Disclaimer-
SE Hinton owns The Outsiders. Lyrics are from "Closer" by Kings Of Leon.
Author's Note-
Tim, Tim, and, well, more Tim Shepard. Inspiration struck when I was running around the house this morning at 7 looking for my ID. Found it in the candy dish—that deserves a hohoho (holiday spirit for the win!). Final Exams are approaching (next Monday and Tuesday), so that means I've barely gotten any sleep this past week. Unfortunately, I still can't understand why I get writer's block for one fic in a totally different fandom, but am able to outline this document in one night? What the hell…
Anywhoos, a.) if you feel like reviewing this crapload of Tim Shepard told in a nostalgic 2nd person POV, then go for it; or b.) if you read this and manage to stomach the whole thing in one sitting, then I guess that's okay, too. For the life of me, I couldn't find the energy to separate this document so it's just going to stay as it is until I feel like writing more shit Tim-centric. Enjoy the sucky-ness. :]
Open up your eye / I'll bleed you dry
i.
All you can see is dust.
It hangs around the clammy, mid-summer air, so thick you think you might choke if you weren't already trying to breathe. Fingers wind themselves around her wrist like a snake suffocating its prey and you tug your little sister backwards, harsh-enough to watch her collapse to the dry grass that makes up the front yard. Blue sky, white clouds, and a yellow, burning sun the color of egg yolks swirl above you like you're trapped in some trippy kaleidoscope and can't get out.
Curly dangles off the front porch, skin blotched with little red spots he only gets before he starts to cry, face contorted into a mixture of anger and sadness. He's just sitting there, a lump on a log, clenching and unclenching his fists looking as though he can't decide whether to charge out into the middle of the yard or just stay where he is.
For once, you don't blame him. If you were in his place, you wouldn't know what the hell to do, either, but since you're oldest—the man of the house as of two-and-a-half minutes ago—you just turn to him and say,
"Go get her some ice er somethin', wouldja?"
He nods, silent, and within seconds he's disappeared back into the house, the screen door slamming behind him with a loud clang that drowns out Angela's dry heaves. She's only six, you think, plopping down on a knee to examine the mark Dad's left behind on her cheek. It's not fair.
Then again, this shit's happened so many times before—with Ma's secret lovers—Vodka and Whiskey—and Dipshit Dad's narcissism—that you're not surprised he waited this long to walk out. But to slap your sobbing six-year-old sister on the cheek 'cuz she doesn't understand what the hell Dad's doing with all the family suitcases? That's just un-fucking-called for.
You snarl under your breath, tongue darting between your lips to lick at the dry skin. Tears make their way down Angela's cheeks as they dribble down to the Earth's surface in a messy, hazardous pattern, coloring the dirt beneath the both of you a muddy brown. A tear lands on your thumb as you tilt her chin up towards the sky so you can get a better look at the damage the bastard's left behind, the sunlight too bright on a day like this, too glaring, too real—and your face scrunches up at the pathetic sight.
You swear again, this time a little louder.
Angel's bottom lip wobbles. "I—"
"Don't apologize."
A few minutes later Curly's returned with the ice and he places it into your palm, and then shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. You mutter a few words that sound like "thanks" but aren't really, just empty words to fill an empty space that you swear to God you can feel growing wider and wider, expanding.
She shivers when you press the ice cubes to her cheek, and for awhile you just sit there, coddling your little sister in the middle of the front yard, letting the ice cool the raging fire burning beneath her skin while your brother stands behind you, awkward-looking and out of place. This is so messed up…
Beads of sweat are beginning to trickle down your forehead it's so hot out here, the sunlight's rays mixing with the sky and clouds to melt into a weird mixture of pretty-looking vomit, dust so dry, so heavy it burns your scorched throat.
You smile then, so wide and forced that you can see your reflection in her dark eyes, feel the sun fry your molars to itty, bitty grains of enamel.
"Dad won't hurt you no more, Ang."
(You let her believe you anyway.)
ii.
The only present you get for your thirteenth birthday is the news that your mother's estranged brother, Allen—the person you'd been named after, who lives off cigars and Italian food and smells like mothballs whenever he rarely visits—has gone ahead and kicked over the bucket at a whopping fifty-three-years-old.
Happy Birthday.
a.
Later that night, you feel kinda sick as you light up a cigarette outside, watching red embers fall from the tip of the Marlboro to the ground. Inhale, and then you're back to thinking about stupid things that only stupid people think about 'cuz you're so smart.
You take a long drag and wonder if Uncle Al will be cremated or not. Maybe he's already in a holy bowl; shoved into one of those fire chambers they put the bodies in during the Holocaust. Or maybe he's still in the morgue, a lifeless soul rotting away on a metal table covered by a white blanket. And if they bury him, will Aunt Catherine allow a lit cigar to be put in his mouth, just to create controversy, Italian take-out menus clasped in his hands instead of a rosary, and mothballs galore? That'd be a hell of a funeral you'd ever been to.
Exhale.
Smoke curls around your head.
