A/N: Although I'm pretty certain S.E. Hinton never had this scenario in her head when she wrote The Outsiders, if her characters were real people, I'd be surprised if something like this didn't happen.
Disclaimer: S.E. Hinton owns The Outsiders. I'm not getting paid. If I were, perhaps my updates would be a tad more rapid because then I could pay somebody to keep an eye on Little Miss Mommy-Shouldn't-Be-At-The-Computer ;).
Dedication: This one goes out to all you Darry-lovers, and to all the brothers who elusively don't leave well-enough alone.
Retribution
Darry's POV
The steering wheel fought my grip, and I reminded myself that I'd have to tell Steve to check the alignment. Damned potholes. Damned city, leaving potholes all over our end of the world so we'd have even more pointless necessities to spend our lack of money on. The guy in front of me hit his brakes for the third time, so I laid on the horn. I was ancy enough without getting stuck behind a bad driver.
"You both coming?" I asked when I pulled into the DX and Steve climbed in next to Soda.
"Damn right we're both coming," Steve answered, his tone bordering on insulted.
I had figured he would come. He knew he didn't have to, so I appreciated it. I glanced over at them as I pulled away, and was satisfied with what I saw – tough, hard, and mad.
"Where's Pony?" Soda asked evenly, not taking his eyes off the road ahead of us.
"Doing homework," I said. I had pressed him to get started on it early, since he'd be going out that night. It made for a good excuse. "Told him I needed to pick up some stuff at the hardware store."
Soda gave a nod. "Try starting at Jay's," he suggested. "We can work our way west from there."
I flicked on my blinker and made a left. "Keep an eye out," I told them. "You know who we're looking for?"
Soda stiffened next to me. "Got their faces etched in my mind."
"Like a bad dream," Steve added.
I gave a wry grin and knew they weren't kidding. It's surprising how much you can remember about somebody in just a few short seconds. Especially when those somebodies have got your little brother spread eagle beneath them and are working him over. No, some things are just easy to remember. Too easy.
"There," Steve pointed out almost twenty minutes later. "See 'im? The one with the blue shirt."
"That's one of 'em, alright," Soda agreed. His voice was dripping with anticipation. He sounded as revved up as I felt, and he was fighting it just as hard as I was. You can't go running in half-cocked, or you've all but lost before things even get started.
As I pulled into the drugstore parking lot I caught barely a glimpse of the guys standing around at the back end of the lot drinking Cokes, but even with that little to go on I could pick out two of them. I smiled at my luck. The one I wanted the most was right there, not ten yards away from me.
Steve lit up two cigarettes, passed one of them to Soda, and the three of us piled out of the truck; the group of socs started taking an interest in us about then. By the time we'd walked over, heads high, backs straight, and arms loosely flexed in controlled readiness, they had all fallen silent and turned to face us. There were four of them; only one looked unfamiliar.
"Looks like you lost your way," one of them said. He sounded cool, but he was nervous. Good. I smiled, but it was the kind of smile that stiffens your jaw and never makes it to your eyes. A couple of them shifted.
"No," I answered, calm and even, just short of friendly, "I'm just exactly where I want to be. Thanks for the thought, though." I hadn't taken my eyes off of the brown-haired guy with the tan cable-knit vest over the red shirt. Red. It was a good color on him. I felt my cold grin turn to a genuine smirk, and I knew he was sweating when I took a step toward him.
"Hey, man," he said, "you'd better just move along. We outnumber you here, so you'd better just -"
Soda gave a little laugh, the unamused kind, that made the guy stop mid-sentence. They had no idea what we were up to.
I shook my head, finding a primitive pride in being able to psyche these guys out before we'd even made contact. I stripped off my unbuttoned outer shirt and tossed it off somewhere beside me, so I was down to my white t-shirt. It was enough to get the guy I was focusing in on to swallow and take half a step back. "Oh, I'd say the odds are with us today," I told him. "See, two pissed-off big brothers count as at least four of you assholes." Steve let out something of a snort, like a penned bull ready to leap the walls before the gate flew open. "Buddy, you picked the wrong kid to shake up yesterday."
It took a second for realization to dawn in the eyes of the three who'd been there. "Look, we didn't hurt that kid," Red told us.
