DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Outsiders. I'm making no financial profit by writing this. (Heh, I wish.)
A/N: Honestly, I've had this chapter done for months, but for reason or another I've simply neglected to post it. Sorry for the ridiculous wait (does a longer than usual chapter help make up for it?) – Thanks to anyone still stickin' with me!
A long pause seemed to fill the entire area, even with a crowd present. People crowded around the two cars, waiting for something to go down. Montgomery hadn't even attempted to drive off yet.
Steve looked at Soda through narrowed eyes. Letting out a deep breath like a tea kettle letting off steam, he released the steering wheel from his vise grip. He felt his blood may literally start to boil.
"Get some good use out of that one-two of yours," he said as calmly as he could before tearing out of the car, through the crowd and straight toward Montgomery. Soda was less than a beat behind him.
"It was an accident, Randle," Pete said just as Steve reached in through the open window to grab him by the shirt. He was ready to pull him out through the window until Pete opened the door from the inside.
Pete got out of the car and wriggled himself out of Steve's grip, but was soon slammed into the side of the car instead.
"Jesus, Randle, I'm serious. It's dark and I was goin' too fast. It's not like I've got power steering on this old thing." He straightened his collar as if this explanation was enough and he'd be let go.
Soda flashed Pete his patented grin and patted him friendly-like on the shoulder. "I'll bet'cha it was an accident six months ago when you went and slammed us like you were tryin' to run us off the damn road. Too dark then, too?"
While Montgomery poised himself to respond, Steve took the opportunity to send him a swift jab to the temple. Pete slowly slid to the ground, holding a hand to his head.
The crowd soon created a tighter circle around the three of them. David Schumacher could vaguely be heard collecting bets on who would win.
Steve let out another deep breath and readied himself to hit him again. Beating the shit out of a guy he hated was a great feeling and he was almost thankful for the chance; it had been a while.
Soda knelt down next to Montgomery and slapped him lightly on the face, smiling — not mockingly, the way the Socs did, but in a genuinely excited way. Only Soda could grin while beating a kid up and not look right mean. He grabbed Montgomery by the collar, wrinkling it again, and hoisted him back to his feet.
"Fuck you, Randle," Pete said as he pushed Soda away from him. "Ya can't comprehend the word accident?"
Steve made to hit him again, but Pete ducked just in time. Steve quickly responded, getting instead him with a rough uppercut to the chin.
Pete was thrown back against the car again, but Steve was the one grunting in pain; he'd busted a knuckle on Montgomery's face. He stretched out his fingers and turned around for just a moment, waving his hand in the cool night air. He didn't mind it, though. A little pain every now and then was good for a person. Builds character, his dad always said.
Turning around again to send Pete another blow to the face, Steve instead received one to the gut, and while bent over to catch his breath, a knee to the face as well. He stumbled backward, holding his nose to stop the bleeding.
"Fuck!"
"Steve?" Evie sounded upset.
Quickly standing up straight, he looked over to see Evie and Sandy standing at the front of the crowd, worried and curious looks on their faces. Fortunately, now wasn't exactly the time to run to her and tell her he was okay. He refocused his attention on Pete, who, while basking in the glory of making Steve bleed, had gotten the old one-two combo from Soda — not once, but a couple of times — and was trying his best just to keep from falling over.
Steve nodded at Soda in thanks for taking over and ran to Montgomery, slamming him into the car again. His head was bleeding more than just a little. Steve smirked; he couldn't leave a fight without drawing some blood from the other guy.
Steve hit him again, this time smack dab in the left eye, and Pete lunged at him in response. Down on the ground with Pete on top of him, Steve could do nothing but try to deflect blows to face while kicking at the dirt and while Soda his best to pull Pete off.
Finally Pete stopped and stood, panting heavily from the exertion.
Steve stood, too, though hunched over, hands resting on his knees. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he wiped as much blood as he could from his nose and watched as Pete grew distracted by the blood seeping from his temple.
Realizing the opportunity, Steve ran at Pete with the intent to throw him to the ground, but Pete took a step to the side just in time, instead shoving Steve into the car. He followed it with an attempt to punch him in the face, but barely connected as Steve pushed him away and into Soda, causing the latter to fall, hard. Steve ran at Pete, grabbing him by the shirt, and pushed him until he tripped over Soda, still on the ground.
Pete pulled Steve down with him, threw him to the side, and in the midst of the shoving match that ensued, managed to get a swift right hook in, again hitting Steve's bloody nose.
"How do you like that, huh, you goddamn motherfu —."
Pete didn't get a chance to finish his sentence, as Steve stood, lifted Pete up with him, and slammed him, again, against the car. He threw a right hook, then a left, both times connecting with Pete's face, until he dropped to the ground, looking somewhat like Dallas did after he broke Tim Shepard's nose the second time.
"You fuckin' Brumly boys all think you're tough shit," Steve said, smiling slightly as Pete quietly cursed.
Soda got into Pete's car, turned off the engine, then got back out and knelt down to hand him the keys. "Maybe you oughta think twice next time before screwin' around with my buddy's car, yeah?" He patted him on the shoulder again.
Pete looked up at Steve from where he lay on the ground, hunched over. "This ain't over, Randle. Fuckin' asshole."
Steve gave ol' Pete a swift kick in the gut.
XXX
Driving back to Tulsa with twenty-two bucks and busted bumper, hand, and nose, Steve had mixed emotions. On the one hand, his car had been fucked with again, but on the other, he'd gotten the chance to take out his aggression on the guy who did it. Did that make it even? He thought about the money it would take to fix up his Buick. It was a helluva lot more than twenty-two bucks.
Like hell they were even.
"You looked so tough out there, Soda," Sandy said, sounding like a teenybopper.
