The two brothers stared into each other's eyes, unmoving. They waited for the other to move first, wary of what they were going to do. Both of them did it for different reasons. Soda was cautious because he didn't know how any of them were going to react to his demand; Ponyboy was cautious because he didn't know what Soda was planning on doing to him.

Eventually, though, Ponyboy gave up. With squinted eyes, he asked, "What do you want to talk about exactly?"

Soda shifted his eyes to Two-Bit and Johnny who were hovering around, watching the interaction closely. They kept their eyes on Soda to make sure he wouldn't try anything weird. They didn't want to act like this to Soda because of how close they were and all. However, Soda had been a real dick to Ponyboy the past few months.

"Can we talk in private?" Soda proposed, chewing on the inside of his cheeks. "You know… without them around?"

Archer let out a growl at his question, protectively putting an arm in front of Ponyboy. Christ, he hated that Soda guy. He didn't care if he was Ponyboy's brother, the stuff that he said to Ponyboy instantly put him onto his blacklist. Why couldn't he just leave them alone? They literally allowed Ponyboy to live with him so that they wouldn't have to interact with each other. Why couldn't they follow the memo that they created?

"He's not going anywhere with you alone," Archer snarled. "You shouldn't even be here."

He was sort of hoping that Soda would get angry. He didn't know why exactly. Maybe he just wanted an excuse to get up into Soda's face and scream at him. Instead, however, Soda stayed perfectly calm beside the cold glare that was sent Archer's way.

"Look, I know why you don't want me to interact with Ponyboy, but I promise you that I won't do anything to him," Soda reassured, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I can't be sure about that," Archer snapped. "I don't want you alone with Ponyboy."

"Well, this isn't about you. This is about him, Darry, and me." To emphasize himself, Soda jabbed his finger towards Ponyboy, then to the parking lot, and then to himself.

"Darry's here too?" Ponyboy asked, eyebrows scrunching together so much that wrinkles started to form on his forehead.

"He's in the car waiting for you, as well. So, let's go."

Everybody could tell that Soda was getting irritated and impatient. He wasn't usually like that, but ever since Ponyboy came out, he really changed. Even Steve was baffled at how different he was. Soda scared all of them, a statement that the gang had a hard time processing because of how offsetting it was.

"I don't want to talk to you," Ponyboy sternly stated, pulling Archer's arm down to hold it. "Especially not while you're like that.

Soda, understanding what one of the main problems was, took a deep breath to calm himself down. His eyes became gentler, although they still held some of its preexisting coldness to them.

"Please, Ponyboy," he pleaded.

But Ponyboy knew better than to agree to him. It just didn't make sense. Why now? Soda didn't want anything to do with him for so long. Sure, he did help him escape the hospital, but he didn't want to in the first place. Soda was one of the reasons why he was in conversion therapy.

"Why are you suddenly so desperate to spend time with me?" Ponyboy snapped, pressing his lips tightly together into a thin line.

At his tone, Soda flinched. What Ponyboy said was right. Coming to meet him was hopeful thinking. Pony went through a lot, and Soda and Darry were the cause of a lot of that anguish. It was understandable that he was reluctant to talk to them. But he had to try. He didn't want to come for nothing. "We just want to understand you better. Steve convinced us to do it so, now we're here."

Ponyboy snorted. "So, you two talking to me is not actually your own idea? You guys don't actually want to talk to me…"

"No—" Soda shook his head. "I mean, yes. We want to talk to you."

Ponyboy wasn't convinced. He hummed as he continued to warily watch Soda. But he did have to give Soda credit. It was probably taking a lot for him to be standing there without calling him any names. He hated to say it, but he was considering giving Soda and Darry a chance to converse with him. He didn't forgive his brothers, don't get him wrong. Ponyboy didn't think that he would ever forgive them. However, he wanted Soda and Darry to understand him better. It was a long shot. But he would rather try and fail than not try at all. "Okay. Fine."

Archer snapped his head towards him in shock, baffled that Ponyboy even agreed to it. He let out a sigh and said, "If you're going, then I am too."

"No, this is between us. Not you," Soda rejected, pointing his finger at Ponyboy again.

The Soc raised his eyebrow. "Do you really think that I'm going to let you and Darry, homophobic assholes, be alone with Ponyboy?"

Soda clenched his jaw. "Listen, we let him stay with you. We went out of our way to save him and grab his files."

"Yeah, thank you for that, but we had to force you to come with us. You wanted him to stay in the—"

"Archer, it's okay. I don't want to go, but I was going to have to face his one day," Ponyboy interrupted, squeezing his hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cut the date short."

Archer stared deeply into Ponyboy's eyes. "Are you sure? You don't have to do it if you don't want to."

"I'm going to do it."

Nodding, Archer let go of his hand. "Okay, but don't let them walk over you and you're going to have to make this date up later, deal?"

