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The first day, he wanders off to his room and doesn’t say much. Darry doesn’t blame him, but the house is downright eerie without that missing piece. Reading doesn’t take Darry’s mind off of how still the place is, like a ghost town.
It is a week before Pony finally makes a real appearance. His brother tries to laugh as he welcomes him back to the world of the living, but Pony is having none of it, cutting Darry the same sort of death glare their mother always did when her eldest came creeping in past curfew. Sometimes, Darry is scared of how similar Pony’s eyes are to hers. Any attempts at conversation are met with stony silence, and Darry thinks it’s for the best he doesn’t press Pony. He knows the boy doesn’t take stress well.
After a month of this, Darry can take no more, and blocks Pony’s attempts to retreat to his room. “Look, everything’s going to be ok." he says, trying to pat the kid on the head. Pony swats his hand aside and ducks into his room, slamming the door on Darry after he has retreated. The older brother isn’t having it, and he opens the door. “We’re talking about this." Pony just lies on his side of the bed, face in the pillow, silent. His brother will have no more of Pony’s disrespect, promises be damned, and he rolls the boy over, looking him in the eye, intent on giving him a stern talking to.
Those familiar grey eyes are wet with tears, and Pony tries to hide his face so as not to look weak. All the fight goes out of Darry, and he sits on the edge of the bed, thinking. Pony sniffles and slides to the other side of the mattress. Soda’s side.
"He’ll be okay." Darrel murmurs, not even sure the ginger hears him. Pony gives a derisive snort that becomes a small sob.
"You don’t know that, Dar."
He didn’t. For all he knew, the kid would come back in bits and pieces, or not at all. Darry had to believe things would be ok, though, or else he’d just go crazy. He was supposed to look out for both of his brothers, damn it, and he couldn’t do that with Soda all the way on the other side of the world, in some jungle Darry couldn’t even pronounce.
Pony knew, though. He knew all too well what happened when you let people out of your sight. The kid was too young to be so cynical, too young to have lost his parents and his best friend and another friend. He knew there were no guarantees that someone would live just because you needed them. The thought stung Darry, and he couldn’t form words. He rubbed at his forehead and tried to think of some way to calm Pony down, and implicitly, himself.
"Soda’s smart. He’ll survive."
It was a pretty lie, and they both knew it. Their brother was too impulsive and too damn competitive to come home unscathed, but the lie is exactly what they need. Pony let it rest. He lays back down, and just before drifting back to sleep, he murmurs an apology. Darry just nods and stands to leave the room and let the kid get some sleep.
They’re two months into Soda’s deployment, and Pony is almost back to normal. He laughs, and he goes around town with friends, and it’s as if Soda never left. The only part Darry laments is that the kid leaves him home alone a lot. Darry catches up on a lot of reading in what little downtime he has, but it still doesn’t distract him from thinking that there should be more people in the house. Not just Soda, but their parents.
He thinks their father would have found a way to talk Soda out of enlisting. Darry tries to drown the thought with a beer, but his darker thoughts simply swim to the surface instead, telling him that he’s somehow failed Soda. He thinks if anything happens to his brother, it will be his fault.
Another month passes. The weather turns cooler. Fall creeps up on the Curtis brothers, along with anticipated letters delivered late. Pony clings to them like a lifeline, and seems loath to share them with Darry. Mostly, Soda seems bored. Things are quiet. The silence really starts tearing at Darry’s nerves now, when he’s alone in the tiny house. The beers become more frequent. He’s sure Pony knows, despite his efforts to hide his shame. Something in the kid’s eyes imply knowledge.
October rolls in, and it is nearly Soda’s birthday. There have been no letters in a long while, but Pony struggles not to show his worry when around his brother. Darry tells himself he needs to stop drinking so much when home alone, because he’s got enough issues without turning to alcohol instead of socializing. He thinks about making some friends, going to the gym more, things that don’t begin with a brown bottle and end with Pony’s questioning looks.
Darry tells himself he’ll improve and be at his absolute best when Soda comes home, and there is a knock on the door. It catches him off guard. The social worker isn’t supposed to visit for another two weeks, unless he’s really slipped up that badly. He sits up from the couch and peeks out the window to see two men in uniform at the door.
It is three months into Soda’s deployment, and there is no way for his brothers to lie to themselves any longer.