With a deep groan of annoyance and frustration, Ponyboy slumped over his desk, letting go of the pencil in his hand for the first time since he woke up. The sun was still high in the sky by then, instead of how it glared at his face now.

Mr. Syme had assigned a free topic, free length, essay to write for his class' final mark of the month. The teen had actually been quite ecstatic about it, but that was before he stumbled across one small issue. The assignment was given out last Monday, it was now Saturday and all Ponyboy had was yet another blank page and a pounding headache.

Darry's opinion on his youngest brother's reverie was that Ponyboy just wasn't focused enough, and he'd remind the younger of that time and time again throughout the course of the whole week. Pony had grown exceptionally tired of explaining that literally everything on his mind since the project was assigned was the project itself.

Two-Bit, on the other hand, insisted that he take some time off to relax and hang out with them. "All that thinkin's fryin' off your brain cells, kid."

Then there was Soda, who's all thumbs ups and smiles and, "You'll figure it out eventually, Pony. You always do."

Ponyboy's gotten restless, the project truthfully was very dear to him. He didn't want to end up with some half-assed thing. Though, with the speed he was going at, there'll be no thing to half-ass.

Grumbling under his breath, the teen straightened back up and rallied his brain, for the quazillionth time, for an interesting topic to at least start off. It did not surprise him when his search came back empty, and that did not dial down the frustration left behind. Another groan left him, along with the uncanny itch to pull out his hair.

He wanted to make this right. The deadline was nearing, and he had to write something that could rival the quality off his first big work paper. That was how he always angled any new written project, that was his goal now. However, if he was being completely honest, none have yet come to par. Nothing ever seemed to be as good and he's caught himself wondering whether it had been a one in a million deal.

There he was, doubled over his desk, head still spinning, page still abysmally blank. He's had his fill, he needed a breather, and some water. When even was the last time he drank something?

He stood up, his back popped and cracked, pointing out how long he'd been there, just boiling his brain in that terminal crisis.

He looked out the window and blinked. Hadn't the sun been there a minute ago?

'Golly,' he thought, 'What is time anymore?'

He could hear Matthews' bellowed laughter and elated talking through the walls. The noises of the TV barely surfaced behind his booming voice. Sodapop was laughing along to his goofy jokes. Ponyboy knew, and could map it in his brain, that Darry was making dinner just as the smell wandered to his nostrils. The oldest Curtis would snap occasionally at the other greasers' antics, but still smirk in silence and enjoy the ruckus. They were having a nice time, and here was Ponyboy, frying himself alive.

He sighed. He'd fetch for a glass of water and then return to his mind-numbing hell.

He made his way out of his shared bedroom, walking down the hallway, listening to the domestic sounds getting louder with every step. When he was an inch away from fully stepping into the living room, a loud bang froze all his tracks, eyes snapping alarmed to the immediate source of the noise.

Steve stood there at their front door, everything about his posture reeked of anger. From the white fingers around the door frame, to the irregular heaving of his chest, to the dark and dull eyes that spoke murder.

Had he not known otherwise, Ponyboy would've thought Steve Randle had just risen from the flames of actual hell.

The house had suddenly gone quiet.

Sodapop dared first, standing up hesitantly.

"Steve?"

That one question was enough to set him off. Steve stormed from where he stood, shouldering quite harshly past Soda, and came in raging to the kitchen, hollering all the way in.

"That son of a bitch and his goddamn Jack Daniels! Ain't got no space in that head for none more than his booze. He can choke on Good Ol'Daniels for all I fuckin' care!"

His stride stopped in front of the refrigerator. His hand, in one motion, threw open the fridge door and shoved itself inside, not a second past that, a cold beer came grasped between it. The normal thing to do would be to walk away with his drink, but Steve faltered. His grip around the bottle didn't loosen, turning whiter the longer he glared at it.

Every greaser blinked when Randle shoved the beverage right back in.

Angered mumbles slipped under the teen's breath as he closed the refrigerator door. Darry, closest to him, barely managed to pick up on his next heated words. "Good for nothin' was too drunk to care about his dead wife's birthday. Blames me every other goddamn day for her death, but when it comes to it, doesn't give a fuck."

Ponyboy, who'd been standing now near the entrance of the kitchen, heard them too.

