Reham: I have updated this purely out of boredom
Soda: Nope, she just doesn't wanna do her Algebra homework
Steve: Or her English homework
Pony: Or -
Reham: Okay, okay, I think we get it! Anyway, I always want to hear your opinions
Two-Bit: Did she mention that if you give in ideas, there's a 75 percent that she'll put them into this story?
Darry: Yep, her ideas aren't good enough
Reham: Shut up!
Dally: Nope, I can picture that pretty much
Pony: Wait, Reham, what're you doin'?
-The camera turns to face Reham, who is cramming Johnny's head into a blender-
Johnny: I wanted to know what flavor "Head" tasted like
Darry: Um . . .
Steve: That goes to show ya'll how sophisticated we are . . .
Reham: It's so sad that we've gotta do the disclaimer right now . . .
The Gang: You don't own us . . .
Steve: -muttering- Thank God
Reham: I HEARD THAT! Wait! I ALMOST FORGOT! First off, NO ONE got the poll correct! HAHAHAHA! You'll find out what it really is, although it's quite interesting that a lot of you chose mountain lions. But I'll have to dedicate this chapter to a great online friend for being so . . . .GREAT! I mean, what's another word to describe her? THANKS A BUNCH!
Dedicated to mrs.pepsi-cola
…:Running:…
:Pony's PoV:
Holy shit. My mind wasn't working properly. My brain was functioning sorely and I couldn't breathe. What came out of those bushes was something I didn't want to see. A paw stepped out . . . a white, spotted paw . . . then came another, and then a head. The head belonged to that of a snow leopard . . . and I knew we were in for it.
"Steve, don't move," I said quietly, barely moving my lips. I saw Steve go several shades whiter, but he obeyed me. That was unusual for Steve because he normally does something stupid at a moment like this. The snow leopard approached us. It looked at Steve and then at me, as if sizing us up. It started walking towards me and its face got so close to mine that I felt its hot breath. And suddenly, Steve did something stupid.
He lunged at the snow leopard and said, "Run, Pony, run!"
I didn't know why he was doing it. He had taken the snow leopard by surprise, but it wasn't going to stay down. Steve gave me a glare and told me to run and get help, but that didn't hide the genuine fear on his face. Fear? Was this the Steve Randle I was used to seeing? If Steve was afraid, then I should be. I turned around to run, but I lost my footing and I slipped. I was so stupid! And there I went, right into the river to be carried away. I struggled to stay above the surface, but I felt like an elephant. I was pulled under into another state of oblivion.
XxXxXxX
:Steve's PoV:
What are the chances of encountering a snow leopard while you're lost? I just lay on my stomach, not moving a muscle. Pony told me not to move a muscle. No shit? But I decided against answering. That snow leopard was getting pretty close. It looked at me and then at Pony. It probably thought Pony was defenseless because it got extremely close to his face. I knew the leopard was going to attack him. I wasn't going to let that happen, even if I did hate him. He had a whole life ahead of him. He could change. He could be whatever he wanted to be. It was at that moment that I realized I didn't hate him because he was a tagalong. I was jealous of him. He had brothers to look up to and to protect him. He had had loving parents. He had a life. He had an education and he could change when he wanted to. It was too late for me. I had nothing. So if one of us had to die, it would be me. I did the stupidest thing I could have done. I told Pony to run away and I jumped onto the leopard.
I think I took it by surprise because it didn't move for a while. Pony was standing there like an idiot. Sometimes he just doesn't use his head. I told him to run again and what does he do? He slips and falls into the river. Excellent.
Well at least he was out of harm's way – I think. Now I had this damn leopard to worry about. I was on top of it, but that quickly changed. It threw me onto the ground with one lash out and it pounced on me. Its damn nails dug into my skin. It felt worse than getting stabbed with a blade. It put its head near mine to take a bite out of me, but I used my hands to keep its mouth open and away from me. What the hell was I thinking?
Now I put myself in an awkward situation. I was scared shitless at the thought of being eaten alive. But I did what my brain told me to do. I brought my knees to my chest and kicked that sucker off of me. To my surprise, it went flying back several feet. I thought it was going to fall into the river, but Lady Luck just wasn't with me. It turned back to me and growled low. That was my cue to hightail out of there.
I started running, but I was sure that I wasn't going to make it. I was running towards the direction Pony was dragged away in. I had to get to the kid. He was going to die in that water. I hadn't gotten a few feet away when I was suddenly launched forward. The snow leopard had pounced on my back. I landed hard on the floor and heard a sickening crack. Then came the excruciating pain and that confirmed that I had broken a couple ribs. Shit. I crawled out of the leopard's grasp and ran again, feeling every stab of pain. For some reason, the leopard wasn't chasing me. I looked back while I was running to see the reason, and it had retreated back into the bushes it spawned from. I stopped running to catch my breath. I don't know how Pony ran so much.
And then the pain came back. I lifted my shirt painfully to see purple bruises lining my left and right sides. Shit, I definitely broke some ribs. I started to breathe harshly when I suddenly remembered. Ponyboy!
"Pony!" I shouted. When I got no reply, I shouted again. "Ponyboy!" Still no answer. I started walking along the bank to see if the river ever ended. Something large was floating up ahead. It took me a while to figure out that it was Ponyboy, but when I finally did, I started running towards it.
