Disclaimer: I do not own The Outsiders, or any of the characters in it.

Across the Blackened Haze

Chapter One

"The observation I am doing could easily be understood as cynical demeanor, but one of us misread." - Kings of Convenience

It was an unusually cold day in Tulsa and Steve suppressed a shudder as a sharp gust of wind made his DX shirt billow against his skin. He felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck and couldn't help but use his hand to slap it back down, just for the heck of it. His common sense told him to go inside but Steve was never the one to listen to it. Besides, he'd rather stay outside freezing rather than being stuck inside the walls of that cramped space.

Usually Soda would be there to keep him company while he did the work (which is true, Steve thought, Steve did all the working and Soda did all the talking), but he left thirty minutes ago because of yet another mishap with Sandy, leaving Steve alone to cover for the both of them. And it was just his luck that after Soda left there hasn't been any cars, or people even, to take his mind off of things. Steve was itching to get off of work, checking the clock every few minutes or so, expecting much more than a few minutes to have passed. He had an hour left till he was free to go, and while it would feel like only an hour normally, today it was another hour he had to get through. He wished for an interruption or anything to keep him busy, preferably girls.

He was halfway into thinking he should bail the place when he heard all too familiar voice from behind him.

"Well, well, if it isn't the Big Steve-O!"

This was not the interruption that Steve neither wanted nor expected. He rolled his eyes at the 'I'm Mr. Bigshot' voice of one Curly Shepard. Man, just his presence itself made Steve irritated and figured it was best to ignore him rather than to say something to actually start a conversation. He took a piece of cloth and pretended to be busy, wiping the gas pump and things like that - something that he'd never done before. Steve looked awkward, sure. Who would expect the Big Steve-O to clean? But maybe Curly'd take the hint and go mind his own business.

"Where's your better looking half?"

Or not.

"What you want, Curly? Don't got nothing better to do?" Steve turned around to face the smug looking excuse for a Shepard.

"Aww, come on man. Is that any way to greet a friend?" Curly smirked, walking closer to Steve who was winding the cloth around his right hand, silently asking him if he wanted a punch to the nose. Curly put up his hands in a defensive gesture when he realized Steve was in no mood to talk. "Look man, I know you heard about Dally slashing Tim's tires right? I'm here to see if you got anything to help remedy that problem."

Truth be told, Steve did not know that Dally had slashed Tim's tires, but what he did know of Dally was that he did a lot of things that the gang didn't know about. And they preferred it that way 'cause nobody wanted to get mixed up in good ol' Dal's spontaneous fun. Most of the greasers in the area knew about Dally's inability to stay quiet and out of trouble, and also about Tim's ability to get out of trouble. They had it in for each other, but at the end of the day, they always managed to find their way back to each other. Flirtations, Steve liked to call it. It was a 'I'll get under your skin, you come and get under my skin' type of relationship. And Steve realized that if Dally had slashed Tim's tires, it was probably for no reason at all. He probably wanted to get a rise out of Shepard; nothing that guy ever did seemed to be thought out. Steve stopped the urge to roll his eyes. And that Soda had the nerve to call him the stupid one last night, outta all the stupid people in the gang.

"Tim finally trusting you to fix his problems for him now Curly? He letting you tackle on getting some new tires for his car all by yourself?" Steve taunted, his heart skipping a beat when he noticed Curly's ears reddening. "Can't you see this is a gas station? The lack of car parts getting by you somehow?"

"Don't be an ass Randle-"

"You want me to put this to good use?" Steve interrupted, holding his covered fist out. "Real good to wipe the blood from your nose,"

"-we all know you have access of getting car parts."

Steve smirked. His reputation preceded him.

Normally, Steve wouldn't ever bother himself to help Curly, let alone talk to him because of the way Curly liked to talk the talk but couldn't walk it through. Only Curly himself seemed oblivious to it all, but for the sake of his indifference with Tim staying an indifference and mostly Steve wanting to satisfy his reputation, he decided to help out.

"Alright, I'll help you remedy that problem," Steve ignored Curly's eye roll. "Tell Tim to come by tomorrow. Maybe I'll have something for him."

