A/N: There is a flashback scene involves sexual favors in exchange for drugs. Mature content. Indulgently long a/n at the end.

The June heat is a sleeve pulled too long. Though in his bathroom he is cool and naked, dripping soapy water into the bathmat, it squishes under his feet while the towels remain fluffy and untouched on the rack.

Claws paths through condensation and breath, stares at his reflection. At the widening strips of his face looking back at him.

This is his tongue pushing against the roof of his mouth. These are the ridges like ribs, or like the bones of a skeleton, pressing against his tongue. Decades ago a needle lacerated it. Now it's like anyone's, except for a slight scar that is felt more than seen. Where there is violence in his mind, his body sometimes wags like a dog after it's master. Another way of saying he's a man of action who bleeds into impulsiveness.

Another way of saying he could yank this fucker out.

But tonight common sense is a bandage wrapped tight and he walks into his bedroom, still dripping. His tooth still hurting, though intact.

Ain't that Billy? Pony's brothers follow the quick turn of his head with their own to some college kids, all but one in a baseball cap, gathered around a highboy and two pitchers and one of them Darry Curtis's middle son.

Gonna invite 'em over?

Darry shakes his head with his whiskey neat. Shit, Soda. You know the rules.

Though if the guys came over his dad would buy them a round; these brothers have a tradition and catch up with each other and no children, wives, significant others, or friends are allowed to join them. They're talked about. Sometimes they meet in Darry's rec room, with most of his kids grown and out of the house he has plenty of space, tonight was Soda's choice and they're downtown. That run-in with Sylvia last week caused nostalgia to course through Soda's veins like oil gliding down the side of saddle. Revitalization is a decade away. Now it's the brown affect of a sepia photo. A feeling of dust, not enough to make you choke, or stain your clothes, but an itch in the nostrils.

It's hot, the heat of bodies that the air conditioner can't overtake, even with it's wheeze out of dusty vents. There's an Elk mounted on the wall and a mechanical bull whose spring is in bad need of oiling.

Get a load. Darry leans back, the chair croaking under him. David's talkin' about working together. He'll design a building and I'm supposed to build it. For him. Says it'll be a great experience dad. He takes a chomping bite of his pulled pork.

The first time his son-in-law called him Dad, he thought he misheard, before remembering that no one but his brothers call him 'Dar.'

There's a table next to the highboy, six women between their mid and upper twenties. Four of them are blonde. Eyes talk, invitations are exchanged and the guys make their way over.

One husky guy moves towards the boldest looking one. The one with the thickest, longest lashes. Her boldness rubs on him like a stick of glue. What's your poison?

He looks early twenties, nothing new, frat boys flipping out their Daddy's credit cards and flirting with her. Trying to pick her up like she's the last kitten out of the box. A decade later they'll approach her like she's the first cougar in their cage.

So far he's not like the pervs who think her tits are welcome mats to stomp their greedy hands on. It's why she carries mace.

Wants to laugh in his face and ask him where are Opie and Aunt Bee, Gramps? Should tell him that he can't handle her poison. But if he's asking her drink of choice it's a Moose Drool Brown Ale, which isn't sold in Oklahoma so she's already shit out of luck. Before she speaks her friend leans over, her hands cupped over mouth to shout, WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

Bill Curtis, and extends his hand. A beat later the friend returns the handshake. And after another pause she does too. The guys offer to buy a round.

Moose Drool woman picks the cheapest pitcher of beer and jumbo nachos. For my girls. She gestures towards the other women.

But Bill does get a hard appreciative pat on the ass before he and the guys head out to a sports bar. She prefers tighter asses. His is too fleshy, feels like kneading over-yeasted dough when she slaps it. Not that her own don't have a nice bit of ooh to it. But at least in her tight jeans and high heel boots she knows how to advertise it. Her blonde hair cascading down her back frames it like a picture. If you got it, flaunt it. And if you don't, fake it and flaunt it anyways. That's her motto.

What? Moose Drool woman says to another friend and gives her a pacifying wink, I never turn down free beer and food, how do you think I got this figure in the first place, babes? With her fingers she draws a defiant, curvy silhouette in the air.