The pain got sharper in my chest the further I went, but I had to catch up with Pony. He had a future for God's sake! I was gaining on him because the river's current was slower than my running. Finally, I could see his pale face bob in and out of the water. I ran further ahead of him and kneeled by the bank. Damn that hurt like shit. I outstretched my arm and groped for him. I fumbled with his drenched shirt a little, but I had it in a firm grasp. Painfully, I pulled him out from the water and just dumped him onto the bank. I had just wasted all of my energy. Not only was I tired and slightly wet, I was bleeding from eight different marks on my chest. Its nails must've been long to get through my layers of clothing.
I looked over at Pony. His eyes were closed and his face was drained of all of its color but total redness on his cheeks and forehead. "Pony?" I squeaked out. When he didn't answer me, I tried again. "Pony?" I crawled over to him and checked his pulse. He had a faint one. But something was wrong. He wasn't breathing. Oh shit . . . oh shit, oh shit, OH SHIT! What was I supposed to do? CPR?
"There is no way I'm doing mouth-to-mouth," I said aloud as I placed my hands together over the area of his heart. I counted to ten and then pushed fiercely down. I counted to ten again and pushed. One more time and then I checked to see if he had regained his breathing. He hadn't.
"Come on Pony . . . you can't die on me now!" I screamed as I pumped again. One time . . . two times . . . three times. On the fourth, he jerked forward, coughing up water. He was choking and I just hit him on the back for him to get it all out. After a while, he lay back. Poor kid was shaking so hard.
"Hey, it's okay," I said softly. I smacked myself mentally for using that tone on him. I still hated him . . . but that was slowly fading. Ponyboy didn't tagalong for the thought of annoyance, he tagged along because he was afraid.
"S-Steve . . ." he whimpered. I took off my backpack and put it under his head. He didn't deserve this. I was the one that was supposed to be like this. I was the one that should have been thrown into the river. I almost felt sorry that I had argued with him. But he was still an annoying tagalong . . . a misunderstood annoying tagalong.
"What is it?" I asked him, watching his attempt to open his eyes. He looked so stupid that I would have laughed if this wasn't a serious time.
"It hurts . . ."
"Where? Where's it hurt?" He was still shivering.
"M-m-my arm. It hurts like hell."
During his trip down the river, he'd lost his jacket. I don't know if it was so useful now. I slid back his drenched sleeve and cringed slightly, looking away and cursing quietly.
"I don't know if you should look, Ponyboy. I think you should turn away," I said as I started taking off my jacket. He closed his eyes and tilted his head backwards, deeper into the 'pillow'. I pulled off my sweatshirt, leaving me in my gray t-shirt. I left Pony there for a second to break off some branches from a tree. Mother Nature would have to kill me later.
"Look, I'm going to take off that shirt of yours, okay? You'll get sicker if you leave it on," I said. He nodded and I took his shirt off for him. Damn, that kid needed meat on him. I could see his ribs slightly. I wrapped my sweatshirt around his arm and used the sticks to stabilize it. Then I helped him into my jacket. It was either the kid freezes to death or I freeze to death.
There must have been something in that hotdog that's making me feel this way because I was supposed to be hating Pony. But there was no way that I could. There was more to this boy that I never knew. He just seemed helpless for a 14-year-old. "Do you feel okay now?" I asked.
He nodded his head lightly. Then he looked at my shirt and his eyes grew wide. "Steve, you're bleeding! And you're going to freeze to death!" I looked down at my shirt to see that half of it wasn't gray – it was red.
"It ain't nothing I can't handle," I said to him. Actually, my arms felt so cold that I thought they were going to fall off, and my ribs ached so bad that I thought my chest would explode, but I'm a greaser and that's just something we greasers don't do. "Now I gotta get you somewhere safe. Can you stand?"
Pony nodded his head and stood up. He swayed slightly, but he steadied himself. At least he didn't have a broken leg or anything. I stood up from my kneeling position, feeling the intense pain. I winced and Pony noticed.
"You're hurt," he said bluntly.
"No shit?"
"You ain't gonna make it anywhere like that. You're probably going to freeze to death or something."
"Pony, just give it up! Aren't you happy that you're safe?"
Sometimes this kid was so stupid that it frustrated me. He cares too much about other people. That was his problem. I bet not once he's ever cared about someone else!
"Sorry . . ." he said. I looked at him and realized that he had never acted his innocence. He'd always been truly innocent. We started walking some more and I couldn't take the silence.
"Look," I said with a sigh. "I – I'm sorry for fighting with you."
He stopped mid step. Why was me saying sorry so hard to believe? I thought I'd continue before he'd come up with some wise crack that he'd learned from Two-Bit. "I always thought you were a tagalong, y'know? I always thought that you just wanted the attention. And I – I guess I was wrong."
Shit, that came out harder than I thought it would. He sighed and started his part of the apology. "And I always thought that you were just a stick in the ass and that you were always trying to steal Soda away from me. But then I realize that Soda's probably the nearest thing to family for you. You don't have much of a fair life with your dad," he said.
"You dig okay, Pony," I said to him. I looked around the area and said, "All we have to do is find shelter."
Reham: Another exciting chapter?
Steve: Personally, I hated it.
Pony: Same here
Soda: Aw, it's just 'cause Reham's got you gettin' along!
Pony: No, it's because she broke my arm
Steve: And it's because she made me save him
Dally: It ain't all bad. I mean, c'mon.
Reham: And now, I have a large list of things to do at 10:18 pm (right now)
Darry: Do your algebra and english homework
Pony: Clean your room
Johnny: Practice your saxophone
Two-Bit: And watch more Mickey Mouse Classic Cartoons
Reham: Actually, Two-Bit, it's "Watch more Boy Meets World", but you were close!
Johnny: NOW REVIEW!
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