Chapter Text
“I’m going after him.”
It’s not a question. Darry is already putting on his boots as he speaks. Ponyboy’s only been gone for thirty seconds, and it’s thirty seconds too many. Damn it, how had everything gone so wrong?
He hadn’t expected the conversation to be easy. It nearly killed Darry to have it with Soda when Steve disappeared. Lord knows he didn’t exactly take it well himself after Two-Bit, either. But at least his parents had been there to help him then, to guide him through the crushing grief with their wisdom. Soda didn’t have that, and now neither does Pony. All Darry’s brothers have is him.
These poor kids.
He’d tried his best, he really had. Pony’s always been sensitive, even more than Soda. He’s not always as much of a crier as his older brother, but Ponyboy feels everything right down to his bones. He’s got a soft heart and a poet’s soul — Darry’s known that since before the boy could even speak. And Pony’s friendship with Johnny is his most treasured possession. Losing it was bound to tear him apart. Darry just hadn’t expected so many pieces to be left behind.
Crying, denial, shouting, despair. He had been ready for all of that. Soda wanted to wait to give Pony the news, but it would have only been needlessly delaying the inevitable. And when Ponyboy had screamed like the devil was on his heels…
Darry couldn’t take it. He couldn’t lie to his baby. Even when the truth hurt like hell.
All he hoped to do was help Ponyboy realize he wasn’t alone. Glory, Darry had never wanted his little brother to experience the awful, debilitating sorrow that comes with the death of a friend. Mom and Dad’s accident had been enough. It had been plenty.
Ponyboy went practically catatonic after their parents died, staring at nothing for hours on end and spending his days in a haunted silence that clung to him like a second skin. Darry’d almost been convinced Pony would fade away completely. It had taken no less than Soda’s non-stop pleading to bring him back to himself, and even then he wasn’t the same bright-eyed, talkative, dreamy kid they once knew.
Now Darry’s sure they’ll never see that kid again. Just like they won’t see Johnny Cade. Sometimes he wonders if their family is cursed. Or if just Darry is, and he’s infecting everyone else around him with his suffering.
But it doesn’t matter now. Darry just needs to fix what he broke. He needs to get his brother home.
If only his other kid brother would move away from where he’s planted himself in front of the door.
“No, don’t!” Soda exclaims, thrusting his arms out so he takes up as much space as possible. Darry quickly rises from knotting his laces.
“He shouldn’t be out there by himself right now, Pepsi, he ain’t thinkin’ straight,” he argues, taking another step toward the door. But Soda holds firm, just like he always does when it comes to Ponyboy.
“If he sees you coming he’ll just run faster.” He insists with a mournful shake of his head. “Pony don’t want us right now.”
The truth of it cuts through Darry’s flesh and threatens to bleed him dry. Soda’s right. Maybe if Darry had done something different, something better, something Ponyboy had actually needed instead of what Darry thought was best…maybe their brother would still be here. All he’d done was chase Pony away, and if he charges after him now, Ponyboy might never want to be found again. As much as Darry aches to see him, he has to wait for Pony to cool off on his own. Clearly Soda knows that. Then again, Soda would understand what’s going on in Ponyboy’s head if he was blindfolded in a hurricane.
Even still, panic and paranoia tugs at Darry’s instincts. They’ve just lost Johnny, after all. “But what if he ain’t safe —“
“Darry. He’ll be okay. He’s a smart kid, he knows not to leave the neighborhood by himself. It’s almost 7:30, he’s probably just headin’ to school.” Soda speaks deliberately, like he needs Darry to take in every word he says. “I wanna go after Pony too, believe me. But it ain’t gonna do any good right now. He needs time. We can talk to him when he gets home.”
If he gets home, Darry can’t help but think. He doesn’t voice the thought aloud.
“Alright,” he sighs instead, collapsing into his armchair before his legs can give out from under him. Soda’s behind him in less than a second to massage his shoulders in that reassuring way only he can. But Darry can’t soak up any of the relief the touch usually brings. There’s too much on his mind.
