Hi! Here's my first attempt at a full-blown Outsiders fanfic. It's a sickfic - with a little bit of action thrown in. I hope you all enjoy (as much as anyone can "enjoy" a sickfic) or at the very least, it tugs at your heartstrings.
I've been reading Outsiders fanfics for a long time, but it took me a few years to work up the courage to piece together my own. I want to thank Indianagreaser - without your friendship, and constant encouragement, this fic might never have seen more than a few eyes. And to Emily F.6, my first dear friend from the fandom community, thank you for your support (come back and write more Outsiders stories please!)
There are also other extraordinary fanfic writers that I have PMed through the years and who have kindly responded with words of wisdom that have stayed with me. You know who you are. Thank you.
And now without further ado...
His face lost all of its color, then turned an ugly shade of green.
"I think I'm gonna be sick," Pony gasped, sucking in a breath and panicking. He sat up in bed as Darry grabbed the trash can and slid it in front of him. Pony's head dropped and he heaved violently, emptying what was left in his stomach.
It wasn't much, but it still made him tremble. An hour or so earlier, Darry had insisted he try to eat some saltine crackers in broth. Pony knew he didn't want it, but it was hard to say no with Darry hovering.
Some breakfast. Now he was paying for it.
Darry wasn't sure what to do – Soda was always soooo much better at this – but he sighed and eased his hand around his baby brother, rubbing his back and neck softly while helping him lean forward to retch into the container.
"Easy, Pony. It's ok," he soothed in a tone that was foreign even to him.
When he was done, Pony leaned back against his headboard, weak from sitting up, just as Soda entered the room, having heard him throwing up.
Pony could barely hold himself upright. He closed his eyes, gulped down a breath and then opened them again, not even acknowledging his middle brother in the room.
"Darry," he whined, eyes cloudy and feverish. "When is this going to end?"
Pony's face wasa mixture of sadness and shame. Darry's look was sympathetic, but then the trash can was pulled away.
Soda sat on the right side of the bed, raking his fingers through Pony's matted hair. "You ok, Pone?" he asked. Still trembling, Pony could barely look at him. His face was slightly turned, his eyes glazed and foggy. He felt ashamed and the tears came suddenly, forming in his eyes before he could control them.
"Aw Pone," Soda said gently. He inched next to his brother on the bed, putting his hand on the back of his head softly and then sliding his arm around his neck. Pony leaned in, turning his head and hiding his face in Soda's shoulder so his brothers wouldn't see his tears. Soda can't help but feel the heat radiating off him.
Darry grabbed a thick blanket from the closet and - in an attempt to ease the tension - threw the blanket across Pony's shivering frame and over Sodapop's head so that he couldn't see anything. Soda was stunned for a moment, turning this way and that, pulling the blanket off both of them. He paused, but then grinned broadly.
"Darrel Shaynne Curtis, Jr.!" Soda bellowed. "Are you out of your mind?"
Pony looked up and cracked a grin through his tears.
Soda held a finger pointed at his baby brother. "Is that a smile I see?"
"Well, my job here is done," Darry joked, clapping his hands together. It was the first time he had seen his baby brother smile in 48 hours.
The current illness, though, was no laughing matter.
The moment was short-lived. Pony's stomach lurched again violently, though this time the nausea passed before he could let it out. Waves of dizziness washed over him, his face burning as if approaching flames would overpower it.
"Soda, can I lay down please?" Pony asked meekly, his eyes wandering the room in a daze. " I don't feel good."
"Wait just a minute there, little buddy; I want to take your temperature again," Darry cut in, leaving the room to go get the thermometer. Pony was already beginning to sink back into the bed. Soda pat his cheek, which was still burning, and placed some pillows behind his back to keep him upright. It was just then that Darry returned with the thermometer and a glass of water.
Pony gulped down most of the water, and then Darry stuck the thermometer in his mouth. "Do I have to?" he whispered.
It's the second day that he had been suffering from what his brothers assumed was a nasty case of the flu. Fever, chills, nausea - you name it.
Ponyboy felt pretty awful. He hated being babied by his brothers, but at that point, it was the least of his problems.
The older brothers were definitely fussing. Even Darry - who was usually too busy to pay attention to Ponyboy's complaints. He knew this was obviously more than that.
