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Chapter Text

Dean Winchester was running—running as if the very hounds of Hell were after him—and it was glorious. The smog-tainted New York City air burned in his lungs with every breath, and he could hear almost nothing over the adrenaline-enhanced pounding of his heart in his chest and the slap of his shoes against the cobblestones, but if he strained his ears, he could still just make out the cacophony of shouts and police whistles that he was leaving in his wake. Putting on a final burst of speed, he skidded blindly around a corner into a night-dark alley, slowing fractionally as the sounds of his pursuers faded completely. That had been a close one; too close for comfort, if he was being honest with himself.

Despite the fact that he was sure no one was following him any more, he kept up a fast jog for three more blocks, sticking to the shadows, before he risked stopping long enough to catch his breath. He got his bearings there as well—he hadn’t exactly been paying attention to where he was going while running from the police—and mapped the fastest, safest route back home in his head as he reluctantly turned back the way he had come. As much trouble as this could get him into on his beat tomorrow, the thing he was dreading the most was explaining to Sam why he had been so late getting back to the lodging house.

The realization that he had just thought of the newsboys’ lodging house as home took a few minutes to hit him, and when it did, he stopped briefly to silently curse his subconscious. He couldn’t afford to think that way. He didn’t want to think of this city, or anything in it, as home any more. The minute he started doing that, he would be trapped. He wasn’t going to end up like the rest of the men he saw trudging off to the factories every morning before dawn, or begging on street corners when their luck ran out. He had plans, he had dreams, and this city wasn’t going to take them from him. Scowling, he put on a burst of speed, as if he could outrun his demons as easily as he had outrun the police. It wouldn’t be that easy, he knew, but you couldn’t blame a man for trying.

He reached the lodging house just as Bobby Singer, the cantankerous old man who ran the place, was getting ready to lock the door. “By all rights, I should leave you out in the cold, boy,” he growled as he looked Dean up and down. “What time do you call this?”

“Two minutes early, old man,” Dean said with a grin as he pulled out his father’s pocket watch and dangled it in front of Bobby’s face. “And you don’t strike me as the type to pass up an extra five cents in your pocket tonight, even from me.”

Bobby glared at him, then snorted and pulled the door open. “All right, ya idjit. Get in here. But the next time you’re late…”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dean waved off the good-natured threat and flipped the man a nickel. “You’re a saint with a heart of gold, Bobby. Sam here?”

“Of course,” Bobby said as he finished locking up and shooed Dean towards the stairs. “Your brother’s the responsible one, remember? He came in about two hours ago, and is probably up there worrying himself sick about you, so git!”

“Yes, sir. ‘Night, Bobby.” With a parting wink, Dean took the stairs up to the dormitory two at a time. Most of the other newsies who regularly called this place home were already asleep, but a couple were still awake, playing cards or sneaking a late-night supper. There were a few whispered greetings of “Hey, Dean-o,” and “Cutting it a little close, eh, Dean?” which he acknowledged with a nod and a shrug as he headed towards his usual bed near the back of the room.

Sam wasn’t in the lower bunk, but Dean’s momentary concern vanished as soon as he noticed the open window. He paused just long enough to slip half of the night’s purloined food from his pockets into the sack he kept hidden under his pillow on the upper bunk, then he climbed out the window onto the fire escape and looked up.

Sam hadn’t made it all the way to the roof tonight; the day must have taken more out of him than Dean had realized. He was sitting two floors up, his crutch beside him and his feet dangling over the edge of the balcony as he looked out at the city. Dean clattered up the rickety metal staircase, not bothering to hide his presence, but Sam was so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice Dean until he dropped a loaf of bread into his little brother’s lap. “Heya, Sammy. Why you up so late?”

“Hey, Dean.” Sam shook off whatever he was thinking about and grinned up at his brother as Dean sat down next to him. “I could ask you the same thing. Cut it a bit close tonight, didn’t you?”

Dean shrugged. “Bobby wouldn’t ever leave me out in the cold, you know that.” The man might have to keep up appearances for the other boys, but he had been a friend of their father’s, so he did his best to look out for Dean and Sam both. “Now, eat up so we can hit the hay. Early day again tomorrow, you know.”

Sam noticed the bread in his lap for the first time. “Tell me that you at least paid money for it this time,” he sighed as he picked it up and tore into it.

“Hell no!” Dean snorted. “Why would I waste my hard-earned money on bread?” Though, he considered, his night would have probably gone a whole lot smoother if he had just forked over a nickel for it.

“I don’t know, Dean. Maybe so you won’t get arrested again?”

Dean silently cursed whoever it was that had taught Sam sarcasm, or even how to talk in the first place, then realized it was him, on both counts, and kept his wit to himself. “That’s not gonna happen, Sammy,” he promised instead. “I’m too good to get caught.” He wasn’t going to mention the cops that had chased him for ten blocks tonight… not yet, anyway. Instead, he distracted his brother with an apple pulled from his other pocket. Sam’s eyes lit up as he bit into the ripe, red fruit, and the last traces of concern were wiped from his face when Dean pulled a second apple out and bit into it himself.

“I don’t see why you have to steal, though,” Sam said once the bread and both apples had been devoured and they were sitting in silence once more, looking out over the city. “I mean, we make a decent living selling papers. We’re two of the best, and you know it. Even after the seed money and rent here every day, we have coin to spare. So why risk it?”

Dean sighed and ruffled Sam’s hair affectionately. “Because I don’t just want to get by, Sammy. You know we’re not gonna stick around this town forever, right?”

“That’s what you keep saying,” Sam said, “but I don’t understand why you want to leave so badly. Everyone wants to come to New York. It’s the city of dreams, land of opportunity. Anyone can be anyone here.”

“What are you, working for the tourism board now?” Dean tried to keep his tone light so as not to offend his brother. “I don’t know about those other people, Sammy, but I just don’t see the appeal. It’s not like I’m ever gonna really make something of myself here, and I don’t fancy spending my whole life in the gutter, looking up at stars I can barely see.”

There was more to it than that, but Sam knew it well enough that he didn’t have to explain. This city had taken everything from them both. It had stolen their mother and Sam’s ability to walk on his own two feet in a tenement fire when the poor kid was only six months old; ten years later, it had succeeded in finally stealing their father, who had lost himself in drink and despair after his wife’s death, from them as well; and not two years ago, it had tried to separate the brothers forever when Dean was arrested for petty theft and sent to the Refuge, a ‘reform school’ for wayward youths that had been no better than a prison. After he’d escaped, Dean had vowed to do whatever he had to to get him and Sam out of the city for good, but it was slow going working as a newsie, and he couldn’t exactly look for better work without drawing attention to the fact that he was an escaped convict. Not to mention, Sam needed a roof over his head every night, and food in his stomach every day; at thirteen, the kid was starting to grow like a weed, and he’d always been too damn skinny. But just give them a few more months—or weeks, if something truly newsworthy managed to happen—and they’d be out of here. And Dean, for one, would never look back.

“I’d rather see those stars up close and personal,” he said, pulling himself out of his own head and turning his attention back to Sam, who hadn’t seemed to notice his momentary silence. “Somewhere a man can make something of himself, and no one cares who he is or where he comes from.”

“Like Santa Fe?” Sam was gazing up at him with worshipful attention now. “Tell me about it again, Dean?”

So Dean, never one to deny his little brother anything, gladly spun Sam a picture with words that was at least as beautiful as anything he had ever painted on the backdrops down at Harvelle’s Dance Hall. He told Sam about the wide open desert, dotted with gorgeous sandstone formations and cactuses as high as three-story buildings. He described the sun that would beat down on them, burning away the sickly city pallor from their skin and warming them down so deep into their bones that they would never feel cold again. He talked about the town too: about the buildings made of baked clay, and the honest, hardworking pioneer-folk who lived there, and how they would both be welcomed with open arms as long as they proved that they were honest and hardworking too.

“I’ll find work on a ranch, work for both of us: planting crops, or building fences, or taking care of the livestock. Maybe we’ll even get to go on a cattle-drive. We’ll sleep out under the stars every night, and cook around a campfire, and learn how to ride horses… I’ll get you a little palomino, Sam, so you can go anywhere you want without ever getting tired. And, who knows, getting out of the city might do you more good than that. A few months of soaking up sunlight and fresh air, you might not even need that crutch any more.”

“You think?” Sam looked up from where he’d laid his head in his brother’s lap, searching Dean’s face for signs of mockery, but Dean knew there was none there to see. “Could I really earn my keep out there too? And get strong, and learn to walk straight, and maybe even run…” His voice went hoarse on that last word, and tears were suddenly threatening to spill out of his eyes.

Dean reached down and pulled Sam up into a hug. “Hey, hey, none of that now.” Dean handed Sam a handkerchief and patted him on the back as he dabbed at his eyes. “Gimp leg or no, you’re still my brother, and I’ll take care of you no matter what. Even in Santa Fe. You trust me, right?”

Sam sniffed one last time and nodded. “With my life, Dean,” he said, the words as honest and full of affection as an ‘I love you’.

“Just give me a few more months, and we’ll be on that train. Sun on our faces, wind in our hair, and nothing left to stop us or hold us back.” Dean pulled his brother close and held him until Sam’s breathing steadied and the tension drained out of his small, too-thin body. He was exhausted, and they had another long day ahead of them tomorrow. With Sam now half-asleep against his shoulder, Dean grabbed the abandoned crutch with his free hand, hauled himself to his feet, then carefully made his way back down the stairs and through the window into the dormitory. As he tucked his brother into bed, Dean smoothed Sam’s mop of unruly hair back from his face, so peaceful in sleep, and whispered, “Just hold on, Sam. Before you know it, we’ll be in Santa Fe.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, that’s my cigar!”

“You’ll steal another.”

“I didn’t steal it, jackass. Now give it back!”

“You’re telling me you found someone in this city willing to sell you smokes? Give me a break.”

“Will you two shut it! Some of us are trying to sleep here!”

Dean groaned and pulled his pillow over his head to block out the sounds of squabbling children as the other newsies slowly began to wake up. Ed and Harry were at it early this morning; Dean knew they would be back to being best friends by bedtime, but that wasn’t much comfort when they decided to start every day fighting like feral cats. “Give it a rest, guys,” he growled as he removed his pillow from his head at the sound of things starting to get physical. “If I have to come over there and drag the two of you off each other, I’m telling Bobby to give you bathroom duty for a week.”

The two boys both froze at this and immediately released each other. “Sorry, Dean,” Ed mumbled around the fat, unlit stogie clenched between his teeth.

Harry was not backing down as easily, though. “It’s not my fault! He stole my cigar!”

“Give him back the cigar, Ed,” Dean said as he hopped down from his bunk. “You want one so bad, get your own.”

If it had been anyone but Harry that he had taken something from, it wouldn’t have been nearly that easy to get Ed to give back what he’d taken. As it was, he did so with obvious reluctance, but he at least had the sense to look guilty as he handed the cigar back to Harry. Harry glared at the chewed end for a second, then pocketed the cigar and stuck out his hand. “Truce?”

“Truce.” Ed grinned and shook the offered hand, then dragged Harry off to the bathroom, shouting, “Last one up gets a cold shower!”

That roused most of the other boys, and Dean had to shove his way through a bit of a crowd to make sure that he and Sam both got washed and dressed in a timely fashion. There was plenty of good-natured ribbing as the boys got ready for the day, along with pushing, shoving, soap being tossed across the room, wet towels used as incentive if anyone hogged a shower or sink for too long, and ragged but well-patched clothes and shoes being shared and traded around until everyone was dressed in something that fit.

“Hey, Sammy, what’s the leg say this morning?” Garth, one of the newer arrivals to the lodging house, called from across the room as soon as Sam exited the bathroom.

“It’s Sam,” Sam shouted back—only Dean was allowed to call him ‘Sammy’—“and my leg doesn’t tell the weather, idiot.”

“Aw, come on, Sam,” Garth protested. “Can’t you at least tell if it’s gonna rain or something?”

Sam rolled his eyes and cast a glance over his shoulder at Dean, who just shrugged as if to say ‘humor him’. “No rain, Garth,” he finally said after a sidelong look out the nearest window. “My best guess… partly cloudy, clear by evening. But don’t hold me to that!” he shouted at the other boy’s back as Garth whooped and headed straight for the stairs, leaving his hat and jacket behind on his bed. The rest of the room erupted in laughter at Sam’s muttered ‘idiot’, then followed Garth in a stampeding herd as the sound of Bobby’s voice filtered up the stairs.

“Ya idjits are gonna be late if you dawdle up there much longer!”

“Wish my leg did tell the weather,” Sam confided to Dean in a low voice once they were alone in the dormitory. “Then it might actually be good for something.”

“Don’t talk like that, Sammy,” Dean said. “Your leg is good for something, remember?” It wasn’t something they liked to talk about, but they both knew that it was Sam’s crutch, along with his innocent face and big, brown eyes, that made them two of the most successful newsies in the city. Dean had the uncanny ability to make almost any headline, no matter how ordinary, sound like something worth reading, but sometimes even those skills failed him, and it was always nice to have Sam as backup. “And even if it wasn’t, it’s not like it matters. Your leg isn’t you, little brother, and you don’t need to be good for anything to be worth something to me, all right?”

“All right… I think,” Sam said after giving himself a second to figure out what Dean had said. Then, he launched himself at Dean and hauled himself up onto his back. “Now, get a move on, or there won’t be any papers left for us to sell!”

“I’m not a horse!” Dean protested, but he couldn’t help but laugh at Sam’s enthusiasm as they followed the rest of the newsies out of the lodging house and into the city streets.

