Archive of Our Own ^beta

It’s a bit after midnight, Davey guesses, when he finally turns away from the Manhattan boarding house after waving a quick goodbye to Race. Above, the moon shines a pale sliver, no clouds out tonight, a sign that tomorrow will just be as hot. The ache in his ribs is persistent, almost familiar by now, if not for how it has increased rapidly over the course of the last hour. Realistically, Davey is aware that he needs to remove the bindings. But such a thought seems quite frivolous when compared to the tangled mess of anxiety and anticipation for the coming strike, that seems intent on knotting itself over and over in his mind.

At home, he will have to face his real life, Davey thinks, feet coming to a stop in the middle of the deserted street. At home, he will have to undress, and play pretend again, break the illusion that he’s let himself fall into in the past couple of days, the illusion that he’s just a newsboy helping his family like everyone else. Even if it is just for a few minutes, Davey feels queasy at the thought of dressing in his skirts and listening to his family speak to him at breakfast.

So, Davey, half-conscious of his decision, begins to turn to the side and head down the street opposite the direction of his family’s apartment. He will let himself keep this fantasy a little longer, he decides stepping with more intent now, following the familiar path towards the theater. Inside, his stomach protests out of hunger just a bit less harsh than his ribs, at his plan, but Davey easily ignores it. Instead, he opts to review the list of demands the newsies have for Pulitzer along with all the reasons he and the others have for protesting.

By the time he is blinking his eyes from the darkness of the alley behind the theater, Davey has the lines ‘fair paper prices’, ‘buy-back guaranteed’, and ‘newsies unite”, burned into the depths of his mind. Davey’s now sure that even if he’s somehow afflicted with a sudden bout of amnesia in the next six hours, his lips will still be able to easily utter the phrases.

As per usual, the backdoor is unlocked and Davey slips inside, hoping to find a dark corner backstage to catch a few hours of sleep. On the stage, a woman is singing, melodic and syrupy, in a baritone too low for Medda, but one of her friends that is a common appearance. When he reaches the storage room its darker than usual, most of the lights out possibly because Medda knew they were not planning on stopping by.

Once he’s fully inside, Davey blinks his tired eyes, trying to get them to readjust after walking past all the brightness that leaked from the dressing rooms. Everything looms in strange swirling shadows, appearing only half-real as Davey lets the door slip close and begins to creep past, towards where a pile of crates perfectly hides the back corner from the door. Davey has almost reached his hiding spot when a hushed voice cuts through the silence, terrifying him.

“Mouth?” Jack’s raspy voice questions into the still air.

An embarrassingly high-pitched shriek startles from his lungs, and Davey frantically searches for where Jack is hiding, finally finding his shadowy form resting nearby, next to the rack of paint supplies and canvases.

“What’re yous doin’ ‘ere?” The newsie questions after a moment, louder this time, and Davey approaches, getting a clearer view of the other in the low light. The boy is sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, cap resting on a knee he’s pulled to his chest. His face is cast in darkness, shadows clinging to his expression until it is twisted into something horrifyingly vulnerable.

For a moment, Davey can’t find the words to respond with, mind tripping over itself at the sight of Jack Kelly, one of his best friends, looking more afraid than he’s ever seen him. Eventually, Davey tips his head towards the other and says, “I wanted to make sure our great union president is ready for tomorrow.”

“Ah-” Jack looks away scratching at the back of his neck, face flushing then settling into something more serious, “I ain’t really feelin’ that way right now. There’s so much we got ridin’ on this. I jus’ don’ want ta’ get their hopes up when it could all come crashin’ down.”

A current of understanding rises in his gut and Davey sinks to the ground beside Jack, wincing as his sore ribs rub against the fabric of his bindings. Jack always seems so carefree most of the time, bordering on flighty, embodying the legends of the cowboys he tells them about, that its downright painful to see him so burdened now.

“Look, I’m not going to say that we won’t face opposition but, you said it yourself, we need to strike, to show that we, you,” Jack turns back to look at him, jaw still tense, but his eyes shine brighter, “can’t be pushed around just because they feel like they want to visit the opera twice this month.” Davey attempts to inhale without stabbing pain while giving Jack an encouraging smile. Jack’s lips quirk upwards and he huffs a laugh, ducking his head,

“They’se do like ta’ visit the opera.”

Davey’s smile broadens, worry in his gut starting to unclench, “I’m sure Pulitzer is pompous about it too. He seems the man to flaunt how much his viewing glasses cost.”

Jack snickers again, shoulder bumping against Davey, “He’s definitely got one’s that’re real fancy, gilded in gold, probably encrusted with diamonds.”

