Newsies Imagines

Afternoon at the Pier (Finch)

It is a lovely, lovely day in New York, and that's cause for celebration if Finch has ever heard it. All of the newsboys around purposefully bought fewer papers than normal just so they could get out early and enjoy the sunshine. They'll swallow the cost of fewer profits later, obviously, it'll be the only thing they'll be eating for a while, but right now it's good, damn good, and that's all they care to think about at the moment.

The Manhattan newsboys have chosen to cluster together on the pier and watch the sun slowly sink over the endless water. The local seagull population has been temporarily replaced by scores of boys in fading shirts and patched pants, scuffed shoes and hats raised to wave at each and every ship that passes by their territory.

It's a wonderful way to spend the day, that's for certain. Later today, once the exhaustion catches up to them and all the Manhattan newsies troop back to their Lodging House to recount all they did, all the imaginary battles won and treasures discovered, they'll all swear that the water had never been bluer, the wind never more well timed. The sun will never shine as perfectly as it did today, and were they able to travel back in time and revisit this day once more, it would never be quite as good as it is right now.

They're all slipping on the rose tinted glasses as easily as if they've been worn all their lives. Looking around him, Finch watches his friends laugh and shout and enjoy themselves. They deserve this, all of them. They've deserved it for a while. Feels good.

Finch himself is leaning against a sun bleached wooden post, idly carving initials into the already scored wood. They were his at first, the letters of his attention, but they've started slipping into something else, heralding a name that no longer belongs to him. It takes Finch several minutes to jolt out of his sun induced stupor and realize what he's doing, and then he recognizes the name for what it is: Y/N's.

Makes sense, at least. Finch is nothing if not predictable. He's been crushing on Y/N for what, six months now, and he's just as unlikely to give her up as he had been at the start. It's not his fault, though. Most crushes you can brush off with a few days' worth of calculated avoidance, but this is different. This is Y/N, and that means everything is out of his control.

It would be one thing if he didn't see her at all. Finch could just wake up whenever, get his papers and sell them on some opposite corner of the city. He'd come back late and purposefully stick to his circles of his friends, all of which don't have to include her.

That would be the plan, at least, and then Finch's traitorous feet keep leading him in the wrong direction. All roads lead back to her, all of Finch's jokes land best when he's telling them to her, and every time Finch swears to himself that he's really over it this time, he's not in love with her, he goes out of his way to find her again and it's all over from there on out.

It's not like it's her fault, though. Y/N's not the one who can't stay away, that blame rests solely on his shoulders. Finch can't go without seeing Y/N because he doesn't want to. The thought of going forever without hearing her laugh at some bad joke of his or even just look at him with that knowing smile (she's aware of his crush, of that he's damn certain, Y/N knows everything) makes Finch want to break a bone, not necessarily his.

Someone taps his shoulder a little too hard and Finch stumbles slightly, dragged out of the same spiral of thoughts he keeps getting trapped in as of late. His attacker is Race, as it turns out. Belatedly, Finch remembers that he'd been talking to a group of his friends, Race among them. He might have been zoning out a little too much, and now they've been waiting for a response from him for too long.

Race spreads his hands exaggeratedly. "Earth to Finch? Did you lose the ability to hear or are you just ignoring us?"

"Ignoring you is my favorite thing most of the time," Finch says pointedly.