Spot wasn't known for being caring. Sure, he made sure his boys were eating and selling, and yeah, he was a good leader, but he wasn't loving and kind. His boys knew that, the other newsies knew that, and he knew that. So when Spot Conlon, the famous King of Brooklyn, developed feeling for somebody, it surprised him. A lot. He kept it hidden for many reasons, not the least of which was that it would destroy his reputation. And there was the fact that feeling like he did was illegal. So he kept it hidden. He didn't let the feelings show through, he kept acting like everything was normal, like nothing had changed. But inside, everything was different. He couldn't look at Racetrack the same way, and he couldn't look at himself the same way. People like him were dirty. They were hated. They were thrown in jail. His whole life, he'd been told that if a boy liked a boy, they were disgusting. And despite all of that, he liked a boy. He not only had romantic feelings for somebody, a weakness in itself, he had romantic feelings for a boy. And not just any boy, either. A boy from Manhattan who had long ago worked his way into Spot's good graces, who had had free reign over Brooklyn in order to get to Sheepshead. Racetrack. The one boy who Spot might consider a friend. And somehow, sometime along the way, Spot had started to look at him like he was supposed to look at girls.
Even once he realized that, he couldn't change it. He couldn't stop himself from seeing Race and thinking about him like his boys did about girls. Like he was pretty, like Spot certainly wouldn't mind kissing him. He knew it was wrong. He knew it was illegal. So he kept it hidden. He didn't act on it. And because of that, he was forced to watch Race go walking by with girl after girl on his arm, flirting with every girl he passed, bragging about all the ladies he'd had. It tore Spot apart, knowing that the one person he liked like that would never like him back, and that even if he did, they could never be together in this life. It wasn't going to happen.
And it killed him.
It killed him to watch Race glow whenever he found a new girl, and sulk when she left him. It killed him to know that Race would never be happy unless he had a girl in his life. It killed him to know he would never be happy without Race in his life. Which was why he never even considered taking a chance and telling Race anything about how he felt. Spot would never be happy without Race in his life, and if that meant being unhappy watching him find girl after girl, well, it was unhappiness either way. And only one of those options had any happiness included at all.
So Spot hid it. He buried it deep inside himself and didn't let anybody see even a sliver of it. He hid his feelings for Race, he hid his pain at watching Race fall in love over and over, he hid himself. He hid who he was so that he could continue being who he was. It was never ending, painful. It was necessary. It was worth it.
Help? Somebody? Explain why I go from thinking of fluffiness to thinking of things like this or worse?