This story just randomly came to me. I don't know why, or how, but I decided to write it anyway. I hope you like it.
It was always the same. Every night. Sitting in a chair, bound and helpless as he watched each of his newsies brought before him to be judged. His newsies, the boys who respected and trusted him...trusted him to keep them safe and alive even through the harsh streets of Brooklyn. Their fates decided by a nameless, faceless man who looked over each newsie before making his assessment.
Shadow, Spot's second in command, only sixteen years old but deemed too much of a risk to let live, so he was always killed. Beaten to death before his very eyes. Every blow and cut Spot seemed to feel himself.
Tiny, an eleven year old that Spot had taught to sell papers. Tiny had worshipped him in a way that most of the others never understood. And now, looking up a Spot with his big, brown eyes, begging, pleading for him to do something, to save him. But Spot never could do anything, only watch and wait as his punishment was doled out.
The worst were always the little ones. The seven, eight, nine year olds, most just younger brothers of some of Spot's best fighters. They would cry out, scream for Spot to save them. And Spot cried.
He always tried to just take himself away from the pain. To hide himself behind the tough facade that he was so famous for. But he never could. He always cried, tears streaming down his face as he watched his newsies die before him, in ways that, if he could just get out of the chair, he could save them. But he couldn't and so they died.
Some nights, when he woke up, real tears drying upon his face, he couldn't take it. So he would wipe the tears off and go stand in the doorway of the newsies bunkroom. And he would watch them sleep, counting each one, just to reassure him that they were there, and alive, and safe. So when, on these nights, some newsies woke to find him staring at them, they never said anything. Because even King's get nightmares.