Hello, everyone!
This is my first FanFiction and I hope you all enjoy it! I've been working on it the past while, what with a strange connection to The Outsiders, so this is the first chapter.
I feel like the book left something open in the end; there was something that didn't quite add up. The Socs ran first in the rumble, but what is stopping them from coming back again?
In this story, you will see the events of a post-Outsiders world in which the Socs do come back (in a very rugged way at that).
Enjoy and feel free to leave any comment. I'm not going to say "no flaming" or "don't be mean" because, in reality, what's stopping you from doing so? Plus, some of those comments might be the most beneficial to my creativity and story. I'm not encouraging the practice of mean commenting in any way, but what I'm saying is truly just food for thought.
I do not own The Outsiders in any way, shape, or form. The story you are about to read does not reflect the opinions or viewpoints of anyone involved with the book or movie.
- The Fallen Souls -
It doesn't matter who ran first-Socs are still Socs and Greasers are still Greasers.
The green-eyed boy sat lousily at the table with dim light from the table lamp flickering every now and again. His mind racked the possible ideas for his letter as his hand flicked a yellow pencil rhythmically against the wooden desk. Eyes closed and lips drawn into a firm confusion, he scratched the back of his head through his fading blond hair before returning to his pencil-flicking. Laughs rang through the unfinished wooden door, disrupting his concentration before they faded, quietness prevailing once more. A small gust of wind entered the window and rustled his bed's sheets as well as the blank papers that would soon be filled with words written in careful cursive. Unfortunately, that wouldn't be until he could sort out what he was attempting to write.
Unbelievably, it had only been a few months since Ponyboy's life had been so horrendously tossed about what with Johnny's and Dallas's tragic deaths. Unlike the rest of the boys in the unorganized gang, he had been the one closest to those two before they were viciously taken away from the world. He had watched Johnny take his last breath and seen Dally crumble to the ground cold, wet asphalt under the lightly illuminating streetlight. The others weren't there when the church burned down and they weren't around when Johnny, in Ponyboy's defense, killed Bob. They say they suffered, but if they did, they didn't show it. Then again, maybe he didn't show it either. Pony woke every night in a cold sweat from dreams of Johnny's death, only to find out that the dreams were all too real. When he thought about that week in school and all of the terrible things that happened, he couldn't help but shudder and cringe. He wouldn't admit it to anyone else, but he was scared to just leave the house after that week. Maybe his reasoning for not talking about it was for pride's sake; pride being the one thing he and Darry had in common.
His head snapped up, realizing that he had almost fallen asleep on his desk, and he continued to think about what to write. He'd already pulled his grade up at the end of last year from a D- to a B+ with his experience paper about, well, his wretched experiences of that week, so he needed something else. It was the beginning of his sophomore year and he wasn't about to get a bad grade to start off the school year. The assignment was to "write a letter to the teacher to introduce yourself", as the paper in front of him read. He hated these assignments because it meant telling yet another teacher how he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, lives with his two brothers, is a flat-out greaser, and probably won't be going to college. The only difference this year was that he had seen three people die in one week; what interest his teacher would have in knowing that he had no idea.
He ran his hand through his hair in an attempt to get himself back on the right track of thinking. Picking up the pencil which he had unknowingly dropped, he focused his eyes on the top right corner. "Ms. Cliffton, Period Thre—" another laugh roared through the door and surprised Ponyboy to the extent of his pencil flying out of his hand and landing on the floor next to him. He whipped his head to glare angrily at the innocent door before returning to the paper to see a large line running diagonally across his paper. In a flurry of anger, he kicked his chair back, picked up the pencil, and threw it against the wall before throwing open his door and walking to the main room. His brothers were sitting on the couch, laughing at the television when Pony stalked in.
"Did you see the hammer?! Ahaha!" Sodapop shouted, bending over, holding his stomach, and laughing so hard that he was silent. His greased back hair was bouncing a little bit and his rolled-up sleeves passing his elbows as they unraveled.
Two-Bit was slipping down on the couch in his own fit of laughter, unable to respond to Soda's question. "When Mickey hit him with the hamm—" he cut himself off in an effort to stop laughing, but was completely unsuccessful. Eventually, he slid low enough on the couch that he was about to fall off and had to push himself up.
"Hey, you two punks," Darry said with a smirk on his face as he walked into the room. He scooted a slight bit passed the still angry Ponyboy and looked at the two who were still cracking up. "Why don't you at least try to keep it down a'right?" He looked at his youngest kid brother and mouthed sorry before looking back at the other two. "Hey, Two-Bit, if you don't cool down a bit you're outta the house, you dig?"
"Yeah, yeah," the bum rumbled as he continually attempted to stop giggling.
"We stoppin' your cooking Dar?" Sodapop questioned, looking up at Darry with somewhat of pleading blue eyes. If Soda would have been serious with his question, or had he been younger than eighteen, the oldest brother would probably have just walked out of the room, smirking the whole way back to the kitchen. Now, though, he seemed a bit less forgiving.
"You watch your mouth, little buddy, or you ain't gettin' any food tonight," he replied, poorly hiding a smile behind at appeared to be an intense stare. He turned back to Pony, who was clearly still angry, and patted him on the shoulder before returning to the kitchen.