Tonight's about having fun, right? Moose Drool woman continues, her voice slapping down the look of nunish disapproval from her friend. She raises her glass and the sound of clinking and laughing follows. Hers rolls out like a soft underbelly of a gentle tide. Like the ocean's pearls, her teeth glisten.

Darry points a patriarchal figure at Ponyboy. What the hell's happening with Paige? You and Aimee are really gonna let her go to where? Bosnia? He pronounces it like chewing tobacco is lobbed in his mouth, baws nee ah.

I want to feel something, something, I don't know, more. The woman who asked Billy's name laments.

Feel? Like what? What are we talking about here? An anal fissure? Moose Drool woman asks. What do you want to feel? Wipes a bit of nacho cheese sauce off her lips. The orange a radioactive shade.

No, Val, I want...I want to know I'm having sex when I'm having it. I want to feel it. And I don't mean anything kinky. He's so quick about it I don't even know it's begun before it's over.

Relax, I'm teasing you. I get it. The other women are certain that Val's lying, on both marks. What I want, is my man to get rough with me. Val speaks like her wants and gets are never far apart.

Hey Soda, cat's got your tongue? 'S everything okay, man?

Huh? What Pone?

Darry and Pony exchange a look and Soda used to be so good at reading people, especially his brothers, but he can't. Not now.

Pony, Soda says out of the blue, shooting up from his slouched position with urgency; when did you and Aims know y'alls marriage was on the rocks?

This look he reads just fine.

He is beautiful and disheveled as if the two qualities cannot be split from each other without slicing him alongside. His hair, long and knotted, in need of a good brushing. Gives him an animalistic otherwise childlike quality and he feels the meaty fingers move inside his hair, breaking through the knots of which there are many.

He carries a knife in his back pocket. The last time he used it was to slice open a stubborn bag of stale Cheerios. The stereo is on, not loud enough to get a noise complaint, but loud all the same. Baba O' Riley comes on, but he feels it in his bones as Teenage Wasteland.

He lost weight so his jeans ride down, showing off his hips. His arms are junkie arms, branded with needle marks but if there is a part of him that is prideful it could be this, not covering up his arms. So in this, he is not bearing false witness.

He is sweating on his neck and the fingers move down, yank his hair like a leash on a dog. He feels those same fingers on his nape. Pressing down hard.

He wants to make a sound, not in fear or in pain but in longing for what awaits on the other side but holds off and exhales a bullish grunt, his nostrils flare.

With a sort of competition he notices that the man isn't that large, this way at least, which he sees between his eyes that are closing, that are ordered closed, though he doesn't really need to be ordered. He does it by his own volition.

It's different in the bathrooms, anonymous, but this man pays better and he's always had a practical mind too, even though he flunked math.

In his dreams later, this is the moment when everything changes, where he bares his teeth and when his anger and rage, of which he has plenty, unleashes. This is his 'if only' moment.

And like that, the moment is over.

He made a deal and a man, even an addict and a thief, is only as good as his word, as his mouth.

In retrospect he will feel something more akin to self-disgust but now he feels a tremendous gratitude for this, for this man who gives him this ability to take care of his family. A man who can't take care of his family ain't no man at all, it what he heard his father say to his mother, the year she got a job working at a factory.

In reflex he finds himself nodding in agreement.

Yes, yes. What is he?

His eyes squeeze tight though underneath they roll. But the voice that stands high above him, which is detached and yet strangely human changes the script they are used to.

What is he?

His tongue is sharp and bitter but in the end pliable and he repeats what the man says.

But what kind?

A dirty kind, a junkie kind. The kind that would do this. That is this.

There is now exhaustion in his voice. He recognizes in it the malleable complaint his brother once gave when his back rubs were too light.

There is also purpose in it and he has a talent for it and his tongue with that little stud offers a sensation of pleasure. And knows with a cold calculation that this will give what he is offering more value.

He is offering his tongue, his mouth, his throat, his ability to take.

He is on his knees. The way he landed when his older brother tried to teach him acrobatics and he'd lose his balance and land in the grass.

He inches his neck forward at the position of giving, of taking; and he feels his bare toes scrape against the floor and in this moment he wonders if he should have worn socks, he doesn't want to get tetanus. Later, he will deny this thought because it will mean that he is thinking and not as desperate or rock bottom as he would have liked to believe.