Sam only let himself be carried for three blocks or so. As soon as the food cart run by the Sisters of Charity came into view, Sam wriggled off of Dean’s back and caught himself on his crutch to join the line of boys waiting for a free cup of coffee and a sweet roll in exchange for getting prayed over by the nuns. Dean saw Sam flinch when one of the nuns noticed him and added in a line about God making “lame men walk and blind men see,” but he managed to give her a gentle, gracious smile when she handed him his coffee and bread, and he got an extra roll for his trouble, which he tried to split with Dean once they were out of sight of the nuns.

Nothing Dean had ever done or could ever do in his life would make him worthy of having Sam as a little brother. “Never change, Sammy,” he whispered into Sam’s ear as he refused the extra helping of bread, then he chugged his coffee, squared his shoulders, and stepped into the crowd of newsies milling around the statue of Horace Greeley that stood in front of the offices of the World, prepared to be mobbed.

And mobbed he was—not that he wasn’t used to it. At seventeen, he was one of the oldest kids who showed up regularly to sell papers, and everyone knew that he was one of the best at what he did. Other kids were always asking him for advice on the best spot to sell, or the best spin to put on the day’s headlines, or how many papers they should buy so as to have the best chance of selling them all. It didn’t even seem to matter to them that his advice was almost always the same.

“Try Central Park, it’s a guaranteed good spot,” he told Garth, who asked him the same questions every day. “If you don’t like the headline, make up your own. They’re not paying us to be honest, here. And if you really can’t come up with anything good, go with twenty papes. Anyone can sell that many in a day, and if you can’t, you’re only out the cost of a good supper.”

“That might be good advice today, brother,” Benny, another long-time newsie, said as he pointed up at the board above the newspaper’s distribution office, where the paper’s main headlines were displayed for all to see. Today, it read, “Trolley Strike Drags On for Third Week.”

Dean groaned. “They couldn’t come up with anything better than that?” He could think of at least three more exciting variations on that headline without even trying. “They expect us to do all the work, they should really be paying us better.”

“What we need is a good assassination,” Benny muttered darkly.

“Or an earthquake,” Dean parried with a laugh.

“Or a war.”

“How about a crooked politician?”

They both turned to stare at Garth. “Come on, Garth. That’s not news.”

A ripple of curious murmuring suddenly ran through the crowd of newsies, and Dean and Benny both turned towards the source of the disturbance. “Check it out: new meat,” Benny said as the crowd parted around two unfamiliar faces.

New meat, indeed, Dean agreed silently as he sized up the two kids standing in front of him. They were both better-dressed than anyone else there, and looked a sight better-fed as well. The taller of the two had neatly-trimmed, curly blonde hair and a nervous, hunted expression on his face, and the shorter was… Dean did a double-take. Yup, the shorter of the two was definitely a girl. Wisps of bright red hair were escaping from under the newsboy cap she was wearing, and she lifted her chin and stared defiantly back at Dean when she caught him staring at her. “You got a problem?” she asked.

“Not at all,” Dean replied with a grin. “Just not used to seeing new faces around here.” He stuck out a hand to her, since her companion didn’t seem that interested in being social. “Name’s Dean Winchester, best newsie in the city. And you are?”

“Charlie, and this is my brother, Chuck. Nice to meet you, Dean Winchester.” She shook his hand firmly, then took in the gaping stares of the boys surrounding them. “Don’t get many girls around here, I’d guess?”

“Not exactly,” Dean said. There was Jo, who showed up whenever her mother wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on her, and he supposed a few more had snuck in over the years, but they didn’t often make their presence known. “We got no problem with it,”—if anyone did, they could answer to him, and they all knew it—“but you’d better let your brother get in line for you. Raphi won’t sell papers to girls.”

“Raphi?” Chuck finally spoke from behind his sister’s shoulder, his voice so soft that Dean barely heard it.

“Raphael DiAngelus. The distribution manager. You should be seeing him in, oh, right about now.” Just then, a loud bell rang out from behind the gates they were all crowded in front of. Dean grabbed Chuck by the arm, pointed Sam in Charlie’s direction, and shoved his way through the crowd of newsies. They parted easily for him; by the time the gates had finished swinging open, he was first in line, Chuck still glued to his side.

“Hundred papes, Raphi,” Dean said with a smirk as he slapped two quarters down on the counter of the distribution window in front of a dark-skinned, dour-faced man. “And another…” He turned expectantly to Chuck, who held out a dime. Dean took the dime from Chuck, then shook his head, reached into his pocket, and pulled out another quarter. “…Fifty for my new pal Chuck here.”

“That’s Mister DiAngelus to you, Mister Winchester,” Raphael informed him in a deadpan voice as he set three stacks of papers wrapped in twine down on the counter in quick succession. “You would do well to remember that. Now, move along.” Dean made a face at the man as soon as his back was turned, then picked up two of the stacks of papers, shoved the third into Chuck’s arms, and dragged him back across the courtyard and out the gate as the rest of the newsies surged up to the window.

“I…I…I can’t take these papers,” Chuck stammered as he followed Dean over to where Charlie and Sam were sitting in the shadow of the statue, chatting and laughing as if they had been friends for years. “I…I…I only had enough money for t…t…twenty.”

“Don’t sweat it, man.” Dean dropped one of the bundles of papers into Sam’s lap and threw his free arm around Chuck’s shoulders. When Chuck still looked terrified, he explained. “Look, no one comes down here for work looking like you do unless they really need the money, and they certainly don’t drag their kid sister along unless they’re damn near desperate.”

“Twin sister,” Charlie interjected.

“Twins? Really?” Dean raised his eyebrows briefly at this, but didn’t let it derail him. “Point is, you two are more than a little out of your league here, and me and Sam are the best in the city… at least the best in Manhattan. You need us, and I’m the last person that’s gonna say no to another sympathetic face or two helping me get my distribution numbers up. So consider that extra fifteen cents an investment. We sell all these papers today, you can pay me back out of your earnings, and we’ll split the rest fifty-fifty.”

“You serious?” That came from Charlie. Chuck seemed to have completely lost the power of speech again.

“As a heart attack. We got a deal?”

Charlie nodded vigorously, and after a sharp elbow in the ribs from her, Chuck managed a affirmative twitch of his head as well. Triumphantly, Dean spat in his hand and held it out to them to shake. Chuck recoiled. “That’s disgusting!”

But Charlie just laughed, spit in her own palm, and gave Dean as firm a handshake as he’d ever gotten from any guy. He was going to like this girl. With time, maybe her brother would grow on him too.

* * * * *

“Come on, man, you can’t just yell out what’s written on the front page. They can read that for themselves! You gotta sell them on what they can’t see. You gotta make them want more information.”

Chuck had only managed to sell five papers to Charlie’s fifteen, Dean’s thirty, and Sam’s fifty-five, and Dean could see the frustration building in the taciturn young man’s expression. “But there’s nothing in here worth reading,” he said for the third time in as many hours.

“That’s not the point, Chuck.” Dean put a conspiratorial arm around his shoulders and lowered his voice. “They don’t know that.” He indicated the crowds milling around the amateur boxing match they had stumbled across. “All they know about what’s written in today’s paper is what you tell ‘em. And once you have their money, it’s not like they can do anything about what’s actually in there. You can’t stray too far from the truth, because we still want ‘em to trust us tomorrow, but we’re not here to be honest, kiddo. We’re here to make money, and if you wanna do that, you gotta get creative. Now, sit here,” he shoved the kid down onto a nearby bench, “and watch the master at work.” Chuck nodded dumbly and settled in as Dean hoisted up another stack of papers onto his shoulder and made his way into the crowd, shouting out some nonsense about a raging conflagration on Ellis Island.

Ten minutes and five more papers sold, he returned to his protege. “Any questions?”

“Where the hell did you come up with that headline?”

Dean smirked and flipped one of his remaining papers open to a one-paragraph article. “‘Trash Fire on Ellis Island Spooks Seagulls’?” Chuck read the article’s actual headline. “Seriously?”

Dean shrugged. “Like I said, we’re not here to be honest. Get creative, kiddo. Your sister’s gotten the hang of it.” He gestured out into the crowd, where Charlie was hamming it up with a similarly over-the-top headline for a pointless article about overseas diplomatic negotiations.

Chuck sighed. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.” He stood up and grabbed an armful of papers. “But stop calling me ‘kiddo’. I’ll be seventeen in two months, you know.”

“It’s not about age, it’s about experience, Chuck,” Dean said with a smirk, “but if you insist…”

Chuck rolled his eyes, but he grinned also. There was hope for the guy yet, Dean decided. He was about to shove the kid into the crowd and watch him at work when Sam suddenly came stumbling through the sea of men in front of them, moving as quickly as his crutch would let him. He was out of breath and his eyes were wide with panic. “Dean! Alastair’s here!”

“Shit!” Dean instinctively crouched down so that his head was no longer level with the crowd. “Where?”

“He’s moving through the crowd on the other side of the ring,” Sam said. He grabbed Dean’s shirtsleeve and started pulling him towards the alley. “I don’t know if he spotted me, but he’s coming this way. We’ve gotta go!”

Dean couldn’t agree more. “Chuck!” he shouted. “Get your sister and follow us!”

Chuck was standing at the edge of the crowd, looking confused, but he was quick to follow orders. As he dove into the crowd and grabbed Charlie, Dean saw a tall, sinister-looking man in a dark suit, flanked by two policemen, break through the crowd just across the street from them. Dean slipped back into the shadow of the alley, following his little brother, but he wasn’t fast enough. The man’s eyes fell on him and went wide, then he said something to the two policemen and they took off in a brisk trot straight for the alley. Dean didn’t waste another second waiting on Chuck and his sister. He turned and headed down the alley at a dead run, scooping Sam up into his arms as he passed him. If Alastair or those cops caught up to him, it was back to the Refuge for sure, and then on to prison as soon as he turned eighteen, and he wasn’t ever going to let that happen, no matter what it cost him.

Chapter Text

“Uncle Zach? You asked to see me?”

“James, how many times do I need to remind you? When we are in a professional setting, you need to call me Mister Adler, or sir. Now, come in and sit down, please.”

“Yes, sir.” Castiel bit back a sigh at the lecture as he entered his uncle’s office and took a seat at the conference table next to the older man. “Sorry, sir.”

“That’s quite all right, son,” Zachariah Adler said without looking up from the papers he was studying. “You’re still learning; there’s no shame in correction. Now, please sit quietly. The other board members will be arriving shortly.”

“Sir, I was actually hoping I could talk to you about something…” Castiel began to say.

“Not now, James,” Zachariah interrupted him with a dismissive wave of his hand. “After the board meeting.”

“Yes, sir.” Castiel folded his hands in his lap and closed his mouth as he had been instructed. He had his doubts about telling his uncle his future plans anyway. It was bad enough that the man still treated him like a child, even though he was eighteen years old, and insisted on calling him James—the name his adopted parents had given him—rather than his given name, Castiel, which he preferred. The fact that he was holding out this secretarial position on the World’s board of directors as a nepotistic pittance for someone he believed couldn’t get anything better had been the last straw. Castiel figured his uncle deserved the courtesy of him turning the position down in person, but if he wasn’t going to listen to his nephew or take him seriously, Castiel wasn’t going to try that hard to get him to. He’d stay for this one meeting, just to keep the man off his back until his new position was assured, but he wasn’t going to let his uncle, or any of his so-called ‘family members’, no matter how rich and powerful they were, run his life any more.

“Gentlemen,” Zachariah said with an unnecessary amount of pomp and circumstance once all of the newspaper’s board members were seated around the conference table. “Thank you all for joining me today. I am certain that I do not need to tell you, given that the news is our job, that the news is not good.” He passed out copies of the financial report he had been studying to the other men around the table. He did not give one to Castiel, but Castiel glanced at the papers as they passed through his hands anyway. The numbers didn’t look great, but they didn’t seem bad enough to indicate a crisis, either.

“As you likely already know, Mister Pulitzer is not at all happy with our latest projections,” Zachariah continued once he’d given the other board members a moment to peruse the report. “Circulation is down, prices are up, and interest in both local and nationwide affairs appears to be in a slump as well. Hearst has stolen our three best reporters and our two best copy editors, and we are unable to offer sufficient compensation to convince them to return. We need to increase both revenue and circulation, and fast. Ideas?”

The men around the table all looked at one another, then down at the papers, then back around the room, repeating this cycle for several silent minutes. Finally, one of the younger members spoke up. “How about… a few salary trims? It wouldn’t have to come from the people at the top…”

“Unfortunately, that is one of our problems,” Zachariah said. “We are already losing good people to the competition over compensation. We cannot afford to lose any more.”

“We could lower the price of the paper…” another voice spoke up without much conviction.

“To what?” one of the senior board members asked with a snort. “We can’t exactly ask the Federal Reserve to reinstate the half-cent just so we can make money. The price is as low as the market will bear already, trust me.”

“Any unnecessary personnel we can let go?” another one of the senior board members asked.

Zachariah shook his head. “Already been done. We run a tight ship around here, gentlemen, as you well know. There are very few elements of this business that are out of our control. But there is an answer here somewhere; you’re just not thinking it through.”

Castiel saw the answer already, and he felt a surge of disgust towards his uncle for even considering it. Unfortunately, he knew it wouldn’t be long before one of the other men around the table spotted it. And, sure enough, not two minutes later, an excited voice spoke up.

“I’ve got it!” One of the younger board members almost jumped out of his seat. “If we charge the newsies sixty cents per hundred papers instead of fifty, they’ll have to sell ten more papers just to earn the same amount as always. It’s no income out of our pockets, and we’re incentivizing increased circulation at the same time.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Zachariah said with a nod and a knowing smile. “Pure genius. I knew you would spot it sooner or later.”

“It’s going to be awfully rough on those children, though,” Castiel couldn’t help but say. He knew better than anyone else in the room that the newsies didn’t have an easy life. Most of them were orphans and runaways without a roof over their heads or any other means of supporting themselves. That extra ten cents per hundred papers could mean the difference between them eating or going hungry at night, and it wasn’t like they had any recourse, especially since there was no way that the World would implement a price increase without making sure that every paper in the city followed suit in order to keep from losing their distribution network to the competition.

