Chapter Text
The day before Christmas Eve, Soda and Ponyboy finally found it in themselves to set up the tree. Darry was coming home today, and the unspoken threat of disappointing him without a tree took over their procrastination.
But it wasn’t as easy as they thought it would be. So, with their father picking up Darry from the airport and their mother too busy baking cookies for all their neighbors, they resigned themselves to dumpster-diving for the building guide yet found nothing but distractions.
To this day, Ponyboy still knows how to play Silent Night with three kazoos.
Soon, though, the old blue Ford rolled into the driveway. Soda and Ponyboy quickly abandoned their post, rushing outside in T-shirts to meet their oldest brother.
They barely gave Darry any time to get his suitcase out of the trunk before bombarding him.
“What’s good, college man?” Soda whooped, clapping his brother on the back.
“Hey, guys,” Darry smiled widely, ruffling Ponyboy’s snow-dotted hair and hauling his stuff up the porch steps. “Sure missed you a ton.”
Mrs. Curtis came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron and enveloping her eldest son in a hug. “Darry!” she exclaimed, brushing some snow off of his jacket as she led him away from the door. “Tell me everything. How’s college? Are you hungry? Cookies’ll be out in a couple minutes, so hang tight. Your room’s cleaned, I cleared out all the junk Pony left there before you left…”
As she went on, Soda and Ponyboy returned to their mess of a tree. They surveyed the sight for a good three seconds, exchanged a mischievous glance, and left the room without another thought.
- - -
On his rushed way out from Johnny’s argument-laced home, he forgot his coat. His parents were at each other’s throats again, and miraculously this time it wasn’t because of him. Not that that made it any better.
Johnny wished they’d just stop—get a divorce or something. But no, both of them would get into another fight about who’d leave Tulsa and who’d stay.
He shivered, walking in the direction of the lot as the winter wind bit at his thin jacket. He took out the last weed of his pack, lighting it and taking a long drag on it. He exhaled the smoke through his nose, drawing out in a line of steam through the cold air.
The lot looked to be empty save for the buildup of snow. His Converse crunched through the freshly fallen flurries as he headed for his winter hideout, which was really just a low-hanging evergreen pine surrounding keeping a small clearing somewhat insulated. It kept Johnny warm enough that he didn’t freeze to death on nights where the fighting got bad.
Now, Johnny wouldn’t have been too surprised if Two-Bit had just been sitting there inside. Sometimes, other members of the gang also used the place for an escape when things got too much for them. But with bruises and cuts all over him, knees hugged to his chest on the ground, breaths coming out in unstable puffs? Two-Bit’s mother would never beat him, and his father had left more than a decade ago.
Johnny stood in the entrance to the hideout, searching for words.
“You just gon’ stand there?” Two-Bit cocked a brow.
Johnny snapped out of his trance, blinking. After another moment, he slowly descended to his friend’s eye level. “What happened?”
“Got jumped,” Two-Bit replied bitterly, surveying a bleeding puncture wound on his palm.
“Now?” Johnny’s eyebrows shot up. “It’s the day ’fore Christmas Eve. I didn’t know that the Socs would play that dirty.”
Two-Bit only shrugged half-heartedly.
“They got you real bad… we gotta get you fixed up,” Johnny said, wracking his brain for ways to help. Dally’d know what to do, he realized. “Hey, let’s go to Dally,” he suggested. “He’s at Buck’s, there’s a first aid kit there and everything.”
Two-Bit frowned. “Probably with a broad, though,” he pointed out.
“Oh, right…” Johnny deflated.
Two-Bit noticed, and sighed. “It don’t hurt to try. Les’go.”
Johnny stood there for a moment, surprised at the U-Turn in conversation, but only said “Okay” in response.
And so they brushed off their jeans, held up the overhang of pine, and headed to Buck Merril’s.
- - -
Dally let out a plethora of profanities upon seeing Two-Bit’s condition. “The day before Christmas Eve and they got the nerve to bang you up like that?” He swore a final time and then let his visitors in.