Steve basically stomped his way to the living room couch without halting his cussing, Sodapop followed at his heel like a lost pup. The mechanic didn't bat an eye as he promptly shoved Two-Bit's legs off the sofa, which nearly threw the older's balance off. Once the obstruction gave way, Steve curtly sat himself down on the soft furniture, feet heavily planted to the floor, and back resting boneless on the cushions.

One calloused hand went to rest on his face. "Then, the asshole kicks me out 'cause he don't like the damn conversation. Didn't plan on wastin' one more second in that shithole anyway."

He paused for a moment, seemingly to get his breath back. Even so, it was shaky, unsteady.

"F-Fuck." He growled in frustration through the stutter. Ponyboy startled violently at the fact that his voice cracked in the first place. He's seen Steve mad countless of times before, fuming even, but that right there…

Ponyboy swallowed, it had sounded like the anger itself had faltered, giving way to blatant exhaustion.

"Damn it." Steve spat out in rage, the youngest Curtis heard instead an incredible amount of desperation.

"I can't take this bullshit anymore."

Ponyboy stopped breathing, his mind wondered fast into forbidden territory on its own accord. It found the vivid memory of a dark-skinned boy, bruises littering all over his complexion, eyes devoid of hours of proper rest, and sturdy ribs poking against tattered clothes. The boy sat, doubled over between his knees, in front of a flickering fire, claiming desperately that he can't take it anymore, that he'll kill himself.

'No,' Ponyboy thought, shaking himself back, because that wasn't Steve. Steve was different, he would never get like that. It wasn't the same with him.

Then, he came back to stare at an older teen that looked like he had aged over ten years in the mere moments he'd been inside the house, tension reigned over his every muscle, each of these looking so tightly wounded that they might rip and snap apart at any moment. There, in his living room couch, was a teen that looked nothing like Steve Randle.

The eyes were the worst.

Behind all that anger, behind the frustration, there was a thick pond of submission. They were tired, they didn't want to fight anymore. They were so close to giving up.

'No,' Ponyboy repeated, because that shouldn't be Steve.

At each side of the young mechanic, Sodapop and Two-Bit had a matching set of helpless expressions on their faces. The middle Curtis wanted to hold his best friend, to soothe his pain somehow, but his limbs wouldn't listen to him. Matthews needed to crack out a joke, to lift the mood if just by an inch, but his tongue had died in his mouth and the beer in his hand was rapidly going warm; he found out that he didn't want it anymore anyways.

"Dinner's ready." Darry's voice startled them all. The oldest Curtis emerged from the kitchen with his forehead pinched by a concerned frown. "You hungry Steve?"

They turned to the teen in quiet anticipation for a stubborn scoff or resilient comeback. They stared when Randle just deflated with a small nod.

"… yeah."

Dinnertime had been depressing. The sheer discomfort all throughout the meal was palpable, despite Two-Bit and Soda's obvious attempts to lighten the situation. Mostly, they had chewed mechanically while openly glancing at Steve's sullen expression.

Ponyboy, noting how reluctant Steve had been to drink beer, had placed down a glass of water for him. The mechanic didn't acknowledge him, but seemed grateful as the cool liquid sloshed down his throat. The rest was that.

Eventually, dinner ended, some food went cold and the table was cleaned. Shortly after, Two-bit announced his leave, on his way out he ruffled Pony's hair and let a hand briefly rest on Randle's shoulder, then he was gone.

The TV rolled on in the background for half an hour, then it was lights out. The brothers went to bed in a daze.

Steve crashed on their couch.

'It turns here… and then here and, huh, here too.' Before that night, Ponyboy hadn't really noticed how many paint cracks there were on his ceiling. There were many more than he'd thought, and they were long and crooked, and they traveled almost through and through the square. Pony had counted twenty-three so far.

If it wasn't apparent enough, Ponyboy couldn't sleep.

He was so angry, so very angry. It was almost unfair, because it wasn't even his place to be angry.

Regardless, the pent-up emotions kept him from relaxing, he felt bloated up and uncomfortable. He had willed it to pass away, but it refused. He'd recurred to counting sheep, which then turned into staring at his dirty white ceiling and counting every single little crack he could make out in the dark.

Ponyboy let out and irritated sigh, figuring out that, if he hadn't kicked in yet, then he just wouldn't until his issue was sorted out. He sat up with a quiet huff, his discomfort hadn't made him forget that he shared a bed and it would be ridiculous to wake Soda up because of his pettiness.

The mattress creaked traitorously when his weight slid off of it. Sodapop was dead to the world anyway, but Pony still glared at the offending cushion for good measure.

