Whaddup Newsies fandom, I was literally raised with the 1992 movie and am only getting into the fandom this year. Came for the javid, stayed for the sprace. So in honor of Valentine's Day, please enjoy this...Christmas.
This fic is loosely based off an original work someone wrote and archived long ago on DeviantArt (and which I think I found again on Fictionpress). The story went that there was a boy in a very homophobic family who spent his entire year yearning for Christmas and the one chance he got to kiss a family friend (also a boy) under the excuse of mistletoe. I read it when I was twelve, and while I couldn't stomach the darker stuff, that kid's situation left an impression on me. So like, here's a happier version with sprace.
I really hope the guy who runs the lodging house is named Klobberman, because I'm not changing it. Also I have no idea of anyone's ages.
I normally do song lyrics for a title, but this phrase stuck out so much that I thought I might as well use it.
One of the older boys, Race can't remember who, is the one to put it up. He brags for a week that he's sneaking in a girl to the newsies' Christmas shindig at the lodging house, but she stands him up at the last minute. Now there's a corner adorned with an optimistic sprig of mistletoe, and the boy who planned to make use of it is moping on the opposite side of the room.
The newsies all rib at each other with winks and rolled eyes, and a few of them are brave—or stupid—enough to get caught under it. Race, twelve years old and a Manhattan newsie for three years, is one of a few who positions himself right beside it, trying to glimpse whoever will fall victim to the kissing tradition.
So far he's only jeered at Kid Blink, who sheepishly pecked Mush on the cheek before stomping off. It's gotten boring, but he and Albert are making the best of it, laughing and joking and enjoying a night where Race can put aside his financial worries and feel at home with his second family.
As the lodging house gets crowded—newsies from other boroughs are sauntering in, having heard about Manhattan's festivities—someone pushes into Race's back.
"Hey, ya mind?" Race swivels around, interrupting his own story to come face to face with Spot Conlon. Spot only barely tolerates him; he lets him sell at Sheepshead, technically his own turf, and occasionally lingers around threatening to demand a cut. He never does, and Race would like to think it's because of his sparkling personality, but he also knows not to question the will of Brooklyn's most powerful newsie.
The newsie who is now glaring at him like he hasn't since Race first started selling at Sheepshead.
"Spotty," he grins. May as well try the old charms. He's only gotten a few scrapes from Spot so far. "What brings you across the bridge? Ain't Brooklyn having some sorta soiree too?"
"Makin' the rounds," Spot says curtly. "Havin' audiences. Your cowboy needs to remember my eye on 'im."
"Your eye don't see everything," Albert snickers. He grins like it's his birthday as well as Christmas and points above Spot's head.
They look up simultaneously to see the dangling mistletoe.
"What, they don't got mistletoe back in Brooklyn?" Albert crows when neither Spot nor Race move. "Not even the king himself can pass on tradition."
"First time yous had this particular decoration," Spot says, but it sounds more like a demand. Race, in the meantime, is slowly pinkening as he realizes who Spot is nearest to. It's not Al.
"Spot, it's no trouble, don't mind his shit," he says. "We was just waiting to see who else might—"
Before he can finish, his lips are muffled by a second pair. Spot's. Race's eyes remain open, but he can see nothing, hear nothing but his own breathing, feel nothing but a pair of chapped, warm lips that belong to none other than the king of Brooklyn.
Spot pulls away and snorts at Race as if he looks indecent. He probably does, with his mouth still half open and his face flushed. "Consider it my Christmas generosity that I don't soak ya for it," Spot informs…one of them, and makes his way through the crowd before Race can figure out who.
Albert taps him on the shoulder. "You better be glad you're still breathin', Race."
"Shut up," Race mutters. He shuts his open jaw and whacks Albert on the shoulder. "Was all your idea anyway."
Albert only laughs.
Spot mentions nothing about the kiss the next time Race sells at Sheepshead. Or the next. It's like it never happened, and Race tells himself that every time it comes up in his mind, which is more than he expects or would prefer. Can't ruin a good working relationship.