Without saying anything from the time he got up from his chair, Ponyboy walked back to his room in less of an angry haze than he was before and shut the door. His hand found its way to the small knob on the door handle and he turned it so it was locked. He walked over to his bed and lay down for a moment; mind burnt out from brainstorming ideas for his paper, and let his eyes close. The wind blew into his room again, this time ruffling his hair and freezing a small part of his right arm. He thought of the wind on the night he and Johnny fell asleep in the lot, when he was being dunked in the fountain, on the night of the rumble, and on the street when Dally died because it seemed these days those were the only things he could compare anything to. A tear fell from his left eye and formed a small wet circle on the sheets. He couldn't get those thoughts out of his head and he wasn't sure what to do about it.
Although he'd shut his door to get some privacy and be able to concentrate on his paper, he still heard some laughter resonating through the house. A lower voice, which he connected with Darry, was thrown back and silence filled the place again. An occasional pan drop and light curse came from the kitchen, but that was to be expected with Ponyboy's oldest brother having worked so hard this week.
For whatever reason, Darry had this delusional idea that Pony would get to college, and he wasn't sure why. There was only a portion of Ponyboy's mind that could comprehend the idea of going to college and that was based on the fact that he could probably get a scholarship and Soda and Darry were both working full-time. That was it. The rest of his mind was set on the idea of graduating, if possible, and getting a job to help support the house. Actually, to be truthful, he didn't know what he was going to do when he graduated. Well, the job situation was for sure, but what would he do after that? Darry could probably get any girl he wanted—maybe even a Soc—and Sodapop could, too. They'd probably get married and Pony would be like Two-Bit: bumming around one of their houses until he died. In fact, Two-Bit would probably still be around the Curtis brothers into his thirties. That scared Pony into a small shiver.
Wind entered the window once more and Ponyboy got up, hair depressing itself as he rose off the sheets, and moved over to pick up his pencil. He stretched his back and sat down in his chair. His jade eyes moved back to the sheet in front of him the large line darting across it as if trying to escape the blue lines. He erased it smoothly and knocked the erasures into the floor. Scooting his chair in toward the desk, he finished his name, teacher's name, and date at the top right of the paper and moved the pencil toward the space on the sheet. Indenting, he took a deep breath and wrote the first thing that came to his mind.
"There's a middle ground—somewhere in between the Greasers and the Socs—where three of the bravest people I've ever met were killed. They died, not because of blades, heaters, or even the people behind them, but because of the idiotic idea that one group is better than another."
"Pony, Soda! Dinner!" Darry called from the kitchen, scaring Ponyboy again. This time he wasn't writing anything so there was no annoying line across the paper, thankfully. He thought he would have killed someone himself if there was. Standing up from his chair and placing the pencil next to the beginnings of his letter, the blond Curtis unlocked his door and walked out toward the kitchen. Behind him, another slow swirl of cold wind blew in and shut the door before he could.
Two-Bit stretched on the couch as Sodapop got up and turned off the television. He sat up from his own position and moved toward the door. "Hey all, thanks for lettin' me stay her for a while," he pulled open the door and began pushing the screen.
"No problem, ya ol' bum," Soda said, laughing. "No hammers," he laughed as he sat down at the table.
"Got that right. See ya!" He turned around and shut the door while Darry brought a pan full of mushroom soup over to the table. He also brought over some chocolate milk for Soda and Pony before sitting down himself. Ponyboy looked out the front window to see Two-Bit doing a front flip off of the last step near the front door. He let himself smile for the first time that night and went over to get some spoons and forks for everybody.
Pulling open the drawer, he heard what sounded like a squeal. Confused as to what the sound was, he pushed closed and pulled open the drawer once more, but there wasn't a sound. Darry had just sat down, but it looked as if he was listening for something as well. Pony looked at Soda who was turned backwards and staring out the window. He closed the drawer quietly, not having pulled out utensils, and walked over to peer through the blinds. As he was walking, he heard yells coming from what sounded like a small bit down the block and hurried his pace toward the window. When he flicked open a blind, he saw a nightmare come to life.
A gunshot rang through the house.
Before Darry could react, Ponyboy was out the door and in the street. The screen door smacked the doorway while his steps echoed through the small front yard. He pushed the gate open harder than he meant to, knowing so by the clash of the iron as he turned left. His feet hit the ground at lightning pace toward the scene which hailed the shot and his heart raced when he saw what had happened.
At the far end of the scene were three Socs, one with a heater, smoke still rising into the air from the barrel. On the ground in front of him was Two-Bit lying cold and white-faced with blood seeping through his shirt. His hair lay in a mess on the sidewalk, a blade about an inch from his right hand, his left holding the left part of his stomach where the bullet had clearly entered. His eyes bounced up to Ponyboy's sending a clear, frightening message: run. The teen's jade eyes widened in fear while his feet spun on the cement and darted back for the gate. The blood drained from his face and his fingertips became cold in a sudden gust of wind.
Two more gunshots broke the peaceful serenity of the night.
The blond teen fell forward onto the sidewalk while stinging pain overtook his back and right leg. Reaching behind him, he felt something warm underneath his shirt before another crack echoed through the neighborhood. His right foot now felt pain as well and he laid his head down on the square of cement. His vision became fuzzy and his mind fogged over. If this is what being shot felt like, then it wasn't as bad as he'd thought. Maybe he would die. That didn't sound so bad at this point either. Actually, if this was what death is, it wasn't bad at all; peaceful somehow.
Whatever bit of reality left in his mind was used up on comprehending the words of what sounded like strangers. Someone ran passed him, stepping on his finger and someone else picked up his head. He felt a warm liquid across his forehead. His eyes closed, but all he knew was that his vision was gone. You're gonna be alright, little buddy. He thought he'd heard something like that, but it could've been his imagination. You're gonna be fine. No one's dying today. That actually sounded like something Dallas said to Johnny before he…
Ponyboy lost consciousness.