Yes yes, I could insert plenty excuses for why I'm so terrible at updating and why this took so long and why I'm so negligent of my writing and all this kind of stuff. But here it is. At last. And I still don't own it. Read, and (hopefully) enjoy!


Day Four

~ Wednesday ~

~ Two-Bit ~

I woke up still aching. Four of them had cornered me yesterday, and they'd managed to sink a few good punches and pull a blade on me before I caught up with them. A couple of the guys came running to rescue me pretty soon after, but I was holding my own just fine. You didn't grow up on this side of town your whole life without picking up a few tricks.

The idea that I was not going to school today was already fully-formed in my head, and I wasn't going to argue with myself. That was the first step to the loony bin. Still aching, I stumbled downstairs. They had cut me on my hand and on my cheek - deep enough cuts, now that morning had given them time to settle. Absentmindedly, I pulled a shirt over my head and scratched at the cut on my hand, making it bleed again.

I was surprised to find Holly sitting in the kitchen, helping herself to a bowl of those Lucky Charms - the new fad in our household, the go-to cereal - while she studied the cardboard packaging box intently.

She looked up when she saw me. Her hair was tied back from her face, but strands were escaping anyway, and she kept shoving it back. "Don't pick at that," she admonished, grimacing at my hand.

"It's fine," I said coolly, waving a hand at her and swiping the box of Lucky Charms.

She jumped up - there wasn't much difference from when she was sitting on the stool; Holly was only five feet tall. If I didn't know that my dad was borderline midget-sized too, I would have doubted she was related to me, since our mother and I got all the tall genes.

"Okay," she said, frowning. "Don't stick your hand into the cereal, Two-Bit, it's still all bloody and grotesque." She wrinkled her nose; I rolled my eyes.

"It's fine," I said again, whining a little more.

"Can I at least clean it?" she said reproachfully, blinking up at me.

"You ain't gonna put a band-aid on it, are you?" I groaned. "That ain't gonna look tough at all."

"Well, if you keep scratchin' at it, it's gonna get infected," Holly informed me, raising her eyebrow. I rolled my eyes, but she got a disinfectant wipe from under the sink and pressed it to my hand, making me jump.

"Stings," I muttered.

"Don't be such a baby," she muttered, shaking her head at me. She dumped the tissue and went back to her cereal.

"Going to school today?" I asked her.

"No," she replied curtly. "Are you?"

I shook my head. "Takin' it easy today. With my favourite sister."

"Such a compliment, considering I'm your only sibling," she said coolly.

I shrugged. "Better than nothin', squirt."

She blinked at me. I went into the front room and switched on the TV. It was early enough, and television was never any good until about six o' clock. Holly followed me after she had cleaned up in the kitchen, and she stood leaning in the door frame with her arms folded loosely across her chest, and she surveyed me.

"What are ya starin' at?" I asked her from the couch.

"Two-Bit, you're gonna be careful right?" she asked me. I gaped at her, astonished. That was close as I had heard Holly get to admitting she had concerns - a worry. It wasn't usual for Holly. Not in the slightest. She even looked a little worried, if I looked to see it hard enough. Or maybe I just really wanted to see it in her face.

"Worried about your big brother, squirt?" I grinned at her.

She seemed to jolt and recover pretty quickly. She jerked her head a little, her features twitching. "Well, I don't wanna have to put the pieces back together if you go out and get yourself jumped," she said, making it her business to sound haughty. "Again," she added. "I can't serve as your sense of self-preservation when you're out there rumbling with the other guys 'cause you think it's some warped form of entertainment."

That sounded a lot more like Holly - big words, condescending tone, and an air that made it sound like everything was a huge inconvenience to her and her alone.

"You think I think it's fun?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "You're gonna sit there and tell me you don't?"

"Shoot, kid," I muttered. "Everybody fights. Matter of pride," I added, sticking my chin out. She eyed me for another second.

"Well, just . . . don't get yourself killed, okay?" she said uncertainly, slipping past me to go upstairs. "It's been almost sixteen years, and I've just gotten used to having you around." She threw me a small but warm smile.

"You love having me around," I reminded her.

She glanced back, smirking. "Don't push it, Two-Bit."

