I'm pretty sure this is the longest thing I've ever written. Enjoy!
It's kind of hard to worry when you're on top of the world, especially if you're not used to the feeling. In fact, Jack didn't think of Crutchie past being glad he's back until later that day, when the celebration is over and people are steadily starting to wander back to the lodging house. As he strides into the upper room – most others had stayed downstairs to play cards or marbles, or just chat – he finds Crutchie in the bunk he usually only uses during the winter, when it's too cold to stay on the roof.
"Hey, Jack," he greets tiredly, smiling, but the same tricks Jack himself has used so often are all too easy to see through. The unsteadiness of his friend's grin and the way it doesn't quite reach his eyes betray him. Mindful of his injuries, Jack pulls Crutchie into a hug and strokes his back as a way of reassurance and comfort, although, if he's being honest, it's for himself just as much as it is for Crutchie, who silently leans against him.
"It's good to have you back."
Sighing, he responds, "Yeah." Jack nods.
"Get some sleep, alright? I'll be here if you need me." Although Crutchie is out like a light in minutes, Jack, concerned and caring, stays by his side as long as he can. It doesn't look like he's taken time to get cleaned up at all or even change clothes yet. Looking over his friend, he spots bruises on his face and arms as well as where his unbuttoned shirt is starting to slide off his shoulder, revealing a myriad of injuries in various stages of healing. That night, Jack sleeps leaning against the back of the bed, his feet tucked under the edge of the blanket and hat fallen to his lap.
Crutchie is still sleeping when he wakes up, and Jack can't quite decide if that's concerning or good. In an ideal world, he would be there when he wakes up, but there's still a union to be run and papers to sell, so after much worrying, Jack leaves a note and heads out to face the next day.
That afternoon, rather than following the other boys to Jacobi's, Jack heads back to the lodging house. Crutchie hadn't left his mind once since he left him in the morning, and the longer he's gone, the stronger the urge to go make sure he's alright becomes.
Finally, the lodging house comes into view. He unconsciously speeds up a bit so that the sounds of his footsteps on the stairs come shorter and louder than usual.
As Jack steps into the room, he sees Crutchie stir, which makes sense; he's a pretty light sleeper, which was one of the reasons Jack was so concerned when he never woke up during the morning, which was as chaotic as always. He makes his way over to the bunk.
"You've been doing ok?" he asks, despite already knowing the answer. No doubt, he's had a nightmare or two and had to lay there alone with his memories of the refuge until he fell asleep. He wishes he could have been there to comfort him when it happened, but at the same time, he knows it was impossible. The guilt and logic war inside his mind, but he silences them for now; there are other, more important things to attend to.
"Just been sleeping. All that took a lot out of me, I guess," is Crutchie's response. He carefully scoots over to make room for Jack to take a seat on the side of the bed, sitting up to lean against one of the supporting bars that hold up the bunk above him, where Finch sleeps. Jack, however, stops to gather up the blanket and lay it back over Crutchie's chest, tucking it behind his shoulders so it doesn't slip off, but making sure it doesn't feel like he's restrained. He kneels down, and, draping his hand around Crutchie's shoulder, guides him into a half hug. Crutchie leans forward against him. People walk down the street outside, unaware of the boy who suffers in the building they pass without another thought.
By the time newsies start to filter back into the lodging house, Crutchie has enough energy to participate in the normal friendly teasing and make his way down the stairs for dinner. Jack gives him most of his food; he knows he hasn't eaten much in the past week.
Romeo enthusiastically recounts the most glorious moments of the time Crutchie had missed, making himself seem quite the hero. Finch cuts in somewhere in the middle and takes over the story, much to Romeo's dismay, to tell of how Brooklyn had showed up. Throughout the whole thing, various newsies interject their own comments and claims. Crutchie forces a laugh when Buttons points out that Romeo had been one of the most scared. Jack watches him out of the corner of his eye. He knows how acting fine feels.
That night, they sleep on the rooftop again. Crutchie seems happy to be back, and Jack spots him looking up at the sky to pick out the few stars visible through the city air, clouded by factory smoke. All night, he sleeps soundly. Jack's glad he's lucky enough to get a good night's sleep, especially so early after his release.
Of course Crutchie wants to get right back out there as soon as his bruises start to fade; the stubborn idiot is too prideful to allow himself any time to recover. While he can get around alright again, now, it was only three days ago that'd he been crammed onto a top bunk at the Refuge. Jack ends up losing the argument about whether he'll go back to work, much to his dismay.
"Come on, you deserve a few more days off, it's nothing to pay rent for you."
"But if I don't work, I don't get paid Jack-"
"What did I just sa-"
"I'm healed up enough, so why would I stay back?"
Jack sighs wearily, care and honesty in his eyes. "You know I'm always here for you, right?"
Having finished making his bed, Crutchie straightens up, meets Jack's gaze with a soft smile and caring, appreciative, almost pitying eyes that seem to know something he doesn't, and says, "I know, Jack." There's a moment where they both stand there, and Jack, in his confusion and slight shock, forgets to try and stop Crutchie when he moves past him and out the door.
Of course, he chooses to sell with him that day, keeping an eye on his friend as they go through the motions. He makes sure Crutchie is never startled when Jack touches his shoulder, ruffles his hair, or swats at his arm, taking care to be more gentle than usual. Normalcy is good for a lot of people, he reminds himself, and if that's what Crutchie needs, he'll play the part. The day passes uneventfully, and besides catching his friend, or, in his words, brother, warily looking over his shoulder every once and awhile, he doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
So Jack doesn't pry, because he knows Crutchie, trusts that he'll come to him when he inevitably breaks from the stress of keeping up the act. Yes, he wishes he'd do so sooner, but Crutchie, who works so hard to show he doesn't need to be babied, is nothing if not proud; for once, Jack is willing to admit to himself that it's not realistic to expect him to ask for help.
