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The Walking Dead, Red Dead Redemption, Supernatural, The Outsiders, The Black Phone, and more !
All reader inserts will be either male, transmale, or gender-neutral. I will never write for fem aligned and she/her inserts.
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pacing.
Follow up of the canon timeline except Ponyboy keeps slipping even after seeking refuge in his English theme. In his last moments he reflects on himself, his brothers, the gang, Johnny and Dallas' deaths, what could have been, and what couldn't have. And maybe realizes he has more than a few regrets about the past and the present, regrets he's going to make sure he won't have the chance to fix.
Or,
Ponyboy and his beloved aspirin !!
WC: 5608 (I think.)
Cross-posted on Wattpad & AO3
TW; Mentioned ED, Main themes include OD/an attempt, mentioned forms of PTSD, probably more (also plenty of medical inaccuracies please don't skin me.)
Ponyboy can't bear to picture the looks on Sodapop and Darry's faces when they would inevitably find out — would see. It's as if his hand is acting on it's own accord, and he cant bring himself to stop it when it pushes the ghostly-white lid of the Aspirin bottle down before twisting it off.
500 Milligram tablets. Darry didn't like him taking them, said they'd do his liver in bad and that he'd settle alright for a couple low dosage pills. Sodapop was more lenient, giving in and allowing him to take a singular tablet when Darry wasn't home if his head was throbbing particularly bad.
Sodapop.
He loves Soda more than anything, even more than he did mom and dad; he's followed him around like a stray puppy his whole life — probably why Steve has always labeled him as a 'tag along' — and he'd do anything to make his older brother happy, anything to put a smile on his handsome face. And he knows Soda would, and has, done the same for him. In a way, the golden haired teen was like a role model to Ponyboy, save for dropping out of school.
It wasn't as if Soda was real dumb like he claimed, sure math and literature or any of the other abundant picks of main academic focuses were far from his specialty, but he was real smart when it came to other things, like cars. And he had the sort of emotional intelligence most boys lacked, was able to make you go from bawling your eyes out to smiling, easing the burdens right off your shoulders without a second thought. Soda was plain drunk on living, and Ponyboy admired that.
Maybe that's why he hates it more than anything when Soda cries, hated when the sixteen-year-old bolted through the door all 'cause of his and Darry's fighting. He hadn't entirely meant to drag their middle brother into another round of arguing, he was just being dumb and emotional and rash and didn't realize much of anything when smarting off at Darry.
Ponyboy still blames himself for it more than Soda told him he should, it feels like he's been hit by a freight train each time Sodapop notices when somethings off with him, because Ponyboy and Darry never realize when he's the one having it rough. It makes him queasy realizing how much they've taken their brother for granted, even more so knowing that he wasn't there with him when Sandy left him. He'd be lying to say the guilt hadn't caused him to fold up over the toilet, sick with the feelings he couldn't quell.
He silently loathes himself for not being there, for not curling up in bed with his brother and comforting him like he always has him. Soda usually presses up against Ponyboy's back, alleviates any unwanted feelings and Ponyboy wishes he could've done that for him, too. He wishes that he could give Soda the same support and love that he's always handing out like free samples at a supermarket.
If he thinks about it, Soda's an awful lot like mom, even though nobody could ever replace her. He's soft and gentle with Ponyboy, hears him out unlike Darry and soothes him when his nightmares spike — making sure to reassure his kid brother that it's no big deal when he wakes him up on a work night. He's the observant type, knows when Ponyboy is feeling overwhelmed with guilt, drowning in the trauma and unresolved terrors from both their parents and friends hasty deaths.
Soda and Pony have just a few years age-gap, but he makes Pony feel a lot like a little kid when he calls him honey or baby — and if he were being honest, he likes both of the nicknames a lot, even if he pretends to be annoyed just to seem all tuff around the gang. He's always hated being the youngest of their group, but when it's his middle brother treating him like he's young, then maybe it's not so bad.
