When Romeo woke up he immediately knew four things were very wrong.
1.) He woke up naturally and not to shouting Newsies or a certain Manhattan leader, Jack, shaking him since he wouldn't get out of bed.
2.) He was in his full selling clothes, which he never wore for sleeping, he only wore his trousers and undershirt, and even with all of these clothes on he was still shivering.
3.) His bed, if the ground of an alleyway could be called a bed, was rock hard, of course the mattresses in the lodging house weren't the softest in the world but it still gave some amount of comfort compared to whatever he woke up on.
4.) He was very sore all over. It hurt to try and think and even lifting his arm to try and rub the sleep from his eyes hurt.
After a while of lying there and trying to get up from the ground he came to the conclusion that something was definitely not right.
It took a while for his brain to start cooperating and remind him about the events of the previous evening.
He had no idea what time it was but he suspected that it was long after the start of selling based on the fact that the sun was as high in the sky as it could be.
He guessed it was the afternoon but he couldn't be too sure, he wasn't a clock after all.
Regardless of what time it was, Romeo was exhausted despite just having woken up from being asleep for nearly ten hours.
He guessed that since he had been knocked out rather than just falling asleep normally that's why he was so tired.
He was starting to drift back into sleep when he heard the nearest church bells and remembered a trick Specs had thought him.
He counted the chimes of the bell before groaning in annoyance.
It was one o'clock and he had slept very far through the circulation bell.
He tried standing up only to fall back down to his hands and knees.
"Why? Why am I so stupid?" Romeo shouted at the ground. "Why- why can't I just have even half a brain like everyone else."
Romeo punched the ground in an attempt to get rid himself of some of the anger he felt.
He didn't even realise he was crying until he felt the tears dripping onto his hands.
He stopped punching the ground momentarily to try and rub the tears from his eyes.
He pressed the heel of his palm into his eyes as hard as he could. "Stop being such a baby Romeo," he whispered. "This is why Specs doesn't like you back. You're such a stupid, weak crybaby."
Romeo pressed his back against the wall of one of the buildings. He pulled his knees into his chest and leaned his head back and banged it against the wall a few times before giving up.
Sobs racked his body and he kept whispering to himself to 'stop being such a baby' and to 'man up'.
Romeo stayed there curled up in a ball with the rest of the world blocked out for longer than he could possibly know.
He thought it had only been an hour, maximum, when in reality he had spent the best part of roughly eight hours there.
Romeo was starting to drift off into sleep again when he heard voices calling his name.
At first he thought they were shouting for a different Romeo and then he remembered that Romeo isn't that common of a name and he recognised the voices.
"I'm here," he called out deliriously. "I'm in here."
~~~
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Illegal Romance || A Spromeo Story
FanficIt had been a few months since the Newsies won their strike against Joseph Pulitzer and things had finally started to go back to normal. For most of the Newsies that was anyways. Two of the Newsies, Specs and Romeo had their own problems that they...
