Chapter Text
Sodapop Curtis had a reputation unlike the rest of their little group of Greasers. Some of it felt deliberately designed to stroke his ego, like that he was the prettiest or had the best hair. Some of it was embarrassing, like the insinuation that he was more sensitive than the others.
Some of it was factual, like the fact that he didn't drink or even really smoke like the others did. Smoking gave Soda headaches, and he never really saw the point in the unnatural muddy drowsiness that alcohol gave him.
It had always made him feel a little left out, before he'd learned to ignore the fun it looked like everyone else was having when they drank. He could make plenty of his own fun, after all. It helped that Darry had all but stopped drinking after their folks died, and that Pony was too young for it. It also helped that it was a lot easier for him to fight sober. Two-Bit was good enough at brawling for it to not matter how sloshed he was, and Steve had an air of cool danger around him that all but the most fearless Socs steered clear of.
Soda wasn't sober tonight.
He didn't really remember when he'd made the decision to nick a few beers after his solo closing shift at the DX. It felt like one minute he was behind the counter staring into space, and the next he was locking the doors behind him with the weight of six cans weighing down his other hand.
It was only the first few weeks of true summer in Tulsa. The sunsets stretched deeper and deeper into the evening like a little kid burrowing under the covers. The wet and cold of spring had given way to summer storms and, today, glaring sun baking the ground. It was after sunset by the time he'd closed up, and the last sickly green light was clinging to the horizon as he searched for a sufficient hiding spot on the walk back home.
One of the empty lots on the way had a town of hollowed-out bushes that he and Steve had spent hours after school years ago hiding out in, playing cowboys or pretending to be boys from Lord of the Flies, even though Soda had only 'read' the parts Pony had agreed to read out loud for him. On the other end of the lot was where Johnny would sleep on bad nights. He didn't sleep there no more. At night, the lot felt like a graveyard. Deserted, lonely, but not as empty as he would like.
Still, no one would see him here.
Like a kid who'd stolen a whole package of cookies, he hunkered down in the darkness before drinking the beers. He drank quickly, as if he'd get caught, as if he'd be in trouble somehow. The dry, bleached timber of the old house that used to stand there seemed to close around him like a cage against the faint light of the night sky. The half-collapsed stone chimney looked like an immense headstone.
Soda didn't know what had gotten into him tonight, he really didn't.
Ponyboy had let him read that essay the other day, and it had been sweet hearing what his little brother thought of him. Sodapop understands everyone, everything, etc.
The beer tasted awful, like he always thought it did. He threw the second empty can to join the first.
His mind felt like a thick fog had hung around it all day, impenetrable. Soda could understand other people just fine. He'd made quite a skill of it, in fact. He could untangle people like knots, find the core of them and tease it out. His dad had been the same way, and as much as Darrel had taken after the man in looks, Soda had taken after him in everything else. Other people were easy as anything, but his own self sometimes evaded him.
It was the same way he'd felt, he realized, the few days before running away during one of Darrel and Ponyboy's arguments. Hazy and distant, but also sensitive like the chills he got right before a fever. Like anything warm or cool felt blazing hot and ice cold.
The two of them didn't argue too badly anymore. Darry had loosened up. Pony had settled. Soda was lost.
He didn't even know why. All he knew was that it was Ma and Pa's wedding anniversary today, and his brothers didn't need him at home to referee anymore, and that he'd woken up sweaty and with an aching jaw from clenching his teeth all night. He never remembered his nightmares, but he always knew when he'd had one.
His third can joined the other, and the odd, tingling warmth in his gut made him feel like vomiting. The night was dark and the strange jumbled shapes of the lot's junk had never looked more alien.
There weren't any stars to light any of it up. No moon, either. A low layer of pitch-black clouds had rolled in overhead when he wasn't paying attention.
Unlike the dry heat of the day, the air blowing through the lot now was cold and wet, heavy. The wind was ruffling the garbage and the dry leaves as it pushed by. It pushed his feathery hair into his eyes no matter how he tried to tuck it behind his ears.
Thunderstorm, his newly sluggish mind produced out of nowhere. It smelled like a thunderstorm, even though it was raining. He could almost feel the rain and the charge hanging in the clouds above. He liked thunderstorms, always had. Pony always struggled to sleep through them.
He should get home.
It almost felt like it was whispered to him on the wind, his mother's voice carrying with the slight humor it always had. Like she knew something you didn't. The older Pony got, the more he heard the same tone coming from the boy. Rain still wasn't falling, but he heard thunder rolling in the distance.
He started feeling a bit sick about halfway in to his fourth beer. The muddy feeling of being drunk was dulling the strange nameless feelings that had been drowning him for hours. Pony had asked him if he was okay when the kid had left for school that morning, with those stupid wide green eyes that Soda would burn the whole world for. Soda had smiled at his little brother and told him that he was fine, just not looking forward to a closing shift. He'd felt like a hollowed-out bone pretending to be a person.
Bitter tears stung at his eyes. Sandy had left town about 8 months ago.
He wondered distantly how the baby was doing, if it was a boy or a girl. He wondered what she named it. Every thought made him feel more empty inside.
Getting drunk felt better than that, even if it wasn't by much. Even if it meant cowering in the dark and drinking instead of going home to cook for his family who loved him so hard it hurt.
The wind had picked up, like an engine revving. It was just cold enough to have him huddling into his jacket, despite how warm it had been earlier. Dust kicked into the air from the dry earth and swirled in the air.
Rain began to fall in fat, warm drops. The wind was carrying them nearly sideways before Soda realized the danger he was in.
The flashes of light from the thunderstorm were echoing faster and faster, growing closer. The wind hadn't slowed down once since it began to blow.
The pressure around him was dropping so quickly he could feel the membrane of his inner ear draw uncomfortably taut. Popping them brought the boiling noise of the storm growing around him into perfect clarity.
Soda stood and stared at the sky, feeling as close to sober as he possibly could. The clouds were so dark he could hardly see how the swirled.
In the distance, he heard the first tornado siren like a scream in the wind.