Davey laughs at that, drawing his knees closer to his chest and resting his arms on them. His ribs twinge in protest at the movement but the warmth that swells up inside from how the shadows have crept away from Jack’s face, quickly drowns it out. It’s quiet again, dusty and thick in the darkness, only the faintest whisper of singing can be heard here. Beside him, Jack sighs, shoulders slumping downwards exhaustedly,

“I’s should head back soon, make sure Race don’ murder Romeo because a’ his snorin’. What’d Spot say, ‘bout the strike?”

Davey glances forward into the calm darkness, trying to figure out how to break the disappointing news that Spot wasn’t joining them. It feels like adult life is coming for Davey, hard decisions and too much responsibility suddenly being thrust upon his ill-prepared shoulders. And Davey can’t flinch from it, can’t hide away in fear. Can’t claim he is the man he wants to be if does

“He said he’d think about it but he’s not joining us tomorrow.” He finally exhales, turning towards Jack and nervously scratching at his knee if his pants. The other’s face has hardened again, less out of despair and more out of resignation, jaw set firm and a disappointed frown pulling at his lips.

“Brooklyn’s the biggest borough we’s got. They’se got the power ta’ get the strike ta’ actually go somewhere.” Jack sighs after a while, scrubbing a hand over his face, “but I respect Spot’s choice. It ain’t easy been a leader, feelin’ like ya’ havin’ ta’ decide the fate a’ everyone.”

“You’re not alone though, Jack, and neither is he. Come on,” Davey sits up straighter, pulling his legs down until he’s sitting crossed-legged, facing Jack, “you’ve got all the other newsies. They made their own choice to unionize. Every single one of them wants to strike because they know it’s the right thing to do. You aren’t deciding their fate, they are.”

Davey’s voice sounds louder than before, almost echoing through the room, full of what he hopes is reassuring conviction. Opposite him, Jack’s throat bobs as he swallows, hands flexing on his lap as if craving the weight if a pencil or brush. Then says in an almost hoarse voice,

“Thanks, Mouth. You ain’t half-bad at talkin’.” Jack gives him an approving glance, “You’s ever think ‘bout bein’ a lawyer?”

A surprised laugh slips past Davey’s lips, “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“Really?” Jack raises his eyebrows, slipping the carefree façade back on as if it weighs nothing and Davey knows Jack no longer wants to talk about tomorrow, “I’d have thoughts you’s be the person ta’ have ya’ whole life mapped out.”

Perhaps, Davey thinks a tad sardonically, he would have if the circumstances of his life were drastically different. If he had the luxury of being born in a world where he hadn’t spent most of his youth imagining what life as a boy must be like. If he hadn’t been obsessed about what he felt he’d been missing out on, to turn his attention to the future. If he’d been born like Sarah, or Les, or almost anyone else, he would have.

But he hasn’t.

Because in the depths of his soul, Davey had never believed he would have a future. Never believed that he too would reach a time where his hands and face would be wrinkled, and joints ached. Never believed that he would even reach adulthood or have a life past graduating from school. For, when he’d dare imagine what his adult life might entail, a choking, sickening feeling clawed at his insides until he eventually chose to ignore the whole premise entirely.

And somewhere, just left of his sternum, Davey suddenly realizes, sitting there opposite Jack who wears his heart for all to see, caught in the hazy, dreamlike dimness of the moment, his own heart sits, fractured.  Nestled behind his ribs, Davey’s heart is cracked and chipped by the years, and it hurts.

 It hurts.

 And Davey is so, so, tired of it hurting, so tired of pretending it doesn’t. The words fall half-whispered from his mouth, unbidden.

“I never felt I’d have one,” his voice is raw and too honest. And Davey freezes at the confession, fear slicing through him, turning his blood to ice.

“What’re you sayin’ Mouth?” Jack’s voice is closer now, and tinged with something that Davey can’t decipher. And when Davey glances back up, body suddenly feeling as he’s stuck in syrup, Jack is sitting upright, reaching out and gripping at Davey’s wrist, too tight to be normal, wearing the same expression he’d had when Davey first saw him.

Jack’s hand is warm on his wrist, yanking him back to reality.

And oh.

He’s scared again, Davey realizes. Jack’s scared for him.

“I-,” but he can’t find the correct words to spin into a half-truth. Can’t find the correct words to distract and deflect from accidentally letting the full truth slip past his ragged lips for once.

“Davey, c’mon, talk ta’ me,” Jack tries again, voice a sliver more desperate than before and something inside his chest gives way.

