Disclaimer: S E Hinton owns The Outsiders

Tim's POV

The door closed behind Darry and Pony, and I was bitterly relieved to see the backs of them. Staring at Darry across the bed, his brother beside him and mine on the bed between us, it suddenly seemed that everything I had ever done and wanted for in my life had been wrong. I should have done better by Curly, I should have tried to keep him in school and kicked his ass if he even looked like getting in trouble, I should have left the gang and stayed out of jail and been everything I never was. I should have realized that you pay for everything you have in this world, one way or another.

So I had paid, and Shane would pay. I looked at the two boys from my outfit, and this was what I could deal with. I could deal with hoods who stared at me with inarticulate anger and blood lust, I couldn't deal with Ponyboys last, sincere words, the pity for Curly that I'd seen in his eyes.

"Hey Tim" said Daniel. "He'll be okay, right?" he inclined his head down toward Curly, and what I saw on his face for a second just about floored me. These were boys from my outfit, they were supposed to be mean and hard and not give a fuck about anything, yet the emotion in their eyes as they looked at Curly was more than just hate for an enemy.

I just nodded because I felt like I was going to fucking lose it right there, I could feel something cold swirling inside me, and it seemed that everything in my life was drifting away from me and all I could do was stand there and watch it leave.

"He'll be alright, he's tough" I said even though I still couldn't look down at him. Because he was only flesh and blood, after all, and no one was too tough to die.

"So, what do you want to do Tim?" Greg asked. "Whatever you want man, just give us the word."

What I wanted was to go back to that day when me and Curly faced each other in the bathroom and say to him – its okay, let's go out and have a drink and play pool and forget the whole fucking mess.

But the boys stood there waiting, and I had to make my play. There couldn't be a moment's weakness, not from me, not even now.

"Don't touch Buchanan" I said first. "He's mine."

They nodded reluctant acceptance, and I saw that neither of them looked down at Curly again.

I looked out the window for a second, wondering what else to say. None of it seemed to matter a damn, not if Curly died. I could go out and kill every gang member in the world but I could never bring my brother back.

"I want the names of who did it" I said eventually. "I'm gonna take them out."

But there wasn't even satisfaction at that thought; just that hollow ache inside that felt like a truck had driven through my fucking guts.

"What else" Greg asked, his tone eager and impatient. He wanted to get out there and start cracking heads. I looked again at the window and the city spread out low before us, and I wanted to get out there too. I wanted to roam the streets under the blistering hot sun and smash skulls into the pavement, punch a blade through skin, drink whisky straight from the bottle and swagger through town with my boys behind me, go out into the streets where I was king and not here in this cool hospital room where I was helpless to do anything but watch and wait.

"What else?" Greg said again.

"Huh?" I asked, trying to keep my mind on the conversation. I should have been focused on revenge, but instead my thoughts kept drifting away, remembering way back to when me and Curly were just kids and our parents were still alive, back when I still had everything to lose.

"What else do you want us to do?" he said, his whole body looking coiled and ready to unleash.

I didn't want anything else. I wanted Curly to live and Shane to die, and that was all that my wishes in the world had come down to.

"Just get me those names" I said.

Greg slouched back against the wall and I saw his eyes flicker down toward Curly again, briefly.

"Shit, Tim" he said, and raised his head to look straight at me for the first time. "He's just a fucking kid" he said, his words stretched out, strained.

"Yeah" I said, and I wondered how I could have forgotten; Greg, whose little brother was kicked into a coma two years ago after he strayed into the wrong turf. Greg never found out who did it, and his little brother didn't die but he never woke up either. I could hardly remember the boy, couldn't even remember his name, just another kid from the gutter. But for Greg he was everything, every hood he saw could have been that attacker, and I never thought it was possible to feel pity for another person.

"You do what you want" I told him, the closest I could come to any expression of sympathy.

"Yeah" he said, nodding, and I could see in him the long ache for revenge that would never be sated.

"What are you gonna do?" Daniel asked me.

What I wanted was to go out on the streets, to get drunk and fight, but I couldn't bring myself to leave my brother there like that. This never would have happened if I had been there for him in the first place.

"I'm gonna stay here" I said, and while Daniel looked at me with something like disappointment, Greg nodded and I saw a different kind of respect from what he had shown me before.

They left and a nurse came into the room, looked at me and said, "We're going to take your brother down to theatre now."

I stepped aside to let her and another nurse go to Curly's bed and ready him to wheel out, and I looked down at him and then I couldn't take my eyes off him. Maybe this would be the last time I would see him alive, and in the midst of the pain that burned inside was peace. At least if he was dead then he could never be hurt again.

xxx

I stood staring out the window at the lights on all over the city, wondering what was happening out there in the night. There would be my boys out for revenge, there would be Shane's boys out for revenge, but no amount of blood would ever be enough to make up for this. Behind me I heard the hiss of the oxygen tank as Curly drew breath, and all the times I had wished he would shut up and stop running his mouth seemed like a curse.

He had been brought back up from surgery four hours ago, and the doctors had told me that the operation had gone well, if he woke up tonight then it would be a good sign, and I hadn't asked what it would mean if he didn't wake up. Six hours he'd been there, getting stitched back together. I had walked the halls of the hospital and sat in the waiting room and then walked some more, I had smoked two packets of Lucky Strikes, drank four cans of coke, gone to the bathroom and puked my guts out. I had punched my fist through a window and raked my arm back across the jagged panes, cutting so deep that it seemed I could have touched the place inside that hurt so bad.

