Pity Party, Quite Literally (Two-Bit/OPEN)

[eastsidesunset]

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE OUTSIDERS. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. Got that? Good. ^^


(What is this thread about, you ask? Well, ladies and gentlemen, today in the world of Crack!threads we are serving just one dish: Pure and undiluted angst of the most delicious variety. Please note, the bathroom is to your immediate right-- Though Angst is a delicacy to many, it has the tendency of being slightly vomit-inducing to some. Thank you, and enjoy your meal.)

And the pity party starts in 3... 2... 1...

Drops of freezing rain water found home all over him, from his messy half-greased hair to his hand-me-down hoodie, his worn out jeans and his scuffed tennis sneakers. But he simply walked on, as oblivious to the rain as he was to the rest of the messed up world. Not even the stars drew his attention like they normally would because what were they except distant specks of light in a sea of darkness, doing nothing but stare at you indifferently from some eternal resting place? You could watch them with as such longing it feels like your heart would burst after another second and still, they would do nothing. Move nowhere.

And so he looked neither up at the sky nor down at the ground beneath him, and simply stared at nothing as he continued his walk to nowhere. Well, that was a lie. Both parts of the sentence were lies. Because no matter how hard he willed it to be false, he couldn't not see the two images burned forever onto his retinas, two movies playing at exactly the same time yet so separate in his mind's eye. Painfully crystal clear. He couldn't shake them out, and he'd given up trying for hours by now.

And the second lie?

He wasn't going nowhere. He did have a destination in mind, though it was as yet only a vague little notion at the back of his head. Only an idea of his subconscious. His ultimate destination? A place called Release by some people, Bliss by others, Freedom to still others. To him, it was simply a way to put an end to the movies replaying over and over in front of his eyes. Instinct. And release wasn't too awful of an idea either.

From a stranger's perspective, perhaps he would look dangerous, the perfect image of a juvenile delinquent with his greased back hair, his ratty clothes and the fierce expression on his face. But he was only hopelessly lost in the black hole of his own unbearable grief. The expression was trained-- a mask he wore when the only other option was to become an open book, the last thing he wanted, especially now. Now, when he felt like there was a volcano inside him threatening to erupt at any moment. All greasers felt things violently but he... he was one of the best. Or worst. However you wanted to think of it.

Streetlights. Hospital walls. Gunshots. Bleached, stiff sheets. Each picture, each scene as jarring as the next. Slowly, he could feel his every nerve, muscle, bone and tendon inside him ripping apart. He was disintegrating from the inside out and soon enough he would be nothing more than a bundle of empty skin cells, nothing but air inside him. Just a walking corpse. Because at least skeletons had bones to hold them up, support them, keep them from collapsing and having no way of standing back up. Boy, did skeletons have it easy.

All he wanted was an out, goddammit. Just one bright neon exit sign somewhere on the shadowy walls of the cursed movie theatre where you would go insane decades before the movie ever ended, where insanity was a blessing and tears only fuelled the monster behind the controls of the screen, where screams only made the monster laugh with joy at your pain.

"Run for your life," he whispered tonelessly to the blackness in front of him, standing still as a statue, "Run for something not worth running for."



(In all seriousness, there is no real point at all to this thread. (Until someone creates one, perhaps? ) Feel free to run into him, angsting over your own problem of whatever strikes your fancy. xD Comfort him, attack him, scream at him, simply run past him, whatever. Just join in however you see fit.)

[merrill]

It was like that old saying, "Shit happens", except this time there was no humor that accompanied that statement. No matter how much one could deny it, none can admit that it was not the least bit true. Shit happened and he knew all too well about it. Often did he say it in the light-hearted way it was meant to be, but today it defined the situation all too well. He had seen two friends murdered in the same night. One was by the cruelties and unfairness of life whilst the other was brutally shot down by the same people that were meant to protect the public. 

Two-Bit had thought Dallas had an unyielding shield against anything that was thrown his way, let alone a measly bullet. He had thought his friend could have protected anyone with his tough, impenetrable armor against anything. Now that he was dead, what was there to believe in? When the most stoical person you know is killed in front of your eyes, it was more than a little disconcerting. 

What made his heart sink even more was the fact that he had left Dally to die after he had stabbed him in the back. Perhaps, not literally, but it was as real as it could get for Two-Bit. The thoughts of how he shattered any trust the younger man had in him were haunting his fevered mind and he kept on having to take deep breaths to prevent himself from doing something ridiculous like screaming. 

Taking one last deep breath as clenched the steering wheel of his car and stared out the window; well, more like at his window. Each connected crack in the windshield reflected on how shattered his soul was. Or felt like. Everything seemed to be connected to him, even when there was no existing connection, his irrational mind made one. For one thing, he should have stayed away from Sylvia and maybe Dallas would not have been so bitter. Second, he should have went after the kid's when they had run away. Heck, he should have stayed with them that night instead of attending that damn game of snooker.

