To anyone who's still favourited me after all this time! Sorry i'm so rubbish? This is a compleeeetely different story to 'Smoke & Mirrors' - my other Outsiders fic that never really took off. This really is just a taster of an idea I'm working on which might hopefully expand into a full story! Please try & convince me to carry on if you like it. WARNING - there may possibly be some homosexual activity occuring WAY into the story if I do decide to write it. Which will be Ponyboy/Original but it'll be tasteful & meaningful. Two lost boys finding eachother. =D
feed back is happily devoured! feed me!
x ~early!
Ponyboys POV I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a smoke, but it felt good. I coughed a little to begin with, like my lungs had forgotten how to cope with the burning gratification of a kools. The smoke seemed to stick to my throat and the nicotine rush was so great it was almost unbarable – I was glad I was sitting down. I let my head sink back against the cushion of the old sofa, worn and faded by weeks out in the lot, bleached by the weather. This busted up old sofa had kinda become like my refuge recently, where me and the guys would go and hang out, Two-bit and Steve'd crack a couple of cans and Soda'd make stupid jokes and show me card tricks, trying to get me to smile.
Needless to say it never worked, his japes used to crack me up but now, every time he tried to coax even a little reaction from me, my face froze up and my lips felt heavy. How the hell could I smile and be all light and happy when my mind was weighed down by...well, everything. Johnny and Dally left a void that I didn't think I could fill. It was kinda like someone just punched a great hole in my gut and left me there, bleeding and gasping for breath. I couldn't function, I couldn't be normal. Alls I wanted to do was curl up with my arms around that giant, bleeding hole and die. Because, well, dying was the only thing I could think of that could take away the pain.
Urgh, i turned over and all about hacked up a lung, cussing my stupid body for not being able to handle one stinking cigarette. Surely my chain-smoking days should have hardened my system when it came to lighting up? Or had the two whole smoke-free years that had gone by really screwed me over? I leant back against the dirty couch, feeling a couple of springs digging into my back but not bothering to alter my positon. I wasn't planning on sticking around too much. I was thinking that since my lungs had already crapped out on me smokes-wise, I might as well try and go for a run. Either way, I needed some kind head rush, be it from nicotine or adrenaline, either'd do. Hey, maybe I'd run into a couple of Soc's and they'd do me the kind favour of finally killing me properly. After all this time, I thought I'd feel better. I honestly beleived all that 'greiving period' crap those bullshit psychoanalysts had tried to feed me in the months after Johnny and Dallas's deaths. Darry'd got real worried about me and sent me to the doc' after I necked a bottle of asprin. I tried to explain to him I just had a real bad headache – as if I had the guts to off myself! – but he wouldn't swallow it and so, I spent a a couple of weeks in therapy. Jesus, I even had to go to group. Now tell me that's not messed up? But, I don't know, I think it was more than just being a straight-out chicken that had stopped me running infront of a bus or something before now. I guess it was more to do with the fact that everytime I tried to cross the road with my eyes closed or ran across a couple of Soc's and started to run my mouth off – Darry and Soda's face swam into view. It'd kill them if I gave up and I could never do that to my brothers. I could never put them through that. I imagined Darry having to identify my body, all naked and stretched out on the morgue table like a goddamn side of meat or something. My face all smashed in or a stab wound across my pale chest - and I imagined the look of pure, unadultered, blinding greif crossing my big brother's face and Soda's tears and hollaring ringing in my ears and...No, I'd never do that to them.
A big red chevy rumbled past and woke me up from my morbid daydream. The sun was kinda hot but I didn't really feel all that much any more, I could go out wearing Dally's sheepskin in the baking heat and not get hot, I could go out in the sub-zero in just a tee and not get cold. I was numb. I twisted round again and sat up, taking one last drag on my cancer stick and flicking it towards the gutter. I shielded my eyes against the bright Tulsa sunlight and glanced once across the old lot. It was the best place for us kids to hang out, behind an old, abandoned liquor store that got burnt down last year – it took me two weeks after Twobit decided we should use it to actually work up the courage to join them. The acrid, dead smell of fire and burning and smoke still clung to the air around the store and everytime I smelt it I sort of had a little breakdown. I couldn't handle it, smacking me in the face, reminding me painfully of Windrxiville.