Chapter 1: A Familiar Car
Chapter Text
Smoke Beneath the Skin
A Familiar Car
The days were getting shorter in Tulsa. Twilight fell faster, and the streets got colder once the sun dipped behind the trees.
Ponyboy kept his hands shoved in his jacket pockets as he walked home from the library, books weighing his backpack down. He didn’t mind the weight; it gave him comfort as he walked down the cracked and overgrown sidewalks of the east side.
He glanced at the well-worn watch on his wrist and cursed internally - Darry had been strict about curfew since everything that happened…Johnny, the church, Dally, the hearing, but Pony had lost track of time. Again.
He passed the empty lot, the chain-link fence creaking faintly in the wind. He didn’t see the black Cadillac until it had already passed him once. Twice.
He slowed down. Watched it disappear down the block. Something about it made his stomach twist. Too clean. Too smooth. Too careful.
He picked up his pace.
It came around again. This time, it pulled up beside him.
“Need a ride, kid?” came a voice through the window.
Ponyboy stopped. He couldn’t see the driver clearly, just a man in a nice coat. White collar. Gold ring. Older. But not old.
“No, I’m good,” Ponyboy mumbled, stepping away.
“You sure? It’s gettin’ cold out.”
Ponyboy shook his head and continued on pace faster pace than before. Something about the voice clawed at his memory.
That courtroom. A man in the back, stiff and pale, eyes like marble.
Bob’s father.
The door opened.
Ponyboy broke into a run. He man yelled something.
He barely got half a block before the his path was blocked and suddenly something heavy slammed into the back of his head.
Pain. Light. Then nothing.
Chapter 2: The Basement
Chapter Text
Ponyboy
His wrists burned.
That was the first thing he felt when he came to; the rough rope cutting deep into his skin. Then the throbbing in his head, like a hammer pounding behind his eyes. Cold seeped into his back, concrete against his spine.
He tried to move, but his body screamed. Shoulders ached. His jaw was tight—something gagged him. Panic flared.
Where was he?
His eyes fluttered open.
Dim light buzzed above, flickering like something out of a horror movie. He was underground. A basement, maybe. Gray walls. A metal drain in the floor. Tools hanging from rusted hooks. Not like the kind at the DX—these were cleaner. Sharper.
Not made for fixing cars.
Made for something else.
Made for pain.
And then he saw him.
The man from the car.
The name was slow to come to him...Bob had been a Jr.
This was Robert Sheldon Sr.
Hair slicked back. Shirt pressed neat under a cashmere coat. He looked like a senator or a banker. But his eyes - God, his eyes - were glassy with something deeper than anger.
“Finally awake,” Robert said, voice too smooth. Casual like they were buddies hanging out. “I thought you might sleep forever. Kids these days - no stamina. No drive.”
Ponyboy whimpered behind the gag, trying to scream through it.
Robert’s mouth curled upward, but it wasn’t a smile.
“You’re not going to die yet,” he said calmly, walking over. “Not until I say so.”
Robert Sheldon
It was justice. Not cruelty.
That’s what Robert told himself.
He stood in front of the boy who had destroyed his life...murdered his only son...and felt nothing but cold resolve.
Ponyboy looked even younger up close. Pale. Pathetic. Like a stray mutt too dumb to get out of the road.
Bob had been vibrant. Fire in his veins. A real man. And this greaser? This child? This is who the system had protected?
He remembered the trial like a bitter dream. The judge was soft-eyed and sympathetic. The testimony. How they made Bob, his boy, the villain. They said he tried to drown the kid; like it justified the blade that tore his son open.
Robert had screamed at the verdict. Security dragged him out.
And since then, he’d waited. Watched.
He knew Ponyboy’s routine. The movies. The lot. The walk home. Always alone.
He could’ve just killed him.
But that would’ve been mercy.
No, Robert wanted him to suffer. Wanted him to understand what it meant to lose everything. What it meant to choke on guilt until it soured the soul.
And all it took was patience and a handful of cash to give a no-nothing bum on the streets to give him a hand.
He crouched beside the boy, slowly pulling off the gag.
Ponyboy gasped, voice hoarse. “Please…”
“Please?” Robert repeated, tilting his head. “Please what? Please stop? Please don’t hurt me?”
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Did my son beg like that?”
Ponyboy flinched.
“I didn’t kill him,” he rasped. “He was drowning me. Johnny had to—”
“Shut up!” Robert’s hand cracked across his face.
The boy recoiled, cheek blazing red.