And then they brought him back up, still alive, and if I believed in anything I would have got down on my knees and thanked it. I looked over my shoulder at the bed again, wishing he had someone better than me, someone who would sit beside him and hold his hand and tell him that they loved him, that there was something worth staying for.

At first I had, when I saw him that morning, holding his arm so hard the nurse scolded me for the bruises I left, saying his name, telling him to hold on. He had lain there, not moving, not turning toward me with that hopeful look when I said his name. It seemed like some revenge for all the times I had turned away from him when he wanted my attention, all the times I had left him because I knew he would always be there, all the times I had tried not to see how much he wanted from me.

I had stopped then, because asking anything of him seemed like something I had no right to do.

I turned to look over at him again, watching out the corner of my eye to see if he would move, blink, do anything. I remembered me and Curly staying up late while my mother was at work and my father was out drinking, sitting up watching the late night horror on TV. Curly had pulled his shirt up to cover his face, watching the movie out the side of it. I kind of felt the same way now, not wanting to face what was in front of me, not able to turn away completely.

I remembered the flickering screen lighting the room, Curly hiding his face in his shirt, and both of us jumping when the door suddenly opened. My mother had come in, still in her work uniform, looked at the movie on the screen and Curly huddled into the side of the couch.

"Oh, Tim" she'd said, her voice gentle but admonishing, making me cringe inside with shame. She'd gone up to Curly and laid her hand on his head, looking down at him with sad tenderness. Then she looked to me, her expression hardening. "You're supposed to look after him" she said.

It was strange to look back on the scene, to see it so clear and unchanged in my head but with the mind of a nineteen year old, not the nine year old I'd been then. I saw how tired my mother was, how young she was. She was twenty four then, and at the time it had seemed grown up, but now I could see she was no more than a kid herself when I was born, a kid whose life had taken some hard and irreversible path.

"Look after Curly, look after your brother" she said to me, every damn day until it was like a fucking chant in my head. I understood it now for what it was, the plea of someone who was scared and tired and couldn't do it all alone. Someone who had no one to turn to, no one but me. Just like Curly had. And look where it got the both of them. I could run a gang and control the streets, but I couldn't look after the two people I should have kept safe, kept alive.

And I had walked the yard at the state pen' with murderers who would turn on you in a hot second, but I was too scared to go to my brother as he lay still and unconscious.

I turned so that I was facing Curly, leaned back against the cool pane of the window behind me and slowly brought my gaze down full on him. His eyes were closed still as he lay in his morphine sleep, and the thought that he might never open them again, never look at me and give me that cool, cocky smirk, was a sick and endless hurt.

I took a couple of steps closer, thinking again about my mother and the way she had put her hand on Curly's head, stroked his hair back and whispered to him "it's okay baby" and I wondered if she'd seen some dark future for him then.

I came up beside his bed, put my hand on his arm and gripped my fingers around his warm skin.

"You wake up, ya hear?" I said roughly, and watched his face for some sign of a response.

"Curly" I tried again after a minute, shaking his arm a little. "Wake up boy, come on."

And still he lay there, looking so peaceful, not trying to live up to anyone or anything for the first time in his life.

"Curly" I said, and dug my fist in, feeling welling despair

I willed him to wake up, my eyes locked on him, and in my head I made him a thousand promises …I'll never tell you to shut your mouth again...I'll never yell at you again…I'll buy you everything you want…I'll never make you wash the dishes or clean up after parties…I'll buy you beers every night…I'll give you money…I'll let you do whatever you want…

But still it didn't seem enough, I thought of the looks that he gave me sometimes and the long waiting I'd see in his eyes, and I knew somehow that it wasn't being told to shut up that he cared about, or having to clean up, what he wanted was something that I never gave him.

"What do you want?" I asked him, and clenched his arm harder, forgetting about the nurses. "What the fuck do you want anyway?"

And he opened his eyes, gazing hazy and unfocused at nothing, and he opened his mouth and mumbled a word I couldn't understand.

"What?" I asked, and dug my fingers into him, feeling like my heart was about to jump out my throat, the heavy despair that had settled on me suddenly lifting.

He shut his eyes again and said in a hoarse whisper "Stop."

"What? Stop what?" I asked, leaning closer over him,

"My arm" he said groggily, and I glanced down and saw my knuckles white I was gripping him so hard.

"Sorry" I said, letting go. "I'm sorry Curly, I'm so fucking sorry."

I straightened and turned away from him again, tears burning behind my eyes. I was sorry for everything, sorry for leaving him, sorry for the life I'd lived that had served him to the streets, sorry that it was him and not me lying there.

"Tim?" he said, his tone questioning.

"Yeah?" I said, not turning back still.

"Don't leave" he said, and I could hear fear and confusion in his voice.

I came back, put my hand down on his shoulder and held it there.

"I'm still here" I said, and he closed his eyes again, turned his head a little to rest his cheek against my hand. He seemed to go back to sleep, and I wondered how he could still trust me so much.

"I ain't leaving" I said, and I told myself that was one promise I was going to keep.

A/N; Thanks for reading, and thanks everyone who reviewed the last chapter I really love to hear what you think about the story.

This isnot really going the way I planned. I didn't mean to have the focus so much on Tim and Curly's relationship, but I guess I just find that the most interesting part to write. I hope the story is still okay anyway and you guys are enjoying it, but sorry if it has gotten a bit boring the last few chapters. I will try and get some more action going!