Whenever he thought of them his throat would get a funny feeling like he swallowed needles. His lungs would tighten and he could not help but squeeze his eyes shut. This time he could not close his eyes no matter how wayward his mind was. Even closing them for a brief second would result him in some car accident of sorts. Not that it would matter. He always seemed to find a way out of situations like those. Too many times has he come out a survivor. 

It seemed as if New York's streets were empty as he pressed on through the rain. Nothing in his environs registered into his brain and more than once did a car swerve so it would not miss him. He made no move to stop any time. He wanted to keep on going and to never stop. He hoped that if he drove on forever without a stop, he would not have to deal with the shit he was leaving behind. He drove slowly because he did not want it to make it seem like he was running away. If he went slow, it wouldn't make him look as much as a coward. 

Two-Bit had to stop for the third time that night. His hand would not stop trembling it did not help his punctilious driving very much. He thought a lot of it, to let the steering wheel go and not have to deal with the shit that would happen after. However, he could not let himself do it. After all, cowardice was something he was not aiming at. He pulled over slowly and held his hand. Damn. He wished he could have a beer.

The trembling hand was one of the reasons why he drank, at least one of the few and for the most part. After about ten hours without a drink the headaches would come and his mind would settle into a cloud of depression. He figured that was not a good thing, but he did not want to deal with that either. 

Leaning back in the seat, he ignored the cravings and watched as each drop of rain hit the car. They slowly slid down the windows and Two-Bit decided that water would do him some good. Much better than dying of thirst. He cut the engine and pinched the bridge of his nose, ignoring the headache. Not to mention, the heartache. That dreadful feeling that it was the end of the world and everything was your fault; it was killing him slowly. 

Lately it seemed a lot of things were his fault such as Pony getting sick and Dallas falling behind that shield of steel and not to mention getting Sylvia to hate his guts. Every single of those fault could not be consulted by a beer bottle. His sorrows could not be drowned in alcohol, nor could his anger could be relieved by throwing the bottle at some alleyway wall. Maybe then some cop could pick him up and throw his ass in jail so that he didn't have to deal with screwing up again.

The freezing rain refreshed him, quenching a great thirst for freedom from the car he'd been driving for hours, it seems. The water soaked through the old tee shirt under his jacket he was wearing and dampened his hair, washing the grease from it. He pushed his sopping wet bangs out of his vision and perceived a figure through the mist the rain was creating. 

The slump was all-too familiar and Two-Bit instantly recognized Ponyboy. The kid that nearly died because of him. It had been such a great relief when he found out the kid was okay. The guilt still hung over him and his insides still deteriorated a little when he saw him. He had promised to quit drinking after showing up at the Curtises, blubbering like an idiot. That resolution did not last very long when the withdrawal hit him and man, did it hit hard. 

"Fancy seein' you here," he said, forcing a smile and hiding his hands in his jacket's pocket. "I thought sunny days an' rodeos were more your thing."

It was a weak attempt at whatever joke he was trying to make. It was hard to think of anything smart or witty to say when your mind is stuck in an abyss of nothing and depression. At least it was an attempt. Dallas had his shield, Pony had his books, and Two-Bit had humor to his behind. It was his own shield and it was hard to keep it up when you are so defenseless.

Shit happens and it seems like it could be the end of the world. 

[eastsidesunset]

He didn't know how long he stood there, just letting the rain soak through his clothes, his hair, his skin-- all the things he longed to escape. Maybe if he stood there long enough, the water would take pity on him and wash both him and the movies far, far away to some place where he didn't have to feel. Or maybe the rain would simply melt him into just another of one of the millions of puddles on the ground. And when the sun came out tomorrow, everything that made him Ponyboy Curtis would evaporate, meld with the very clouds he used to watch with the friend who was now simply gone, gone with the wind and the leaves and the sun and the stars and the whole wide world...

Just. don't. think.

But how? Thoughts, memories were all that was left. He couldn't stop thinking without forgetting, and he would rather die than forget. He couldn't get rid of the memories that were tearing him into a billion pieces without losing the memories that kept him sane, human, even if just for one more second, one more tick of the clock that would never stop going and going even as the air itself explodes all around...

His heartbeat pounded in his ears, overlapping the soundtrack of the movies like a bell tolling the counts of midnight. Five... four... three... two... one... Like Cinderella and her fairytale, he knew what would happen when the clock's last earth-shattering chime finished resonating, but that didn't make any difference. Death was death, as final as the end of a magical spell, and no amount of steeling yourself could change that fact.

Even Disney taught kids the lesson of the circle of life, but why did it feel it so unbelievably different in real life? Put simply, he felt like someone put a knife through his heart but something went wrong and he just kept bleeding, like his body suddenly had limitless amounts of blood and he just would not die; no matter how much unbearable pain he was in he wouldn't pass out. Couldn't.

Nature wasn't beautiful. It was one of the cruellest things imaginable.

He felt sick, sick all over and knowing the cure didn't exist, would never exist. There was only a single painkiller that he knew would make him go numb forever, but was the easy way out really worth it? The question made his head ache. Just another kind of pain to deal with on top of everything else. But he'd take a billion headaches, ten million broken bones and a trip through the fires of hell if it meant the disappearance of the one type of torture he just couldn't take any more of.