“He was my son,” Robert seethed. “You scums think you’re so noble. But you’re all trash. You and that little friend of yours - what was his name? Johnny? The one who died in the hospital like a coward.”
Ponyboy’s eyes filled with tears.
Robert leaned closer.
“You think dying made him a hero? He was filth. Just like you.”
Ponyboy
The words stabbed deeper than the slap.
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. His ribs ached. His cheek throbbed. But worse than all of it was the shame; the guilt Robert poured over him like gasoline. But something else simmered within him...
Anger?
Johnny wasn’t filth.
He was the bravest person Ponyboy had ever known.
“He saved kids,” Ponyboy choked out. “He died saving them. He...he died better than you’ll ever live.”
Robert went still.
Then he smiled.
“Oh. Good,” he said softly. “You still have spirit.”
He stood and walked over to the tool rack. Pulled down something long. Thin. Shiny.
A knife.
Not a switchblade like Two-Bit’s. Not a street weapon. A surgical one. Clean. Precise.
“I was worried you’d break too soon,” Robert said, testing the edge. “But now I know you’ll last.”
Ponyboy struggled. Screamed. But no one heard.
The door above stayed shut.
Chapter 3: Hollow Hours
Chapter Text
Ponyboy
He didn’t know how long it had been.
Hours? A day?
There were no windows. No clocks. Just the low humming of the single fluorescent bulb above him, buzzing like a fly trapped in a jar. Sometimes it flickered, and that was the only thing that told him time was passing.
His stomach groaned. His throat was dry, his lips cracked and raw. His hands had gone numb hours ago—bound tight behind the chair with coarse rope that bit deeper every time he shifted.
And Robert - he came and went like a ghost.
Sometimes he’d just watch, standing in the corner, silent. Other times he’d talk to Ponyboy like they were in some polite little tea party.
And then there were the other times.
The bad times.
The times with the blade.
Not stabbing. Not yet.
Just… cutting. Shallow. Deliberate. On the arms, or his ribs. Tracing lines. “To mark how much of you belongs to me now,” Robert had said.
Ponyboy stopped crying after the second one. It didn’t help. It just made Robert talk more.
Soda
“Okay, this isn’t funny anymore.”
Sodapop’s voice cracked as he paced the living room. “He shoulda been back hours ago, Darry.”
Darry rubbed his temples. “He probably stayed at the library too long again. Or he’s with Two-Bit.”
“Saw him at the DX. He hadn’t seen Ponyboy since lunch.”
Darry frowned. Something was wrong. He could feel it. That itch in the back of his head. The one that had saved them when they were dodging debt collectors and landlords and worse.
He grabbed his coat.
“We’re checking the lot. Then the DX. And if he’s not there… we call the police.”
Soda stared at him.
“You think it’s that bad?”
Darry’s jaw clenched.
“I think something’s happened.”
Ponyboy
He didn’t scream anymore when Robert used the knife.
Not because it didn’t hurt - God, it burned - but because Robert liked the sound.
It encouraged him.
So Ponyboy stayed silent. Gritted his teeth until his gums bled. Thought about the church. About Johnny’s voice.
“Stay gold, Ponyboy.”
He tried to picture the wind in the trees, the sun breaking through clouds. But the memory was fading. Every time the knife bit his skin, another piece of him slipped away.
Robert sat across from him now, reading from a newspaper like he was in his living room.
“Did you know they barely mentioned Bob’s death in here?” he asked, tapping the paper. “One sentence. One goddamn sentence. ‘Teenage boy killed in self-defense following altercation in public park.’ That’s it. That’s all he got.”
Ponyboy didn’t reply.
Robert stood.
“Why don’t you tell me how it really happened, huh? From your mouth. Every detail. Maybe then I’ll let you rest.”
“We already told the truth,” Ponyboy croaked. “He tried to drown me… Johnny saved me…”
Robert lunged.
He yanked Ponyboy’s head back by the hair, his eyes wild.
“He was a boy!” Robert screamed. “My son! He wasn’t some monster. You didn’t have to kill him!”
“You weren’t there,” Ponyboy whispered. “You didn’t see what he did…”
Robert pulled the blade again, this time pressing it to Ponyboy’s collarbone.
“You’re going to beg before this is over,” he hissed. “You’ll scream for Johnny. For Dallas. For your brothers. And no one will come.”
He walked out.
And this time, he locked the door behind him.
Darry
They found his backpack first.
Abandoned at the edge of the lot. Still full. Books scattered, one cracked open with Pony’s handwriting scrawled along the margins.
Darry’s throat went dry.
“Something’s wrong.”
