New York, 1899. "There ain't no crime in bein' poor, and not a one of us complains if the work we do is hard. All we ask is a fair deal." (Newsies OC blog, main verse and modern AU. Open to other partners and AUs.)
“Tutoring?” As soon as the door clicked shut behind Lydia, Conor made a face and slung his bag onto the chair at the foot of Isaac’s bed. There was an identical one on the other side of the room — his side of the room — but he had never been too good with the concept of personal space. Frostbite kid probably wouldn’t appreciate it, but that didn’t exactly cross Conor’s mind. Sharing is caring, after all. “Don’t tell me they give detentions, too.” He was perhaps being a bit too flippant for his own good, but in the presence of so much silence, he felt the need to fill the space himself. Whether or not that was a good thing was anybody’s guess.
As the door clicked shut behind Lydia, the boy made a face and tossed his bag carelessly onto Isaac’s chair, which was already piled with clothes in need of folding. He had been casual when the nurse was in the room, but now that she had left he took on a nonchalantness bordering on swagger, the kind of air that Isaac associated with rich douchebags on MTV shows. Conor was wandering all over his room, his hands now as well as his eyes skimming over all of Isaac’s belongings. Although Isaac wasn’t particularly happy about what he was doing, he just tugged unhappily on his beanie, hoping he would retreat to his side of the room soon.
Instead, the kid picked up his clipboard and starting leafing through the pages, ignoring the small, surprised protestation this drew from Isaac, who half-started up from the bed. A recent round of chemo hadn’t left him up to a lot of physical activity, however, and his face paled at the sudden movement, forcing him to settle slowly back onto the blankets. If the kid didn’t stop touching his things, though, Isaac might let himself throw up on him just to prove a point.
"I don’t usually have anyone to talk to," Isaac said harshly, gritting his teeth tightly around the sentence as he forced down the rising taste of bile. Jesus, what kind of asshole had Lydia stuck him with? Was this some kind of sick punishment for him skipping his classes? He hated the hassle of interacting with strangers, something you had to do a lot when you were sick, and he wanted nothing more than to put his headphones back in and ignore the problem that had just moved so ostentatiously into his room. But Lydia would give him hell if he didn’t at least try to talk to the guy. The trouble was, he seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice so much he had asked at least four questions without waiting for any kind of reply. So Isaac answered with a question of his own.
"Can I have that back, please?" He asked, reaching his hand out for the CD case without getting up from the bed. A balloon of anger was swelling rapidly in his chest, making his lungs ache as he drew a deep breath through his nose. "I’m sure you’ve got your own stuff to mess around with."
"Did you forget already?" A teasing glimmer lit her eyes as she pushed the door all the way open and flicked on the rest of the lights. "I’m glad you pay so much attention to what I say to you, hmm?” She was kidding, of course, pursing her lips and raising her eyebrows in feigned disappointment, but she was the sort of person whose smile sprang through any other expression she attempted.
A roommate... Oh. Lydia had mentioned the possibility to Isaac the day before. However, he hadn't expected the idea to come to fruition any time soon, if he had even expected anything to /actually/ happen at all. The other side of his room had sat unoccupied for most of the time Isaac had been staying in the hospital. Only a few patients had passed in and out of his room, most of them before he'd gotten to know much about them besides their name and their disease. He had grown used to the extra space, and wasn't particularly looking forward to sharing his room - or his sickness - with another person. He had learned over the past months that it was just a little easier to deal with puking all day, if you didn't have a roommate to watch you do it.
"Hi." Isaac said shortly.
To his credit, he had tried to keep his displeasure out of his voice, for courtesy's sake. He did not succeed in making his voice friendly enough to appease Lydia, however, and the nurse shot him a warning look from across the room, where she stood fluffing the pillows on the newcomer's bed. Isaac sighed.
The guy standing in front of him was tall and lanky, his hair bordering on red, with an unnecessary amount of freckles peppering the curves of his smiling face. He looked much healthier than most of the other kids here, Isaac noted, his light eyes wandering around the room like it was a new exhibit at the Discovery Place. Most hospital kids were pretty listless after a while, but he didn't have that look yet - he was interested in everything in the room, it seemed, the bags under his eyes having no effect on his alertness. A new patient, Isaac would have guessed, unless the guy was found to have some strange, asymptotic disease and a Pollyanna attitude to match.
