A/n: Wow, thanks to all the people who reviewed! I'm so glad you liked that
last part. That was by far the hardest to write...at least up until now.
First off, I have to let you guys know that this starts up in the middle of Pony's bathroom experience. Pony is doing a few things that he isn't aware off, being as distracted as he was, so hopefully that'll clear up anything that you might have found confusing.
And one more thing – seriously, if you are affected easily by odd endings, or any type of ending that doesn't satisfy you and you are the type of person that'll dwell on things, this might not be the story for you. You don't have to stop here, I'd prefer you not to, but you can't say that I didn't warn you.
Enjoy!
-- Keira
PS: In the first paragraph were Darry says the word 'cognitively' a few times, that means mentally. It's not a bad term, and the message he's trying to get a cross is that there is just a delay in development. It's all true, I did my homework. I'm in Psychology and we learn about this stuff and my friend still has problems like Pony. And one more word to beware of toward the end is the word 'recession' which means to revert back to child-like ways. Remember that, it'll help you. Anyway, you'll see what I mean.
~*~
(Darry's POV)
Sitting straight up in bed, my heart pounded harshly in my chest. I sighed when I realized that the noise I was hearing was just Pony and another nightmare. That poor kid. I thought he out grew those awhile ago. For God's sake he was fifteen. He shouldn't be having night terrors anymore. It didn't seem normal. His doctor did say, though, that sometimes adolescents have a tendency to not be completely cognitively developed that the abnormal development could have effects on his sleeping patterns. That's supposedly where it was coming from; but I don't know of anyone less cognitively developed than him. It seemed strange to me that someone so bright could be like that. But the doctor said it was normal in some teenagers, so I wasn't too worried.
His screams still rang in the air, quite awhile longer than usual, and I started to wonder if Soda had any control over him. Soda was usually pretty good about calming him back down and all, but this time he seemed to not be able to. I thought that I might go and check if it didn't stop in a minute, but I'd let Soda handle it if he could. I already had to get up for work in less than six hours and I hadn't had a decent nights sleep in awhile. Getting up was the last thing I was looking forward to doing.
That's when I realized that the noise was coming from the wrong direction.
If my ears were any indication of where Ponyboy was, he definitely wasn't in bed. And not only that, but I was being to make out other sounds like banging and hitting. My eyebrows crossed and I strained to listen more closely. It sounded like he was in the bathroom. That didn't make any sense, but I jumped out of bed anyway and went to see what was going on.
Soda was already outside the door when I got there. It dawned on me then that it was possible Pony had subconsciously, with the fresh curiosity of ghosts, had tried something foolish in his sleep. I'd have to kill Two-Bit if this was in fact from that and he was going to have another series of crazy dreams because of it. I wasn't willing to let this one slip. I was sure he did it on purpose and he knew how sensitive Pony was about some things. How could he be so careless and do something so stupid? I realized that it was Two-Bit, and he had very little brains, but that was just uncalled for. Not to mention Steve's input. I heard more than enough of that conversation and I knew he would get to Pony at some point. It obviously didn't take long to see the full effect of their antagonizing.
Soda rattled the doorknob and when it didn't open he pounded on the door. "Pony! Open the door!" he yelled.
It was terrible, between Soda's yelling and the desperate screams from the bathroom. There was something wrong and I wish I knew what it was. We could Pony start to choke and gag. You could hear him clearly and it was disgusting. He cleared his throat and his screams began to subside and lessened themselves into a strained whimper. I pushed Soda aside and tried to open the door myself. It wasn't happening so I tried to talk to him. "Ponyboy! Open the door!" Again, he didn't respond. I pounded the hard wood with my fist. "Pony! Open the God-damned door!"
"Darry, he can't! It's locked..." Soda said. He turned away from me and rapped on the door lightly. "Pony? You in there?"
There wasn't a response.
"Pony, can you hear me?"
Nothing.
He turned to me and planted a worried expression, much like the one I was wearing. He bit his lip and tried again. "Pony, this isn't funny! Open the door! You gotta come out," he pleaded. He knew, as well as I did, that it couldn't be good, whatever was going on in there.
"Stay here," I told him and went back to my room.
I remembered a keyring in my nightstand that had keys to every room in the house. It belonged to my father, who had it made when we first moved in, afraid that one of us would accidentally lock ourselves in a room when we were younger. He always kept it on his dresser and everyone knew were it was, having to use if frequently when Pony and Soda were little. By the time we moved in, I was old enough to know better, but you'd be amazed at how often they found themselves trapped in the bathroom or laundry room. Anyway, after they died, and we had to clear out their room to pawn a few things off to pay for expenses, I snatched it for myself and put it in my nightstand. I never had to use it, not once, expect to lock our parent's bedroom up, and I almost forgot that it existed.
I found it after frantically digging through a bunch of papers and odd objects. Keys in hand I ran back to the bathroom. Luckily for us there was only about six or seven keys on the ring so it only took a minute to figure out which one was the right one. I shoved in the lock and wiggled it until it clicked open. I pushed the door open, flipped on the light, and froze in my spot.
Ponyboy was lying on the floor on his stomach, twitching. There was glass all over the floor and my heart jumped in my throat when I saw that it was the mirror. That confused me. Of all the past few years that he had been having these weird sleeping problems, he had never been destructive or harmful in anyway. And I had no memory of him ever sleepwalking either.
I knelt next to him and rolled him on his back. There was blood dripping out his nose and lined around his hands and forearms. There was little nicks on his face where it looked like he had been scratched by little pieces of glass, but nothing too serious.
I looked up at Soda with wide eyes. He obviously had less of a clue than I did about all of it, but instead of staying in shock over it he ran out and down the hall to the laundry room. He was going to get the towels we always reserved for aftermath's of rumbles and jumpings or just fights in general. We used them frequently enough with the gang that there wasn't any need to ruin every towel we had. So, we set them aside for times like this when we needed them.
"Pony?" I tried to get a response out of him while I lightly tapped his face. "Pony? Can you hear me?...Buddy, you gotta talk to me. Can you hear me?...God, what the hell did you do?"
I slid my arms under him and gently lifted him up as quickly as I could. He was such a small kid. Sure, he had some meat on him, but he didn't weigh hardly anything. That could be a good or a bad thing, all depending on from which angle you looked at it. I had go admit that I was pretty glad at that point that he was as small as he was. It wouldn't have been as easy to help him if he wasn't.
