Disclaimer: The Outsiders is the property of S. E. Hinton. No copyright infringement is intended.

MC4A Challenges: FF; SoC; LL; NC; ToS; BAON; MT; VV; Cluster; ER; Fence; FIN; SHoE; O3; Measure; WinBingo; Swap
Individual Challenges: Short Jog (N); New Fandom Smell (Y); Cleric MC (N); Brush (N); Tissue Warning (N); No Proof (N); Times Go On (N); Themes & Things A – Learning (N); Themes & Things B – Loss (N); Themes & Things F – Cold (N); Booger Breath (N)
Representations: Darry Curtis; Sodapop Curtis; Ponyboy Curtis; Curtis Brothers; Surrogate Parent; Taking Care of Each Other; Death of Parents; Dropping Out of School; Learning to Lead
Bonus Challenges: Second Verse (Uncivil Obedience, Under the Bridge, Corvid Brain, Spinning Plates, Nontraditional); Chorus (Hot Stuff, Larger Than Life, Mouth of Babes, Tomorrow's Shade)
Tertiary Bonus Challenges: O3 (Orator, Ox); SHoE (Oblique)
List (Prompt): Dishes 1 (Black Coffee Mug with Green Interior)
Winter Bingo Space Address: C4 (Darkness)
Word Count: 1902

The Bill

It was a bang of some sort woke me up, or more like a series of bangs one right after the other. Instinctively, I rolled over to check on Ponyboy, but the kid was still sound asleep. I lay there for a minute, breathing Pony's air and trying to make sense of what was going on and whether a burglar was in the house or a squirrel had somehow gotten stuck inside the wall again, or whether Two-Bit had just stumbled into the wrong house after a bad bender and I was gonna have to go get Darry to collar him. What time was it anyway?

Gradually I woke up enough to realize that the racket was coming from the kitchen, and that it wasn't going to stop until I got up and did something about it. I rolled out of bed, cursing as my bare feet hit the icy floor but not willing to be bothered finding a pair of socks. I stopped at the door to look at Ponyboy one more time. He was still out. Better check in with him in the morning, I thought. Could be Pony was just going through a growth spurt; that tends to happen when you're thirteen. Could be something more.

Once I got out into the hallway, I could hear another sound coming through under all the banging, a whispered "crap, crap, crap, crap," over and over almost like a chant. Then there was the scrape of moving furniture, and I finished the last few feet to the kitchen at a run.

"Darry?"

He gave a startled yell, and I was suddenly blinded by the high beams of his heavy duty flashlight. I threw up an arm in protest and retreated behind the doorjamb, my eyes smarting. "Cool it, it's me!" I hissed. "Point that thing somewhere else, will ya?"

The light lowered, and I cautiously came back into the doorway. In the dim glow I could see that the kitchen was in shambles. Every drawer and cabinet was wide open, and papers were scattered all across the floor. The icebox was partially pulled out, which accounted for the scraping.

"Darry, what the—" I spotted the clock above the stove and rubbed my eyes in disbelief. "Darry, it's 4:00 in the morning."

"Yeah, I know, little buddy. I'm sorry for wakin' you."

I stared at him, rubbing my face and trying to make my foggy brain come up with a reasonable explanation for why my oldest brother might need to be banging drawers and moving furniture at 4 AM. Darry was in a T-shirt and boxers, same as me, so he couldn't have been up that long, though the mess he'd made in that amount of time was impressive. I dropped to my knees and started scooping up papers. Darry leaned down and followed suit. I thought he might be shaking.

"You wanna tell me what you were lookin' for?" I asked, my voice carefully neutral.

He drew in a shuddery breath. "Soda, you ain't been messin' with the bills at all, have you?"

I looked at him. "Me? With how I am at math? I wouldn't go near 'em."

"Yeah, I figured. How about Pony?"

"I dunno. I don't think so. Why, what's wrong?"

Darry sat down heavily in the middle of the mess. "I can't find the gas bill. Tomorrow—no, today is the first of the month, and I've got to pay it or they'll turn off the lights and heat and everything. And if social services finds out— They'll think I can't even keep you kids in a warm house, much less take decent care of y'all; they'll take y'all away from me for sure…" He was struggling to keep control, clenching his jaw and swallowing hard.

"Dar," I said, scooting over next to him, "Dad and"—my voice broke—"Dad and Mom ain't been gone a month yet. You've never had to do any of this stuff before. Nobody's gonna blame you if you can't get it all perfect the first time around."

Darry shook his head. "That case worker would."

"You're doin' the best you can, Dar."

"That's what I been tryin' to tell you!" he exploded. "Doin' my best ain't gonna be enough for these people. I got one chance to get it right, and if I don't, in swoops the government to snatch you and Pony away, 'cause for some reason they know more about raisin' y'all than I do." He gave a humorless laugh. "Aw, who am I kiddin'? They're probably right. Probably I'm just bein' selfish tryin' to hang on to y'all."

"Quit talkin' like that!" I cried, alarmed. "We gotta stay together. We're all we got left, remember?"