Would Soda call him honey at his funeral? Could they even afford a funeral?
Then there's Darry — Darry isn't like Sodapop at all, but Ponyboy still didn't want to imagine the guilty thoughts that'd no doubt plague Darry's mind. Or the fear that'd fill into his eyes the moment he sees what Ponyboy's going to do to himself. He'd blame himself for Pony's choices, no matter who would try to convince him otherwise — Ponyboy knew, and truly he cared for his oldest brother even if they've never been real close like they both were with the other Curtis.
They were plenty closer before the accident, when Darry was just his brother — when he treated him like a brother and not a clueless little kid.
Ponyboy chides himself, because it's not fair to think of Darry like that anymore.
Glory, he wishes him and Darry could be close again, especially after Soda knocked it into their heads just how different they both think, work, and live, made Pony realize his oldest brother meant good. Yet they still never managed to rekindle the same sort of love and understanding that they once had. Deep down he knows they never will.
His own breed of guilt piles up higher and higher the more he reflects on their relationship, the stiff, aching feeling in his chest hardening — because Darry threw away his whole life and future when mom and dad died. Had to grow up too dang quick just to keep his kid brothers from going to a boys home. Sometimes Ponyboy thinks Darry shouldn't have stayed. It's not fair, Tulsa isn't fair.
Pony wishes he listened to Two-Bit, Soda, and Dally earlier on in life, wants nothing more than to yell and scream and knock sense into his younger, auburn haired-self until he realizes Darry really does love him. Always has loved him. He wants to vomit on the bathroom floor right then and there, suddenly disgusted with himself for all the fighting, blaming, and yelling he aimed towards the oldest Curtis, because he knows now how loved he is. Also knows that he can't take it back.
He figured it out when Darry took him in his arms at the hospital after Windrixville, verified it further when he woke up to Darry three days after Dally died.
His oldest brother sacrificed so much for him, worked his ass off at just twenty in order to feed them, house them, put him in school. And now? Now Ponyboy was so close to wasting it all, so damn close as his hand clutched the uncapped Aspirin bottle with a white-knuckled grip. The all too loud sound of pills rattling inside the bottle causing his breath to hitch.
Two-Bit would make those half-assed jokes that he always used when he was trying to cover up the burning cluster of pain in his throat, the same sort of jokes he made after Johnny and Dally died. He was the type of guy who always got a laugh out of the gang even when they were stuck in their heads, moping around and stifling sniffles and holding back tears. But part of Ponyboy is scared that Two-bit won't be able to cope this time around, that losing another member of their found family will cause the older greaser to turn further to alcohol for a solution.
He hopes not. Two-bit is a good guy, he's like a brother and treats Pony no different than he does Soda or did Johnny or Dally or even how he does Steve.
Steve. Ponyboy used to be certain Steve hated his guts, and he had convinced himself he despised his just as much — considering the fact that he really couldn't stand Steve Randle and the way he'd treat him like a no-good kid. Detested him because Ponyboy wasn't a kid anymore, not really. He's tougher than before, has witnessed pure, uncensored death and the mortifying sight of watery-blood painting itself onto concrete and grass and dirt, and even Steve seemed to realize it now.
The older doesn't pick on him as much as before ever since they lost their friends, he even goes as far to occasionally ruffle his hair like he would Sodapop's. Although he still looked at Pony with those scornful eyes that had a knack for burning him straight to the bone. But now the scorn was laced with something deeper, an eerie sort of look that seemed almost as if the older greaser could see right through him.
Sometimes he wonders if Steve knew what he was working up to, if he knew how gutted the fourteen year old felt. It sure comes across that way, especially with the masked concern that's layered over with falsified hatred. Ponyboy hates that look, hates how Steve really does care for him. It'd make it all a load easier if he didn't.
He plucks one pill out of the plastic bottle, rolling it between his shaky fingers and studying it with worn fear.
