Disclaimer: I do not own "Newsies" or any of the genius associated to them. Disney owns them, no infringement intended. I am not making money from this in any way, I claim no rights to the characters mentioned from the movie, but I do claim the plot and the ideas surrounding this story. Don't steal, don't sue, and I'm sure we will all be grand friends.
A/N: One more chapter to go after this. How will it end? How could it possibly end?
Warning: PG-13 (angst, adult situations)
xiv.)
her touch is all tightropes&tide pools
stretched out&reserved
hands cradled to her breast (so maternal)
he can't be her storyteller tonight
the ticking wasn't enough warning for them
(they never saw the end coming)
They haven't said a word since the night at the dance (they never did talk much before but this dry spell rivalled that of their current climate).
It used to be he always repeated himself and told her ideas she'd heard five hundred miles before. It used to be she'd just forget it but it seems she is remembering more than he'd prefer these days (even if she still can't remember her own name). The days have been dry of affection even if they haven't been dry of sex. She's gotten used to going through the motions but she finds it harder to get lost in his fantasy every time he touches her (she's sick of his never never land. She just wants to go home and grow up).
Inwardly she'd always thought that going where the wind would blow you was just an expression, but she has realized that it is reality with Boy Vagabond. No matter how much she loves him or how much he cares for her there is always something he is going to crave more than her caring (there is just something so dashing about daring duels and diligent dalliance). He has no taste for permanence (except maybe her) but she is withering with the inability to sink her roots into the ground (she can't play house unless she has a house in which to play).
But oh how she loves him (or at least the idea of what she thinks he should be) even if she can't bring herself to show it anymore. Nothing more does she want but to make him into everything she needs him to be (which is everything he isn't) but he's a blank canvas and she isn't allowed to paint him (though not from lack of trying). Even though he's transformed her into his own creation (she can't remember anything before he came into her life) she can't return the favor.
They're on a bus which is surprisingly more personal than the car the left back in America. Boy Vagabond had talked their way onto it with broken Spanish and she had ended up giving a hand job (she can feel the grimy eyes of the driver on her even now). She hadn't complained when Boy Vagabond told her to use her small soft hands on the drivers large hard tool (she simply did as she was told like she was raised to do). She hadn't complained when the driver had grabbed at her breasts behind the bus in the darkness as she performed the dirty task (Boy Vagabond had stood behind her so she couldn't flinch away). She hadn't complained when the driver had burst and it had splattered on her hands and clothing (she licked it off and did her best not to make a face at his taste). It was the darkness of his eyes reminded her of a girl Boy Vagabond swore didn't exist (if she tries hard enough she can still smell the lilies in her hair) that set her stomach reeling.
The bus is old and crowded with a floor of straw and dirt (there is a chicken roosted under one of the torn seats) but it will get them closer to the border. Dark faces, smudged and dirty, stare at her and she watches her feet (do they know her hands smell like semen?). She wonders where they are all going and from where they all have come and wishes that she knew the same.
They stop at what once must have been a white (the red dirt has stained it now) stone (as hard and unyielding as the people it contains) building in the middle of the desert. Boy Vagabond is intrigued with its strength and solidarity, but she's more interested in what is inside (he'll never understand her want to know what goes on behind closed doors). The doors are unlocked even though it is night and they enter much differently (her with reverence – he with blatant arrogance). Others follow but none are nearly as out of place as the two that first went in. There are candles burning everywhere, spread over alters and spilling onto the floor (the way they flicker remind her of the way he described dancing fairies) and there is a heavy silence that smothers them (it's always been there they've just never had a place like this to contain it).
Upon entering he shrinks into one of the hard wood pews (he has a sinking guilty feeling in his stomach that this visit isn't going to end well) but she takes penitent steps down the aisle towards the alter (every footstep echoes from the stone floor like her pounding heart). The other passengers took their places in the pews and began their own rituals with little or no attention to the strangers (they had their own souls to save). In a juvenile motion she bends over and removes the shoes from her feet as she walks (she is treading on holy ground) and clutches them closely to her breast. An old woman with her head covered sits in the third row grasping a rosary the same way the girl holds her shoes (they both don't want to lose them) but she goes unnoticed as the girl comes to the alter.
Jesus is hanging from a golden cross (didn't he ever come down?) and there is a golden cup and plate on the crude wooden alter (Boy Vagabond would steal them if he had the chance). A white cloth, almost too clean for its surroundings, hides most of the scared table top (how often had she failed to hide her scars with pretty things?). She's careful not to knock down any of the white pillars of wax in her observance of the holy articles (her Jewish upbringing she had never prepared her for this – even if she didn't remember half of it). Reverently she touches the rim of a golden bowl full of water and notices all the burn marks that weave their way across her hand (she knows there is a reason behind those brandings and her mind churns in attempts to dredge that reason to the surface). Slowly she dips her hands into the water and it instantly starts to turn red from the dirt (she doesn't even know she's holding her breath). Inwardly she'd half expected it to burn her for the sin her hands had upon them (how unclean do you have to be before not even holy water can cleanse you?).
A rustling from behind scares her (she's like a guilty child with her hands in the holy water) and she turns to see Boy Vagabond standing half way down the aisle (the way his hair is tousled almost gives him horns). In her mind she thinks he looks like one of the Lost Boys (perhaps the most lost of all, and charming enough to be Peter Pan) and wonders how long it will be before he grows up (she is fairly certain that it is never). She doesn't belong in this sanctuary anymore than she belongs with him (but she has forgotten how to fly to find her way home).
Her eyes burn.
She's crying now.
He doesn't expect her tears (but then again – neither did she) but they leak and drip their way to the cold stone beneath her feet.
Here is where she realizes that he has ruined her.
"What is my name?" She's breaking and melting all over the church floor.
He doesn't tell her but can tell by the way she sinks to the ground that this is over. No matter how hard he had tried to suck away her Then and fill her with his Now he'd only left this empty shell crushed in a foreign sanctuary. He's angry (he wants to keep her) and he can't understand why she would want to go back to a place where she had to be what everyone told her to be.
"I want to go home."
He thought that he was her home (he was wrong).
A/N: Thanks to Nerikla for reviewing.