Zachariah fixed him with a glare that promised a stern talking-to for that remark later, then shrugged and said, “They’ll be learning a real-life lesson in economics. Lord knows they could use a bit of an education. It will be good for them.” He turned back to the board, dismissing Castiel completely. “I will take the proposal to Mister Pulitzer as soon as we are done here, and he will make sure to discuss it with Hearst and the other papers to keep all our distributors from jumping ship. The price for the newsies will go up in the morning. Now, onto other business…”

Castiel was kept busy for the next hour getting coffee and taking notes as his uncle and the other board members discussed the best ways to use the paper to make themselves more money and influence their own political agendas, feeling sick to his stomach the entire time. He wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing, taking a job elsewhere, but it wasn’t like he could actually do anything about the daily injustices he saw his family committing by sticking around here. As a reporter, even for the city’s smallest newspaper, he would be in a position to do some good. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but some day…

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t notice the meeting breaking up and the rest of the board members leaving the room. He practically jumped out of his seat when his uncle called his name again. “James, what have I told you about speaking up in these meetings?”

“That I am here to observe only,” Castiel said with a barely-neutral expression. “That I am here to listen and learn, and that until I am educated enough to offer an informed opinion, I should have no opinions at all.”

“Exactly,” Zachariah said as he gestured for Castiel to come and stand in front of his desk. “No one cares about the welfare of a bunch of freeloading street rats. If they can’t handle the price increase, the market will sort itself out. Now, I believe you said there was something you wanted to discuss with me?”

In that moment, it wasn’t hard to decide not to tell his uncle about his new job. “It wasn’t important,” he said. “Thank you for allowing me to sit in on the meeting, sir. It was a very educational experience. I apologize for speaking out of turn. It won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t,” Zachariah said, surprisingly without the usual bite of anger to his voice. “You have a lot to learn, James, but you will get there in time. I will not mention this unfortunate incident to your father today, but I do expect you to be on your best behavior in the next meeting.”

“Yes, sir. I will, sir,” Castiel promised with what he hoped sounded like sincerity. “May I be excused, sir?”

“You may,” Zachariah said as he sat down and turned his attention to other matters. Castiel wasted no time in getting out of that office and hailing a cab as soon as he got down to the street.

“The offices of the New York Sun, please.”

The Sun’s offices were not as big and ornate as those of the World, but Castiel immediately felt more at home there than he ever had at his family’s paper. The few reporters and other personnel still lingering around the office this late in the day greeted him with shouts of “New meat!” and “How’s it going, rookie?”, and they had a desk all set up and waiting for him in the back of the room. Pride swelled in his chest as he took off his coat and hat and hung them up on the hooks on the wall behind him, then settled in at his desk. He had definitely made the right decision.

A gruff voice carrying just a hint of humor in it suddenly rang out across the room. “Novak! Glad you could finally join us!”

Castiel looked up to see his new boss coming towards him. “Yes, Mister Cain,” he said as he stood up from his desk. “Thank you for this opportunity, sir, and for giving me the time to get my affairs in order.”

“It’s just Cain, son, remember? We don’t do formalities around here if we can help it. And it’s not a problem,” Cain said, gesturing for Castiel to sit back down as he perched on the edge of the desk across from him. “I’m glad to have you, Novak. I know you don’t want your real name in the byline yet, but it’s a feather in my cap that some day you’ll be able to tell everyone you got your start as a reporter here at the Sun. And, to that end, I’ve got your first assignment right here for you.” He tossed a brightly-colored flyer down on Castiel’s desk. “Harvelle’s Dance Hall is premiering a new singer tonight, and my entertainment columnist is out sick. You ready to become a real reporter, kid?”

Chapter Text

Dean felt like he had been running for hours. His lungs were burning, and his arms and legs were aching from carrying Sam on his back as he pelted down alleys and shoved his way across busy intersections, doing his best to lose the pursuing cops in the crowds. Sam was convinced that they had lost their pursuers at least ten minutes ago, but Dean wasn’t taking any chances, not with his little brother’s safety at stake too. At least he had a destination in mind now; some place nearby where they could hole up for the rest of the day until the heat was off them. And, if he was lucky, he could make a little extra money at the same time. He and Sam had sold almost all of their papers, but teaming up with two new partners had not been as profitable as he had hoped it would be.

At least Chuck and Charlie hadn’t gotten caught either, and, much to Dean’s surprise, the twins had stuck with him and Sam, despite having no idea what was going on. He doubted they’d continue to be so loyal once they found out what he was running from, but he wouldn’t blame them for that. There was a reason why he was a role model and a mentor to so many and a friend to so few. Getting too close to him was dangerous.

But that didn’t stop people from caring about him. Sam might be the only living member of his blood family left, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have others who had, in a sense, stepped up to fill the holes left in his life by the loss of his own parents. Bobby had been a better father figure than John Winchester had ever been, and if he ever found himself missing his mother, he knew he could always turn to Ellen Harvelle, another old friend of his father’s who had looked out for him and Sam ever since John’s death and who had taken care of Sam when Dean had been arrested. It was to her place of business, one of the city’s most well-known burlesque halls, that he was headed now. She wouldn’t balk at giving him a place to hide out from the cops and, with luck, she’d even let him and Sam and his new friends stick around for the opening of her new show tonight.

He slowed down a few blocks from the entrance to the burlesque hall and slipped into an alley while he waited for Chuck and Charlie to catch up. “You okay?” he asked as Sam slid off his back and found his footing on the ground again.

Sam nodded. “Better than you, probably,” he said with a frown. “You didn’t have to carry me so far. Those guys stopped following us at least twenty blocks back.”

“Yeah, I know.” Dean pulled out a handkerchief and wiped off his face. “Better to be safe than sorry, though.”

“What… was that… all about?” Chuck and Charlie had just entered the alley and were bent over, trying to catch their breaths.

“I’ll explain everything once we’re off the street,” Dean promised as he helped them up. “Come on, not much further.” He saw the uncertain glances they exchanged as they followed him, but they were still following him, so he ignored it for the moment. He and Sam led the two of them through a couple more narrow alleys until they reached a heavy metal door that had the words ‘Stage Entrance’ painted on it. Sam rapped on the door three times with his crutch, then paused, then rapped three more times. After a moment, the door opened a crack and a woman’s voice barked, “Who is it this time? It’s three hours until showtime, I don’t got time for all these interruptions!”

“Aunt Ellen? It’s Sam. Sam Winchester.”

“Sam?” The door was yanked open and a motherly-looking woman with curly brown hair and a broad, bright smile leaned out of it. “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place, kiddo? Come in, come in!” Then, she saw that he wasn’t alone. Her smile slipped slightly as it fell on Dean, and he couldn’t help but respond with a sheepish grin. “What trouble are you boys in now?”

“No real trouble, Ellen, I promise,” Dean said. “I just got spotted by Alastair and a couple of his goons over in Central Park and was hoping we could hole up here for the evening until the coast is clear.”

Ellen crossed her arms and frowned thoughtfully. “Who are your new friends?”

“This is Chuck and Charlie…” Dean trailed off when he realized he didn’t know the twins’ last name. “Anyway, they’re some new meat we were showing the ropes today. Alastair knows they were with us, so we wanted to take the heat off of them too. I promise we won’t cause any trouble.”

“And I presume you’re gonna want tickets to the show tonight as well?”

Dean shrugged. “You got any spare seats, we’ll be glad to take them off your hands.”

With a sigh, Ellen’s frown transformed into an affectionate smile once again. “All right, come in. Last thing I want is either of you boys getting picked up by the cops.” She stepped back through the door, and Dean let the others go inside ahead of him as he took once last cautious glance around the alley to make sure they weren’t being watched. By the time he stepped inside and pulled the stage door closed behind him, Sam was wrapped up in Ellen’s arms. “I’ve missed you, kiddo,” she was saying to him. “Your brother’s taking good care of you, right? You getting enough to eat? You look a little skinny.”

“I’m fine, Aunt Ellen,” Sam promised as he returned the hug. “I’ve grown a couple inches is all. Dean’s looking after me just fine.”

Dean smirked at the look his little brother was giving him over Ellen’s shoulder. It wasn’t like she never saw them—Dean picked up some extra money painting backdrops and scenery for the shows, so they were here at least once a week—but her questions were always the same, as was her level of concern. She wasn’t exactly happy with the fact that Sam had chosen to go back to living with Dean and working as a newsie after Dean had escaped from the Refuge, but it had been Sam’s choice, so she had resigned herself to simply acting like a mother hen every time she saw him. Not that Dean could really complain. Sam had never known his real mother, so Dean wasn’t going to deny him the chance to experience a mother’s affection wherever he could get it.

And it wasn’t like Sam was the only one she cared about either. As soon as she was done fussing over Sam, Dean found himself wrapped in a hug of his own. “You’re looking good, boy,” Ellen said as she ruffled his hair. “And if you’re looking to pick up some extra coin, a few of the backdrops for the show tonight could use some touching up. I’m sure Sam here would be happy to show your new friends here around the hall and keep them entertained for an hour or so.”

“That would be great, Ellen,” Dean said, wondering if she was a mind-reader. “Thanks.”

“I’ll give you all a few minutes to get your feet under you,” she said as she showed them to one of the dressing rooms and invited them all to sit down. “Help yourself to anything you like, and you know where the supplies are once you’re ready to get to work.”

Sam and Charlie went straight for the stacks of concession candy piled on one of the room’s corner tables while Dean went and poured glasses of water from a waiting pitcher for himself and Chuck, who had slumped down on one of the couches and was still looking a little pale and shaky. “Sorry about all this,” he said as he handed the glass to Chuck. “That’s definitely not a typical introduction to this line of work. I’ll understand if you wanna team up with someone else tomorrow.”

“I dunno,” Chuck said. “Seems like a pretty good introduction to the risks of the job to me. Why were they chasing us, though?”

Dean looked down at the glass in his hands. “Well, that’s just it. That’s not just one of the risks of the job. You guys weren’t doing anything wrong.” He caught Sam’s eye as his little brother and Charlie joined him and Chuck on the couches, their mouths and hands full of candy and, at Sam’s encouraging nod, decided to be honest with their new friends. “They weren’t after us, they were just after me.” Then he explained briefly about the Refuge, what he’d done to get locked up in there, and how he’d managed to escape.

“I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most upstanding citizen,” he admitted to fill the silence that lingered at the end of the story, “but everyone’s gotta lie, cheat, and steal at some point to get by in this city, I figure, and I don’t see why kids who only do it to survive should get locked up like that. Even if I didn’t have Sammy to look after, I would’ve done everything possible to get outta there, and I sure as hell ain’t going back. In a few months, it won’t even matter, ‘cause as soon as we can, we’re catching the first train to Santa Fe.”

“Really?” Charlie asked, wide-eyed. “Why Santa Fe?”

“Our folks are out there,” Dean said. “They headed out west a couple years ago, set up a nice little place, and as soon as they got enough saved, they’re gonna send for us.” He ignored the glare Sam shot him at the lie; he was trying to distract the others from everything he’d just told them about him being an escaped convict, not going to confession.

“That sounds amazing,” Charlie said, “but sad. I can’t imagine our folks ever leaving us behind to go move anywhere.”

“You got folks?” Sam asked, sounding surprised.

“Of course we do! And a younger brother and a baby sister. Why do you ask?”

Sam blushed at her confused stare, but it was Chuck who spoke up. “Because most kids who take work as newsies are orphans, or runaways, or kids without families. Right?” He looked to Dean for confirmation, and Dean nodded. “We wouldn’t be here if our father hadn’t gotten hurt and lost his job at the factory,” he explained without being asked. “He’s going to try and get another job as soon as his leg heals, but without a union to protect him, he’s got no compensation for being injured on the job or any guarantee of a position once he’s well enough to work again. So until he is, we have to come out here and pick up the slack.”

All Dean knew about unions, he had picked up from the news of the trolley strike that had been dominating the papers for the last three weeks, but what he had seen, he liked. They weren’t afraid to stand up for the working man, they used any means necessary to get the people in power to take their demands seriously, and they didn’t back down until their demands were met. He sometimes wished that the newsies had a union to stand up for them, but he doubted that anyone would be willing to stand up for kids like him and Sam while grown-ups like Chuck’s father didn’t even have someone to stand for them yet. He offered brief condolences, then, as soon as he was satisfied that Sam had the other two kids sufficiently distracted and that all discussions about his past had been tabled, he slipped out of the room and made his way to the stage, where he picked up paints and brushes and got to work on the finishing touches for the backdrop of the night’s opening act.

He lost himself in the work for several hours. Creating art was relaxing to him in a way that nothing else had ever been; working with his hands to pull images out of real life or the deepest recesses of his imagination and transfer them to everything from large swaths of canvas to small scraps of paper. He didn’t often let on that he was an artist, but the people that he considered his family all knew and admired his talent, and being trusted to work on the backdrops for Ellen’s shows fulfilled an unspoken dream of his to make a living with it. If he had a future in this city, he would do everything he could think of to use it as a stepping stone to bigger and better projects, but no one had any use for artists in Santa Fe, and some dreams were more important than others. So he enjoyed the work for what it was—an escape—and didn’t take nearly as much money for it as Ellen thought it was worth, because he didn’t take advantage of family like that, and he was content.