“I-”

His words are dripping too much honesty now, mouth loosened from the darkness, head spinning half-drunk from exhaustion, the heady invincibility of night drawing the truth out of him like venom from a wound. He should leave, bite his tongue ‘til it bleeds. Should scurry back home and play pretend like Davey has done every other time. Should retreat and regroup as he’s planned on doing so for the rest of his existence.

But Davey’s heart hurts.

It hurts from the tightness of the bindings on his chest. It hurts from the weight of all the lies and secrets he’s spun around himself, from where the thread slices through his flesh. It hurts from the years and years he’s lost because he’d been living as someone else, years spent desperately trying to perform a pantomime of who he should be. It hurts from the brutal, all encompassing, terror, that has inhabited the center of his heart since before he can remember, slowly rotting it from the inside until all that is left is its brittle, broken, husk.

 The fear that others will find him, the real, whole, complete him, horribly, overwhelmingly, heartbreakingly, wrong.

And Davey realizes now, in the depths of the theater, with the infamous Jack Kelly grabbing his wrist like Davey might drown should he let go, that his heart is one fracture away from breaking all together. Realizes that he’s been so terrified, that the gentle cradle of his hands around his heart had tightened in fear. And Davey had let them, let his shaking hands morph into fists that now clench around his heart, in a futile bid for protection.

But he had wound up crushing it instead.

And unless Davey lets go, lets his mouth form the words that have hung like a noose around his neck for so long, that have driven him half mad from paranoia, no amount of honeyed warmth will glue the broken pieces back together.

Suddenly Davey’s lips are incredibly dry, and his tongue no longer wishes to work. In his veins, his blood has stayed frozen, yet his face is hot. His chest is tight, heartbeat pounding against his ribs. So, Davey swallows, once, twice. Then tries to stop himself from feeling faint as he takes a shaky inhale and utters into the all-consuming silence,

“I- I was born a girl.”

Nothing happens for a moment. It stays as quiet as before except the performer has stopped singing and Davey hysterically wishes she would return to the stage, just to have something to hear than the stretching silence. Jack’s hand is still warm from where it grips his, callused in the way his mothers are, the mark of an artist. Davey wonders if Jack knows his mother used to paint.

“What?” Jack brows are furrowed in confusion. “You’s sayin’ you’re a’ girl?”

“No-, I’m a boy, just not- not a real boy, physically,” Davey forces out, nausea roiling in his gut at the phrase, heart feeling like it is repeatedly somersaulting. “I was- it was me you saw a few months ago, not my sister Sarah-”

“That was you?” Jack’s mouth falls open in disbelief.

Then he’s laughing loudly and uncontrollably, eyes scrunching up at the corners as he releases Davey in favor of burying his head in hands. His shoulders keep shaking as laughs keep bubbling up, filling the silence with warmth. Confusion begins to cloud the rest of Davey’s emotions and he has no idea what exactly he should feel at Jack’s reaction.

“Oh my God,” Jack sputters out, then laughs again. After a second, he looks up, wiping at his eyes,

“That makes so much more sense, I was so confused.” Well, now Davey is the one confused and very much still freaking out.

“I thoughts ya’ family ain’t like ya’ or somethin’.” Jack clarifies which makes Davey frown slightly, a little wave of guilt gnawing at his ribs.

“No, I haven’t-” Davey chokes back the panic along with everything else that is still swimming around his chest, “I haven’t told them about being a boy.”

Jack stays silent for three very long seconds, a more serious expression settling on his face. Then speaks,

“I’m glad you’s told me Davey. You’re still a boy, right?”

Davey hurriedly nods his head, almost worried that Jack won’t believe him if he were to do it at a more proper pace,

“Yes, yes, I’m still the same, I just-” Davey lets out a huff of air that is almost a laugh if he were any less stressed, “I’m just a built a bit different I suppose?”

“I guess that makes sense, do you’s need me ta’ do anythin’?”

It’s strange, Davey thinks, to have someone worried about him, the real him. Something near the honey-warm correctness he gets as living as himself, slithers between his ribs and drips into the cracks in his heart.

It still hurts there beating too rapidly in his chest. And maybe it always will, in some way, forever scarred and fragile. But it’s stronger than before, more whole, rough edges no longer cutting into his chest, the old wounds being soothed.

“Just don’t tell anyone else, don’t let anyone else know.” And Jack nods at his request, like it is nothing more than a trivial bid to go to the grocer and not something that bears the weight of all that Davey exists as. Like it’s an effortless act, like he cannot fathom doing anything else.

“Of course, Mouth, it ain’t my secret to share.”

