Newsies One Shots

Broken Boy - Javey

Prompt - None
Au - None
Triggers - Death/illness mentions, implied self harm related behaviours, injury/blood/violence detail, swearing

-Based on a main roleplay of mine-

•••

Davey was cracking. He was cracking and he didn't know how much longer he could hold himself together. A few weeks, a few days, hell, a few hours even. He didn't know and that scared him. That scared him as much as everything that had happened to him in the last month. It scared him bad. He couldn't afford to break, he couldn't. Les needed him, and Davey needed to stay strong for him.

But it was hard. It was so very hard.

Of course it was hard. It was hard to lose your parents so suddenly, to have the one thing you were so sure would be around forever taken so quickly. It wasn't fair, to leave a boy barely 17 to look after his 9 year old brother by himself. It wasn't fair at all. But when was life ever fair. 

It had been cold, that night. The air had been cool and relaxing and the same as every night in October. It was quiet and Davey's parents were out; his mother was meeting his father at his work to help him home with his not-quite
-healed leg. Davey had watched Les, making sure he slept as he waited for them to get back.

When he'd woken up the next morning, stiff from the awkward position he had fallen asleep in to find their apartment still empty, he'd felt sick. When he saw the paper already out for sale while looking for them that told of an accident with a trolley that had left half a dozen dead, he'd felt numb. When he saw their names there, he'd cried, standing frozen among the chaos of the accident with tears streaming down his face. He'd been ignored, of course, just another heartbroken face in a crowd.

The next few weeks had passed in a blur of aching pain and grief, hidden from Les,  masked with a strained smile and tight laughter. He knew he wouldn't have enough money to keep their apartment for long, so he'd left it, along with a few clothes and not much else. They didn't need much, not anymore. He went to Jack and the other newsies, who were sympathetic and worried for him and who immediately let them stay. Davey had cried into Jack's shoulder, that night he'd shown up, held close by the boy he loved who didn't know what he could do.

That was three weeks ago, and Davey had put on a mask again. His chest ached but he kept it hidden. Les didn't understand what was going on and he didn't have it in him to tell him yet. There was an aching in his chest when he looked at his brother, a hole he didn't know could ever be filled, but he stopped letting it show. He buried it deep and seemed to be doing better to another's eye. Not well, but better. He talked, he smiled sometimes, he didn't cry at all really. He kept what he was feeling inside for the sake of Les and Jack and everyone else around him.

And then Les had gotten sick.

It had started as a cough, a sneeze here and there as October and November passed them by. Davey had been distracted and had thought nothing of it; colds were common and nothing bad. But then he got weaker, and he looked worse, pale and drawn and tired and Davey had started to get scared. When he'd stopped breathing and Davey had had a panic attack, Jack had taken Les to Medda, who helped get him to a doctor.

He was ok now, a week later. Still sick, but he was smiling weakly and talking. And breathing. Davey held his hand tightly, holding his little brother close to his chest on a bed tucked away in the corner of the lodgings. Les was asleep and Davey was watching him closely, though he was exhausted himself. He was pale and tired looking but he didn't want to sleep. He probably should but he was so scared and he couldn't bring himself too. Not yet.