A party was going on, as it always was at Buck’s, but Dally shook off all the ladies swooning over him and brought Two-Bit and Johnny upstairs.
Dally rifled through the bedroom drawers for the first-aid kit, banging on the cabinet wood once he found that it was empty. “Dammit!” he fumed, running a hand through his hair. He turned, looked over at Two-Bit once more, and sighed in frustration.
“We gotta find the Curtises for this,” he announced. “They’ve got stuff at their house that’ll help. C’mon.”
Dally slipped on his leather jacket, tossed the first aid kit in the trash, and brought Johnny and Two-Bit to the Curtis household by light of the setting sun.
- - -
Upon answering the three sharp raps on the door, Ponyboy barely had time to recognize who was there before Dally pushed past him, dragging Two-Bit into the house. Ponyboy blinked, briefly glancing back to see his mother transforming the living room into a hospital. He had many questions, but decided they could wait as he turned his gaze back to Johnny, who stood on the porch, shuffling his feet back and forth as he kicked at a chunk of ice.
“You can come in, y’know,” Ponyboy said, opening the front door a little wider. “Ain’t gonna let you freeze out there if your folks are at it again.”
Johnny hesitated for a moment longer. “… Alright, I guess,” he said after a moment, ducking his head under the doorframe. Ponyboy closed the front door behind them, letting out a small sigh. The gang was all here now—Steve had come a little earlier for dinner—and they probably weren’t going to be leaving. Ponyboy wasn’t complaining; the gang was his family. But nine people in one house? Even that could be a stretch. Just for the night, Ponyboy hoped. Just for the night.
- - -
It was not, in fact, just for the night. As per Mrs. Curtis’ offer, the gang was staying over for the entirety of Christmas. So Ponyboy woke up the next morning with three other members of the gang in his room.
Breakfast was simple in terms of food: eggs, toast, and bacon. But in terms of people, it was far from a walk in the park.
“Who the hell eats eggs with jam?” Dally grimaced at Soda’s choice of condiments.
“Who the hell has them with cream cheese?” came the defensive reply. “That’s, like, a bagel thing!”
“It’s the New York way of cuisine.”
“You were only there for three years!”
“Just eat the damn eggs, Soda,” Two-Bit joked. “It ain’t like Santa’s gonna judge you for how you eat ’em,” His face was still a little bruised up, but he seemed to be in a much better mood.
“He might, actually,” Ponyboy chimed softly.
Four heads swiveled to face him. Darry and Soda sighed.
“Pony, you don’t really believe—” Steve started, but Soda clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Santa exists, don’t he, Johnny?” Ponyboy frowned.
Johnny blinked three times in rapid succession, somehow managing to stutter something out while being put on the spot. “Uh, y-yeah, I guess…”
Dally snorted, hiding his laughter behind Darry.
“Dal, hold it together,” Darry said flatly.
“I’m sorry,” Dally wheezed. He wasn’t. Either way, Ponyboy was defiant in his opinion.
“He’s real, buddy, promise,” Soda said, gently patting his brother’s back. Ponyboy crossed his arms, as if to say, Soda agrees with me, so take that!
Dallas nearly busted a gut.
- - -
The rest of Christmas Eve was more or less uneventful, yet whenever Dallas and Steve glanced in Ponyboy’s direction they burst into laughter.
Ponyboy went to bed slightly skeptical yet mostly confident in the existence of Santa, briefly confirming with Darry right before bed.
“Yes, he exists, now go to bed,” Darry responded, sighing.
Towards the better end of the night, Dally shook awake Steve and Soda, leading them downstairs beside the fireplace.
“Pony won’t know who did it, he just needs them gone” was Dallas’ reasoning for the three of them gorging on the cookies for Santa that Mrs. Curtis had made earlier that day. Little green-frosted trees and blue snowflakes disappeared into the mouths of the teenagers, and almost when they thought they could fully get away with it Darry emerged from his bedroom.
“Really, guys?” Darry raised an eyebrow, standing in the doorway.