Soda’s hands trembled. “He wouldn’t just leave it.”
Then they saw it... ...a bloody brick.
They went to the police.
The officer barely looked up from his desk.
“Probably ran off. You know how these kids are.” Pause, "He ran before."
Darry slammed his fist on the counter.
“He didn’t run. He was taken. I know my brother.”
The officer gave a slow, tired nod.
“We’ll file a report.”
They went home, and Steve was there already, having called Two-Bit. They needed everyone.
Someone had their brother.
And if they didn’t find him soon…
Darry didn’t let himself finish the thought.
Ponyboy
He didn’t know he was crying again until he tasted salt.
“I’m sorry, Johnny,” he whispered into the dark. “I tried to stay gold. I really did.”
There was blood on his shirt. His hands were purple from bruising. His left ankle throbbed, twisted from when he tried to kick at Robert and fell sideways.
He wasn’t sure how much more he could take.
But somewhere in his chest, deeper than the fear, deeper than the pain…
He held on.
Because Darry would come.
Because Soda would tear the world apart to find him.
Because Johnny didn’t die to save someone who gave up.
Chapter 4: Mirrors Lie
Chapter Text
There was no telling how long Robert had been sitting across the room. Ponyboy had drifted in and out of sleep, if you could call it that - his dreams weren’t dreams at all, just broken flashes of water filling his lungs and Johnny screaming.
He opened his eyes slowly. The chair creaked when he moved. His whole body protested; every muscle sore, every nerve burning.
Robert sat still. Legs crossed, gloved hands folded in his lap.
He wasn’t looking at Ponyboy this time.
He was holding something.
A photo album.
Ponyboy blinked.
Not a weapon. Not a threat. Just… pictures.
“Do you know what this is?” Robert asked, not raising his eyes. His voice was calmer now. Worse somehow. Quiet.
Ponyboy didn’t answer.
Robert opened the album gently, like it was fragile. Sacred.
Page one. A baby boy with thick blond curls, smiling at the camera.
“This is Bob when he was three,” Robert said. “He used to sneak cookies from the kitchen and blame the dog.”
Flip.
“He was ten here. We took him to California. He got stung by a jellyfish and cried the whole flight home.”
Flip.
“Homecoming. He wore his grandfather’s cufflinks. Thought it made him look grown up.”
Ponyboy shut his eyes.
Robert’s voice sharpened. “Look at him.”
When Pony didn’t move, a hand yanked his hair again, forcing his head up.
Robert pressed the photo album right in front of his face - page open to Bob’s senior photo. Perfect smile. Perfect teeth. The kind of face that belonged in magazines.
“This was my son,” Robert whispered. “This was who you took from me.”
“I didn’t…” Ponyboy rasped. “I didn’t kill him…”
“But you didn’t stop it.”
The words hit like a slap.
“You watched him die,” Robert said, standing. “You watched him bleed and choke, and you let it happen.”
“He was drowning me,” Ponyboy whispered.
Robert leaned in close, too close. Ponyboy could feel his breath.
“And now I’m drowning you.”
Later
The cuts had slowed.
The bruises were old now, yellowing around the edges.
But the silence was worse.
No yelling. No blades. Just Robert coming in, asking questions.
What did it feel like to watch your friend die?
What did your parents look like in their caskets?
Do you think your brothers blame you for everything that’s happened?
He’d say them like a doctor taking vitals. Calm. Measured.
But each one twisted something deeper inside Ponyboy than any blade could.
Because they weren’t lies.
They were the things he’d already asked himself.
“I bet they sleep better when you’re not home,” Robert had said once. “You’re the ghost they can’t bury. A reminder. A burden.”
Ponyboy didn’t answer. He stared at the drain in the floor.
If he disappeared down it, would anyone even notice?
Night
He dreamed of drowning again.
Only this time it wasn’t Bob holding him down...it was Johnny. His eyes hollow, his mouth open in a silent scream.
“Why didn’t you save me?” Johnny said, over and over.
Ponyboy thrashed in his sleep. His hands bound, his body aching.
“Why didn’t you save me?”
He woke up with blood on his tongue from biting down too hard.
He didn’t scream.
He didn’t cry.
He just stared at the dark ceiling, waiting for the next morning.
If it came.
Chapter 5: Teeth in the Dark
Chapter Text
Ponyboy
The pencil trembled in his hand.
His fingers were swollen and numb from the rope, still raw - but Robert had insisted.
“Write.”
He didn’t say what to write at first. Just set a legal pad down in front of him and untied one hand. It was almost worse than being bound, knowing the freedom was conditional.
