if curly gets his hair shaved in the reformatory when curly comes back, im led to believe sometimes he calls him buzz instead of curly and curlys came close to choking pony and shaking him vigorously for it
ponyboy had a stuffed horse (dutifully named horsey, very creative) that he carried around everywhere. like all throughout elementary school he’d play with horsey at recess, he’d cuddle it every night before he went to bed, it was his comfort toy. one time, a few older kids at the playground had taken it from him and tore its head off, and then had stolen it. pony was completely inconsolable, just wailing as he held the ripped head. no amount of soda pulling funny faces or mr curtis telling silly stories could get him to stop crying. he was just bawling for hours and hours and hours…mama curtis couldn’t even go near him because he was crying so hard and so loud. he didn’t sleep that night, he needed that toy.
darry hadn’t seen it go down, but the next morning, he calmly asked pony to describe the kids who did that to his toy, and immediately he could tell it was some of the rich kids in his grade. he didn’t tell pony what he did to those kids, but he came back a few hours later with bloody knuckles, torn up horsey in hand, scratches on his face…but he didn’t care. he sewed the horse back up with pony’s favorite color of stitching and brought it back to a still mopey ponyboy. as soon as pony saw that horse plush, he tackled darry and started thanking him a million times over and kept telling him he was the “best big brother ever!”. darry still thinks about it sometimes. the same kid who once bawled over a stolen horse toy, now numbed in his bed over his stolen parents, friends, dignity…he can’t cry anymore.
pony never threw out horsey. it was still in the attic. on nights he knows pony isn’t doing so well, darry goes up to the attic and gets horsey. he’ll quietly bring it to pony’s room. “someone wants to say hi to ya, kiddo…” he’ll say. pony’s fourteen now, he can’t be caught with an old stuffed horse…but luckily, there’s nobody to catch him. it’s just him and darry. darry stroking his hair, humming the same old songs mama used to, holding the dusty, patched up remains of that stuffed horse.
he lets himself cry, not just for what was taken, but for what he has left.
au where darry and soda are adults when their parents die n ponyboy is still a little kid... (hc under the cut)
All of Pony's fifth grade classmates ate lunch with their parents at one time or another. They'd skip to the lunch room holding Mama and Daddy's hands and Ponyboy would bury his face in his tray so no one would see him cry. Snot nosed ten year olds would ask him why his parents never showed up. He didn't know how to tell them that his Mama and Daddy were sleeping under cold dirt.
One night Ponyboy comes home from school, teary eyed and deflated like a birthday balloon that's been kept too long. Soda rushes to help put away his backpack and take off his shoes, (which he was much too old for now, really) and sees his wet ruddy cheeks and scoops him up like he's still a little fawn.
"Pone, what's wrong baby?"
Pony sniffles all pitiful. "All the other kids get to each lunch with their parents. And I-" He wails.
"I have to eat all alone!"
Soda's pretty brows scrunch and he coos and sways his baby side to side. Darry appeared like an answered prayer, leaning over Soda's shoulder to wipe the salty tears from their little brother's cheeks. Darry makes a promise right then that he'll make it to lunch with Ponyboy no matter what.
"I'll be there tomorrow honey, I swear it." Darry says with staunch absolution.
The next day, Ponyboys sitting in the lunchroom on the squeaky little chairs, playing with his green beans and feeling just awful. He glances to the doorway like clockwork every minute, waiting for Darry to show up. Probably five minutes pass, and Pony's heart is smarting fiercely and he's losing hope when the double doors fly open. Darry rushes in, all sweaty and dusty from work, smiling in a way that's reserved only for his brothers. Ponyboy flies out of his seat and shoots to Darry's chest like a bullet.
"Told ya i'd make it." Darry whispered into his slick hair.
The other kids are staring frog -eyed now.
"Is that yer Dad, Pony?" Some yellow haired girl shouts.
He preens pink under his big brother's arm, puffing his chest out. "Yup. Sure is."
- a soda writing thing! bless middle siblings how are y'all?
Soda feels like he’s always toeing some scuffed painted line in a cricket playground these days. Like the hollering and poison being tossed around the house might never stop.
Hearing what Pony has to say is easy— at least in comparison to Dar. His kid brother’s always been good at that, Soda says a word and then Pony’s rambling like he needs it to survive. He goes on and on, his voice starting loud but always falling to an unsure, child-like mumble.
Darry’s a bit tougher, needs a bit of prying like a stuck-on jar lid before he slowly and hesitantly starts leakin’ bits and sometimes, letting out quiet confessions in the soft silence between them.