“He’ll be okay, Dar,” Soda murmurs. “We’ll all be okay.”
Pony’s ruined, betrayed eyes are all Darry can see. The slam of the door echoes in his ears. He doesn’t believe Soda this time.
As Darry hauls a bundle of roofing up the ladder for the upteenth time that morning, he can’t quite remember how he got there.
He assumes he drove. His truck is parked a little ways off from the site; he can see it from where he stands. But Darry doesn’t recall getting behind the wheel. Even worse, he can’t find it in himself to care.
Distraction can mean doom in his line of work. Lose your footing, drop roofing on yourself or someone else, let a hammer fall on your hand. Darry’s seen it all in just the few months he’s been working at his dad’s old job. The smallest slip-up leads to unemployment, a word that’s shaped like an axe in his mind. It would cut right through the last line that tethers Darry to his brothers and leave him alone to rot in an empty house.
So his alertness, his attention, his dedication is usually top priority the moment he steps on to a job site. If Darry’s mind ever wanders, it finds his brothers more often than not. The thought of them immediately snaps him back to the task at hand, without fail. Darry cannot — he will not — do anything that puts his boys at risk.
But today, Ponyboy’s cries ring in his head as loud as a drill. The kid’s devastation sits squarely on Darry’s chest, making focus impossible. He can’t push off the guilt. He can’t turn away this time.
Darry wills himself to just consider the possibility that Soda’s right. Pony will come home. And when he does, they’ll figure this whole thing out.
It’ll be hard. It’ll take everything they have and more. Johnny was the last one left of their old gang, the best of them right alongside Pony. He was sweet as they come, and quiet, and steady and loyal and far tougher than anyone would know by looking at him. Johnny and Ponyboy were supposed to get out of this bloodsucking town together if it was the last thing Darry ever did.
Now the last thing he can do is make sure Ponyboy gets out for both of them.
Losing Johnny is a knife. It sinks into his stomach, comes out red, and leaves him raw. The kid was good, damn it. Too good for anything Tulsa had to offer him and too good to ever realize it. Darry doesn’t know why he’d never considered that Johnny would be the next one taken from them. Maybe he’d been too worried about Ponyboy. Maybe he assumed Johnny already had it bad enough.
But misery loves company, and so does tragedy. They prey on a fool like Darry. He should have known better.
“Hey, Darrel!”
The ladder beneath him sways for a moment, and Darry gasps as the sudden movement brings him back to the present. His hand shoots out automatically and grabs the ledge of the roof even as the world stills again.
“Woah there, Curtis! Take it easy,” someone calls from the ground below. “Didn’t mean to scare ya.”
“It’s fine,” Darry shouts back, doing his best to keep his voice light and his tone casual. Luckily, Evans doesn’t seem to notice the tension in Darry’s shoulders from where he stands.
“You got a call back at the office. Tom just got here and said to let you know. Guess it’s the school.” Evans relays with a shrug. He slaps the bottom rung once before heading off, but Darry thinks he might as well have pulled the entire ladder out from under him. It feels like he’s falling anyway.
The school. Ponyboy.
Darry can’t remember getting out of his truck this morning, and he hardly registers getting back in it now. The five minute drive back to the office from the job site is an endless cycle of foreboding dread that threatens to make him sick. His fingers shake by the time he hastily dials the number for the school he has memorized.
“Will Rogers, this is Kathy.”
“Hi, this is Darrel Curtis. I was told I got a call earlier? About my brother, Ponyboy Curtis?” The words tumble out of him without thought.
“Oh yes, hello Mr. Curtis. We’ve already marked Ponyboy as absent for the day, I just wanted to remind you that school policy requires a phone call from a parent or guardian to let us know if a student is home sick.”
It’s a damn good thing Kathy can’t see the way the blood drains from Darry’s face in an instant. Does she mean—
“Sick?” Darry repeats uselessly. Ponyboy’s not sick. He left the house this morning. He ran out in tears after Darry told him his grief was nothing special because it came after the grief of his brothers. Soda said Pony was heading to school. He should be in school.