I had to readjusted my hold on him as we moved out of the bathroom. As small as he might've been, he was twitching and shaking like nothing else. It scared the hell out of me. He was more that just out, there was something wrong with him. There was nothing to explain his strange actions. They weren't violent, but they were enough to startle you.
Soda was waiting for me out in the living room with towels and the first aid kit under one arm. He had cleared some newspapers and other stuff off one of the couches as to have somewhere to put the kid. I sat down on it and had Pony lay with his upper body in my lap. He needed some sort of support with his constant light convusions. It was so sporadic and unpredictable, I didn't dare let more than one of my arms leave his backside at one time.
His skin was cold and clammy, and he had cold sweat running down his temples and sides of his face. Soda tossed me a towel which I used to wipe it up and try and stop the flow of his nose bleed. It wasn't too bad but bad enough to need to be helped.
As I applied pressure, I kept trying to come up with some explanation for this. It really scared me to think that something like this would happen to anyone, let a lone Pony. For one, it didn't make any sense. He had more brains than to try something that Two-Bit and Steve had set him up for. And if he didn't, he wouldn't have done something crazy to explain his attempt, or whatever you want to call it. And for another thing, it just plain didn't add up. Nothing was normal about this in the least. It worried me to think that it was possible for him to do something like this in any matter. Conscious or not, it wasn't safe and I wondered how the hell you were supposed to deal with something like this. I tried to pass it all off as his night terrors, but it wasn't settling enough.
"Damn," I whispered as I tried to help his nose bleed. It was easing up, but not enough to make me content. It wasn't the worst one I had ever seen, the it wasn't helping that he was unconscious and couldn't do anything for himself. I decided to prop him up so he was sitting more vertically. The last thing we wanted him to do was choke on his own blood. That would make things quite a bit more difficult, and it was already hard enough.
Soda had opened up the first aid kit to look for some iodine or something to clean up the cuts on his arms. There was certainly enough to alarm us. I checked his wrists, and it wasn't them that were cut, so I wasn't overly concerned. We would just find them and fix them up when Soda got around to it. He was pulling out Band-Aids and gauze and cream before looking up at me for a moment, while wondering on something.
"What the hell do you think happened?" I asked him, before he had the opportunity to bombard me with a question I couldn't respond to. It was more of a hypothetical question than anything, I wasn't expecting a real response, but it would've been nice if he had an answer. I was hoping that at least Pony would have an answer when he came around, but if he didn't, I wanted one from someone. It wasn't Soda that I was depending on for that, of course. It was only that I wanted an answer now. Not tomorrow. Not when I took him to a doctor. Now.
Soda just shook his head and left the room to go wet down another towel to wipe away the blood on Pony's face and arms before trying to help out anymore. I don't know what I'd do with out him. He was more than help. He was the one person who kept me sane. And I was lucky enough to have him around for times like this.
"Does he need ice?" he called from the kitchen.
"No...No, no ice." If anything he needed a blanket. I wasn't sure that was the smartest move, though. Would he bleed more if we warmed him up? It was probably better how he was, although it worried me more than anything. "Hey, Soda."
"Yeah?" he came back in with his freshly wringed towel.
"Can you find me a thermometer? I wanna check his temperature. He's really cold." The phrase sounded wrong, even to me, but it was true. I've never heard of needed to check someone's temperature because they were too cold, but it made sense to me.
Pony chose that time to continue his moving that had stopped for the briefest moment. I dropped the towel I was holding and clung onto his raised shoulder as he shuddered violently. It was almost like he was having a seizure. He twitched hard and then fell limp in my arms.
"Shit," Soda whispered and dug into the kit. He found what he was looking for and gave it to me. "Here."
"Wait!" I said. I wanted to figure out why he had stopped moving so suddenly. I felt his heart – it was still beating so I checked his breathing – it was still there. I looked at Soda and he shrugged. I didn't think it was those things, at least I was hoping it wasn't, but if was an explanation, that's what I was searching for. I was hoping it was something more along the lines of his crazy nightmares ending or anything like that.
"Here," I said, holding out my hand to receive the thermometer, then stuck it under Pony's tongue.
In the mean time, Soda cleaned the blood off Pony's arms and face. His bleeding had subdued enough to not need the towel anymore. Which was fine by me because I was busy elsewhere now. He was really careful about touching his nose, so he wouldn't start it up again, and he was successful. At least in that area.
"Is he bleeding bad?" I asked, regarding his arms, while pulling out the thermometer.
"Uh...he's not bleeding at all..." His voice was full of confusion and he lifted up Pony's arms higher to look at them from all angles. "There's no cuts."
I looked away from trying to read the red markings. "What?"
"He's not bleeding. Just his nose." He moved back and dropped his towel before putting the Band-Aids away. He looked so bewildered and baffled that I thought that maybe I'd better double check. There's no way he wasn't bleeding. His nose hadn't been bleeding bad enough to get all over him like that.
But first I checked the thermometer. "Soda? Ninety-eight degrees is normal. Right?"
"Uh, yeah. Ninety-eight point seven or something like that. Why?" He closed the box and threw it on the other couch, before coming back over to me to look at the thermometer himself.
"Does that look right to you?" I handed it to him and went back to trying to revive the kid. I tapped his face with the palm of my hand, lightly.
"Looks okay to me." Soda shrugged and put it way in the box carefully. He must've known that we'd be using something in the box again, because he left it open. That was smart of him. More likely than not I'd want something out of there sooner than later. He then came over slowly and sat on the arm of the couch next to me. "What're we gonna do?"
"Wait," I said, "and see what happens. I mean look. He stopped moving, I'm sure he'll wake up soon. He's okay." I was beginning to feel a lot better about everything. He wasn't convulsing, his temperature was normal, and he everything else seemed to be just fine. Except that he was unresponsive. That was obviously not the best thing, but he was okay. Everyone of the guys had been unconscious at one time or another, including Pony, and it there wasn't much to worry over. He'd wake up and we'd find out if we could figure out what had happened and then life would go on as normal.
~*~
It wasn't more than a half an hour later that Soda had officially fallen asleep. He kept dozing off, nodding his head and jerking it back up when he realized that he was drifted off. I finally told him that everything was fine and that he could just go to sleep in his bed. He'd be a lot more comfortable and there wasn't really any reason for him to stay up. He'd know if something was wrong, I wouldn't let it slip past him. He knew he could trust me so he dragged himself to bed. About two minutes later I could hear him snoring lightly.