The rest of the cigarette falls from your fingers, floats into a little crack in the dirt. Barefooted, you stomp it out with your heel, ignoring the fire of pain that shoots up your ankle, and head back inside. You decide to celebrate this special occasion by drinking the whole liquor cabinet in a couple of hours.
You come to one conclusion that night: embers look like fucking ashes.
iii.
You learn three things your freshman year of high school.
One, the classes are fucking hard so you have to listen to the teacher sometimes or else they're gonna kick your ass out, and ultimately, you're gonna fail. Two, the way your dick itches when a cute broad with tits and a tight little ass walks past you is kinda common, so just ask to go to the washroom and alleviate the pain there, duh. And three, the people you think you're friends with may not be your real friends at all—no shit, Sherlock.
You have to snort at the last one 'cuz you think it's kinda ironic that you have a lot more enemies than friends. (Doesn't everyone?)
b.
Sophomore year rolls around and you return back to Will Rodgers not on the first, but the second day of first term—every good hood knows that when returning back to a certain location, you're supposed to arrive fashionably late—to find out that your homeroom teacher is engaged, which immediately promotes her to being a bitch or somethin'; fellow grease Darry Curtis made the football team, again; and that you failed Ms. O'Donald's first period Algebra, so that means you have to repeat the course. Whoopee.
You skip the rest of the week and hang out with Dallas instead. You can't stand him half the time, and you're pretty sure the asshole can't stand you that much, either, but he's a good source of entertainment when you need some. Case in point: the two of you are sitting in a booth at the back corner of The Dingo around noon, sipping Cokes when he asks, "Why are you in school, anyway?"
You flick a ketchup-lathered fry at him. To tell the truth, you really don't know how you've coped with seeing the same people for nine years straight, five days a week for several hours. It's boring.
"'Cuz I don't wanna be a fuckin' dipshit like you," you finally say.
Dallas scowls, his blue eyes like electric daggers. He needs a haircut; his hair hangs in front of his eyes, the colors such a fair blonde it looks white. "Watch it, Timothy."
"Of course." The grin that crosses your face is anything but humorous.
c.
In a nutshell, Homecoming Junior year is fucking awesome.
By half-time your pupils are already dilated. Will Rodgers' Sooners are up by a touchdown, and somewhere, amongst the sea of bodies flooding the bleachers, you find yourself shoved between Steve Randle and Davie Adams. The bottle of whiskey Davie'd smuggled is now almost empty, the alcohol burning your throat as it mixes with the nicotine you'd just inhaled.
The announcer's voice booms out of the stadium box, sending little zips of energy racing down your spine. Quarterback Darry Curtis is hanging off the field along with the rest of the team, watching his girlfriend—blonde-haired-blue-eyed Lori Michaels—do her little routine of complex cartwheels and spins in the air.
Vision blurry, you can barely make out the lights flashing across the black sky—stars, leaning in but pulling away at the same time—such a bright white it's almost paralyzing. Speech slurred, you try to explain this conceptual concept to Davie, who looks at you like you're fucking insane and shakes his head. Maybe you are; people say and do stupid shit when they're wacked. Hell, you're a pretty good example of a mistake.
You tell Davie to go shove a stick up his ass, nod a goodbye to Steve and then head off to find your brother, only to wind up fucking some nameless broad in the bathroom so hard that you're pretty sure you never pulled out and left your dick inside her by the time you stagger home at around three in the morning.
Kids just ain't your thing.
..
You wake up at one in the afternoon to find out that you vomited all over yourself and the bed, a skull-splitting headache starting as soon as you open your eyes.
Curly walks in to make sure you're breathing—his fifth check-up on you that day—and he bashfully mutters to you that, apparently, he heard from someone who heard from someone else who heard that Davie laced his concoction with a little something called LSD.
You tell Curly that you're going to fucking kill Davie Adams. He says, with a wolfish grin, that he already has.
d.
Senior year goes by in a blur.
You turn eighteen and Ma decides to celebrate by remarrying some fucker named Donny. From the few times you've been home at the same time he's been home, dear Lord, you quickly figure out that he likes to drink beer, get into fights with bartenders—which ends up getting him kicked out of said establishment—and throw things at you, preferably Ma's invaluable glass china set.
Meanwhile, Curly gets to third base with a broad—almost there, almost—and Angela blurts out to you late one night that she kissed Charlie O'Brien behind the bleachers after school when no one else was looking "and is that okay, Tim?"
Half-listening, you glance up from your English homework spread out on the kitchen table and simply warn, "Don't let him touch you."
Angela beams and gives you a peck on the cheek. For a second you're completely shocked, catapulted back into the one memory almost six years ago—an eternity ago—but then it melts away almost instantly when she squeals in your ear, "I like you more than Curly."
You want to tell her she's wrong, so, so wrong. You want to tell her that she should like Curly more than you, that you're a fucking bastard, that you can't keep your own family together even if you die trying, but somehow, you can't find the words to form the sentences you want to say.