"That's what I like to hear Steve-O," Curly shouted and knocked twice on the gas dispenser they were standing by. "Heard Tim's going to the drive-in. Now I'm guessin' that Tim found Dally by now and knocked him out good. I'm headed there to see if there's still action. You coming?"

"Don't you see I'm working here?" Steve commented and furrowed his brows.

"Right. You have fun wiping this," Curly slightly kicked the dispenser before walking away from the DX.

"Better get your eyes checked and fixed before you go anywhere. Might remedy that problem you seem to be have with people wanting to smash your face," Steve laughed and shook his head, went back to minding his own business (wiping the pumps, right) choosing to ignore whatever it was coming out of Curly's mouth. Steve decided that the next time he sees Curly, he'll bruise one of his eyes to match his bruised ego. Yeah, that'll be a lesson for him.

Steve sighed and looked at the clock again. Fifty-one minutes till closing time.

He dropped his towel and threw his hands up. "My God, what is happening here?"

XXXXX

"Shit, Tim, what happened to your tires?"

It stopped him surely as a hand on the shoulder.

The last time someone messed with Tim's car, he made it known loud and clear that if anyone tried something like that again they'd end up like the Brumly boy whose face Tim smashed in. Words weren't necessary, Tim knew, when it came down to certain situations like these. Actions speak louder than words, he remembered his old teacher used to say in class. He learned throughout the years that in order to get the message across, it was more effective to actually hurt someone rather than threatening to hurt them.

So it was a surprise when Sylvia of all people called out to him as he passed by her on his way out of The Dingo. He stopped and looked at Sylvia for a second, black-rimmed light eyes wide and index finger pointing to his car, and followed her line of sight. It was Tim's car alright, same as he left it there all except for the tires. Some fool had slashed all his tires making his car look all show and no go. The red painted onto Sylvia's nails seemed to mock him, still pointed to his car.

Without a word, he walked over to the lot with a few of his boys in tow, his eyes focused on the open rips of his tires and realized that one tire was left alone. Tim swore under his breath. Having four slashed tires was bad, but three out of four? It insulted Tim in a way he couldn't quite place.

"Who'd be stupid enough to mess with Tim's car?" Rodney, one of his members that followed him out, asked to no one in particular.

Tim felt the crowd gathered around him fall quiet, whispering to themselves wondering what will happen, and looked back to find Sylvia still staring. Oh, one person popped into mind: the blonde cowboy with bad taste. He walked back over to her, keeping his eyes onto hers, holding the stare.

"Where's your little boy, Sylvia?" Tim asked her, his face no different than before. That was one of the few reasons why it was hard for Sylvia to treat Tim like just any other boy, because he wasn't. He was good at keeping his emotions concealed. She didn't know what to say or how to react to him; plus, Tim seemed to be very unaffected by her looks and charm (she could tell because even right at this moment, she was wearing her special blouse that gave people a nice view of her womanly fullness but Tim's eyes never wandered elsewhere from her face), playful touches here and there, which was a shame 'cause he was quite the looker underneath those scars on his face. Sometimes she would let her eyes glance to that spot where she knew he was, to catch a glimpse of him and what he was doing if they were ever in the same place. Sometimes he'd catch her staring at him, but she'd never once found him staring at her.

She didn't know Tim too well, only with her observations, but she knew that he'd never hit a girl - Tim went by on his own set of rules that hardly got broken. Although emotionally? That was a different story. She'd seen plenty of girls cry over Tim; he didn't seem to have a problem with that.

"He isn't my boy, Shepard. I'll have you know that it's been weeks. Weeks since we've been together and I won't even repeat the nasty things he had to say to me after he came out of the- I mean, seriously, someone should-"

"I ain't gonna ask twice." Tim interrupted with that voice of his.

"Heard he was going to the drive in with some kids," Sylvia grumbled out. She met his eyes saw the hard look under them.

Tim gave her a nod and left with Rodney and the other two after saying a few things to them that was out of her hearing range, probably to the drive in. Sylvia took one last glance at Tim and went inside to find a boy to buy her a burger like she was originally planning to do before she passed by Tim.

Well, at least now she knew one thing about him for sure: if you want to see Tim angry, just mess with his car.