Chapter Text
The morning after was bright. Clear, blue sky reaching out to the ends of the Tulsa landscape, cardinal birdsong light and lilting on the air. Darry sat on the porch with a steadily cooling mug of black coffee and stared out, seeing nothing. His head was pounding, chest aching, fingers trembling. The boys weren’t awake yet. He’d checked in on them on his way out. Soda was in Pony’s bed, wrapping his lanky body so tightly around his brother it almost seemed uncomfortable. But Darry had watched how Pony had settled down slightly, his shaking subsiding, pressing his face into the hollow of Soda’s throat, melting into him.
Darry had felt a slight twinge of envy when he saw them still wrapped up together. Last night he had tried everything to get Pony to calm down, to keep breathing. He was hysterical. Soda had been out with Sandy that afternoon, promising to come home in time for Darry’s birthday dinner, so when the cops showed up on the doorstep it had only been Darry and Pony home. His thoughts took him back to yesterday…
Darry’s first instinct had been to scream, to attack the officers in their starched uniforms, so calm and unflappable. He made a half step toward them and felt Pony slide to the ground. Looking down at his brother, he saw that his face had gone a sharp white. He wasn’t speaking, wasn’t crying, was just staring into space. Darry crouched down and took Pony’s jaw in his cupped hands.
“Hey, little brother. Hey, talk to me.”
Darry stroked his thumb gently along the side of Pony’s face.
The officers shifted uncomfortably from where they stood.
The smaller of the two muttered, “Kid’s in shock. Might wanna slap him, snap him out of it.”
He moved, as if to get down on Pony’s level. Darry felt rage well up inside him as he pushed the officer back.
“Touch him and it’s the last thing you’ll ever do,” he growled.
The officer looked slightly shocked and backed up couple steps as he noted Darry’s full size.
Before anything could go further, all three men jumped and looked back as Pony gave a sharp cry. His blank face had crumpled, tears streaming from his eyes. The sobs sounded like they were ripping him apart. Darry ran to his brother and draped his body over him, rocking Pony back and forth. His eyes blazed as he looked up at the cops.
“I think that’s all, isn’t it? You can leave.”
They looked at each other, uncomfortable.
“Son, how old are you?”
“I’m nineteen…um. Twenty. I’m twenty.”
The fact that it was his birthday had completely flown out of his head. Pony was still screaming and he was clutching him as tight as he could to his chest.
“Twenty. Alright. Well, someone from the state will drop by later on this week, son. You boys call down to the station if you need anything until then, okay? We don’t have to talk about next steps right now.”
Darry couldn’t even start to wonder what next steps meant, so he just nodded curtly and watched them get back in their patrol car and leave. Pony’s wailing was starting to scare him.
“Pony,” he whispered gently.
Pony didn’t acknowledge he’d spoken at all. He stood and gently lifted Pony under the arms to get him to stand. He was deadweight, unable to stand on his own without his knees buckling. Darry scooped him up and carried him to the couch, something he’d done a thousand times when the boy was small and had fallen asleep in the living room, trying to stay up as late as his big brothers. There was no ease at all in his crying, his breath spiking to hyperventilation. Darry grabbed both sides of his brother’s face, forcing him to look at him.
“Ponyboy Curtis, stop.”
He snapped the words, harshly, not meaning to. Pony looked at him in shock, hurt. His eyes welled with tears and his face crumpled. He was sobbing again. Darry cursed himself. Why did he have to yell at the kid like that? He was just terrified. He tried stroking Pony’s back, but he turned away from him, pressing his face into the cushions. Fuck.
Just then, the front door banged open, and Soda came through the door with a newspaper-wrapped gift, flushed and whistling. He stopped immediately when he saw the scene in the living room. Darry, kneeling beside a sobbing Pony. He rushed over and knelt beside Darry, his hands instinctually running through Pony’s hair, a failsafe way to get him to relax. He looked at his older brother, panic starting to set into his handsome features.
“Mom and Dad, they…there was an accident. Soda…Mama and Daddy were killed. A train.”
Darry trailed off, he couldn’t say anymore.
Soda’s bewildered look turned to grief right before Darry’s eyes. He had never seen that level of sorrow in those brown eyes, Daddy’s eyes, and it pierced him like a blade through the heart. He moved to hug his brother, but Soda had already shifted his body, angling himself toward Pony. Soda had tugged until his brother was fully in his lap, rocking him, kissing his hair, murmuring to him through tears of his own. Darry sat and watched the two, heard the way Pony’s sobs started to wane, his trembling easing slightly. Irrational as it was, he felt a hot surge of envy course through his body. Why couldn’t he comfort Pony this way? Why—
He jumped slightly when he felt Soda’s fingers brush his arm. Wrenched out of his thoughts, he looked into Soda’s tear-streaked face and saw the overwhelming need in his eyes. Without another thought, he wrapped his arms around Soda and Pony.
The Curtis boys stayed that way for hours, holding on to each other, sitting in their loss. Pony fell asleep, eventually, silent tears still streaming from his closed eyes. Soda stared at his face, gently brushing the hair back from his forehead.
“We should get him into bed,” he said, his voice hoarse from sobbing. Darry nodded. “Give him to me.”
Soda passed the sleeping Ponyboy to Darry, kissing his temple gently. He followed Darry down the hall as the eldest gently laid him in his bed. Pony’s brow furrowed in sleep, he shifted restlessly. Soda laid down beside him, his own bed forgotten. He looked up at Darry.
“I’m just gonna stay here tonight, Dar. In case the kid wakes up.”
Darry nodded. After a slight silence, Soda gazed up at him once more.
“Do you wanna stay, too, Superman? We can make room.”
Yes. God, yes. I don’t want to be alone tonight.
“No, little buddy. You try and sleep, it’ll be too tight in there with all three of us.”
Soda’s face was unreadable. “Okay. I love you, Darry.”
Darry stroked Soda’s face and dropped a quick kiss onto Pony’s sleeping forehead.
“I love you, too. Try and sleep.”
Darry walked out of the room, gently closing the door before sliding down it and sitting on the ground. He wrapped his arms around his knees, tucked his face, and cried for the first time that night. For everything he’d lost and everything that would be different from now on. He would give himself this. These few hours before dawn. Then he would get up, wash his face, and be the protector and provider that this family needed. At whatever cost.