Work Text:
Davey hadn’t expected the amount of people to fit inside Medda’s theatre. He stood with baited breath glancing around at the eyes filled with a fiery passion and his heart pounded anxiously in his ears. A thousand words filled his mind but they died hopelessly with the silent prayer that Jack is somewhere in the sea of determined faces. He was never the best at public speaking. His tongue would flail painfully silent in his mouth and his breath would come out in strangled beats until tears prick the corners of his eyes.
If he thought too much about it, he and Jack were a bundle of opposites; Jack could ramble a list of praise, honey-covered insults dripping off chewed lips and childish innocence bubbling deeply in his dark eyes. He doesn’t hover or think about the words, just gathers the strangled, messy strands of David’s thoughts and strings them together until they are tied in neat bows. He somehow dresses the bare sentences up until the anxiousness is pushed away and replaced with an aura of strength and maybe ,deep down under layers of strong brotherhood, David is slightly jealous of his skills. He’s almost stupidly bitter that Jack has this innate ability to turn even the strongest of haters would fall under Jack Kelly’s flirtatious smiles and cheeky grins.
In short, Davey had agreed with himself long ago that his words seemed to come better out of Jack Kelly’s mouth.
However, Jack isnt between the swarm of faces or standing by his side ready to spin his broken words into mended sentences.
For the first time since he suggested the strike, David stands alone, giving scared, bruised faces trembling smiles.
“Davey?” A voice catches his attention behind him and he glances over his shoulder. “Where’s Jack?”
Chants swirl around him poking at him like accusatory fingers. His breath catches deeply in his throat and he scampers over to Medda, calming slightly when she rests a comforting hand on his arm. “Wheres-”
“He aint here, looks like you’re doing a solo” Her face, normally so bright and full of life is solemn and tiredly sympathetic.
“I cant-” he starts, looking up when Medda squeezes his arm.
“Yes you can.”
With a sigh he raises his arms, hands capturing the chants and crushing them like fall leaves. He tries not to linger on the eyes staring at him in a silent distrust that speaks volumes. Davey focuses his eyes just above the sea of faces, counting the wafer thin cracks on the wall. His words tumble out like a waterfall and the cheers and whoops push through muted into his ears.
“We’re done being treated like kids. From now on they will treat us as equals”
“You wanna be talked to like an adult? Start actin like one.” Jack starts down the aisle and David is quick to notice the changes; the vest that had once clung too tightly to his body with broken buttons begging for release had been changed for one that hangs off his frame carefreely. Once scuffed, well-loved leather shoes now catch the lights of the theatre, sparkling like newborn stars off the polished new leather. There’s no phantom paint staining the new shirt and Davey’s eyes trace over the intricate details. Jack looks like he’s fallen in dimes and came out covered in dollars.
Jack pauses in front of him and for a few seconds silent hatred is passed through in a blink of an eye; it floats off Jack’s eyelashes, falling like poisoned rain until it stabs David as heavy as a crack. He stumbles backwards as if hurt. He assumes he must have introduced Jack because a wave of cheers wash over him.
Jack’s lips are moving but David is awash in the sudden change of emotions. The air around him falls obnoxiously cold and it’s only when Medda shakes her head do the boos and angry voices hit him in the back of the head. His eyes follow Jack’s movements, the way his body twirls and stumbles like someones removed every bone in his body. Les moves quickly from his side and David cant do anything about from reaching a mute hand out meekly to try and grab a hold of his brother’s collar.
Had Jack really just turned his back on his friends? Was he really suddenly all alone between the sea of grays and reds? He blinks at Jack, trying to gather himself as he feels his stomach laying weakly, tangled at his feet. Jack reaches out to snatch something from the shadows and Davey’s heart tears with the moment. He feels everything fall away from him; every inch of his frame filling with a disappointed betrayal. How could he have been so stupid to actually trust him?