I snorted. "Don't sweat it, squirt. Ain't nobody yet able to resist my charm." I reclined in my chair, propping my feet up on my Mama's coffee table - shoving off an almost empty packet of potato chips in the progress - and rubbed at my eyes. My stomach was still sore from a couple of mean punches that the Socs had thrown my way - no matter how much I wouldn't admit it out loud to anybody.

Holly stood on the last step and glared, a small smirk playing about her lips. "Two-Bit, if you were half as charming as you think you are, you'd be twice as charming as you are."

I blinked at her for a few seconds, working out what she'd said in my head. "Wanna get me a beer, squirt?"

She scowled. "I told you not to call me 'squirt'!" she grumbled.

"Soda calls you 'squirt'," I muttered back, glancing up at her from under my eyebrows to gauge her reaction. She strolled towards the kitchen, her face particularly expressionless, as Holly was so used to keeping it.

"Exactly," she muttered.

"So I figured it was okay," I went on, grinning broadly. "Or is that just specially for Soda?"

"Shut your trap before I break your face," she said curtly from the kitchen; in another second she was back in the living room, holding out a nice cool beer for me. She sat down beside me and gazed unseeingly at the TV for a few seconds.

I snapped my fingers in front of her face, and she didn't even react.

So I poked her shoulder, watching her carefully. "What's up, kid?"

"Kid's no better," she replied automatically. I poked at her shoulder again.

"Talk."

Holly sighed, pulling at a strand of her fair hair. "I don't want you to fight tomorrow," she said in a small voice, looking anywhere but at me.

I was too shocked to snigger or laugh at her, like I would have done if she didn't seem so serious. And I was a little disturbed, I'll admit - she wasn't acting normally. She was so hardened, so determined not to let anything or anyone get to her. She was so imperturbable. And she had never said anything like that to me before; it seemed so personal for Holly.

And I felt this overwhelming need to lighten the mood. I forced a small laugh. "Who are you and what have you done with my sister?" I joked, punching her playfully.

She frowned at me reproachfully, her wide blue eyes full of hurt. "Shut your pie-hole, Two-Bit, I'm bein' serious!"

"For once," I muttered.

"Quit laughin', I'm tryna talk to you," she scowled.

I sighed. "Okay. Why don't you want me to fight?"

"You're gonna get yourself killed!" Holly blurted out. "One of you - somethin' awful is gonna happen, and I know - " her mouth twitched - "I know I don't act like it a whole lot, but I don't know what I'd do with myself if anything happened to you." She frowned, like she was confusing herself.

I let out a natural, genuine laugh and threw an arm around my sister's bony shoulders. "Okay, listen to me, kiddo," I told her wisely, ignoring her taut, sour face. "Ain't nothin' bad is gonna happen." She just looked at me skeptically. "This is important. You know the way you're my sister?"

With a sigh, she shrugged her shoulders. "I think I've grasped a vague idea of the concept, yes," she said sardonically, staring at me.

"Well look. Ponyboy is Darry and Soda's little brother, and Johnny might as well be our kid brother too," I said, thinking hard. "And you know that if something happened to you, I'd kick the ass of whoever dunnit?" She blinked. "So I gotta help take care of this. They're family, remember?"

She nodded. "Just because somethin' happened doesn't mean I have to go lose my family too," she mumbled. "Ain't like we gotta dad, or like Mom's around a lot."

I rolled my eyes - I wasn't getting into that conversation again. Sometimes, Holly could feel awful sorry for herself. "Kid, they're family. And we protect family." It was hard to explain it to her - I knew she was worried about me, which was honestly more than I anticipated, so I appreciated it. "Darry's really cut up about this. We all are. Soda's a mess, you seen him lately?" I said, trying not to snigger as I gave her shoulders a squeeze.

It had been years since I'd seen Holly blushed, 'cause she just didn't get embarrassed. But it still didn't make it any less fun to tease her until the cows came home. She shook her head.

"Yeah, well he's takin' it awful hard," I informed her. "And it needs takin' care of. And I gotta help out with this."

"It's not going to change anything," she said quietly.

"Yeah it will," I said with conviction. "It's gonna keep those Socs off our territory when we beat the tar out of 'em."

