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Ponyboy sobbed, loud and broken inside his room as he sat there bawling his eyes out because soda had left them to move to Florida with sandy and her newborn, and he fucking hated it. He wished soda would stay; he knows Darry will work even more now; he wants his brothers to be like how they used to; he misses when Darry would piggyback ride him and sodapop would just laugh along giggling, and pony could just be. Happy and loved, he wondered why he even did it anymore, what was the point, he could just——he then had a idea, why would anyone need him anyway, what was the point if no one was ever around and he had no friends. What was the damn point anymore, that night he showed up at bucks and even though he was confused why a 14-year-old boy was there, he wasn’t one to judge and let him in, and pony drank himself into oblivion that night and woke up in the room dally used to stay in and just downs his hangover with the Vodka method, and gets up, and he stopped going home a lot of nights after that, Darry barely noticed honestly, after soda moved out he took night shifts a lot and that’s when one day he began hanging out with curly Shepard. And they became best friends. Curly started his own little “Shepard gang” and he let no one else stand to his right. If they did accidentally he would push them back, but with pony? He let him every time, even if Curly was yelling at pony he would still keep him there, and pony adored their friendship, they would run around and climb on cars, fight people, fuck some kids up some days, rob stores others, and curly helps pony dye his hair a darker blonde kinda towards Darry’s hair color, and one day curly scrounges up enough to get everyone in the gang a gang symbol jacket, their gang was Called the grease monkeys and their symbol was a white circle that curled into a devils tail with a triangle like eye in the middle like a serpent, although curly made sure only pony and him got those, everyone else would only get two half circles and a devils tail swirled in the middle in white, they used the symbol as status’s in their little gang, whoever had the devils eye was close to curly, people with the monkey ears were only affiliated with them. And one day while they were chugging beer to see who could handle the most on the roof of curlys car. They see Darry’s car pull up and he slams the door and yells “PONYBOY CURTIS!” Which makes pony freeze. They realize they were quite close to the roofing site area where the roofers come to get more supplies and clock in and out, Darry ran over and grabbed Ponyboy by the arm and yanked him up and dragged him back to the car yelling “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING!?” And pony started yelling back which make curly snap and run after them and hug pony, pulling him back, making Darry snap his head back and stare at the “Shepard. Put him. The FUCK. down.” And pony just screams at that point “SHUT THE FUCK UP! BOTH OF YOU SHUT IT STOP IT ENOUGH! ENOUGH STOP IT, PLEASE.” And pony had put his hands over his ears and his eyes were swelled and red.