Newsies One Shots

Skeletons - Sprace

Prompt - Injury
Au - None
Triggers - Blood/injury detail, violence mentions, implied abuse, swearing

•••

Racetrack Higgins was never one for following orders. He never had been, not since he was a kid and he didn't see it changing anytime soon. It was like an automatic response that was hardwired into him; if someone tells Race to go left, he goes right. If someone tells him to go right, he goes left. Part of him wonders if it was because he likes pissing people off that he never listened, though maybe it was just because he didn't like anyone thinking they could tell him what to do. Not scabs or those snobby business men in their fancy carriages, snapping at him to get out of their way, not Weasel or the Delancey's or hell, even Jack and the rest of the newsies. Certainly not the bulls, no matter how much they tried to scare him.

Not even the King of Brooklyn himself could make Race listen to him.

Sneaking out of the Manhattan lodgings at ungodly hours to make the trek to Brooklyn despite's Spot's insistence not to, skipping occasional days in Manhattan selling to try his luck alongside Spot and his boys while Spot grumbled beside him about it. Stealing an endless stream of things he didn't need while Spot warned him that he was being reckless; little bags of boiled sweets or bottles of liquor he could barely keep down or trinkets of no value he lost within a week.

No, Race never listened and he revelled in Spot's rolled eyes and exasperated (and sometimes annoyed) sighs with a wicked grin and a bright laugh. He knew Spot well enough now to know he didn't mind, not really. To know he found it amusing, Race's stubborn streak, his inability to do what he was told, at least a little bit. He wouldn't say it of course. He'd clap Race around the head and call him an idiot and say it served him right when Race squawked, but the way his mouth quirked upwards at the corner gave him away.

It probably did annoy him though, when Race poked and prodded and refused to let it drop when he asked about a new bruise on Spot's cheek or a cut across his upper arm, a bust nose or lip that trickled blood onto his shirt. Spot would always shrug and wipe away the red with the back of his hand, old scars on split knuckles mixing with fresh blood, and tell him to stop being so nosy, that he'd gotten into a fight with some scab again. Like he always did.

Race believed him, for the most part; Spot had a temper to be reckoned with, one hell of a reputation that didn't leave one questioning too much when he told Race he'd ran into some particularly nasty bulls again to explain the shiner that hadn't been there the day before. Spot just attracted violence the way Race seemed to attract trouble; the pair of them flickering gaslights, drawing in moths without ever really meaning to. If Race was wired to never listen, Spot was wired to fight, no matter how unintentional it may be.

Of course, there was always a slight twinge of something that wasn't quite right in Race's head, when Spot's face was bloody but his knuckles weren't, or when the cuts on his arms looked too dead straight to be done with a shard of glass, in wild slashes like Spot claimed. He still didn't push as much as he should have, though he still pushed. Spot told him it was ok, and Race trusted Spot. Spot told him to let it drop, but Race kept pushing despite that trust, till Spot would snap and his voice would turn sharp and his expression stony. Then Race let it drop, and that twinge grew a little more ever day, every time he saw him.

Which was increasingly often, nowadays. Race still didn't know how it had happened, their relationship, but he knew he loved it. He loved the thrill so strong he could get drunk on it,  the secrets and the long nights spent where no one could see them and no one would judge them. There was a certain fascination he had at learning that the famed Spot Conlon wasn't all flying fists and steely gazes, not all something to be feared but a lot, lot more. Which is why, Race supposed, he didn't press as hard as he wanted to. He didn't want anything to be wrong, because everything was perfect in its own weird way and he didn't want that to change. He wanted everything to stay just as it was, a freeze frame of the laughter and the rush and the concealed smiles and innocent looks when Albert asked about him not-so-sneakily slipping out for the dozenth time.