Slowly, he reached into the back pocket of his jeans and felt the familiar presence of the switchblade he'd recently gotten used to carrying around. Oh, he'd read plenty of stories where characters used physical pain to distract themselves from internal ones. But never before had he considered it seriously, not even when his parents died. Who would want to voluntarily feel the awful sensation of metal cutting into flesh? He hadn't been able to understand. Until now.

He hesitated, then pulled the blade out, flicking the sharp end out. Just feeling the solid weight of it in his hand was like a tiny anchor to cling on to while the rest of him couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to lose itself and float away or drag itself down until it was so heavy he would suffocate from the sheer weight.

It was the tiniest bit of control in the chaos his mind was in. Whether he wanted to use it or not was up to him. And that was what mattered at that moment, the comfort of knowing that he had a tiny edge of the power even while everything, from the movies to the brokenness inside him was completely out of his control. If he wanted, he could end it right now, even. Everything.

And all of a sudden, he was calm in a way he thought he'd never be again. Like the moment after an earthquake or hurricane when everything stood deathly still. And as he gripped the handle of the blade tightly in his fist, he smiled, the expression foreign and cold as ice on his face. He had nothing left to lose. Nothing left to give. So why was he still here?

Four reasons.

They were what kept him standing, stiff and hollow but standing all the same, instead of on the ground, curled up into a ball and sobbing until there were no tears left. Four people. It was just barely enough, knowing they were still alive and would miss him if he disappeared into the clouds. The weight pressing down on him, suffocating him, had not reached them yet and he hung on to it without even knowing why or how.

He was still holding on the knife when the voice, seeming to come out of the raindrops themselves, made him jump half a foot, accidentally cutting his hand with the edge of the blade as he did. He barely felt it, and made no attempt to staunch the bleeding. As drips of blood mixed into the puddles at his feet, he simply stared at the figure making its way towards him.

The pouring rain and near-darkness made it nearly impossible to distinguish the features of the person, but he didn't need eyes to see who it was. Two-Bit Mathews. One of the four pieces of rope that still kept him hanging by his fingernails to the world he'd all but given up on. He supposed he should feel relieved, but all he felt all of a sudden was anger and blame. Why did they have to keep him here? He wanted out. Two-Bit was keeping him from his out. It was simple. A fire flashed inside him, but it burned out as soon as Two-Bit reached him, ashes the only thing left in its place.

He stared at his friend with eyes as dead as his heart was, a cold emptiness filling the hole the fire left in him. There was nothing he wanted to say and so he didn't say anything, just felt the dull sting of the cut on his hand and willed it to grow on its own so that he wouldn't have to do anything himself. Perhaps they were the thoughts of a coward-- Hell, he knew they were, but frankly, he just didn't care about things like honour and courage anymore. They were nothing but the useless dreams of a life long past, and they now belonged to someone else.

[merrill]

With each wet raindrop came another wave of woe and despair. The feeling of abandonment and loneliness filled the empty hole in his chest where his heart should have been. The large drops of water fell from the stormy heavens and would hit him on the head, dampening his rusty hair to a dark color. If the rain did not hit his head, it would slide down his forehead and upon his cheek. Each hit formed a drop akin to a tear and created a similar effect to crying. Two-Bit hadn't cried since he was young; he'd forgotten how.

If the rain was bad, the wind was far worse. He cursed the existence of cold and how it clutched at the empty hole in his chest, filling it with its deadly cold breath of air. It chilled him, as if he was not freezing to death already. However, nothing could compare to how cold his late friends were probably feeling. Ten feet in the ground, and it was guarantee you will never feel yourself move without pain ever again. Not that it would matter, they were dead. And you could have stopped it, the sarcastic voice in the back of his mind said with bite and pure malevolence. 

The thought haunted him and filled his head with malice and spite for himself. He had the wisp of an idea on the many ways he could prevented many things. Every time a new way would come to him, it bit him with its poisoned teeth and its watchful eyes bore holes into him. All over he felt the effects of pain every time he tried to cope. Whenever he tried to speak, his throat would catch and he would get that prickly feeling. His mind would flare up and this time he felt his hand begin to quiver once again.

His voice had startled the kid and he now bled a stream of dark red liquid. Two-Bit's mind ventured back to the night where he had seen Dally die and of the blood erupting from his chest after the bullet pierced through it. He had seen it many times before, but never has it affected him this deeply. It was as if someone had twisted open a tap for water and a stream of blood spurted out instead. This time, Two-Bit was unable to turn the tap off. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose once again to steady the nausea and tried to drag his inner self from returning to the dark abyss he has been avoiding for the past few days. It had been there his whole life, but only now did it tempt him. It taunted him with the promises of peace and there was alluring thought of a world where he could no longer remember. His mind danced the thin line between life and the dark, vast abyss. It should have been an easy decision to make, but the pain he would have to go through before he could reach that world of nothing.

