Using his slipping in and out of the shadows skills to spy on this gang called the Jets was definitely the only new thing going on in Anybodys' life for him to think about.
At least, it was the only new thing he wanted to have any presence at all in his mind and body... the slight, barely noticeable, familiar strain in his legs from standing and not moving much for a while in the right position in a cluster of shadows cascading off of the adjacent building so as to be able to watch them without them seeing him and almost feel like a part of the group, the brotherhood... almost... was definitely preferable to the...
...The residual physical pain from the session earlier that night with a what he had decided to mentally call a client to create as much distance between himself and the situation as possible, penetrating pain in areas where he'd never wanted to have anything enter but some people did apparently, and now after going through it he understood that desire even less.
He was getting the money his siblings needed to compensate for their dad getting laid off, though, and that was the important part in the end, even when the pile of memories and feelings he needed to shove behind the wall in his mind grew every week and felt like it was suffering from some strain now, like he'd need to put in more effort to keep it from collapsing altogether.
The Jets were part of that effort for him, and they played the part that they didn't know they were playing surprisingly well.
The gangs of this dilapidated corner of Manhattan had been oddly appealing to Anybodys for a while despite the danger they posed, despite them being a large part of the reason for him discovering his skill at slipping in and out of the shadows in the first place, as brotherhoods where they supported each other and were supported by each other and got to develop cooler, more macho skills like fighting.
So, when he had happened to run into one while heading home from a... session with a client... and his immediate intrigue with them and their social dynamics had helped him to shove the thoughts and sensations of... that... out of his mind better than anything else had, he had decided to trail after them in the shadows for a while and quickly gotten hooked.
He couldn't even bring himself to care that he'd probably be hating their guts and rooting for their current rival gang the Hawks right now instead of the other way around if he'd happened to run into them instead, it was just nice to feel closer to being an equal, non transactionally, unconditionally valued part of something that he ever had, even if he was just on the periphery of the warmth of their brotherhood in his oft frequented frenemy the shadows that might as well be his second skin at this point.
If he was with them instead of his barely held together family, he wouldn't have to have the... sessions with clients... that had driven him to them in the first place; he would have their support and wouldn't have to make up from the slack from their parents to support Antonia and Toby.
Anybodys felt terrible for even thinking that.
He felt even worse for the pull he felt to spend more time shadowing the Jets, see what they got up to during the day instead of only seeking them out when he needed some assistance with keeping the wall in his mind from collapsing and releasing the lifetime far longer than the one he'd actually lived of anger and resentment and longing for something better and a million other unpleasant and unable to be effectively acted upon emotions after his... sessions with clients...
The Jets weren't totally carefree, far from it; they had to worry about the Hawks taking their hard earned territory, and they had their own intergroup conflicts as any random grab bag of personalities that had developed under the stress and strain of the cruel streets of Manhattan would, but if Anybodys got to choose his own life somehow without hurting anyone who currently depended on him then he'd rather have their problems than his problems.
At least then he'd get support for them that didn't come from a place of him always having to be the big strong provider figure all the time... he wanted to be one, of course, the only thing that could stop him from striving to be a properly macho guy who was more than capable of that stuff and greatly succeeding at it would be death, but playing that role all the time without getting support in turn got exhausting and frustrating at times, especially lately.
Ice was one of the Jets who was particularly intriguing to him; he seemed to play that role perfectly, often taking charge and doing stuff like suggesting the plans and meeting times that the actual leaders of the gang, Tony and Riff, ended up adopting for the others despite being probably the third in command.
There was a slight hesitance, a slight tiredness to his movements and declarations that the Hawks could go to hell and the Jets would be the ones sending them there, though, like he too struggled to live up to the high standards that masculinity entailed all the time, even with the support of his fellow Jets who seemed to be largely none the wiser to this.
Almost like he didn't fully believe in the mission of the Jets, but that couldn't be it, why would someone who got to be on the inside of the brotherhood instead of on the outside looking in not savor every minute, every facet of the lifestyle it entailed?
There was no doubt that Tony and Riff believed in it, especially Riff, whose practically single minded zeal for the gang almost rivaled the heights of what Anybodys would be capable of if his life circumstances, the cards he had been dealt at birth had been different ones that would have allowed him to join it instead of being trapped in the shadows a short but insurmountable distance away from them by other responsibilities, but even so he found himself being more drawn to Tony than him, to the way he mostly rallied the Jets under his command by focusing on their capabilities and loyalty rather than the Hawks' lack of those virtues.
Maybe in the hypothetical scenario where he didn't have people counting on him already, where he would be able to not only have time for the Jets but be able to make the gang, the brotherhood his top priority like they all did, he'd approach Tony about joining the gang.
Maybe that other life would have been nice.
Maybe there wouldn't be any harm to him dipping into a little of the time he usually spent looking for odd jobs and using his shadow related prowess to take money and other necessities from people who didn't know they were giving them to him to shadow the Jets outside of the cover of night tomorrow.
Or maybe he'd do some spying on the Hawks instead to see if there was any helpful intel he could gather.
How would he use that intel to help the Jets when they didn't know he existed?
That would be future Anybodys' problem.
Anybodys forlornly watched the Jets break off for the night, the tension from their heated, insult heavy talk about the Hawks and what they should do to clobber them still thick in the air but abated somewhat by the camaraderie between them, and immediately had to struggle for a long moment to get the memories and residual sensations from his... session with a client... earlier that night back behind the wall in his mind before heading back to his family's tiny, cramped apartment, still traveling in the shadows.