Work Text:
“Okay, we’re here,” Soda said.
“Leave the keys in and stay with the truck,” Darry commanded. “I’m gonna go find him.”
Ponyboy coming home late wasn’t exactly uncommon in the Curtis household, but by now he’d learned to call someone, or at least be in his seat by dinner. It was always worrying when Darry’s brothers did something like that, but as much as he wanted to he didn’t have control over their lives; plus, he knew they could take care of themselves if they really needed to. Even Pony would, now—after everything that had happened with Dally and Johnny, he wouldn’t hesitate to fight back against anyone.
He wished it didn’t have to be that way, but it was, so he couldn’t help feeling grateful for his brother’s increase in awareness. It had come at too high of a cost, but at least Darry was confident he could be safe.
Until now, because he’d been missing for hours in the dead of winter. The school was just the first place he’d decided to look—if he wasn’t here, Darry was fully prepared to call a full search party. It was too cold to take risks.
He checked the track by the football field—nothing. He checked the back of the bleachers—nothing. He checked the entrance to the locker rooms—
—and there Pony was, unconscious on the ground and clad in nothing but his gym clothes.
Darry immediately ran to his brother, trying to shake him awake. He didn’t know how long Ponyboy had been left without a coat, but by virtue of being out here in December it had already been too much time. When he didn’t get any response, he gathered up the kid’s gangly limbs in his arms and sprinted to the truck.
Pony was freezing. Darry couldn’t feel his skin through all the layers he himself was wearing, but he was sure of that nevertheless. Track had ended hours ago, and he’d likely been caught just after his practice—god, it had been so long, why didn’t Darry go look for him earlier?
“How is he?” Soda asked, trembling from fear, cold, or both. Darry couldn’t say what his face was doing when he met his brother’s eyes, but whatever it looked like just scared poor Sodapop even more.
“We’re going to the hospital,” Darry said. “Now.”
•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•
The hospital—one of Darry’s most familiar and least favorite places—was never a pretty sight, and there weren’t many nice memories to go along with it, either. The two best things that had ever happened to him were born in these walls, but to his subconscious the family members lost to them outweighed even the joy his brothers constantly gifted him. The hospital stole more than it gave. It was not a safe place, and it probably couldn’t be one.
But they weren’t even inside yet, and there were already doctors here somehow; if that miracle somehow saved Ponyboy’s life, he’d be more than willing to rethink his worldview.
“He was outside, probably for a few hours—someone stole his coat, please, you have to help him—” Darry stammered through his own chattering teeth. On the way here, he’d practically mummified Pony in winter clothing, but the endeavor had left him without any protection of his own.
“Is he dry?” a nurse asked him.
“I think so? He might have been sweating, I’m not sure.” Through the numbness gathering in the tips of his fingers, Darry felt Soda grab his hand.
“We might need to take him back,” someone called out.
The nurse continued her line of questioning. “What’s your relationship to him?”
“I’m his brother, ma’am—and his legal guardian.” He began to jog to keep up with the doctors pushing Ponyboy toward the ER doors on nothing more than a glorified wagon.
But then the doctor froze in his tracks; Darry felt his heart drop down into the pits of hell.
“What’s wrong?” he asked breathlessly. “Ain’t you gonna go help him?”
“Sir, if we want to help him, we may need to place a thermometer inside his body. Is it okay that we do this?”
Darry was stunned into silence. Was it okay? Of course it was okay—the only thing that wasn’t okay was how long it was taking for them to treat his baby brother when the hospital was right there!
“Sir,” the doctor insisted. “I need you to tell me that it’s okay. We can’t do anything to help your brother without your consent.”
“I—yes, it—it’s okay,” Darry stammered out, and just like that, Ponyboy was whisked away to a place they couldn’t see. Soda was still holding his hand.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “It was just a jumping. It wasn’t good, but—it wasn’t supposed to be this bad.”
“But he’ll be okay,” Darry insisted mindlessly. “He’ll be okay.”
Soda’s grip on his hand tightened. “He was so cold, though . . .”
“But the doctors are here. They took him back. If they took him back, he’s still fighting. We gotta just trust him now.” He led his brother to an empty chair as gently as he could manage. “It’s the only thing we can do.”
Sodapop’s shoulders jerked up and his breath hitched in that telltale way—Darry knew he was seconds away from breaking down completely (in all honesty, he was, too, but one of them needed to be the strong one and he wasn’t about to let that burden fall to his kid brother). It wasn’t something he could stop, so he just had to catch Soda while he fell.
•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•
It took so long for someone to even give them a passing glance that by the time Darry actually got news on Pony’s condition, Soda had long since fallen asleep pressed into his shoulder. That was the only thing that kept him from springing to his feet the second the doctor, that same doctor he’d talked to before, made eye contact with him from across the room.
“Is he okay?” Darry asked immediately, before the doctor could even finish walking to him. His demeanor was hard to read—he didn’t look upset, but he didn’t look happy, either. There were no real clues in his eyes as to whether Ponyboy was even alive right now.
“We got him warm,” the doctor said, and he felt like collapsing with relief even though he’d been sitting down for hours. “He’s still colder than we’d like him to be, but if everything goes according to plan you should be able to take him home before tomorrow morning."
Darry let out a choked laugh and started shaking Soda by the arm.
“Hey. Wake up, little buddy,” he whispered. “Pony’s gonna be okay.”
Soda shot up. “You mean it?”
For the first time since this whole mess had started, Darry allowed tears to well up in his eyes.
“I mean it.”