A/N: Requested by jaredkleinmemeeeee ! Hope you enjoy! <3 Confession: I had never listened to this song before lol (I know one Taylor Swift song and that is 'Shake it Off') and I tried to incorporate it as best I could. It's a little out of order with the lyrics and things but hopefully it's still pretty good :)
You were both young when you first saw him. Thirteen years old, tagging along with your brothers as they went to work for your uncle. After the death of your parents, he was the only family that you and your brothers had. You watched, standing inside of the distribution hut, off to the side, as Oscar and Morris scrambled to keep up with the counting of the papers on their first day as the newsboys outside ordered.
Eventually the hustle and bustle got to be too much for you to stand in the small room, so you ducked out, unseen, into the courtyard. All the boys ignored you but one, pushing through the crowd when he spotted you. He looked to be about your age, with blond hair and bright green eyes.
He walked up to you, a grin on his face as he spoke; "Hi."
"Hey." You replied, a small smile coming to your own face.
The boy shoved his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. "What's your name?"
"Y/N. Yours?"
"Louis."
You nodded, sticking out your hand. "Nice to meet you."
The boy raised his hand to his mouth before hesitating. Instead offering you a clean(ish) hand. You reached out to shake it, but he instead brought your hand to his lips, sweeping his lips gently across the back. You blushed softly, and he flashed you another charming grin before one of the other boys called out to the boy in front of you, gesturing towards the distribution desk with a "Come on, Romeo." And then he was gone, shooting you a wink before he left.
You stood, watching, until your brother came.
"Stay 'way from those newsboys." He told you with a tap to the ear, a shadow of a ghost of a hit. He would never hit you, not after your parents. But it still serviced as a reminder.
You left with them, flanked by each one. And you didn't come back to those gates, not until almost two years had past. You thought of him frequently. Most every day. Going out of your way to see him where he sold, never for long for fear your brothers would find out. A paper, a penny, each exchanged with a smile and a hope you would be able to come back tomorrow. It was the highlight of your day when you did. The highlight of his as well. Changes came during that time; an eyepatch, some smaller scars. He was taller, handsomer each time you saw him. You knew you had changed as well, but you really hadn't. He was the same, inside, and so were you. Both everything to each other, even if you didn't quite know it yet.
The other boys didn't approve. You could see the glances his selling partner gave you two, and you knew why. Your brothers' fault, it was always your brothers. As they had worked for Weasel they had only grown worse, arrogant and brash. And they took it out on the boys around them, the ones who bought the papers, the ones who kept them in work.
But whenever you could, whenever you were alone, you would talk with him, whisper with him, dream with him. And he kissed you, once, when you were in the garden behind your uncle's house, where you had snuck out to meet him there. He kissed you and you had to stop yourself from fainting then and there. You threw around ideas together, trying to figure out how you could be together.
Stories of princes and princesses you had heard before floated to your mind, tales of forbidden love that had always found a way to make it work, so why couldn't you?
He called you his Juliet. You called him your Romeo. Each time you spoke the words the flashback would come, when he first saw you for him and when you first saw him for you. But just like that famous love story, yours was hampered.
Your brothers continued to try and stop you. Your time spent outdoors alone diminished, dwindled, and then ceased all together. His brothers were standoffish, not actively stopping him but not helping him either. Sometimes he would come in the alley to the side of the house, throwin' pebbles at your window. You would lean out, talking softly with him, until one of your brothers would hear, or a cop would walk by and order him to stop lurking in alleyways.
Then the strike happened, and you were worried beyond compare. None of the rest of your family would talk to you about it, nobody would tell you how he was or if he was even alive.
You hadn't seen him in a while. You'd heard that he had won the strike, you'd seen the change in your brothers- softer, mellower than before.
One day you came home from a walk-- with Oscar of course-- to find a note on your bed. Oscar had been acting weird, cutting the walk short, looking at you like he hadn't seen you in a while and he wouldn't see you much longer. When you picked up the note it read in a messy scrawl;
Meet me tonight, you know where;
it was signed, Romeo.
You met him there, on the outskirts of town. You told him you'd been feeling oh so alone, since you hadn't seen him in so long. You'd been waiting and waiting, but he had never come. He quieted you with a soft smile that changed to a grin, before kneeling to the ground and pulling out a ring.
"Marry me, Juliet, and you'll never have to be alone, I... I love you, and that's all I really know. I talked to your brother, he told me yes, so you can go ahead and pick out a white dress... it'll be our love story, if you just say 'Yes'."