As his inner self debated those tantalizing thoughts, his outer self endeavored a renewal of his ever-so humorous facade. Every cell of his body screamed at him to return to the car and proceed with his escape. His instincts, on the other hand, were deep-rooted and were ordering him with much confidence and return to the home where his friends remained and where there was...Sylvia. What would all his comrades think of him if they knew of the deadly dispute that was raging inside of him like a wild fire burning out of control. 

Two-Bit had seen the blade cut through the kid's skin and as he observed his reaction, he found it close to none. It was as if he had not felt it at all. Perhaps the kid had slipped behind a recluse shield of iron and cold. After Dally died, the shield the man once wore was now being passed down to Ponyboy. His lungs tightened at the memories Dally's name had brought along with his conclusion. He could not let the kid, intelligent and respectful Pony, harden and turn a blind eye to the good in the world. 

If you didn't leave the kid alone he would gave never killed that asshole Soc. The malicious voice sent a fresh wave of hell to devour his insides, whatever was left of them. The only thing that was so cruelly spared was his mind. A form of torture and he could no longer bear to look at the kid. The eyes of a victim was almost as bad as a dead man's. Maybe even worse. The eyes accused him of everything and his entire innards began to fall apart even more. 

He held his quivering hand with the other with a firm grip and swallowed the pain in his throat. "I--I didn't mean to surprise you," he said, inspecting Pony's wound without any willingness. The cut went deep, but it was nothing that could not be cured. However, everything else was no longer within the ability to be cured. Only what was vital to survival was spared from the virus known as misery. 

He could no longer hide behind the mask of good humor and no longer was his face able to keep that good-natured grin. His stomach sank and he felt an urgent need to release its contents. He kept the craving under control. What he couldn't control was fate or pain. Those two elements were left behind and unable to find another abode to keep the company cold.  

He sighed and shook his soaking head, the droplets falling loosely out of his dampened hair and fixated his gaze on the switchblade. "It's a little cold, don't you think?" he stated with melancholy and exasperation, his meaning quite literal as it was said figuratively. 

He was dead even if his soul and body were remaining on what we call Earth. Misery has taken over his frost-bitten body and his detest for an imperfect world increased.o

[taylor]

[/center][/b]

One minute he was alive; the next, dead. Hovering a few inches off the ground, he stared at his body – just an empty shell, now –at the hospital bed, cheap blankets rough and scratchy, at the white wash walls, at the two other people in the room who left as quickly as he looked at them, at the sullen-faced nurse who peeked her head in and called the doctors name, door shutting softly behind her, like a hand pressed into the soft icing of a cake. He hovered and stared in the hospital room until his body was covered in a white sheet (always white in this place, a blinding, unclean kind of white, like you could hear the sharp snap of a rubber latex glove when you looked at it) and taken downstairs into the morgue, where he hovered and stared down there, instead.

He did a lot of that in the following days; hovering, and staring. He watched as his parents were notified but didn’t answer the phone when called the first time, or the second, or the third, or the seventh, until finally they sent someone out to make a house call. He hovered and stared as his mom, black eyes narrowed into slits, like someone had glued lead over her eyes, tell the representative they’d “gotten the damn voicemails already. Stop bothering us.” And slammed the door shut. He stuck around his old house for a bit after that, watching as she leaned against the door frame and slid down, down, down to the floor and stared at a gravy stain in the carpet, looking like she was expecting something that would never ever come, wiping her dry eyes and glaring at her hand when it came back clean.

After his dad woke up from his afternoon nap the next day, bleary eyed, red in the face and snapped, “Where the fuck is that kid? He hasn’t cleaned his room in a week,” he decided to leave.

He hovered around a bit, watching black tires spin in shallow puddles, and for the first time since he’d died and became this transparent, hovering watcher, he felt dully curious about something. Why was he still around? He hadn’t seen any other dead people – ghosts, spirits, whatever you wanted to call them. It was just him and the alley cats, who always seemed to look right at him.

The next months passed in a blur of nothing. He took to following around the gang and occasionally dropping by his parents place, unsure of where Dally had gone off to; he hadn’t seen him since that night in the hospital. Sometimes they’d act fine and other times the silence would be so awkward it would swallow them whole and nobody met up for a few days. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about much of anything, anymore. Just went about his business, hovering and watching, occasionally inquiring why am I still here? but never receiving any response.

It would have been achingly boring and lonely if he still felt stuff like that anymore.

He’d been trailing Two-Bit that day when he met up with Ponyboy, both looking like they’d seen better days. Hovering there, observing without judgment or comment or even a need to do anything, he felt something stirring inside him but was unable to place it. It was like someone on a diet had just eaten a second piece of double fudge cake.

But before he could place the unfamiliar feeling it was swept up in the wind. And Johnny Cade hovered there, watching, unfeeling. Like he always did.


OOC: Um, wow. I do believe I was just out-angsted. How is apathy supposed to be angsty anyways? >_> Whatever. The Angst Noob tried, at least.
[/font][/color][/ul]

[eastsidesunset]

"It's a little cold, don't you think?"