"Deal." Ponyboy smiled reassuringly at Archer before he planted his palms on the ground outside the pool and pulled himself out. Shivering, he turned to Soda. "I'm wet but let's go."

o-o-o

The car ride was tense. Ponyboy uncomfortably sat in the backseat, soaked to the bone. His teeth clattered as he hugged himself. His two brothers kept their eyes forward, not speaking to him. The tension inside the car was crushing him. Even though they reassured him that they wouldn't do anything, Ponyboy had to wonder where they were planning on taking him. A thought of them driving off to the middle of nowhere and leaving him for dead passed through his brain. He wasn't sure if they would actually go to that extreme, but it still was enough to cause him to worry.

Fortunately, Darry didn't drive to the middle of nowhere. He pulled into the parking lot of a diner where they sat down in a booth. The employees of the diner stared at Ponyboy incredulously. It wasn't every day that a dripping wet teenager came to eat there. The diner was bustling with people and the newest Elvis song was blasting from the jukebox, making the restaurant so loud that it made it hard for Ponyboy to hear his thoughts.

A waitress walked over to them, trying her best to disregard Ponyboy's appearance. She asked for their order, pulling out her notepad. It was then that Darry finally spoke to him.

"What do you want?" Darry asked, eyes blank.

Ponyboy slumped down in the booth, shaking his head. He mumbled, "I'm not really hungry."

Darry turned back to the waitress. "He'll take a Pepsi."

After taking everybody's order, they, once again, fell into an awkward silence and Ponyboy wondered why he even agreed to go with them. He tapped his fingers against the table, pressing his lips tightly together. Ponyboy was glad when the Pepsi came to the table. He instantly put the straw inside of his mouth, slowly sucking the soft drink in. He glanced around the diner, watching all the people who were happily talking to each other with huge smiles on their faces. Pony envied them. They were having the time of their lives while he was wondering if his brothers were going to lecture him or not. He sighed. Not even a Pepsi could elevate his mood. He wondered what Archer was doing. He was probably with Two-Bit and Johnny still. Ponyboy wished that he was still at the pool.

"So, what do you want?" Ponyboy demanded, unable to take the silence any longer. "I didn't end my date early to drink Pepsi with you."

His brothers exchanged looks, seeing who would start the conversation first. Eventually, Soda turned to him and began with, "I was hoping that you would—"

"No." His answer came out quickly and sassily before Soda could finish his sentence. He knew what his brothers were trying to ask. He wasn't born yesterday.

Soda gaped. "You didn't even hear what we had to say."

"You were going to ask if I would forgive you and the answer to that is no."

Darry glared at him, eyes becoming icy. He clenched his fist on the table. His face started to become red, telling Ponyboy that Darry had been bottling all of his angry emotions up. He knew that it was going to come down to it. His brothers, despite helping him before, didn't change one bit. But, just like Darry, Ponyboy had also been bottling everything up.

"Listen, you fag," Darry snapped, leaning forward.

"No, you listen," Ponyboy retaliated, grinding his teeth. "I only left my date because you two wanted to understand me more and hopefully make amends. And this attitude towards me is exactly why I can't forgive you. You put me through hell. You know that, right? I finally found someone that made me happy and you just had to step in the way and torture me like there was something wrong with me."

"There is something wrong with you."

"What makes being gay wrong?" Christ, he had to calm down. He massaged his temples with his fingers, taking another sip of his drink. If he didn't calm down, he was going to make a scene and the last thing he needed was more people knowing about his sexuality.

"It's not natural," Soda answered. "A male and a woman should be together. That's human nature."

"So, loving someone isn't human nature?"

"Not when it comes to gay people like you. Look at Mom and Dad. They were both different genders and they both loved each other."

"Both of them also wouldn't have approved of you," Darry added, not touching the food that had arrived at the table at one point.

Ponyboy scoffed and questioned, "Who are you to make that call?"

"I just know better." What kind of bullshit reason was that? Both Darry and Soda were being unreasonable.

"What you know is no better than what I know. And you know what I know? Our parents would have loved me still. And do you know how I know that? Because they loved family the most—us. Our parents wanted us to be happy and live the lives that we wanted to live. Our parents were the most accepting people around. They treated the gang like they were all their kids. They didn't care about their background. Why would they care about something as little as my sexuality?"

For a long moment, Darry and Soda were speechless. They couldn't think of anything that could go against that argument. They looked at each other again, knowing full well that their parents were really the most accepting people in Tulsa. Hell, maybe even the world. The memories of their parents flooded their brains, sending warmth through their bodies. However, they also spread sadness, sending an icy feeling to their hearts. If only they were still with them, they would have settled this dispute in an instant. What would they do in this situation?

