Newsies one-shots

Hundred and twenty-three || background relationships

At some point I'll be switching point of view, but it'll be pretty obvious about who's it is and when it'll turn back again.

~ F

"Hundred and twenty-three days." Jack said softly to himself as he finished counting the stripes he had made on the cover of his sketchbook. Hundred and twenty-three days had passed by since he first arrived in the pits of hell.
Many people believe in hell, but many see it as something else. To Jack? To Jack it was the house he had been living in for hundred and twenty-three days. 

The first thirty-seven days had been perfectly fine. When he was introduced to his new foster father, he had looked like a decent man. He had immediately introduced himself as mister Snyder. The man always wore a suit, ran a children's daycare and the house had been cleaner than what he had been used to since his parents had died in a car accident on their way to Santa Fe when he was five. He was seventeen now. There was a television in the right corner of the room with a chair and a couch circling it, there was a dark wooden dining table with six wooden chairs around it. Even the walls had wallpaper that wasn't falling off any second. In the kitchen there was an oven, a stove and a fridge filled with food and soda.
There were two bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom. One of the bedroom's was his and one was Snyder's. It was in contrast with downstairs.
His bedroom only had two beds and a cupboard with a heavy lock. Instead of proper wallpaper, there were some empty walls, two even had holes in them. Jack had decided that it had been this way because the older man wasn't used to having children around the house before, since he had told Jack that he'd be his first. Thirty-seven days was all it took. That was when Snyder's friends first came over and alcohol had been drunk straight out of the bottle. After that night the man started drinking a lot more. The days before his constant drunkenness he had already been strict, even punishing Jack with a slap on the cheek, but after that night, the cupboard in his room finally opened. Belts, baseball bats, knives. Nearly everything imaginable was in there. One step out of line and Jack would get a punishment, leaving him bruised and bleeding. At the very start Snyder was careful enough to only hurt Jack in places he could cover, such as his stomach and arms.
But at the ninety-fourth day he had started becoming reckless. Leaving bruises on his cheeks and hurting his leg so bad that he couldn't help to limp. His friends had always asked about it, being the concerned bunch of idiots they were, Jack loved them though, but he had always put it on being clumsy and tripping. That had been going on for twenty-nine days now.

"So, what's it today? Failed to catch the ball again while you and Snyder played catch?" Race commented as he sat down in front of Jack at their usual table in the corner of the canteen. He was obviously referring to Jack's black eye, which he had gotten after Snyder hitting him with a plain old fist. Race and Jack had known each other since they were little kids stuck in an orphanage. They had become best friends pretty quickly and Crutchie followed not much later.
"Told ya, I'm not good with sports. Give me art." Jack gave a small smile to hide the lie. Race returned an eye roll, but didn't continue on the subject. 
"What are you talking about?" Crutchie asked as he took a seat next to Jack, looking at the marks on his sketchbook. 
"Nothing." Jack commented, looking at his other best friend with a small smile. It stayed silent for a little while longer as they waited for the rest of the group. As Jack thought about it, nearly all of them had met in the orphanage. All except Romeo, Albert and Henry, who still lived with their parents, but had joined the group of misfits when they first met in their shared classes. Crutchie, Race and Finch had been adopted by Miss Medda, who happened to be their drama teacher. Specs and JoJo had been taken in by mister Denton, who had been their English teacher a few years prior, it's a weirdly small world. Only Elmer was the one who was still moving around a lot. The boy was two years younger than the group, but his intelligence had allowed him to skip grades, so he was now attending the same classes as the rest of them, mathematics being the main reason since he still got A's on every single test.
It was no secret that Elmer had a history with abusive households, who only took in kids for the money. The poor kid had-
"Heya." Jack was ripped out of his thoughts by Race greeting the rest of the group. The brunette looked up at his friends who had now joined them at the table. JoJo and Henry were practically clinging to each other, not having shared any classes before lunch. Even though both denied it, all of the friends knew that something was going on between the two of them. They held hands underneath the table, thinking no one would notice, but their friends wouldn't dare comment on it.
Specs, Albert and Finch were already talking about something 'sciency' that Jack never understood. The three friends shared the same class and always did the projects together, ending with the most chaotic results, such as a rainbow volcano or a glitter bom, which should've been just a minor explosion, "In our defense, it wasn't our fault that it happened to rain today and that the water made the system glitch.".
As he looked to the far end of the table he could see Elmer clinging to Romeo. It was no secret that the two were in a relationship since the previous school-year ended and Jack was happy for them. That made that it wasn't a rare occasion that Elmer was sitting in Romeo's lap. The problem was that Elmer was shaking and his face was buried in the crook of Romeo's neck. The worried look on Romeo's face didn't help the worry that was starting to sit in Jack's stomach. 
"What's wrong with El?" Jack asked Crutchie in a whisper without taking his eyes of the boy. For all the years they'd known him he had never cried. Not even when he was hospitalized after a beating of a previous foster family. 
"They're making him move out of the orphanage again. He needs to leave today actually." Crutchie informed him, ending with a sad sigh.
"And that's the only place he has felt save at since a long time." Race added from the other side of the table. Jack knew the last bit though. The orphanage was run by the nuns and was the safest place in Manhattan. 
"Do you know where he's going?" Jack asked no one in particular.
"They wouldn't tell him." Henry answered, seemingly to have listened to their conversation.
"The only thing we know is that there is supposed to be another foster kid." JoJo added after taking a bite of his sandwich. 
"Let's just hope for the best." Race sighed. All of them nodded, silently agreeing that they would help Elmer where ever they could, but leave him be for now.