Was it? He looked down at his sodden clothes and the puddles at his feet, and he supposed it should be cold. More than cold. Freezing. It was only at this realization did it register to him that his body was shivering violently. He didn't feel at all cold though. He knew what cold felt like (....a blood-curdling scream as the burning church collapses, and he knows with an icy punch in his gut exactly what's happened; shots ring out louder than canons and he feels like he's frozen solid, anable to move, unable to scream, the only thing left to do being to let his legs give out underneath him, to fall, fall, fall into the freezing concrete and equally freezing oblivion....) and this was definitely not it.

No, he wasn't cold, he was positively warm. The shivering was nothing. Just his worn out body lying to him again. He shook his head jerkily, once, twice, like a robot badly needing an oiling. He was fine. No, he was anything but fine. He knew he was dying, dissolving from the inside out, but what Two-Bit didn't know wouldn't kill him. Two-Bit had his own misery to deal with without having to be forced to comfort Ponyboy.

He gritted his teeth with an audible click, pushing away the want-- the need to explode, to give his tortured mind for someone else to handle even just for a minute. Refraining from doing so was like holding on to a white-hot iron and he knew he couldn't keep this up for long, no matter how hard he tried. Without even making a conscious decision or thinking about what Two-Bit might think, he dug his nails deep into the cut on his hand he'd all but forgotten about.

The slight bit of physical pain he finally felt-- though only a whisper of what he wanted, what he needed to keep holding on to that burning hot iron-- lightened the load on his mind only by a tiny fraction, but even a fraction was something, right? Right?

Not enough. Far from enough. He couldn't do it anymore. He released his fingers from his hand, all of whatever remained of his willpower gone. There's no use. They're never coming back. Why was he even trying to resist? What was he trying to resist anyway? The unfairness of life? Brutal, merciless death? He couldn't win against them. It was like fighting with the ocean. It was submit or fall apart trying. Either way ended in death and he knew it.

Hot, silent tears spilled from his eyes and blended with the rain on his face. He didn't care whether or not Two-Bit saw. He was too far gone for that. Maybe he could run, right now, not looking back, and just run and run and run like a horse with blinders on to a place where nobody knew him and nobody cared. He could cut those four ropes permanently, right now. Two-Bit couldn't catch him.

But even as he thought it, he knew somewhere deep inside him that it wasn't ropes tying him here. It wasn't Two-Bit or Steve or even his brothers. It was them. Mom. Dad. Johnny. Dally. He could never leave them. Like making a promise with someone on their deathbed. He could leave the living, maybe, but he couldn't leave the dead.

His shallow breathing hitched at the realization and black spots formed in his vision. Added to the tears and the rainwater already in his eyes, the only thing he'd be able to see should he remember to look would be a murky, misty world and an equally blurry person in front of him. But he wasn't looking. There was only one thing he could think about, with the movies of horror still playing and his dead buddies' screams and moans and defiant shouts still seeming to echo in the air.

He was trapped. Trapped in this hell with its memories and reminders that would haunt him with every step he took. No way back. No way forward. He simply kept staring through Two-Bit with blank, unseeing eyes as his stubborn body kept on shivering for a reason he could never understand. No way back. No way forward.

Someone save me.

"Please," he whispered, his voice hoarse and barely audible even to himself.

[merrill]

Two-Bit swallowed even though his mouth was dry. When he had done so, it created an effect similar to swallowing paper or tree bark. He opened his mouth and took in a quivering breath as he tried to inhale some of the humid air. He could hardly maintain a strong grip to reality when he watched the kid willingly loss his. Pony seemed to have no care and disregarded whatever physical pain he should be experiencing. For once, Two-Bit was wishing the lost soul could feel that physical pain and show a sign that he was still conscious. 

It was bad enough Johnny and Dal were gone. Gone like a log in a fire that had been reduced to ashes. Gone as if they never existed.

He drew another quivering breath and tried to steady himself. His legs were shaking and he knew if he did not lean against something or sat down, he would probably collapse. He felt like he was drunk, even though he hasn't drank anything for a day. He was drunk from the pain, hopelessness and just about everything else that came with death. Who knows what the hangover will bring him. 

Two-Bit took a tender step-- and was glad he didn't fall over his own feet --as he placed a firm hand on Pony's shoulder. The tiniest contact nearly left him keeled over with the same pain they were sharing. He could no longer stand the sight of the boy, because Two-Bit knew exactly how he felt. At least, he thought so. Whatever he was experiencing must be a hundred times worse for the kid. Pony was actually there; he was at the church when it burned to a crisp and he was there when that Soc was killed...while Two-Bit had been at home, his mind in a cloud of worry and anticipation. He would have gone to Mexico to find them. 

All those memories were blinked away within a second. He has that ability to avoid thinking of troublesome things, but when they come back, they can hit really hard. Thus far, he was able to withstand everything; even with his mind being an incoherent, irrational mush. It was no different from other days, except for the fact he could not bring himself to talk as much. When he did, he found himself acting older than he normally did. He hated that. He hated the whole idea of having to grow up and be the older man. He despised the fact that he could no longer return to the days where everything was all okay.