“Yes, Mr. Curtis.” He’s not Mr. Curtis, Mr. Curtis is his father and he’ll never be his father, his father would know what to do, his father would have fixed this by now. Mr. Curtis would never let this happen at all. “Ponyboy wasn’t in homeroom or first period this morning. Is he not at home?”
Kathy never gets an answer to her question. Darry’s slamming the phone back onto the receiver before she can even finish it.
Oh, shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.
Darry isn’t sure if he’s ever believed in brotherly instincts. Or, rather, that he’s ever possessed them. He tries his damn hardest every day to figure out what his kid brothers need, what they want, how to be the man who can give it all to them. But Darry’s been so lost in the woods of caring for Ponyboy and Soda that he can’t make himself believe any of this comes to him naturally.
Now, though, he doesn’t need to think twice. He knows what happened.
How exactly he knows is uncertain. But something in his bones, his veins, and the soul he shares with his brothers shatters on impact. Ponyboy is in danger. And Darry can barely breathe.
His head swims with blind horror as he once again finds himself in the driver’s seat of the truck, barreling down the street toward the DX. He’d left the office without telling anyone where he was headed, and Darry frankly doesn’t give a shit. If Ponyboy’s missing, if he’s —
No, Darry won’t think that, he can’t think that, no no no no no —
There isn’t anything even remotely more important now than getting Pony back. If saving his baby brother costs him his job, then so be it. Darry doesn’t care.
When he skids up to the gas station, the pumps are vacant and Soda’s inside. Darry’s not even sure if he remembered to turn off the truck’s engine before he’s throwing open the door and racing into the storefront like a man possessed.
Soda turns to face him from his spot behind the counter, summoned by the ringing of the doorbell. “How can I help y— Dar?”
His eyes are round and puzzled as they take in Darry’s haggard gasps, his frantic posture.
“Pony been by here today?” He asks as though he doesn’t already know the answer. Soda cocks an eyebrow.
“Not yet, lunch ain’t till noon. Sometimes he’ll come by then, but…” he trails off, and Darry watches the evil realization crash over him. His entire body somehow tenses and sinks at the same time. “No. No, Darry, no.”
Of course Soda figures it out right away. He’s always had more than enough brotherly instincts for both of them.
Darry swallows hard. “He’s not at school.”
“Oh, God! No!” The reaction is instant and horrifying. Soda’s fingers fly to his hair and pull. He immediately begins to heave big, terrible sobs that do nothing but drag the breath from his body and pull him under. Darry’s next to him in a flash, grabbing at his brother’s hands and encasing them safely in his own.
“Hey, hey, hey. Come on, Sodapop. You’ve gotta keep breathin’, little buddy,” he attempts to soothe. But it’s like Soda can’t hear a word he says. He stares beyond Darry’s shoulders, tears now pouring down his face where it had been dry just a moment before. Soda’s being haunted by the mere idea of a ghost.
“Darry, what if he’s dead? What if he’s dead because I said not to go after him? We should have gone after him – I – I should have –”
“Stop.”
The command comes out just as forcefully as Darry meant it, and he doesn’t have time to feel bad.
“Stop it right now, okay? We ain’t gonna think that way. We ain’t goin’ down that road. Alright?” He grabs Soda’s arms and shakes him lightly, hoping to bring the younger boy back to his senses. “We’re gonna find him. That bastard doesn’t get to take him away from us. You hear me?”
It’s the pure, simple truth. Darry will rip the town of Tulsa, Oklahoma apart until he brings Pony home again. He already lost his best friend and watched his brothers lose theirs one by one. Each time, it felt like nothing less than the end of the world.
But life without Ponyboy? Spending the rest of his days wondering how he let Pony be robbed of his own? Letting The Grabber keep his baby?
That would be hell itself.