Once the backdrops were all ready to go and he had put the finishing touches on a few other pieces that would be used in the coming weeks, he headed out into the theater to track down Sam and their new friends. He found them all in the balcony, still stuffing their faces with candy as they watched the dancers rehearse. Ellen’s daughter, Jo, who was around Sam’s age, had joined them. From the looks of her, she had been out all day working as a newsie as well. He didn’t remember seeing her at the World that morning, though, and she had a tendency to draw attention to herself whenever she was around, so she must have been slumming it in one of the outer boroughs. He had no idea how she got away with that—newsies were notoriously territorial—but if he had to guess, it probably had something to do with the fact that she was a girl. She and Charlie were deep in conversation as he approached, but as soon as she saw him, she broke off mid-sentence and launched herself at him with a squeal of joy. He just barely caught her, and they both sat down hard on the floor, momentarily breathless—Jo from a fit of giggles, Dean from the fact that he’d just had the wind knocked out of him.

“Heya, Dean,” Jo said with a devilish grin once she got her breath back. “Long time no see.”

“Could say… the same for you, Firecracker,” Dean wheezed as he pulled himself to his feet and slumped down in the nearest chair. “Who you working for these days?”

“Gabe’s gang down in Brooklyn, when Mama doesn’t catch me sneaking out,” Jo said, glaring at the stunned look Dean gave her at this news. “Don’t give me that look. Gabe’s good people, and they work for the Sun down there, so their distributor doesn’t have a problem with letting girls sell papers.”

“Maybe so,” Dean said, “but… running with the Angels, Jo? I thought you had more sense than that.” Newsies all over the city had each other’s backs, but only Gabriel and the newsies down in Brooklyn, most of which had all grown up together in the same orphanage, took it far enough to be called a gang. They ruthlessly defended their territory against all interlopers, had hazing procedures for new meat that bordered on the criminally dangerous, and didn’t balk at resorting to violence to defend their territory or the ‘good name’ of Brooklyn against anyone who said a bad word about them.

“Hey, I go where I won’t get run out or harassed for doing what I wanna do,” Jo said defensively. “You’re the one that vouched for me with them, remember?”

“Well, if I’d known you were gonna go slumming it with them, I woulda kept my mouth shut,” he shot back, then softened at the hurt look on her face. “Sorry, Jo. I’m just looking out for ya. You know your mama would hold me personally responsible if anything happened to you out there.” Jo only wanted to be a newsie because she admired him, after all. “Why don’t you come back to the World tomorrow? I’m showing Charlie there the ropes, along with her brother, so you won’t be the only girl on the beat any more.”

Jo took the apology graciously. “I’ll think about it. I was actually trying to talk them into coming down to Brooklyn with me tomorrow, but they got a family that would worry if they strayed that far from home or something.”

“Yeah, can’t imagine why anyone would care about that,” Dean replied, answering biting sarcasm with biting sarcasm and a vigorous ruffling of Jo’s short blonde curls. She pulled away from him, stuck out her tongue, then went back to her conversation with Charlie as Sam came up and dropped an armload of licorice, lemon drops, and rock candy into Dean’s lap: ‘provisions’ for the rest of the night. The tensions of the last few hours had all completely drained away, and the five new friends settled in to watch the hustle and bustle of the theater as it prepared to open the doors on another performance.

An hour later, the balcony was packed with a riotous crowd, many of them familiar faces to Dean. Whooping and hollering, they hung over the balcony railings and stood on the backs of chairs, tossing pieces of popcorn and candy and shreds of paper from the programs down into the calmer, more straight-laced crowd in the seats below them as they ogled and cat-called the beautiful women singing and dancing onstage in various states of undress. Dean joined in for a while, then retreated to the highest point of the theater and settled into a seat, pulled out his sketchbook, and started drawing some of the dancers he had seen onstage. After only a few minutes, though, an oddity in the surrounding crowd caught his eye.

Sitting still and serious in the midst of the chaos was a young man that Dean had never seen around before. He was far too clean and well-dressed to be sitting in the cheap seats with the rest of the rabble, and he was sitting on the edge of his seat, watching the stage below intently and occasionally writing something on a pad of paper clutched tightly in his hands. Curious, Dean slipped out of his seat and made his way to a vacant one just behind the young man. The young man appeared to be taking notes on the performance. A rookie reporter, maybe? More importantly, up close, he was rather stunningly handsome, with neatly-trimmed wavy black hair and piercing blue eyes. Dean was never one to pass up an opportunity to flirt with someone that good-looking, regardless of their gender, so he surreptitiously made sure his face wasn’t smeared with chocolate, then used a scene change in the performance to slide into the seat next to the newcomer.

“Hello there,” he said with his most charming smile. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

The young man didn’t so much as glance at him. “Please go away,” he said in a flat voice that was nonetheless just deep enough to send shivers up Dean’s spine. “I’m working.”

“Working? So, you a reporter or something?”

“Yes, I am a reporter. And as such, it is my job to observe this performance without interruption, so please stop talking to me.”

His blunt yet cultured way of speaking was oddly endearing, and Dean found himself unable to leave the young man alone. “Ya know, I know the lady that runs this joint,” he murmured at the level of the young man’s ear after a minute or so of silence. “You wanted an exclusive interview or something, I’m sure I could get it for you.”

He saw the young man’s eyes light up momentarily at the offer, but then he stubbornly shook his head. “I don’t think my editor would appreciate me going off-story on my very first assignment,” he muttered as he scribbled something else on his notepad.

“So you’re a rookie? That’s even better! He can’t complain about you using your initiative, can he? And it’s not like you don’t have plenty to write about the show already.”

“And what’s in it for you?” The young man finally turned to look at him straight-on, and Dean saw his eyes widen as he got a good look at Dean for the first time. At least he wasn’t the only one smitten with what he saw.

“The chance to see you again,” Dean said in a low, husky voice. The young man shivered and opened his mouth to reply, but Dean put a finger to his lips. “Now, shush. There’s a show going on here.”

The young man blinked in confusion, then glared at the wink that Dean threw him. “You are impossible,” he said with an exasperated sigh, “… but I think I will take you up on that offer.”

“Great!” Dean said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Meet me back here tomorrow afternoon and I’ll see what I can do. What’s your name, by the way?”

“Castiel,” the young man said. “Castiel Novak.”

Dean wrinkled his nose at the odd name, but it wasn’t the first tongue-twister of a moniker he’d come across, and he knew just how to deal with it. “Well, my name’s Dean Winchester,” he said, holding out his hand and giving his new friend another charming smile. “Nice to meet you, Cas.”

Chapter Text

“…So once we’re done making back our shortfall from yesterday, I’m gonna meet him back over at Ellen’s place and see if I can’t get her to give him an exclusive interview.”

Dean had just finished filling Sam in on his encounter with Cas last night. He had been surprised to discover that his excitement at seeing the young man again hadn’t faded overnight. He hoped it hadn’t shown through too clearly, but given that he had just spent the last ten minutes talking about the guy, it was probably too much to ask for Sam not to have noticed.

And he was right. “Sounds like someone has a crush,” Sam said with a smirk as he drained the last bitter dregs from his coffee.

“What? I do not!” Dean protested reflexively, then, at Sam’s incredulous stare, he shrugged. “Maybe. But you didn’t see this guy, Sammy. He was gorgeous, and smart, and adorably awkward. He basically made it impossible for me not to fall for him.”

“I thought you said hooking up with guys was too much trouble, though.”

“No, I said that hooking up with guys I work with was too much trouble. I mean, you remember how it ended with Gordon, right?”

“Yeah, but Gordon was a creep. And there was Benny, and you two are still friends.”

“Yeah, but we both agreed that was a mistake, so that was different.” Dean waved his hands to derail the turn the conversation had taken. “Can we not talk about my past relationship failures, please? That’s not what this is. The guy was cute, and interested, and way out of my social circle. It’ll be fun while it lasts, but it’s not gonna be anything serious. I know better than that.”

“Fair enough,” Sam said. “I’m the last one to stop you from having fun. And it leaves more girls for the rest of us.” That earned him a playful smack across the back of his head and got them both laughing. “What kind of a name is Castiel, though?”

Dean shrugged. “No idea. It sounds a lot like the name of one of Gabe’s Angels, but this guy’s never spent a night on the street in his life, I’d be willing to bet. I’m just glad he’s cool with being called Cas.”

The glint in Sam’s eye said he was seconds away from another pithy, obliquely sexual comment, but the initiative stuttered and died at the sudden commotion that engulfed them as they reached the World’s offices.

“They can’t do this!”

“It’s highway robbery, is what it is!”

“They got some nerve!”

“Bastards!”

“I barely get by as it is!”

“Dean, Dean, can you believe this?”

“What are we supposed to do?”

“We can’t let them get away with this!”

“Hold on, hold on!” Dean pushed his way through the crowd of newsies bombarding him with questions and invectives and made his way to the foot of the statue. Benny was standing there with the other boys from the lodging house, trying to calm them down and restore order despite the furious expression on his own face. “What the hell’s going on? What happened?”

“Glad you finally made it, brother,” Benny said as he shooed the other newsies away from Dean and Sam. “We got a bit of a crisis on our hands here. They raised the distribution price of the paper by ten cents per hundred this morning.”

“What? Why?” No wonder these kids were close to rioting.

“No idea,” Benny said. “You think they’d tell us? All I know is that Raphi told me my fifty papes would cost me thirty cents today instead of twenty-five, and when I told him that was ridiculous, he told me to get lost. I think the fellas were kinda hopin’ you could get a better explanation outta him.”

Dean shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do.” He was pretty sure that Raphael despised him as much as any of the other newsies, if not more, but these kids looked to him as a leader, so he had to at least try. Trying to look as if he had no idea what was going on outside the gate, Dean casually wandered inside and made his way past the huddled groups of newsies to the distribution window. “Hundred papes, Mister DiAngelus,” he said with only marginally sarcastic politeness as he slapped two quarters down on the counter.

“That will be sixty cents today, Mister Winchester,” Raphael informed him blandly, not even bothering to reach for the papers Dean had requested.

“Oh, really?” Dean raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. “And why’s that?”

“Cost of doing business,” the man said bluntly. “And if you and your boys don’t like it, take it up with Mister Pulitzer. Come back when you’re ready to stop wasting my time complaining about it.” Dean barely had time to snatch his money back before the shutters were slammed shut over the window and locked.

“Well, fuck,” Dean muttered under his breath as he pocketed the money and turned back towards the crowd of boys standing in the courtyard, all of them looking up at him expectantly. Less than two dozen of them had caved to the price increase and bought papers to sell today, and when they saw Dean standing there without anything to sell, most of them looked like they were starting to regret that decision. Over their heads, Dean could see that Chuck and Charlie had joined Sam and Benny in the huddle around Horace Greeley’s statue and were being filled in on the morning’s crisis. With murmurs of “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out,” and “We won’t let them get away with this, I promise,” he made his way back through the crowd to his friends.

“According to your new friends here,” Benny said as soon as Dean had joined them, “the Journal increased its price this morning too. With Hearst on board, it won’t be long before every paper in the city follows suit.”

“Damn,” Dean responded as he watched his first response to this injustice—taking his business, and that of any newsie who would follow him, elsewhere—turn to wisps of smoke and blow away. “They couldn’t make this easy, could they?”

“What did Raphi say?” Sam asked.

“He said it was the cost of doing business, and that if we didn’t like it, we should take it up with Mister Pulitzer,” Dean answered, and as he said it, he was suddenly hit with a burst of inspiration. “Which isn’t such a bad idea now that I think about it.”

“What?”

“We could strike.”

“Strike?” Sam said, and the word rippled out through the crowd in a hushed, questioning whisper, leaving complete silence in its wake.

“Yeah, why not?” Dean looked to his friends for support.

“But… we don’t have a union.”

“So?” Dean shrugged, projecting more nonchalance than he was feeling at the moment. “This affects all the newsies in the city. If we strike, if we get every newsie in the city to go on strike, doesn’t that make us a union?”

“I’m… not really sure that’s how it works, but I also think you might be onto something, Dean.” Those words came, surprisingly, from Chuck. Everyone turned to stare at him, and he almost choked on what he had been going to say next, but eventually he managed to get the words out. “I… I mean… what other choice do we have?”

“Exactly!” Dean leaped onto the other young man’s support like a lifeline. “We can’t take this lying down, fellas. If we do, in another week, or month, or year, they’ll find some other way to screw us. You know they will. And why should we be the ones to suffer just so they can make more money? Pulitzer already has more money than God, and so do Hearst and all those other newspaper fat cats. Let’s see how much a measly ten cents per hundred papes means to them when they don’t got anyone to sell ‘em. Bet they’ll change their minds real quick.”

“But how are we gonna get all the other newsies on board?” Sam asked. “And how do we stop the newspapers from just going out and finding other kids to sell for them instead?”

“That’s an easy one, Sammy,” Dean said, gesturing to the board above them where the day’s top headline—a really good one for once, more was the pity—read ‘Trolley Strike Turns Violent; Strikers Clash With Police Over Interim Workers.’ “We come down here every day until they put the price back where it was and stop the wagons from goin’ out to the rest of the city, and if they hire scabs, we soak ‘em just like the trolley workers did.”

Chuck spoke up again. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea. If we want Pulitzer to take us seriously, we have to demand respect. We start fighting other kids in the streets, they’re just going to write us off as thugs.”

“Fine, then we ask them if they want to join us, and if they don’t, we confiscate their papers and escort them from the premises,” Dean said, trying not to roll his eyes. “But we can’t let anyone sell papes. If we do, we got no leverage.”

“Fair enough,” Chuck said. “Just try to keep the violence to a minimum.”

“We’ll do our best, Chucky-boy,” Dean said, slapping him on the back. “You wanna be the brains of this operation?”

“Me?”

“Sure. You’re the one with the education, after all. And I’m gonna need to know a lot more about how this whole union thing works if I’m gonna convince all the newsies in the city to stand with us. You be the brains, I’ll be the voice. We’ll make the perfect team.”

“He’ll do it,” Charlie said, shoving her way into the conversation. “We both will. So, where do we start?”

