Where Are You Ponyboy? (The Ousiders fanfic)

After the Hit

"Ponyboy, I didn't mean to!" Darry screamed from the porch as we watched our little brother racing down the street. When Ponyboy was out of sight, Darry turned to me with wide eyes. "What should we do?"

I thought for a second, pictured myself in Pony's shoes. He was probably very angry. No one in our family had ever hit him. "I think we should wait for him," I said finally. "In the meantime, you can start working on an apology." I meant it as a joke, but hated how serious I sounded. Darry hung his head.

We both went inside. My eyes threatened to close, but I had to wait for Pony to get home. Instead, I decided to get some choacolate cake. Hopefully it would keep me awake till Ponyboy came back. Then a terrifying thought that I had been holding back broke through. What if he doesn't come back? I thought. No. He would come back, he has to. He has to! What would we do if he didn't?

"Soda? Are you okay?" I heard Darry's voice. Suddenly I realized that I was mumbling everything outloud.

I nodded, afraid that anything I said would come out as a sob. I tried to finsh off my slice of cake, but nothing seemed to want to go down. Shoot, I was a mess. 

"Darry."

"Yeah?" He sounded too calm.

"I- I- What did you have to do that for?" I stuttered out.

Darry looked down. "I am sorry Soda... I don't know why." I would have been wrong to assume he was done speaking. "I am so tired of running this house. I wish Mom and Dad were alive. If they were, I wouldn't need to be telling Ponyboy what to do all the time. I am so stressed all the time that one of you are going to get jumped like Johnny did that I don't even know what it feels like to relax anymore."

He wasn't bawling, but his voice had grown unsteady.

I didn't know what to say. I know that he didn't like how much work that he had to do, but there wasn't anything that I could say to change our circumstances. 

"You should get some rest," Darry said.

"No. No. I am waiting for Pony." I told him, yet I was telling myself too. I won't rest my head until I knew he was okay. Finally, my fear turned into energy and I couldn't get my leg to stop jumping up and down. Sanding up, I began to pace. I walked around the whole house, trying to find something to do. Each time I walked a little faster and faster.

"Sit down, will ya, Sodapop," Darry said desprately. "You are stressing me out even more."

I sat down on the couch quietly. We sat in an awkward silence. I wished so bad that wasn't awkward. We were brothers after all. I couldn't think of anything to say. For a half hour, we sat shaking silently. In my head, Pony's voice rang. "You don't yell at him!" We were such close brothers. I sometimes wondered if Darry got jealous. He had to work so much that he didn't have time to talk or hangout. 

"I think we should look for Ponyboy," I finally said quietly. "He's been gone for a while." I looked at Darry warily. He nodded. 

Together, we grabbed our jackets and ran outside. When we checked the lot, Pony wasn't there. Neither was Johnny. They must be together, I thought.  "Darry, you search around here," I told him. "I am going to check if they might have headed to see Dally." It seemed like a long shot, but it was freezing and I knew that they would be trying to find some shelter.

We split up. As I walked towards where Dally usually hung out, I rubbed warmth into my arms. My fingers were already numb and I could see my breath. I was wracking my brain to come up with a place they might have gone. Dally spent a lot of time staying over at some of his friends houses. Then I remebered that Dally had spoken of Buck Merril and some party he was throwing. Maybe Johnny and Pony had found him there and were hanging out. I couldn't help but shudder at the thought of Pony hanging around a bunch of drunk greasers. What if he got into a fight?

Finally, I had arrived at Buck Merril's place. Sure enough, there was loud music and cheers bursting through the open windows. When Buck answered the door he looked less surprised than I thought he would.

"You here to see Dally?"

"Yeah," I said, "How did you know?"

"Just a hunch," Buck said in a deep gruff voice. He lead me into the room where Dally was sitting on a bedroom alone. On the way, I looked around for any sign of Johnny or Ponyboy.

Dally gulped when he saw me. "Hey how's it going Sodapop?" He asked in a casual voice. "Come to enjoy the party?"

I looked around the room. "Doesn't look to me that you are enjoying anything?"

Dally laughed. "You could say that again. I got into a fight with Shepard." He rubbed his side

"Wow, that's tough. Hey, have you seen Ponyboy? Darry is almost sick trying to find him."

He looked at me in shock. "No. I ran off before the movie at the Nightly Double had ended. I thought he went home."

"Well, he did, but then he ran away when Darry hit him."

"I see." He thought for a moment, "Yeah, I haven't seen him."

Something seemed off, though. Suddenly, I spotted my old sweatshirt sitting in the corner of the room. It was the same that Pony had been wearing today. 

I walked over and snatched it from the ground. "What are you hiding, Dallas?" I almost shouted. "Did you see my brother or not?"

"I swear, I didn't see him!"

I narrowed my eyes. "Sure."

"Look, Ponyboy isn't here now, he took off a while ago."

"So you did see him?" I asked impatiently.

Dally sighed. "Yeah, but it was just to change into some warmer clothes. He was wet when I saw him."

"Wet?" 

"Yeah." I frowned. "Hey, if I thought he went anywhere important, I would tell you. He's probably back at your house right now."

Without a word, I left, clutching Pony's damp sweatshirt in my hand. My mind was racing on the way back, I couldn't think straight. When I got home, I crashed on the couch and fell fast alseep. I didn't even have enough energy to see if Pony was home or not.

"Where are you Ponyboy?" I whispered as I drifted into a dreamless, dark sleep.