The world blurs in front of his eyes, the crescendoing waves of boos and the screams of “traitor” become quiet, murmurs; thick angry hands wrapping around his throat until his own self hatred makes him choke. Tremors shake his body and rattle around the broken, stone-like bits of his heart until they shatter into tiny microscopic fragments. Davey briefly sees Jack turn and his lips move soundlessly but he simply shifts his aching, shaking legs and stumbles away, using the change in lighting as a silent excuse for his tears
It’s long after sunset when he and Les wander into their apartment. The door clicks open and slams closed, followed by quiet mumbles and the clattering of Davey’s shoes against the hardwood floor. Esther peaks her head out the kitchen, wiping flour covered hands down the front of her apron.
“David? Les? What’s wrong?” She asks, taking note of her son’s wet faces and the shimmer of broken spirits in their eyes. Les shrugs, burying himself into her arms. If she focuses too hard on her youngest son’s small frame, she can feel the tears soaking through the cotton of her dress, feel the way his blunt nails cling to his mother for protection, hear the way his breath chokes out through bubbles of snot. She rests her hand on the back of Les’ head, stroking a motherly thumb through the dark brown stands of his messy hair. David hovers awkwardly in the middle of the living room, blue eyes gazed and chest barley moving with his breaths. For a few seconds, he rocks forwards as if ready to collapse into his mothers arms before he straightens and walks towards his bedroom, using the wall as stability.
“Oh my sweet lambs” Esther coos, kneeling down to scoop Les into her arms, her eyes following after her eldest son.
Davey’s room stays silent long after the door closes and Esther tries not to let the worry pinch and poke at the corners of her mind as she cooks. Les clings to his mothers side until dinner is ready.
An unsteady silence falls over the small apartment as Les lays the table letting out the occasional sniffle and heavy sigh. Esther exchanges a look with her husband and shrugs when he silently questions the thick air. Les turns back to his mother and for the first time since coming home, silently raises his arms and wraps them tightly around her middle.
“Bud dinner.” He hears his father call from behind his bedroom door and he pulls down his shirt and tucks the sewing scissors back under his mattress. For a few blind seconds he runs his fingers across the fabric wincing as he feels blood stain the pads of his fingers. It’s a mildly familiar feeling, the stinging of his arm and the feeling of blood against his shirt sleeve, he remembers that it used to help. When he was younger it almost became addicting until he looked up and caught his mothers heartbroken eyes.
He had made a promise that night and sitting here in the darkness of his room.
He had failed.
“David, dinner.” His father calls again. The handle twists slowly and Davey lays back. Quickly he tucks his legs close to his chest and turns his back to the dim hallway light. “David?”
He listens to his door squeak closed and once the darkness consumes the room again, he allows himself to close his eyes to stop the throbbing in the head and the sting in his arms. He lets the emptiness consume him.
He listens to his family sitting down for dinner, their voices simply worried murmurs that try to reach him as he drowns. Maybe drowning is the wrong word, he thinks as he stares at the ceiling. He doesn’t feel like he’s drowning more like he’s laying already failed and broken at the bottom of the sea, allowing his tight feelings to lay and wash over him like freshly cleaned sheets. They’d pile on top of him until the final puffs of air fall slow and fatal in his still lungs.
“Where’s David?” Esther asks her husband as they sit down around the table. Her eyes focus on the empty chair across from her when he tells her that he’s sleeping.
With a soft nod, she sits down and the family falls into a quiet silence. Until there’s a knock at the door.
“I’ll get the door” Sarah goes to stand but Mayer waves at her to sit down.
He opens the door and blinks. “Jack?” Mayer hears Sarah huff her chair squeaking as she shifts to stare at the table cloth. If he focuses on the sounds behind him, he can hear Les whimpers a little and shifts off the table to cuddle into his mother. Almost instantly Mayer felt himself slump into himself.
Jack stands on their doorstep, shoulders hunched as if trying to make himself smaller than the red tear-tracks on his face. The smaller boy tucks his cap and rings it between shaking hands. He looks like he’s trying to say something but the words are blocked.
“What do you want?” Mayer asks eventually, trying to stop malice and confusion soaking into his words. Jack seems to take a deep breath before swallowing.
“I-Ise come to see Dave.” He mumbles simply, still ignoring the steely grey eyes burning a hole in the top of his bowed head.
