Just a curious writing. Not too sure where it came from.

Merry Christmas, readers! :)

Damsel in Distress

Darry'd gotten a goddamn dog in the six months he was gone.

And it should've been the first thing to go in the house when he got home. It should've surpassed all the old furniture, Pony's old knickknacks, and even Darry's crummy-ass football uniform that practically fell to dust in his hands. It should've been the one thing to leave; to be thrown to the curb and acted as if it never existed in their house.

Their father never wanted any animal. Their mother fought with him, and when she 'accidentally' picked up a small brown scrab on the side of the road in a box, he'd thrown a fit. A real one, so real that he threw the fucking pup across the room, and Soda had watched their mother sob over its small, weakened body as it took its last breath.

It's whining still rang in his ears.

When he went into the army, into Vietnam, he hadn't expected any dogs. He expected men with guns and tanks rolling all around him––not fucking dogs. Not big and buff German Sherpards with more strength than him or any of the puny numskulls that somehow got into this place; all of them, fur and flesh, stood on the same ground as him.

So when he came home, it was the greatest day of his life. Not only because he was coming home from the army, but because there wouldn't be any more reek of dog piss flooding his nose, no more protecting himself from a dog bite with a huge as fuck pillow-arm.

Until he got home, saw the thing, and watched the grin form on Ponyboy's face.

"It was his idea," Darry said as he'd turned towards him. Pony interjected, "Her name is Damsel."

Soda made the connection: this dog, this... Damsel was the key to his distress of being home. Apparently.

How original.

The dog sniffed at his hand, but he snarled at it as he walked past Pony, into his bedroom, and slammed the door shut behind him.

Scratch.

Soda sighed roughly and shouted to the outside world, "Ponyboy, I swear to God if your fucking brute doesn't shut the hell up––"

"She ain't a brute," Pony's voice sounded just outside his door, and he raised his head as his younger brother's face came into his vision. Of course, with the door cracked, Damsel decided to shove herself into his room and hop on his goddamn bed. "She just wants some company."

Soda grumbled under his breath and threw the covers off of his torso. "This," he picked up the dog and shoved it in Pony's arms, "is your company. Not me."

The dog whinedin response, and Soda rolled his eyes as Pony plopped her back onto the bed. "I'll come get her in the morning, Sodapop. You can handle her for two more hours, can't you?"

"Jesus Christ––"

"Shut up and do it." Darry's tall form stood behind Ponyboy. "It's only two hours, and your crabby ass needs some company too, mister."

He knew better than to argue at this point. With a grunt, he shuffled back to his bed and muttered for the dog to move.

Something came over him in those last two hours.

It wasn't loving or affectionate or any of that classic bullshit. It was much darker, much more sinister, and it shook him from a sleep so calm that it was almost terrifying.

And in that terror, he screamed and kicked and cried against his bedside, ripping himself apart by the seams, having nothing left to hold on to but a bedpost and the edges of his mind.

Something wet came from above him––something was licking him.

He backed away, snarling and hissing, and the dog did the same, barking and yipping. There seemed to be a smile on her face, a sick, small little smile, and it made a fire rip through his chest, made him get right into its face and cry deep into the vacant beyond.

"I hate you! I hate you so fucking much! How dare you come in my fucking home and take everything from me? This isn't your goddamn home! You don't belong here! You don't know shit about what I've been through, and you think you can just come in here and fucking lick my face and piss in my sheets and roll around in your own shit? You're disgusting, you filthy rat! Get out!"

But somewhere in there, he'd stopped clinging to the bedpost, stopped yelling, stopped feeling like he was about to fall off the edge. His tears, which began as anger, changed to sadness and remorse, but not in Damsel; in himself. In himself for not saving those he could've, for not taking those extra steps to his own freedom rather than be carried by those who didn't know war freedom from home free.

It was in that moment of freedom that he realized that he was clinging to her, and she just sat there and let him hold her, almost as if they were lovers rather than a man and his dog.