Two-Bit tried to look away when big, fat tears fell from the kid's eyes. They were unmistakably teardrops. Jesus. He'd thought the kid was tough. He'd thought that greasers were unable to squeeze even a few teardrops, let alone begin to sob. Sure, there was the frustrated tears of anger, and the ones you feel coming when you experience extreme pain like being smashed to pieces. Other than that, never. Two-Bit would not be able to tell you when was the last time he had cried. He couldn't remember ever having to. 

Now, here was Ponyboy, salty tears falling down his face as the rain above. Two-Bit could not look away because the sight was stunning. He felt his gut wrench with pain and more despair as he struggled to prevent the weight of the world from falling onto his shoulders. He didn't want everyone to start falling apart and he knew it was up to him to help glue everyone back together if it were to happen. After all, if he had stayed with Johnny and the kid before they killed that Soc, they might have never died. All his fucking fault. 

"Please..."

It was hardly more audible than a whisper or a gasp, but Two-Bit's observant ears caught the word. It stung, for some reason, and he felt its weight on his heart. He bit the inside of his cheek to abstain himself from screaming at him. If he hadn't restrained himself, whatever he would have said would be some stream of subconscious thoughts and blubbering. He was not all too sure what to think. Was that 'Please' a cry for help? or an order for him to leave? He let the thought remain as a puzzle in his mind, and rubbed his eyes. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and let the other fall to his side.

"Let's go, kid," he said, in a voice much lower than his normal. "You'll catch your d--" He'd nearly said death. "--a cold in weather like this."  

[ooc=That was a meh-ish post ]

[yolanda7h]

Those people that talked a lot of shit on TV keep sayin that things are peaceful after death. It was bullshit, like most things that come out of people's mouths. There was nothing peaceful about it.

The last thing he remembered was getting exactly what he wanted.

He got exactly what he wanted, like always. At first it felt satisfying. He remembered pulling out the unloaded gun, the cold metal heavy in his hands. The cops were running towards him and he knew that in a few seconds, it'll be over. Because there was nothing left. There was nothing left because Johnny was gone. Fuck the cops. Fuck these people. Everything and everyone could go to fuckin hell.

Shoot me, he remembered thinking. Shoot me, dammit!

Johnny's dead.

SHOOT ME!

Johnny's dead.

And in a second, piercing and raw pain shot through his flesh. It was over. A second of relief. It was over. He could feel blood shooting up his throat and his breath stopping short in his chest as his body convulsed by the impact of the gunshots. There was nothing left - just a mangled body. A body that was out of fight. A body that grew tired of running on empty. Dally wasn't even aware of the state he was in. The feeling of emptiness doesn't know the feeling of emptiness. But it was real and deep down, in a fit of uninhibited rage, desperation, and impulsive self destruction, Dally was content in letting those bullets fill the void. By the time he hit the ground, the very same coldness that fueled his survival within the unforgiving and relentless life he'd been dealt swelled through his pale skin. And that was how he remained. Icy and cold to the world.





The streets were empty.

Unfamiliar. Stale.

He was no longer flesh and bone. No longer warm blood hot with unwavering anger, boiling with fast impulsive fever and violence. He was simply in another state of what he was in life - continuously walking through non-existence. A state of being in the world but never truly a part of it - and never allowing himself to be. He didn't regret it. He felt painful triumph while wandering down empty streets. Nothing here mattered. He'd lost Johnny and he'd lost himself. There was nothing else left, so it didn't surprise him. Yes, for him, the streets were empty. He saw no one for a long while. Not Darry, not Tim. Not Sylvia. They were there - somewhere. But Dally saw none of them. Some how, this was fitting.

Yet there was silence in the rain. But rain was never peaceful. And neither was death.

Some point in time brought him to Two-Bit and Pony - the first two people he saw since he'd left them. Both of them were talking on the side of the road. After death one would feel nostalgia, possibly, at the sight of two guys that he spent the most and some of the best times with. But Dally didn't feel nostalgic. He watched Pony break down, Two- Bit a wreck, and could feel nothing but anger. Not because of any grudges, not because of petty times when people might have pissed him off. None of that mattered now.

He was mad because they weren't supposed to be breaking down like this. There was no point in breaking down. They were supposed to be tough, like he'd told them to be. No one was going to feel sorry for them and Dally didn't want anyone to be sorry for him, most importantly. It was over for him and Johnny. But not for them. Maybe the streets wouldn't be empty for them. They actually had a shot at something.

A force of wind he could not feel swept over Two- Bit and Pony and stopped watching them for a moment and saw Johnny. He couldn't speak to him though - they were on different planes. But he was there, that Dal knew. Even in death, Johnny was gone to Dally in some way. Always nothing but a shell of emptiness, even in apparitions of the one person he actually cared about.

I'm proud of ya, buddy, what was left of Dally's being said - before continuing to watch Two-Bit and Pony. Maybe they would see him standing there. A shadow moving in the world. A shadow trying to brave the empty streets.

