A/N: Update. Have to go, as someone else wants to use the computer. Please let me know what you thought!
No one was ever going to carry him anywhere.
He would grit his teeth and clench his fists and walk wherever it was he wanted to go, because no one was ever going to carry him anywhere.
He'd been a newsie since he could remember. Walking the streets in the rain or in the shine -- you got used to it. And he could still remember the first time he had seen someone being carried away.
The day had been a humid one. His feet pounded in their awkward rhythm along the streets as he called out the day's headlines. His hair flopped down, limp, over his face, his hat was soaked through with sweat. His leg had been aching slightly, and he'd stopped to take a quick rest. People grimly trudged to their destinations, ladies trying to fend off the heat with parasols.
"Mayor Unable to Leave His House!" He called out halfheartedly. The real headline read "Mayor Regrettably Cannot Attend Firemen's Ball." He still hadn't mastered the art of "tweaking the headline." No one was buying. They hurriedly passed him by, averting their eyes as though it was dirty to even look at anyone lower than themselves on the social ladder, or maybe at someone with a crutch.
He had been about to move on, find a better selling spot, or at least some shade, when one of the doors across the street had opened.
The fine wooden door opened and a man walked out. His coat was black and his eyes were dark. He was carrying something that Crutchy couldn't quite make out. A parcel of some sort perhaps? It seemed to be wrapped in a sheet. Something was poking out through the end of the sheet, something brown that glinted slightly as the sun reflected off of it.
Crutchy's eyes widened, and he felt his stomach rebel violently against his sudden realization.
Hair. Hair was poking out of one end of the sheet. And that meant that the hair was attached.
Attached to a body.
Crutchy fought back the urge to retch, or maybe cry. He clenched his fists so hard that his raggedy, unkempt nails dug into his palms.
The man heaved the parcel -- the body -- into the back of his hansom and climbed into the front himself, chirruping to the horses. They reluctantly started into motion, moving at a sort of half-trot in deference to the heat. Crutchy pulled in a few deep breaths through his nose, fighting hysteria, or panic, or revulsion.
He didn't know how long he stood there, staring at the spot the hansom had vacated, at the house the man had come out of, but when he finally shook himself out of his stupor he knew one thing.
No one would ever carry him anywhere.
Being carried meant you had given up. It meant you were done. Through. It meant you didn't have the will to fight the world any more. It meant you just wanted to lie down and stop caring.
The day someone had to scoop him into their arms and haul him away, that would be the day his eyes closed and his body went limp. He wasn't going to let anyone try to help him get anywhere, crippled or not. That was just one step closer to a final fall. A final breath.
And someday he would have a real newsie funeral (back alley, probably with the body conspicuous only by absence) and they'd say a few words, about how he was a good pal, and an okay seller, how he was always up for some fun razzing the Delanceys anyway.
And then the boys would exchange glances, and stare into space for a second, and maybe there'd be a couple tears. And then someone would speak up, with their thick New York accent to say the final words.
"Nobody ever carried him anywhere."
A/N: Again, please let me know what you thought. Thanks for waiting through the update-drought. I actually have another one all written up. :) So you'll probably see that soon.