Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders.

Author's Note: A short one-shot centering on how Tim struggles to come to terms after a death in the family. Critique is welcome and appreciated.

Pillar of Salt

"The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

- Genesis 19:23

November 1960-

You wonder when, exactly, you started to die.

Curly likes to quote from his textbook that it's just a phase of life: you make some good choices and then some bad ones, until someone gets sick of you and kills you or you kill someone else because you're sick of them. Death, like all things, is easier to understand it when it's not happening to you – but when it is, you're blindsided, fucked over as anyone else.

The sound of glass shattering ricochets off your eardrums and a tremor shoots all the way down your spine, the air coming out of your mouth in puffs of white clouds. It's cold as all hell, and you're out in the middle of the goddamn night, throwing bottles at a cement wall to keep your fists from hitting it instead.

By the time he shows up, words have got themselves all tied around his tongue and your name comes out as a croak. You know better than to ask if he's heard, or if Ma sent him to come find you, or if Angel's okay – there is already so much distance between the both of you already, and asking would just lead to talking, anyway, and talking would lead to feeling, and feeling would lead to…

It doesn't matter. If you could feel pity, you'd feel it for him, and he knows that, knows it so well, sometimes, you do. Almost.

He's trying to form a sentence with all that spit in his mouth and you want to tell him to shut the fuck up, leave it alone, but there is no leaving it alone, there is only before and after. You see red and your father's smile in the photograph your mother keeps on her bureau, and your stomach tightens, throat closing. You've already vomited twice, and there's nothing left that would be sufficient enough to stop whatever disease is inside of you to keep from getting out.

The gun was bought in Amarillo four years ago when he went on a road trip to follow the cowboys, right after he and your mother split up, then shipped to his house in Oklahoma City. You know this because he'd shown you the receipt the first and last time you'd visited him, eyes crinkling at the corners and blue, so much like your own, folded the slip of paper into your hand and said, Just in case.

There was a phone number on the back and a name below it; ink smeared from whoever's hand had brushed over the yellowed paper. That Sunday, you'd come home elated, nearly tripping over your shoes, so grateful to have a piece of your father with you even when he wasn't there, as ironic and naïve as it sounds. You'd carried the receipt around with you for weeks until your mother found you sleeping with it in your hands. The next morning, you woke up and your hands were empty. You never asked where it went, and she never told you.

But you know where the blood is. You didn't need an officer to tell you that it's sprayed all across the bedroom walls you used to stare at when you couldn't fall asleep, the same movie playing over and over and over again behind your eyelids. The white paint has been tainted by brain matter and chips of skull and flesh, such a dark red it is black. The damage, however, isn't visible: it's on the inside, making its own home between the shriveled blood cells and pounding heart and clogged arteries.

Of all things, you can't remember hanging up the phone, or even leaving the house. Only that ache, slow and burning, that settled into the pit of your stomach as you bent over and tried to force unwanted air into your mouth, corners of your eyes stinging.

He says your name again, Tim, and you realize he's been crying. From where you're standing, there's not enough light in the alleyway for him to see you clearly, but you can see him – eyes swollen and bloodshot, chin quivering. Always been too emotional, the little shit.

"You gotta cigarette?" your voice comes out scratched and you hate the way it sounds, weak.

Wordlessly, he fumbles two cancer sticks out of his pocket, lights them and passes one over to you, chewing on the end of his that has been crammed between his teeth. For a brief second, your arm brushes against his and you can still feel the marrow tense through the layers of clothing that separates you. If you wanted, you could trace the scars you made on him – they might be years old and faded, now a shade darker than his skin tone, but each one is unforgettable.

You inhale smoke until your lungs burn and cough. Move your eyes to the ground, feel his eyes trying to search your face the entire time, and be glad that he can't because you're not quite sure what you'd do if he could. Vaguely, you sense that there is blood smeared on your palms from a chunk of glass you've curled your fingers around. Your hands are shaking, and you bite down on your tongue to keep from yelling at him.

You wonder what made your father do it, finally, what tipped the scale over in your favor. Was it the child support he rarely paid on the occasion he wasn't spending the money on booze, the pile of letters he'd sent that you'd never opened, the way you both knew you'd turn out, eventually, one way or another, just like him? God knows that you can't escape him no matter how many miles you run, because even in death, he's there, lurking around a street corner, his voice buzzing so much louder than all the others in your head. All you have to do is look.

Something catches in his throat and he swears under his breath. "What're we gonna do, Tim? Ma… and Ang…" He trails off, gravel crunching under his feet as he shifts, uncomfortable.

"I dunno, Curl," you say, your mouth tasting of ash and bile. You think of what your father would do if you passed away, and figure he wouldn't give a damn. Everything is happening too fast, and it's not giving you enough time to breathe.

The service is in five days, on a Friday, and you know your mother won't go, but Angel might, just to get the hell out of here for a weekend. The trip would consist of visiting your estranged family in their dusty Chicago apartment – your grandparents would glare at you for murdering their son and your cousins would pay too much attention to the scars on your face, the hollow of your eyes. And then you'd be whisked away to the privacy of a funeral home, claustrophobia settling in as you'd try to understand how the Priest described your father didn't describe him at all.

Your brother's voice cracks and suddenly, you feel tired, so, so tired of dealing with this bullshit for years and not once wishing it away, not once wishing it was happening to anyone but you. "I want…I just want…"

He needs an answer as to why, and for once if your life, you can't give him one.