It hadn't started out too badly. Pony knew something felt off and he swallowed four aspirin with breakfast two days ago, begrudgingly telling Soda he had a headache when Soda wouldn't leave him alone about it. Darry hadn't thought much of it - Pony swallowed aspirin like candy - but when he got home from work that night, he found a worried Sodapop planted on the sofa staring at the tv with a preoccupied look on his face.
"Pony was in bed when I got home, said he don't want nothing to eat," Soda told Darry.
Later Darry managed to get Pony up - maybe even bullied him into doing so - to coax him into eating some toast. Ponyboy dragged himself back to bed afterwards, only to wake up around midnight to run to the bathroom to throw up. Soda, who was half asleep when it happened, followed him, hair pointed every which way.
He became fully aware when he realized Pony wasn't getting up off the floor, yelling for Darry and crouching down to pull his baby brother close with his own bodily warmth. Pony was shaking profusely.
Since then, Pony has barely been able to get out of bed (even the vomiting took place there) and his brothers have taken turns calling out of work to be with him. His condition wasn't improving, either.
The thermometer read 103.4. Darry's eyes widened and he showed the temperature to Soda, who was also shocked. But, Pony was too out of it to notice the raised eyebrows, Darry's pained expression, or how Soda chewed his lip in concern.
"I'm going to call the doctor," Darry said out loud to no one in particular as Pony put up a fuss.
"I don't want to go to the doctor," he whined, sounding much younger than his 14 years.
"You don't have a choice in the matter, little buddy," Darry responded in his more typical gruff manner, watching his brother pointedly. Pony turned to Soda, hoping his middle brother could convince the other one to wait a bit more. But Soda was worried about him and didn't take the bait.
"Honey, you've been sick for two days now," Soda said, rubbing the back of his head softly, "This isn't going away and your temperature is HIGH," Soda emphasized the last word, fo effect.
Darry watched Pony's lower lip tremble and didn't know whether it was the fever or if he was really upset. The fight went out of him. He shifted his weight and changed his tone of voice, but didn't change his mind. "Look, kiddo, we want to figure out what's going on in that body of yours, so we can get you better as soon as possible," he said.
Pony nodded, knowing Darry was the sensible one. Still, he felt like being stubborn and crossed his arms in front of himself. But the motion made his head start to throb, and he felt winded with the effort and so he decided that he would give up. At this point, he would pretty much do anything to start feeling better.
Nothing more was said on the matter. "You should rest, kiddo," Darry said, leaning over to ruffle Pony's hair. "I'm going to get some medicine for you."
Darry backed up, pointing at his other brother. "Take it easy with him, Soda. Let him sleep," he said.
Soda gave him a look, but his eyes danced. "You'd think I was challenging him to a track meet," he quipped. Darry rolled his eyes and left the room.
Soda turned back to look at Pony, feeling his heart sink as he took in his younger brother's miserable expression. Pony's arms were still crossed, but his glassy, red-rimmed eyes were drooping as he struggled to stay awake, his head nodding every few seconds, like he couldn't quite manage to keep it up.
"Hey Pone, you feelin' alright, kiddo?" Soda cupped his brother's cheek, still worried over the heat.
"Yea, Soda, just tired," Pony answered weakly, leaning heavily against the headboard.
Soda's brows furrowed in concern, but then he suddenly remembered something and his eyes danced with excitement. Pony, in his haze, couldn't understand why.
"Hey Pone, you hear about that blizzard they say is coming today?" Soda knew full well his brother hadn't heard anything, he'd been in his room sleeping off the fever.
Pony cracked a half-grin, albeit a skeptical one. "A blizzard? In Tulsa? You believe that Soda?" he asked in a small voice.
"Yeah, the news said we could easily get 20 inches."
Pony paused, swallowing thickly, he was starting to feel real achy, like someone was pulling at his joints.
He knew Soda was trying to change the subject, and he took the bait. "Come on, Soda, it hasn't snowed all winter and now they're saying there's going to be a blizzard? I don't buy it. I haven't seen a single flake. You're out of your mind.