So you mutter, "Thanks", as nonchalantly as you can and shoo her off upstairs. Tell her you'll talk to her in the morning.
(You can't sleep for three days.)
iv.
On May 12th, 1960, you graduate from Will Rodgers High School with a GPA of 2.7.
Dallas was right; you're a fucking dumb ass. But, at least, you tell him one night when you're hanging out down by the quarry around midnight in early June—getting drunk out of your skulls—that you have a diploma to prove it. Mist is rolling up from the bank, the only light coming from the cigarette you'd just stuck between your teeth.
Dallas shoves you off the hood of your car, and suddenly, you're sinking into a pile of mud. Or, rather, the mud is sinking into you, your clothes, seeping through every pore, veins squishing little pebbles. He leans over you, re-enforces the point that he'd been right all along—which he had been, really—and how dare you insult his intelligence. He spits a Loogie into the darkness.
You laugh for the first time in months. This time, his spit lands on your cheek.
(But Dallas doesn't need to know that.)
e.
That summer, you can only watch in amazement as Curly grows like a bean stalk, higher and higher until he's the one looking down at you, not the other way around. Each morning he seems to tower over you in the kitchen, your five-foot-eleven-inch frame looking tiny against his six-foot-three build.
Shoulders broaden so wide he could block the whole doorway with just his shoulder blades; voice drops about twelve octaves lower; and the baby fat melts off his face, drawing in high cheekbones and a pouty mouth. He's cut his hair so it's not as long anymore, doesn't hang over his forehead like it used to.
What's more unnerving is that he looks a lot like you, too, and can even pull off the infamous Tim Shepard Smirk once in awhile, 'cept you don't walk around fucking grinning like you own the damn place. And, well, fuck, he's only fourteen, and he's probably laid more girls than you have in the past week.
You pour yourself a cup of coffee and take a long sip, letting the caffeine burn your esophagus. You lean against the counter, exhausted. It's a Tuesday in July, around seven thirty in the morning, and little beams of sunlight slip in through the broken blinds. Curly's leaning over his bowl of cereal at the kitchen table.
Scratching the back of your head, you pucker your lips, unsure how else to broach the less-than uncomfortable subject of The Birds and The Bees besides a simple "how many people have you fucked, Curly?" questionnaire. Shit, it's about time he learned about this stuff, right? That's what Dads are for, anyway, to make the tough decisions and lay down the laws; not brothers—if you could even call yourself one.
You clear your throat. "Curly." How many people have you fucked?
He drops the spoon into the bowl at the sound of your voice, milk splattering across his shirt and the tabletop. "Yeah?" his voice cracks at the end. Oh, God, now you've freaked him out. Way to go, Tim.
"How many…"—you pause—"how many people have you, uh, slept with?"
Curly gives you an incredulous Look that's probably crossed your face more times than his. "The hell...?"
"How many girls have you slept with, Curly?" You ask again, let your voice drop an octave lower to let him know that he's not the one in charge. He shrinks into his seat, if only a centimeter lower, but you can see it: the spark of fear in his eyes, a little color rising to his cheeks.
"No one."
"That's bullshit."
"I ain't lyin', Tim!" he whines, the fourteen-year-old-bitch-assed Curly returning back to normal.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
You almost smile. "Good."
v.
Tonight, the moon hangs low against the charcoal backdrop of the sky, and the air is full of humidity, raindrops beginning to trickle down the windowpanes.
You walk into the bathroom to take a piss, only to find Curly sitting on the edge of the bath tub, a washcloth pressed to his chin. His left eye is swollen shut, purple-blue reflecting beneath florescent lighting; white material of his tee-shirt dyed red. Curly doesn't even look at you, just opens his mouth and sneers, "Ma's fuckin' crazy."
Within seconds you've yanked him up a few good inches by the collar, pressed him between you and the tile wall. He gasps in pain to muffle a loud wail. Kicks at your knees, tells you to put him down, groans when you tighten your grip. Hastily spits out to you that Donny did it, that Donny thought he was you and fucking threw a bottle...
He ain't a kid anymore—hell, you've fuckin' known that since he began looking at your Playboys about two years ago and almost lit himself on fire trying to light up a smoke—but it still bugs you something goddamned awful.
It grinds against every fiber in your body, makes the hot water sputtering down on you when you're lucky enough to wash up feel like a thousand knives tearing you to pieces, hollowing you from the inside out until all that's left is black blood and clogged arteries and squirmy guts. It makes stomach acid crawl up your throat each time you have to stare at yourself in a mirror, knowing that the person staring back is an always constant reminder of how fucked up you actually are.
Really, it is just another thing to think about, another thing to worry about, and another thing to fucking care about. 'Cuz if no one else says it, you'll start to believe that he's right, too.
"Shut the fuck up, Curly."
You uncurl your fingers from his shirt and let go, inhale; turn your head away, towards the sink, towards the mirror, towards the door, exhale; hear his body crash to the tile floor, inhale; he's choking on blood and saliva and unshed tears, exhale;
(Maybe that's what scares you the most.)
inhale.