The next year he's thirteen and a bit more filled out, but moreover he's warier of the mistletoe. Mush decides it was a smashing success last year, so he puts it up for the year's Christmas festivities, this time in a brand new location. Race sets up at a table with some of his bunkmates and spends most of the night robbing them at poker, but victory makes him cocky, and he doesn't think about the path he's taking to stash his winnings.
"I'm expectin' a cut," he hears behind him as he reaches the stairs. He swivels around and, despite himself, beams at Spot. He's growing taller than Spot and he's really enjoying it, although he still hasn't figured out when Spot's going to swipe at him for it and when he's just going to roll his eyes at the taunts.
"Set yourself up at the poker table and maybe you could win it off me," Race says.
"Too much work, and too low odds. I ain't gamblin' with a gambler."
"Then I guess my pretty face is just gonna have to be the only cut you get."
Spot raises an eyebrow. The action sends his gaze upward, and he scoffs disbelievingly. When Race follows his eyes, he finds the mistletoe, green and cheerful, nestled right above them at the foot of the stairs.
"Lousy luck for you tonight," Race says without thinking. "No cut and caught under the mistletoe." Outside he's as cool as can be, but he feels as if he's suddenly leaking sweat. He swallows and curses. Spot can probably see his nerves from such a close proximity, or feel them radiating off him.
Spot hums and leans forward. Race's lips are closed this time, thank god, and he even remembers after a moment to close his eyes, just like he promised himself he would if this ever happened again. He thinks about the first kiss every so often, when he can't sleep or when it's a slow sales day, but the details were lost in the shock. In case the mistletoe doesn't come out next year, he needs to catalogue the feeling of Spot's lips. He inhales and almost dares to taste him.
Spot pulls back before he can try. They're surrounded by newsies, friends, and Race suddenly fears that if they knew how much he liked that kiss—how he'd unflinchingly shove his winnings into Spot's hands for the chance at another—they might not be his friends anymore.
"That'll do," says Spot, and he smirks at Race in a way that could mean he'd nicked a coin or two from Race's bag while he was distracted, but could also mean—no, it couldn't, but Race wants it to. That epiphany sends him reeling up the stairs with only one backward glance at Spot, who's forging his way toward some younger kids with both hands in his pockets.
He forgets to count his coins until the next day, but when he tries he can't remember what he started with. If that's his fee for a second kiss from Spot Conlon, he can think of so much worse.
The third kiss, when he's fourteen, happens as he's waiting for the can. Spot treats it like a passing greeting, doesn't even explain to the guy talking his ear off beyond the single uttered "mistletoe". Race blanches when he sees it above him, lingering above the doors to the bathrooms like a trap, but when he looks back to wonder how Spot could have noticed so immediately, he's already rounded the corner.
The year he's fifteen, Race lingers by the reception and its mistletoe-draped doorway for most of the night. He stalls by offering Klobberman to escort the non-Manhattan boys out if they can't pay for a night, and he hates himself for stooping to that level.
But Spot hasn't shown up all night, and all he has to do is walk in the foyer. He doesn't even have to attend the party. He just has to show up. Then Race can go back upstairs to the Manhattan boys and make up the winnings that should rightly have been his, except that he's learning slowly but so clearly that there's only one night a year he can win this particular prize.
It's probably not a gamble; he believes in the meaning of threes, his mother taught him that much. But it feels like one, and not the kind that sets his heart pounding with excitement. More like the kind that makes him queasy, like he just knows he chose the wrong horse but he wants it to win so badly, he feels it'll win, and he'll cover the odds in the paper with his thumb if that's what gets him to put money on it.
Spot walks through the doorway at five minutes until curfew, strolling like he stopped for ice cream and a pleasant chat.
"Bad timing there, Spotty," Race jibes, and his heart does a little victory dance before he scolds himself. "You gone and missed all the highlights of the night."
