Hi, Lisa! It's your Newsies requester again, back with another one! I read your Albert one-shot about him being scared of thunderstorms, and it made me think of another hurt/comfort idea: could I please request one where the reader finds Albert crying (for what reason I don't know) and comforts him? If you don't want to write this, that's totally cool! Thanks and have an awesome day!! ❤️
i am so sorry this took so long but AA ALBERT
masterlist
You don’t think that you have ever known a night as hard as this one. There have been midnights when you had nothing to eat so your stomach felt like it was being pulled apart by hooks, when you had to sleep outside and it was raining, when you hadn’t yet joined the newsies and all you knew is that you were alone in this great, terrible city with no one to watch your back.
This, though, is worse, because it took away the last shred of hope that you still had despite everything they had already happened to you. Pulitzer raising the price of newspapers was like a threat against your very life, but the way the strike turned sour was a death blow.
It was horrifying, that was all. You weren’t even thinking about what might happen to you at first, too concerned with the fact that there were little kids out here getting pummeled by grown men. The cops didn’t seem to care that the guy at the other end of their club was ten or twelve at most; all they saw was a striker, so they swung. Davey must have had a heart attack thinking about Les in the thick of all that, you know you did for him.
In complete honesty, you thought someone was going to die. It could have been you, when you turned around from pulling a smaller newsie to his feet to see one of the thugs bearing down on you, or when you tried to run at the end but the Delancey brothers got in your way. Crutchie is gone, Jack is who knows where, and you have no earthly idea what to do next. How do you recover from this? A quiet voice in the back of your head whispers that you don’t.
Your footsteps are slow as you walk through the newsie lodging house. Everyone’s ended up here for the night, hoping that sleep will actually bring rest and not nightmares depicting what happened today. A few boys nod at you when you slip through the door, but most are in a world of their own, too distracted by cuts and bruises to strike up cheerful conversation.
You head up the twisting metal stairs to a higher floor, keen on getting to your bunk and trying to forget all this in blissful unconsciousness for at least a couple of hours. You’re distracted on the way there, though, by a faint sound coming from a closed door. It’s quiet, barely noticeable, but then it comes again. A small sniffle, a brief sound like a fabric rubbing against skin.
Your hand is on the doorknob before you can convince yourself to stop. This kid, whoever he is, might just want to be alone, but sometimes it’s nice to sit by somebody as well. You’ve had your share of terrible days when the only thing that made you feel better was a friend. The same could go for this guy.
You crack open the door cautiously, and your heart twists at the sight of the boy sitting inside. His back to his bunk, Albert DaSilva looks lonelier than you’ve ever seen him before, and it cuts just as deep as a blade. He startled when he sees your face peeking into the room, then sighs miserably.
“Sorry, if you’s wanting to be alone you’ll have to find another place.”
You shake your head, still hesitating on the threshold. “And what if I don’t want to be alone.”
Albert doesn’t pause, just holds out one weary arm to you from where he sits almost curled in on himself from the floor. “Then I wouldn’t mind the company.”
This is all the invitation you need. You slip inside, carefully closing the door behind you, and cross the room to Albert’s side. He pulls you close to him, one arm curled around your side. Now that you’re sitting so close to him, you realize that he’s crying, the faint tracks of tears shining lowly in the moonlight filtering in from a dusty window.
“Oh, Al, what’s wrong?”
Albert gestures uselessly at the room around you. “What else could it be? We just watched our friends get beaten within an inch of their lives, and it was our fault. I tried to convince everybody to do it, that’s on me.”
You shake your head quickly. “We all wanted to do this. None of us blame you, Albert, just like we don’t blame Davey or Jack or anyone who wanted to strike. If anyone, hate Pulitzer for this, but not yourself.”
Albert makes a disgruntled sound. “Oh, I do hate him, but it’s not that easy. It was our ideas, and our guys getting stomped into the ground.”
His shoulders slump. “Did you see Romeo? He got hit so hard it took him a full minute to get back up. I thought he was going to die. I thought you were going to die.”
A fresh tear courses down his cheek, and out of some impulse you don’t think you could name if you tried, you pull him close to you. Albert leans into you easily, his head falling into the crook of your neck like it was always meant to be there. His hands reach for yours, curling around your waist. Some part of you wants to thrill with delight at how close you are, but you’re too focused on making Al feel better to think about the consequences of letting yourself need him this much.
“Romeo is here, though, he’s alright. I saw him just a couple minutes ago, and although he’s a bit shaken up, he’s out and walking.”
Albert opens his mouth to argue this, but you hold up a warning finger and he falls silent again. “Romeo took a bad hit, yes. Just about everybody did. We’se still here, though, and that’s what matters. Maybe we don’t strike again immediately, or maybe we do. We’re going to be alright.”
