A/N: So. Now that I've finished my Angela story, my fanfic muse is still stuck on the Shepards. This is a one-shot that came out of absolutely nowhere, focusing on Curly's relationship with Tim in a backwards way. I hope you like it. The title is a Nirvana song, and it's not necessarily a songfic, but those two words appear in the story. So, credit to Nirvana where it is due.

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, drugs, and quite a bit of swearing.

S.E. Hinton owns.

All Apologies

"How much longer?"

Alan leans against the fence, trying to blow a smoke ring. He looks genuinely curious. But, all the same, I don't want to talk about this. The subject already spends enough time in my mind.

So I shake my head, say, "No, I don't know." Even though I do.

I haven't lit my own cigarette, and it leaves me with nothing to do with my hands. They wander, searching for a distraction, fingers intertwining with themselves and begging for a task. I don't give them one; they can stand here feeling as awkward as I do.

Really, I haven't smoked all that much in the past few months. Why? Don't ask me. How the hell should I know? I don't understand half the stuff I've been doing in the past few months. Nothing makes sense when Tim's not here.

"You gonna survive, Shepard?" Alan asks. He spits into the dirt, frustrated at his failed attempts to make that damn smoke ring. He's a first-class douchebag, but, hey, he's my friend.

"And why the hell wouldn't I?" I shoot back testily. I ain't in the mood for this. I never am. When Tim's not here, I don't have time anymore to fool around. I gotta lead his gang, watch our sister, make sure our old man don't kill himself. Not that we would mind a whole lot.

I ain't jealous of the weight Tim has to carry normally.

It's not that he's never been hauled in before. Because he's been hauled in so many times I've lost count. Ever since we were kids, he was getting into trouble. Me, I get into trouble often enough ... just most of the time, it's stuff Tim can handle, and the fuzz don't get involved. He is the star of getting arrested in our family. Me, Angela, and the old man stay off the radar for the most part.

But he's never been gone for this long.

It's been five months. Still got another one to go. Tim gets arrested, sure, but he knows his limits. He knows he's gotta be there for me and Angel, so he doesn't do anything that will get him this long of a sentence.

I shouldn't say that he doesn't.

Because he has, the little shit.

And here I'm left to be responsible, and I ain't got one responsible bone in my body.

"You're different when Tim ain't here," Alan says, late. His cocky air is gone, now, because he knows I hate it. He's trying to get answers, so he stamps out his cigarette and makes his eyes go big. He knows me. Too much.

"Ya think?"

I can try at sarcasm all I want, but this isn't something that's funny, really. In these five months, Angela started caring even less about what was respectable. Short skirts got shorter. Scoop necklines got stretched. Redder, darker make-up was smeared over lips and cheeks and eyes. This ain't my sister.

She looks like a clown, for God's sake.

Guys like it, though. I've heard the talk. When you run a gang, you got no choice but to hear it. I grin and bear it while it's being said, but back at our house I want to rip every single one of those idiots' lungs out.

Does Tim always have to deal with this?

Alan clears his throat. I drifted off again, apparently. Responsibility makes me less alive. I can't live in the moment any longer. I've got to live in the huge, confusing as hell space that requires forethought and afterthought and too much fucking thought in general.

"Yeah?" I say to my friend, harsher than I was meaning to.

He looks down at the ground. He's surprised, and rightly so. Usually I ain't so snappy. I'm Curly Shepard. I laugh, I live, I break my bones and laugh over that some more. I swear at my sister and my brother, but it's never mean. That's my existence. That's usual. This ain't it.

"Dude, you need a drink. Blow off some steam. You wanna go to Buck's?"

Immediately, I shake my head. "No." I don't give him a reason, but I've got one. Our dad is a drunk, and I can't become a drunk, too. Angela needs someone stable. I won't leave my kid sister to rot, though she may have already.

"No? Well, Jamie got me some weed a couple days ago, and I haven't touched it yet. They say it brings you low, not high. You'd still be able to think okay. Want to try?"

Tim drank. Every day, but he hardly ever got drunk, just buzzed. Like me, he didn't want to become our old man. He smoked cigarettes. Too many, same as me.