“He’s sleeping” Sarah’s voice is unnaturally cold as she stands, collecting half empty plates off the table. Long fingers tighten around the bottom of a knife and she jabs it at Jack while she talks “plus, I don’t think he wants to see you.” She only seems to calm when Les reaches out and wraps his hand silently around her wrist.
“Sarah, sweetheart.” Esther’s voice does not raise above a whisper but the quietness speaks volumes to Jack as she stumbles through the doorway. He’s not wanted here. He’s not wanted at the lodgings. Jack isnt even wanted by himself. With their backs to him, Jack stalks down the hallway.
He remembers where Davey’s room is from dropping the boys home after their first night. They had sat on the floor and divided the money up better, he had stared at Sarah from across the room and her eyes had shimmered as bright as emeralds with pupils as dark as coal and Jack had felt his heart explode. Sure he had plenty of women stare at him with doe-eyes and butterfly smiles but there’s something different with the acceptance in Sarah’s eyes when they first met.
But now as he wanders through the dining room, there’s no acceptance in her eyes; just an empty hatred for something that they don’t understand.
Jack had to do it, he had to turn his back on his brothers, he had to sell them out for a few measly but much needed bucks. Pulitzer had dangled the danger and death of the refuge. And he only wanted to keep the family he had left together.
He didn’t want Sarah to go through what he did. The feeling of going from a sibling to an only child. He didn’t want Les to scream until his throat was dry and sore at shadowed demons that disappeared as soon as someone came to check on him. He hated the idea of David no longer being able to lay on his side because his ribs stick out, broken and healed in the wrong way.
Jack was just trying to do the right thing. So why did everyone hate him?
He stares at the whitewashed door for what feels like forever before he knocks and listens to the quiet shuffling on the other end. He knocks again.
Silence.
He knocks a third time and frustrated, he barges into the room sighing when he captures Davey with his back shunning him.
“Loo-”
“I don’t want to talk to you.” David spits, eyes focused on the window in front of him. If he lets his mind focus on the summer night he can ignore the coldness pounding through his chest. He can feel Jack’s eyes, wet and red, staring a hole in the back of his shoulder.
“I know” he whispers, the bedsprings groaning under his weight as Jack sits down. Davey hears him sigh, watches from the corner of his tear-filled eyes as he rings his hat between his fingers. “But ya gotta listen to me, even if ya don’t wanna cause I’m sick and tired of people lookin at me likes I did somethin wrong.”
Davey bites down on his tongue, trying to stop himself from scoffing. “Do you understand what you’ve done Jack?” He mumbles, voice coated so thickly in venom that it makes him feel sick, the words burning when they left his lips. He hears Jack swallow and stand up.
“Im just doin’ the right thi-”
“You have no clue what the right thing is Jack!” David stands suddenly, so fast that his knees crack in protest. His face is red in the moonlight and Jack can see the beams of grey light dancing off the tears that rush down his face. “You’ve never done the right thing! Not since I’ve known you anyway.” His hand raises to itch at his shirt sleeve and it’s only then does Jack spot the angry red patch growing against the blue of his shirt. “You know nothing of doing the right thing Jack! You’re a traitor a-and I can’t believe I even allowed you to get close to my family.” Davey doesn’t even notice that he’s crying until his mother stands in the doorway, her eyes wide behind her glasses.
He tucks his arms behind his back and steals his eyes on Jack again. “You’ve hurt people Jack Kelly.”
“Are you boys okay?” Esther asks carefully, noticing just how much David is shaking, his arms wrapped protectively around himself. Either to keep himself together or to keep his shaking frame from collapsing onto his knees.
Jack tucks his fists into his pockets, of course Davey’s mother had to save him from any trouble. He wants to reach over the bed and slam his fist right into David’s face but hurting Davey will only make Jack hurt worse, so he sighs and nods “m jus leaving.”
It’s only when Davey hears the front door open does he sink into his mothers arms. She feels him biting his tongue and she sighs, sitting on his bed. “Oh davey lamb what happened?”
