Originally I had even more of a ridiculously long author's note at the end of this, because I could go on forever about things I find interesting or have ideas about, but what I got rid of boils down to this: this took so long because I'm still working on how I characterize Davey, and the request contradicts my headcanons for him a bit.

Nightmare: a terrifying dream in which the dreamer experiences feelings of helplessness, extreme anxiety, sorrow, etc.

Davey does not remember his dreams.

Well, that's not completely true. There's one from when he was about eight years old that sticks in his mind for some reason; it featured a family friend eating too much soup and turning into a horrific soup monster, which wandered around the building, a deranged being that was still human enough, but at the same a perverted mockery of what it once was. He'd gotten up and slept on the floor by his parents' bed that night. Although every once in a while, an element of a dream makes it to his conscious mind, they usually aren't of much consequence.

This one is different.

It'd started innocently enough, with him sitting against a wall, reading a book. The sky was a gradient of pink, purple, and finally blue due to the sunset, or sunrise. It isn't defined and doesn't matter, in the half-reality of a dream. As he turned the page, he got a papercut, but he only stared, panicked and motionless, as blood overfilled it and spread over the pad of his finger. He remembers being very distraught that his book was being ruined. He stood up and walked into a narrow passageway, when all of the sudden, his foot caught on something that was sent skidding across the floor, and he tripped, using his hands to catch himself as best he could at the cost of the candle he was holding, which went out as it fell. But while one hand found flat ground, the other fell on top of a roundish, long object. Pushing himself up so he was kneeling on the ground, he reached forward and picked up was that a bone.

As he scrambled to his feet, he dropped it as if it was on fire. It made a dull clatter as it fell, but he was too busy frantically taking steps away from it for him to notice. He fell again, and then he was in another, similarly dark, room. A lifeless figure was propped against the wall, their arms hanging limply from chains that hung from the ceiling. Slowly, he walked over to it, each footfall echoing around the space. They wore a tattered plaid shirt that was all the way unbuttoned, and a familiar kind of hat lay on the ground next to them. As he stepped closer, he could make out… himself?

It takes Davey a moment to realize he's awake, and another few to be completely sure it was just a nightmare. He can't just go back to sleep, so he carefully moves Les off his arm and crosses the room to the door at the far side, just to the right of the stove. He keeps the knob twisted until it's all the way closed, and then slowly turns it back. Carefully, because being out here on the rough wood with bare feet is just asking for splinters, he walks over to the edge and rests his hands on the railing.

He wants to talk to Jack, but he knows whatever his unconscious mind makes up for him is downright silly compared to what Jack experiences, not to mention how awfully patronizing it would be, so instead, he just stands there in the lingering summer heat. It reminds him of before, when there weren't any friends to even think about going to for comfort. When he found himself staring at groups of people talking to each other before shaking himself out of it and going back to his work, sometimes with tears in his eyes.

But the unpleasant thoughts soon fade, and Davey finds himself smiling.

It's not like before. He has friends, friends who want the best for him and enjoy his company, even if sometimes his mind does an incredible job of convincing him they don't. Together, they'd taken on Pulitzer and won, and there's no way to convince him he wasn't essential to making that happen. The kind of companionship and camaraderie he's wished for his entire life? He has that. It's reality now, and he'd made it happen.

Armed with the knowledge that he is not alone, he goes back inside and settles into a peaceful sleep.

Alright, historical notes! The "balcony" on the Jacobs' apartment is a really simple wooden porch-box kind of thing. I don't think all tenement apartments had these, but I saw a picture at some point when I was doing research on 1890s New York in general so I could get a better sense of the kind of place all the newsies live. Every apartment on the back of the building has one, and they're lucky to live in one of the outside ones; conditions in these buildings were not great, to the point were in the early 20th century they had to pass a law so any new ones had decent-ish ventilation, which is wild. Imagine living in a 13ft by 13ft-ish room (roughly 4.5 meters for those of you who aren't in America) with no windows where you have to always be burning candles or kerosene lamps to be able to see and the building is completely filled with cramped rooms and hallways. Yeah, not fun.

Um, white or pink erasers?