Slick with spit and friction and he sees her, on the floor, on her knees, mouth open like his own, but pregnant with his child and a monstrous red, then crimson wet fog fills his eyes. But it must be in his mind because in his ears are the grunts and groans of unexpected pleasure which tingles in the back of his own head, too.

He recognizes those grunts, recognizes that he is the instrument of the man's pleasure. That he is an instrument. But he can assert himself and turn that pleasure into pain, turn his teeth into blades, into blood, that will flow into his mouth, and drip down his chin and body and onto the floor.

But he likes the power, to have some sort of control, even if the control is not over his life, or his habit, but the control over another man. Over his pleasure.

I'll take what you give; he had told the man, spoken in a voice as cold, as void as his face. But maybe there was a sneak bravado in it, a challenge. Maybe there was a desperation in it too. That bravado and desperation are two sides of the same coin.

His mouth, his mouth it is not so different from a tourniquet that pulls tight around his arm, around his wife's, and before around the wounded, though sometimes they were dead too. Though his mouth doesn't stay still, but moves, as if it is alive, it's own organism, receiving another.

For a second the rush he feels overtakes his need, his primal need for the dope that will flow through his veins. The justification for what he is doing; though maybe not the reason he is taking this man for the first time inside his throat, taking him with such hunger, the way his abdomen sucks in, though he hardly eats these days. Then as quickly as it arose that feeling ends. And he returns to his workman equilibrium, with a different sort of power, with the power of detachment.

He doesn't gag and his face shows no emotion as he takes what he's earned.

As he rises he feels a pride in supporting his family, in providing what they need to live. He does it so she won't have to, and in this maybe he is a better provider than most. She doesn't know this is how it happens, but she's grateful, and that is its own reward and he holds it along with their smack with a stoic dignity.

And he does this because he's an addict and this is the easiest way, the best way to get his fix which allows him to stumble for another day.

...

He pushes himself into the rag towel's harsh fibers and as much as possible erases his face.

But this, Soda can talk to his brothers about. Says it's all on him, not Mary. Which his brothers know might be true, might not be, and Pony thinks lands in the middle, but taking the fall for his woman is in Soda's blood so there's no use contradicting.

These brothers talk, listen. Without warning Soda slaps his hand hard on the table. Forces a command back into his voice. Now enough about me. What's goin' on with Paiges again?

But figures, I enjoy getting spanked. And the woman who says it pulls herself back a bit. Into her chair. That's Val effect, forcing you to confess your dirty, dark secrets. Light spankings, the woman adds. But it isn't enough to block the look of judgment from another woman at their table.

That's when Val sticks her neck out. Don't worry I'll use a feather, she winks at the first woman. You can watch. She says sardonically to the other woman. Says to the first woman, It's all good honey. And when she says it, it almost feels halfway true, or at least a lie worth believing.

No, what I want, Val lowers her voice to a whisper between titillation and confession, leans in and the other women follow. From the outside they look like a wet clay cup folding in on itself. Val's stark white teeth bare down as about to bite through the flesh of a deer she used to hunt and clean as a girl.

I want to be devoured.

Ready to head out? Pony asks, already standing. Some bozo put George Strait on the juke box. A twang of a headache hits between his skull.

Darry rises, reaching back for his wallet, no matter how much his brothers tell him not too. Soda stays put.

They're gonna start a trivia game soon, think I'm gonna stay a while, might join in. Soda gives his brothers a sigh. Mare knows I'm out. Doesn't add that Mary's going to assume he spent the entire time with his brothers.

Darry eyes the brown liquid in Soda's glass.

Soda returns the favor then aims his stare at his oldest brother. His eyes are the same shade as his drink, the same flatness, then the look he gives his brother turns hard.

Coke. Soda says tight and with a shot of menace. You saw her pour it. Ain't gonna turn to wine or whiskey in front of your eyes. All I'm drinkin' tonight is some good ol' fashion Coca-Cola.

After those nights when he was unemployed he can no longer say that drinking ain't his vice and something something about teaching old dogs new tricks.

