits from the social worker, and how he managed to make them listen without the looming threat of the gang's disbanding if they didn't comply.
Ponyboy lets the storm door slam shut behind him once Steve peels back out of the driveway, evident by the echoing sputter and screeching breaks of Darry's truck. Steve is, unfortunately, right in saying the truck's getting too damn old. The paint job is mostly chipped away by the thick layers building up along the ridges. It's worn out and damaged in a way Darry doesn't really deserve. If Ponyboy had his way, he'd get both his brothers the nicest cars money could buy, and the socs would drool in jealousy when the Curtis boys drove by.
He swings his left foot back to kick the front door closed, but a quiet groan spills from his lips when he shifts all his weight onto his right side. His leg isn't numb anymore, but Pony almost wishes it was, because the alternative is this sharp, stinging pain that radiates so deep inside his knee he feels like his leg has snapped clean in two. It wouldn't be possible for him to keep walking around if that was the truth, but if someone blindfolded him and tossed him on the ground, then said to guess what they were doing, Pony would've said that they've got a handsaw halfway through the joint.
Ponyboy twisted his ankles on one of the first days he trained with the track team at school. He was awfully embarrassed, but the coach had pulled him down onto the bench and tossed a twisted towel full of ice into his hands. "Rest, kid," he ordered, shaking his head. "You boys have gotta' learn that a smart man takes a break before he ruins himself. You're only fixin' to hurt yourself further if you run another lap now."
He's not quite keen on putting himself on bed rest, but Pony's been trying to use his head more ever since Darry made him realize that, really, he never did. There are a few hours separating now and when his brothers are meant to get home that he plans on using to reset his body. Ponyboy collapses onto the couch, carelessly tossing his bags onto the floor of the living room. As long as he picks them up before Darry gets back, it won't matter where they end up. He kicks carelessly at the heels of his sneakers until they slip off his feet and curls his legs in towards his upper body. Somehow, he's asleep before he can even get the remote in his hand.
Pony was never the type of guy to take naps. Steve and Two-Bit took that title clean and swift. Two-Bit, especially when he was drinking heavy, could cross his arms and throw his head back and be asleep within a few seconds just about anywhere. Dally once caught him snoozing in the corner at Buck's once during a party so loud that the cops actually showed up to an east side noise complaint. Steve liked to sleep at the Curtis house, too, because it was a lot more peaceful than his own house. His dad was a drunk, and Steve didn't seem to mind all-too much when a heart attack took him out in February.
His dream starts in an endless, sunny field. There's no breeze, so the hot sun sticks uncomfortably to his skin, causing sweat to bead up beneath the fabric of his clothes. Ponyboy's sat within a bed of tall, dry grass. It's a soft cushion between himself and the ground, but it itches the inside of his palm. Ponyboy tugs his hands into his lap and looks around. He has to squint as his eyes scrape the sky. There's not a single cloud in sight to block out the intensity of the sun.
Johnny Cade is laying down behind him. He doesn't look small in the way he usually does, like when he's curled up on a damp cardboard pad in the lot trying to catch some sleep amongst the dead of night, nursing bruised ribs and an aching chin. He's stretched out like a sunbathing cat; Johnny's legs pin-straight with his one ankle crossed over the other. His hands are folded beneath the back of his head. He stares up at the sky as though the brightness doesn't bother him in the way it bothers Ponyboy, and Pony believes that it doesn't. Johnny's eyes are these deep pits of darkness that absorb all the light around him. He doesn't look around, but he still calls out, "Pony!," like he somehow already knew he was there.
"Yeah?" Pony answers, tilting his head.
Johnny hums. He starts gently waving his feet back and forth in the grass, but he doesn't blink. If it weren't for the gentle movement of his legs and the steady rising and falling of his chest, Ponyboy could've believed he was dead. "Stand up," he orders.
Ponyboy blinks. "Okay," he complies, immediately shifting his feet beneath him. As he rises, he asks, "What for?" Johnny doesn't answer. Even if he had, Pony's not certain he would've heard it. The moment he presses weight into the flat of his right foot, his knee explodes in an amount of pain he's never felt before. He goes crashing into the ground, barely managing to catch himself with his palms. The grass doesn't feel as soft once he's careening into it. "Johnny," Pony cries, tears bubbling up in his eyes. Dirt clings to his lips. "Johnny, that hurt."
