Newsies One Shots

Pennies and Pounds (OC)

Prompt - None
Au - None
Triggers - None

Requested by @ART3M1S_2004
Tex belongs to them. This is relatively uneventful but fun. I hope I did her justice :)

•••

Tex liked the rooftop. It was the best place to sit, quiet and peaceful and private. Well, as quiet and peaceful as you can get in New York City, but it was private. She liked to perch on upturned crates or barrels long empty and scribble the starts of wild stories or doodle figures on scrap papers she'd nicked; grinning faces and bright eyes, with a pencil that seemed ever blunt. Her pockets were still full of pencil shavings though, and the little pocket knife she used was getting dull. She'd get around to sharpening it at some point. Katherine was always worried she'd slip and cut herself but Tex hadn't yet and didn't intend to. She still had to reassure her mother of this regularly though.

Carefully, she folded the little sketch she'd been working on in half with a neat line down the centre and tucked it into her pocket. There was a slight bite to the air now, the wind rising across the buildings and she knew her parents would want her inside soon; Jack was shockingly hypocritical when it came to her sitting outside a lot, as if he hadn't done the exact same thing every day of his life. She pointed this out to him on the daily and he only ever replied by kissing her head and saying "Yes, but I'm an idiot,"

She always nodded and told him he absolutely was with the most serious face she could muster to elicit a laugh and a shake of the head from him. When Crutchie was there he'd chime in his agreement from the other side of the room; Jack would almost always throw his cap or a pencil at him and call him a traitor.

"You was!" Crutchie would insist. "Well- all of us was but you most. 'Cept maybe Dave,"

Jack would grumble then, but he was always grinning and he'd mutter something about Davey saying the same thing, and Katherine would kiss his cheek and pat his head with an exaggerated look of sympathy and Tex would giggle and stick out her tongue like she was 6 years old again and Jack would more often than not return the gesture like he was still 6 as well.

She laughed now at the memory as she stood up and checked her pocket once to make sure the drawing was still there; she had dropped one to many to not be careful, or lost it to the snatch of a quick breeze. The shirt was Jack's though and the pockets massive so she needn't have worried. Tex twirled her pencil between her fingers, going back over to the stiff door and twisting the handle just so that it opened; the hinges squealed in protest like they always did. She pulled it shut behind her with a snap as she slipped into the tiny corridor that led down into the hallway lined with apartments.

The carpet in the hallway was worn in the middle, and gas wall lamps lit its length with a warm glow at regular intervals between the doors. The light glinted off the dull brass numbers on each door that matched their handles and there were a few seats against the wall, cushions in reds and blues resting on them. Their apartment was the last on the right, and Tex started towards it with her usual, slightly swaggering gait; she'd gotten that from Jack, so she was told.

She'd gotten a lot of things from her father apparently; she sold like him, flashing a grin and a lie here and there for the sake of coins changing hands. She drew like him, her tongue sticking out at the same odd angle and her brow creasing in focus the same way his always did. She wrote like her mother though, with lots of muttering and crossing things out, thinking aloud and scribbling long strings of rambling that made sense only to her unless she went back and edited them a whole lot. She liked that, being like them in small ways that were still noticeable to people who knew they were there. Who knew them.

Course, Tex couldn't exactly say it was 100% good traits she'd inherited. She had little fear when it came to getting into fights and she mirrored Jack's tone that just begged for trouble with the way it dripped sarcasm when she taunted someone (according to Davey, whenever he came around that is. He swore by it. "Just a mini Jack with more of Kath's common sense," he'd always say. "Always getting into fights,") She'd gotten into her fair share of scrapes and had the remnants of cuts and split lips and bruises to prove it. More often than not it was scabs she'd tangle with, people who found it funny to make fun of her friends, or of Crutchie or Davey or even Race or Jack sometimes

Course they didn't need the defending really, but she did it anyway. And she got hell for it usually, about getting herself hurt, but what could you do? She certainly wasn't going to sit around and let anyone say anything bad about her family.

That was something she'd gotten from Jack as well.

Tex slipped into right apartment and pulled of her cap, dropping in onto the round table. Her hair was flyaway from running around selling earlier that day and she did her best to tame it slightly. It didn't do a massive load of good but she didn't overly mind. She didn't need to be out selling really but she loved doing it. She loved the weight of coins in her pocket that she'd earned herself, pennies and pounds that weren't a lot but were a good satisfaction. She loved being in the city, the atmosphere and the chattering voices and rattling carriages and incessant footsteps of crowds passing by. Each face unique, with their own story to tell. She loved staying at the lodging building a few nights a week as well. It was always a laugh, always something new going on. Some game or running joke that Tex never wanted to miss.

She loved doing it and she wouldn't change it for the world.