* * *
“What happened back there?” Soda asks, leaning against the doorframe and nodding his head over to the kitchen. Pony sits at the desk, his arms crossed before he realises it’s him. In truth, Soda knows most of what happened ‘back there’ but he’s worried one of these days, if he doesn’t check in, Pony will get it in himself nobody cares.
He definitely acts like it, parading around like a husk of a person or a zombie— content to go through life like a tumbleweed. Pony’s… he’s taken Johnny and Dallas’ death the hardest maybe, at least outwardly. The rest of them aren’t doing much better but they’re just that bit older— bit better at not showing it or showing in more… normal-er ways, Soda supposes.
The other half of the time, he’s snapping at every little thing Darry says. Back before, he would’ve taken any hollering with red ears but still quiet ‘less Darry brought Soda into it. The kid would always get mighty bothered on his behalf, caring more about the principle of it all than what Soda was really bothered about.
Now, he shouts back.
Darry says something harmless, like telling him to eat.
Speaking of Pony’s eating nowadays, it’s damn weird seeing him with such a small appetite, he used to eat like a horse, like any normal teenage boy. Now them two were lucky if he did anything more than push it all around his plate ‘nd say he was done after a while of that.
If Darry says anything about it, Pony starts getting snappish like Darry wasn’t talking and rather was trying to shove it down his throat. He says all these hurtful things he thinks about in that big head of his, except he’s talking faster than he can really think.
“Nuthin’. Just me and Darry havin’ a row, per usual,” Pony huffs, looking all fourteen and pissy like a wet kitten. “Just always on my damn case, can’t be left ‘lone for a minute. Fourteen now, I ain’t twelve or anythin’ anymore.”
Soda approaches towards the bed, to sit nearer to Pony who doesn’t protest.
He doesn’t say anything about fourteen still being real young. How none of them want to leave Pony alone, because he looks one thought away from pulling a stupid stunt.
He wishes he knew how to fix this; he just feels like he’s plastering a leaking water tank with a band-aid most days. Except the band-aid tin is emptyin’ but these problems still aren’t fixed, and Soda doesn’t know if he can fix it at this rate.
And what can he even do about that? He’s like a rowing boat caught between stormy waters and tossing rain, doomed to capsize either way. The captain’s shouting but the boatswain’s shoutin’ louder over the thundering of rain against wood, and the ship’s gonna sink in a wet mess of planks.
“Y’know Darry only nags ya because he cares,” Soda says quietly. Pony’s face pinches real weird for a minute.It feels like whatever reassurances Soda tries gets lost in the miles of telephone wire between that short distance that is their bed and Pony’s desk. Like it comes out short, not caring that Soda’s tired and trying his best.
He reckons that’s how Darry feels.
“It’s… been rough on Darry ‘cuz he cares so much ‘bout you and you’re… takin’ everything … really rough,” Soda tries, never a word prodigy, gnawing on his bottom lip. “He’s just as worried as I am, I promise Pone.”
His wording’s all wrong and there’s a tense silence where Soda reckons he might’ve just fucked this up by talking about their worry.Pony seems to take it in for a second though. Really think about all the ways Darry shows up for them two, trying his best to fill his own boots and a quarter dozen others’. Really consider that Darry’s only twenty, and trying so hard to do right by their folks. Like he ain’t just as scared, hurt and lost as the rest of them.
Then his lips twist into a scoff in fourteen-year-old fashion, “Real funny way of showin’ it. ‘S like makin’ me feel not so hot’s the highlight of his day.”
And Soda doesn’t know much, he ain’t smart like Pony, but he knows this. The blade-thin line where nothing he says is gonna get through to his kid brother, ‘cuz the kid’s got some twisted version of the truth stuck in his head.
“Pony…”The kid’s face tightens, crossing his arms again, “Go hang with Steve or whatever, Soda.”
He has this strange look of regret but he’s made his choice, and he can tell Soda knows it too.“...Alright. Remember to eat dinner. I’ll get you a Pepsi when I’m out, ‘kay?”
Soda resists the urge to tack on ‘honey’, cuz Pony’s plenty annoyed at him too by this point.
* * *
So yeah, he feels like he’s a tight-rope he’s always falling off of. Like one of these days, nobody is gonna catch him and he’s gonna keep tumbling into the sky.
ponyboy but he generally moves super fucking quietly. especially in comparison to soda who bounds everywhere he goes and darry who’s just too damn big to be quiet, but pony has a reputation of scaring the shit out of people because he moves so quietly he’ll just “spawn” behind people.
he never does it on purpose, he’s just grabbing something from the fridge or making his way to the bathroom, but everyone will all but scream when they see him.
every time steve or two bit jump and get all “where did you come from??” pony is just like “… i LIVE here.”