Soda snickered, and I pulled my stance a bit taller as I took another step forward. "No? When I showed up, what I saw was you sittin' on top of him, and your fist was comin' down hard on his face." Just saying it out loud made me see it all over again and got my blood running in a cold boil – exactly the way I wanted it. The guy's hand clenched slightly, and I tried not to smile. You cut my little brother, buddy, so go ahead. You'd better believe I want you to take a swing at me.
We all stood there for a minute just breathing, waiting. Every breath gave the three of us more power, while at the same time siphoning away their confidence. "We just wanted to scare him," Red spoke again, sounding like he actually felt a little bad. It wasn't even close to being retribution enough for me. One of his buddies made to shush him, but he brushed him off. "He went nuts, though, and it all went to hell when we tried to calm him down. We weren't trying to hurt him," he said again, this time with a desperate edge of defensive anger in his voice, and I knew it was the truth; they'd panicked, plain and simple, and hurt somebody they'd only meant to rattle. Thing was, they'd picked my brother for their game, so it didn't make a damned bit of difference to me what they'd meant to do.
"Well now, ain't that a coincidence," I said, gesturing toward Soda and Steve, "we didn't come here to hurt you, either. Funny how things happen, though."
It's amazing how well you can work together with guys you've know all your fighting life, how they know without any plan or discussion exactly when you're ready for them to move in. My brother and his best buddy, who might just as well have been one of my brothers, didn't disappoint me. As soon as I'd finished speaking, the two of them tossed their cigarettes and became tornadoes of fists and fury. Those socs almost didn't know what hit them.
I nabbed the one I'd claimed, the one who'd determined his own fate the second he laid his hands on Ponyboy, and to be honest, I was kind of disappointed that he went down so fast. I still didn't let up; I wanted him at least as scared as he'd made my little brother, so by the time I had him laid out under me with a blood-splattered face and bruised up ribs, he was all but crying. I gripped the top of his shirt hard and clenched my teeth, pulling my fist back for a blow that would knock his teeth loose. He let out a sharp breath and winced. But he didn't try to talk me out of it. No pleading, no explanations – just this look in his eyes that said go ahead, I was hoping this was coming. As soon as I saw it, I understood it. He had a baby brother at home. Don't ask me how I knew; I just did.
I shook my head and lowered my fist, loosening my grip on his shirt. "No, man. No way. You ain't getting off that easy." He closed his eyes for an instant. "You fight him straight up the next time you got a real beef," I told him, "but I can tell you now, he would kick the shit out of you." I had no doubt of it, either. As much as he needed to work on using his head, Ponyboy was a tough kid and a good strong fighter. Even at ten, he'd done decent in scuffles with me and Soda. This jerk wouldn't have got off easy if he'd fought Pony fair and square.
The guy gave a slight nod, and I hauled myself off of him. Soda and Steve, having gotten the better of the other three socs, snapped to attention like soldiers and fell into my shadow the second I backed off. Soda scooped up my shirt and we piled back into the truck and left, bruised but victorious.
"You beat the crap out of that guy?" Soda asked five blocks later when the adrenaline had tapered off.
I nodded as I pulled into the hardware store to pick up the stuff I didn't need. "Yeah." I didn't tell Soda the whole truth – that I'd only done half the beating. I hadn't let Red pay for all his sins under my fists, so he would have to figure out the rest on his own. I'd seen it in his eyes, and I knew…the bruises I'd dished out weren't half as bad as what he'd be feeling every time he looked at his little brother and saw Ponyboy – tough and cool gone scared and frantic, sprawled out helpless under his reddened hand and trying to scramble away like a rabbit caught in a snare.
I smiled inwardly; I couldn't have gotten better retribution for Ponyboy if I'd had the money to pay for it. I knew he would never know, but it was enough that I did. Because of all the things in my life that were obvious to me, the most glaring truth was that I would die for my brothers if they needed me to; it didn't seem possible that either one of them could ever doubt that fact.
Hope ya'll enjoyed. Here's some extra credit – did anyone pick up on the subtly/blatantly (haha) foreshadowing sentence? Hint: it's not in the last paragraph (send it in a PM rather than in the review!).
Liz