The rain had almost stopped completely. Not too long ago it had gone from a heavy fall to barely nothing in a matter of minutes. Yeah, there was still a pinging of raindrops on the drainpipe and water was still gliding down the windows, but over all it was much quieter. It was soothing, making me more tired than before. For the last few minutes I debated on whether or not to just take Pony to bed and go to sleep myself. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't comfortable with leaving him, so I would just allow myself to fall asleep if things went that way, right where I was.
The reason I was still uncomfortable with the thought of leaving Pony to fend for himself was his unnatural stillness. When I say he wasn't moving, I mean he wasn't moving. He didn't try and make himself more comfortable, he just lay there like he was dead or something. Every once in awhile he did twitch, like before, but it was so far and few in between that it startled me into thinking that he was actually just waking up. But he hadn't. So, I placed a couch pillow under his head and Soda had brought us a blanket before he went to bed, but I was afraid that Pony really had no sensation of any of it. I mean, sure it was possible that he /I asleep now and had taken a different path and was just sleeping really hard tonight. But I knew it wasn't that. It couldn't be, not after what had happened.
As much as I tried not to, I was falling asleep anyway. I was honestly so tired I was thinking about calling in sick for the day and catching up on much needed sleep. It wasn't helping that I was still awake at two in the morning. I couldn't afford to take the day off, but it was either that or being a sleep-deprived, walking zombie, and possibly falling off a roof. I'd rather lose the money than my life. But, because I wasn't feeling good about falling asleep, I was really hoping that this would be a night for one of the gang to come on over and crash. Maybe they could keep me company.
My head lolled on the back of the couch, my eyes closed and feeling heavy. I lifted a hand and rubbed at my eyes, trying to relieve the dullness with some pressure. It helped a little and I blinked my eyes open. I was glad too.
Pony started to shake again, more than before. It wasn't a shudder or a twitch, but like he was in the snow without a coat and was shivering uncontrollably. I held onto him and tried to call him back to reality.
"Pony? Pony, waking up." I shook him a little. "Damn it, wake up! C'mon..." I wasn't angry, I was just so tired and desperate, I didn't know what else to do. I kept my voice calm, but it rose louder and louder the more he didn't respond. "Ponyboy, you need to wake up. You're fine! God, what's wrong with you!?"
I don't know what had kept me from it before, but I decided then that I should take him to the hospital. I wasn't sure that it was a serious enough matter, but I was running out of options. He was unconscious, having some sort or seizure, and had been like that for heading on forty or so minutes. I knew I couldn't get up until he stopped his moving, but when he did, I was going to go. There was no logical reason not to.
At one point I thought that Pony was getting so out of control that he was going to throw himself off the couch, he was moving so much. But instead he sat up straight and screamed bloody murder. His eyes were wild with fear and he kept shaking, but now it was more of a broken up shake.
"Pony! Shhh!" I pulled him back down and he almost immediately stopped his screaming. His face was white and he tried to talk, but nothing but fragments of words came out. He was breathing in strangled gasps, thick and hard. "Shhh! It's okay. You're fine. It was a nightmare."
"Nuh...no...no..." he shook his head. "No it wasn't." He gulped and paled even more. "Oh God. I think I'm gonna be sick, Dar."
He didn't give me much of warning. No, it was less of a warning, and more of a enlightenment. He leaned over and threw up on the floor between the couch and the coffee table and on the bottom of the blanket. It was only once, and not a lot, but it got to him anyway. "Oh, God," he whispered and tried to stand up.
"What happened?" Soda came running him, knocking over a table chair in his still half asleep state. "What?"
I pulled Pony back to the couch and made him sit down while I got up. "Ah, shit," I griped as I dropped the blanket and moved out of the way. I was /b cleaning that up. There was no way. He was perfectly capable of doing it himself. He could do it later for all I cared, but I wasn't going to touch it.
"Don't!" Pony grabbed my arm. He was kneeling to the couch cushion and I had never seen anyone so frightened in my life.
"What?" I wasn't going anywhere. He had to know that. "Pony, what in the world is going on?"
Soda came over to the couch now and tried to coax Pony away from me. He tried his hardest to gently pry his tightly wrapped fingers away from my arm, but Pony wasn't having it. He refused to let go. His chest still rose and fell at a painful rate, but it didn't seem to faze him. Whatever was wrong had him scared out of his mind. I pushed Soda away. Something had the kid traumatized.
"Where is she?" Pony asked, his voice was quiet and timid. His eyes pleaded for me to keep my voice down.
"Who?"
"Oh God. Darry, where is she?!" He shook my arm like it would help. He was panicking and I didn't know what to do. He wasn't making any sense. If I knew what he was talking about, or if he was making the slightest bit of sense, I would do what I could to help. But he wasn't leaving me with very many options. His body turned frigid when he realized that I wasn't going to answer. "Oh God. Oh God. OhGodOhGodOhGod..."
"Pony," Soda started. "Come over here." He was now sitting on the other couch and he nudged his head to the seat next to him. "Come sit over here. I want you to tell me what you're talking about."
Pony started at him with a startled expression, like he hadn't noticed he was there, and looked back at me. He was torn between what to do, stay by me or go to Soda, but chose to stick with me. He must've felt more protected, because he wasn't budging. I could see how that would be, but I had no idea of how to explain to him that I couldn't protect him against some fear of his that didn't exist in reality. "She's here, isn't she?"
"Pon, I don't know what you're talking about." I shook my head. I admit, I had an inclination about what he thought was going on, but it wasn't true and I couldn't let him think it was. I had never believed in the idea of Bloody Mary, even after I had tried it myself when I was younger. Maybe I was too bullheaded to see it or I was too stubborn to be scared by some feeling I had felt once upon a time, but either way it wasn't adding up in his favor. This was one of the times where I had sympathy, but no empathy. And it's hard to have one without the other, let me tell you.
I slowly inched my way around to the other side of the couch. I figured he would feel a lot more at ease going to Soda if he were closer. There was nothing that I could think of to do to help make him feel better, and Soda was always better at that anyway. Maybe if I could get away for a minute, I could do him some good by turning on some music and the lights and he could relax more at Soda's side. He was the comforter, not me. Pony ought to feel better with him. He always had.