Or, no, I smoke too many cigarettes, same as him. I follow him, not the other way around. Ever since I was a kid, I looked up to my brother. He was older, he was cooler, he knew the score.

Until he got himself six months in the cooler.

But I know Tim would kill me if I touched anything stronger. Tobacco and beer. That's it. No weed, no speed, nothing. Even Tim Shepard has boundaries.

"I'll pass," I tell Alan, just because. Tim ain't here to kill me right now, but he'd hear about it in the end.

Alan looks at me funny. "What's with you? Six months ago, you would've given it a go."

"Six months ago, Tim was here to make sure our house didn't fall apart and Angela stayed alive. I've got to keep everything standing for him when he gets back."

"Geez, Curls, can't you ever have fun?"

I breathe in deep through my nose. A trick Ponyboy told me once. I don't think it works, but, hey, whatever. Can't hurt. "Wait 'til Tim gets out. Then you'll have your shitty fun."

I sound so much like my brother it scares me.

Maybe Tim Shepard ain't a person. Maybe it's a title.

One that I have assumed.

But Alan hears the Tim in my words, too. Because his hackles go up, and he turns and leaves. His walk is haughty and pissed, but he knows better than to cuss at me, because I am still the leader of his gang. He's still got to answer to me. He knows it, he knows that I know it. He knows that I will gladly take advantage of my position.

Maybe he ain't my friend right now, either. Maybe he's just my follower. If Tim Shepard is a title, then Curly Shepard is gone, and so are his friends.

Shit, this is complicated.

I slink back to our ratty house because I have nothing better to do. For a gang leader, I sure don't have much confidence. I cling to the shadows like they're my life. I hide from the sun and the people. I don't want them to see me like this, because this isn't me.

I just want Tim to get back so I can laugh again. I want to go get into some stupid-ass rumble with Ponyboy Curtis and get us all in trouble. I want to be able to tease Angela and just watch the evil death glare she gives me. I want a beer, I want a smoke, I want to be Curly Shepard and stupid and happy and alive.

Angela is inside the broken living room, curled up on the sofa. A car magazine is in her hands, one of mine. She flips through it disinterestedly, and I'm glad it's that magazine I've left laying on the coffee table. She looks up when she hears the door smack shut, gives me a lipstick-ed smile that's half a challenge.

She wants Curly back, too, I know.

I give her back a smile that's all apologies. I'm sorry I'm not Curly. I'm sorry I'm Tim. I'm sorry Tim is a complete dick.

She tosses the car magazine at me, and I catch it out of reflex. "What were you doing?" she wonders.

"Talking with Alan, the idiot."

"About?" My sister stretches out her legs, leans into the sofa more. The position ain't very ladylike.

"I don't know, Angel. Stuff."

"Such as?"

Must she do this right now? I let loose a huge sigh to show her that it isn't the time. Not that she'll care. "Such as our brother."

Angela frowns at that. "We still got another month. What did you have to say?"

"Nothing," I answer her truthfully. There's nothing left to say, only stuff left to feel and think and live.

She loses her show of being completely cold. She bites her lip - so vulnerable it's odd. "I want him back, Curls."

She hasn't called me that this entire time. I grin. "Yeah, Angel, I do, too."

"I want you back, too."

It surprises me that she'd be so open. I stare for a few seconds, then remember that I can't let her know she startled me. "I'm right here," I say, chuck the car magazine at her. Playful.

"Yeah, shithead. I have eyes. I mean, I want you to be more Curly and less Tim. Because you don't make a very good Tim. You're too short."

Now I wish I still had a magazine to throw. I growl at her. "I ain't short."

"Sure." Angela laughs. "But, still, Tim is better at this all. You're better at being stupid. Go laugh. Go be an idiot."

"Somebody's gotta be responsible in this family."

Then my little sister gets up off the couch and comes to stand a couple feet away from me. Her eyes are wide and serious. She's pretty, under all that paint. Maybe that's why she wears the make-up - not to make her pretty, but to hide the fact that she actually is. "Did y' ever think that 'somebody' could be me?"

