Consider bill hearst becoming a newsboy
oh i am immediately obsessed with this i fear
bill hearst running away from his godawful family — not that there’s much to run away from, he hasn’t seen his father in weeks, he’s probably out of state with his mistress again (who, for the record, is hardly older than bill is), and his mother doesn’t care, and each of his siblings is more important than he is — but he…finds himself more than a little out of his depth on the streets. but he’s adamant to build a life for himself, free from his family and free from all of the expectations on his shoulders, suffocating him.
he knows he needs a job if he wants to survive once the money he took with him runs out, and newspapers are all he knows — but if he walks into any newspaper office looking for that sort of work he’s sure he’ll be reported right back to his father. he can’t be a journalist like katherine is, nor a typist or typesetter like darcy.
but being a newsie is newspaper work. and none of the newsies know or care who he is. he finds himself at the distribution yard in the plainest clothes he brought with him, and though the newsies eye him warily and a few glare when they see him approach the desk, none stop him. so bill becomes a newsie.
(the hearst family, meanwhile, are growing steadily more concerned about their missing son. none want to make a public spectacle lest they put him in further danger — or give him the attention he’s clearly after, according to his father — but bill’s siblings are worried.)
(and darcy is beside himself with his…dear friend missing. he’s positive that bill would never leave him without a word like this, and that must mean that something awful has happened, but nobody will take him seriously as bill’s “friend”, and he can’t possibly risk exposing their real relationship with his concern.)