"If you mean Crutchie's done singing his carols, I'm callin' that a blessing," says Spot. Race grins and can't stop, and he feels like he should but what the hell, he grins at Spot every day, and why should the Manhattan Christmas festivities be any different?
"So how's the world outside Brooklyn treatin' you?" Race asks, leaning against Klobberman's counter while the man himself rolls his eyes. Race takes out his cigar and fiddles with it. "I'm guessin' you had some pressing business what kept you away so long."
"Just the weather. It's damn cold out there," says Spot. He seems to glare at Race, but Race knows he's just thinking about his windy trip back across the Brooklyn bridge.
"Well." Race sees the opportunity and mentally begs himself not to take it, but they don't call him Racetrack because he ever plays it safe. "Maybe it's time we show a bit of Manhattan hospitality. Be a real honor to put up Brooklyn royalty for the night," he clarifies when Spot looks at him with both eyebrows raised.
Spot is surprised, but only for a moment before his face returns to his default scowl. He seems to be doing some calculations, and Race's heart leaps into his throat. What if he says yes? It's a two boys to a bed kind of night, the way half of New York has caught onto these Manhattan festivities, and Race's bed has only him in it. Or possibly not, if.
If.
"Nah, ain't nothing gonna replace the friendliest place on earth. 'Specially not for me." Spot shrugs as he says it, as if Manhattan isn't even worth considering. Neither Manhattan nor its residents, one of whom is now trying to collect the scraps of a hope he didn't know he had. Race presses his lips together and nods, and tries to arrange his expression into what ought to be his old grin.
"Another time," he says, knowing there won't be one. Spot Conlon ain't a queer. Race might be, and it terrifies him to admit that: how often his mind lingers to the kisses he can count on one hand, to where they might lead if Race were persuasive enough, discreet enough, better enough. Race might be queer, but Spot Conlon ain't, and those are the odds he has to face.
"Better go summon Jackie for ya." Race steps back to go find him. Spot takes that step with him and another, and closes the distance between them with his lips. Race's heart pounds in his chest, in his head, everywhere, and it takes all he can not to moan or reach out, not to take more than the mistletoe above him lets him have.
"Don't bother." Spot has pulled away and is speaking before Race can reopen his eyes. He opens his mouth to say another thing, and then closes it before he can. It's the only time Race has seen him look anything but sure about what he has to say.
"Bridge ain't gonna cross itself," he finally says, and sweeps out of the foyer without even looking at Klobberman.
The man turns to Race, who's still standing under the mistletoe, stunned. "This some new alliance I need to know about?"
"Just a Christmas thing," Race mutters. He can hear newsies coming down the stairs and gathers himself enough to go greet them.
The year Race is sixteen is the year they strike. It's over in summer, so by winter the newsies' lives are more or less where they stood last year. Except that Spot Conlon, hero in the hour of need, comes more often to Manhattan, and Jack—with the nudging of the new walking mouth David—has figured out that Race deserves a seat at those meetings.
Race is dying to flatter himself that Spot came for him. That he was perfectly fine to keep his boys out of it until he heard that Race had aligned with Jack, that Race was in danger of a soaking, that Race and his side might lose. But when asked about why he did it, Spot only preens, and he's visiting Race twice as often—their Sheepshead chats haven't changed, plus now there are new borough alliance meetings—and Race's gambling instinct tells him to let it ride.
Race has developed the habit of sticking the cigar in his mouth every time he's thinking of a kiss with Spot. Every extra meeting with Spot is another chance for Race to let slip his tell, to show his cards and inevitably lose, but the game also teaches him some valuable information about Spot. Perhaps the most valuable is Spot's opinion on the closeness of Jack's and David's relationship.
Race is chatting him up after hours, regaling him with tales of Albert's latest misadventure, when Spot locks eyes with something across the room and jerks his chin in its direction. "How long's that been goin' on?"
