Chapter Text
“Quit that!” Curly snapped as he grasped a section of my half-dyed head.
“Ow, Curly. Stop pullin’, for Pete’s sake!”
After I wasn’t on the run anymore, I thought–well I knew–that I was gonna go back to black. Now I’ve kind of ran outta friends to do it for me, and that’s how I got here, with Curly Shepard of all people dying my grown-out hair.
“Quit moving, you ass.” He muttered, yanking my head back up after I’d slouched for the number of I don’t even know how many times.
Dying all this hair wouldn’t have taken this long except it’s the middle of the night and Curly’s a little tipsy from being at a party so late. “Dammit Ponyboy, I can never get any sleep anymore, can I?” Curly told me when I nearly fell into his room from his window.
I was waiting for a time that I could leave the house without Darry always on my back about where I am. With all this drama with the gangs, even if Darry did let me out of the house, I wouldn’t be able to be at the Shepard’s.
So tonight, when Sodapop finally relaxed into sleep, I slipped out from under his arm and snuck out the front door. This was hard, especially because there ain’t one board in my house that isn’t creaking all the time. Darry also can’t sleep heavily for shit. If you so much as walk by his room he wakes up, and then you’d have to deal with him lecturing you instead of being where you needed to go in the first place.
“Did’ya fall asleep up there?” I asked when Curly suddenly slowed down.
“Shut up, Ponyboy. Your haircut is just making me cringe, that’s why I’m so out of it.”
“Oh, yeah, It’s almost like I got it cut from a boy who’s never cut hair before.” I sassed.
Me and Curly sass each other around a lot. That’s just our dynamic. I never used to sass with anyone, mostly because the only person I talked to was Johnny, and you just don’t joke with Johnny like that, but Curly treats me well, he’s just a different person from Johnny.
Curly let go of my scalp for once and pulled a cigarette from the pack we stole along with the hair dye. As he lit the weed I reached up to feel my head.
“Stop it, would you?” Curly spat through the weed in his mouth and I quickly swiped my fingers back down.
“You want to have black fingers or what?” He spun his head to the side to blow some smoke into the air, then picked up the brush and kept coloring my hair.
When Curly finished, he rinsed my hair in the sink because the shower would've been way too noisy given that Angela and Tim were sleeping in the neighboring rooms. At first, he didn’t care if they woke up, but I had to remind him that I wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place, and then he gave in.
“Alright.” Curly stated after turning the faucet off. “You’re all done, Ponyboy. You like it?”
I looked in the mirror and felt like me again. Recently I wasn’t the person I was before everything happened. I felt like my hair was too much of a reminder of what happened in Windrexville. I felt pure again, like Johnny wanted.
Curly ran a hand through my newly black hair, then pushed the ungreased strands out of my eyes.
“Oh, thank you, Curls!” I whisper-yelled, quickly kissing him and then going back to admiring myself.
“Mhm.” Curly hummed in exhaustion, resting his stained hands on his hips.
We left the bathroom a mess when we tiptoed back to Curly’s room. You already woke me up at midnight, now you expect me to clean all that with you? He asked me when I pointed out the stains of black in the sink and on the counter, as well as on the floor because Curly kept dropping the bowl of dye in the midst of trying not to doze off.
Curly opened his bedroom window for me to escape from. Before leaving, I pulled the boy into a big hug allowing him to rest his head on my shoulder. His arms felt so warm and I didn’t want to pull away.
“I wish I could stay all night.” I whispered.
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
Then I let go of him, stepping back before he grabbed my face with his hands and slowly kissed me. Dragging it out, I started to kiss him back, not just a quick peck but a real kiss.
“See you tomorrow, Curls.” I said once the two of us pulled away.
“Bye, Ponyboy.” Curly yawned and climbed into bed as I crawled through his window.
Skipping along the street down to my house, I eyed a car pulling up – a blue Stingray, definitely a Soc’s car. I thought maybe it would pass. Maybe they weren’t after me after all. But I felt like I was gettin’ jumped leaving the movies again. I started to pick my pace up, but it wasn’t doing much. A few feet away, I hear car doors shutting and loud footsteps catching up to me. I wasn’t going to make the mistake I made last year getting jumped–staying quiet only until they could shut me up.
I started to scream into the night. For anybody, maybe Two-bit or Steve was out, or maybe Curly could hear me from his house. I looked around, nobody.
Except..
Soda?
He was crossing the street, running my way? No, he wasn’t. He was running toward the Socs behind me. I just kept going, without looking back until Sodapop Curtis, my brother who was supposed to be out right now as much as I was, backed the Socs up while flicking his switchblade out.
I stopped, which was a stupid thing to do, but I slowly backed the other way when I saw what Sodapop could do to those Socs. He was a slight bit hunched and he was holding that switchblade like you do a broken bottle in a fight. He was cornering them real menacingly, a way I’d never seen my brother move before, and even I was scared. It looked like so were the four Socs, who’d run off and back into their expensive little car.
I watched Soda stand back straight, putting his switch away and immediately bolting it over to me.
“Ponyboy! Are you okay? You hurt?” Sodapop shook me hard, but I was still rocked to my core. I thought for sure that Soda would’ve killed them, but I know better. Soda’s never killed anything.
“Sodapop.. What are you doing out here?” I asked, alarmed. When I left, he was in bed. How could he have known that I was gone?
“Did they hurt you?” He asked, ignoring my question.
“No, I’m fine. How’re you out here?”
“Went to look for you. You weren’t in bed when I woke up and I knew you’d be around that Shepard kid’s house. You got your hair done?”
“Yeah..” I spoke, a little bit exasperated that Soda could put all that together. “Curly dyed it.”
Sodapop looked a little bit frustrated as I brung Curly up. The whole gang wasn’t exactly fond of my friend–who’s secretly my boyfriend, but if they knew that, I wouldn’t be able to see him at all. Part of me just wants to speak about him without getting mean looks from my brothers. I mean, Two-Bit doesn’t care, he doesn’t really have an opinion on him. And Steve, the last member of our gang now (which hurts to think about), isn’t familiar with the Shepard gang at all, except for when Tim hangs out with us or when we’re at a rumble, but he just doesn’t really say anything. I don’t know why they care, that’s all.
“Wait ‘till Darry sees that.” Soda told me, getting me a little worried that I looked like a hippie.