"I don't think Pete Montgomery's gonna be givin' us or your car anymore trouble, huh, Steve?" Soda said with a grin. "Kinda wish he hadn't gone down so easy."
Steve glanced at him through the rearview mirror. "Yeah, well, I may be givin' Pete Montgomery some more trouble. Little punk…."
"Hey, on the bright side, I made eight dollars," Evie said with a slightly raised eyebrow and a sly smile.
Steve took his eyes off the road to look at her. "You what?"
"That guy, the dirty-lookin' one with the hat and the snake tattoo, was taking bets on the fight."
"You placed a bet with Schumacher?" Steve let out a laugh.
"Don't go laughin' at me," she said, waving a bill around. "Everyone was doing it. I just got my cut. You know there were actually a few people betting on Pete?"
"Idiot Brumly boys."
"As if that guy even stood a chance against you. You looked so …,"
"Pissed," Sandy finished for her.
Soda couldn't help but grin and laugh at the idea. "How 'bout you, Sandy? You place any bets tonight?"
"No," she said, almost embarrassed. "I wasn't brave enough."
Soda laughed again and the couple grew quiet. Sandy wasn't so bad sometimes.
"You know, your face doesn't even look too bad," Evie observed a moment later. "I mean, once you get all that dried blood off it won't. Here," she opened her purse and pulled out a handkerchief. She pressed it to her tongue, and then reached to clean the blood off Steve's face.
He pulled away. "Hey, I don't want your old tissue touchin' my face, Evie," he said, wiping at his cheek.
She raised her eyebrows slightly, but didn't appear put-off. "Yeah, well, I don't want my face touchin' your bloody face, Steve. Savvy?"
Laughter came from the back seat and Steve shook his head slightly. He had to admit — he may have met his match with this chick. But she had alluded to their faces touching, which could only mean one thing, and there was no sense in fighting that.
He sighed. "Fine, fine. Point made."
XXX
Steve had dropped Soda and Sandy off at Soda's house — he said he'd take Sandy home himself later that night. Now the car was occupied only by Steve and Evie.
"It's really not that late out," she noticed, and he nodded, still focused on driving. "I doubt my dad would leave us alone if we went to my house, but what about yours?"
She was eager for some alone time with Steve — somehow he managed to look aloof and heated at the same time, and she wanted to dig deeper into who he was. And, she had to admit, he looked real tuff all bruised up. The idea of spending more time with such a good-looking guy was certainly appealing.
He looked at her and said, casually, "Uh, we can't go to my place. My dad'll be home soon."
"Oh," she said, disappointed. "He don't let you have girls over?"
"It's not that," he said quickly. "My old man just ain't real cool, dig?"
She did. Most of the guys she'd dated didn't have the greatest home lives. Being a greaser girl, herself, she was lucky to have the dad she did. He was a good guy.
"That's too bad," she said. "What's he do?" She supposed it was kind of a rude thing to ask, but she couldn't help but be curious. She wanted to know him more. He was interesting. And the tuff cut on his cheek sure enhanced it.
Steve gave her an odd, almost angry look, as if shocked that she asked a question no one in their neighborhood ever asked.
"He, uh …," he looked confused, like he'd never really thought about how to answer such a question. Evie guessed he never had before. "We just, ya know, we don't dig each other."
She could always tell when someone was skirting a question, and maybe she should've dropped it there, but Evie hated being left curious.
"Is he like Jimmy McIntire's father?" Jimmy was a kid everyone knew, or at least had seen around school. He came in nearly every day with a busted lip or new bruise, but no one ever said anything, teachers included.
"Jesus, please don't compare me to goddamn Jimmy McIntire." He stared out at the road. "Me and my old man just haven't dug each other for a long time. I lay over at Soda's house a lot of the time. We fight and he kicks me out, ya know. But it don't really matter — he ends up shelling out five bucks or so the next day."
"Oh," she said again, looking out the window, thinking. That couldn't be too bad, she figured. Jimmy sure wouldn't think so.
"I'm kinda like a Soc, huh?"
"What?" Her head snapped up and she looked at Steve, confused.
"Wave a few bucks at me and I come crawling back," he said with contempt.
"Oh, spare me. That hardly makes you a Soc," she said as Steve pulled up to her house and parked. "He is your dad."
He looked at her, and didn't appear neither angry nor stoic anymore. But now she couldn't figure out just what he looked like. "Yeah."
She looked into his eyes and suddenly felt a little nervous. "So, I guess this is my house."
"Do you want me to walk you to the door?"
"Do you want to?"
He got out of the car, walked around, and opened her door for her. She got out, and they walked across the yard and up to the front porch together.
They stood silently under the faint porch light for a maybe a moment before Steve asked, "Do you wanna go out tomorrow? To eat? There's this joint on East 5th that ain't real rough. Greasers hardly hang out there. You'd probably like to spend some time away from all those hoods after tonight —,"
She laughed and stopped him mid-sentence. "Sure, Steve, I'd love to." She took a step closer to him so that they were just a few inches apart.
"We could hang out on Cherry Street if you wanted," he said, moving closer to her, too.
"I'm up for anything," she said, and they kissed — not like they had the last time, not a shy kiss, but a real one and she liked the feeling of his chapped lips against her soft ones more than she ever did when kissing other boys.
"I'll call you," he said when they pulled away, and walked slowly back toward his car.
"See you tomorrow," she breathed, hoping to God her father hadn't been spying on them from the other side of the door.
A/N: So … Hope it's not entirely obvious that I suck at writing fight scenes. If it's too long or too short or just plain bad, let me know! Actually, I'm rather insecure about this chapter as a whole, so any suggestions for improvement anywhere in the chapter are appreciated. :)