Work Text:
Pony is five. He’s gleeful, running all over the place. His older brother Soda, aged seven, is playing with his eldest brother Darry. Darry is eleven.
Ponyboy loves his brothers, but he isn’t interested in the game they’re playing. It’s too rough for him, he’s small and would rather stay inside and color. So once his mom tells him he needs to get outside and breathe some fresh air, he whines but obliges.
He follows the dirt road along the East side, kicking rocks and singing to himself.
But suddenly, he finds it. He wasn’t even looking for it!
The perfect flower patch.
It’s full of daisies to the brim, and he immediately attacks. There’s the sound of roots being torn from the ground, the gentle rip. His little fingers are covered in dirt and he can feel the sun beating down on his back, but it doesn’t matter because his mom will love these.
He wraps as many as he can in both of his tiny fists, propping himself up with his elbows and crawling out of the ditch. He heaves himself to his feet and trots back down the road, smudges of dirt on his face, but that’s not all that’s on his face.
He’s got the happiest grin, and his cheeks are all squished and pink.
He opens the screen door and walks into the kitchen, Mrs. Curtis letting out an exasperated sigh.
“No! Wait. I picked you somethin’.” He explains, and holds the flowers up to her.
She turns to look and her facial expression of annoyance turns to relief. Maybe she was expecting poison ivy. Maybe she was thinking about the time Soda said he’d picked her flowers and actually had a frog in his hand and it jumped at her face.
But no. Ponyboy brought her flowers, ditch daisies, and he’s all covered in dirt but he looks so happy with himself and she can’t do anything but smile.
“Thank you, Ponyboy. Let’s get these in a vase, hm?” She smiles.
That night at dinner, Mr. Curtis notices them.
“You got another man, then?” He asks playfully, and Mrs. Curtis looks to Ponyboy and winks.
“Yeah. He’s a real gentleman too.” She laughs.
Pony’s still got a smudge of dirt on his cheek.
There’s another time Ponyboy gave somebody his ditch daisies. He’d learned to take real good care of that ditch, he’d be sure not to over pick when the time came that he loved somebody enough to bring them daisies.
It happened like this:
Johnny sits beside Pony in the lot, the two of them watching the rest of the gang play football. It was much too hot to do anything, especially play football. But Pony and Johnny know better than anyone else that the gang has gotta burn steam somehow. Johnny looks over at Pony, squinting in the sun.
“Ponyboy, what do you do when you really like somebody? Like... if you’re crazy about ‘em?” He asks, his voice quiet.
Pony is taken aback, but takes time to process the question and really think. What would he do?
Well, of course he’d pick daisies for them.
“I’d bring her lots of flowers. But- um, make sure they’re hand picked. If you buy them it doesn’t hold the same value, you know?”
Johnny nods slowly, thinking over what Ponyboy said. The two exchange a look, a tender, gentle one.
“Johnny-“ Pony starts, but suddenly Sodapop collapses, sitting between them.
“Darry said we gotta head back before we all have a heat stroke.” He has a reckless grin on his face, as if he knows what he’s interrupting.
The heat wave lasts for days, and Pony is almost sure he’s melting. His hair is never not wet, always sweaty. He mostly lays in bed and reads, with a fan pointed at him hoping for any relief.
But then the rain comes, and boy does it come down hard. The windows in the house are all shut quickly and the humidity isn’t so bad. Ponyboy decides to go out in that rain, because he knows he’ll be thankful for it. He sure is.
The rain is freezing and he’s never felt anything quite as nice. He finds himself walking, walking until he’s shivering and his teeth chatter.
He’s at his daisy ditch, and he gets down on his knees and rips the roots from the ground. The gentle tearing sound fills his ears, and the flowers look healthier than ever. They’re a little wet, but that doesn’t matter to him one bit. He fills both fists up, and walks back to his house.
He hesitates outside the door before stepping off of the porch and running. He runs so fast his heart pounds in his ears, and he’s at Johnny’s house.
Johnny’s folks aren’t home, either. He lets himself in.
He finds Johnny sitting at the kitchen table, doing nothing but playing with his blade.
“Uh- um. Hey, Johnnycake!” He pipes up, sticking his head around the corner. Johnny looks up and smiles.
“Hey, Ponyboy.” He mumbles, and then his gaze falls to Pony’s arms, which are hidden behind his back. “Whatcha got there?” He asks, and Pony turns a furious shade of red. He hopes Johnny doesn’t remember what he said.
“Um... I just- I thought maybe-“
Pony gives up on his stuttering and reveals the flowers. “You gotta vase for these?”
Johnny turns the same shade of red, but he nods.
“Yeah. Yeah! I sure do.” He smiles, and Pony is suddenly melting from just how cute Johnny is, not the heat.
The last time he ever gave somebody his daisies was a hard time.
Darry works too hard. Pony and Soda knew this all too well. Pony skips track that day, his head down. Darry and him had fought real bad last night. Bad enough that he heard Soda crying when he thought Pony was asleep. He squeezes his eyes shut, begging the memory to go away. But it doesn’t.
He doesn’t want to go home yet. He’s scared to face Darry. He isn’t scared of Darry, he’s scared of the disappointment Darry feels towards him after these kinds of fights.
He confides in his daisy ditch, where he feels the most comfort. You can’t upset flowers, you can’t make them hate you. All that can happen is they might wilt and die, just adding to the ecosystem. But his ditch has always stayed healthy.
He picks three daisies.
The wind blows his hair, and he heads home. It’s a beautiful afternoon, but he can’t really seem to focus on that. He’s thinking about Darry.
When he opens their front door, nobody is home. He finds a small jar, the smallest he can find and places the three daisies in it. He places it in the middle of the dinner table. He does the dishes. He cleans up the house. He’s in the middle of putting dry plates away when Darry and Soda come inside, immediately falling quiet when they see that the house is clean.
Soda knows what Pony is doing, and goes to their bedroom to give Pony and Darry a moment.
Darry walks into the kitchen and his eyes fall on Pony, and Pony is looking at his daisies. Darry’s eyes follow.
Suddenly, Pony realizes, they’re filled with tears.
Suddenly, he’s in Darry’s arms, so tight he feels like he might die from lack of oxygen.
“You’re a good kid, Ponyboy.” Darry mumbles, and for once, Ponyboy believes it. He squeezes Darry back.