"And if you don't?"

"We will," I said coolly, nudging her. "And then things go back to - better than normal," I concluded cheerfully. Holly rolled her eyes, and I grinned broadly at her. "Look, don't worry, kid. We got it all taken care of."

She pulled at a loose thread on the couch, and I stood up, shoving my hands in my pocket. "I'm gonna mosey on over, see how they're holdin' up," I told Holly. "You wanna come? I'm sure Soda could use someone to talk to," I told her, winking.

She scowled. "Tell 'im to go talk to Sandy."

I pulled a face. "That ain't funny."

"Bye, Two-Bit," she replied, turning away from me to face the TV again. I sighed, and left as I shrugged into my jacket.

XXX

It was hard to act serious. I felt like cracking a joke, or at least smiling at somebody; it sort of felt like if I treated the situation as gravely as it merited, that would only confirm it. The last thing that this whole mess needed was validation.

I hadn't a clue where Soda was, and Steve was probably with him, or looking for him, and the house seemed so sinister and quiet, it gave me chills when I walked in. I was about to call out, "Who died?" with a laugh, but I stopped myself just in time. Superman didn't need me to do that.

And whatever people might say about me - I wasn't a hundred percent tactless all of the time.

"Hey, Superman? Ya here?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Darry called from the kitchen. "Just fixin' some food, you want somethin' to eat?"

"Nah, that's okay," I said, propping myself up on the kitchen counter. "Holly's going through one of her cooking phases," I said with a bemused grin.

"Yeah, well, if she's got too much 'cooking phase' for you to eat, tell her to send some over here," said Darry, with a small chuckle.

"You okay?" I grimaced, noticing the dark circles under Darry's eyes, which were bloodshot and small.

Darry sighed. "No," he said shortly. "I miss my brother."

I raked my hand through my hair, and jumped off the counter to check the refrigerator for some beer. "Hell, Dar," I said, trying to find a bright side in this complete landscape of black. "Pony's a smart kid. I'm sure -"

"What, nothin's happened to him?" Darry said, frowning. He shoved a chicken in the oven, and leaning against the counter, he covered his face in his hands and seemed to deflate before my eyes, like I was watching Superman fall out of the sky. "He's a fourteen year old kid."

I blinked. I didn't want to tell him not to worry - it wouldn't do any good. That was like trying to tell a leopard to stop having spots. "Darry, everything's gonna work out okay," I said instead, which I realized might as well have been the same thing. But I was trying to convince myself as much as him, and I needed to hear it. Glory, if anything happened to either of the kids - our gang would never be the same.

Darry sighed again. "There's just a few things I wish I'd said to Ponyboy, ya know?"

I nodded, chucking him a beer. "He knows."

"That's the thing," said Darry, taking a swig and sighing again. "I don't think he does. Soda was always tellin' me to go easy on the kid . . ."

"Hey, he's got Soda for that," I said, a little defensively. "The kid needs someone to take care of him too. Tell him to do his homework." At least I could say that with confidence - since I was the one who always had to father Holly, whenever she'd let me gain half an inch towards trying to set her straight. She didn't let me act like a dad too much, so I didn't try a hell of a lot anymore. But that didn't take away that feeling of responsibility or whatever you wanted to call it.

"Yeah but . . . " Darry shook his head. "It's almost like Soda was waitin' for something like this. There's just a hell of a lot of things I woulda done differently."

"Glory, Darry," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "What you worryin' about what's already happened for? Just . . . Just make sure you say it to Ponyboy when he gets back," I said. "Whatever it is you need to tell him. Worry about that, if you're gonna worry."

Darry snorted. "I don't know if you know the meaning of the word 'worry'."

I managed a weak chuckle, but if you wanted to know the truth, worry was actually the thing gnawing at my stomach, no matter how much I pretended it wasn't. I thought of Johnny and Ponyboy, and of the most awful situations and eventualities.

Oh, I knew the meaning of the word 'worry'. I glanced up at Darry, just about able to stretch my mouth into a thin, forced smile. "I wouldn't be so sure about that."


Updates are promised . . . That's it, they're just promised. Thanks for reading.