Subtle moonlight traveled their room with little effort, and the blank paper on his desk glowed under its attention. The fifteen-year-old's frown moved to the sheet of paper, expecting to feel the same ache of helplessness he'd endured during the better part of the week. However, it was an unexpected jolt of excitement that struck him; his fingers twitched for the hold of his gnawed pencil.

Between a blink and the other, Ponyboy had snatched away paper and pencil, and quietly tiptoed his way to the door and out of the room. Now, he stood in the middle of the hallway, the deafening quiet of the night halted him. He stared in direction of the living room, determined. He knew, without looking, that Steve Randle laid on their couch in restless sleep, battling yet again with the memory of a grown man yelling, glowering and sneering as he haunted the teen's mind.

Lips pursed, Ponyboy willed his feet to move and slid into Soda's old room, vacated and where he wouldn't bother anyone, and no one would bother him.

He was still angry.

But now he had a theme to write.

The light didn't trickle in as harshly there as it did in their shared room, though it still glared vividly on Ponyboy as the morning rose unannounced. The kid didn't really notice, hunched over the desk, his cramped hand writing in rapid fire, four pages in both sides in, anything that didn't click was hastily crossed out, the pace went unscathed.

His eyelids weighed like lead but refused to slide shut, eyes flicking back and forth over his chicken scratch. His mind geared a mile a second, scavenging for proper synonyms, arguing, proposing; his fingertips were on fire, brow furrowed in concentration; under his breath slurred the shadows of the words he scribbled unto paper. Those words were all that existed, all else was dulled out, coated in dense black.

"Ponyboy?!" He almost jumped to the roof when Soda's anxious face appeared at the door, he'd looked downright frantic right up until he laid eyes on the youngest Curtis, who had a hand pressed against his chest, trying to calm himself down from the heart attack he'd just had.

"Oh, there you are." Soda visibly deflated and smiled at him sheepishly. "Sorry about that Pone, I couldn't find you anywhere." He paused for a second before raising an eyebrow. "What are you doing here anyways?"

Ponyboy blinked, stunned for a moment, before he pointed to the thin pile of paper in front of him. "I'm, uh, workin' on the essay."

Sodapop gave him an excited grin and fully entered the room. "See?" He dropped a hand on Pony's shoulder, shaking him a little. "I told ya you could do it buddy! How's that goin'?"

Ponyboy glanced down at where he'd left the paragraph on a 'with him, it's just as different story…'. His fingers itched to continue before he could forget his line of thought. He couldn't help but feel a sting of irritation at the fact that Soda had stopped him.

He nodded quickly. "Pretty good. Yeah, yeah real good."

Soda nodded slowly. "Okay. Welp, why don'tcha come out for breakfast and you can come back to it later, kay?"

Ponyboy blinked at him again, and turned back at the stack, something rolled in him against leaving it alone now.

"I'll be there in a minute."

It took his brother a while to answer.

"Okay."

And he left.

Ponyboy, once more, snatched back his pencil.

It was well into the afternoon when the young teen finally popped all joints, aligned the end draft of his essay and stood from the small desk. He'd made five drafts in total, but the final one was three, back to back, and a half pages long, and as neat as it could be.

He looked at his finished work for a moment, eyes stinging from exhaustion and accomplishment.

He felt proud.

And yet, as his eyes skimmed rapidly over every word once again, a bittersweet taste rested like iron over his tongue. He sighed thoughtfully and left the room.

He was immediately affronted by harsh sunlight and heat that somehow hadn't accumulated in Soda's old room. He cringed in discomfort, blinded for mere moments, before he made his way next door to his own room. It was empty, which he figured was natural and he didn't dwell longer than he needed in there, opting to quickly place the paper on his desk, under his rock paper holder.

He left the room again, walking quietly down the hallway and to the living room. The smell of lunch hit him before the noise did, then he was standing still as four gazes fixated on him, all of them containing various degrees of curiosity.

Finally, Sodapop smiled at him. "Hey Pony, finally finished the paper?"

Ponyboy nodded, glancing at the table they were all sitting at. Lunch was served, and they'd saved his place for him. It made him cringe a little as he realized he'd missed breakfast.

"Yeah, I'm done."

Darry shot him a smile and spoke up. "That's good, kiddo. Does that mean you finally got time to eat?'

Ponyboy flustered with Two-Bit's chuckles, and noticed that he was, quite honestly, starved. He meekly nodded and sat with them to eat together. It didn't escape him that Steve was still unusually quiet.

