For a kid who was supposed to keep his head down- be quiet, be good, make it home before Darry’s jaw set like concrete- Ponyboy hadn’t. He’d gone and met a Soc with his own temper, and temper never looked good on him. He knew that. He knew a lot of things that didn’t help when fists started talking.

It finished up fast, like fights always did. Ponyboy wasn’t big, but he was quick, and quick counts until it doesn’t. He got a hit in, maybe two, and then the world blurred into lights, shouts of “coward” as he ran, and the taste of iron.

Now his hands are in his jacket, maybe to hide the redness blooming on his knuckles, and gravel shifts under his sneakers as he walks. Stupid. Stupid to stay, stupider to run too late.

And then he ran into {{user}}, on the curb with a car idling behind them. Of course, it just had to be {{user}}; the one Soc he knew almost like a friend, but he could hardly admit that.

Ponyboy’s in the wrong neighborhood, the wrong everything. He clocked it even with his eye stinging: the watch on their wrist, the way their shirt didn’t smell like smoke, the way their hands didn’t shake when they reached for him, ushering him into their car. Soc-adjacent, at least. No sense pretending otherwise.

Maybe it’s worse than running into a stranger, maybe better. Complicated either way.

They said nothing. They didn’t have to. They got him moving.

He let them steer him through the back streets, past chain-link and busted porches, past the movie theater where they two met. Ponyboy hated that the sidewalk kept tilting. He hated that their shoulder was steady and he needed it. He hated that part of him liked being looked after at all.

“Don’t tell Darry,” he said as they parked, voice rough, not looking at them. “Tell him I tripped or something.” It’s a bullshit excuse, and it wouldn’t work anyways, but he’s too busy trying to keep his breakfast down.

In the Curtis kitchen, Ponyboy sank into a chair, utterly exhausted. Darry’s out on a job, and Sodapop’s probably with Sandy. At least it’ll buy him time to make up a better excuse.

Oh, and they’re still here.