That's when something that Ponyboy said earlier popped up in Soda's mind. After thinking about their parents, he felt calmer and not explosive like he had just been. Even gone, they were still watching out for them.

"Before," Soda recalled, "you asked if loving someone was considered human nature or not."

"I did," Ponyboy confirmed, not sure what he was trying to ask.

"Does that mean you love Archer?"

Ponyboy went rigid at that. He said that sentence before out of an impulse, but did that mean he loved Archer? He chewed on the straw to his now-empty Pepsi, eyes glazing over. They had officially started dating not that long ago and Ponyboy even just admitted to his boyfriend that he liked him earlier that day. There was a huge gap between 'like' and 'love'. But, as Ponyboy thought more about it, the more he realized that he indeed loved Archer. He loved him despite all the shit that he had given him, but also because of that as well. They had been through a lot together. They've shown each other their vulnerable sides and mended each other when shit hit the fan. They've protected each other and never felt bored while the other person was around. They blew each other away, making each other breathless with butterflies fluttering in their stomachs. It was weird to think that they had once hated each other's guts. Archer made Ponyboy happy. That was the truest statement around.

"I do," Ponyboy admitted. There were no more questions about that. "I love Archer."

Again, there was silence as his two brothers exchanged gazes. They were having a silent conversation with each other, something that Johnny and he did all the time in the past.

"When I saw you in the pool with him," Soda began, "You seemed really happy with him. It's been a while since I had seen you smile like that."

"I am happy," Ponyboy confirmed. "I'm happier than I've been in a long time. I hope you could at least accept that for me."

"I don't accept that you're gay. I wish that you were anything but that—" Darry started.

"Like dead? You would rather have me be dead? I had been risking my life every day after coming out as gay, you know. There were so many moments where I was hanging to my life by a thread."

"Let me finish." Darry held up a hand to tell him to quiet down. "I wish that you were straight. I hate that you are gay. However, I want you to be happy. I don't agree with the way that you're achieving it, but I do understand that I can't tell you what should make you happy or not."

Ponyboy's eyebrows knitted together. Did he hear that correctly? Was Darry accepting him, at least somewhat? "Wow, that… actually means a lot."

"Yeah? Well, don't get used to it."

When they finished talking, Soda leaned forward, another thing that Ponyboy had recently said catching his attention.

"What do you mean by your life hanging by a thread?" he asked.

Ponyboy looked at his second oldest brother, not wanting to go into it. He wanted to go back to Archer instead. It was hard enough to talk to Archer about it. He swallowed the saliva that had formed inside of his mouth, picking at the strings that were poking out of a rip in the seat cushions. Ponyboy just had to get it over with. Maybe this was what he needed. So, he started to talk about his life after people found out about his sexuality. Ponyboy talked about him being beaten up, almost being sexually assaulted, giving into drugs, almost drowning, almost being run over, the notes in his locker, the vandalization, and wanting to die. He went over the more difficult topics as well like what had happened to him while he was in conversion therapy. Throughout the entire explanation, his brothers had blank expressions on their faces. Ponyboy couldn't tell what they were thinking—if they thought that he deserved it all or not. However, he knew for sure that they were at least soaking everything in.

When he finally finished talking, Ponyboy slumped back in the booth, exhausted. He rubbed at his eyes which were threatening to spill tears. Unfortunately, he was mostly dried off so he couldn't blame his teary eyes on that excuse.

"I'm sorry that you went through that," Soda finally said with a semi-blank face.

"Yeah? Well, thanks…" Ponyboy sighed out. He should have known that Soda and Darry weren't going to be moved by his story. But he wasn't expecting much anyway. Meeting with them was a waste of time. He stood up, cracking his joints. "Now that I've shared that, I'm going to get going."

"So, you're really not going to forgive us?" Darry asked right before Ponyboy could turn his back to them.

Ponyboy raised an eyebrow. "Forgive you? Do you honestly think that I'm going to forgive you because I told you about what I went through?"

Darry shrugged. "A bit, yeah."

"You're unbelievable."

"We really do want to understand you better, and to do that we have to start with forgiveness."

Ponyboy shook his head, backing away from them. "There are too many scars to forgive you."

He walked away, leaving the bustling diner and his brothers behind. They were his ride back, but he didn't want to spend another minute with them. Maybe he ended the conversation early and maybe he was too cold to them. However, he didn't want to be caught up in false fantasies again, waiting for things to become like they were. Ponyboy tried that once and it didn't end up well for him. Darry and Soda were his past. If there was one lesson that Archer taught him, it was that he couldn't hang onto the past. He had to make his own future instead.

It was a long walk home and he had no company, but that was okay. Archer was waiting for him and that gave him enough motivation and strength to push him forward.

o-o-o

Almost finished. There are maybe two or three chapters left of this story.

Please review and tell me what you think!