The Experiment || Newsies AU

Chapter 74

TW: Mentions of abuse.

Jack was doing what he did for most of his time in isolation, sitting.

He wasn't even sitting on a chair. Just the cold, hard concrete floor.

There wasn't much else he could do.

One time he'd snuck in some paper and a pencil in in his pockets and that went down as well as you could imagine.

He'd learned from his time in the Refuge that making Snyder angry was the worst decision a person could make.

Yet he still managed to do it every time.

Sometimes he didn't even try to anger him, a few times he had just breathed too loudly or sneezed and that would set him off.

In short, doing anything other than sitting there in absolute silence and doing nothing, absolutely nothing, would anger him.

Jack seemed to be incapable at anything but what angered him.

He couldn't sit still and always wanted to be walking around or to be doing something.

His breathing always seemed to be too loud.

Jack wondered how you could breathe too loud, unless you were panting but even then it wouldn't be too loud.

He didn't bother to argue with Snyder on the matter though.

Sure, he'd talk back to him but he'd never properly argue.

He wasn't stupid enough to do that.

Jack always made sure that Crutchie never got sent to the refuge, even if it got him sent there.

He was the only person Jack could really talk to but whenever Crutchie asked him about it he would always say that it was nowhere near as bad as it was.

Crutchie would always pretend to believe him and tell him that as long as he's okay that everything will be okay.

He knew fully well Jack was lying but didn't want to press him on it.

Even when Jack had spent the first night with Snyder in isolation, Crutchie knew he was lying about what happened.

It didn't take an idiot to figure out that Snyder abused him when he was with him.

And even when he was at the Refuge, Crutchie could tell that he would take the other children's beatings.

Jack was always like that and always will be, it's his nature to put others before himself.

The part Jack hated the most was being left to his own thoughts.

Sometimes his thought would be completely normal, like why maths was a core subject in school or why Pluto shouldn't have been downgraded from a planet.

Sometimes they could get quite weird, but if Jack ever needed to have an argument about whether or not South Carolina and North Carolina should just become one big state he'd be ready at the drop of a hat.

Some of his thought were dark though and those were the ones he hated the most.

They only came when he was almost ready to give in, it rarely happened but sometimes everything just becomes too much.

Thinking of Crutchie and, more recently, Davey usually helped him though, but this time it didn't as much as it normally would.

In his mind, he thought that they would never forgive him.

In reality, they were looking for any reason to forgive him.

Jack had nearly dozed off when the door banged open, waking him up.

Spot stood in the doorway, which just confused Jack.

He walked over to Jack and pulled him up by his arm.

"What are you-" Jack tried to ask what was happening but he was cut off by Spot shushing him.

"Get up and be quiet. I will drag you if I have to," Spot then proceeded to drag Jack all the way to his and Davey's dorm.

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