When Pony looks up, Johnny isn't laying down anymore. He's standing at Ponyboy's side with his hands shoved into his pockets. Johnny looks abnormally tall and intimidating. Ponyboy tries to roll over and glance at him, but his body won't comply. He's stuck completely frozen as Johnny reels his leg back and kicks his steel-toed boot right into the side of Ponyboy's injured knee. He screams as loud as he can, but Johnny does it again, then three times, and Ponyboy's mouth is a constant stream of wails as he feels his consciousness slipping away.
"Ponyboy," someone mutters. Ponyboy tries to peel his eyes open to find Johnny, but his eyelids won't budge. His body rocks as the firm weight of a hand shakes his shoulders. "Pony, baby, you need to wake up."
It takes all the force Pony can muster break his eyelids apart. Darry's face is hovering about half a foot away from his own. His face is twisted up with enough worry to make his wrinkles look miles deeper than they really are, but once he sees Pony's eyes flutter open, his expression starts to settle. "There you are, darlin'," Darry mutters. He brushes Pony's hair away from where it is matted against his forehead by a thick layer of sweat. "Some dream you were havin', huh? I could hear you from my truck."
"'m sorry," he mutters. Pony's mouth feels like cotton and his throat is scarily dry. Darry cringes at the sound of his voice, all scratchy and worn. He leans back, waving his hand across the coffee table until his hand lands on an abandoned mug half full of water. He helps pull Ponyboy up until he's siting, then brings the cup to his lips as though he's still a helpless little kid. Ponyboy's eyes flicker to the window and the dark sky speckled with stars. He's only been back for a few hours, and yet, he's already created a world of problems for his older brother. "Sorry, Dar," he repeats.
"Don't be sorry. It ain't your fault," he assures. Darry's hand rubs small circles into his back. "You feelin' okay? You don't usually take naps."
Ponyboy hums. He's not surprised Darry noticed that something was wrong so quickly. Darry's real good at that. The first time Pony started having a hard time at school, he had called home while keeping his voice as flat as possible, despite the thick lump in his throat. All Ponyboy uttered was "Hi," and Darry was already asking what was wrong and if he's okay. "I'm alright. I just have a headache," he lies. It'll be easier to blame the throbbing pain in his knee on his head. That way, when he's wincing, Darry can excuse it on the lights and Ponyboy can't slide right under the radar.
Darry pats his shoulder. "You take anything yet?" he asks, to which Ponyboy nods. Darry stands up and gently pushes Pony's shoulder back to the couch until he's laying down again. He fishes the throw blanket off of his recliner, which Pony couldn't have been bothered to do when he got home, and lays it flat over his body. "I'll get you some aspirin and water, and you just wait here 'til dinner's ready, okay?" he offers. Ponyboy grips the blanket, opening his mouth to argue, but Darry holds up a flat hand to him. "Nope. I won't hear it, baby. It's your first day back. College kids are supposed to nap, so nap, okay?"
As Darry stomps down the hallway, still not changed out of his work boots, a pit grows in Ponyboy's stomach. Darry deserved to nap, too, when he was college-aged, but instead, Ponyboy was laying around and making his life harder, and Darry was working two jobs just to keep their splintered family together. All that, and yet, Ponyboy has the nerve to lay helplessly on the couch because his knee is aching, like Darry hasn't ached since the day he turned twenty.
The gang was right all those years ago. He really does have his head in the clouds.
He doesn't bother telling Darry that it's really his knee that is hurting, nor does he tell Sodapop when he comes home from the DX and sneaks into Pony's room as quietly as possible. The creaking of the old door hinges gives him away, but Soda just uses it as an excuse to launch himself onto Pony's mattress and wrap his arms around him. He mumbles unintelligibly that his head hurts, but Soda can't really hear him over his excitement, and Ponyboy falls back asleep the second Soda slips under the blankets beside him.