Hey everyone! Here's your next chapter, up and ready, and as I promised, much longer than the previous one. It's still kinda on the angsty side, but we're movin' away from that slowly. I want Darry to be a deep thinker though, so sometimes we'll sorta submerge into his mind when he's seriously debating something.
Thank you to FrankElza for your kind review! It made my day and motivated me to write this chapter as quickly as I did. Thank you so much! :)
That's everything for now. Happy reading!
Darry hadn't even been home for five minutes when the fighting started.
"I didn't cheat!" Darrel heard Steve holler. Great, he thought, way to go provoke Dally, Randle.
Darry quickly shimmied out of his tool belt and slipped off his work boots. He half-sprinted into the livingroom, just in time to spot Dallas Winston's eyes flash dangerously. If this were a regular day, Steve wouldn't have dared to cheat Dallas, wouldn't have had to protest in the first place, and he would have backed down from Dally for sure, but today wasn't a regular day. There hadn't been a regular day for three days now.
"You did." Dally growled, pointing to Steve's shoe. Darry couldn't see anything, but he'd bet his last paycheck (that was saying a lot right there) that the greaser had hidden a card or two in his socks.
Sodapop must have worn off on him. Said menace was looking quite guilty as he sat squashed against the seat of Darry's chair, watching the spectacle unfolding in front of him while he chewed his lip. Two-Bit wasn't here yet, but he would be soon. Most likely out flirting with blondes and drinking at a pub somewhere.
Steve, the hot-headed idiot, stubbornly refused to give in. "Listen, Winston, I won. So you owe me. Pay up!"
Darry's eyes could barely glance to the middle of the coffee table where a small wad of cash lay, though he supposed they might have bet more and just not put the money there, before Dally threw down his cards and lunged.
They tumbled all over the floor, shouting angrily. It was funny for a moment, but then Dallas began to get the upper hand (no surprise there) and it got kinda ugly (also no surprise).
Darry sighed and rolled his eyes in frustration, and easily got in the middle of the two and yanked them away from each other. Well, he sort of accidentally threw Steve at the wall (in Darrel's defense, slamming into concrete seemed safer than the prospect of being beat up by Dallas Winston) and Dally ended up facedown on the floor.
In record time, Dally popped back up and proceeded to shake himself off. Judging by the curl of his lip and his clenched hands, he could go another round or two. Or three.
"Will you two cut it out?" Darry asked in pure exasperation. Steve had the decency to look a little ashamed as Darrel gave him a cold glare, but Dally (though he still feared the eldest Curtis more than he was willing to admit), wasn't made up of the same stuff.
"He cheated, and the little shit won't admit it." Dally cursed, gesturing at the brown-haired greaser with distaste.
Steve puffed up. "What did you just call me?"
Dally smiled provocotively. "You heard me, little cheating shit. Now I want another game, a fair game, or else I'm gonna beat the fuck outta you."
"If you come at him, Dal, or if you come at him, Steve, I will kick both of your asses so hard that you'll be in Florida by midnight." Darry threatened darkly, staring the two teenagers down.
Both of them quieted for a moment, thinking that siduation through in their heads. Admittedly, it didn't look very pretty. The fight seemed to be over, but while Darrel wasn't looking Steve flicked Dallas the finger with a nasty smirk. A quick slapping sound could be faintly heard if one was listening; Sodapop had connected his hand to his forehead.
Dally saw it, unfortunately. "Gimme my money back, Greaser!" He screamed at Steve, his face turning more murderous by the second, as he was unable to let loose his anger because Darry would literally kick his ass.
"I won, so NO, Hood!" Steve yelled right back. He started to move forwards again, as if he would jump Dally with Darry standing right in front of them.
Darry could see the cracks in his emotional shield lengthening with his provoked irkness. Darrel thought that everyone had an invisible shield in front of them that changed colors when their emotions spiked or morphed, and became more damaged with how unstable that person or the feelings that they were trying to contain were. The shield reacted to different people, and became thinner or denser as well. Also, they were rarely one solid color, because people were rarely feeling one single emotion; colors usually ran underneath others, layered by how intensely someone felt that particular emotion. He had gotten so used to picturing them in his head that he could predict almost exactly what everyone's looked like at any time. Darry could read someone's shield like other people read someone's face.
(Emotional shields, Darry thought, protected people from showing too much of who they really were and helped to make sure they didn't get hurt. It was a sort of built-in safety net. People didn't know it, but they could raise and lower their shield if they wished, but Darry hadn't been able to see someone with their shield lowered in a decent amount of years. Who would want to, anyway? Darry supposed someone in love might want to, yet he couldn't be absolutely sure.)