If he died instead of Johnny the gang would be okay, wouldn't it? Johnny was the gangs glue. If he was the one who got stuck in the church, then Johnny and Dally would be alive, and only one instead of three greasers would die. The numbers would be lower, and Johnny deserved to live more than him anyway, Ponyboy thinks so at least. The gang loved Johnny — he knows the gang loves him too, but Johnny has always served more worth in common banter or gang activities. In some ways, he was tougher than Ponyboy, despite his meek and jumpy way of living.
Hell, he wishes Dally pulled Johnny out of the church first. He knows that if the two boys were here that they'd knock him over the head, call him an idiot if they knew how guilty he was over Dallas saving him. But Ponyboy can't help it, the guilt lingers and festers and rots inside him so insistently that it sends him retching air again.
It's a bundle of persisting disgust with himself, the desire to have swapped their roles. And it isn't something born out of jealousy, because he's never been jealous of Johnny for anything. Never could be.
He loved Johnny through thick and thin, they were each others best buddies, anywhere Pony went you could expect to see Johnny Cade trailing behind him like an overly-attached shadow. Johnny got Pony, and Pony got Johnny. They were each other's person, confided in one another and ranted about almost anything from books to sunsets to Darry to Johnny's folks to movies to glory knows what else. Ponyboy didn't know what to do without Johnny, honest.
Two-bit used to joke a ton, pointing fun at how weird it is that they're so close because Johnny never talked loads, and Pony restricted himself from harping on about his books and dreamy fantasies when with the gang. He thinks now that Two-bit must've thought he was quiet by nature. They find it funny, exchange stupid childish grins when they're alone — because they're the entire opposite of what the gang thought, talkative once they were by themselves.
Were. He corrects himself, Johnny's dead. They were like that. They were best buds. They used to find it funny.
What now seems like way too many nights ago — back in the lot — when his best friend angled his huge puppy-dog eyes downwards and spoke of how he'd kill himself, Ponyboy was shattered. It'd felt like a soc jammed a switch blade into his smoke-ridden lungs. Stunting his breathing more than any amount of cigarettes could and twisting like it could've been the death of him. But maybe, it'd be easier for Johnny to have died while wanting to die, maybe it'd be okay if he went out that way, instead of telling Pony he didn't wanna die no more before dying.
Sure, he seemed to accept his unavoidable death in the letter he wrote, but that doesn't — will never — change the fact that Johnny wanted to live to some degree, or the fact that Ponyboy was too slow to read the letter and because of that never got to tell Dallas to look at a sunset like Johnny wanted him to. And golly, does that make him feel such overbearing shame paired with a nasty sense of remorse.
The solidity of the pill is a stark contrast to the trembling fingers that pinched it. He does his best not to hesitate for long, popping it into his mouth and dry swallowing it, battering off the wave of nausea that now hung over him. He has to force his body to keep it down, willing away the urge to gag. Since when had his stomach become so weak?
He tried to 'stay gold', tried to follow Johnny's vocal dying wish but he just couldn't.
Not when the pattering of rain or the cascade of a scheduled shower made his throat tighten like a noose was rung around it, his head swimming with non-existent fountain water. Even drinking the plain liquid made him fight down rising bile, every sip felt like it was lodging deep into his lungs, building up with a rush of aggression.
He really wanted to be okay, to be the one greaser who'd finally make it out of the wretched town of Tulsa, but he can't. Everything weighs him down so drastically that nothing seemed to be able to root him into caring enough. Even though he'd actually managed to acquire passing grades, even now that Darry was finally real proud of him, and even with Soda still being his caring big brother.
Pony just seemed to plummet further and further and he didn't know how to stop it. Couldn't stop it.
He couldn't sleep anymore, refused to on most nights because he just knew he'd see Johnny and Dally in his dreams-turned-nightmares. Knew he would get blamed by the fake memories and ghosts of the two, get pinned as their cause of death. And each and every time he'd jolt awake, body fear stricken and laced with a sheen of sweat all while Sodapop reassures him that they'd never blame him, would never ever hate him. The care does little to stop or limit his odd form of self-revenge bedtime procrastination.