“Well, we kinda need to start here,” Benny piped up, indicating the silent, watching crowd with a jerk of his head.

“True enough,” Dean said. This was going to be the easy part, he knew, so he’d best get the ball rolling before he had any second thoughts. He vaulted the low wrought-iron fence around the statue of Horace Greeley, pulled himself up onto the pedestal, and faced his fellow newsies, pitching his voice so it carried all around the square and, hopefully, into the building across the street. “So, seems we got ourselves a situation here this morning. Seems a few fat-cats thought they could pull a fast one on us. Pulitzer and Hearst, they think we’re nothin’ but a bunch a worthless street rats! But are we nothin’?”

“No!” The shouted reply made the surrounding buildings ring.

“They think they can take whatever they want from us and we’ll just let them. But we’re not gonna let them, are we?”

“No!”

“We may not have hats, or badges, but we’re a union if we say we are, and what do unions do when they want management to listen to their demands?”

“Strike!”

“So what are we gonna do?”

“Strike!” The word, once shouted, did not die away, but was repeated until it became a thunderous chant. “Strike, strike, strike!”

“And when the circulation bell rings tomorrow morning, will we hear it?”

“No!”

“And when the wagons come through those gates?”

“We stop ‘em!”

“And when the scabs show up to try and take our jobs from us?”

“We soak ‘em!”

“And when the goons show up and try to break us?”

“We fight ‘em!”

“This ain’t no game, boys. We’ve got the power to stop the presses, to get the richest and most powerful men in this city to listen to us, but only if we stick together. We can’t back down, and we can’t give in, not until they put the price of the paper back where it was. Pulitzer may own the World, but he don’t own us, and neither does Hearst. We made them who they are, not the other way around, and if they don’t start respecting that, we’re gonna give them a war they can’t win. Who’s with me?”

“Dean! Dean! Dean! Strike! Strike! Strike!”

Riding on the wave of adrenaline those words had sparked in him, Dean vaulted down from the statue and made his way through the crowd, passing around words of encouragement and support as he organized the newsies into groups and sent them out into the city to spread the word to all the other neighborhoods and boroughs. “Tell ‘em the Winchesters aren’t taking this lying down. Tell ‘em if they got any questions, they can always come to me. But tell ‘em, and I can’t stress this enough, that this only works if we all stand together. Tell ‘em to go to ground, to save their money if they got it, to look for other work if they hafta, but not to sell a single paper until the price goes back to what it was yesterday. And don’t just tell the big-shots, either. Tell every newsie you know, every newsie you see, and every kid you run across that might be looking ta make some money offa this by scabbin’. If we’re gonna do this, we do it right. Got it?”

They all got it, and they were all eager to get out there and start spreading the word. In less than half an hour, the square was empty except for Dean, Sam, Benny, Charlie, and Chuck. “So, what do we do now?” Charlie asked.

“There’s one group of newsies whose support will make or break this venture,” Dean said. Sam and Benny both fixed him with apprehensive stares. “Gabriel and the Brooklyn Angels. Talking to him about all this is too important to leave to any of the others, so we’re gonna head out into his territory to spread the news personally. Assuming you’re all still with me, of course.”

Benny swallowed hard. “I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, brother, but not to Brooklyn,” he said. “Think I’ll stick around and see if I can’t rustle us up some other support, if that’s all right by you.”

Dean understood. Benny was no coward, but lots of kids had good reason to steer clear of Brooklyn. He nodded and watched his friend go, then turned to the three who remained. “You all in?”

Charlie and Sam both nodded, but Chuck glanced off in the direction Benny had gone and asked, “What’s… what’s the deal with this Gabriel?”

“He’s not really that scary,” Dean said, trying to sound reassuring. “He’s just very territorial, and his fellow newsies are fiercely loyal to him. We’re on a goodwill mission, though, and he knows me and Sam, so he shouldn’t give us any trouble.”

“Okay.” Chuck didn’t look particularly reassured, but after a look from his sister, he at least seemed determined. “Let’s go.”

They all started off across the square, but hadn’t gone more than a few steps when Dean suddenly stopped in his tracks. His eyes had fallen on a familiar figure watching them from the sidewalk in front of the World’s offices, just a few yards away. “Cas? What are you doing here?”

Chapter Text

Castiel had spent all night working on his very first article for the Sun, not because he had to, but because every time he tried to think back on the evening he’d spent at the burlesque hall, he kept getting distracted by memories of the gorgeous, cocky, green-eyed boy who’d sat down next to him near the end of the performance and shamelessly flirted with him, even going so far as to offer up an exclusive interview with the dance hall’s owner, with whom he was apparently a personal friend. Castiel would not have been surprised to discover it to be just a ploy to get close to him—it wouldn’t have been the first time that had happened—and he didn’t really expect to see the young man again, but when he’d left the theater still in possession of both his wallet and his pocket watch, he briefly entertained the possibility that he had been wrong about Dean Winchester, and that fleeting thought had been enough to get the young man’s unfairly handsome face stuck in his head for the rest of the night.

But, by sunrise, he had managed to finish the article and had caught a few hours’ sleep as well. As he stepped out onto the street and began to walk to the closest deli for a cup of coffee and a breakfast pastry, he was preoccupied with thoughts of searching for lodgings closer to the Sun’s offices, so he didn’t notice anything unusual about the crowd of newsies milling outside of the World’s offices until the chant of “Strike, strike, strike!” broke through the background noise of the crowded street.

Stunned, Castiel stopped dead in his tracks and got cursed at by at least two fellow pedestrians before he collected himself enough to move out of the crowd’s path. He stood in the shadow of a nearby building and watched as a young man spoke to the crowd of newsies from the pedestal of Horace Greeley’s statue in the center of the square. He was calling on them to stand up to the newspaper men, to protest the price increase in the only way that they could—by refusing to sell the paper and by doing everything in their power to stop anyone else from selling it in their place. Castiel had known that there would be some fallout from the board’s decision, but this was more than he had expected or could have ever hoped for. Suddenly, getting to work and turning in a review of a burlesque show no longer seemed that important. Not when history was being made right in front of him.

And it was being made with purpose, it seemed. As Castiel continued to watch, the young man on the statue finished his speech, then jumped down and began to move through the chanting crowd. Wherever he paused to exchange words, the other newsies would fall silent, organize themselves into groups with looks or a few words, then split off from the crowd and head down the street with purposeful expressions on their faces. In the end, only a small knot of people remained standing with the strike leader in front of the statue. They exchanged a few words, one of them broke off and left on his own, then the other four held a brief conversation before turning as one and heading out of the square straight towards Castiel. He caught the exact moment when the strike leader noticed him, because the young man froze, staring hard at him, and Castiel’s heart skipped a beat as he suddenly recognized the young man’s face.

“Cas?” Dean Winchester asked, sounding as stunned as Castiel felt. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing in particular,” he answered as he stepped off the sidewalk and met the group halfway across the square. “I was on my way to work when I heard the commotion and stopped to watch. Are you really calling for a strike?”

“Damn straight,” Dean said. “I’m glad I ran into you, too. Gonna have to postpone that interview I promised you, if that’s all right. More important business and all that.”

“Understandable,” Castiel replied as a truly brilliant idea slowly took shape in his mind. “I think we both have more important business to be going on about.” Dean flinched, obviously taking his statement the wrong way, and made to turn away, but Castiel stopped him before he could. “To that end, I was wondering if I could talk to you right now. Your compatriots too, if they are willing. I was just about to sit down to breakfast at a deli down the street, if you would all like to join me there. On my dime, of course,” he amended as he saw the hesitation in their faces.

“Whaddya wanna talk to us about?” one of the three newsies standing behind Dean asked, and Castiel did a double-take when he realized that it was a girl who was speaking.

“The strike, of course.” Castiel answered her, but he kept his eyes fixed on Dean, so he saw the moment that the young man’s face lit with understanding.

“That sounds like a great idea, Cas. Guys?”

There were shrugs all around, but Castiel had never known street kids to pass up any chance at a free meal, so they all followed him willingly enough. And they were apparently all regulars at the nearby deli as well; Rufus, the elderly man who ran the place, greeted Dean by name and brought them all cups of coffee and sausage rolls as soon as they had sat down at a table at the back of the room.

“So, I guess introductions are in order,” Dean said after he’d drained his first cup of coffee. “Cas, this is my little brother, Sam,” he gestured at the youngest of the three other newsies, who walked with a crutch and gave Castiel a bright, dimpled smile by way of greeting, “and this is Chuck,” the oldest of the three held out a hand and shook Castiel’s solemnly, “and his sister, Charlie,” the red-headed newsie who’d turned out to be a girl also shook his hand with a smirk and a crushing grip. “Guys, this is Cas. I met him at the show last night, and he happens to be a reporter.”

“Castiel Novak,” Castiel introduced himself. “I’m just a rookie over at the Sun, but I think I can help you.”

“How?” Sam asked.

“Well, I’m guessing you’ve all been in this business long enough to know that, if it isn’t in the papers, it might as well not have happened,” Castiel explained, and Sam and Dean both nodded knowingly. “Conversely, if it’s in the papers, people generally have a tendency to take it seriously. I want to tell your story. I want to write about the strike, so that people will take you seriously. It’s the best chance you have of getting your demands met. What are your demands, by the way?”

“Bastards raised the distribution price by ten cents per hundred this morning,” Dean explained. “It may not seem like much money to fat cats like Pulitzer and Hearst, or even to someone like you, but cash like that could mean the difference between us eating or going hungry, or sleeping in the street instead of having a roof over our heads. So we want them to put the price back where it was.” Dean’s eyes narrowed suspiciously at the level look that Castiel was giving him. “But why do you care?”

Castiel scrambled. “I… I heard a rumor about the price increase. The Sun hasn’t implemented one yet, that I know of, but people were talking about it, so I figured it could only be a matter of time. I wasn’t sure how the newsies would react, and I have to say, I am intrigued by your approach. I want to see you succeed, Dean. Is that really so hard to believe?”

“In my experience… yeah, kinda. But you seem like a good guy, Cas, and even if you were just in it for the chance to bring your boss a good story, it would do the same good for us either way. So I’m in. What else you wanna know?”

“You seemed remarkably adept at organizing a notoriously disorganized group of people. Where were you sending all of those groups of newsies?”

“To spread the word, of course. We don’t got a chance in hell if we don’t have every newsie in the city on board. And, yeah, we may be disorganized, but we got a long reach, and every part of the city usually has one or two kids that all the others will listen to. ‘Round here, that just happens ta be me.”

“And why is that?”

Dean shrugged, looking embarrassed, and it was Sam who answered the question for him. “Because he’s the oldest, and the best.”

“Really?”

Dean shrugged again. “I guess. Doesn’t really matter why they listen to me, though. Point is that they do, and they know kids who’ll listen to them, and so on and so on. We expect to have everyone’s support by the end of the day, if we’re lucky. To that end…” he glanced up at the clock on the wall of the deli. “We got a mission of our own, actually, over in Brooklyn, and really need to get going.” He cast a sidelong glance at Castiel, his expression oddly mischievous all of a sudden. “You could tag along if you wanted. See what we’re up against first-hand.”

Castiel shrugged, trying to act casual. “Sure. Why not?” Inside, though, he was practically vibrating with excitement. No one was going to have an angle on this story like the one he had just been handed; no seasoned reporter would ever be able to get as close to these kids as he was getting, and, more importantly, no other reporter would support their cause the way he did. Dean wasn’t entirely wrong about him—he was more than a little driven by the prospect that this story could make his career as a reporter—but telling their story was important on its own, and he knew no one else would do it justice.

Of course, it didn’t hurt the newsies’ cause to have Dean Winchester as the face of the strike. The cocky, arrogant attitude that Castiel had found both fascinating and off-putting was cast in a very different light as a result of these events. He was charming, charismatic, and plain- but well-spoken. He was confident and good-looking, and he had a cute, innocent-looking, crippled little brother, which would bring a humanizing angle to the story that people who would normally write off the troubles facing the poor would be hard-pressed to ignore. With Dean leading this fight, Castiel had no doubt that all he would have to do was write his article, convince his editor to give it the front-page placement it deserved, then sit back and watch them change the world.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do more if he really wanted to, and he wanted to get his hands dirty, so, against all better judgement, he followed Dean and the other newsies out to Brooklyn to meet with the gang of newsies that controlled that territory. “They’re good people,” Dean kept reassuring everyone as they made their way across town, “but they are a little rough around the edges, and they don’t like strangers, so they will get in your face until they decide you’re trustworthy. Just be honest with them, don’t back down, and don’t show fear, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” The slightly predatory quality of the grin Dean shot Castiel unnerved him, though. He knew he didn’t fit in with the newsies—not that he couldn’t have, if his life had taken a slightly different turn—but he felt like he understood them, and he hoped that the kids in Brooklyn would recognize that.

He still hung back with Chuck and Charlie once they reached the pier where the Brooklyn newsies congregated, but he watched with avid interest as Dean and Sam approached the short, golden-haired young man who was standing at the end of the pier, knocking bottles off a nearby bridge abutment with a slingshot.

“Gabriel!” Dean shouted, his voice carrying over the din of the rough-and-tumble crowd of boys surrounding them. “I come on behalf of the newsies of Manhattan to parlay with the newsies of Brooklyn. You got a minute?”

“Dean-o!” The young man turned around, grinning broadly around the peppermint stick between his teeth. “For you, I might even have five! What brings the notorious Winchester brothers onto my turf?”

For the second time that day, Castiel was hit with an unexpected jolt of recognition, though this one was much more profound. His mouth dropped open, and he saw recognition on the other man’s face as well as their eyes met. “Gabriel?”