[eastsidesunset]

The raw buzz in his ears made it next to impossible to focus on Two-Bit's words. But he caught something about going somewhere. Distantly, he felt himself shaking his head fervently almost in time with the violent shivers. There was nowhere he could go. No place in the entire apathetic universe he could go to put himself back together. No hospital on Earth that could get rid of his pain.

Slowly, he felt his eyes running out of tears and he drew a sharp, shuddering breath. It was like he was inhaling liquid ice, not oxygen. Deep breaths just weren't enough anymore. Maybe I'll just drown in this rain, he thought vaguely, all the common sense he ever had gone along with his hope. He felt as if he were a helium balloon with a million pins stuck in but still expected to stay afloat. How did Two-Bit manage? He knew his friend was stronger than him, and not just physically, but not until now did he realize by how much.

He noticed at the back of his mind that he was still shaking his head, and he stopped with some effort. Even the simplest movements took an incredible amount of will. And will was something he severely lacked right now. And probably would for the rest of his existence. Why wouldn't Two-Bit just leave him be? All he had left was the rain that he prayed and prayed and kept on praying to whatever God or gods were up there that would just wash him away, wash away the blood and the pain and whatever was left of his horribly mangled soul...

"I'm..." he forced out, almost choking on the word, (--because did he even have a self left? He was nothing. Not anymore--)"Not leaving." He knew he didn't sound like himself at all, his voice seeming to belong to a stranger. Or an animal, even. But words were words, no matter who or what said it. "You go." He was backing up, trailing drops of blood to mark his path like a hurt, cornered animal across the street where unfamiliar shadows lay on the other side. Freedom. Or as much as he'd ever have anyway. Away from Two-Bit. Away from everything he represented.

"Leave me alone," he said, his voice starting to rise into a shout without even a conscious effort from him to do so, because conscious efforts simply didn't exist for him anymore, "Just leave me alone!"

Still backing up. All the way across the street now. Where was he going? There was nowhere he could go but he could still run. Run and never stop. Just running and running until he collapsed and a car hit him or something. The ending didn't matter. He wasn't running away, he was just running. Right? They couldn't blame him for doing what he did best. The thought provided a tiny drop of comfort.

He was just stepping into the darkness of alleyways not lit by street lamps when he felt it.

The presence. It wasn't a sound, a smell, a sight, a touch, or even a taste. It was an eerie combination of the five that sent shudders down his spine. Cigarette smoke, leather jackets, gunpowder, cold blue ice, and something he would never as long as he lived be able to describe. None of it was either solid or even really visible, but it was real. He could feel it. All around him, like a whirlwind of something invisible but without a doubt there.

It was gone as quickly as it came. He was left gaping at Two-Bit, unsure if his friend had felt it or not or if it had even been real. It had felt undeniably real in the moment, but the moment had gone and now he simply felt like he might really be insane. Close to screaming his head off and and throwing himself off a cliff.

What the hell was going on?!

[merrill]

The ultimatum was not enough to force Two-Bit to leave. They were both stuck in the same hell, each having their own personal feelings. Guilt was a primordial emotion to everything he was feeling and it was ripping through his guts; he nearly vomited from the pain. The remorseful bile burned in his stomach and he nearly collapsed from the feeling that came with it.

Christ, it seemed that a lot of things were his fault. Johnny would have never killed that goddamn Soc if Two-Bit'd been there instead of the snooker game. Pony being sick; he could have prevented that. Thus, he was not about to allow the kid to stand in the rain and catch pneumonia. Darry would have his ass beat if he knew that Two-Bit abandoned Pony in the rain. The horrid rain that felt like acid against his skin. Then again, if he left now and never returned, he wouldn't have to worry.

Except he couldn't afford to let the kid fall ill once again. 

"Kid--Pony. I ain't about to let ya get sick, again," he said, his voice cracked unintentionally. "I can't--"

"Just leave me alone!" 

Then Pony took off, not bothering to ever glance back. Two-Bit considered going after him, but he wasn't very fast; at least not as fast as the kid could run. Instead, he walked, with a useless hope that he would catch up. "Run, kid," he called after him, his tone more bitter than intended. "Run 'cause that'll solve all of your problems. You can't just run away..." He refrained himself from saying "again".

He knew that he was being hypocritical, but he didn't give two shits about it. Pony had two brothers who would worry about him. Darry and Soda would beat Two-Bit's ass if they knew he'd let Pony run off again. They cared for the kid and he himself admitted that he did, as well. The Curtises' faces when they had heard that Pony and Johnny got involved with some Soc killing...it was more simpler to say that they were devastated. 

What Two-Bit remembered felt even worse. The minute he'd found out, his heart took a wild leap into the deep end. It was his fault. He should have known that those Socs would have wanted some revenge of sorts like they always do. Two-Bit should have never let the two of them alone; they were so exposed and vulnerable. They were only kids and the only defense they had was Johnny's switchblade and that was hardly much. No, it was much. It had killed that Soc. 