"The weatherman was real sure this time," Soda replied, "Even showed us the graphs and everything!" he exclaimed like an excited child. "You remember the last time it snowed big here, right? And you and Johnny built that snowman and Dally tore it down?"
"Soda," Pony slurred, his vision hazy, "You started a snowball fight and one of them hit Dally. He pushed you into our snowman."
Soda grinned, totally unphased. "Dally wouldn't know a good snowball fight if it hit him in the - Pone?" Pony had dozed off to the lull of Soda's voice.
Hearing his name, his eyes snapped open, the fog clearing, and Pony found himself looking at Soda wearily as his stomach gave a start.
He closed his eyes again and moaned softly.
"Pone? Pony, what's wrong?" Soda was startled, leaning forward in concern.
"Just - not feelin' too hot," he said in a low voice.
Soda forgot the blizzard talk and went back to being the comforting older brother. He fluffed up Pony's pillows, helping his brother lower into them in the process.
"You really should lay down, honey. Like Darry said, rest. Get some sleep."
Soda kept a hand on Pony's arm for support as his younger brother turned his face to the right, away from him.
Pony's lip trembled. "I don't - I don't fee-" he closed his eyes again.
"I know, I know," Soda cut in. "Rest, Pone, I'm right here," he replied soothingly, not even sure his brother had heard him. In a second Pony was breathing evenly and Soda watched his chest rise and fall.
Darry came back into the room, shaking a bottle of pills in his hand. "I just called the doctor -" his voice dropped a few levels, "Is he asleep?"
"Yeah, keep your voice down," Soda said, trying to be authoritative, but it died on his lips as Darry shot him a look.
"Too bad he wasn't able to take his medicine," Darry said, showing Soda the bottle.
"Well, I don't think we should wake him up..."
"No, let's not," Darry replied, "Listen, I called Dr. Reed. He said he can get us in today, his last appointment of the day, around 3 o'clock."
Soda frowned, "What about that blizzard they say is coming?" he asked.
Darry gave Soda the same skeptical look that Pony had given him just 2 minutes before.
" A blizzard? In Tulsa? You have got to be kidding, Soda. I'll believe it when I see it," Darry said.
It was the third time that week that the weatherman had predicted snow, and still there was not a flake in sight. People had a right to be skeptical; the daily weather report had become a joke. It wasn't even cold out. Winters in Tulsa were known for being cold and windy, with occasional storms and enough snow to make an impact. But it was rare that one would shut down the city. Ice? Maybe. Blizzard? Definitely not.
And yet the reports continued to suggest a big winter storm was approaching, even going as far as to suggest that Tulsa residents buy supplies and hunker down in their homes.
No one was buying it - least of all Darry Curtis.
"The only snowflakes we're going to see will be decorating the walls of the gym for Pony's school dance," he told Sodapop.
"Boy, you and Pone may not look alike, but you sure are related," Soda replied with a smile.
"What did he say?" Darry asked.
"That I'm out of my mind," Soda replied.
"I guess we're the smart ones in the family," Darry quipped, swiping at his brother aimlessly. Soda ducked as Darry missed.
"Ok, ok, I can be ready by the time we have to leave," Soda said.
"You better stay home and look after the house, Sodapop," Darry said, "I'll take him myself."
"For someone who doesn't think there's going to be a blizzard, you sure are worried, Dar," Soda noted.
"Not worried, Soda, just careful. It doesn't hurt to be careful now does it? I'm not stupid. Stay home, little man. Get one of the guys to come by," he said.
Two-Bit and Steve hadn't been at the house in two days. When Soda had seen them at the DX, he had told them it would be better to stay away, at least for now. But then, the house had grown unnaturally quiet and it had reminded Soda of the days after Dally and Johnny had died, when Pony had been sick and delirious and no one was wrestling or tripping over coffee tables. It was eerie.
"Come on, Soda," Darry said, "Let's let him get some rest. You can help me wake him up around 2."
Soda glanced at Pony, making sure he was still asleep before following Darry out of the room.
"A blizzard, huh?" Darry muttered as they left, "You believe that, man? We get rain. We get tornadoes. But we don't get blizzards!"
"Oh, it's going to be a doozy, Dar. Just wait and see..."
Reviews are appreciated!
- Simona