“Cassie?” Gabriel pushed past Dean and through the milling crowd of newsies, who had all gone silent at this unexpected turn of events. “Is that really you?” He looked Castiel up and down, eyes wide, then grabbed Castiel around the waist, hoisting him up and spinning him around with a whoop of joy, despite the fact that he was half a head shorter than Castiel. “It’s good to see you, little brother! But what are you doing here?”

“Little brother?” Dean asked.

Castiel’s face was red with exertion and a bit of embarrassment by the time Gabriel put him down. “It is good to see you too, Gabriel, but I am hardly your ‘little’ brother any more.”

“No kidding.” Gabriel looked him up and down again. “Glad to see the folks that raised you fed you right.” Then, he turned and shouted across the milling crowd of newsies, “Hey, everyone, Castiel’s back!”

His name rippled through the crowd in shocked whispers, and as Castiel looked closer, he realized that Gabriel’s face was not the only one he recognized. No wonder Gabriel’s newsies were so much more territorial and more organized than the other groups of newsies in the city. What Dean had called a gang was actually a family; a family that Castiel himself had belonged to once, a long time ago. He was overjoyed to see that so many of them had stuck together, and names came back to him easily as he was mobbed by the boys who were the closest thing he had ever had to brothers.

The little boys that he had known during the few short years he’d spent in the Novak orphanage as a child had all grown up into an eclectic group of young men. Balthazar took Gabriel’s lead in vigorously embracing Castiel as soon as Gabriel had stepped away, and Samandriel, the youngest of the group, grabbed Castiel around the waist and refused to let go, but the others—Nathaniel, Thaddeus, Gadreel, Ezekiel, Inias, and a few who he didn’t immediately recognize—shook his hand and told him it was good to see him. Castiel was so caught up in the rush of re-introductions that he’d almost forgotten what had brought him here in the first place by the time the hubbub had died down and Gabriel asked, “So, Dean, what are you doing slumming it down here with my little brother?”

“I’d be happy to tell you that, Gabe, as soon as you tell me how the hell you know Cas,” Dean said, still looking extremely confused by this turn of events.

Realizing that, given the current circumstances, he didn’t yet want Dean to know everything about him, Castiel spoke up before Gabriel could. “I was… abandoned as an infant and spent my first few years of life in an orphanage here in Brooklyn. Gabriel was one of the boys raised at that orphanage, as were most of the others here. I was adopted when I was still young, and haven’t seen him since then, but there are some people that you never forget, no matter the circumstances that separate you.”

“Aw, we missed you too, Cassie,” Gabriel said, grabbing Castiel in a headlock and knuckling his head until his neatly-combed hair was a tousled mess. “Still doesn’t explain why you’re slumming it with Dean-o here.”

“Cas is a reporter,” Dean said, “and he’s here to help us with a little something. You heard the news about the price increase yet?”

Gabriel nodded, his expression going uncharacteristically serious. “Yeah, we heard. Hasn’t touched us, yet, but I imagine that the Sun will follow suit in the next few days. Whatcha gonna do, though?”

“Exactly,” Dean said. “That’s why I’m here. Because we’re not gonna take this lying down; not this time. We’re going on strike, and we need the support of every newsie in the city, you and yours most of all.”

“Seriously?” Gabriel hid it well, but under the smirk that graced his face, Castiel could tell he was flattered. “Dean-o, I had no idea you thought so highly of us. Figured we were beneath the notice of you downtown boys.”

“Never,” Dean said. “Every newsie in the city respects the Angels, Gabe, and you know it. So, can we count on your support?”

“Depends. What does this strike entail, exactly?”

Dean looked to Chuck, who had spent most of the trip down here discussing that with him, and at the other young man’s nod, laid out their strategy. “No one sells a paper for the World or the Journal, or any other paper who increases the price, on the streets of this city until the distribution price goes back to fifty cents per hundred. If possible, we stop the wagons going out too. We keep anyone from scabbing for them, and we rally in front of the World’s offices every day until our demands are met. We keep the violence to a minimum if possible, but we don’t hesitate to fight back if they force our hand.” Castiel saw Chuck frown at that, but he didn’t say anything.

“And what are our chances of anyone taking us seriously?”

“No idea,” Dean said, “but that’s where Cas comes in. He works for the Sun, which has the best chance of being open to our cause, if not sympathetic, so he’s gonna write up our story and see what he can do to get them to publish it. If you and your boys lend your support to the strike, but also keep distributing the Sun as long as they don’t cave to the price increase, we can spread the word even further, and it’ll let the other papers know that we’re serious about our demands.”

“The Sun, eh?” Gabriel raised a questioning eyebrow at Castiel, but the warning glare he returned was enough to keep his brother’s mouth shut on any information about his current family connections. “You really did make something of yourself, didn’t you, Cas?”

“I could say the same for you,” Castiel replied. “Dean has informed me that this endeavor succeeds or fails on your say-so. I believe in his cause, Gabriel. How about you?”

Gabriel steepled his hands and exchanged looks with the newsies surrounding him. “Let me and the boys talk it over.”

Dean nodded, then he and Chuck and Castiel walked to the other end of the pier to join Sam and Charlie. They had been joined by a young girl dressed like a newsie who introduced herself to Castiel as Jo Harvelle. “I wasn’t lying about knowing the lady who runs Harvelle’s,” Dean said with a shrug at the look Castiel gave him upon hearing her name. “Jo’s her daughter. She’s an aspiring newsie at the moment, and the Sun’s the only paper that doesn’t actively discriminate against girls, so she spends a lot of time slumming it down here with the Angels.”

“Speak for yourself,” the girl said, sticking her tongue out at Dean before running off to sit and talk to Charlie, who was trying to skip stones across the muddy river water. Dean and Chuck were deep in conversation about the strike again, and Castiel wanted to eavesdrop, but that seemed unprofessional when he was here as a reporter, so he found himself glancing back towards the other end of the pier where his ‘brothers’ were all deep in conversation about the proposal that Dean had just presented to them.

“Do you know all the Angels?” a voice asked from over Castiel’ shoulder. He looked up just in time to see Sam lowering himself to sit on a box next to him.

“Most of them, I think,” he answered as he sat down next to the young boy, trying not to stare at the battered wooden crutch propped against the box between them. “It’s been many years since I saw them last, though, so I don’t recognize all of them any more.”

“Dean said this morning that he thought your name sounded like one of theirs,” Sam said. “It’s weird to think that he was right without meaning to be.” Then, he turned to Castiel and looked him straight in the eye. “You better not screw him over,” he said. The threat would have been cute coming out of that innocent-looking face if Sam’s voice hadn’t carried such determination. “He’s got it hard enough as it is. All this is the last thing we wanted to happen, and he’s only doing this to get our lives back to normal as soon as possible.”

“I promise that I am not in this just for myself, and I won’t intentionally do anything to hurt him,” Castiel said. “He is a very… fascinating young man, and if anyone has the ability to pull this off, it’s him. I was being honest before. I want to see you succeed. You have no idea what is possible if you do. But it’s not going to be easy. I know the men you are going up against, and they will not back down without a fight.”

Sam sighed, nodding. “I know. And Dean does too, I think. But that’s no reason not to try, right?”

“Right,” Castiel agreed. He liked Sam. “In fact, that is all the more reason to fight back, because all too often, people don’t stand up to those in power for fear of the forces allied against them, and that’s the biggest reason why nothing ever changes.”

Sam nodded again, smiling, then looked up at something over Castiel’s shoulder. Castiel turned to see Gabriel coming towards them, followed by all his fellow newsies.

“We’re in, boys,” he said as Dean and Chuck both jumped to their feet to face the crowd. “You just say the word, and Brooklyn’s got your back. Whatever you need.” He spit in his hand, and held it out to Dean. Castiel wrinkled his nose in disgust as Dean did the same just before shaking Gabriel’s hand, and he wasn’t the only one who found the ritual unsanitary; Chuck only followed Dean’s lead with a bit of surreptitious prodding from the other boy. Then, as abruptly as it had started, the meeting was over.

Castiel turned to follow his new friends, but was stopped by a hand on his arm. “A word in private, Cassie?” Gabriel murmured for his ears only.

With a nod and a reassuring look at Dean, who was standing on the street corner waiting for him, Castiel turned back to see what his brother wanted.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, ‘Jimmy’?” Gabriel asked, putting a sarcastic spin on the name that Castiel’s adopted parents had given him. “If your family finds out what you’re doing, who you’re helping… do they even know that you’re writing for the Sun?”

Castiel shook his head. “Seeing as I only started yesterday, I don’t think they’ve had a chance to find out,” he said. “But I don’t care. What’s the worst they could do to me? Disown me? I never wanted their money anyway. I believe in this cause, Gabriel. I was at the meeting yesterday when they decided to make this change, and the reasons they gave… I didn’t know you or any of the other boys were newsies, but I knew that not many orphans got as lucky as I did, and the way they talk about kids who have no other choices, nowhere else to turn… They don’t understand, and they never will unless somebody tells them.”

“And that someone is you?”

“Sure. Why not? It’s not like I have anything else better to do.”

That made Gabriel laugh. “We missed you, Cassie. I’m glad you got a good life out of it, and some rich parents, but I’m more glad that you didn’t let it change you. Keep in touch, all right?”

“Absolutely,” Castiel promised. He hugged his brother, then turned and headed back in the direction of Manhattan with his new friends. When they passed the street that would take him to the Sun’s office’s, though, he said his goodbyes to them as well. “I will be at the square bright and early to report on everything that happens,” he promised as he and Dean parted ways. Dean just grinned and nodded, no trace of mistrust in his face as he told Castiel to take care and that he would see him tomorrow. Castiel watched the little group disappear down a nearby alley, then he turned and headed for his office with new purpose.

His heart was pounding by the time he entered the building, but he didn’t let nerves deter him as he walked up to the managing editor’s office and knocked on the door.

“Come in!”

“Here’s the review of the new burlesque show that you asked for, sir,” Castiel said, placing the envelope with the brief article in it on Cain’s desk.

“Great work, Novak! Keep it up, and you’ll be out there on the big stories in no time!”

“About that, sir…”

Cain’s eyes narrowed, and he sat up straighter in his desk chair. “Yes?”

“I… I found a story this morning, sir. A big one. I have inside sources, and some really good leads, and I was hoping you would give me leave to cover it, maybe even consider giving it the front page in a day or so if things progress the way I expect them to.”

It was hard to tell if his boss was skeptical, impressed, or annoyed. Maybe it was some combination of all three. “What’s the story, Novak?”

“The newsies are going on strike, sir. To protest the World and the Journal increasing their distribution prices this morning.”

Surprise, disbelief, and amusement all flitted across Cain’s face in quick succession. “So that’s what all the fuss downtown this morning was about,” the man said, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “Pulitzer and Hearst are going to have kittens! Oh, this is amazing!” He laughed out loud, then shook his head at the confusion on Castiel’s face. “So, you have an inside source, kid? Who is it?”

“I know the newsie who is leading the strike,” Castiel explained. “And I have it on good authority that if the Sun doesn’t cave to the price increase and does everything it can to tell the newsies’ side of the story, we’ll be the only ones getting our paper distributed without interference from tomorrow morning.”

His boss was grinning like a madman now. “This is the best news I’ve heard all year, kid.” He came around the desk and clapped Castiel on the shoulder. “You’ve got your story. Make us proud.”

Chapter Text

“Come on, boys, rise and shine! It’s a brand new day, an’ y’all got work ta do.”

Groans and muffled curses filled the air as Bobby wandered through the lodging house dormitory, shaking sleeping newsies awake. Despite the strike, the place was as full as ever, because Bobby, bless his gruff old heart, had declared that any kid who had ever paid him for room and board could stay for free until the strike was settled. He had snorted derisively at the shock Dean had expressed upon finding out about his generosity. “You think I can give you boys a safe place to sleep at night and not have some idea of what y’all go through out there every day, or have some sympathy for ya? I’d be out there myself, marching right alongside you and Sam if I didn’t have a business to run. Giving you a place to stay is the least I can do.” And Dean was more than grateful to Bobby for his generosity, because knowing that he and Sam would still have a safe place to sleep at the end of the day made it a hell of a lot easier to step into that square in the morning and face down the scabs and the wagons and the DiAngelus brothers and their goons.

The first ‘official’ day of the strike, two days ago, had gone better than he could have hoped for. The kids that had been conned into stepping up to buy papers had dropped them without a fight when faced with the fixed glares of all of the newsies in Manhattan and then some, and they had managed to divert and overturn the wagons full of newspapers for other distribution centers in the city before they’d even managed to make it out of the gate. Even better, Dean had been informed by runners from the other boroughs that the strike had been successful city-wide; sales of both the World and the Journal, along with half a dozen smaller papers that had also implemented a distribution price increase had come to an almost-complete halt. Dean had fallen asleep that night with visions of the epic tantrum Pulitzer was probably throwing at that moment dancing in his head.

Yesterday, though, had not been quite as successful. The wagons had been ready for them and had streamed out of the gates behind a wall of goons before even half of the newsies had made it to the square that morning. The scabs had also been less cooperative; a fight had broken out, much to Chuck’s dismay, and a few more scabs had slipped away in the melee, which required Dean to send people out looking for them all across the city. The boys that had gone out to hunt down wayward scabs, Benny among them, had all come back bruised and bloody, with grim looks on their faces, and some didn’t come back at all. Pulitzer was starting to play dirty, and Dean wasn’t sure what to prepare for next. He’d known this wasn’t going to be an easy fight, but he hadn’t expected the man to be quite so determined over a measly tenth of a cent per paper.

“Come on, Dean, Sam, time to get up.” Bobby was standing by his bed, shaking him gently by the shoulder. “Gotta get there early if you don’t want a repeat of yesterday’s fiasco.”