“… You want one?” was all Dally could think to say in that moment.
Darry laughed. “I’m okay, but since y’all are here you can help set up the presents under the tree.”
The three collectively groaned.
“Gotta make the evidence that Santa was here legit,” Darry pointed out.
That got them going. Once the gifts were set and the temptation to open them was mostly contained, the four headed to bed, awaiting the joy of Christmas morning.
- - -
Christmas hit the Curtis household hard. Even though there were the four troublemakers that were up at an ungodly hour overnight, the entire gang was a collection of energy, opening presents first thing after getting dressed.
Ponyboy tore back his wrapping paper to find a stack of books large enough to fit a bookshelf inside. From book adaptations of his favorite Paul Newman movies to Dickens’ Great Expectations to even Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, combined with some other notebooks and pens they would be more than enough to keep him busy for the year.
Johnny’s parents only really bought clothes for him when his previous ones either were so small that they were suffocating him or when they had been torn to literal shreds by Socs. And from what it looked like, Mr. and Mrs. Curtis were more than happy to have emptied an entire clothes section for him. Jackets, in- and out-of-fashion tees, sweats, jeans—and they were all in his size.
Darry got a real treasure in his present. His parents had apparently decided that it was time for their oldest to get the generational family ring. Imprinted on the front was a gold-plated star bordered in silver. Encased in a gold-lined box, which appeared to be wearing only slightly at the corners, the ring slid perfectly in the slit cut into the plush bed of purple velvet inside. Darry headed upstairs as soon as he could to tuck it away in the safest corner of his suitcase.
Inside Two-Bit’s present were similar styles of clothing to the ones that Johnny got, but all were Mickey Mouse themed. The ones that couldn’t have possibly been originally branded with the cartoon character had had Mickey sewn on with Mrs. Curtis’ embroidery work. With them all folded and stacked Mickey-side up, Two-Bit nearly lost it at the sight of them.
The gang and the Curtises knew that Dallas had always wanted a leather jacket, so a leather jacket he got. From his reaction after he discovered what was inside of his wrapping paper, anyone would’ve thought that he’d never wash the thing (even if he knew the right way to wash leather.) Ever since he’d left New York City, he’d allegedly stared at the tags on the jackets he had seen and, despite the temptation to shoplift and go, he left them alone. Somehow. They might’ve been the only thing in the world Dally would never take, and though he glorified every aspect of the jackets he hadn’t ever told the rest of the gang why he wouldn’t steal them.
Soda and Steve got matching DX-customized gear; after unboxing sets of t-shirts, caps, new versions of their blue button-downs, the two immediately began planning weekly matching attire.
The boys huddled around each others’ presents, checking out and admiring the sheer thoughtfulness and quality that the Curtis parents had put into each of their gifts. After exchanging gratitude, laughs, and bidding goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Curtis, who were out on a date that night, they settled by the fire to get wasted on Marlboros and Bel-Airs.
- - -
Ponyboy took his cigarette outside, settling on the back door step and fixing his eyes on the dying sunlight. Just in time for the sunset, he realized. The sky’s pale blue mixed with the beginnings of pink and lilac toward the horizon. At the top of the little hill where Pershing Park divided Tulsa in two, the sun’s lower edge dipped just below the boundary of land and sky.
Ponyboy had read somewhere that people could go blind from staring at the sun for too long, but the sight in front of him was so beautiful that he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
The clouds melted from color to color as the sun sunk into the ground. The sun somehow seemed to get brighter in its final moments of Christmas Day, flaring and reflecting its beams off of the glistening snow. After one last pulse of light, the sun’s glow retreated below the horizon and relinquished the night to the moon.
Ponyboy let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding. It had all happened so fast. His first real sunset.
The chilly December wind enveloped him, crusting up his greased-up hair, but Ponyboy paid no mind. Because what he just saw was something that he would dare say was better than any other book he had read, any other gift he could get.
The joy of nature, and the peace of his first sunset.
Gold.