Race looks across the room. Jack and David are sitting side by side on the couch, watching a game of marbles. But Spot doesn't stop looking until David feels eyes on him and looks back, and after a moment Race sees it: their sides pressed together, Jack's arm almost but not quite around David's shoulders, David's pinky almost but not quite resting on Jack's thigh, and his head leaning on his bicep as if his shoulder is the next destination.
"They're just real close," Race says quietly. "Jack gave his sister a try and decided he didn't deserve a girl like her."
"Sure looks like it broke poor Davey's heart," Spot says. It takes Race a second to realize Spot is mocking Jack, using his nickname for David. Spot normally calls him Mouth, or Walking Mouth if he's feeling formal.
Race shrugs. "They're selling partners."
"Friends."
"That too."
There's a loaded silence where Race wonders if Spot can feel his own queerness wafting off him, or if he can sense who it's directed to. Spot looks deep in thought, and Race has to be the one to restart the conversation. "That ain't gonna be a problem, yeah? 'Cause you know how much we's all love Jack. You got trouble with it, we got trouble with you."
"Slow down there, Racer. Ain't my place to say what go on in another man's territory."
Race does a double-take. Spot is smirking like he has new and delicious leverage, but that's not all. There's a layer of something beneath that smirk, something calmer and more content. Race wants to know what, but he seems to have run out of nerve for the day and steers the talk back to safer topics.
This conversation, and Spot's surprisingly even outlook on it, is the only thing that keeps Race sane until the next Christmas party. It's David's first Christmas—he celebrates Hanukah, he reminds them, and the boys slowly start using the term "holiday party" to describe their yearly get-together—and he doesn't know about the mistletoe, so Jack gets the honor of placing it and explaining the custom.
"Right up there, Les," he prompts the boy on his shoulders. He's directing the mistletoe to its original corner from all those years ago. "That's it. Atta boy." He stoops down and lets Les off, and spins around to give David an exaggerated smack on the cheek.
"What—I don't—" David flounders.
Jack beams in response, and Race doubts he's the only one who sees the genuine mirth in his expression. "Mistletoe magic starts now, Davey. Keep outta this corner if ya know what's good for you."
Race takes the advice like it was meant for him. He always keeps either a cup, a cigar, or a deck of cards in hand, and fiddles with whichever he's holding so he doesn't have any attention left to wander to the sprig of green. He surrounds himself with so many people that he can't possibly look for someone in particular. He tells jokes and hands out lighthearted insults and laughs loud and hard to drown out the heartbeat pounding in his ears.
He's waited three hundred and sixty four days, and god help him if this is the year he doesn't taste Spot Conlon's lips.
He feels a tap on his shoulder and tilts his head back to see Spot upside down, his narrowed eyes unmistakable.
"Hiya Spot!" He masks his nerves with cheer. "Glad you could make it. Pull up a chair, I's just about to tell about the time—"
"Up, Higgins."
The other newsies "ooh" and hoot until one glare from Spot shuts them up. Most of the boys know Race's and Spot's long history, if not the…er, highlights, so they figure it's just politics not worth their time. From his side, Albert pushes Race off the couch.
"Try to bring us the remains, wouldja?" Albert snarks at Spot. "I needs him intact for blackjack later."
"Cross my heart," Spot says in deadpan. He turns his back to Race and walks forward, and Race follows without instruction.
"So what," he calls to Spot as the crowd parts for him. "Ya woke up today with a sudden urge to see my face? Take your cut? I gotta warn ya, I'm buying Christmas presents this year, but I might be able to make it up to you after—"
"Race." Spot reaches the wall, stops, and turns on one heel to face him. He's shorter, but Race has never truly felt taller. Spot's got so much personality it lends him stature, and that's one of a thousand things that fly through Race's mind when he lets himself think about Spot Conlon.
"Shut up about the cut," Spot snaps. "I ain't never wanted it before, and I ain't gonna ask later."
Race nods once, sharply. His expression softens into confusion. "So what's going on?"
"Nothin's going on."