It just makes him falsify a smile for his brother, murmuring repetitive 'thank you's and 'I feel better now's.
Somehow it's even worse that Steve picked up on his drowsy demeanor more and more every time Soda or Darry would request that he picks Pony up from a movie or school or from the lot. The older would make a comment only for Ponyboy to shoot off a cliché insult and shrug it off as if it was nothing. Deep down it scared him to the core that the gang could tell he was slipping.
Even Two-Bit knew, saw it in the way Pony refused to touch or even look at a cigarette. How he'd duck into the house when anyone would so much as light one on the porch, (Darry made it a rule to never smoke inside the house after everything, too scared a social worker would pick up on the scent and put Pony and Soda into a boys home) or how the tiniest whiff of smoke would send him into a full-blown coughing fit, his face painting a diluted cherry red from the fervent gasps of air his lungs ached for.
Going from smoking a whole pack a day to hardly touching a single one in a day, let alone a week... Of course he knew. And Ponyboy hates it the same way he hates how Steve also knows.
The church has a way of haunting him, the memory inescapable. The way he rushed into the licking flames even though Dally told him not to was permanently etched into his memory, because of him Johnny's dead. If he had just listened to Dallas then Johnny wouldn't have ran in after him, wouldn't have gotten so brutally injured — the kids would've died though, no doubt. Ponyboy didn't want that, they didn't deserve that.
But they'd both still be alive. Ponyboy sure wishes they were. Wants more than anything for the two teenagers to be existent and by his side. And as selfish as it is, he can't help but feel jealous of the children's families.
He grimaces, not even his thoughts felt like his own anymore.
Past him wouldn't be so hung up over Dallas Winston of all people, but he'd grown undeniably closer to Dally after the whole Johnny murdering a soc incident had taken place. He liked the way he was real gentle with them both at Bucks place, even if he shielded his worry behind that same rough and tough hood exterior.
Ponyboy liked the way he'd ruffle his and Johnny's hair, tease them and call them some 'dumb kids' even though Johnny was just a year younger than Dally. He supposes at fourteen he could've been considered a dumb kid back then. Usually he'd be irrationally pissed at being referred to as someone so young, but Dallas was kinda like an older brother — nothing like Darry or Soda, but he really did make Pony feel cared for when him and Johnny were all alone on Jay Mountain.
Sometimes he thinks Dally was just as observant as Soda. It was almost as if the older could tell on sight just how thin Pony had been getting the mere instant he saw the younger greasers in the run-down church. Bologna and peanut butter weren't the best food choices to ration when trying to keep weight up, add that with Ponyboy lying through his teeth about having already eaten just so Johnny (he'd really do anything for his best friend) could eat a little more each day and you'd have yourself an easy weight-loss plan.
He can still feel the shame that sourly bubbled up inside him when Dally gave him a disapproving, cold eyed stare, or when the older dragged him by the arm just to ease his grip when he really realized how thin he'd become.
He hadn't been eating well even after they'd gotten home, everything still tasted like bologna and anything that was cooked made him feel like there was smoke stuck up in his nose. That was the one thing he put more effort into keeping secret, though. He knew to hide it from the gang after realizing how easily Dally picked up on his weight lose in the church.
He figures his brothers were too worried, distracted, and confused about everything else to notice the fact he was so undeniably frail when he first got home, and he was glad for it because it gave him enough leeway to change out of his clothes and select something of Soda's to wear.
That's all he did wear anymore — save for Dally's burnt jacket—, Sodapop's clothes covered him and hid the evidence of his harmful, self-deteriorating habits. The same habits that were probably the reason his stomach was already urging him to vomit up the singular Aspirin fighting to dissolve in his body.