So even if all Darry wants to do is scream and curse and blame himself until kingdom come, he can’t. Not yet. And neither will Soda.
Soda’s mouth gapes for a few seconds as his gaze finally slides over to meet Darry’s. He’s not sure what exactly his little brother is looking for in his expression. He must find it, though, because soon he’s pressing his lips together firmly and nodding even as his cheeks stay wet.
“Y-yeah. We’ll find him.” It’s barely a whisper, barely a belief. It’s enough for Darry to get moving again.
He practically shoves Soda into the truck; the kid’s letting himself be manhandled and Darry’s got a feeling he might not be able to move otherwise. He keeps a hand on his brother’s shoulder as he drives, but Darry isn’t convinced he makes for a steadying presence when he’s shaking just as hard as Soda.
“It’s okay, Pepsi. It’s okay,” he hears himself mumbling every now and again. Lying.
Darry’s only ever been to the police station once. Two summers ago, when Soda and Steve got hauled in for disturbing the peace as they backflipped their way through the neighborhood and he’d come to bail them out. It’s a long, flat, beige building. To look at it now, nothing suggests that it would become the backdrop of the worst moments of Darry’s life.
Inside, the station buzzes faintly with what he assumes is normal activity. It almost makes him sick. Don’t these officers know that Ponyboy Curtis is missing? Don’t they know that Darry’s heart is out there somewhere, just thirteen years old, kidnapped, taken away from his family, alone with a killer, he must be so so scared, glory he’s still so little—
“Darrel?”
A voice he hasn’t heard in years suddenly breaks into his thoughts. It sounds like football turf beneath his feet. Ski trips and letterman jackets and expensive cologne and a life Darry once thought he wanted.
Paul Holden stands behind a desk halfway across the room. In all honesty, Darry hasn’t thought much about Paul since they…parted ways when his parents died and Darry’s chance at a future went with them. They’d been close once. Now the man in the uniform resembles a stranger more than anyone else.
But it’s still unmistakably Paul, and Darry prays that whatever they used to have still means something now. For Ponyboy’s sake.
“What are you doing here?” Paul crosses to meet them at the front of the station, a clipboard tucked under his arm. It makes sense that he’d end up an officer. His father is the chief of police, and Paul had never shared any aspirations of his own for as long as Darry had known him. He’d been too busy living in the moment, drinking and going to parties and letting the fleeting grandeur of high school popularity entice him until he couldn’t see beyond it. From where Darry’s standing, it looks like every moment Paul wasted caught up to him.
But there’s no time to feel smug, or even pity. Darry’s actually grateful that someone he knows is here. Maybe Paul will listen.
“Ponyboy’s missing.” Darry doesn’t waste time with pleasantries. Paul’s eyebrows shoot up.
“What?” At least he has the decency to sound the slightest bit concerned. “For how long?”
“A couple hours. He left the house this morning but never showed up at school,” Darry exchanges a quick glance with Soda, whose cheeks are red with what looks like shame. He squeezes his brother’s hand reassuringly.
“Fuck,” Paul runs a hand through his tight curls. He lets out a long sigh that jabs at Darry’s already fraying nerves.
“What, is my little brother gettin’ kidnapped interrupting your lunch break?” He snarls, and Soda takes hold of his arm.
“Dar,” he whispers. “Not now.”
Soda’s words tremble under the weight of a fear so heavy it instantly tempers Darry’s anger, if only slightly. He needs to remember what — who — they’re here for.
“How do you know that’s what happened?” Paul retorts. Darry forces himself to breathe.
“Because yesterday I got a call from your people tellin’ me that Johnny Cade’s dead. That he got taken and killed by the same scumbag who murdered Two-Bit, and Steve, and Bob.” He puts emphasis on the last name. Hopefully a reminder that West Side boys are targets now too will light a fire under Paul’s ass.
“We don’t know that for sure—“
“Oh, bullshit! Don’t give me that. You know it’s true, just like I do. It’s The Grabber, Paul.”