“Tell the truth,” Robert said quietly. “Write about how you and your friend killed my son. And maybe I’ll let you keep both ears.”
That was new. The threats were always different now. More specific. More surgical.
Ponyboy had stared at the paper for a long time.
He could barely hold the pencil.
“I didn’t kill him,” he whispered.
Robert crouched, grabbing his chin roughly. “You let him die. You watched. Now write.”
So he wrote.
But not what Robert wanted.
My name is Ponyboy Curtis.
I’m almost fifteen. I used to like sunsets.
If anyone finds this and I’m not alive, please tell Darry I’m sorry I didn’t come home.
Tell Soda he was right; I should’ve stayed out of the lot.
And tell Johnny I didn’t mean to let go.
When Robert read it, he slapped the pad out of his hand, grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him to the ground.
“You’re not a poet, you little freak,” he growled, spittle flying.
Ponyboy didn’t fight it anymore. He just stared up at the ceiling, tears burning silently down his cheeks.
Sodapop
Soda had stopped sleeping.
Every car that drove by the house made him shoot upright, heart hammering in his throat. He hadn’t shaved in days. Neither had Darry.
“You think he’s still alive?” Steve asked that morning. The words had barely come out.
Darry had looked up, with dark circles under his eyes. “Don’t talk like that.”
“But what if-”
“I said don’t.”
They were crowded around a beat-up map of Tulsa, red circles scratched all over it with a pen. Last sightings. Places Pony liked. Places he wouldn’t go. They’d searched abandoned houses, junkyards, and drainage tunnels. Nothing.
Until Two-Bit pulled up in a panic, skidding into the driveway with gravel flying.
“You guys,” he said breathlessly. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
Ponyboy
Robert had gone quiet again.
He was sitting across the room, that damned photo album on his lap. Ponyboy’s hands were tied again, tighter this time. His lip was split. His chest was bruised black and blue from the last outburst.
The silence was worse than the beatings.
“Why didn’t you cry when he died?” Robert asked suddenly.
Ponyboy looked up.
“What?”
“When Bob died in front of you,” Robert said, not looking up. “Why didn’t you cry?”
“I did,” Ponyboy said.
“Liar.”
“I did!”
Robert stood up fast. “You don’t even remember his face, do you? Not the way I do. You can’t see it...his lips turning blue, the light going out. You just watched.”
“I was a kid,” Ponyboy cried. “We were all kids!”
Robert crossed the room, slow and dangerous.
“So was he.”
He grabbed Ponyboy by the jaw again, forcing him to look at a photograph shoved in his face.
It was Bob on the coroner’s table. Cold. Lifeless.
Ponyboy recoiled violently, gagging.
“You’ll never forget him now,” Robert whispered. “I’ll make sure of that.”
He got closer, "I'll make sure your brothers see you like this soon."
Two-Bit
“I seen it,” Two-Bit said, pacing in the driveway. “That black Cadillac. Same one we saw at the lot a week before he went missing. The one that hobo saw that night.”
The words of a homeless man, barely sober, had rattled about a man buying his help for a case of Bud and a wad of cash. The only reason the cops didn't keep dismissing them
A runaway they kept saying.
Not like it changed much in their actions.
“Where?” Darry barked.
“Old industrial side of town. West End. Creepy little warehouse, looks abandoned. But the car’s parked there, tucked back behind the fence. I swear it’s the same one.”
Darry didn’t wait.
“Steve, grab the tire iron. Soda, get in the truck.”
“You think it’s him?” Soda asked.
Darry didn’t answer.
Because if it wasn’t, they were running out of time.
Ponyboy
The door creaked.
Footsteps.
He tensed, body recoiling instinctively, waiting for the blade. The slap. The whisper in the ear about how no one was coming.
But something was different this time.
Robert didn’t speak.
He just stood in the doorway… staring.
Silent.
Then—
BANG!
A crash from upstairs. Loud. A voice.
Then two.
“PONY?!”
His heart exploded in his chest.
That was Soda.
“IN HERE!” Ponyboy screamed. His throat was raw, but the words burst out like lightning, he was rewarded with a punch to his face.
Another bang. This time closer.
Robert’s head snapped toward the door, fury returning to his face like a mask dropping back into place.
“You stay quiet,” he hissed, the knife glinting in his hand.
But this time...
This time Ponyboy fought.
He kicked the chair over with all the strength he had left, crashing hard onto his side. The pain was blinding, but it didn’t matter.
Upstairs.
More crashing.
Shouting.
