Author's Note: Okay, a couple key points to note before you read this story. Please take heed.
Firstly: This story is meant to make you cry. Seriously, this is a very, very sad story. I even made myself cry while writing it. So don't look for the happy ending, cause this story isn't really going to have one. I was just in one of those moods where I wanted to write something very angsty, and it doesn't get any more depressing than this idea that I came up with.
Secondly: This was originally going to be a One-Shot, but I feel like it's just a little too long for that. I like things neat and tidy and I don't like the idea of just plopping a whole bunch of text into one huge chapter. So this will be a short novella. Right now I am thinking it will only be three chapters long. So those of you who read and follow either of my other two Outsider stories, take comfort in knowing that this won't take away from either of those two since this story will be finished early next week. Also you can expect both of my other stories to be updated early next week as well, just an fyi.
Anyway, I hope you will give this story a shot! I've working very hard on this since the idea hit me earlier this week. Please review!
XxXxX
Chapter One
It was Sunday afternoon and Ponyboy Curtis was sitting at his desk in his bedroom. His room wasn't particularly big, it was actually fairly small especially for two teenaged boys, but for the past eight months it had felt uncomfortably large and horribly empty. Darry had sent him to his room an hour ago to work on his homework. He found himself mostly just staring blankly out the window though, unable to concentrate. Eventually he pushed his math textbook aside and pulled a stack of letters out of his desk drawer.
It had been eight months since Sodapop had been drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. It had been a horrible shock for all of them. As Soda and Steve had each turned eighteen they had joined Two-Bit in his worry of getting the mail every day, though they all did their best to ignore the escalating war across the ocean. Soda, who was, unfairly enough, the youngest of the draft eligible Greasers, had only been eighteen for about three months when he got his notice. Watching him cut his own hair off – he had refused to give the military the satisfaction of doing it for him – pack a very small bag and climb aboard a bus at 4:30 in the morning had been one of the hardest things for what was left of the Greasers to do.
Pony had admired the way that Soda had put on a brave face for them. In the days leading up to Soda's departure he had become very much like Darry in a way. Stoic. But Pony knew him well enough to know that he was covering up how he was really feeling. He was afraid but he didn't want anyone to know it, not even his brothers. But Pony could see it clearly as he would watch Soda toss and turn at night.
Pony rifled through the stack of letters he had received over the past eight months. There weren't very many of them. Pony knew that Soda didn't have a whole lot of time to write while he was fighting some war on the other side of the globe. And even when he did manage to write the letters were very short. His brother had never been very good at writing anyway and Pony knew that him putting any effort at all into it showed how desperately he wanted contact with his brothers.
Pony-
Got 3 of your letters today. Im glad skool is good. I sure miss you guys. I hop Darrys not workin to hard. Only a few more months till I can come home. I had a dream about cocolat cake the other nite. Food here suks. Tell Two-Bit an Steve I say hi.
love you. miss you.
Soda
That was the most recent letter that Pony had received from his brother, almost two weeks ago. It was a lot like all of the other letters. Soda never wrote anything too specific about what was going on and Pony could certainly understand why. Pony also knew that even just those seven short sentences had taken a lot of effort from his brother. He knew that his brother was smarter than a lot of people gave him credit for, he just tended to work slower than most of the students in his classes throughout school. He might not be the world's best speller, but if he had time to read over what he had written a couple of times Pony knew that he could catch a lot of his own mistakes. Of course Pony knew there was probably no time for proofreading over in the jungles of Vietnam. But it didn't matter how short the letters were or that at times they were a bit illegible. Pony was always grateful for any contact with his brother.
Pony pulled out a fresh piece of notebook paper from another one of his desk drawers. There was no way that he was going to be able to focus on his homework now, he was too distracted by thoughts of his brother fighting for his life on the other side of the world. He would get to his homework later. Right now he just needed to talk to Soda.
Writing had always come pretty naturally to Pony, just like talking to Soda always had. With these two activities combined Pony felt like he could write for days at a time. Darry had to constantly remind Pony that Soda didn't have time to read pages and pages of letters every day. Pony did his best to keep the letters as simple as possible, but in what seemed like no time at all he had filled the front of the page of the notebook paper and was debating continuing on the back.
The house was quiet at the moment. The TV was rarely on anymore because none of them could stand to watch any of the news coverage of the war and that's all that seemed to be on anymore. Darry had also switched the radio off earlier, saying that he had a headache. He had been having a lot of headaches lately. Pony suspected that it had to do with stress. Darry hated feeling helpless. He had done everything he possibly could to protect his little brothers for the past two years and Pony knew it was really hard on him to have one of those brothers taken away from him and thrown into a situation where he couldn't protect him anymore.
Because the house was so quiet Pony heard the knock on the front door. His pencil was still posed over his letter to Soda as he straightened up, cocking his head toward the front of the house. His mind immediately went blank as he tried not to jump to any conclusions about who might be knocking on their door. He didn't need his wild imagination getting him all worked up over something as simple as a door-to-door salesman or something of the like.