Albert looks up at you, normally bright eyes dull with the weight of just what happened. “How do you know that?”
In the window outside, a sharp burst of wind sends a few clouds skittering away from the moon. You can see Albert piercingly well in this sudden light, the smattering of freckles across his skin, the reddish curls that are on full display around the curve of his face now that his newsie cap has been tossed dejectedly to the side.
It occurs to you that he is beautiful, this boy in your arms. You’ve known it for a while, the same way you can look up at a sky of purest blue and know it to be pretty, but now that you’re so close to him, it hits you full force. You’ve been pretending that you have a solid grasp on how you feel, but you don’t, not now and maybe not ever. How could you, anyway, with him looking at you like you’re the only source of truth in a world that’s quickly descending into nothingness?
Albert is still waiting for an answer, though, so you must come up with one. If he trusts you enough to let you see him weak and losing, then you have to make him feel like he’s worth something again. You already think so, but he has to as well.
You tilt your head to the side, considering his question. “I know you, and I know our newsies. I know we’re not the type to let one bad twist of fate stomp us down completely. I don’t know what we’re going to do after this, but I know we’re not going to be alone.”
Albert nods slowly. “No. I know I’m not alone.”
He glances at you, and his gaze is so clear and bright that it stuns you. “I have you.”
You have to take a moment to catch your breath. Perhaps you’ve been liking Albert DaSilva for a little longer and a little more than you should, and perhaps being able to stay here, so close to him, isn’t the best for keeping your mind on track. You can all feel every twitch of his fingers against your waistline, and are very much aware of the fact that you’ve stayed pressed against him for much longer than this city would consider proper. Regardless, you don’t think that you could move if you tried.
“And I have you. None of us are getting through this easily, after all. It’s hard on all of us.”
Albert shrugs, although he seems to be doing better. His movements come easier, his smile not as forced. “Doesn’t seem to be killing you all that much. I figured I’d have to be comforting you, not the other way around.”
There’s a thin veneer of self-loathing draped over his words, and you reach out to squeeze his hands instinctively, anything to stop his thoughts of himself from having quite so many barbed edges.
“Hey, hey. You’se been watching my back since the day I got here, I figure it’s way past time for me to return the favor. Don’t you remember all those times you had to save me from the Delanceys?”
Albert groans, but he’s starting to laugh again. “You were impossible. I figured you would have some sort of common sense, but you kept charging headlong into trouble.”
You poke him in the ribs. “Rude. Also, it’s not like any of you are any better. I feel like it was my right to say what I wanted.”
Albert snaps his eyes shut dramatically, the perfect picture of a soul torn to shreds by the weight of his own responsibility. “You once saw both of them cornering you in an alley, and decided to start talking about how they were the ugliest sons of guns you’d ever seen.”
“They were!” You cry, but Albert just laughs.
“Yeah, but who had to pull you out of there when they decided you’d look just as bad as them with a black eye and a couple of broken bones? Me, and I didn’t even do anything.”
You smile at the memory. “Yes, you were terribly brave. I figure most of the other guys would have let me take a few punches, though, just so I’d figure out when to keep my mouth shut.”
Albert waves a hand loosely to dismiss this claim. “Ah, I could never let you get hurt. Even if you kind of deserved it, which you did. I like you too much for that.”
He freezes slightly as he says it, and you realize that you may not be the only one affected by the proximity of hands and waists and hearts. Albert is starting to tense up as if he’s going to deny this, and, even worse, maybe pull away, so you speak quickly before any damage is done.
“I like you too, you know.”
Albert blinks slowly. “You what?”
You shrug, careful to keep your eyes trained on a distant speck of light visible through the window across from you. Somehow, meeting Albert’s gaze right now, while you spill this too-important truth, would be too much for you.
“I like you too. Figure one of us should say it, at any rate.”
He’s silent again, and you’re just starting to think that you’ve really misread this whole situation and it’s time to get yourself out when he kisses you. Now it’s your turn to be stunned into silence, a fact that evidently makes Albert a little too proud of himself judging by the fact that you can feel him smiling against your lips.
“What, you thought that you could be the only one to have surprise confessions? That would be boring.” He says, breaking away.
You can’t help but laugh. “It would be, wouldn’t it?”
From there on, you’re perfectly fine with kissing him again, trying to forget the rest of the world in the hazy night light flowing through this room. It is just you and Albert, nothing more and nothing less. You wouldn’t want anything else.
newsies tag list: @lovesanimals0000, @misguidedswagger, @thatfangirl42
