Newsies One Shots

Merry Band of Misfits

Prompt - Pride
Au- None
Triggers - Implications of homophobia

These are all my personal headcanons so be nice/lh

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Pride. Funny word that, in some contexts. Good one in most, but funny all the same.

Wasn't it?

Ok, maybe funny wasn't the right word...odd, perhaps? Unnecessary? No, maybe alien was the best descriptor. Unfamiliar, in a sense. That was it. Why would it be familiar, to the newsies at least. What did they have to be proud about? Hiding, stifling emotions and any sort of feelings for fear of rejection and of being hurt. That wasn't anything to be proud of. That was just another reason to slink around in shadows and avoid the judging eyes of the masses.

It wasn't fair though. Nothing about what that ragged band of kids had for an excuse of a life was fair, but this particularly so. They were just that; kids, and kids shouldn't have to live with an eye ever glancing over a shoulder, shouldn't have to carry a barrage of hurt and disparage and scorn for nothing more than...than liking someone that the world said they shouldn't. But they all did. They carried that burden with the firm knowledge that they shouldn't have to, that it was ridiculous and cruel and yet just another notch in a belt for so many.

Because so what if some of them liked boys instead of girls? Or both, or none? What did it matter? It was just something about them that not one of them could control, and not one of them wanted to. Words like 'unnatural', 'disgusting', 'freaks' all had their own familiarity and near all of them had lost their affect a long time ago. They might have hurt once, might have instilled fear or hatred that rooted itself deep and was oh so hard to pull up but it lessened as years passed and as more and more of them mustered up enough courage to admit it and to admit that they were scared but that they shouldn't be.

And to be met with a barrage of support so strong it was suffocating at times. Not from the rest of the world of course; to them, the newsies would always be a freak show, but not to each other. To each other, it wasn't a big deal and inside the walls of the lodging house it was easy to forget about the twisted hatred outside, masked in relieved smiles and a certain sense of belonging that had grown and blossomed as months had passed, slipping into years.

So, maybe pride was unfamiliar in word but not as alien in concept.

They were proud of each other, that couldn't be argued. Proud when Albert stood up against scabs with both words and fists, arguing that, 'why shouldn't he like both? Certainly opens up his options and makes life a little more fun', proud when Jack did the same, and then Race and Buttons and so many others. Proud when Romeo admitted that the boy they knew now hadn't  always been that boy, that he'd been trapped but he wasn't anymore and not everyone liked that but he didn't care because he knew who he was.

Proud when JoJo had come to realise that it was ok that whatever attractions the rest of them had (and had very loudly, in some cases), just wasn't there. That it didn't have to be and that didn't make him any less; didn't make him broken or needing to be fixed. Just made him...him. Proud when Davey plucked up enough courage after years of hiding, buried under expectations he couldn't meet and a stifling fear, to say that yes, he liked boys and so what if he did?

That pride in each other was an onslaught that didn't ever seem to end. They were a merry band of misfits and of course, opinions hurt and that hurt wouldn't ever go away but at least they had some place where they knew they were safe and where they wouldn't be scorned or judged for simply...existing. It was a nice reassurance, a little shining rainbow in the dark shadows of the rest of the world