Isaac knew the guy wasn't trying to make him uncomfortable with his staring, but the boy's gaze raked over him nonetheless as he scanned all of the belongings lying around the room. Then again, Isaac probably wasn't making any better of a first impression. He was just kind of staring at the kid while he stood there, after all, and Isaac knew he couldn't have made too nice of a picture, all furrowed brows and pale skin huddled up mountain of winter clothes.
Lydia had probably put him with this guy on purpose, Isaac thought fleetingly. She was always talking about people needing sunshine in their life - and Conor was exactly the sort of person she would consider "sunshine".
An uncomfortable silence had descended on the three of them as Isaac thought, and he shifted nervously on his comforter, glancing down and tapping the screen of his phone to pause the music leaking from his headphones. He stubbornly refused to be the first one to speak again, however, tugging at his beanie and glancing at Lydia with a clear hope that she would find something to say to fill the silence. As determined as he was to be a sullen teenager, however, he was also suddenly painfully aware of his abundance of nervous ticks. He pulled his sweater sleeves over his hands, grabbing onto the hems and crossing his arms before turning his rather dour stare from Lydia to Conor.
"Well, I have to finish my rounds." Lydia announced unhelpfully, crossing back to the door and shooting Isaac another meaningful look. It was the look she gave him whenever she felt he was being just a bit too self-pitying for his own good.
"Isaac, you have tutoring at 4 o'clock - and if you miss anymore they're going to make you do recovery time." Her tone made it clear she knew Isaac wasn't "forgetting" to go to tutoring, but she smiled brightly at Conor nonetheless as she opened the door to leave. "Until then, you guys can get to know each other better."
Conor didn’t belong here. He was convinced of that, and his conviction only grew as each moment passed. Shadows shifted back and forth on the other side of the glass door, blurred by the reversed etching of the name in the center panel. He couldn’t see them, but he didn’t have to. He knew the wheelchairs that traversed the halls, the IV bags, the pale patients and overly cheerful nurses, serious-faced doctors with heavy jaws and gruff voices. The constant pressure of the things people were afraid to say. Everything here was so diluted. There was nothing too loud, nothing too exciting, nothing too anything — hospitals were greenhouses full of plants grown in the dark, limp and colorless, all pastel and white and chrome. Moderate. Mild. Uninteresting. And everywhere the little blinking lights, the pervasive beeping that seemed to follow him around. It wasn’t loud, no, not at all, just incessant — beeping came from the rooms, from the desks, from the machines, from the intercom. It was enough to drive someone crazy.
Isaac had never really had the privilege of being able to breathe properly. He had suffered from asthma as a kid, his occasional shortness of breath aggravated by unclean air and anything that even vaguely resembled a fun sport. And although he'd grown out of it slightly as he aged, he had never stopped having to carry his inhaler with him. That was why, years later, he hadn't paid enough attention when his lungs had begun to ache at odd times - his own insidious cells spreading throughout his lungs, turning his breath to bloody hacks and wheezes when he wasn't paying attention. It was amazing how much the early stages of lung cancer resembled a recurrence of asthma, and how little an inhaler helped if you ignored the problem. His last surgery had removed a particularly cancer-ridden chunk from his left lung, but the cancer had dispersed itself by then, settling in his lungs like a pack of deadbeat friends in a parent's basement. Bad luck for his breathing, he supposed. Maybe he should have taken it a bit easier on the smoking.
Through the easy cadence of the music playing in his headphones, Isaac heard a familiar double tap on his door that dragged him from his thoughts. Lydia Mbege was one of Isaac's favorite nurses, and the only one in the hospital who knocked like that. When he had first been moved to the pediatric ward to start treatments six months ago, she had been the one to greet him, explaining his treatments in a way that made them seem slightly less terrifying than they had been at first. Plus, she'd given him all the CDs her son had left when he's gone to college - enough to occupy him for weeks of the time he felt too sick or exhausted to leave his room. God bless good nurses.