So he waits. The thing is, Crutchie is so good at this, he's so good at pretending to be fine. Sometimes, Jack even catches himself wondering if it really isn't an act, but he always shakes it off, somewhat shocked at how he can almost start to believe something so ridiculous. Sure, it seems like he almost never gets nightmares, and maybe he's not jumpy or paranoid or anything like that, but he can't just be… ok. There's no way.
It's been a more than a month. The date on each newspaper advances: it's October 25th, 26th, 27th. Life continues as normal, and Jack thinks of trying to confront his friend again, even though he knows it won't do any good. One night, when he's up on the roof, he hears a clatter. Everyone else is playing cards – or, more accurately, collectively trying to beat Race, if they haven't managed to make him play with a handicap or ban him from the game entirely.
He turns around in time to see Specs just stepping off the last rungs of the ladder. That explains why he hadn't heard him sooner; Specs has an uncanny ability to be practically silent when he wants to. Rattling the ladder was just to let Jack know he was there.
"It's nice up here," he starts as he ambles over, looking around. Jack shrugs.
"It's just not as crowded." A beat, then, "What are you up here for, anyway? If you came to apologize for showing Kath my drawings, you don't need to."
Specs smiles, fond humor twinkling in his eyes. "No, I just wanted to come talk to you. Is Crutchie doing alright? It's been a while, and you're still watching out for him more than usual."
Sighing, Jack replies, "Yea, he ain't doing so good, but he doesn't want to let anyone know. I've been trying to wait him out, but he's more stubborn than I counted on." Specs, half sitting on the railing as he leans back on it, hums in acknowledgement, his hands resting on the metal because anything else would feel awkward while he's not holding anything. He tilts his head, thinking.
"You think he's figuring it out on his own, or something?"
Jack looks at him like he's crazy. It's impossible to recover from time in the Refuge without some kind of comfort. He backs up, fixing an accusing look on him. "No, no, you don't understand. Nobody crawls out of hell just fine like that, you, you don't know how it's like!"
"Yeah, I don't," he says, irritatingly unaffected. "Just thought I might try an' help you out." Just like that, he's gone, leaving Jack once again alone on the rooftop. There was no retaliation, or even an abrupt ending, and with no kind of resolution, Jack, who had been ready for an argument, slams his had onto the railing, making the metal shake and ring with the vibrations that travel through it.
The next day, he spots Crutchie talking to Specs at the edge of newsies square, far enough away that if anyone hears them, they won't pay them much attention. He doesn't realize he's staring until Crutchie looks over at him and their eyes meet, but he holds his gaze. Crutchie looks away first. The way he turns back to Specs, but glances over every once in a while makes it painfully obvious that they're talking about him. When he gets his papers and goes to find Crutchie, they're gone, so he tries to ignore the painful what it what if what if on loop in his mind as well as the confusion and anger that come from being avoided, and sells near Davey and Les that day.
The headline is pretty good – something about a string of robberies that had people curious and worried enough without having to change it too much – so he sells out in enough time to make it down to the theater before the evening paper comes out and it's back to the streets for newsies all around New York. Although it doesn't take too long to find something to paint on, once he has everything set up and a paintbrush in his hand, he can't seem to get started. Even Santa Fe, his go-to subject when he doesn't have something specific in mind, refuses to take shape on the canvas. Pouting to himself in the form of something between a whine and a huff, he forces the tip of his brush forward and starts… something. The outline of the head and shoulders of a person come first, but before he can give the rest of the body any more definition he's adding sandy blond hair, freckles, a bright smile, and eyes that shine with a playful light. They're leaning on the railing and facing out toward the street, but looking at something next to them. Although their clothing is unremarkable tones of brown and gray, they sharply contrast the cold, dark, and rough world around them, and even seem to glow despite it.
Jack steps back and stares at it for a moment. He uses his sleeve to wipe away the tears that start to gather in his eyes.
He absently realizes that he's been spending more time up on the roof, lately. It doesn't matter much, though, as he looks down the street to where everything is too shadowy for him to make out anything at all and thinks. He thinks about how sometimes the ghost of a switch comes down on his back, Snyder's voice echoes in his head, and the… closeness of everything in this godammed city presses down on him and makes him want to run, run until his legs ache and he can hardly breathe, he thinks about how sometimes he wonders if living like he does is any better than not living at all, he thinks about how Race's bad days are different from his but he gets them all the same. When a hand is placed on his shoulder, he whirls around defensively, not having seen or heard Crutchie come up behind him.
And there's that look again, the one from the morning he'd tried to convince him not to go sell, except he can read it better now and doesn't know whether he should apologize or be angry or cry.
Jack wants to say something, but doesn't know what. In his mind, he cycles through ways to start: How-, I can't-, you're-
A rueful smile. "I know, Jack," Crutchie states, looking into his eyes. "I know. It's okay."
That night, Crutchie watches over Jack as he falls asleep, just as he's done many times before. New York is strong, dark, cruel, busy, and crowded. It wears people down, but Crutchie is okay. He is stronger.
Canonically (I'm not sure about historically) the strike took place in July, but that doesn't make any sense because the Jacobs kids wouldn't be missing school, so. Please comment! It doesn't even have to be anything of value. Complain about your day or leave a random string of letters, I'll love it.