Based on a prompt by SomedayonBroadway for a brotherly fic for Crutchie and/or Race (heck, I chose both, of course), in which aforementioned lovable idiots are soaked by two notorious bros and thus Jack does what Jack does best…. Hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it, because I plan on another chapter or two:) I apologize for it's unedited state and my evil autocorrect. Hope it all worked out.
Disclaimer: You know I don't
Race dragged his hand across his eyes. His head throbbed with sleep still, even though he'd been awake for almost ten minutes, taking in the stuffy air and lack of cigar. From somewhere in the darkness he heard thick, fast breathing. Rolling out of what little excuse for a bed he had, he moved across the room, feet bare and slapping the cold boards.
"Crutchie?" He leaned down and touched the younger boy's arm. Crutchie flinched away.
"Nah, get 'em off me, please!" Crutchie mumbled. "J'ck, dey's beatin' us!"
"Crutchie, c'mon kid. Wakes up." Race moved his lips to reposition a cigar that wasn't there. His brows drew together tightly. "Wakes up!"
Cruthchie bolted upright. His face was sweaty and his hair flat on the back from sleeping.
"Race?" he breathed a breath as hard as iron into the flat August air as soon as he found the other boy in the darkness. "Y-youse good?"
"Huh, youse the one wi'dah rollin' around act, kid. Dreams?"
Race swung himself gently onto the bed, sitting on the side. Crutchie tried to bring his legs over the side as well, but his face contorted in pain, and then a half-smile-half-grimace took over his face.
"Guess I sould think dees things tru." He leaned back, clothing his eyes.
"So dreams?" prompted the older boy, reaching into his shirt pocket, where an old, much thinner-than-usual cigar was hidden. Not lighting it, he allowed the thing to hang from his mouth while he chewed on the end. Crutchie nodded slowly.
"I gots it stuck in my head some nights… 'bout the Refuge. Ise gotta get out of it, but I can't. Every time. And then deres Jack. Ise keep dreaming he's stuck there too, but he's soaked good. Can't even stand. Ise keep dreamin' he's got a crutch too."
"Sos? More papes for 'im."
"He wants to make Santa Fe, Race. He can't do dat with a bum leg. Gonna ride Palaminos."
"Pala-what nows?"
"I honest don't know. Must be like a kind of horse out 'dere. Can't ride with no gimp leg."
"Sure can't."
"How do you know?"
"Well Ise ridden them horses. See it was a long time ago, one time only. Got on that big brown monstah and took off. Relative's farm. Nearly lost my everything, all that wind blowin' an' those big angry hooves. Nothin' romintic like 'bout ridin' skinny cows. But it surely takes both legs, I tell you."
Crutchie nodded in the pause after Race's comment."Well he was crippled anyways."
The two drank the dark silence for a moment.
"'Ehy Crutchie, youse don't minds me askin'... How'd you get the bum leg anyhows? Always known yah to have it, ever since Jack picked youse out of a wastebin on 3d an' Croftbarrah. I remembers it well."
"Yeah, I bet you remembers it." Crutchie grinned, "You ate all the bread in my pockets." His face fell, "Course I couldn't do much wit' bread anyways. Was pretty sick. I got the leg when I got the Polio. I was, hmm, mebbe six."
Race tilted his head back, and dragged the cigar out of his mouth for a moment, and like it was lit, blew his tobacco breath into the air, "Hmm." He felt bad for the kid in most ways except one. Papes. Fake or not, Ladies, if they were regular ladies, not like Katherine or Miss Medda- Miss Medda especially, who'd probably never touched a pape in her life- had hearts like butter when it came to cute, almost good looking fellas like Crutchie with a limp, as they sagged their weight a little more than usual on their crutches, and maybe groan, or make an exaggerated face of agony as they clutched papers to their skinny chests. Why, Race himself had pulled the stunt a few times. Once last winter, when Crutchie's leg had stiffened up too much for work, Race had borrowed the crutch and ditched his cigars for a day to look even poorer, and more pitiful than ever in his whole life (and he'd smoked for about seven years now, so it was possibly the hardest day of his known life). He spent the whole day hobbling around, frequently sitting down and coughing into his elbow midway through harking a headline. He got almost twice as much cash as usual. This was easy stuff. Crutchie had it in the bag if you asked him.
And then, Race couldn't imagine stepping onto pain like knifes or no feeling at all. He couldn't imagine the start of a fever, and the thought that it was just another cold, and then waking up a week later, weak and unable to use a limb, or all of them, maybe. Crutchie had had it easy and hard all at once. Race had been dished all the tough stuff in life, but it didn't mean he had to eat it. His voice was the one to listen to if Jack wasn't around, and he liked it that way.
"You should go ta bed." Crutchie sighed. Race glanced out the window.
"Dahwn." He said through the cigar, staring at the bleeding orange sky. Any minute the circulation bell would complain below them, and covers would be thrown off. A thousand words would come and go for mere coins, and then they'd come back here and sleep, and then repeat it all over again.
"Do yah think we could sell togethah today, Race?" Crutchie asked quietly, and suddenly.
"Why?"
"Leg's… stiff." The younger boy blushed. Race knew he hated asking for help. That's why he spared Crutchie of the embarrassment of saying when he really wanted to say, and so agreed.
…
After getting the papers under arm, the boys split as usual, each to the selling spot they'd claimed. Jack pulled Race aside as he started to move after Crutchie.
"Wheres you headed off to? Youse spots dah way."
"Crutchie asked for a partner in crime, yah see. Can't let the crip down." Race lifted his papers, "gotta go."