The newsie leader of Manhattan, future cowboy, one of Davey’s best friends, reaches out and takes his hand again, more hesitant than before, so achingly similar to his mother’s grasp. And suddenly everything around, the barely-there crates and canvases, flickering and crawling with shadows. The smokey darkness pressing against the two of them, the heavy knowledge that Jack is staring at him, the whole of him, for the first time, is so much lighter against his shoulders.

Davey has the embarrassing urge to cry.

Swallowing down the thickness in his throat, Davey tilts his head forward, unable to meet the other’s eyes, letting out a hoarse whisper of thanks. They sit there for an indeterminate amount of time in comfortable silence as Davey attempts to wrangle in the tattered shreds of his emotions. Any remaining fear is slowly leaking from his chest and with every slower beat of his heart, the tension in his body slips away leaving him with aching muscles and a bone-deep exhaustion.

But above it all, there is an elation that refuses to budge from its new residence in Davey’s heart. The feeling of acceptance is novel to him still, Davey thinks while trying to match his breathing with Jack’s, a different flavor with every person he’s encountered. And now they have combined to curl and lick around his heart, spilling a devastating warmth through his chest.

After a while, Davey leans back to face the other and Jack swiftly let’s go of his hand, glancing to the side and rubbing the back of his neck.

“You’s headin’ home tonight?” Jack sounds tired as he moves to lean back against the wall again, head tilting back to rest against the brick as he watches Davey roll and stretch his shoulders through half-lidded eyes. For a moment Davey almost lies out of habit, but Jack knows the truth now. Knows and still thinks of Davey the same. A small smile tugs at his lips as he shakes his head and responds,

“No, I was planning on sleeping here.”

“Mouth, I ain’t lettin’ you’s sleep ‘ere with all those spiders,”

“No, it’s fine, I’m used to them-”

“You’s used ta’ ‘em?” Jack raises his brows, giving Davey an incredulous look.

“My room’s full of spiders, sometimes mice,” he shrugs as Jack lets out a horrified noise, really? Davey honestly doesn’t mind the creatures one bit, “and we’ve been allowed to fall asleep here at least a dozen times.”

“Well, we’s got lots a’ poisonous ones at the lodgin’ house, so you’ll feel real comfortable there as well.” Davey sighs, but moves to stand, Jack copying him after a moment.

His legs tingle after sitting for so long, and Davey sways only marginally less than Jack who falls back to lean heavily against the wall.

“Alright,” Davey agrees with a nod, reaching out to grab Jacks arm and yank him forward, “but those spiders aren’t poisonous, Jack. They’re probably not even venomous.”

“What’s the difference?” Jack half-slurs, wrapping an arm around him and leaning heavily against Davey’s shoulder, glancing up at him, brows drawn up in confusion.

Davey explains or tries too as they shuffle toward the door. Beside him Jack seems to only half get what he’s saying but that may be due to him looking half a second away from collapsing.

Somehow, the two of them manage to only walk face first into three walls as they try to escape the labyrinth of the now entirely dark backstage. The moon has more than a third left of its procession across the sky, only swaying slightly towards the western horizon as they meander through the well-known streets towards the lodging house. Maybe it’s the fatigue or the weight that has fallen from his chest but as Davey steps through the darkness after Jack, inhaling breaths of the summer-sweet air, he says,

“You seem more horrified that I don’t mind spiders and mice than you did when I told you I was born a girl.”

Jack snorts, “That’s cause they’s vermin, Davey, all scrabblin’ nails and too many legs. Mice’ve almost bitten one a’ my toes offa me twice while I’s been sleepin’.”

“Only twice?” Davey can feel a grin slipping onto his face at the indignant look upon Jack’s face.

“Why? How many time’s have they’s tried ta’ get yours?”

Davey laughs, any remaining tension seeping into the warm night as he relaxes into detailing the events of his first spring sleeping in his own room. Next to him, Jack switches between a bright grin and horrified expression, as Davey spins his story. Apparently, he’s much more disturbed by Davey’s tale than his reveal which causes another sliver of warmth to dig its way into his chest. Where, buried there, beneath the too tight bindings, and awful wrongness of his body, deep behind his ribs, Davey’s heart beats firmer, stronger and steadier than before.

 Perhaps this is what adulthood means, he muses as they begin to near the lodging house, that you must let your heart be free no matter what might occur. That despite how unprepared you feel, how terrifying it all is, you cannot flinch or hide from what is right, cannot strangle your heart in hopes to keep it whole.

Perhaps he’ll reach adulthood after all.

Perhaps he already has.