For instance, Dally's was a dangerous, shocking blood-red with an undercurrent of black, mainly because he was angry. There was a crack in the middle of it, a huge one that looked like someone had shot a miniature bazooka at it, and from there split in a diagonal line across the rest of the shield. The shield vibrated and hardened when it faced its opponent, who was currently Steve. Steve's shield was also red, but more of a bright scarlet with a few lines of blue, green, and grey showing though. It wasn't as broken as Dally's, but it had a few dents here and there and scratches like a cat had gotten to it.
Darry honestly couldn't tell what color his was at the moment (though he refused to count how many harsh marks and rough slashes decorated it), and right now he really didn't have the time to stop and think and look. He just opened his mouth and yelled so loudly Dally and Steve stopped hollering in a heartbeat, "ENOUGH!
Dallas blinked at him as Steve did the same. Sure, Darry could scream up a storm if he wanted, but the pair didn't know he could get so upset that he manually changed his dynamics from Blow Your Ears Off to Bring the House Down.
Darrel looked between the two of them. "Steven-" Steve gulped a little. Darry only called him that when he was in deep shit. "-you are going to give the money you cheated Dally out of back to him. And Dallas-" Dally stood his (uneven) ground. "-calm the hell down and let it go, before I knock both your heads together."
Steve seemed like he wanted to argue, but let it go once he saw how Darry was looking at him. Grudgingly, he forked over twenty dollars with a mumbled, "Sorry, Dally."
Dallas hissed lowly something that sounded like "You'd better be." But nonetheless nodded slightly and swiped back his money. He really wanted to punch Steve in the face, but he wouldn't do it just yet. For Darry's sake.
Darrel released a breath he hadn't known he had been holding, and allowed his shoulders to sag and take his body's weight. He immediently calmed, rubbed his eyes tiredly, and began walking to the kitchen so he could fix some dinner. It was as if somebody had flicked a switch; big bad Darry was all gone and was replaced with neutral, tired, leave me alone Darry.
Steve and Sodapop watched him go, and, despite his quarrel with Dally, Steve turned to the hood and whispered, "Superman's not looking too great."
Nobody really knew it, but Darry wasn't as strong and grown-up as they all thought. He had to act all tough and bold and unemotional on the outside, and yes, he could admit that those things were part of him. On the inside, he was a scared boy who missed his younger brother like nothing else and wished desperately for his parents. He really just wanted to sit and cry, but Greasers don't cry.
(The first day Ponyboy had gone, Sodapop had cried his eyes out. He still did every morning. Darrel wouldn't ever tell a soul.)
Now, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. And worry.
Or so Darry thought.
Darrel was casually mixing some mashed potatos and thinking, listening with only one ear to the news on the TV that Sodapop was most likely watching and to the soft pat sound of thin cards being tossed on the coffee table. Dallas and Steve had started a new game. Hopefully it was a fair one and Darry wouldn't have to intervene.
Suddenly, the door banged open. Not particularly unusual, and Darry turned towards the noise to warn whomever was coming in not to let the screen slam behind them. His breath caught in his throat when a very battered-looking Two-Bit Matthews stumbled though the doorway into the kitchen and half-collapsed on the dinner table.
"Two-Bit!" Darry exclaimed in shock. He quickly shut off the stove so he wouldn't accidentally burn the house down and rushed to his friend, who's skin was bypassing white and going straight to a light green. Two-Bit's lip was busted, and from tilting his head up, Darry could see a purplish bruise across his temple, along with two thin gashes on his chin. Somehow, there was blood smearing the edge of the greaser's right eyebrow, and a closer inspection showed that it was split open. That wound looked like it hurt, and Darrel was sure it would need stitches.
"Two-Bit..." Darry said again, but this time it was in horror. "What happened to you?"
"Socs. Got jumped on the way back from the Dingo." Two-Bit's green face darkened in color abruptly, and he ran to the bathroom faster than he would have run towards a six-pack of free beer.
Darry heard the sickly, violent sounds of Two-Bit vomiting. Hearing the commotion, Sodapop traipsed in the room almost lazily, not knowing what Darrel had witnessed or what was going on.
It took Soda less than five seconds to see the distress (well, more than usual) on his brother's face. "What's goin' on, Dar?" He then listened to the wreached sounds coming from the bathroom. He took a wild guess. "Is Two-Bit alright? Damn, he must've drank one too many shots-"
"He got jumped, Soda. By Socs." Darrel's voice was hard. "They beat him up. Bad."
"Who got beat up by Socs?" Dally's voice asked from the living room.
"Two-Bit!"