Being home was a sickening reminder that Johnny wasn't okay, that he was in the hospital barely hanging on. And then he died. Pony didn't want to go home to the gang after watching the small, burnt teenager die, but he forced himself too. He could get over it eventually, he would have to. If Dally could, he could. But then Dally had gone and died on the same night because he couldn't; another death in front of him again, and after that their own house felt foreboding and off-putting to be in.
The lack of a tough, towheaded, manner-lacking new-yorker and a meek, black-eyed puppy-like boy made him spin, he wanted nothing more than for Johnny to be at the lot, waiting for him. Wanted to go back to when Dally would reckless drive the three of them around in vehicles Pony doubted he obtained legally. If he tries hard enough, keeps up his determined façade, he can trick himself for at least a little bit — can pretend they're both alive.
Darry would send him to a shrink if they could afford it.
If he hadn't gotten so caught up in his head like Darry tells him he does, if he hadn't ran the instant Darry hit him maybe they'd all be okay, alive. Yet of course, Ponyboy just had to sprint back to the vacant lot, two in the morning and stupidly determined to convince Johnny Cade they were gonna run away together.
In hindsight, under different circumstances he really wouldn't have minded running away and leaving Tulsa with Johnny. His best bud and the only person who really got him. Besides maybe Soda.
Johnny was gone now, never coming back — but Ponyboy couldn't help but dream.
He's always had it better than Johnny, his folks loved him, he didn't get hit or berated every time he went home — save for Darry, but that's a different sort of yelling — and maybe that's why he feels so disgusted with his rash decision, for acting like Darry hitting him was the end of the world. The dark haired boy had experienced much worse on the daily, who was Pony to have run to him the moment something got hard?
But he figures Johnny never minded much, because not once had he spoken ill about it or gave him any dirty looks for crying over a singular smack. He supposes it was a lot different than Johnny's beatings anyway, because Johnny was used to receiving them all his life, while Ponyboy's family had never hit before — which must've been why he understood his crying without needing a further explanation.
Johnny was too damn good at reading him, and he couldn't have been more thankful for it back then. He's pretty sure he'd hate it now.
Soda has always been a close second, able to differentiate what was mauling over his kid brothers conscious within moments. But after Windrixville it was as if even he couldn't fully understand Pony anymore 'cause of the way the youngest Curtis was always on guard — shielding himself as if he had some sort of unspoken fear of the world.
Which he didn't. It wasn't like Ponyboy was scared, no, he was just confused and hurting and guilty and exhausted and everything a fourteen year old boy shouldn't be.
His eyes were watering despite how hard he tried to battle off the tears. Tough greasers don't cry over stuff like this, he tried to drill the notion into his head, but deep down he knew it was a lie. Dally cried when Johnny died, Soda cried a whole lot and he was certain even Darry cried his fair share of tears. It was a normal and healthy thing.
Yet for some reason he felt so weak, so out of control because his own thoughts seemed determined to spite him. He wanted the leverage, he wanted a semblance of control, he wanted to feel like he had options for once in his life. He needed to feel something new, something entirely his choice and in his power.
He tips the bottle over, pouring out six aspirin tablets into his unusually pale and clammy hand — his eyes narrowing through rims of fat tears. When had they built up so much? He doubted seven pills was enough to take him, the maximum for a day was something around twelve. Though, that was for a grown, healthy adult. He wasn't an adult. And Ponyboy knew he was anything but healthy — hell, he weighed in at about seventy-three pounds last time, and that was about two-weeks ago. Nonetheless, he's generous with the amount, almost missing his palm when he taps the bottle down to knock four more pills out. Eleven could probably do the trick. As long as nobody walks in on him.
Ponyboy dry swallows three, then has to pause and work through a degrading session of dry heaving just to keep them down. His throat draws tight and he scrambles, fists clutched around both the bottle and the stray off-white pills. It's hard to tell if they're meant to be that color, or if it's because he's seeing shadowy spots while he stumbles over to the sink. His hands are unsteady and sweaty as he carelessly shoves the container into the medicine cabinet, then reaches over to twist the hot water on — but grows frustrated when his hand slips, eyes remaining plastered with dots and hand insisting on staying agitatingly slick, but he manages.