Pony was still breathing heavily and he looked so close to tears I was beginning to feel more sorry for him. Of course I knew that he had brought this upon himself and he should learn to deal with it like an adult, but I couldn't break a bond of trust just because I thought he was being childish. It had taken him long enough to get around to fully trusting me in the first place, I wasn't going to risk losing it all in one night. The time he needed a confidant the most was in his time of peril and I'd be there if it would make him feel even the slightest bit better.
That is in a few moments when I had some things straightened out. "Stay here for a minute, Pon. I'm gonna go turn on the hall light, okay?" I ripped my arm out of his grasp, wanting to get it over with quickly so we wouldn't have to drag out his pain anymore.
"Darry!" he screeched and made a grab for me again. "Stop!" He was all but standing on the couch and acting like he was five years old. If I hadn't been wide awake at that point, I would've thought for sure that this was all a dream. Nothing was normal about this. Nothing. And if that didn't have me worried, I don't know what would. Pony just didn't fall into that type of recession. Ever.
I closed my eyes and kept walking. He'd forgive me later but I had to do what was going to help him faster, now. I felt horrible for doing it but it was the right thing to do. I knew it was. There was nothing more I'd rather do than to be able to postpone having to leave him, but there are sometimes when you have to do the hard things first and then do what you want.
I could hear him clasp into a heap on the couch and sob. It was starling enough for me to want to go back instead of doing what I set out to do. I didn't, though. I would prefer to do this first and get it over with. I wanted to get back there and not have to leave again until it was okay. Something was seriously wrong with him and I was beginning to question his temporary sanity. I wasn't much of a brain in psychology, but I didn't have to be know this wasn't adding up right.
"Oh God..." he moaned. It was awful to hear someone cry over something so infinite. I hated that I felt that way, but it was something that came out of being who I am and how I was raised. Sure, he had been raised in pretty much the same environment, but he was different, and that almost made it worse for me. I shouldn't ever think that way about my little brother, but it was something that couldn't be helped.
"Pony, get over here." Soda pulled him over to his couch with much difficulty. He was determined to stay solid in his spot, but Soda had other ideas. Pony buried his face in Sodapop's lap and tried to stray away from hyperventilating. I knew Soda had to be thinking along the same lines as I was, but he had more patients and a more understanding heart. My place was to get back there and make sure he felt safe. I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I had to try. My heart pounded in my chest with the new batch of thoughts of what could possibly be wrong with him, when I walked back in and saw how he was. My stomach was getting sick over the idea that something was disturbing him so much.
"Oh God, Soda," he sobbed, lifting up his head somewhat. "We gotta leave. We gotta leave."
"What do you mean?" he asked. I went over and sat on the coffee table in front of them. I shook my head. This was way too much.
He paused for a moment as he choked on his own breath. "She's here." He sat up and grabbed for me also. "She's here! She's gonna kill us!" he screamed. My eyes widened at his outburst.
"Pony!" I yelled in attempt to be heard over him and to shock him into listening to me. "Stop it! Calm down! You're fine! No one is here!"
He shook his head and stood up and headed towards the door.
"No!" he said. "Listen to me! We have to leave!"
I'm not sure what made me do it, but I stood up and grabbed Pony by the arm and pulled him back over to me. He was out of control. He was going crazy. I didn't know how could a nightmare seem so real. How do you explain to someone that it wasn't? He must've taken some sort of hard blow to the head to keep thinking this was as bad as it was. Maybe I'd take him to the hospital after all.
But first I pulled him closer to me and sat back down. He was flipping out too bad to go anywhere yet. I had to get him to calm down before I took him out. So, I made him sit on my right leg and held him down in a tight headlock, which I knew that Soda would later tease me as being a hug. Pony struggled against my hold for a few seconds but soon realized that I wasn't going to let him go and he dissolved into a helpless blob. He still let out a few words here and there, but he was giving up finally.
I had no idea how to comfort him anymore. He would probably have to just get it all out and relax on his own. There was no consoling him. I looked at Soda for help, but he just shook his head. He didn't know what to do either.
Pony continued to cry and I held on to him, as to let him know I wasn't going to let anything else get to him. He was terrified more than I had ever seen before. What are you supposed to do when you don't know what is wrong? I knew to whisper words of comfort along with Soda gently patting his knee, but that was it. He was shaking uncontrollably but had started to slow down as the first minute or so went on.
After awhile, I turned my attention to Soda. I had to get this feeling of misery out of my gut somehow. And I figured that Soda usually had a way to make that happen. He was rubbing Pony's back now but he looked at me and tried to give me a strained smile. He was as confused and worried as I was. He shouldn't have had to deal with something as strenuous as this, and I felt bad because he was. He didn't look like he really minded, though. I sighed and whispered a little more to the kid, keeping my eyes on Soda.
He kept looking in all directions of the house. He would glance over to the kitchen and to the corner by the TV, and at all different random things. It gave him something to do and to try and have a little outlet from the crushing scene that sat before him. I didn't have much to look at except the wall and window behind him, and even with that I just saw a reflection of us in the darkness, so I didn't look there. I'd much rather keep focused on Pony's problem or on Soda's uncomfortable position. He was attempting to make himself more comfortable by leaning forward with his elbow resting on his knee, his chin planted on his fist. It didn't seem to work that well. He looked so lost and sad. I patted him on the shoulder to let him know I appreciated his support. He knew as well as I did that he didn't have to have any part in this but he chose to and it was a great help to me. Half the reason I was remaining as calm as I was, was because of him.
And then faster than I had time to comprehend, he pulled away and jumped up on the couch. He was staring at the hallway and his eyes were wide, his mouth gaped open the slightest bit. At the same time Pony started to scream louder and more frantically. He tried to get up again, but I held on and turned around to see what Soda was looking at.
Before I made it all the way around, the power in the house went out and the room turned instantly black. Pony screamed so loud I could barely hear myself think. He now wrapped his arms around my back and buried his face in my chest. There would be no getting him off later.
"What the fuck?" I exclaimed but I never heard myself.
A noise louder and higher than I had ever heard before filled my head and I almost immediately lost control of my body. It felt like my mind was burning inside my skull and I couldn't think anymore. My eyes were going to pop out of my head the pain was so intense. I crumpled to the floor, Pony underneath me, Soda soon falling on top.