Dean grumbled at that, but Bobby was right, and he was the leader of this mess, so he had to set a good example for the other newsies. “Thanks, Bobby,” he said as he sat up, yawning and rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Then, after looking around and seeing that hardly anyone else was attempting to get up, including his own brother, he hopped down from his bunk and bellowed, “Get up, ya lazy bums! We got work ta do!”

That roused a few more of them, and Dean was happy to incentivize the others by going around the room, stealing pillows and blankets and threatening with buckets of cold water anyone who still tried to ignore him. Ten minutes later, over a dozen tousle-haired, sleepy-eyed boys were shuffling down the stairs and out the doors of the lodging house. Bobby shoved a cup of coffee into each boy’s hands as he left, which roused all but the most comatose, and wished them all the best of luck out there today. “You give ‘em hell today, boys. Don’t give up. We got ‘em on the ropes.”

To Dean, who was the last one out, though, he had a very different message. “You look out for yourself and that little brother of yours today,” he said in a low voice as he held Dean back from the crowd. “Pulitzer’s bound to have done his research by now. You may have thought he was playing dirty before, but that’s nothing compared to what he can do to you once he knows who you are and that he can hurt the strike through you.”

Dean nodded his understanding. “I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, Bobby, or safe, but I can’t let the risk stop me. All these kids are counting on me, not just Sam.”

“True,” Bobby agreed, “but I hope you also know that there may come a time when you’ll have to make a choice between protecting your family and serving your cause. I just want you to be prepared, is all.”

“I will be,” Dean promised, giving Bobby his most self-assured smile. “Don’t worry, nothing’s gonna happen to me or Sam. Like you said, we got ‘em on the ropes. Another day or two, they’ll cave, things’ll go back to normal, and we’ll forget all of this ever happened.”

He wasn’t sure he believed a word of what he was saying, but he seemed to convince Bobby, at least. “Sure, kid,” Bobby ruffled his hair affectionately. “Whatever you say. Now, get out there and make history, all right?” And that vote of confidence left a smile on Dean’s face that lasted until he caught up to his brother and the other newsies and marched into the square to face what the new day would bring.

The turnout so far today was abysmal. Less than half a dozen kids were waiting for them around the statue when Dean and the other newsies from the lodging house arrived. At least Chuck and Charlie were still among them; each, surprisingly, was carrying a basket of rolls that they were handing out to every kid that came into the square. “Our mama baked them,” Charlie explained as she gave one each to Dean and Sam. “Our folks are both real proud of what we’re doing here. Mama’s been picking up extra hours at the bakery since we’re not bringing in the money we expected, and her boss let her have the leftovers from last night so we could make sure you all had something to eat this morning.”

Dean felt a sharp stab of guilt as he sank his teeth into the roll and listened to Sam thanking Charlie and her family for their generosity. He’d forgotten that she and Chuck were out here because they were trying to support their family. He should tell them to move on, to find paying work instead of hitching themselves to his cause, but he knew, even if no one else had noticed, that the strike would be a lost cause without their support.

“I know it looks bad today, but you gotta stop making that face.”

Dean turned to stare at Chuck, who had sidled up behind him while he was lost in thought. If one good thing was coming out of this mess, it was that being the brains behind the operation seemed to be improving the kid’s confidence by leaps and bounds. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re looking like we’ve already lost, like you should be telling these kids to pack it in and go home. But we haven’t lost yet, Dean. It’s only been a few days. Strikes can go on for weeks or months, sometimes even years.”

That only served to fuel Dean’s despair. He and Sam didn’t have years, and neither did any of these other kids. They would be lucky to have weeks, or even days, if this morning’s turnout was any indication. “We may not have months, you know.”

“I know. That’s why we had to go all-in right from the start, get everyone on our side as quickly as possible. And we did that, but it was never going to last, and that’s okay. As long as we can keep interfering with the wagons and the scabs, it doesn’t matter how many kids stand with us on any given day. If they aren’t working against us, they’re still on our side, and we’re still fighting for them even if they aren’t here to stand with us.”

“And besides, Chuck sent a bunch of them out to go and round up any stragglers they could find. Bet they’ll be back here any minute now.”

Chuck glared at his sister. “That was supposed to be a surprise. You mind letting me give the pep talks the way I see fit?”

“Fine.” She stuck her tongue out at him and rolled her eyes, then wandered over to where Sam and another young newsie named Kevin had started up a card game.

Chuck watched her go, then turned back to Dean and gave him a sheepish shrug. “I still meant what I said. We’ve got staying power, now. As long as we keep doing what we’ve been doing and don’t let the others give up, we can see this thing through, I know it. One for all, and all for one.”

Dean nodded, appreciating the sentiment. Chuck was right; as long as none of the newsies he’d rallied on the first day turned to scabbing, it didn’t matter if they were there to strike in person. What mattered was that someone showed up, and that no one backed down. “One for all, and all for one. I like that.” He clapped the shorter man on the shoulder, feeling a smile returning to his face. “You really got a way with words, Chuck. You ever think of being a reporter, like Cas?”

Chuck shrugged self-consciously. “I do like writing, but I prefer more… fictional stories, you know? I’d like to be a novelist someday, like Charles Dickens or Mark Twain.”

Dean didn’t know who either of those people were, but it was nice to know the kid had dreams. “Well, then, let’s get this show on the road so that we can all go back to doing things we actually wanna do.” He looked around and saw that, true to Charlie’s prediction, the square was now almost as full of newsies as it had been yesterday, and a large number of them were carrying signs saying “STRIKE” and “STOP THE PRESSES” and “PRICE INCREASE UNFAIR”. His smile turned into a grin as he eagerly clambered over the fence and up onto the statue in the middle of the square, and he actually felt real hope rise in his chest again when he caught a glimpse of Cas at the edge of the crowd, standing next to a man with a camera on a tripod. The Sun was still on their side; by this time tomorrow morning, all of New York would know what they were doing here, and why, and then Pulitzer and the others would have to take them seriously.

But he couldn’t afford to start thinking like they’d already won yet. There was still a lot at stake, and the faces of the boys looking up to him now were not as full of hope and determination as they had been three days ago. With that in mind, Dean’s first words to them were not as full of fiery passion as his previous speeches had been.

“I know this striking business ain’t easy,” he told the crowd. “I know some of you are scared of what might happen this morning when they open up the gates, or because you don’t know where your next meal will come from or where you’ll lay your head tonight. Truth is, I’m scared of all those things too. And I know that being here today, standing up for what’s right, ain’t gonna make those fears go away. But that’s what real courage is, boys. It’s being afraid, but standing up for what you believe in anyway. I know our numbers keep shrinking. I know at times this whole thing seems too big for us. But I won’t ever back down, and if you’re here, that means you won’t either.

“And to those who can’t or won’t stand with us today, and those of you that maybe can’t or won’t stand with us tomorrow, I say… that’s okay. You’re still our brothers; we are doing this for you, and you will still share in the fruits of our victory. Newsies stand together, after all. One for all, and all for one! We’re here to seize this day, face down those bastards, and let them know that we are never backing down! So, whaddya say we show ‘em what newsies are made of?”

At his final shout, a ragged cheer rose from the crowd, then Chuck was behind him, shouting “One for all and all for one!” The chant was quickly taken up across the square, mixed with cries of “Strike!” and “Newsies!” Dean looked down at Sam, who was standing by the fence at his feet and looking up at him with admiration sparkling in his eyes. He could get used to that look, he decided, and the rush of euphoria that came from having so many people hanging on his every work. “One for all and all for one!” he shouted, letting his voice join with the crowd’s as he jumped down to join his brother.

The sound of the gates in front of the newspaper offices creaking open silenced everyone momentarily. The boys held their breath as the strength of the crowd in front of them momentarily impeded the gate’s progress, but then it burst open with a crash and the braying scream of several horses, and the crowd fell back to let the two careening wagons full of newspapers leave the square unimpeded. Stopping the papers at the source wasn’t worth anyone getting trampled to death; the newsies in the other boroughs wouldn’t let any of those papers see a customer anyway. Turning back as one to the now open gate, the newsies faced the true test of the strike: facing down the scabs.

Dean’s stomach churned in disgust as the crowd parted to let him through to confront the line of young men standing just inside the distribution house yard. He didn’t recognize any of their faces today, fortunately, but Pulitzer had stooped to playing dirty. All of the men lined up against him were at least as old as Dean, they were all tall and muscular and well-fed, and they were all dressed in brand-new, well-made clothes, with caps on their heads and new shoes on their feet. And standing with them was Raphael DiAngelus, a smug smile gracing his normally dour face.

“Well, if it isn’t the troublemaking Mister Winchester,” Raphael sneered as he stepped forward. “Like what you see, boys? It could all be yours if you want to come step over the line.”

Dean sneered at the line of scabs, but it worried him a little when not one of them looked the least bit ashamed of what they were doing. “And how long’s that treatment gonna last ‘em, Raphi?” he asked. “You know, you can go an’ tell Mister Pulitzer that we’ll end the strike right now if he’s willin’ ta give us all fancy new duds and a decent salary.” He could feel the other newsies crowding in behind him, muttering and jeering. “Whaddya say you drop those papes and leave here nice and quiet, fellas?” he asked the scabs, talking over Raphael’s aborted comeback. “Wouldn’t want those new suits of yours ta get all mussed or nothin’.”

There was no response, or even any reaction, from the assembled line of scabs. They all just stood there, glowering at Dean and the assembled newsies as Raphael addressed the crowd. “This here’s a one-time offer, boys!” he called out. “Any of you feel like working for a living again, just come on over here and we’ll get you fixed up, treat you right and proper.”

“Never!” came a shout from Dean’s left. He recognized Sam’s voice, and couldn’t help but grin. His little brother’s voice also broke the dam of silence holding back the crowd of strikers. “Filthy scabs!” came another shout, then, “Let’s soak ‘em!” then chants of “Newsies, newsies, newsies!” and “Strike, strike, strike!” The crowd was surging behind his back; out of the corner of his eye, Dean could see Benny, Sam, Chuck, and Charlie all struggling to keep them under control. This was about to get ugly.

Raphael was completely unaffected by the riot shaping up in front of him, though. After a moment of silence in which he almost seemed to be basking in the rage being screamed at him, he shrugged. “Suit yourselves, lads. Men?” He and the line of scabs took two steps backward, the newsies tensed to charge them, and then, from around the sides of the distribution office came Raphael’s two bigger, meaner brothers, Uriel and Virgil, followed by a crowd of thugs with chains and pipes and billy clubs.

“Run!” Dean shouted as the gang of thugs, who easily outnumbered the crowd of newsies in the square, charged the gate. He felt hands on his arms, pulling him back from the point of contact, then chaos descended as the two groups met right in the gate’s opening. Rocks were flying from the crowd behind him, boys were punching and ducking and weaving and falling and being pulled away by their friends as the thugs swung their weapons with gleeful abandon, and others were taking down thugs and relieving them of their weapons and using them to fight back and protect their friends. Dean fought back against the hands pulling him through the crowd. “No! Stop! Let me go! We need to help them!”

“Sorry, brother,” Benny’s voice was loud in his ear, “but you’re too important to risk in a brawl like this. Don’t worry, everyone knows you… oh, fuck.”

They had reached the edge of the mob to discover that the square had been surrounded by policemen. They were just standing there, though, apparently waiting for one side or the other to be victorious before moving in. If too many of the newsies got arrested, the strike would be over. Breaking free of Benny’s now-lax grip, Dean plunged back into the melee. “It’s the cops!” he shouted at every boy he could get ahold of. “We gotta get out of here now! Run! Spread the word! Stop fighting and RUN!” As he pulled boys out of the mob and shoved them in the direction of the square, he could hear his words spreading like wildfire and, miraculously, being obeyed. The rioting crowd began to scatter as boys stopped fighting and ran. The sound of police whistles could be heard over the din, but the cops were outnumbered and easily outwitted by the newsies as they surged through the line and took off in all directions. Dean saw Charlie pulling her brother out of the crowd and down an alley and breathed a sigh of relief as they disappeared without being followed.

“Dean! Dean, help!”

Dean’s blood turned to ice at the sound. He and Benny had almost reached the edge of the mob again, but Dean turned back and began fighting his way through the rapidly thinning crowd towards his brother’s voice. Dean reached the gate again just in time to see Uriel DiAngelus swinging a billy club right at his little brother’s head. Sam managed to block the blow with his crutch, but the force of it was enough to knock him to the ground, and then both Uriel and Virgil were on him, kicking him and beating him with a chain as he curled in on himself and screamed Dean’s name.

“Sam!”

Dean saw red as he charged towards the men who were hurting his brother, but someone was holding him back again. “Dean, you have to get out of here!” Benny’s voice was screaming in his ear. “We can’t lose you! I’ll get Sam, but you have to get out of here! Please!”

Dean barely registered his friend’s words. Nothing was more important than his little brother; not his job, not the strike, not his freedom, nothing. But it seemed he wasn’t going to be given the choice. There were more hands on him now, more pleading voices, and Benny shoved him backwards into their arms as he turned and ran at the DiAngelus brothers, picking up a discarded club on the way. Dean lost sight of his brother and his best friend as the other newsies dragged him back through the mob, dodging policemen and thugs alike until they were safely hidden in an alley on the other side of the square. As Dean watched in horror, the policemen surrounded the remaining rioters and waded in with handcuffs and billy clubs drawn. Benny was pulled out, struggling, by two cops, with one eye already swollen shut and his face covered with blood. He met Dean’s eyes across the square, and the apology in them was more than Dean could take.

He turned and ran.

Chapter Text

It was all over. He should have known from the beginning that it was a hopeless cause. No one ever cared about the poor, the downtrodden, and the helpless, and he had been an idiot for thinking that anyone would start now. All his stupid optimism had done was lose him everything. The strike was dead, his friends hated him, and, worst of all, his little brother was gone. He had failed Sammy in the worst way possible. If he had thought it would do any good, he would march up to the Refuge right now and turn himself in in exchange for his brother’s freedom, but he knew the system didn’t work that way. So he’d done the only thing he could think of in the heat of the moment: he’d run.

