Anybodys had always had complicated feelings at best about using his talent of slipping in and out of the shadows, but this was by far the worst experience he had ever had with his old frenemy the shadows even before his worst fears had been confirmed.
Usually, the negative component of his emotions was because slipping in and out of the shadows was such a passive and unmacho talent in comparison to the stuff he'd rather be developing his mastery of like fighting, not because he particularly resented the necessary tasks he did under their cover like stealing food and other essentials to provide for his siblings and force ends to meet when he couldn't find odd jobs.
This wasn't one of those times.
This wasn't typical... at least, it shouldn't be.
This was what he had been working so hard to try and prevent from happening even as he had shoved the thought of this worst possible outcome down with all his might whenever it occurred to him, which he had apparently failed at.
After the money had changed hands from that sleazy fucker who was old enough to be their dad... who might actually be genetically their dad because their mom's husband sure wasn't, oh God... to Antonia, he ran a disgusting hand down her back as she looked away from him and at the ground revoltedly, nearly reaching her...
That was what got Anybodys to snap out of his horrified trance but not the horror associated with it, practically pouncing out of the shadows he had hidden in at that lowlife rat like a wolf leaping onto a literal rat before his hand could reach its target on his little sister.
He slammed him mercilessly into the adjacent wall of the alley, barely noticing Antonia flinching backwards a little as he punched him in his now fear drenched face with all the strength he could summon.
Again.
Gratifying in spite of the circumstances blood was now pouring from his nose that had gotten even more crooked and staining Anybodys' knuckles.
And again.
He yelled cowardly in satisfying, deserved pain as Anybodys skillfully mangled the bones in his nose beyond repair, roughing up his eye pretty bad too.
As much as Anybodys wanted to end his pathetic life here and now, stop him from every trying to do something so disgusting and exploitative with anyone ever again, especially his sister, a body would be very likely to attract those stupid coppers like vultures, who would then pick at the old, oft renewed wounds of this neighborhood and just end up digging them even deeper.
Plus, with coppers around it would be more difficult to steal what he couldn't get through odd jobs, and the devastation Anybodys had wrought on the face of this excuse for a man would mark him as a disgusting creep and make him think twice about acting like one again.
Anybodys stepped away from him, barely managing to resist the urge to knee him in the groin as well for good measure because then he would just get stuck lying on the ground like a petulant child instead of being able to run away with his tail between his legs, and pointed commandingly at the alley exit even as the man wasn't really looking at him in favor of holding his face with his hand.
"Get out, and never do this shit to anyone again!"
The guy looked up at him, seemingly only processing what he had said after a delay and from his expression rather than his words, and scrambled to get out where he was pointing while the going was good.
Anybodys watched him leave, partially wanting to make sure that he really did exit the alley entirely and partially wanting to procrastinate on talking about this with Antonia, but just as he was rounding the corner, she had ran up to Anybodys' side, clutching his arm hard.
He looked over at her, meeting her gaze, and found the disgust and anger towards that fucker that he felt mirrored in her, as well as... guilt and determination?
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you how I was getting the money, Anybodys, but I knew you'd do this to try and protect me and we need it, we really do."
That had been why he had immediately suspected that something was seriously wrong, he reflected grimly.
She had always told him everything, always followed him around like a shadow, like he was more of a parent to her than their actual parents, which... yeah, he basically was, with how much time they spent fighting each other and fucking other people.
He hadn't taught her or Toby how to slip in and out of the shadows and steal things that way like he could, preferring instead to shoulder that responsibility himself, because it would be far too dangerous for them to be caught, what with a lot of the denizens of this neighborhood being the type to believe in an eye for an eye and the ever present threat of the coppers getting involved and calling in social workers who would take one look at their dysfunctional, strenuous family dynamics and break them apart entirely.
So, when he had asked her if she had picked up an odd job he somehow wasn't aware of or something to be getting this money and she had looked at him like a deer in headlights and mumbled something about shadows, he had apparently correctly jumped to the worst.
"We don't need it this bad, Antonia, ya shouldn't be doin' this!"
The second half of his sentence rang absolutely true, but the first?
She should never have to do anything like this, and she never would again no matter what he had to do to make that happen, but what exactly could he do to make up for the deficit from their dad being laid off from his job that she had been attempting to fill?
Anybodys had tried seemingly everything but that, he had worked so hard, he had even tried to find other car repair jobs for his dad even though he usually preferred to take care of problems by himself, but that industry was apparently even tougher than it had been before now, and even if it wasn't getting him out of his depressive slump and into an interview would have been a tall order.
As he fought off his realization of the inevitable, he checked her over for injuries more thoroughly than he had back when there had still been a chance that she hadn't deigned to do something this bad and dangerous for her to make ends meet.
"Did any a them hurt you... worse than they do automatically by doin' this to you, I mean?"
He felt and saw her tense up angrily, and he braced himself for whatever she was about to recount.
"One of them slapped me across the face. I wanted to do it back to him, but he hadn't paid before we started like that guy did. I barely managed to stop myself... They're all so awful, even the ones who don't do anything like that..."
That fucking waste of air...
Anybodys had taken up the mantle of protecting and providing for his siblings so long ago, picking up the slack that had been dropped by their parents, their dad more than their mom, and nothing nearly this bad had happened to them on his watch before now.
This was his fault, he was supposed to be reliable for them when nothing else was, and... he would have to fix this, aversion to sex even when it didn't involve money changing hands or people way older than him or men be damned.
What was a little more hardship to shove behind the wall in his brain, when so much was already back there?
He had been able to handle everything else the cruel and uncaring streets of Manhattan had thrown at him, he had defiantly gotten back up and kept doing his job of shielding them every time he had gotten knocked down, and it wasn't even a matter of if he could or could not survive this one additional thing, he just had to grit his way through it like everything else.
He had to make up for his mistake of letting this happen in the first place.
Anybodys tilted his head in the direction of the alley exit.
"C'mon, let's go home. You can tell me what that fucker looked like on the way there so I can clobber 'im if I ever see 'im. Don't do anything like this ever again, I'll take care of the money."
He started walking towards the alley exit, trying and mostly succeeding to force down thoughts of the horrors that were waiting for him there in the near future, and Antonia quickly followed him, looking at him with an unsure expression with slowly growing hope and trust and relief.
"Thank you, that's such a relief! I know you'll be able to find a way to take care of it!"
She didn't seem to suspect that he already had, which was good, she shouldn't have to worry about that.
He would take care of that now.
He would take care of everything.