It was then that I knew Pony had been right all along.
The End
First off, I have to let you guys know that this starts up in the middle of Pony's bathroom experience. Pony is doing a few things that he isn't aware off, being as distracted as he was, so hopefully that'll clear up anything that you might have found confusing.
And one more thing – seriously, if you are affected easily by odd endings, or any type of ending that doesn't satisfy you and you are the type of person that'll dwell on things, this might not be the story for you. You don't have to stop here, I'd prefer you not to, but you can't say that I didn't warn you.
Enjoy!
-- Keira
PS: In the first paragraph were Darry says the word 'cognitively' a few times, that means mentally. It's not a bad term, and the message he's trying to get a cross is that there is just a delay in development. It's all true, I did my homework. I'm in Psychology and we learn about this stuff and my friend still has problems like Pony. And one more word to beware of toward the end is the word 'recession' which means to revert back to child-like ways. Remember that, it'll help you. Anyway, you'll see what I mean.
~*~
(Darry's POV)
Sitting straight up in bed, my heart pounded harshly in my chest. I sighed when I realized that the noise I was hearing was just Pony and another nightmare. That poor kid. I thought he out grew those awhile ago. For God's sake he was fifteen. He shouldn't be having night terrors anymore. It didn't seem normal. His doctor did say, though, that sometimes adolescents have a tendency to not be completely cognitively developed that the abnormal development could have effects on his sleeping patterns. That's supposedly where it was coming from; but I don't know of anyone less cognitively developed than him. It seemed strange to me that someone so bright could be like that. But the doctor said it was normal in some teenagers, so I wasn't too worried.
His screams still rang in the air, quite awhile longer than usual, and I started to wonder if Soda had any control over him. Soda was usually pretty good about calming him back down and all, but this time he seemed to not be able to. I thought that I might go and check if it didn't stop in a minute, but I'd let Soda handle it if he could. I already had to get up for work in less than six hours and I hadn't had a decent nights sleep in awhile. Getting up was the last thing I was looking forward to doing.
That's when I realized that the noise was coming from the wrong direction.
If my ears were any indication of where Ponyboy was, he definitely wasn't in bed. And not only that, but I was being to make out other sounds like banging and hitting. My eyebrows crossed and I strained to listen more closely. It sounded like he was in the bathroom. That didn't make any sense, but I jumped out of bed anyway and went to see what was going on.
Soda was already outside the door when I got there. It dawned on me then that it was possible Pony had subconsciously, with the fresh curiosity of ghosts, had tried something foolish in his sleep. I'd have to kill Two-Bit if this was in fact from that and he was going to have another series of crazy dreams because of it. I wasn't willing to let this one slip. I was sure he did it on purpose and he knew how sensitive Pony was about some things. How could he be so careless and do something so stupid? I realized that it was Two-Bit, and he had very little brains, but that was just uncalled for. Not to mention Steve's input. I heard more than enough of that conversation and I knew he would get to Pony at some point. It obviously didn't take long to see the full effect of their antagonizing.
Soda rattled the doorknob and when it didn't open he pounded on the door. "Pony! Open the door!" he yelled.
It was terrible, between Soda's yelling and the desperate screams from the bathroom. There was something wrong and I wish I knew what it was. We could Pony start to choke and gag. You could hear him clearly and it was disgusting. He cleared his throat and his screams began to subside and lessened themselves into a strained whimper. I pushed Soda aside and tried to open the door myself. It wasn't happening so I tried to talk to him. "Ponyboy! Open the door!" Again, he didn't respond. I pounded the hard wood with my fist. "Pony! Open the God-damned door!"
"Darry, he can't! It's locked..." Soda said. He turned away from me and rapped on the door lightly. "Pony? You in there?"
There wasn't a response.
"Pony, can you hear me?"
Nothing.
He turned to me and planted a worried expression, much like the one I was wearing. He bit his lip and tried again. "Pony, this isn't funny! Open the door! You gotta come out," he pleaded. He knew, as well as I did, that it couldn't be good, whatever was going on in there.
"Stay here," I told him and went back to my room.
I remembered a keyring in my nightstand that had keys to every room in the house. It belonged to my father, who had it made when we first moved in, afraid that one of us would accidentally lock ourselves in a room when we were younger. He always kept it on his dresser and everyone knew were it was, having to use if frequently when Pony and Soda were little. By the time we moved in, I was old enough to know better, but you'd be amazed at how often they found themselves trapped in the bathroom or laundry room. Anyway, after they died, and we had to clear out their room to pawn a few things off to pay for expenses, I snatched it for myself and put it in my nightstand. I never had to use it, not once, expect to lock our parent's bedroom up, and I almost forgot that it existed.
I found it after frantically digging through a bunch of papers and odd objects. Keys in hand I ran back to the bathroom. Luckily for us there was only about six or seven keys on the ring so it only took a minute to figure out which one was the right one. I shoved in the lock and wiggled it until it clicked open. I pushed the door open, flipped on the light, and froze in my spot.
Ponyboy was lying on the floor on his stomach, twitching. There was glass all over the floor and my heart jumped in my throat when I saw that it was the mirror. That confused me. Of all the past few years that he had been having these weird sleeping problems, he had never been destructive or harmful in anyway. And I had no memory of him ever sleepwalking either.
I knelt next to him and rolled him on his back. There was blood dripping out his nose and lined around his hands and forearms. There was little nicks on his face where it looked like he had been scratched by little pieces of glass, but nothing too serious.
I looked up at Soda with wide eyes. He obviously had less of a clue than I did about all of it, but instead of staying in shock over it he ran out and down the hall to the laundry room. He was going to get the towels we always reserved for aftermath's of rumbles and jumpings or just fights in general. We used them frequently enough with the gang that there wasn't any need to ruin every towel we had. So, we set them aside for times like this when we needed them.
"Pony?" I tried to get a response out of him while I lightly tapped his face. "Pony? Can you hear me?...Buddy, you gotta talk to me. Can you hear me?...God, what the hell did you do?"
I slid my arms under him and gently lifted him up as quickly as I could. He was such a small kid. Sure, he had some meat on him, but he didn't weigh hardly anything. That could be a good or a bad thing, all depending on from which angle you looked at it. I had go admit that I was pretty glad at that point that he was as small as he was. It wouldn't have been as easy to help him if he wasn't.