Jack looked suspicious, but shrugged. All the way across the street, Race felt Jack's eyes measuring their direction and steps. It was unusual for a Newsie to change their selling spot unless the customers died spots were reserved especially for each person. Albert liked going up and down a street that had been an outdoor market for as long as New York had been New York. Elmer and Henry had taken as of late to each side of one street packed with shops, as sort of a competition to see who was more successful in the same place. Jack took a walking route, tending towards dress shops and any store that sold sappy romance books and poetry or cloth. He was a ladies man, undeniably.
Now Romeo, Specs, Mush, Buttons, and all the others had their own places as well, but it was Race's that really stood apart. He prided himself for having picked the prime selling ground, and he prefered it over every other spot in the city, without question. It was the theatre, and he was right to like it. Theatre goers were like magnets to the News drama. They were rich, and they were there to be seen. The theatre didn't like people loitering, of course, but Race didn't consider himself "people."
This is why, when he followed Crutchie down a maze of back alleys, somehow struggling to keep up with the cripple, he felt dread pounding in his gut with each step. No one walked in the back alleys…. Crutchie must have been mad. There weren't any customers here.
"'Ey, Crutchie, wheres we goin'. Peoples is dat way, papes is dat way, dough is dat way!" he thrust a crooked finger over his shoulder.
Crutchie either didn't hear him, or simply ignored him.
When they emerged, Race almost slapped himself. Did Crutchie know he was selling only blocks away from the Refuge, and the Delancey brother's territory, no less? As they entered the busy street from a side alley, Race caught up and touched Crutchie on the shoulder.
"Watch yourself. Youse gonna get dah Spidah up on youse scent. Whad'ah'ya thinkin', Crutch, comin' 'ere?"
"Ise thinkin' it's always worked." Crutchie thrust the paper up as high as his crutch-supporting arm and his free one would allow, "Hey, Fifth avenue mansion robbed! $30,000 in cash missin'!" Crutchie limped forward, shaking the paper. A man gave him a short, dubious look as he passed.
"Dat's no good, Crutch." Race picked up a paper from his own stack and waved it in the air, "Robbah on da loose! Where hes' now!"
"How that any different?" Crutchie muttered. "Dat guy was just sour, Racer."
"Peoples get scared iffin they thinks theys next." The other boy whispered through his teeth. Louder, he continued his spiel,"Hey, Ma'am, robbah loose! All over! Finds out where hes now!"
A young face flashed with suspicion for a brief second as she glanced at them. Before they knew it she'd kept walking along and almost disappeared into the crowd.
"Youse sure dis is dah hotspot, Crutch?" Race glanced down his nose at his cigar. The thing was all but dead.
"Yeah! Look, it all goes with the limp, see. And the poy-son-al-it-ee!" He sobered up quickly and leaned double the weight on his crutch. Race watched in fascination as he dragged his gimp leg all the way to the ankle, chasing after the woman. He stumbled, and for a moment Race thought he was really falling. Instead he just caught himself on his knees and hung his head, wiping under his eye with the back of his hand. The young woman from earlier stopped to face him. Race watched her as she helped him back up. He couldn't hear what she was saying, but Crutchie was shrugging bashfully and still wiping his eyes, gesturing wildly to his pockets, and then pointing enthusiastically down the street.
Ah, the robbery, please help me out lady gig. Nice one Crip. Race shook his head. The young woman eventually relented and handed him a coin. When he went to give her the paper, she pushed it away. Hands on his hips, grinning, Race watched as Crutchie held the quarter in the palm of his hand, close to his chest with the deepest, most sincere gratitude in his young face. Race couldn't tell if it was part of the act or actually genuine. He assumed the first. Crutchie wasn't that surprised, obviously. This was his turf. He knew the rules of the game. It was over in a minute when two all too familiar figures appeared behind him, one of them glaring at the young woman, and pointing her to a lamp post, which Race assumed was a sign for "wait there. We'll deal with you after." Then the two men took the back of Crutchie's shirt and pushed him into the closest alley. Race was running by now, but it was too late. Crutchie was cornered in the alley. The Delancey brothers were throwing kicks at his ribs as the teenage curled in on himself.
"Lay off 'im!" Race shoved Morris aside, falling to his knees in front of Crutchie.
"Not till he quits buggin' Anna."
"Annah?" Race stood cautiously, fists at the ready. "Goylfriend?" his accent thickened.
Oscar wiped his mouth where is was evident Crutchie had hit him with that lucky crutch, which now lay discarded on the wet ground. "Sistah."
Race didn't even get a punch in before a scrap of silver slashed the air and embedded itself into his thigh. Shocked, he felt himself crumple to the ground, and then was introduced to a deluge of boots basting his torso, face, and almost everywhere else except for his leg- or maybe that was just the agony pounding through his limb that desensitized the area. He was about to give in to the darkness, guilty for being unable to save Crutchie, sorry that they'd both wake up in the Refuge, or he'd wake up alone, dead, in hell. But as all of this was overwhelming his mind, the kicks stopped just as quickly as they'd begun. A scuffle could be heard as another familiar, angrier voice butted in.
Jack? His mind echoed the name hopefully. If nothing else, he needed Jack.
A face came close to his, and hands came under his head. Race hadn't felt this out of it since his last hangover, about a month ago. Jack's frantic expression careened out of focus and then sharply clarified. Race's ears buzzed, and his face drained of all it's blood as he felt warm wetness under his hand beneath his thigh. The red was blinding.
"Cr'tchie," he murmured through bloodied lips.
Jack looked helplessly at both boys, but Crutchie especially, who was still down behind Race. And then the world went muffled tilted into grey nothing.
So there's chapter one! Hope you enjoyed, and please stay tuned for more, which hopefully, if I don't fall into the evil clutches of writer's block/homework, will be out soon.