There's something to be said for the feeling of outgrowing a place. I decided that was it. That was the feeling I've felt ever since returning home from college. I hadn't been home for this long since I was eighteen years old. After graduating a semester early a few weeks ago, Darry managed to talk me into coming home for a few months. I hemmed and hawed about it - living in a city like New York has a way of liberating you in the same way that a small town in Oklahoma can make you feel too small - but finally conceded defeat and agreed to move back in with him and Soda before I found a job.

It wasn't the idea of seeing them that deterred me from returning home. Lord knows my arm doesn't need to be twisted to find an excuse to see Sodapop, Darry, and the gang. It was the idea of not wanting to leave again. Of getting too comfortable for my own good, I guess.

Before I could dwell too long on the irrational doom I've felt since I walked in the door, I had to admit that it was good to be back home. Where I was just Ponyboy. Where everyone knew embarrassing stories about me and knew how I liked my eggs cooked and I never had to remind them of anything about myself. I didn't have to make myself look cool or nuanced in their presence. They knew who I was. They loved me for who I was.

Darry has all the Christmas decorations sitting in boxes scattered on the floor when I walk in. Him and Soda had refused to decorate without me the past few years. It was something we did together and a tradition that meant even more for him to continue since mom and dad were gone.

Our mother loved Christmas. I try my best not to tear up when I notice that Darry has her Loretta Lynn Christmas album sitting on top of the record player, waiting for us to play it and sit in bittersweet silence like we've done every year. Decorating for Christmas reminds me of her the most, I've decided.

I couldn't believe this was almost the tenth Christmas without them. It feels like a lifetime.

When I set foot into my childhood bedroom, I was overwhelmed with nostalgia, like I always am. Nothing changes. Not that I expected it to, but it was like walking through a museum. Back at school, I felt like a nomad. I never really had a place to call my own in New York. I was in a different apartment every few months, and none of them were satisfactory, but I had learned to regard it as charm. Perhaps Sodapop knew this, because he always made sure to leave everything as I had it from the last time I had been there.

"I didn't want to move anything," Soda said, slinging an arm over my shoulder sweetly, though my height had finally crept beyond his. "I wanted to make sure you'd recognize the place when you finally came back."

"I guess you guys really do love me," I said with a chuckle.

"Always, kiddo," he said, messing with my hair.

The gang - or what's left of it - piles in our small kitchen for "family dinner", as Two-Bit lovingly referred to it. Darry made us spaghetti - another favorite of mine. He had improved his cooking tenfold since I've been gone, I remark.

"It's that girl of his," Sodapop says with a sly smirk. I blush. Darry was secretive about his love life. More secretive than me, which was saying something. "She's taught him a thing or two."

"And not just in the kitchen," Two-Bit adds with an immature, clownish smile on his face, never missing an opportunity for an impish euphemism.

Darry shoots him a look that conveys pure annoyance and deadly threat. I knew that look all too well. I'm pretty sure Darry invented that look for me.

"What?" Two-Bit asks innocently. "She taught him how to clean, too."

We all break into laughter. "Asshole," Darry says under his breath.

"You didn't tell me you had a girlfriend," I say.

"Don't sweat it, Pone," Soda says. "He didn't tell me either. I picked up the phone one day when she called about a date with him. I just about dropped dead right then and there."

I blush, sheepish at the thought of Darry caring about anyone else other than us. As charismatic as he is, Darry is sometimes shyer than I am about girls.

We fall into our normal rhythm of camaraderie quickly at dinner. It never takes long for me to fall back in line with the gang, catching up on their stories and mine from the last time we were together. Though Tulsa no longer feels the way it used to for me, the gang has. I know they're the only reason I'd ever come back to this place.

"Gee, Pony," Two-Bit says while we're cleaning up the table. "Every time you visit, you seem smarter."

"Smarter?" I ask.

"'Ya know… cooler. Different, in a good way."

"I think the word he's looking for is 'sophisticated'," Darry says, slinging the dish towel over his shoulder. "A college scholar." He smiles at me proudly.

"Thanks," I say almost inaudibly. It's surely a compliment, but it makes chills run up my spine. I'm not sure why.

Before we begin decorating, I head towards the door, grabbing my coat.

"Hey, I think I'm gonna go for a walk," I say, reaching for the doorknob. "To… clear my head."

"You okay, kiddo?" Darry asks, puzzled. "It's 8 o'clock at night."

"I'm okay," I say. "Just trying to take it all in."

He looks at Sodapop, confused. "Do you want me to go with you, buddy?" Sodapop asks.

I shake my head vehemently. "I'm fine, really," I say. "I just want to walk around like I used to."

Darry shrugs. "Don't be gone for too long. Soda can barely wait to put up the stockings."

I chuckle, a bit emptily. "Roger that."

The cold air fills my warm lungs with a shock. New York winters are much more brutal than in Oklahoma. The snow piles high, and it isn't as picturesque as you see in the movies, either. Just a lot of brown and grey slush. One year, a few of my friends and I went Upstate to go skiing, and that was really nice, though.