I had to readjusted my hold on him as we moved out of the bathroom. As small as he might've been, he was twitching and shaking like nothing else. It scared the hell out of me. He was more that just out, there was something wrong with him. There was nothing to explain his strange actions. They weren't violent, but they were enough to startle you.
Soda was waiting for me out in the living room with towels and the first aid kit under one arm. He had cleared some newspapers and other stuff off one of the couches as to have somewhere to put the kid. I sat down on it and had Pony lay with his upper body in my lap. He needed some sort of support with his constant light convusions. It was so sporadic and unpredictable, I didn't dare let more than one of my arms leave his backside at one time.
His skin was cold and clammy, and he had cold sweat running down his temples and sides of his face. Soda tossed me a towel which I used to wipe it up and try and stop the flow of his nose bleed. It wasn't too bad but bad enough to need to be helped.
As I applied pressure, I kept trying to come up with some explanation for this. It really scared me to think that something like this would happen to anyone, let a lone Pony. For one, it didn't make any sense. He had more brains than to try something that Two-Bit and Steve had set him up for. And if he didn't, he wouldn't have done something crazy to explain his attempt, or whatever you want to call it. And for another thing, it just plain didn't add up. Nothing was normal about this in the least. It worried me to think that it was possible for him to do something like this in any matter. Conscious or not, it wasn't safe and I wondered how the hell you were supposed to deal with something like this. I tried to pass it all off as his night terrors, but it wasn't settling enough.
"Damn," I whispered as I tried to help his nose bleed. It was easing up, but not enough to make me content. It wasn't the worst one I had ever seen, the it wasn't helping that he was unconscious and couldn't do anything for himself. I decided to prop him up so he was sitting more vertically. The last thing we wanted him to do was choke on his own blood. That would make things quite a bit more difficult, and it was already hard enough.
Soda had opened up the first aid kit to look for some iodine or something to clean up the cuts on his arms. There was certainly enough to alarm us. I checked his wrists, and it wasn't them that were cut, so I wasn't overly concerned. We would just find them and fix them up when Soda got around to it. He was pulling out Band-Aids and gauze and cream before looking up at me for a moment, while wondering on something.
"What the hell do you think happened?" I asked him, before he had the opportunity to bombard me with a question I couldn't respond to. It was more of a hypothetical question than anything, I wasn't expecting a real response, but it would've been nice if he had an answer. I was hoping that at least Pony would have an answer when he came around, but if he didn't, I wanted one from someone. It wasn't Soda that I was depending on for that, of course. It was only that I wanted an answer now. Not tomorrow. Not when I took him to a doctor. Now.
Soda just shook his head and left the room to go wet down another towel to wipe away the blood on Pony's face and arms before trying to help out anymore. I don't know what I'd do with out him. He was more than help. He was the one person who kept me sane. And I was lucky enough to have him around for times like this.
"Does he need ice?" he called from the kitchen.
"No...No, no ice." If anything he needed a blanket. I wasn't sure that was the smartest move, though. Would he bleed more if we warmed him up? It was probably better how he was, although it worried me more than anything. "Hey, Soda."
"Yeah?" he came back in with his freshly wringed towel.
"Can you find me a thermometer? I wanna check his temperature. He's really cold." The phrase sounded wrong, even to me, but it was true. I've never heard of needed to check someone's temperature because they were too cold, but it made sense to me.
Pony chose that time to continue his moving that had stopped for the briefest moment. I dropped the towel I was holding and clung onto his raised shoulder as he shuddered violently. It was almost like he was having a seizure. He twitched hard and then fell limp in my arms.
"Shit," Soda whispered and dug into the kit. He found what he was looking for and gave it to me. "Here."
"Wait!" I said. I wanted to figure out why he had stopped moving so suddenly. I felt his heart – it was still beating so I checked his breathing – it was still there. I looked at Soda and he shrugged. I didn't think it was those things, at least I was hoping it wasn't, but if was an explanation, that's what I was searching for. I was hoping it was something more along the lines of his crazy nightmares ending or anything like that.
"Here," I said, holding out my hand to receive the thermometer, then stuck it under Pony's tongue.
In the mean time, Soda cleaned the blood off Pony's arms and face. His bleeding had subdued enough to not need the towel anymore. Which was fine by me because I was busy elsewhere now. He was really careful about touching his nose, so he wouldn't start it up again, and he was successful. At least in that area.
"Is he bleeding bad?" I asked, regarding his arms, while pulling out the thermometer.
"Uh...he's not bleeding at all..." His voice was full of confusion and he lifted up Pony's arms higher to look at them from all angles. "There's no cuts."
I looked away from trying to read the red markings. "What?"
"He's not bleeding. Just his nose." He moved back and dropped his towel before putting the Band-Aids away. He looked so bewildered and baffled that I thought that maybe I'd better double check. There's no way he wasn't bleeding. His nose hadn't been bleeding bad enough to get all over him like that.
But first I checked the thermometer. "Soda? Ninety-eight degrees is normal. Right?"
"Uh, yeah. Ninety-eight point seven or something like that. Why?" He closed the box and threw it on the other couch, before coming back over to me to look at the thermometer himself.
"Does that look right to you?" I handed it to him and went back to trying to revive the kid. I tapped his face with the palm of my hand, lightly.
"Looks okay to me." Soda shrugged and put it way in the box carefully. He must've known that we'd be using something in the box again, because he left it open. That was smart of him. More likely than not I'd want something out of there sooner than later. He then came over slowly and sat on the arm of the couch next to me. "What're we gonna do?"
"Wait," I said, "and see what happens. I mean look. He stopped moving, I'm sure he'll wake up soon. He's okay." I was beginning to feel a lot better about everything. He wasn't convulsing, his temperature was normal, and he everything else seemed to be just fine. Except that he was unresponsive. That was obviously not the best thing, but he was okay. Everyone of the guys had been unconscious at one time or another, including Pony, and it there wasn't much to worry over. He'd wake up and we'd find out if we could figure out what had happened and then life would go on as normal.
~*~
It wasn't more than a half an hour later that Soda had officially fallen asleep. He kept dozing off, nodding his head and jerking it back up when he realized that he was drifted off. I finally told him that everything was fine and that he could just go to sleep in his bed. He'd be a lot more comfortable and there wasn't really any reason for him to stay up. He'd know if something was wrong, I wouldn't let it slip past him. He knew he could trust me so he dragged himself to bed. About two minutes later I could hear him snoring lightly.