“He scabbed mama!” He sobs into her shoulder, legs curled tight against his chest. If he was still seven and the world made sense he would sink into her lap and curl up tighter until he would fit into the bend of her arm.
But he’s an adult now. So he simply curls into himself and sobs until tiredness wins over his broken heart and cloudy mind. Esther holds him for a few moments until she feels ready enough to release her baby boy back to the hardships of the world. She pulls the blankets under his chin and tucks a strand of hair back into place. Her lips are soft against his forehead and for the first time since her sons came home from work, Esther watches her son’s lips stretch into a smile.
“I’m sorry I let him hurt you my little lamb.” She whispers, pressing another kiss to his forehead before blowing out the candle and walking back into the living room.
Les lays asleep in his fathers arms and Sarah sits in front of the fire, sewing as she stares disjointedly into the flames.
The next morning Davey feels like someone hit him with a mallet. The throbbing pain in his arm has dulled to a slow stinging. His head seems to swim in unshed tears and he can feel the snot and left over emotions stuck to his face. His body seems to be against moving, groaning and hurting as he stands.
He doesn’t bother changing out the clothes from the night before, just tosses clean underclothes on and tosses on a new shirt, letting the collar hang open. It might stop the feeling that he’s being strangled. He meets his mother in the kitchen and she taps the countertop next to the stove.
“Yes mama?” He mumbles, rubbing his eyes. He has a foggy memory of sitting on the counter top when he was little, eyes as red and sore as they are now. His mother is padding at grazed knees.
“Do you remember when you and Sarah were about seven and your father and you made your toy boat?”
Davey nods, not really understanding where his mother is going with the random nostalgia.
“And Sarah got mad at you so she pushed you and you smacked your head against the dining table?”
He nods again, brushing his fingers across his hairline. A small jagged scar pokes its way out his hair and he turns to face his mother. “Yes. Why mama?”
Esther cups his cheeks in her hands, rubbing a thumb across his cheeks, slowly he allows his hands to fall and places them over his mothers hands, nuzzling his face into her hands. No matter how much he grows, he’ll always be her little lamb. “You forgave her for that didnt you David?”
“Yeah but we’re family and we were kids.” He understands everything so suddenly that it makes his head spin. He remembers yelling at Jack until his heart was pounding in his ears and the words were poisoning his bloodstream. He wanted to hurt himself until the world could see just how much his inside ached with betrayal but he didn’t.
“You’re still kids, so is Jack. I’m not telling you to forgive him sweetheart. He hurt you and you’re allowed to nurse that hurt. But be civil.”
“I will mama.”
“I love you son.”
“I love you too mama.”
Davey tries to remember his mothers words when Jack slumps into the circulation gate, head bowed.
Jack feels the eyes of his former brothers on him, some still staring at him with distrust and hatred others just looking at him with wounded eyes and broken souls. He keeps his eyes on the floor until a pair of polished shoes break his heartbroken stare.
“Dave? I-”
He stops when Davey raises his hand, placing it on Les’ shoulder as if trying to steer the small child closer against him. He was always so protective.
“You’ve hurt people Jack, Les and I included and we don’t forgive you for that.” Jack nods in understanding and once again opens his mouth. Davey shuts him up with a sigh. “But if this strike is gonna work. We gotta work together, I don’t want blood on my hands.”
Jack nods and with a sigh watches Davey walks off, Les following behind his big brother. He stands watching the two brothers and brushes his hands down the front of his vest.
The envelope crinkles as he takes it out of his inside pocket. As Jack stares at the soft white paper, he remembers how the notes burned like hellfire. How the look on David’s face made his heart sink to the bottom of his new boots.
Jack swallows and shoves the money into his pocket, crumpling the envelope in a small ball, tossing it over his shoulder.
Sure he has blood on his hands and sure he cant stop it from flowing.
But he can go to the source and stem the bleeding, at least a little.
So it doesn’t stain anyone else’s hands like it stained his.
So it doesn’t stain kids in every workhouse and factory and fire escape.
Jack Kelly will rule the newsboy union with or without the help of Davey Jacobs. The boy with the blood-stained shirts and enough words to stop the flow of the sea.