Extended Summary;
In this alternate universe set in present day, Darry Curtis helps his little brothers tackle their teenage years – high school, bullying, crushes, and everything in between. Without the help of his parents, Darry sure has his work cut out for him, but with a gentle heart and a firm hand, he knows he'll manage. Although, he's not sure how much hair he'll have by the time he's done. No matter how much Sodapop and Ponyboy stress him out, he still has no regrets and there is nothing about his life he would change.
In the start of this story, Darry is 21, Sodapop is 15, and Ponyboy is 13.
There WILL be parental spanking of minors in this story, so if you don't like, don't read!
Darry had never been as lost as he was when he got the call that his parents were dead. Barely eighteen, fresh out of high school, he had to call his ten and twelve-year-old brothers into the living room to tell them that their parents weren't coming back.
No matter how hard he tried, he would never forget the looks on their faces – the way Pony crumpled in his arms or the way Soda just stood there, shaking his head in denial even as his eyes filled with tears.
Somehow, the parent in him came out the second he got that call, and he knew he didn't have a choice but to step up. For three hours, he sat with his baby brothers on the floor of their living room and held them while they cried. For the duration of that time, he never shed a tear.
At the time, the only thing Darry could do was stay strong for them, so he did. He got them to sleep in his bed at nearly two in the morning and joined them in slumber, still without tears.
He didn't let himself break down until the next morning when Ponyboy and Sodapop were still asleep. He cried over his parents, his future, and most importantly, his brothers' future. He was lost – as lost as he'd ever been, and overall, he was scared shitless.
They were supposed to have been home right around the time the house phone rang. The pair had been in Florida for their anniversary, and Darry was watching the boys for the weekend. He didn't mind; the three of them got along just fine and he really wanted to spend some time with them before he left for school in the fall.
Their mother and father had been on their way home from the airport. Darryl Sr. was driving and somehow, he ran a red light. It was dark and it was late, and it could only be assumed that he simply was not paying attention. Either way, his carelessness resulted in them smacking into the side of an oncoming semi-truck.
According to the first responders, it killed both of them instantly.
The following couple of days were overwhelming for the three brothers, to say the absolute least. Darry was very proud of Pony and Soda for keeping it together as well as they did throughout all of the visitors and the funeral, but it was still very hard and there were a lot of tears.
Reading their will was the last step of having to deal with their deaths amongst other people, and it was the best part of that hell week because it solved just about everything he'd spent every waking moment since he'd got the news worrying himself to death over.
Their parents, being the well-planned people that they were, had already made sure that Darry would receive full custody of Ponyboy and Sodapop if something were to happen to them, despite the fact that he'd only been eighteen for a little under three months. The only other living family they had was their paternal grandfather, a mean drunk who beat their father senseless until he was nineteen and was able to move out. Darry would have disappeared to Canada with his brothers before he let that man have them.
They had also left him the house and made him the sole beneficiary of their life insurance policies. Between the both of them, it left him with a sum of nearly 90,000 dollars. That was the best news of the week because without a job, he was a little lost as to how he was going to provide until he could find one. That pretty much solved that issue.
Admittedly, he blew through about ten grand of that within two weeks because, well, he didn't have a car and that was kind of a necessity when taking care of two teenage boys. Their parent's car was totaled beyond repair, which left them with their father's pickup truck, which wasn't much of a family vehicle. So, Darry paid a couple months up on a new Trailblazer to get them around. It was nice sized and the boys liked it, so he figured it would work for the time being.
Darry spent the rest of that money spoiling the hell out of his little brothers for a little while to help get them in better spirits. It wasn't the best method to help them cope but hell, taking them to Target and telling them they could have whatever they wanted sure as hell made their faces light up for the first time in days. Besides, he seriously doubted that his parents would have been against him making the boys happy with some of that money, anyway.
Even after shopping for his little brothers, he still had over eighty grand to put up. That was plenty for them to live off of, especially since their father's place of employment had offered him a position. It was a factory job with a good starting pay and good benefits, and Darry knew there was no way he would have snagged that type of job with no experience if his father hadn't worked there for twenty years. His boss didn't have any trouble understanding how Darry would struggle in his new role; He figured the least he could do was offer the kid what was once his father's job.
Financially, things were okay, but that didn't mean Darry still wasn't scared shitless. He knew that there would be a lot more to taking care of two kids than just financially supporting them, and he wasn't sure just how well he'd be able to raise them on his own.
He'd be responsible for so much; Getting both of them to and from school, making sure they actually do their homework, sleep schedules, eating, and everything else required just to keep them alive. Plus, he had rules to enforce and if those rules were broken then that meant he had to dole out punishments and at the time, he was a thousand percent certain that he could not do that.
Of course, he'd spent enough time babysitting that he'd had to dish out a few swats every now and then, but that was different than actual punishments. He really didn't think he had the willpower to turn Sodapop or Ponyboy over his knee the way his father had. Hell, he didn't even know if they would let him.
And at first, it wasn't an issue; the boys were still too sad to get into trouble, but that bliss only lasted three weeks. After that, the smart mouths and bratty behavior returned times ten. That's when Darry started taking away some of those nice things he'd gotten them (the looks on their faces when they realized he hid the PlayStation controllers would forever be amusing) but again, that was only temporary and they went back to misbehaving after about a week.
Darry wasn't stupid. He knew that they were acting out on purpose to test boundaries and try and get the reaction that they were accustomed to. Before their parents died, they had structure and they knew boundaries. If they acted up, then they knew to expect consequences and they knew what those consequences would be, but their father was no longer around to dish them out.
They weren't even teenagers yet. As young as they still were, Darry knew that they needed that structure and that they felt a little lost without it. He also knew that they were only going to get worse if he didn't do something about it soon.
He felt as if it was unfair to just spank one of them out of the blue when they misbehaved, without warning at least. So, one morning, about a month after the death of their parents, he sat them down in the living room so they could have that talk.
Darry explained to his little brothers that just because Mom and Dad were gone didn't mean that they could do whatever they pleased, and he apologized for letting it slide for as long as he did (even though they were too young to understand why he felt the need to apologize). He let them know that they would be punished from then on out when they acted up and that he would be doing it for the exact reasons that their father always had: because he loved them, and it was for their own good.
The conversation went over better than Darry had expected it to, really. Ponyboy and Sodapop both listened without argument, and muttered out their assent when their big brother was done, albeit unhappily. They both started crying once it was settled – first Pony and then Soda, so they shared his lap and bawled into his chest for a while.
It was one of those moments that Darry had to hide a stray tear or two by burying his face into one of his brother's hair. It had only been a month, and he missed them like hell, too, but he still continued to be strong for them. That's what they needed.
Once they'd calmed down, they apologized for being such brats and that was pretty much the end of it. Their reign of terror ended, and they went back to behaving the way they had before that dreadful night. Darry was relieved, to say the least.
That didn't mean he was looking forward to the first time he had to actually spank them, (which turned out to be four days later when they got into a fist fight and Darry had to take a wooden spoon to both of their behinds), but he still knew it was for their own good. As much as they hated it, they needed someone to keep them in line, and he was the one who was going to have to do it.
Hell, it's not like he had much of a choice.
Author's note;
Another Outsiders spanking story!
I always want to read about the Curtis brother's in present day (2017) with more normal issues than worrying about Greaser's and Soc's, so I figured I'd write one myself!
This is an AU, so the characters are OOC, but the brothers still have a relationship that I absolutely adore and I hope that my readers will as well.
This is only a prologue, and you may have to wait a week or two for the first chapter to be up since I'm still working on a different story, but I'll try to get it up as quickly as possible!