Halfway through the meal, Darry asked him a question.

"So, any chance you'd let us read the essay?"

Ponyboy paused and looked at him for a moment, his oldest brother looked underline excited to read his work, he's acted like that ever since Ponyboy, six months after the whole incident, finally let him read his infamous manuscript. Since then, both him and Soda have always jumped at the chance of getting a glimpse of their kid brother's work. Two-Bit would sometimes as well, and even Steve had taken the time to read one or two of his end drafts.

Of course, he only ever showed them around twenty percent of what he actually did. His gang deserved only the best.

Eventually, Ponyboy shrugged. "Sure, but after Mr. Syme grades it." He watched his brothers nod in agreement, but something perked up in his mind and he froze.

"T-Though," he started, anxiously glancing at the gang's mechanic. "I want S-Steve to read it first."

The statement shocked all of them, even Ponyboy himself, but his resolve had hardened as he waited for Randle's answer.

The older teen, looking a little perplexed and with an eyebrow raised, nodded slowly.

"Alright."

The next day was Monday.

Ponyboy fetched for Mr. Syme first thing after he stepped in school. The older man looked a bit startled when the youngest Curtis popped seemingly out of nowhere to hand in the assignment. Still, he took it with a court smile and a promise to give it back as soon as he could.

He did so that same day, right before lunch period.

He gave Pony a perfect score and a firm squeeze to his shoulders.

Pony, Two-Bit and Steve met for lunch. Matthews joked as much as usual, Ponyboy, in a light mood, laughed were he should and commented where he could. Steve smiled and laughed and joked here and there, but it was clear that he was still a bit dampened by the events of two nights ago. For a moment, Ponyboy hesitated, but it was too late now.

Right before the older teen left for class, Ponyboy, avoiding eye contact, abruptly put the essay in Steve's hands and stalked away quickly. He felt the greaser's stare linger on his back up until he rounded the corner at his hurried pace.

He just prayed Steve wouldn't hate him too much.

"…I know him, he's a strong guy, a clean greaser, but neither my brothers or I could keep a strong face after what happened to our parents, and they loved us. With him, it's just a different story, but he shouldn't have to keep the stoic mask either…"

"…This guy, he's my buddy, and I've seen him change so much over the last year, we've all changed, but we've stayed upright 'cause we've got each other, we've got the gang…"

"-all that's happened, with Johnny and Dally, and his father and his girl. I think he's forgotten that he's still got us. That he doesn't need his old man's praise anymore. Looking for it only exhausts him, it makes him look lost, dead on his feet. I've seen it."

"Johnny told me something once, curled into himself and gazing at a small fire we had built. He told me, without hesitating, that he couldn't do it anymore, not after all he's been through. Johnnycake didn't want to live anymore."

"He got what he wished for. I think about it at night, when I'm feeling down or frustrated, and it's scary. Wishing to die was much easier than fighting to live…"

"Lately, he's been wearing that same blank stare that Johnny used to have. I see him and the only thing I can think about is wipe it away from his face. I can't let the same thing happen twice. I can't watch any more of my buddies, my friends, walk themselves through a fire or into a bullet or at the end of a hanging rope."

"That's why I wrote this for him, to have him understand that. Golly, if even little tag along Curtis is willing to have his back, imagine what the rest of the gang would do."

It'd been only a few moments after the final bell when he caught sight of that distinctively greased hair, with its designated greaser, storming down the hall, coming straight towards him.

Ponyboy swallowed. 'I'm dead. He's gonna slug me to death.'

Shaking, Ponyboy stood his ground and awaited his fate, fighting against every urge to hightail it out of there.

Randle screeched to an abrupt halt just inches away from him. Neither met the other's gaze and, as the seconds crawled by in silence, Ponyboy, growing anxious, opened his mouth to at least say something.

Steve shut him up by, first, shoving the assignment back into the younger's chest and, second, reaching with his right hand and ruffling Pony's hair as roughly as possible, almost making the younger fall under the force.

Absolutely confused, Ponyboy tried to peek through the locks of hair and calloused skin to see what exactly was going on in the other teen's head for him to be acting so oddly.

Then he caught a glimpse of Steve's red rimmed eyes, just as the greaser let up.

Pony didn't even want to talk, not knowing what to do.

Then, Steve looked at him straight in the face, a smirk playing on his lips.

"You're an okay kid, Pony."