Chapter Text
Johnny is dying, and there’s nothing Ponyboy can do about it. He’s not even dead, yet Ponyboy feels as though he’s already grieving. When that falling beam hit Johnny, Pony knew deep down that he would die. When his brothers cried with him in the waiting room, and when they took him home, and when he showered properly for the first time in a week, and when he woke up and made breakfast in the morning. He knew Johnny would die. He’s preparing for the rumble, and still knows that Johnny’s gonna die. Seeing Johnny earlier that day just affirmed what he already knew.
It’s an odd feeling, grieving someone before they’re gone. Detached, almost. Like a boat dead in the water, no engine or anchor, just the currents and the will of God. Maybe once Johnny’s actually gone, he’ll cry about it. Or maybe Johnny will live, although Pony really doubts it. He doesn’t want Johnny gone, but it just feels inevitable. Like the final day of summer, or the last page of a book - it was always going to happen, whether Pony liked it or not. Honestly, Pony isn’t sure if he wants to go to the rumble. He wants to fight for Johnny and show he’s there for him, but he feels like it’d be worth more if Pony was there with Johnny, physically. God, Pony thinks, has decided that Johnny will die tonight. It’s just a feeling, but Pony trusts his gut. Johnny is running out of time, and the gang has planned the rumble for the worst night possible. But Pony can’t not fight. He needs to see someone get hurt for what happened to Johnny, they all do. The entire gang needs that catharsis; needs to know that they did what they can to avenge him. Because they know he’s going to die too.
That’s why Darry and Soda didn’t call off to visit him, and why Steve didn’t either. They know, they just don’t want to admit it. So they didn’t go see Johnny even once visitors were allowed, because then they’d be forced to admit that Johnny’s a goner. Darry, Soda, and Steve have never been ones to deny what’s right in front of them - they try, yeah, but they ain’t good at it. They prefer to not have unpleasant things in front of them at all, it just makes coping that much harder for them. Ponyboy wonders if they’ll regret not seeing Johnny, once he’s gone. Or maybe Johnny’ll survive till after the rumble, and the gang will go see him. Pony doubts it though, Dally and Pony definitely will, maybe Two-Bit, but not his brothers and Steve. They’ll stay home and lick their wounds until the news is delivered that Johnny passed.
Part of Ponyboy envies them, really. Grieving someone before they’re gone is a feeling that Pony never wants to feel again. Like a constant waiting game, you know it’s gonna happen but no one will tell you when. Another part of Ponyboy pities them, Darry and Soda and Steve. They walk around like they know they have more time with Johnny. Like in a couple months, he’ll be healed up and ready to be taken home. Like they’ll have infinite tomorrows with him. But they don’t. Ponyboy knows that, and he thinks Two-Bit does too. Dally, though, Pony isn’t sure of. He thinks that, like most of the gang, Dally knows Johnny won’t make it and is outwardly denying it, but Pony is still hesitant to lump him in with the others. That gleam in his eye when Pony and Two-Bit visited him in the hospital stands stark in Pony’s mind. It looked as if he was preparing for something. Dreading something.
Dread curls in Pony’s stomach, and he hears the gang, chattering in the living room. He wonders how they could be so happy? Johnny will never be happy again, after tonight. It feels almost surreal. Obviously the world won’t stop just because Johnny is hurt - the world didn’t stop after his parents died, or Bob died, so Pony has some experience with this - but it feels disrespectful. Cruel, almost, to not use any available time to see Johnny. To even try and pretend like he’ll be waiting for them later. To listen to everyone laugh, and smile, and hope, as if hope has ever done anything for them. The word itself sits like desperation on Pony’s tongue. Like a lie. Bright and grinning and unaware of reality.
‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’ Emily Dickenson once wrote. Pony had once believed in hope. That through the sorest of storms, it would soar and guide any birdwatchers to that beautiful post-storm sunlight. And then his parents died, and Bob died, and that beam fell on Johnny’s back. Now, hope’s wings are clipped, and the laughter of the gang feels like cruel jabs. Mocking him, reminding him of what Johnny will never do again.