Resisting his body's trauma induced reaction to the horrifying sound of rushing water so close to his head, he cups his empty hand under the now steaming liquid, hissing through his teeth as he brings it up to sip on — to wash down the pills. The slide down his throat burns, hurts more than the twisting sensation in his stomach but it's oddly grounding. He wonders if the flames felt something like this for Johnny.
The flames were worse, he decides. More painful than anything Ponyboy could ever inflict onto himself, but the thought still lingers in his mind. His throat feels raw and he gnawed deep grooves into his lip before sinking down against the sink. Soda and Darry wouldn't be home for a few hours, and he just hoped that was enough time for the medication to work — doubts he could stomach being woken up in the hospital.
The thought makes him snort in the silence of the bathroom despite the churning in his stomach, his deluded mind finding it oddly funny to imagine all the different rules and safety precautions Darry would set up if he did live. Excessive things like never being left home alone, shortened shower periods, not leaving the house without a gang member going with him.
Yeah. The mere idea of his older brothers strict rules was more than enough to make him not want to wake up.
Ponyboy swallows thickly, eyes rolling to bore into the locked door. Darry always had an open door policy for every room but the bathroom, and more often than not he hated it with how much Two-bit took it upon himself to barge into rooms like he lived there. In hindsight, it wasn't so bad every time — even if it was almost as annoying as Steve complaining for the whole duration of every movie ever — it was sorta endearing in a way. Two-bit was just that kind of guy, he could find jokes and fun in the simplest of things, but got real serious when he needed to.
Glory, did he miss those jokes right now. There's a subtle, lingering want beginning to fester inside him for the older greasers' awful sense of humor, the all too quiet hum of the dust coated bathroom fan seeping into his very being, emphasizing the contrast from the gangs usual banter. From Two-bits cruddy jokes that earn parades of snorts and laughter. His empty hand reaches up to clasp at the edge of the porcelain sink, the overwhelming need to grasp onto something sturdy, solid, taking over the instinct to cower — and for just a moment, he regrets what he's doing.
His head is spinning, reeling with alit nerves that send another pestering wave of swirling black dots into his vision and he almost vomits right where he's sat. Would have if he didn't hurriedly clamp his eyes shut uncomfortably tight, nose intaking sharp breathes as his tongue settles to press into the roof of his suddenly parched mouth. Ponyboys stomach twists into tight, nasty knots, and he can't tell if it's because of his overbearing feelings, the four pills, or the suddenly persistent gnaw of hunger chewing at him.
Maybe it's a combination of it all, or maybe its a singular, cruel, reason. Ponyboy isn't sure which is the answer, and he hates that he can't tell — that he can't perfectly control what's happening to his body, or whatever's causing his stomach to lurch and twist and upturn in all the wrongfully right ways. He wants to make it right, needs to numb the aching and soothe the painful knotting persisting inside him with the only way he can think of. His hand slides off the sink, moving to limply grip onto his bent knee, fingers twisting into the denim of his worn in jeans. Soda's, worn in jeans.
He chooses not to dwell on that thought, instead focusing on the several pills clasped in his sweat slicked fist. They stick to his palm like candy, clinging onto his wet skin as if they belonged there — and maybe they do.
Ponyboy plucks four, ignoring the way his mind was so entranced on the action, the way it felt foggy. And sure, maybe it takes him just under a dozen blinks before he can recall exactly what he's doing, but he gets there. Just like he gets his chosen pills to his mouth, fighting off the returning grimace at the taste — taste? Maybe he's not actually fighting a grimace, because he's pretty sure there is no starchy, medicinal taste now. His stomach sinks in on itself, and he can't figure out if it's out of that useless guilt or if it's cause is the countering relief.