After a moment of being completely still Pony very suddenly pushed himself away from his desk and practically ran to the living room. He wasn't really sure why or how but somehow he just knew that he had to see who was at the door. He couldn't sit and wonder he had to know right now. Later in life when Pony would look back on that moment he could realize that deep down he had known what was about to happen, even if he hadn't been ready to admit it to himself.
The scene that met him as he rounded the corner and stopped dead in his tracks would haunt him for a very long time.
Darry was standing with the front door open, his posture stiff and his face tense and expressionless, a familiar mask he would dawn when he didn't want someone to know what he was feeling. From his angle Pony could just make out the man in a military uniform standing on their front porch. Pony's knees felt weak and he grabbed the edge of the doorway to the living room for support. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be true.
"I'm so sorry," Pony could hear the army officer say seriously, a hint of depression in his voice. "I can tell you that it was quick and he didn't suffer."
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It was a constant drone of denial in his head. His mind couldn't even understand what was really happening even though in his heart he knew exactly what those words meant. He watched through a haze as the man in the doorway handed something very small to Darry. He was aware of Darry saying something but by then Pony was way beyond able to comprehend any of the words that were being said. It felt like a very large, gaping hole was opening up in the middle of his chest and he hunched over in a futile attempt to keep himself from falling apart.
Pony was staring straight down at the floor when he heard the door close. There was a long silence where the minutes seemed to take hours to pass. Pony felt short of breath and he clutched tighter to the door frame just to remain standing.
"Pony?" Darry's voice shook ever so slightly, betraying his own devastation and any semblance of control Pony might have had crumbled in that moment. He collapsed to the floor, desperately gasping for air as his whole body shook, in too much shock to even produce tears at that point. He sat on his knees and hunched over himself as he put his hands on his head as if he could make himself small enough to hide from this horrible tragedy. A minute later he felt a gentle hand on his back. Darry was crouching next to him. He practically lunged at Darry, burying himself in his big brother's t-shirt. The only big brother he had left.
"Please no," Pony whimpered brokenly. Darry securely wrapped his arms around Pony and squeezed him closer. Pony's body finally caught up with him and tears began streaking down his face as he broke down into uncontrollable sobs. "Please no, S-Soda. Not S-Sod-da."
Darry was silent as he gently rubbed Pony's back. Darry's silence betrayed how devastated he really was at this moment. He offered up no comfort, because there was no comfort to give.
Pony had no idea how much time had passed as the two of them sat on the floor of the living room. Every time he seemed to start to calm down and was able to think clearly the fact would hit him again – his brother was gone, Sodapop Curtis was gone forever – and he would break down all over again. Eventually, though, it seemed that he simply ran out of tears.
Darry patiently sat with Pony the entire time, holding him close in an attempt to provide some sort of support. Pony spared a glance up at his brother. Darry was leaning his head back against the wall behind him, his eyes unfocused as he stared straight ahead, deep in thought. But as Pony studied him closely he could see that his icy eyes were glistening with unshed tears.
"Darry?" Pony said quietly, his voice small but it echoed out clearly in the silent house. Darry looked down at him in surprise, almost as if he had forgotten that he was there. There were a few moments of silence as Pony didn't quite know what to say. There wasn't anything either of them could say to make this better, to make this okay. "Love you, Darry," Pony finally said. At least the deaths stopped coming in two's, he thought bitterly to himself, thinking of both his parents and then of Johnny and Dally. At least I still have Darry left.
Darry gave him a squeeze. "Love you too, kiddo," he said, his voice shaking slightly, his self-control obviously only hanging on by a thread.
"It… it's just not fair," Pony said, dropping his gaze as tears began forming in his eyes once more. "He… he didn't even wanna go." He heard Darry take in a shaky breath and when he looked back up he could clearly see Darry's walls crumbling as several tears escaped and streaked down his cheeks.
"I know," Darry said in a low voice. He shook his head as the tears began to fall more rapidly. As he watched his brother break down Pony felt himself crumbling once more into the pit of devastation that threatened to swallow him whole. The horrific magnitude of the situation was suddenly crushing him even more as he realized that not even Superman could handle this.
He noticed that Darry was looking down at something and he twisted around to see what it was. Darry's hand was open and resting in his palm was a set of silver dog tags. Pony could barely read 'Curtis, Sodapop P.' stamped into the metal before his vision was completely obscured by tears. As he turned back into Darry's chest he could feel Darry's own sobs wracking through him. Even Darry had a breaking point.
Pony was quickly realizing that the death of someone that you love was never something that you could get used to. Two years ago he had lost both his parents. Eight months later he had lost two members of the gang, one of which had been his best friend. Now this. It never got any easier to deal with. If anything it just got worse.
Soda had been everything to Pony. There were no words for how much that Pony loved his brother. He honestly didn't know what he was going to do without him. How could he possibly cope with this? More importantly, why did he have to cope with this at all? Why was his life so full of loss? Why did so many people that he loved have to die? If this kept up eventually he would lose everyone and he would be left completely alone.
What had any of them ever done to deserve this?