The rain had almost stopped completely. Not too long ago it had gone from a heavy fall to barely nothing in a matter of minutes. Yeah, there was still a pinging of raindrops on the drainpipe and water was still gliding down the windows, but over all it was much quieter. It was soothing, making me more tired than before. For the last few minutes I debated on whether or not to just take Pony to bed and go to sleep myself. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't comfortable with leaving him, so I would just allow myself to fall asleep if things went that way, right where I was.
The reason I was still uncomfortable with the thought of leaving Pony to fend for himself was his unnatural stillness. When I say he wasn't moving, I mean he wasn't moving. He didn't try and make himself more comfortable, he just lay there like he was dead or something. Every once in awhile he did twitch, like before, but it was so far and few in between that it startled me into thinking that he was actually just waking up. But he hadn't. So, I placed a couch pillow under his head and Soda had brought us a blanket before he went to bed, but I was afraid that Pony really had no sensation of any of it. I mean, sure it was possible that he /I asleep now and had taken a different path and was just sleeping really hard tonight. But I knew it wasn't that. It couldn't be, not after what had happened.
As much as I tried not to, I was falling asleep anyway. I was honestly so tired I was thinking about calling in sick for the day and catching up on much needed sleep. It wasn't helping that I was still awake at two in the morning. I couldn't afford to take the day off, but it was either that or being a sleep-deprived, walking zombie, and possibly falling off a roof. I'd rather lose the money than my life. But, because I wasn't feeling good about falling asleep, I was really hoping that this would be a night for one of the gang to come on over and crash. Maybe they could keep me company.
My head lolled on the back of the couch, my eyes closed and feeling heavy. I lifted a hand and rubbed at my eyes, trying to relieve the dullness with some pressure. It helped a little and I blinked my eyes open. I was glad too.
Pony started to shake again, more than before. It wasn't a shudder or a twitch, but like he was in the snow without a coat and was shivering uncontrollably. I held onto him and tried to call him back to reality.
"Pony? Pony, waking up." I shook him a little. "Damn it, wake up! C'mon..." I wasn't angry, I was just so tired and desperate, I didn't know what else to do. I kept my voice calm, but it rose louder and louder the more he didn't respond. "Ponyboy, you need to wake up. You're fine! God, what's wrong with you!?"
I don't know what had kept me from it before, but I decided then that I should take him to the hospital. I wasn't sure that it was a serious enough matter, but I was running out of options. He was unconscious, having some sort or seizure, and had been like that for heading on forty or so minutes. I knew I couldn't get up until he stopped his moving, but when he did, I was going to go. There was no logical reason not to.
At one point I thought that Pony was getting so out of control that he was going to throw himself off the couch, he was moving so much. But instead he sat up straight and screamed bloody murder. His eyes were wild with fear and he kept shaking, but now it was more of a broken up shake.
"Pony! Shhh!" I pulled him back down and he almost immediately stopped his screaming. His face was white and he tried to talk, but nothing but fragments of words came out. He was breathing in strangled gasps, thick and hard. "Shhh! It's okay. You're fine. It was a nightmare."
"Nuh...no...no..." he shook his head. "No it wasn't." He gulped and paled even more. "Oh God. I think I'm gonna be sick, Dar."
He didn't give me much of warning. No, it was less of a warning, and more of a enlightenment. He leaned over and threw up on the floor between the couch and the coffee table and on the bottom of the blanket. It was only once, and not a lot, but it got to him anyway. "Oh, God," he whispered and tried to stand up.
"What happened?" Soda came running him, knocking over a table chair in his still half asleep state. "What?"
I pulled Pony back to the couch and made him sit down while I got up. "Ah, shit," I griped as I dropped the blanket and moved out of the way. I was /b cleaning that up. There was no way. He was perfectly capable of doing it himself. He could do it later for all I cared, but I wasn't going to touch it.
"Don't!" Pony grabbed my arm. He was kneeling to the couch cushion and I had never seen anyone so frightened in my life.
"What?" I wasn't going anywhere. He had to know that. "Pony, what in the world is going on?"
Soda came over to the couch now and tried to coax Pony away from me. He tried his hardest to gently pry his tightly wrapped fingers away from my arm, but Pony wasn't having it. He refused to let go. His chest still rose and fell at a painful rate, but it didn't seem to faze him. Whatever was wrong had him scared out of his mind. I pushed Soda away. Something had the kid traumatized.
"Where is she?" Pony asked, his voice was quiet and timid. His eyes pleaded for me to keep my voice down.
"Who?"
"Oh God. Darry, where is she?!" He shook my arm like it would help. He was panicking and I didn't know what to do. He wasn't making any sense. If I knew what he was talking about, or if he was making the slightest bit of sense, I would do what I could to help. But he wasn't leaving me with very many options. His body turned frigid when he realized that I wasn't going to answer. "Oh God. Oh God. OhGodOhGodOhGod..."
"Pony," Soda started. "Come over here." He was now sitting on the other couch and he nudged his head to the seat next to him. "Come sit over here. I want you to tell me what you're talking about."
Pony started at him with a startled expression, like he hadn't noticed he was there, and looked back at me. He was torn between what to do, stay by me or go to Soda, but chose to stick with me. He must've felt more protected, because he wasn't budging. I could see how that would be, but I had no idea of how to explain to him that I couldn't protect him against some fear of his that didn't exist in reality. "She's here, isn't she?"
"Pon, I don't know what you're talking about." I shook my head. I admit, I had an inclination about what he thought was going on, but it wasn't true and I couldn't let him think it was. I had never believed in the idea of Bloody Mary, even after I had tried it myself when I was younger. Maybe I was too bullheaded to see it or I was too stubborn to be scared by some feeling I had felt once upon a time, but either way it wasn't adding up in his favor. This was one of the times where I had sympathy, but no empathy. And it's hard to have one without the other, let me tell you.
I slowly inched my way around to the other side of the couch. I figured he would feel a lot more at ease going to Soda if he were closer. There was nothing that I could think of to do to help make him feel better, and Soda was always better at that anyway. Maybe if I could get away for a minute, I could do him some good by turning on some music and the lights and he could relax more at Soda's side. He was the comforter, not me. Pony ought to feel better with him. He always had.