Johnny was dead and Two-Bit didn't know how the gang could survive without him. He had always been there and with him gone...it was a giant hole.

Two-Bit could barely even think of Dallas. Dally's life was ended by a fate everyone knew would become of him. Dal was too young and rebellious to ever grow old. Through death, his image was preserved. Kinda like James Dean. Two-Bit wished it was as simple as that, but it seemed nothing ever was. His already guilt-ridden mind thought of the last time they hung out...not that you could call it that. Their little sojourn was more like a fight.

A fight over the chick that never was Two-Bit's in the first place. He was so goddamn stupid. 

Two-Bit gripped the material in his pockets after he'd shoved his cold hands into them. The icy shower was no longer refreshing; it was rather chilling and he knew if the both of them didn't find refuge, they would freeze to death. Then again, death was becoming all the more tempting every moment. Two-Bit couldn't help looking back at the bridge where he left his car. It stood high above the waters, almost majestically. Two-Bit snapped his attention back to following the kid.

"Curtis!" he shouted in a hoarse voice, "get the hell back here. I ain't gonna run after you! I ain't wantin' be the one tellin' your brothers that you died from the cold and I especially don't want to fuckin' deal with all the shit that'll foll--" He was interrupted quite abruptly.

He was stopped by an odd feeling. 

It wasn't exactly bad, but it was definitely quaint and not of the normal. It seemed almost eerie and indescribable. A wave of nostalgia hit him when he the scent of old leather and Lucky Strikes washed over him. It stunned him into place and he felt as if he had been frozen all over. His icy exterior was nothing compared to the fiery hell inside of him when a thousand more emotions accompanied the wave of the ghostly presence. 

His ambivalent thoughts jumbled up inside his head and he squeezed his eyes shut. He hoped the feeling would pass and he'd never have to go through with that again. Luckily for him, it was gone as soon as it came and it left a feeling of emptiness. He couldn't help but notice Pony had stopped, too. Did he get hit by it?

"What the fuckwas that?" he said, the question being more rhetorical than anything. 

[eastsidesunset]

His eyes were as wide as the moon as he stared at Two-Bit, hoping to find refuge in his friend's shell-shocked expression. Did this mean he wasn't crazy? Or were they just partners in crime, partners in insanity itself? He couldn't feel what was real and what was just in his head anymore, a sick imagination bound tightly with an excruciating reality. It didn't matter if what he believed wasn't true, not really. At that point it was just a toss-up between choosing to believe the less painful of the two, and at that moment the ghostly sensation was winning. At least that was something in the sea of nothing. At least it meant Dallas Winston wasn't entirely gone. There was still hope.

Ponyboy never thought he'd be one to believe in the supernatural. Then again, he'd never thought he'd feel anything worse than the death of both his parents in one night. Almost calmly, he supposed he would have to admit to being wrong on two counts tonight. One more, one less, what did it matter? And in any case, Two-Bit had seen it too-- felt it, rather-- and this was enough proof for anyone. Perhaps he was crazy, he thought mildly. If crazy was a cure for the pain as it was proving out to be, though, he'd take it willingly.

He turned an almost serene gaze on Two-Bit, and answered quietly, his voice seeming to be controlled by someone who wasn't him, because the real Ponyboy Curtis had died the moment the last breath had gone out of the body of Johnny Cade. "That?" he took a long breath, not trembling, he noticed, for the first time in what seemed like centuries, "Hope." He breathed the word.

Was he making sense? No chance in hell, a little voice inside him whispered. He began to walk back towards Two-Bit, slower than he'd ever moved in his life. 'Slow' just wasn't a word when you lived in East Windrixville. Not unless you wanted someone to jump you. Right now, though, it was as if he were walking in slow motion, even the raindrops falling slowly enough for him to count. When would the rain end? Would it ever end? Or would the world drown in the rain? He knew he was soaking wet but somehow, he didn't feel anything. Like when you're swimming and the water doesn't feel wet, it feels natural.

"I have to go somewhere," someone was saying, quiet as a whisper. It took long seconds before he realized it was him . The concept brought a wry half-smile to his face. Alright, so he was definitely crazy. What was next? Some kind of initiation ceremony? "Either come or don't. Got nothing to do with me." With that, he turned again slowly to face the shadowy alleys and began to walk. He wasn't running away. Two-Bit was right in that point. What good did running away ever do? So he didn't run. He knew he was coming back. Of course he was. He couldn't leave the dead. But before he could come back he needed to go somewhere. Simple logic. Right?

He let his feet guide him. He'd done that enough times to know it was the best way. Always the best way. Because the idea was simple in his head-- He needed to go somewhere, and if he thought about it too much he'd end up not going. He couldn't have that. For once in his life, he wasn't gonna let anything or anyone influence his decisions. He was going, Two-Bit or no Two-Bit. Not like he wasn't coming back anyway. When he returned, he'd be a new person, he thought dreamily. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the wonderful thought, perfectly illogical but what did it matter? He was finding his bliss and nothing could touch him anymore, not logic or pain or even memory.

If this was crazy, he should've found a way to go crazy years ago.