"You just showed up," Race realizes. He looks over Spot's cheeks and ears, pink from the cold.
"So what?"
"Surely I ain't the first person you're looking for."
"In this fine establishment?" Spot glances around minutely, but his eyes land almost immediately back on Race. They scan him from top to bottom, and Race feels like he's being evaluated for something. But either he passes now or he passed long ago, because Spot presses his lips into a line before letting one word escape: "Maybe."
One of his hands reaches up, and Race holds his breath as it edges towards his cheek—past his cheek—settles itself on the back of his head and tangles into his short hair. The second hand cups his jaw, and Race's pulse threatens to leap from his neck. Spot pauses, and for just a moment Race looks at him and sees what he himself is feeling: eyes darkening, lips opening, chest heaving.
Before the thought of mistletoe can even cross his mind—because this is the corner, it has to be—Spot pulls Race's head down and meets his lips in the middle. It's the fifth time but it feels like the first, and Race could cry for how badly he wants it, wants it more than he could ever hope to voice. He moves his lips experimentally and Spot exhales into him before adjusting to the new configuration. His heart flutters. This moment is a miracle.
But of course even miracles have to end, and Spot is pulling apart and it's over too soon. And Race's internal monologue must have momentarily found a way out, because the first thing he breathes into the air between them is what he tells himself recently, every time he wishes for what just happened: "Spot Conlon ain't a queer."
Spot's hand tenses in Race's hair, and Race figures out immediately that this thought should have stayed a thought. He opens his eyes to see Spot glaring into them, like he's about to teach Race a lesson. Race isn't even aware enough to flinch.
"Spot Conlon," Spot repeats back to him, "is whatever he says he is."
"Yeah?" Race murmurs. In for a penny, in for a pound. "And who is he?"
Spot looks for a moment like he wants to be angry, but something in Race's expression must stop him. For his part, Race is terrified. He's going to lose this kiss and every one after it. He's going to lose Sheepshead, he's going to lose Spot because he couldn't keep his damn mouth shut.
"Spot Conlon is the son of a bitch who crosses the Brooklyn Bridge every year to kiss the idiot who sells at Sheepshead."
As if this confession is the damning thing and not their position, Spot releases Race's hair from his grip and pushes him away. He doesn't leave, but he looks like he wants to; he locates the door out of the corner of his eye and intently doesn't look at Race, who is letting the words soak into his brain.
Race's smile grows bright enough to light up the New York skyline.
"Seems to me you got some efficiency problems," he says. If his heartbeat was racing before, it's now fireworks in his veins. "I mean, Sheepshead, that's a damn fine place for kissin'."
"Yeah?" Spot finally looks back at him. His shoulders have fallen, but his chest is puffing up and he looks set to whistle, the thing he does only on really good days. Race would know. They've only spent five years dancing around each other. "Once a year, you think?"
"That's another thing," says Race. He takes his cigar from his pocket and points at Spot with it as if mentoring a younger newsie. "All your charms, I bet you'd get away with one a day, easy. Maybe two."
Spot snatches the cigar from Race's fingertips and rolls it between his fingers. "Sounds to me like a new partnership."
"Yeah." The sheer excitement of the word trickles into his voice. "Partners."
Spot drags out the moment a little longer, but Race can already see his mind's been made. Around them newsies are mulling around, calling to each other, sitting closer than perhaps some of them should. Race bets to himself that if he were to drag Spot back to the sofa and plant him square in his lap, he'd get no more than a bruise from Spot and a few wolf whistles from the guys. Now that Spot Conlon is a sure bet—probably the biggest of his life so far—he's ready for another wager. Let it ride.
"It seems," Spot says slowly and with a small but genuine grin, "you got yourself a deal."
He lifts his hand like he means to shake on it, but Race ignores it in favor of a kiss, the first one he's initiated between them. He keeps it chaste—after all, it's a business deal—but he'll get to know the flavor of those lips. They have all the time they need.