The Outsiders imagines 2

A sad story. (Tragic after outsiders event story)

This is soft of a trigger warning ok guys. This is confirming our worst fears of our beloved baby soda getting sent to the war and ya know what happens from there. So on that sad note let's get in with it.

He roamed the empty streets looking for a friend that he lost a long while ago.
He knew he was never coming back. Yet he still refused to believe it.
Why? He didn't know. Hints of hope shimmered throughout his soul. He knew that it was dumb to hope that his best friend would come back. In the back of his mind he knew that he was there. The thought of him was still there. It felt like he was right there beside him. He looked over and half expected to see him.
"You crazy idiot. He's gone. Not coming back. You might as well go one with your life like he was never here," he told himself. He knew it was a long shot. He'd been walking the streets for the past three hours hoping to find the answer he was looking for. But all he had was hope of that happening to.
At this point he heard voices yelling, screaming at him to move on and forget his best friend.
Then he had a few very small, faint voices telling him not to give up, that his best friend would come back safe, with thousands of stories to tell him. And that he would have all the time in the world to sit and listen to those stories.
He begged and pleaded as he cried silent tears that those quiet voices were right. He wasn't sure how much longer he could take the voices yelling at him before he finally screamed or tried to shut them up completely. He walked through all hours of the night and into the early morning before he gave up and went home. He went home and cried his eyes out before he went to the kitchen to grab the strongest liquor that he had to take the pain away. He wanted to block out the world around him. He knew he couldn't keep on like this. He knew he had to do something about it. But what? He didn't know. He was only 17-almost 18-and he had felt the grief of an old man.
He had seen many things in his life that would make a man want to die. At those things he never batted an eye. But the thought of his best friend never coming back killed him. It made him want to die.
He had tried everything he could to keep his best friend from going. But it really wasn't anyone's choice if he went or not. It was the danged ol' draft.
His best friend was at the TOP of that drafts list.
He had to be.
He was young enough to the government that if he died, he died. It wasn't like he had a wife or kids to worry about. Unlike thousands of other able bodied men of age to fight in the war. If you gave him a job he would do it wholeheartedly.
He had enough passion in his bones that if he was hyped enough he would run into the fiery furnace.
Guys like him. The ones full of hope and full of passion. The ones with the biggest smile on their faces even in times of great sadness, were the ones that the draft were out to get.
To that draft, he doesn't have two brothers or a best friend that can't live without him. That draft doesn't understand.
"Idiot stop thinking about him. Read the paper. Or somethin'." He grabbed the paper and what he saw on the front page killed him. It was a list of men drafted from Tulsa who have been reported as MIA, POW, or dead. He couldn't bear to look, but he couldn't look away. He let his eyes scan the list hoping he didn't see his best friend's name.
At the bottom of the third column he seen the last thing he wanted to.
The words 'Sodapop Curtis-MIA, later found dead.'
He grabbed the closest thing he could and threw it. It happened to be a picture frame with a picture in it that Soda's mom had taken at their kindergarten graduation. He didn't know why he had it sitting right there. He always took his anger out on it. He's broke the frame 6 times now.
At this point he just gave up and burst into tears as he walked over and picked up the picture of the two smiling boys, unsure of their future. It broke him.
Steve couldn't  believe that his best friend, his impulse control, and brother at heart was gone, He wasn't sure what he was ever gonna get over it. He could only imagine what was going through Darry and Pony's head. He probably didn't want to know.
He wished that they had took him instead of Soda. Steve only hoped that they were coming for him next. He wanted to avenge his best friend. And he was determined that he was going to be the same way his best friend did. Young, wild, and reckless, with dreams of a future with a wife and kids in his eyes. He was going to do the same thing his best friend did. Die.