His head is all fuzzy and he can't seem to get his body to comply — can't swallow the pills that remain plastered to his tongue. He wants to focus on anything else but the light weight of them, petty sure that if he doesn't he may vomit for real this time. He rolls the last three pills in his palm, stomach churning despite his best efforts to quell his body's rejection. If he wasn't scared of burning something, he thinks he'd like a weed right now.
Johnny would.
He'd ask him for a smoke or something and maybe they would've been kicked up on a creaky porch outside of Tulsa like the church's. Ponyboy would like that — were there always three pills in his mouth? — and he knew Johnny would too. It'd be somewhere without soc's and greaser's, a place where they could just be, where neither of them would have to fret over switch blades and heaters and drunken teenage boys seeking out a fight. Maybe he could have a yellow cur dog like he used to and Sodapop could have Mickey Mouse back.
There's a soft patter against the floor and he blinks, eyes somber and slow as they shift to his palm. He's pretty sure there were three pills in his palm before, did he drop one? Why is everything so fuzzy, why can't he hear the insistent buzzing of the fan anymore? He doesn't know, so he closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall — at least this way his stomach settles down a bit.
It would get better, he thinks. Or no, maybe that was what Darry told him when he wouldn't eat dinner last night — or was it Sodapop? Ponyboy's face scrunches in annoyance, wracking his brain through the haze because why couldn't he remember the small things all of the sudden, why couldn't he hear the birds or a lawn mower or anything? He wants Darry to tell him what's happening, wants Soda to fix his hearing, wants Johnny to jog his memory.
Johnny's dead.
His breath hitches, sharp and suddenly his hands are slack, almost as if they aren't his anymore. The soft scarring of a cigarette burn seemed to blossom into a deeper shade as his eyes became unfocused, squinted. Vaguely he wonders how Curly Shepard's doing. Vaguely, he wonders if Cherry Valance will watch the sunset and think of him, or of Bob, or maybe everything. He swallows thickly and is made aware of the two half disintegrated pills in his mouth, the way they scrape down his painfully raw throat.
His head lulls to the side and he feels like vomiting, his body needs to vomit, but he doesn't have the energy even as his stomach clenches in and makes an effort to dispel the aspirin. He needs to take more, he thinks, because now he remembers Johnny's dead, now he remembers he's alone. And he wants to forget.
Maybe that's why his shaky hand surges upwards to pop the two, sweat soaked pills into his mouth.
Maybe it's because wants to pretend one last time that he's out in the country with Johnny Cade, wants to pretend that Dallas Winston is jockeying every Friday, wants to pretend that Darry doesn't have to stress over bills and worry himself into a migraine because Ponyboy lost track of time at the library, he wants to pretend Soda and Steve get to race Mickey Mouse together as Two-bit grins and chokes down a beer. He wants to pretend everything's perfect.
It feels like just minutes that he's in his head, lulling in and out, away and back to his awareness. Maybe his whole consciousness. It must have been longer than a handful of minutes, because the room seemed to settle into a more orangey hue.
Is there foam slipping from his mouth? Or is that drool?
Suddenly, he misses Darry and Soda something awful, wants to will them into existence which is weird because he's been dreading them seeing him. Why is it that he wants to be cradled, fussed over and yelled at for being so stupid all at once? He wants Darry and Soda and Johnny and Two-bit and Dallas and even Steve Randle because he's scared.
His eyes droop and he vaguely recognizes a mass of unwanted tears brimming in his too-green eyes. He thinks that maybe, above all else, he just wants his parents back.
Probably a lie because my writers block is STILL here.. But uh ! I plan on rewriting the first chapter velleity since looking back on it -- its definitely not my proudest work.
Also a slight change to content! I'll still work with x reader fics, but I've learned how much I adore working with the characters already provided in the media bases -- so majority of my content is probably going to be one-shots solely involving existing characters.