The basement door burst open...
And Ponyboy saw a blur of flannel and fists and light as Darry barreled into Robert like a freight train.
Chapter 6: What’s Left Behind
Chapter Text
Ponyboy
The first thing he felt was light.
Blinding, sterile, white. Overhead and everywhere. He blinked slowly, eyes dry and swollen. The ceiling didn’t buzz anymore. No flickering bulb. No moldy basement.
He tried to sit up, and pain roared through his chest like a tidal wave.
“Easy,” came a voice; familiar, steady, but shaking underneath.
Darry.
Ponyboy turned his head and saw him. Darry looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. His hands trembled even as they gently held Ponyboy’s shoulder down.
“You’re okay,” Darry said. “You’re okay now.”
But Ponyboy didn’t feel okay.
He felt broken.
A machine beeped somewhere nearby. There was a bandage on his neck. His wrists were wrapped thick in gauze. An IV line snaked from his arm. His mouth was dry. His ribs ached. The room smelled like disinfectant and something sharp - like metal and memory. Never a good memory.
Soda appeared at the foot of the bed next. His eyes were red, his voice quiet. “Hey, Pony…”
Pony opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first.
Then, hoarse: “You found me.”
“Yeah,” Soda said, swallowing hard. “We got you.”
And Ponyboy started crying.
Not loud. Not messy. Just silent tears rolling down his cheeks as he turned his head toward the wall.
Because it was over.
And it still didn’t feel real.
Robert Sheldon
They sat him in a gray-walled room with a steel table and nothing else. He looked out of place in it, still wearing his pressed coat and polished shoes. But his hands were cuffed now. His face was scratched. One of his ribs might have been cracked from the Curtis brother’s tackle. Yeah, definitely the one who played football.
He didn’t speak for a long time.
Two detectives sat across from him, barely breathing.
Finally, one leaned forward.
“You kidnapped a seventeen-year-old boy.”
Robert blinked. “He killed my son.”
“The court ruled it was self-defense.”
“The court was wrong.”
He said it so plainly that both officers paused.
“You tortured him,” the second detective said. “Beat him. Cut him. Tied him up like an animal. Why?”
Robert didn’t flinch. “Because I wanted him to understand.”
“Understand what?”
Robert met their eyes, flat and cold.
“What it’s like to lose everything and have no one believe you.”
They stared at him.
“He’s fourteen,” one said. “You did this to a kid.”
"Huh," Robert smiled faintly. “So was Bob.”
Ponyboy
Later, when the nurses had changed his bandages and the doctor gave Darry a clipboard full of words Pony couldn’t process, they were alone.
“Did he say anything?” Ponyboy asked, voice thin.
Darry nodded slowly. “He didn’t deny it.”
Ponyboy stared at the wall.
“I kept thinking someone would come,” he said, barely above a whisper. “But after the second day… I stopped.”
Soda sat at the edge of the bed, tears in his eyes. “We never stopped looking. Not for a second.”
“I know,” Ponyboy whispered. “But that place… it felt like I didn’t exist anymore.”
He paused. “I can still hear him sometimes.”
“Who?”
“Bob. Bob Sr. he’d talk and talk like he was in my head. Like he wasn’t even trying to hurt me anymore...I dunno just… rewrite me.”
Darry’s hands clenched. “He doesn’t get to have that. He doesn’t get to take that from you.”
“He already did,” Ponyboy said softly. "Maybe his son did..."
And for the first time, Darry didn’t have an answer.
Police Station
Robert sat in the holding cell, posture straight. Like he was waiting for a country club appointment, not a trial for kidnapping and felony assault.
One of the officers walked past and muttered under his breath: “Crazy bastard.”
Robert didn’t even blink.
He thought about the boy.
Not just the bruises or the pleading.
He thought about how quiet he had been at the end. How resigned. How fragile.
It made him feel powerful.
And then -
The ghost of his son, flickering in his mind.
“You killed a kid,” the voice echoed, this time not from a detective.
But from inside.
Robert looked away.
Ponyboy
That night, alone in his hospital room, Ponyboy stared at the IV drip and counted every second it ticked.
He couldn’t sleep.
Every time he closed his eyes, he felt the rope burn. He smelled the concrete. He heard the whisper:
“You let him die.”
And he heard Johnny, too.
“Stay gold.”
“I’m trying,” he whispered to the ceiling. “But I don’t know if there’s anything gold left.”
He didn’t know who he was anymore.
He just knew that whoever walked out of that basement wasn’t the same person who walked in.
And he didn’t know how to get him back.