Pony was still breathing heavily and he looked so close to tears I was beginning to feel more sorry for him. Of course I knew that he had brought this upon himself and he should learn to deal with it like an adult, but I couldn't break a bond of trust just because I thought he was being childish. It had taken him long enough to get around to fully trusting me in the first place, I wasn't going to risk losing it all in one night. The time he needed a confidant the most was in his time of peril and I'd be there if it would make him feel even the slightest bit better.
That is in a few moments when I had some things straightened out. "Stay here for a minute, Pon. I'm gonna go turn on the hall light, okay?" I ripped my arm out of his grasp, wanting to get it over with quickly so we wouldn't have to drag out his pain anymore.
"Darry!" he screeched and made a grab for me again. "Stop!" He was all but standing on the couch and acting like he was five years old. If I hadn't been wide awake at that point, I would've thought for sure that this was all a dream. Nothing was normal about this. Nothing. And if that didn't have me worried, I don't know what would. Pony just didn't fall into that type of recession. Ever.
I closed my eyes and kept walking. He'd forgive me later but I had to do what was going to help him faster, now. I felt horrible for doing it but it was the right thing to do. I knew it was. There was nothing more I'd rather do than to be able to postpone having to leave him, but there are sometimes when you have to do the hard things first and then do what you want.
I could hear him clasp into a heap on the couch and sob. It was starling enough for me to want to go back instead of doing what I set out to do. I didn't, though. I would prefer to do this first and get it over with. I wanted to get back there and not have to leave again until it was okay. Something was seriously wrong with him and I was beginning to question his temporary sanity. I wasn't much of a brain in psychology, but I didn't have to be know this wasn't adding up right.
"Oh God..." he moaned. It was awful to hear someone cry over something so infinite. I hated that I felt that way, but it was something that came out of being who I am and how I was raised. Sure, he had been raised in pretty much the same environment, but he was different, and that almost made it worse for me. I shouldn't ever think that way about my little brother, but it was something that couldn't be helped.
"Pony, get over here." Soda pulled him over to his couch with much difficulty. He was determined to stay solid in his spot, but Soda had other ideas. Pony buried his face in Sodapop's lap and tried to stray away from hyperventilating. I knew Soda had to be thinking along the same lines as I was, but he had more patients and a more understanding heart. My place was to get back there and make sure he felt safe. I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I had to try. My heart pounded in my chest with the new batch of thoughts of what could possibly be wrong with him, when I walked back in and saw how he was. My stomach was getting sick over the idea that something was disturbing him so much.
"Oh God, Soda," he sobbed, lifting up his head somewhat. "We gotta leave. We gotta leave."
"What do you mean?" he asked. I went over and sat on the coffee table in front of them. I shook my head. This was way too much.
He paused for a moment as he choked on his own breath. "She's here." He sat up and grabbed for me also. "She's here! She's gonna kill us!" he screamed. My eyes widened at his outburst.
"Pony!" I yelled in attempt to be heard over him and to shock him into listening to me. "Stop it! Calm down! You're fine! No one is here!"
He shook his head and stood up and headed towards the door.
"No!" he said. "Listen to me! We have to leave!"
I'm not sure what made me do it, but I stood up and grabbed Pony by the arm and pulled him back over to me. He was out of control. He was going crazy. I didn't know how could a nightmare seem so real. How do you explain to someone that it wasn't? He must've taken some sort of hard blow to the head to keep thinking this was as bad as it was. Maybe I'd take him to the hospital after all.
But first I pulled him closer to me and sat back down. He was flipping out too bad to go anywhere yet. I had to get him to calm down before I took him out. So, I made him sit on my right leg and held him down in a tight headlock, which I knew that Soda would later tease me as being a hug. Pony struggled against my hold for a few seconds but soon realized that I wasn't going to let him go and he dissolved into a helpless blob. He still let out a few words here and there, but he was giving up finally.
I had no idea how to comfort him anymore. He would probably have to just get it all out and relax on his own. There was no consoling him. I looked at Soda for help, but he just shook his head. He didn't know what to do either.
Pony continued to cry and I held on to him, as to let him know I wasn't going to let anything else get to him. He was terrified more than I had ever seen before. What are you supposed to do when you don't know what is wrong? I knew to whisper words of comfort along with Soda gently patting his knee, but that was it. He was shaking uncontrollably but had started to slow down as the first minute or so went on.
After awhile, I turned my attention to Soda. I had to get this feeling of misery out of my gut somehow. And I figured that Soda usually had a way to make that happen. He was rubbing Pony's back now but he looked at me and tried to give me a strained smile. He was as confused and worried as I was. He shouldn't have had to deal with something as strenuous as this, and I felt bad because he was. He didn't look like he really minded, though. I sighed and whispered a little more to the kid, keeping my eyes on Soda.
He kept looking in all directions of the house. He would glance over to the kitchen and to the corner by the TV, and at all different random things. It gave him something to do and to try and have a little outlet from the crushing scene that sat before him. I didn't have much to look at except the wall and window behind him, and even with that I just saw a reflection of us in the darkness, so I didn't look there. I'd much rather keep focused on Pony's problem or on Soda's uncomfortable position. He was attempting to make himself more comfortable by leaning forward with his elbow resting on his knee, his chin planted on his fist. It didn't seem to work that well. He looked so lost and sad. I patted him on the shoulder to let him know I appreciated his support. He knew as well as I did that he didn't have to have any part in this but he chose to and it was a great help to me. Half the reason I was remaining as calm as I was, was because of him.
And then faster than I had time to comprehend, he pulled away and jumped up on the couch. He was staring at the hallway and his eyes were wide, his mouth gaped open the slightest bit. At the same time Pony started to scream louder and more frantically. He tried to get up again, but I held on and turned around to see what Soda was looking at.
Before I made it all the way around, the power in the house went out and the room turned instantly black. Pony screamed so loud I could barely hear myself think. He now wrapped his arms around my back and buried his face in my chest. There would be no getting him off later.
"What the fuck?" I exclaimed but I never heard myself.
A noise louder and higher than I had ever heard before filled my head and I almost immediately lost control of my body. It felt like my mind was burning inside my skull and I couldn't think anymore. My eyes were going to pop out of my head the pain was so intense. I crumpled to the floor, Pony underneath me, Soda soon falling on top.
It was then that I knew Pony had been right all along.
The End