"Do we even got that? Ponyboy hates my guts; I can't even talk to him anymore without makin' him mad. Sure, you get along fine with us both, but you'd get along fine wherever you were, that's just how you are."

"Now, listen here, Darry," I said, getting in his face so he had to look at me, "that just ain't true. We're all tryin' to figure out how to get along without Mom and Dad, and maybe I look like I'm handlin' it better than Ponyboy is, but I couldn't do it without you and him, and that's a fact. And Pony's workin' through it in his own way; he'll come around, you'll see. What he needs is time. Time, and his brothers—me and you." I tried for a grin. "That, and maybe not havin' his sleep interrupted by moving furniture in the middle of the night."

"Last I checked, you were the one that got woke up, little buddy." Darry didn't smile, but his voice wasn't sounding quite so tight, so I took that for a win. "He is still asleep, ain't he?"

"Far as I know. Though how, I have no idea."

Darry sighed. "Wish I was as sure as you are that he'll come around."

"Just be patient with him."

We sat for a moment in silence.

"Crap!" said Darry suddenly. "I was lookin' for the gas bill. Ain't gonna get a chance to work things out with Pony if I don't find that thing."

"I still don't think—" I started, but he cut me off.

"Just shut up and help me look."

With the help of Darry's flashlight, we started sifting through the papers again, though Darry swore he'd been through them three times already. Predictably, we didn't have any luck there. Then for some reason Darry decided to check the dishes cabinets, though I said even Two-Bit wouldn't be scatterbrained enough to stick a bill in there. He only stopped after Dad's favorite coffee mug, the black one with the green on the inside, slipped out of his hands and almost hit the floor. I caught it in the nick of time, and then we stayed there frozen for a long moment, staring at each other. Finally I stood up, put the mug back, and firmly shut the cabinet door. He didn't try to argue.

I was feeling around behind the icebox since my arm was skinny enough to fit without moving it again, when a sleepy voice asked from the doorway, "What're you guys doin'?"

Darry and I both jumped.

"Oh, hey, Pony!" I said, coming out from behind the icebox. I looked over at the clock. It was 4:43. "Sorry we woke you up. We're just tryin' to find the gas bill."

"You ain't messed with it, have you?" Darry asked. I shot him a look, willing him to get the message and not go into why it was so important that we find it. No sense worrying the kid.

Pony shook his head. "No, I ain't touched it." He yawned. "Can't you just call up to the company in the morning to find out how much we owe?"

I looked at Darry. He looked back at me. Then we both looked at Ponyboy.

Suddenly, without warning, Darry started laughing. He laughed and laughed until tears were streaming down his face and he was gasping for breath. I watched him for a few startled moments and then joined in, slapping my knee and howling as I realized what idiots we'd both been. Pony gave an uncertain chuckle, looking back and forth between the two of us. "What's so funny?"

"Nothin'!" Darry gasped out when he could finally speak.

"Nothin' at all," I added, grinning and giving Darry a good punch on the arm.

He let out a huge sigh and shook his head. "You've just got a couple of blockheads for brothers, that's all, Pony. Guess this time we were the ones not usin' our heads."

"Good job, kiddo," I said. I went over and ruffled his hair, and he ducked away from me with a groan.

"Aw, knock it off, Soda."

"What? I'm just givin' a little massage to that genius brain you got in there, seein' as it seems to be the only one of ours that's workin' at the moment."

"Well, maybe you'd be able to think a little better if you'd sleep at night like a normal person," Pony said, pushing me off him.

"Yeah, maybe you're right," I said with a grin. "Maybe we'd all better go back to bed."

Darry agreed, and we headed down the hall, leaving the kitchen to get sorted out in the morning.

"Hey, Darry?" I said just before he closed his bedroom door. He turned back to look at me. "Why don't you let me make that call in the morning? Let you take a break from worryin' about it."

He shook his head. "Thanks, little buddy, but it's my job to take care of the money stuff. You and Pony just go to school in the morning."

"That's the thing; I been thinkin', what if I dropped outta school and started workin' at the DX full time? I'm failin' everything but gym and auto mechanics anyway, and we could use the extra money for bills and stuff."

Darry was looking at me like I'd just grown an extra head, and for a second I thought this was going to be one of those rare times when he yelled at me instead of Ponyboy. But then, for whatever reason, he seemed to think better of it. "Let's not talk about this right now, all right? You wanna make the phone call, feel like you're doin' your part, that's fine. But leave any talk about droppin' outta school till tomorrow at least. Okay?"

"Okay," I said, relieved he was going to leave it there for now. I'd been thinking about making the suggestion for a while and just waiting for the right time to bring it up, hoping it wouldn't cause too big of a ruckus. This was about as good as I could've hoped for; now he'd have time to get used to the idea before we talked it out. "G'night."

"Night. G'night, Pony."

"Night."

Darry closed his door, and Pony and I went into our room. As we crawled under the covers, he asked, as I'd known he would, "Soda, you really thinkin' about droppin' out?"

"To help Darry out, yeah," I answered. "But let's leave it to the morning like he said, all right?"

"All right." Pony leaned into me, and I wrapped an arm around him. In no time at all we were both asleep.