Disclaimer-

S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders.

Author's Note-

This had to be done. And, yes, I still hate myself for it (and probably will for a very long time. lol).


he is my most beloved friend and my bitterest rival, my confidant and my betrayer, my sustainer and my dependent, and scariest of all, my equal.

—Gregg Levoy (on brothers)


Up, down.

The mattress shifts—up, down—as skin bleaches the blackness around you a blinding white. His eyelids sewn shut with crusted blood and something else you don't want to see; lithe fingertips, soft then hard, rustle the hair along your naked forearm slung across the pillow that hasn't been torn to pieces yet.

And all you can think of as you lie there—trying not to breathe, trying not to move, trying not to be—is naked body: naked soul stripped of . . . of normalcy, of God . . . oh, sweet fucking Jesus H. Christ, you're going to Hell! But Purgatory would be worse, yes, it would always be worse than this; that sweet in-between of infinite nothingness where you didn't . . . you didn't have to . . .

Didn't have to what?

A voice muffles something similar to your name. Gruff footsteps trudge over to the desk underneath the window. Paper scratches against wood as lithe fingertips leave your forearm to fumble a cigarette. Latch on the window unlocks and the glass slices open with a groan. Cold air drifts in, tainted with gasoline and lighter fluid and vomit.

The muscles in your back tense and your shoulder blades split apart from the exertion of stretching, a sharp pain shuddering down your spinal cord before winding back up into your kidneys. You sit up and open an eye a single centimeter, then the other, until you see the faint outline of his body standing on a chair propped up by the windowsill. (A pair of old sweats hug every barely-there curve and dip just low enough to make your mouth run as dry as a desert and head foggy at the thought of wanting him to crawl back to bed so you can prove to yourself that he's still yours no matter how fucked up it sounds).

It's an ungodly hour of the morning between two a.m. and six a.m.—all you can think is Purgatory. Purgatory—and his neck is craned away from you, away from this . . . this . . .

When it finally—finally—happens it's just nails and tongues and teeth digging, scrapping away flesh that hasn't belonged to you in years. It immobilizes the thought that this will never go away, the wanting of what you can't have driving you up the fucking wall until you tear his lungs out and drown him in his own blood.

You rake a hand through your hair and watch shadows dance across the walls holding you inside. All too soon the mattress shifts once again and you want to shove him off with all the strength left in your body, tell him to go fuck someone and someone else's shit up because you're sick of playing games.

"Sodapop." A measured pause. "Sodapop."

There's a pause and you try to see yourself through the cloud of smoke swirling around your head, see him through the flakes of ashes raining down on the blanket thrown over your thighs. Claw for air through burning flesh; reachreachreach for the cigarette clutched between his lips and put it between your own.

"Sodapop."

Weakly, he motions for the cigarette now clutched between your teeth. You shake your head greedily, locks of hair falling into your eyes to hide the monster you don't want to see, the reflection you don't want to face.

You're thinking: Inhale nicotine.

You're thinking: Exhale gasoline.

You're thinking: Mouth tastes like sewer.

You're thinking: Teeth ache from remembering. Throat burns from not telling.

You're thinking: Purgatory.

Up, down.