I make my way down the sidewalk, not really believing that I'm actually home. I mean, I've been home multiple times before now. But it feels different now, because another stage of my life is finished, another chapter closed. And I didn't think I would be living with my brothers forever or cooped up in Tulsa for the rest of my life, but I'm finally realizing that life is changing. I just can't realize why I'm bothered so much by it. I think I realize things too late.

I make my way around the block, lost in thought. I notice some of our neighbors have hung Christmas decorations outside their houses. They decorate the same exact way every year, as Darry does, and it makes me feel a bit nostalgic. Dad used to drive us around in his old truck to look at all the lights in our neighborhood. We never really had money to spend on visiting the light displays on the better side of town, but we wouldn't have ever known it. This was just as fun.

I realize that the perpetual feeling of a broken heart during Christmastime doesn't do much for my sadness right now.

I stop at a forelorn house at the end of our street, on the corner. It's a small yellow house, a bit less dilapidated than ours. Typically adorned with all types of big, ceramic lights this time of year, the house sits solemnly, vacant and dark. I stare at it a bit, the writer in me trying to make a metaphor out of its image.

"Mrs. Friedman died two months ago," I hear a voice behind me. "Her house has been empty ever since."

"You followed me," I say, more as a statement than a question.

"I could tell something was bothering you," Sodapop says.

I laugh, a little curtly. "You can always tell."

"Of course I can," he smiles. "And I didn't want you to be out here alone."

"You didn't tell me Mrs. Friedman died," I say, a bit offended. "She cooked us meals every week after mom and dad died. She always gave us her son's old clothes, too, remember?"

"I know," Soda says. "Darry and I didn't want to upset you."

"You thought I'd be upset?"

Soda looks at me. "You're a little bit more sentimental than the rest of us."

I scoff. "She was our neighbor for years. Did you go to her funeral?"

"Of course," Sodapop says. "'Woulda been silly for you to come all the way home for a 100-year-old woman's funeral, though. Don'tcha think?"

"I guess."

We sit in silence for a few moments, and I focus on our breath in the air. It's white, like cigarette smoke. I laugh a bit in my mind, reminiscing on the period of time where I couldn't go more than fifteen minutes without smoking. It's been nearly three years since I've quit.

"What's up, Pone?" Soda finally asks. "What's wrong?" I give him a look.

"What?" he says. "I can see right through you."

I pause for a moment, trying to figure out what exactly it is.

"It's just… I always had an excuse. I had New York. I had college. I knew I was leaving, but I always knew I would come back. And four years seemed so far away," I say. "Now I'm not sure there's a place for me here anymore. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Well… no," Soda says. "Because that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard you say, Pone. There's always gonna be a place for you here. This is your home. Don't you know that?"

I roll my eyes. "I mean, it's never going to be like it was. We're never going to be living under the same roof as one another. Hell, I don't even know where I'm going next. But it'll never just be all of us together again. I feel like we're losing another part of the gang for good, but that part is me. And it feels like…."

"It feels like Dal and Johnny all over again."

"Kinda."

Sodapop pauses for a moment, thinking about this. Though he isn't the most articulate, he's certainly the most insightful.

"Wanna know how I see it?" Sodapop asks.

I nod. "Of course."

"You're twenty-two years old. You graduated college at the top of your class. You have job offers all over the country. That's something to be proud of, Pone. That doesn't happen for just anyone. Hell, it didn't happen for me and Darry. It won't happen for Steve or Two-Bit. It didn't happen for Dally or Johnny. You should be grateful you are where you are."

"Oh, come on…" I say. "I didn't mean it like that-"

"No, listen," Sodapop says. "You think you should be feelin' guilty about leaving, but you shouldn't be. Me, Darry, the gang, even mom and dad would want you getting the hell out of this pokey 'ol town," he says with a laugh. "It's all we've ever wanted for you."

"I know that. I'm thankful for that."

"Hell of a way of showin' it," Soda says jokingly.

"I guess I never thought of it that way," I say. "I always figured you and Darry would think I left you guys behind or somethin'. I never wanted you to think that."

"C'mon, Pone. We'd never think that. We've worked so hard to help you make somethin' of yourself. We're real proud."

"Thanks," I say. "Thanks for knocking some sense into me."

"You know, you're afraid of changin', but that's one thing that will never change about you," he says as we begin to walk back to the house. "You'll always need your big brothers to help you see what's right in front of you."

"You're right about that," I say.

"And don't think you'll never come back here to visit the gang," he says. "We'll drag you back here if it's the last thing we do. You'll know where to find us."

"You're right," I say. "I'll never be able to get away from you guys."

"Exactly," he says. "Now, can we go back and decorate for Christmas? Please? I'm freezing my ass off out here."

"Yeah," I say with a chuckle. "Let's go."

I really loved this prompt, which was sent to me on Tumblr. It's so Ponyboy, but also so Sodapop, and I feel like I never write enough about their dynamic, which is surely one of my favorite relationships in fiction.

Hope you enjoyed :)