The other man stares at Darry for a moment, his expression unreadable while Darry furiously holds his gaze. He’s not going to be the one to back down here. No way in hell.
“Does Ponyboy know about the Cade kid?” Paul finally asks. Irritation flares hot in Darry’s chest. Why is their time being wasted with stupid questions?
“‘Course he does. Johnny was his best friend,” Soda replies quietly from his place still latched onto Darry’s arm. The younger boy’s usual exuberance and charm has disappeared as his head stays ducked and his fingers shake. It only proves what Darry realizes he’s known his entire life – Soda can’t exist without Ponyboy. He doesn’t know how. If they lose that kid, they’re both going to fall apart for good.
“Then maybe he wasn’t kidnapped. Maybe he went looking for Cade,” Paul suggests. He offers the two of them a small smile, like his theory is meant to be comforting instead of dead wrong.
“No,” Darry immediately argues, shaking his head. “No, he knows Johnny’s dead. I told him myself. I saw the look in his eyes, Paul, he believed me. There’s no way he’s out looking for Johnny.”
Pony’s grieved, tear-stained face flashes before Darry’s eyes.
“How can you possibly know what I feel right now?!”
There’s no doubt about it. Ponyboy knows the truth far too well. And because he’s just a kid, and because he’s damn fast, he ran from it. Darry practically pushed him to the starting line.
“Look, Darrel, I’m just saying we don’t have to jump to the worst case scenario right away,” Paul insists, raising his hands as though in surrender.
“Well how about we start there, just for fun?” Darry hates the way Soda flinches at the sound of his rising tone. This has to be a nightmare for him, just like it is for Darry. He has to do everything in his power to end it for all of them. Which means he might have to get a little loud.
“I hope to high heaven that you’re right, Paul. I want Pony to be out in the lot, or the park, or maybe even back home, safe and sound. But I can tell you right now that he’s not. He’s gone. And I…I need your help to find him. Please.”
Darrel Curtis is a proud man. He doesn’t beg. Especially not to Paul fucking Holden.
But for his baby brother? He’ll get on his knees if that’s what it takes.
Paul sighs again, just as heavily as before. “If there was anything I could do –”
“There is! You could go look for him right now!” Soda suddenly bursts, his eyes overflowing as he lunges toward Paul as if to shove him toward the truth. Darry grabs him in a hug before he can touch the officer. “Get offa me, Darry, you know they should be looking!”
“I know, baby. I know.” Darry murmurs into Soda’s hair. He tightens his grip as his little brother deflates with a tearful wail.
“I’m not trying to be a dick here, Darrel,” Paul says, taking a not-so-subtle step away from the Curtises.
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“We’re just stretched pretty thin here already, okay? Bob Sheldon has been missing for over a month. It’s been hell for his family.”
Darry’s blood freezes and burns all at once. Paul can’t be serious. He must hear himself. He can’t actually be this heartless.
When Darry was fourteen, the police gave up looking for Two-Bit Mathews after a week. At least they would have, if it weren’t for his mother refusing to let the investigation run cold until they’d exhausted every possible avenue. Two-Bit proved to be the exception; every other missing greaser that came before and after him had been labeled “runaway” before their footsteps faded from the grass. Dallas Winston, Steve Randle, Johnny Cade…and now Ponyboy Curtis.
Does anybody care when a greaser disappears?
It’s all clear now. Bob is the only kid that Tulsa considers worth saving. If they want Ponyboy back, they're going to have to find him themselves.
So Darry takes his remaining brother home. Soda passes out in the car and Darry carries him inside. The same way Ponyboy always likes to be carried, no matter how vehemently he’d try to deny it.
Soda doesn’t wake up when Darry settles him into a now half-empty bed. But he must know where he is, because he lets out a pitiful whine and reaches for Pony’s pillow even with his eyes closed. It adds another crack to Darry’s already splintered heart.
He lets Soda pull the pillow close and lays down in the space meant for Ponyboy.