It was too quiet.

It was a rare day that Darry came home to a quiet house, but it didn't worry him. Pony would be out somewhere - the library or the movie house, Soda with Steve. Having grown up in a house where it was perfectly okay to come and go as you pleased, so long as you were back by curfew and did your homework, Darry never worried when the house was empty. These days, though, it was unusual.

Someone had left the lights on - that was probably Ponyboy. The kid was always so vague. Darry wished he thought more about the electric bill, but he wasn't going to press the issue. Sodapop had been teaching the both of them how to pick their arguments, and a fight about lightswitches certainly classified as a stupid one.

Darry opened the door and kicked off his dirt-encrusted work boots, throwing the keys to his truck carelessly in the bowl they kept on a spindly table by the door. Soda's jacket was still on the chair where he must have thrown it. It was a cool night - he must have forgotten to bring it with him.

There was a funny smell coming from the kitchen - something rancid. When he entered, Darry spied the puddle of puke on the floor, and winced at the prospect of cleaning it up. Probably Two-Bit or someone had come in here blind drunk - maybe he was lying on one of the beds, sleeping it off. Darry wished he'd made it to the toilet.

"Dare?"

The voice was so small he almost missed it. Doing a second scan round the room, he spotted what he'd missed the first time round. There was a figure wedged in the corner, hidden by a bench and the kitchen table, trying to make himself as small as possible.

"Soda, what're you doing down there?" Darry asked, as gently as possible. There was something very wrong. Something sticky was on the floor - chocolate milk, spilled from a glass that mercifully had not shattered when dropped, but had rolled into a corner. Soda had never looked this terrified - maybe he had been when Pony had been missing last year - but now he was scared for himself; Darry could see it in his body language.

Sodapop didn't answer him. He looked to the side, appearing vaguely confused and detached. But there were tear tracks coming from red eyes that were even now filling up with more liquid. He looked back up at Darry, opened his mouth, and then shut it promptly, unable to find the words he'd been looking for.

Darry carefully stepped over the puke and ignored the sticky feeling of old chocolate milk under his feet as he sat down next to his little brother. "You sick?" he guessed, pressing the back of his hand to Soda's forehead and almost hoping he was hot, because a case of the flu wouldn't be nearly as serious as what this looked like. Soda's temperature was normal.

Soda shrugged off his hand and opened and closed his mouth several more times, still struck dumb. Eventually a fist came out from where it had been tucked tight against his body, holding something out to Darry.

Darry took the piece of paper. It was damp - by sweat or by tears, Darry couldn't tell. It had been scrunched into a ball, but he unfolded it carefully until the writing became legible.

"Oh, Soda..." The ink on the draft notice had been smudged. It was funny that that was the first thought to strike Darry - that the sweat from his brother's fist had smudged the ink, that maybe his terror would make them forgive him this one service. He could have laughed. How wrong he was.

He didn't really let Soda or Pony watch the news anymore. He would, but every time he turned it on there was a warning for disturbing imagery. He wouldn't let his younger brothers - or even himself - be exposed to the violence on the screen. Pony was too young, his imagination too wild. All too soon he'd be dreaming of his dead parents with those same wounds inflicted on the soldiers - and maybe his brothers or friends too. Soda wasn't stupid - he knew what happened over there - but he, too, Darry could not stand to be exposed to the true atrocities of war. For such a happy person, Soda had the tendancy to become very depressed when he was confronted with enough reason.

And himself? He had always feared this day. Maybe it was why he used to ride Soda so hard about school. They went after middle children - since they weren't the firstborn, who carried on the family name, or the nostalgic youngest; it was assumed nobody would miss them. They went after dropouts - the drain on society, the hoodlums who stood on street corners smoking and trading illicit goods. And they went after greasers.

It was stupid, trying to get Soda to finish school. If he'd studied every waking hour he still would not have had the marks for a scholarship, and Darry would never have been able to send him to college to save him from this. Maybe he could have done what Two-Bit was doing, and kept repeating until he was too old. But they would have gotten him eventually anyway.

Darry had prayed every night since Soda's birthday - he didn't think anyone was listening, but he'd take any chance he had. He prayed to Mom, to Dad, to God that Soda's birthday was somehow missed and he wouldn't end up like one of the soldiers on the news. Not just the bloodied, injured ones either - Darry couldn't let him become one of the men whose souls died, who carried on existing and breathing with blank faces, their lives stolen though their bodies still walked. Looking down at him now, Darry almost thought that had already happened.

He wrapped an arm around Soda's shoulder, trying not to count how many hours he must have been sitting here without comfort. "We're going to figure this out," he said numbly, having to say something, anything, to make this all make sense.

It didn't work. Next to him, crouched on a kitchen floor, Soda shuddered.

A/N: I never thought I'd write something like this; I choose to believe Soda and Steve going to Vietnam is not canon. I'm a pacifist and find the thought of war deeply disturbing (I almost think anyone who doesn't should study war more closely). I've just... I guess I'm feeling tragic tonight.

I left the fandom for a long time due to too much badfic. I was having personal issues... but mostly too much badfic. But after rereading the novel three times in a week and many repeated viewings of The Killers' "Dustland Fairytale" clip (watch it; it's about greasers) I decided to read a couple of the goodfics that have been posted while I was away.

Please take the time to leave a review; I'd very much appreciate it.