No, I didn't.

No.

Angela is the baby. One year younger than me. She's sixteen, almost grown, but she ain't mature. Not that I am. But I still can't imagine her growing up.

"No way in hell, Angel."

She doesn't like that. She looks ready to spit fire at me. "And why not?"

"I don't know, all right? Just, go have fun."

"You think this is fun, Curls? Running around with guys and these clothes? This?"

I shrug. "I don't know, maybe for you it is -"

"Newsflash, you idiot. I don't like it any more than you do. But what else am I supposed to do? You're never here, now that Tim's gone. Every boy that ain't a hood, even just the greasers, they're all scared of my name. Scared of me. I'm tired of this shit. I ain't queen anymore. Angela Shepard don't mean anything."

Where the hell did all this deepness come from?

I don't understand.

"Look, kid, Tim wouldn't want -"

"Tim ain't here."

I close my eyes. Another deep breath through the nose.

"So, just, go be Curly, okay? I can handle myself. I know what I'm doing. I was fine when Tim was here, and I'll be fine without him. Honest. You're so fake right now. I hate it."

My sister is never this plain with me. She never tells me anything, just turns up her nose and laughs like she's so much better than me. This is new and raw, and I'm not sure if I like it all too much.

"Who's gonna do what Tim's s'posed to, then?" I ask, hoping to trip her up.

"Tim, when he gets his ass back."

Angela flashes a big, true smile. She pushes me; I wasn't expecting it, so I take a step back with the force.

"Just don't kill yourself while doing something stupid. Then I'd have to deal with our lovely brother."

With that, she flounces out of the house, just a bundle of happy cockiness. My sister.

I shouldn't feel this liberated, now that she's given me permission. After all, this is my kid sister. I was born before her. Her whole life, I bossed her around. Angie, do this. Angie, do that. Angie, get your ass over to Tim and tell him to shut up.

Now, she's ordering me around.

Is this what it comes to, when Tim's gone?

Our family runs on good-natured cuss words that we know actually mean affection. There hasn't been much of that since Tim got hauled in. Me and Angela were scared of the fact that he'd said, "Six months." Six months. Six months. Not two weeks, not a month, not two. Six. Three times longer than any other time he'd spent in the cooler. What would happen to him in those six months? To us?

There wasn't any time for playing after that. Just figuring out how to live.

I stand and stare around dumbly at our house, at its death, how stuffing leaks from the sofa and there are cracks all over the side table. The walls. The ceiling. Carpet stained with coffee - or is that beer? A door missing a hinge, swinging with the wind coming in from the kitchen window. A pantry with chips and bread and extra beer, not much else.

The product of our old man.

He isn't here right now. He hasn't been for days. And all the better for us. We hate him, all of us. Especially Tim. He knows it, so he stays away. Not that he cares.

And now I can't stand this house any longer. I near run out the door, wanting air that's not dead. Air that hasn't been churned in and out around our senile little house. A house that has gone crazy, was crazy from the start, always breaking in the strangest places, always making hollow, lonely noises...

Why am I thinking like this? I'm going crazy myself. Curly Shepard does not think like this. That's Ponyboy. Quiet, thoughtful, good. Me, I drag him in and out of trouble every other day.

It's rubbing off on me.

I run away from the smell of brokenness in our house and my own thoughts.

I walk around with no place to go, no goal, until I run into someone. Jake, I think his name is. He's taller than me - though, to be honest, I ain't that tall myself - and strong, dark hair, dark eyebrows, a look of boredom that's always on his face. Whether or not he's bored, though, I have no clue in hell.

I don't say hello. I don't nod. I just start right off the bat, because, hey, my sister told me to be Curly.

And this is Curly, reckless and wild and breathing good air.

"You feelin' up for a drag race? Wade has an old car he might not kill us if we destroy the old thing."

Jake is taken aback.

I can read the 'What?' on his face. He's forgotten about the old Curly, which means it's been too long.

Then he nods, slow, and grins a little.

I go sprinting down the road, feeling the wind tear off all the Tim that's still clinging to me.