Isaac looked over from his bed to the round, friendly face smiling in the doorway. He was propped up on pillows stolen from the other single bed in the room, laying on top of the covers but bundled up in a double layer of socks and sweaters. Tile floors and thin walls didn't make for the warmest rooms, and Isaac had lived in the hospital long enough to horde a collection of warm clothes for bundling up under.
Isaac swung his legs off of the bed and slowly sat up, pulling his headphones from his ears with an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, Ms. Lydia, what was that?" He asked her, looking inquisitively at the dark face in the half-opened door. "I thought I didn't have any treatments today."
"That’s where I’m gonna end up one day. Trust me."
"I’m gonna make a whole lot of money."
"I can’t wait to get away."
"We can’t spend our whole lives hiding."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I’ve been dreaming of a hot meal with you as my dessert."
"I can’t believe...
"You're so cute when you're flustered." (booksamberthesen WHOOPS)
"I—I ain’t flustered," Isaac quickly insisted, laughing. Then he reached a hand up and rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head to hide the blush creeping across his cheeks. "Me, flustered? I just don’t know what you’re talkin’ about."
Books laughed, rolling her eyes at his very extremely manly blushing. “Oh yeah?” she teased him, poking his chest playfully. “So then, what did get ya all flustered and blushy, Mr. Manly-Man?”
"I don't-- that's not entirely-- you're awfully nosy, did you know that? Really a terrible habit to have, I don't know if anyone's ever told you that..." He was kidding, of course, bopping her on the nose and shaking his head.
"You get outta the way!" Isaac retorted dismissively, waving his paperbag at the person yelling to his right. "I’m tryin’ to read the headline here, now quit pushin’, don’tcha got any sense—" He turned to the side, no easy feat in the crowded square, trying to catch a glimpse of the offending newsie and simultaneously shove them them off his shoulder—or, oh shit, her. Girl newsie. Hm. Isaac froze for a second, staring at the girl’s face half-hidden under a cap, and his aggression faded. "Er, sorry. You can move up."
"Books. Books Amberthesen." The girl offered him a wry smile, glancing briefly over her shoulder at the line before turning back around to face him. "And it’s fine. Kinda my fault, really." She laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. "I got here late."
"I'm pretty sure all of us are late at least one day out of the week." Isaac shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. "You should meet my friend Conor. I'm buying papers for him half the time so he doesn't have to wait at the back of line. Speaking of, actually, I think they's about to open the gates. I ain't gonna let Romeo get in front of me again."
Jamie looked down at her leg and chuckled, “Nah, scabbers didn’t do it. Me an’ one of me friends got into a fight and it was bad, let’s just leave it there.” She kept her smile and leaned back on her good leg. She had to make sure she didn’t apply too much pressure so that it would heal right, and heal fast.
”I think someone’s always out ta get me since I’s always takin’ people’s money. Though, it ain’t my fault they’s bad at poker,” She snickered, thinking about how angry some of the guys would get when she would win.
Isaac raised his eyebrows and smiled. "A gambler, huh? I believe any respectable mother would tell me to stay far away from you, then." He didn't make any move to leave, though, glancing at her splint with an understanding expression. He and Conor had been a part of their own all-out fights before, and he could understand why she didn't want to talk about it.
He turned his hands over to inspect them, rubbing the at scabs forming over his knuckles. "Ah, I gotta find a place to clean these. I come home lookin' like this and my aunt'll probably call in the whole police squad, you know? D'you know anywhere nearby?"
"You're so cute when you're flustered." (booksamberthesen WHOOPS)
"I—I ain’t flustered," Isaac quickly insisted, laughing. Then he reached a hand up and rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head to hide the blush creeping across his cheeks. "Me, flustered? I just don’t know what you’re talkin’ about."
Books laughed, playfully nudging his shoulder. “Yes, you is!” she grinned. “You’s real flustered.” Teasingly, she reached up to move his head. “See? You’s blushin’!”
"Alright, then, fine. I may be—" He laughed. "Slightly flustered. In a completely justified, absolutely manly manner. And definitely not because of-- what you just said. Definitely not... that."
"You're so cute when you're flustered." (booksamberthesen WHOOPS)
"I—I ain’t flustered," Isaac quickly insisted, laughing. Then he reached a hand up and rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head to hide the blush creeping across his cheeks. "Me, flustered? I just don’t know what you’re talkin’ about."
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