Finding Your Way Back ||| An Outsiders Second Gen Fanfic

Chapter One

A/N Tell me your thoughts in the comments

The door opened to reveal Ponyboy Curtis, a middle aged man with reddish brown hair. He smiled at the boy in front of him.

"Hey Ken, here to pick up Dee-Dee?" he asked.

"Yeah, is she here?" Ken said.

Ponyboy shook his head. "She went shopping, but she'll be home in a bit. Come on in."

Ken stepped inside. He loved the Curtis house, it was always so welcoming. There was always the smell of fresh cookies because Adele loved to bake them for visitors. The walls were painted a shade of bright turquoise and colorful furniture was all over the room. But that wasn't Ken's favorite part. Most of all, he loved the pictures that lined the walls, the ones of all the Curtis kids considering they all lived in the same house. You could tell how happy they were.

The door to one of the rooms was thrown open and a tall girl with dark hair and curves in all the right places strode out. Sunglasses were perched on top of her head, a neckercheif tied around her neck. She wore a loose red crop top with a black leather jacket, a shimmering pink miniskirt and fishnet stockings. She stared at him for a minute and lit a cigarette before walking out in the same brisk pace.

Darry Curtis appeared behind her, scowling.

"JAQUELINE SODAPOP CURTIS, GET BACK HERE!"

Ken heard the front door slam as Jackie left. Darry's angry expression soon morphed into one of worry and desperation. Everyone who had ever met them knew that Jackie was the one daughter that he had no control over. By thirteen she had started smoking, and had had her first drink by fifteen. Once she turned sixteen she'd started to dress different too, more revealing than Darry would have allowed.

Seeing Ken, he smiled at him and Ken gave him a polite nod, the atmosphere in the room too akward to say anything.

"Hey Ken, how are you?" he said, sitting down.

"I'm good, Mr. Curtis. I came to see Dee-Dee."

"You know you can just call me Darry right?"

Ken said nothing. Quite frankly, Darrel Curtis scared him. He was big and muscled and could probably snap your neck in a millisecond.

"You takin' my little girl out on a date?" Ponyboy joked.

Ken shuddered at the thought. Contrary to popular belief, Dee-Dee and him were friends. Best friends, but just friends. Besides, he liked another girl anyway.

"Not today, maybe another time." Ken replied, grinning.

Their were eight Curtis kids. The Daisy, Lori, and Jackie were Darry's kids, while Pepsi, Pepper, Dee-Dee, Winny, and Cinnamon were Ponyboy's. The last kid was Jeremy Curtis, the only child of Sodapop. But no one mentioned Soda since he perished in the Vietnam War.

"Ken!" he heard a happy voice call as Dee-Dee rushed in.

Her chocolate curls bounced on her shoulders as she excitedly hugged him. He wrapped his arms around the younger girl.

"Hey Dee-Dee." he leaned in close to her ear and whispered, "Wanna get out?"

She smiled. "You bet."

As they walked down the streets, Dee-Dee tried to start a conversation. "How's Jayla?"

Ken felt a bitter feeling spread through his body as he remembered his sweet sister who'd recentley become a hood. Both the Owens children never had it easy as kids. Jayla was the daughter of the one and only Dallas Winston, the most famed criminal in all of Tulsa. As a child she'd beem bullied and beat up to the point where she changed herself to be more tough than them. More mean, more cruel, more cold.

Ken on the other hand was hurt in a different way. You see Dallas Winston had took off when he learned that his girlfriend, Sylvia Owens, was pregnant. Shocked, and left to be a single mother, she had done all she could to provide for Jayla, and for a while she had. But happiness doesn't last forever. Ken was the product of when a man had... Um... Forcefully, for the lack of a better word, tried to make a move on her. If Dally leaving hadn't broken Sylvia, that had. For the first few years of his life, Ken remembered the looks of hatred and regret his mother would give him. Not because of him, but because he looked like his dad. His biological one.

As a result, Sylvia had sworn off men and both the children, having never known their fathers made the choice to take on their mother's last name instead, wanting nothing to do with them.

He remembered how Jayla began to introduce herself as Dally's daughter and people would look past her and at him and begin to murmur.

"My goodness." they'd say. "That boy can't be his child, why he isn't like him at all!"

As if Ken didn't need a reminder of how he'd been born.

"She's good." he said, forcing a smile. "Real good. Wanna head over to the park?"

"Sure." Dee-Dee said, oblivious to his thoughts. "Race you there!" she cried taking off.

Ken ran after her and couldn't help but feel that something was about to happen. Something very wrong.