Maybe we ought to stay? Pony offers. But doesn't want his brother to think he's being babysat. It is trivia night, between the three of us we'll crush everyone here. Long as they have a music category. And to that Soda gives a twitch of a smile.

Naw. I'm good. Y'all got my number and can check up on me. He tries to push it down but a soft bitterness snakes through his voice and out of his grin aimed at his younger brother. The grin is not returned and Soda, one hand on the back of his neck looks down at the scratched up table.

You sure you got enough for a cab? Darry's voice, concern, lack of trust hits hard.

...

They say their goodbyes. Soda's hugs and back slaps are extra hard, his handshakes extra tight by way of apology, which are accepted by his brothers.

But mostly wanting something, someone, to hold onto.

Elvin Bishop graduated from Will Rogers High School and there's a few whoops and cheers from the crowd when Soda gets that one right. It's an easy game, the theme Oklahoma lore and legends.

The crowd is thinned. You can hear the air-conditioner, the skinned-cat noise of the metal spring from the underside of the mechanical bull, the spring located where the sheath would be.

Against a wall, a rancorous game of darts.

Playing with them, teasing at their bad aim, taking well-supplied shots for bulls-eyes like a boss, a blonde haired woman, tits like mushroom clouds. When she turns she reveals an ass like a prized mare jumping a fence.

Soda stands up and walks on a collision towards her. Her jeans so tight they appear painted on. Her eyes are blue prisms caged behind lashes like cat o'nine tails.

And then moves past her, past the inflatable pen where the bull is kept and through the flashing red EXIT. Drives for a little while and tries to be quiet as possible when he sneaks back into his house. Places the jumbo bucket of peanuts he won on the kitchen counter. Checks on Hawk and Hazer. Goes back and makes sure the deadbolt is locked. Looks at his wife in her bed, their bed, he reminds himself. Runs a finger softly from the outside of her eye down her cheek before leaning over and giving her a kiss on her lips. In his clothes, everything on, including his boots, looks up at the ceiling and tries to fall asleep.

Later, comes back by himself.

Orders a drink, takes the complimentary peanuts by the handful and makes a few jokes with the bartender, who remembers him from trivia few nights ago. Take a quick scan of the room. The room spins, first outside than inside his head, before it lands.

She's back, that blonde woman, playing a game of darts by her lonesome

Nice aim

The voice is stripped raw

It starts at the base of her neck, tingles down her spine, and she'll turn around.

Fall is here, the corrosive oranges, reds, golds and browns of earth, symphonic before they're plucked off branches by winter's elegiac chord.

With an injured tooth there's no use tugging on it, letting it be held in the socket only by a single nerve, fibrous and blood red. Val's pregnant.

A/N: WHEW. :) This story brings together two storylines I've hinted in other stories. In The Visit I've hinted that Soda engaged in sex acts for drugs. More importantly it's the first public introduction of Soda's youngest daughter. I had the idea of this affair for about two-years but I've never been able to figure out how to get the ball rolling. They've been stealth characters in my stories for a while. In Ch. 7 Tommy's Party from Slice of Life the cheating is the reason Hazer is hostile towards her dad. Serenity's actually the sister Hawk Curtis keeps on referring to in 'Arrested.' :)

And if you do read Arrested, which takes about a decade later, you'll know that Mary & Soda eventually do get back together. While in my heart I always thought after a separation and A LOT of therapy they'd reconcile, as a writer I hesitated explicitly putting that into Arrested because I was afraid of being trapped in that scenario. Especially when I'm SO uncertain about my writing & characters. And there have been many times since I published Arrested that I doubted my story, doubted them getting back together, thought it was too fairy tale-ish. And doubted my ability to write it, which is why it's taken me this long to even broach the topic. And for me, THAT'S the harder but more vital story to tell and the one I hope I write with justice & empathy.

Please forgive me for doing this to Mary, I love her but I knew from the moment I had the idea of Val & Serenity that this had to happen.

S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders. The Who own Baba O'Riley. Andy & Aunt Bee are references from The Andy Griffith show.

Moose Drool is a particular type of Montana brewed beer.

Thank you so very much. This is a slightly different writing style for me with this chapter, so I appreciate you sticking with it/me. :)