warning: suicidal ideation. please read at your own discretion.

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enjoy, and as always, review if you wish~

-endless

nightmare

I'll be the first one to compare myself to a psychopath.

To think that my family would better off without me? To believe that my life isn't worthy? To dream of going to sleep and never waking up?

These ain't normal thoughts. These ain't ideas that a normal person, a sane person, would conjure up.

But then again, I've never been normal. I've never been "sane." I've always been the brother that screamed disappointment, that screamed "fucked up" from mountains I wasn't even aware of.

I'm always out of control. Always on edge. Always seeking a thrill.

Even if that leaves my body in another river.

"It's sad."

From my right side, Steve looks at me. "Watching him?"

"He's trying too hard."

Steve grunts in response. He takes a long, final drag from his cigarette before throwing it on the ground and grinding it deep into the wooden porch. "There ain't nothing we can do, Two. Might as well just shut the fuck up about it."

I'm too dumbfounded to say anything, so I blow more cancer into the air, admiring the gray that rests in the navy-blue sky. Steve knows how hard it's been on us; on Soda, on his brothers, on me. He knows that Soda ain't fine, that Soda would rather have acid inside of his bloodstream. Yet, at the same time, I don't think he knows what it's like to be inside of Soda's head.

I don't think any of us do. With my heart beating wildly in my chest, I mutter, "I don't think he feels anything."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Heart jumping into the pits of hell, I quickly glance over my shoulder to find Soda there with his fucking lopsided grin on his face, but his eyes are irritated. My first instinct is to act casual. "Hey -"

"Y'all can quit gossiping about me." The words are bitter, laced with a hiss. I whip myself around to face him directly, finding that he's stepped further onto the porch, closer to me.

Steve's shoulder brushes mine as he follows my lead. His voice is calm, collected, but pained when he says, "It wasn't anything bad. We're just -"

Soda grimaces. "Concerned. Like I don't fucking know that."

The question is out before I can even think about holding it back: "How can we not be?"

Silence lands heavily in the air, controlling every movement, every breath, that comes after. At my right, Steve's gaze burns into my shoulder while Soda's aggravated stance turns cold. His eyes ice over, but there's a deep torch of flame just waiting to consume him. "How can you not be?" Soda repeats my question, half to himself. He takes another step towards me, and I feel the ground shake with the barely contained frustration.

Those beautifully furious brown eyes stare me down, even size me up. "Everyone's so goddamn concerned all the time."

"We have good reason."

Steve barks "shut up, shut up, shut up" under his breath as Soda's jaw locks. "Who the fuck are you, Keith? My brothers? Steve?" I feel Steve flinch as his role in this game, this attempt to keep Soda from himself, is exposed.

"Aren't you afraid?"

Soda throws his head back to laugh. "Of what? Of you?" He throws a heated glare at Steve. "Of you?"

"Of yourself?"

It's here that Steve finally speaks. "Two's bein' an ass. Don't listen to him." He attempts to shove me behind him in the hope that our quarrel will be forgotten, but Soda isn't stupid. Whereas everyone else would surely fall to their knees, I hold my own, matching Soda's demeanor with everything I have.

My mind drifts back to a few months ago, when Soda was still fighting for his life. I'm standing in the middle of the room, Darry's powerful form before me, and I realize that I'm back to that argument we had over Darry being allowed in Soda's room while the rest of us were away. I can feel the tension in my body all over again, but at the same time, I feel the power that danced with that tension. I've never been one to throw accusations at Darry - I know the guy has enough to deal with, to worry about, on a daily basis. At that point, after months of waiting for Soda to recover, I guess I'd had enough. Unfortunately, Soda wasn't the physical target of my frustration that day.

The intensity in Soda's eyes mirrors his brother's. "I am afraid." The words are soft, barely audible, but I manage to scrape them together. I hear Steve breathe a sigh, watch him step forward and put his hands on Soda's shoulders. I'm compelled to join him, but while my brain moves, my feet do not. I remain bolted to the ground, a shallow numbness threading with my blood, infiltrating my mind.

"Has the medication been helping?" Steve's voice breaks as Soda's body begins to double in on itself. He moves to embrace his best friend, but Soda's pushing him away, turning towards the front door as an escape route.

"Does it look like it?" Soda barks, but the words don't have an edge attached to them. He's still fighting Steve, still trying to bolt for the door, when I finally find the ground and put my body between him and the door. We stand on either side of him and just let him grieve, and when Darry's truck pulls into the driveway with Pony in the passenger seat, dusk has settled on the city of Tulsa.

The frustration that has built up falls to sadness, to a realization that he's still not healed.