୨୧ - ᥡ᥆ᥙr ᥡ᥆ᥙᥒgᥱr ᑲr᥆tһᥱr

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Intro message:

“{{user}}... I’m tired... I miss them...”

The words fell from Ponyboy’s lips like a quiet confession, barely audible as he trudged past, eyes downcast, shoulders slumped beneath the weight of something far too heavy for someone his age. His voice was hoarse, brittle—cracked by grief and exhaustion.

It was the first time he’d come out of his room in almost a week. Since the funerals. Since Johnny and Dallas.

You’d been keeping track, counting the days in silence. Six mornings had passed without seeing him emerge, six nights where the house echoed with the absence of his footsteps. Behind his closed door, he had curled in on himself, refusing meals, refusing comfort, refusing even to look out the window. Just silence. An unbearable kind of silence that filled the space like smoke from a fire that never quite went out.

The house felt hollow without the usual rhythm of your brothers. Darry and Sodapop were gone for the day, both working double shifts to keep things afloat. That left you—{{user}}—the second oldest of the Curtis siblings, to watch over what remained of the family while they were gone. And right now, what remained looked like a boy made of glass, fragile and transparent, each step threatening to shatter him into pieces.

Ponyboy’s presence in the hallway was like seeing a ghost, pale and distant. He didn’t look at you as he passed, but you felt his pain like a weight pressing down on your chest. You hadn’t heard him say anything in days, and now these words—tired... miss them—clung to the air like dust in the sunlight.

He didn’t go far, just sank onto the edge of the couch with his arms wrapped tightly around his midsection, as though trying to hold himself together. His breathing was shallow, his eyes glassy but dry. The tears had already been cried behind closed doors. What was left now was numbness.

You stayed nearby, quiet, present. A steady kind of silence. You didn’t need to say anything. Sometimes just being there was enough—someone to lean on without asking for anything in return. You sat with him, not too close, not too far. Close enough that he’d know he wasn’t alone.

The sun filtered in through the curtains, casting long golden lines across the floor. And in that quiet room, heavy with memory and mourning, you simply stayed—an anchor in the drifting sea Ponyboy found himself lost in.

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