Title: Mr. Brightside
Author: Acoustic Heart
Disclaimer: I do not own the Outsiders and I do not claim to. No profit is being made from this story.

A/N: I dedicate this story to Lilac Thunder. :)

Prologue

He was a far cry from a perfect person.

He lied, he cheated, he stole and quite often he was un-reasonably and un-necessarily violent. He took it upon himself to make sure he had a bad reputation.

He made sure that the cops knew him, that the socs hated him and that his criminal record file was almost as big as a phone book.

Curly Sheppard was a perfect definition of a good for nothing hood.

Night after night he would be arrested, or picked up by the cops after getting so shit faced he would pass out in the streets and held in a cell down at the station for a night.

Then, when morning came and he would almost always be hung over, the cops would release him and he would call whoever he could think of to come and pick him up.

He would arrive home, looking like and hell and without a doubt feeling like hell. His mom would scream at him, his sister would ignore him and Tim would smack him up-side the head for being "dumb enough to get caught" (even though that wasn't always the case, but he never really did bother to give any sort of explanation.)

He would then simply go to his room and crash on his bed, only to wake up a seven at night shower and change then leave again to do exactly what he did the night before.

But every once in a while, he would get some sort of longing towards someone he wasn't really sure he could have. A young fourteen year old greaser, who was, no surprise, four years younger than him and Ponyboy Curtis with his fucking feminine body and smart mouth was jail bait, and God he was going to be the death of Curly one day.

But he wanted to get that boy out of the goddamn grasp of his two older over-protective brothers, and pretty much the rest of the morons he hung out with. He wanted to lead him into a sense of security. He wanted to see him absolutely vulnerable and he wanted to make him completely his, and only his.

And he would build up some sort of determination to get him alone, or the go and seek him out himself. But it would die down quickly as the empty bottles of liquor grew and he would go out and do something stupid, landing himself in jail and forgetting about everything else.

But he knew he had to do something. The temptation was becoming too much and he felt like ripping his hair out at times he wanted that boy so bad.

No one knew about his insane obsession, an obsession that really had to do with possessiveness and just getting what he wanted than actual affection and attraction. No one knew besides Dallas Winston. And he only came to know after he accused Dally one night of having an attraction to that young kid Johnny. He had assured him that there wasn't, and really, there's absolutely nothing between them. Sometimes even when Curley's drunk he can tell if people are lying, and Dally certainly wasn't. But a conversation that had first centered on Dally became focused on a drunken Curly as he confessed his want for the youngest Curtis; again bad things always seem to happen when he's drunk.

Dally wasn't angered or disgusted or actually affected at all, instead he calmly warned Curly, he told him that it was by far the worst idea he had ever gotten into his head and Ponyboy was really the wrong person to try and go after.

Curly often wondered if Dally knowing would affect his getting to Ponyboy.

So, on this cold November day Curly found himself pulling on his old black leather jacket and making his way down to the high school, where he was positive the cross country team would be out running laps, just finishing up their practice and he could wait just outside of the school gate, and he would stop fucking fourteen year old Ponyboy Curtis who's slicked back auburn hair and stormy eyes would invade his head almost every night, and casually tell Ponyboy he was coming to the theater with him tonight at seven.

But once again he found himself walking in the wrong direction, lighting up a cigarette and heading to Bucks to literally drink his stupid idea away and he would come up with another stupid idea that would end up in a fight or him being put in handcuffs and shoved into the back of a police car.

-Break-

It was a Friday night and usually Curly would already be completely wasted at nine o'clock. But tonight was different, he was pleasantly buzzed and it was a weird feeling for him to be happy and not be completely wasted.

The cold, harsh wind made his ears and his nose numb and his cheeks to turn red. His jacket was zipped, but not providing much protection as he shoved his hands deep into the pockets. It was cold enough for him to see his breath but not cold enough to keep him from aimlessly wandering around town.

He wasn't paying any attention to where he was walking but sure enough, he found himself walking down an all too familiar street. He was completely over come with desire and it was pulling him towards the Curtis residence and all he could think was 'I really should have had more to drink.'

There was almost an invisible force that made him keep walking past any way to avoid having to pass the house, and when he was just about to walk right by the house, he turned down the side street right by the house and walked to bucks instead.

xxx

Hi, it's short, I know. It's only the prologue. I promise there will be an update soon.