"Ah, crap." The brothers heard in response. They gave each other a glance, and in an instance knew exactly why the Socs decided to pound their buddy into pudding: the Socs, all of them, found out that Bob had been murdered by a Greaser. Not only were they upset that their friend was dead, but to make matters worse, they wanted blood for blood. Things were even rougher because the rich kids couldn't get who they really wanted, little Johnnycakes and innocent Ponyboy, so they went after the remaining Curtis gang members to let out their anger. If it wasn't safe before, it was now downright suicide for Steve, Sodapop, or Two-Bit to go anywhere alone. The same rules should really apply to Darry and Dally, but Dally was the toughest, scariest hood around. Nobody sane would mess with him. And Darry had enough strength to give someone a concussion in two swift aimed punches to the head if he felt like it. Nobody smart would mess with him.
Two-Bit had insisted he go out by himself tonight, saying he didn't need to be mollycoddled or walked home or driven or anything of that sort. Darry had let him because he had the impression that Two-Bit wanted some alone time. Sure, the absence of Ponyboy and Johnny was hard on the gang, especially Darry, Dally, and Soda, but Steve and Two-Bit took hits as well. Two-Bit hadn't cracked a joke to the rest of them in 72 hours. He couldn't without smiles or laughs afterwards. He missed a certian quiet smile and another specific small chuckle.
Soon the noisy throwing up stopped, and a toilet flushed. Two-Bit staggered out, clutching his abdomen. His shirt rid up a little, and there was a small line of yellowish marks here and there.
"Sorry, Darry." Two-Bit apoligized with a grimace as he sat on one of the uncomfortable wooden dining chairs that the Curtis's owned. "Them Socs got me good a couple times in my ribs and stomach." It looked painful talking through that lip. Blood from his eyebrow was running down his face in miniature rivers, and Sodapop snatched a few paper towels and handed them over. Two-Bit took them gratefully.
"Jeez, Two-Bit, what the hell?" Steve and Dally had come out to see the action and what was left of their friend. Two-Bit granted Steve a wave, before pressing the paper towels to his cuts and gaspng at the pain. A cigarette was between Dallas's lips, and he puffed it out of concern. Tiny smokey-grey clouds emitted, curling up towars the ceiling and the fading away.
Darry wanted to tend to him, but the Greaser shook his head and pushed Darrel's hand away. "Darry, they were sayin' stuff when they were beatin' me. Important stuff. And when I ran they said important stuff too."
"Steve, go get me some ice from the freezer. Sodapop, turn the stove back on and finish cooking dinner for me. And I want all the food NORMAL colors, okay? No whacky stuff tonight." Darry instructed. The two boys nodded, Soda with a little disappointment, before Darrel turned back to his buddy. "Don't worry about it, forget what they said, Two-Bit. It doesn't mean anything."
Two-Bit clutched Darry's arm with such surprising power that Darry was startled and looked into his eyes.
"No, Darry." Two-Bit almost whimpered. "They're coming here. For us. They wanna fight, a big one, soon, and they ain't gonna wait long."
Darry was just about to deny that (because come on, that wouldn't be fair with both sides missing numbers) and tell his friend to worry about it later, but he was interrupted when there was a sharp knock on the door. Everyone's head swiveled in that direction to stare. Dally even stopped mid-smoke.
Steve handed Darrel the ice he had requested, and because no one else seemed like they were going to, he went and opened the door.
"What?"
"Darrel Curtis here?" An unfirmiliar voiced asked with an equal amount of snap in his tone that Steve had had in his.
"Yeah. What's it to you?"
"Tell him to come out. I want a word."
Steve looked at Darry, who wiped his hands out of habit and walked over. Steve slid out of the way so Darel could see a black-haired, dark grey-eyed Soc with light blue expensive brand jeans and madras standing on his dorrstep with his arms folded. They unfolded when the Soc saw Darry, and realized that the Greaser was a full four inches taller than him.
"Can I help you?" Darrel asked in his semi-deep voice. He raised an eyebrow. Darry pictured this Socs shield a murky brown with hints of almost nonexsistent aqua hidden and sparking in and out of view, like a lightning storm. But, unlike a lightning storm, this Soc wasn't shockingly flashy or rightfully powerful. He just put on a show.
The Soc nodded coolly, hints of a smirk tugging at the edges of his mouth. "Sure you can help us, grease."
Darry barely had time to think He said us, when six other Socs came into view, almost like they had been hovering out of sight the entire time. The Soc in front of Darrel drew a switchblade form his back pocket slowly.
"So here's what's gonna happen, grease." The Soc said, holding the tip of the blade to Darry's throat. "You're gonna come with us, quietly, right now. That way, your filthy brother won't have to feel as much pain when we're done with him."
Darry's brain picked up on the words filthy brother, and locked on them. He'd reached his limit for today: the stressful beginning of the morning with Sodapop, the hell that was called work, breaking up Dally and Steve and trying to keep both of their faces from being ripped off, Two-Bit stumbling in hurt, and now he had to deal with this shit!?
Without a second thought, Darry let out a blind punch.
