Nobody wants to do the Crazy Things We Used to do before
By SaL
A/N: The long awaited sequel to Nobody Left to Run With Anymore
In which one of our favorites is haunted by his past
I don't know how many times I've washed my hands I lost count after fifty. I've scrubbed and scrubbed but they remain stained. As I gaze out the bathroom window I have the perfect view of my three innocent children playing happily with their uncle. Disgusted with myself I scrub harder till my hands are raw, but it doesn't help. It just makes them worse, for my hands are forever stained, stained with the wretched blood from my past.
It's been six years since we killed him, six years and that damned blood haunts me still. And no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to forget, but I have to. I have to hide my past from my children. They deserve a better life then I ever had, one with parents, one without violence, and one away from the deadly streets of New York.
" Allison, Marina, Mathew!" My wife Holly called.
"But mom…" Ally whined.
"No buts, its 6:30 time for a bath then bed." (a/n: remember bed times? Ack!)
"Daddy…"
" Oh no I'm not getting in the middle this time." I laughed tousling my four-year-old son's hair. He looked so much like his mother, the sandy blonde hair and bright green eyes. Those eyes, those wild green eyes that remind me so much of an old friend. Abruptly I was shaken from my thoughts by my children whining, "Daddy, daddy we don wanna go to bed." Laughing I glanced at my wife recalling what she had done the last time the children had complained about going to bed. The image of Holly dragging our three children kicking and screaming to the bathtub was fresh in my mind. Apparently I was not the only one who remembered as the children cowered under my wife's glare.
"Fine." Alley sighed reluctantly. "We'll go, but can we have a story?"
"Yeah, a story! A story!" The twins chanted. " Uncle Les a story! One about the newsies!"
"Well, er…" The fifteen-year-olds eyes darted between the children and us. "Oh please Uncle Les." They pouted. After receiving a nod from Holly and myself, Les caved.
"Well, alright but you've got to get washed up and in bed first." Excitedly the three siblings rushed for the bathroom.
They already knew the story of the strike, so tonight Les had decided to tell them a different story, a story about David Jacobs and Spot Conlon. The two had become close after Jack had left and Spot was surprised with how much David was like Jack. When he looked into David's eyes he could see the same recklessness, the same longing for adventure, for freedom.
It was an amusing little story involving the Delancey's, pies, and a lot of public humiliation (a/n: I'll let you fill in the blanks.) I smiled remembering the looks on their faces while we smirked at them as they realized there was nothing they could do to us in front of all those people. When the story came to an end Marina looked up at me with bright innocent eyes, "Daddy are we related to Spot Conlon?"
Frozen in shock I didn't know what to say. Les wasn't helping any either, sitting there trying unsuccessfully to stifle his laughter. I suppose I would be laughing too had it been David's daughter asking him if the King of Hearts was a real person, but this is my daughter, these are my children and they are asking the unexplainable. I always knew they would one day make the connection but never this soon, never. " Are we Daddy?"
"I bet he's not even real Rina." Allison stated matter-of-factly.
"Yes he is." Matt countered. "Carlos said that the strike was real and the story made newspapers all across the country. And he said that, when Jack Kelly came to Santa Fe his dad worked with him in the mines. So if Cowboy is real then so is Spot, cuz he's gotta be, he's just gotta!" Now it was my turn to laugh, receiving an odd look from Les.
"I'm sorry it's just that he sounded so much like Dav-" Then, suddenly aware that my children's eyes were bulging at me excitedly awaiting me to finish my sentence and confirm all suspicions of our family's origin. " I mean Matt sounded exactly like your brother the first time I met him Les." The suspicion remained in their eyes as we said good night.
I led Les outside for a walk in the warm night air of Santa Fe. "I don't know if we should tell them any more stories." I started as we reached the pasture. "Why not? They love them, they absolutely adore the Newsies."
"That's just the thing." I sighed glancing at my hands. " I don't want them to adore the Newsies, I don't want them to want that life. They deserve better then we ever had Les!"
"I just don't understand why you don't tell them that you are the famous Spot Conlon. I mean you used to be so proud of who you are and now you hide."
" God damit Les! I'm Erik Conlon, Spot Conlon died years ago and he's never coming back! Do you hear me, never!"
"But don't you miss your old life? Don't you ever wish that we were still in New York? Don't you ever wonder what it would be like if we stayed?"
"Ya, sometimes I wonder, I wonder why we ever did those crazy things. I mean we were into that stuff and look where it got us! Everyone's gone and it's all are fault too!"
"But, if we went back…"
"I work in a friggin' commerce bank Les! I'm never going back and I'm keeping my children as far away from New York as I can!"
"But it wasn't your fault! You couldn't have stopped the Delancey's from starting that gang, nobody could have. And you couldn't just stand by and watch them hurt people either, especially fellow newsies! You had a cause to fight for, just like the strike! Spot, when you feel so deeply about a cause that you are willing to lay down your life defending it, that is when you know it's all worth it. That's what Davy told me."
"When we, your brother and I, started that gang we never intended to KILL people. We just wanted to keep the peace; to keep the Delancey's in line. We thought we could do it, but…" Holding my hands in front of my face made me want to cry, only Spot Conlon never cries, even when he's just Erik.
"But, David and I, we meant to hurt Morris, we were convinced that the only way to weaken the Jets was to immobilize their leaders. We meant to mess him up bad and we ended up killing him."
"Ya, but…"
"I killed a man! He's dead, he wasn't supposed to die but the bastard did! How can they be proud of that? How can they be proud of a father who killed a man?"
" He would have killed you, and you know it. It was self-defense. Besides with his rap sheet he deserved to die, he was asking for it. Somebody had to do something and it ended up being you and David who were burdened with the responsibility."
After a long silence Erik finally spoke.
"You just don't get it Les. You don't understand and there's no way that you could because you weren't there, you didn't kill him. I won't hold that against you. David didn't want you mixed up in everything. I didn't understand why then but now that I have Allison, Marina, and Mathew I understand completely. David didn't want you to end up like him he didn't want you to end up like me either. The two of us became so wrapped up in our cause that we had lost sight of what we were fighting for. We didn't realize that we had become no better than the Delancey's."
Holding up his hands, Erik allowed a few stray tears to slide down his face. "Look Les, do you see them? Do see the blood? It'll never go away. The blood of one Morris Delancey is my everlasting reminder that sometimes what starts as the good fight becomes part of the madness that you're willing to lay your life down to get rid of."
Spot's hands were raw stained with his own blood. He just couldn't wipe the memory of Morris's blood from his mind. Les looked on sadly at his colorblind friend. He had often wondered what the black and white world Spot saw was like. Now he knew, he knew that Spot saw a dreary gray world stained in blood red. Spot had given up on the world years ago.
Les now hugged the man, who was crying, in an attempt to comfort him because now he understood that the only thing keeping Spot alive was his family. "I'm sorry Erik, I'm so sorry." It was the only thing he could think to say. So the two just sat there in silence, Erik struggling to regain his composure and Les wondering why he had wanted to return to New York. "Les do you, do you think we'll ever catch a break?"
Smiling Les placed a hand on Erik's shoulder, "I think we already have. You have a family now Spot, a family that loves you and needs you. And you have Holly who's been with you since square one. She's your love and your hope; she guides you through your dark times. You love them and so do I." For the first time in six years Spot sincerely smiled while the two gazed at the Santa Fe sunset their old friend Jack had always longed to see.
~Fin~
A/N: Well that's it! Hope you like it and I'm sorry I didn't post it sooner. I've had it written for a while it was just a matter of typing it. And of course you already know my excuse for that, schoolwork. Well later days!
SaL