Daybreak had found Dean on a rooftop in a barely-familiar part of the city, just far enough away from the streets he called home that it took him most of the morning to make his way back into familiar territory. He couldn’t bear the thought of facing anyone he knew at the moment, but the list of places where he could find safety were few and far between, so he ended up taking refuge at Harvelle’s Dance Hall. He slipped in without a word to anyone, made his way backstage, and lost himself among the backdrops, taking solace in his art. He knew the escape would be temporary; he would have to face what had happened yesterday eventually, but the moment he put a paintbrush to one of the awaiting canvases, his worries and fears were pushed aside, and he didn’t bother to fight the illusion of peace that surrender brought him.

“Wow. That’s a little dark, even for you.”

The unexpected voice, after hours of silence, made Dean jump, and he just barely kept his hand from smearing a jagged black line across the freshly-painted canvas. “Hey, Jo,” he said without turning around.

“Hey yourself,” she said, her tone uncharacteristically subdued. An awkward silence fell between them for a few minutes. “Dean, I…”

“You can tell your mom I’ll repaint the canvas when I’m done, and she doesn’t have to pay me for this one. I just needed to…”

“Dean, I’m not here about the painting, and Momma doesn’t care about stuff like that. I just came to tell you…” He could see her out of the corner of his eye; she was chewing on her lower lip and looking almost as lost as he felt. Normally, he would have teased her about being at a loss for words, since she usually never shut up, but he knew what she was trying to say, and he didn’t really want to hear it, so he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on his work. Finally, she huffed out a frustrated breath and said, “Charlie and her brother are here to see you, and they brought that reporter guy. Just thought you’d want to know.”

Dean was surprised by that news. He hadn’t expected Chuck or Charlie to ever want to see him again, and Cas… well, if Cas had been here on his own, Dean would have assumed that he just hadn’t gotten the news that the strike was over. He was here with Chuck and Charlie, though, so that was likely too much to hope for. It also meant that they were probably here to try and talk him into continuing the strike despite what had happened yesterday. “I suppose you already told them I was here?”

“Dean Winchester, don’t you dare try running away from them!” He flinched at her tone of voice; despite her tomboyishness, sometimes Jo was so much like her mother it was scary. “They just want to talk to you, make sure you’re all right. Can’t you give them at least that much? Don’t we deserve at least that much?”

“Fine,” Dean sighed. He supposed he did owe them something, at that. An apology, at least; none of them would be in this mess if it wasn’t for him. “Give me a minute to clean up and I’ll meet you in the dressing rooms.” Jo squinted at him suspiciously for a moment, but then she nodded and left him alone. As he cleaned his brushes and washed his hands, the thought of running anyway did cross Dean’s mind, but he had never been quite that big an asshole, so a few minutes later found him opening the door to the dressing room to face the three people whose lives he’d screwed up almost as badly as his own.

“Dean!” As soon as he stepped through the door, he found himself with an armful of energetic redhead. “Thank God you’re all right! When Chuck lost track of you yesterday, and then you weren’t at the diner this morning… if Benny hadn’t told us you had gotten away…”

“Wait, you saw Benny?” Dean let Charlie hug him, then set her back on her feet and motioned for her to slow down. “Is he okay? Did he make bail? What about the others?”

Charlie shook her head. “Benny didn’t have to make bail. No one did. No one got arrested… except Sam.”

Dean’s stomach flipped over at the whispered mention of his brother’s name. Charlie wasn’t looking him in the eye any more, and neither was anyone else. Dean was glad to hear that Benny had gotten away, and that none of his other friends were behind bars right now because of him, but that just made Sam’s arrest so… unfair.

“We’re very sorry about Sam.” Cas was the first one to break the uncomfortable silence. “If there’s anything I can do to help…”

“Thanks, Cas, but I can’t ask you to stick your neck out for me any more. Or any of the rest of you, for that matter.” He looked at each of them in turn, trying to find the words to let them down gently. “What are you all doing here, anyway? I figured you’d all be getting back to your lives now. It’d be safer for you to keep your distance from me for a while anyway.”

“But… what about the strike?”

Charlie sounded so hurt that Dean had to swallow a lump in his throat before answering her. “The strike’s over, Charlie.”

“What? How can you say that? Everyone else is still behind you, Dean, despite what happened yesterday. We’ve all got a few bumps and bruises, but we’re not beaten, not by a long shot.”

“Don’t you see, though? You guys got lucky yesterday! You could have been arrested, or killed, or put in the hospital, and what would your family do then? You’re better off just walking away from this, Charlie. You and your brother both.”

“Maybe so,” Charlie said, her eyes bright with angry tears now, “but what about all the others? The ones that don’t have families or homes to go back to?”

Dean shrugged, answering honestly, no matter how much the words hurt. “In a week, Pulitzer and the others will forget this strike ever happened. They’ll go back to being newsies. It’ll be harder at first, but they’ll learn to live with the price increase. A measly ten cents per hundred papers isn’t worth their lives, or their freedom.”

“But they could have so much more! You said so yourself. I know you’re hurt, Dean, and you’re scared, but that doesn’t mean you can just turn your back on us!”

“Oh yeah? That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one whose brother’s in prison right now!”

“And tell me how quitting is going to do Sam any good?”

The question came from Chuck, who had been standing back with Cas, not saying a word as Dean and Charlie shouted at each other. It was spoken so quietly that Dean almost missed it, but the implications physically knocked him back a step. “What?”

“Exactly.” Chuck stepped forward and put a hand on his sister’s shoulder, his tone more direct and forceful than Dean had ever seen before. “I know you don’t want to put us, or anyone else, back in danger, Dean, but what happens to Sam if you stop now? Things aren’t just going to go back to normal if you surrender, and I think you know that. The only way to help your brother, the only way to make things right, is to keep moving forward. The only way is to win. And we will win, make no mistake about that.”

“We’ll… what?”

“We’re already winning, Dean.” Chuck sounded as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. “We’ve got ‘em on the ropes. All we need to do is add one more thing to our demands: they let Sam go, without charges.”

Dean hadn’t missed the obvious shiner Chuck was sporting this morning; he was starting to wonder if the kid had taken more blows to the head than he was letting on. “You feeling okay, Chuck? Because, as I recall, we all got our asses kicked yesterday, without their side even breaking a sweat. They’ve won!”

“Won the battle, Dean. Not the war. Look, whatever you think of Pulitzer…”

“He’s an asshole, a crook, a fucking… rattlesnake.” Dean wasn’t sure where that word had come from, but as soon as he said it, he decided it fit perfectly. Pulitzer had all the power, he wasn’t in any danger, but the moment someone moved into his territory, he lashed out, striking where it hurt the most, tainting Dean’s life with soul-destroying poison.

“Exactly!” Chuck almost crowed. “And do you know why a snake starts to rattle?”

“No…” Dean had no idea why that would even be relevant, but he decided to humor his poor, deluded friend. “Why?”

“‘Cause it’s scared.”

Dean scoffed. “Sure.”

“Go and look it up, if you don’t believe me.” Chuck shrugged dismissively, but his eyes were still burning with passion. “Point is, Pulitzer’s head is spinning. He doesn’t know which way is up, he has no sense of how to handle a bunch of street urchins standing up to him, and he’s losing it. Why would he set an entire army of goons and the cops on us after less than a week? Before we’ve even had a chance to do anything worthwhile?”

Dean opened his mouth for a retort, then closed it again when he realized that he didn’t have one. “You know… you may be right,” he said after giving himself a minute to think about it. He saw Chuck’s shoulders sag a little, and could have sworn he heard him mutter, “Thank you, god,” under his breath. “I mean, what’s he got to be afraid of,” Dean pressed on, ignoring his friend’s display of relief, “unless he knows we’re winning.” Suddenly, things didn’t look so hopeless after all. It wasn’t much, but after the devastation of the last day, it was enough.

“All we gotta do,” Dean said, picking up steam as he watched renewed hope and excitement slowly dawn in his friends’ faces, “is get all the newsies back together and have Chuck tell them the same thing that he told me. Once they see we aren’t losing like we thought, we’ll be back on track!”

“Cas has given us a leg up on that already,” Charlie piped up as she grabbed the reporter by the front of his jacket and dragged him towards Dean. “He showed up at the diner while we were all waiting for you, and he had some real good news.” She gave Cas another shove in Dean’s direction when he didn’t seem to want to say anything, reducing the space between them to practically nothing. “Go on, show him!”

Their eyes locked, and Dean was surprised to see the tips of Cas’s ears turning red. He took a subtle step back, waiting expectantly as the reporter fumbled in his pockets for a moment before withdrawing a hastily-folded newspaper. “Here,” he mumbled as he shoved the paper at Dean’s chest. “I think I’d promised you a story?” He took a few steps back as Dean reached for the paper, and Dean was surprised to see that, under the veneer of poorly-disguised embarrassment, Cas was practically vibrating with excitement. Dean’s heart started to pound as he took the paper and opened it.

“Is this…” He stopped, swallowed hard to clear his throat, then tried again. “Is this for real?” Across the front page of the New York Sun, in bold block letters that could have been read from halfway across the room, the words NEWSIES STOP THE WORLD headlined an article all about the strike, written by Castiel Novak. It even carried a picture of Dean and Chuck, standing on Horace Greeley’s statue with their fists raised as they led the army of newsies below them in a cheer.

“Yup!” Charlie was grinning and practically jumping up and down. “Front page news! Can you believe it? We’re gonna be famous!”

“Kings of New York,” Chuck said with a smile. “Feels like we can do anything now, doesn’t it?”

Dean felt a smile slowly building on his own face. “Yeah, it does.” His mind was racing. They couldn’t give up now, not when they had just made front page news. But how to show Pulitzer and all the others that they really meant business after what happened yesterday? Then, he saw Jo lurking in the doorway. “Hey, Jo,” he called out, making her jump. “Your mama around?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I got something I wanna run by her. Can you ask her if she has a minute to talk to us?” After Jo had nodded and disappeared back into the hallway, he looked back at his friends, who were all sporting puzzled expressions. “I think I know how to get the strike back on track, get all the newsies in the city organized, and show Pulitzer and the others that we really mean business. We’re gonna hold a rally.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Dean yawned and stumbled a bit as he came down the steps of the tenement building and turned into the street. The sun had only just set, but it had been a long day, and he hadn’t exactly slept last night either. Despite being completely drained of energy, though, he was content. He and Chuck had just spent the day spreading word of the rally—which was going to be held at Harvelle’s Dance Hall tomorrow night—to every newsie they could find, and asking them to spread the word along to all of their friends and acquaintances too. Then, to Dean’s surprise, Chuck had invited him to dinner. He had just spent the last hour or so with Chuck and Charlie’s family, who were the sweetest people that Dean had ever met. They were obviously struggling to make ends meet with six mouths to feed while their dad was laid up with a broken leg, but they opened their home and their table to Dean with welcoming smiles. Over a delicious, home-cooked meal, they asked him all kinds of questions about his life and his family, listened politely to the answers that he gave and were very understanding of the ones he chose not to, and regaled him with stories of their own. Dean even found out why Chuck and Charlie had such similar names.

“Well, the missus had no idea she was havin’ twins, a’course,” their father explained, “so we only had one name picked out: Charles if it was a boy, and Charlotte if it was a girl. So when we ended up with one of each…” He shrugged, the twins blushed, and everyone else laughed. “We started out calling them Charlie and Lotte, but, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, Chuck is the quiet one,” that got another laugh from the table, “and when he was little, his sister would always answer for both of them. Somewhere along the way, she decided that she was Charlie, so we had to come up with something else to call him once he actually started answering for himself.”

Though spending time with them made him miss his own family something fierce, Dean had done his best to enjoy himself. And they were so understanding when he’d told them about Sam, telling him that they hoped his got his brother back safely, and that he and Sam were both welcome at their house any time. “Standing up for your principles is never easy, son,” Chuck’s dad told him, “but we’re proud of all of you for holdin’ your ground. It might make things a little harder for us at the moment, but in the long run, it’ll be worth it, I’m sure.”

Dean could see now where Chuck and Charlie got their optimism and determination from. He was glad that he had met their parents, and if things went well tomorrow, he’d be one step closer to helping them get their lives back on track…

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to go out alone at night, boy? These streets can get dangerous after dark.”

Dean froze as he recognized the voices of the two thugs that had just stepped up behind him. “Uriel, Virgil. Out for walkies? I’m surprised Raphi lets you leave the kennel without an escort.” He knew he probably shouldn’t be antagonizing them, but it was a reflex that was hard to shake.

“Who says we don’t have an escort?” Uriel snickered, and from the alley mouth right in front of Dean, three more thugs with clubs appeared and surrounded him, completely blocking off any chance he had at escape. Dean flinched as a meaty hand closed around his upper arm.

“Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Virgil explained as he took Dean’s other arm. “Mister Pulitzer just wants to talk. If you come quietly, I’ll send these fellas away and me and my brother here will escort you to his home like civilized gentlemen. If you try to refuse his request for an audience, however, these men will do a little ‘persuading’ of their own, which might make it difficult for you to discuss anything with our boss. So, what’ll it be?”

“The easy way,” Dean answered without hesitation. Pulitzer wanted to talk to him? Maybe Chuck had been right this morning, after all. Maybe Pulitzer really was scared. It didn’t explain why he felt the need to send five guys twice Dean’s size to track him down, but maybe the man thought he’d encounter more resistance trying to get close to Dean. Come to think of it, it had probably been really stupid, going out by himself at night, especially after his picture had been on the front page of the paper this morning, but it was a little too late for regrets when he was being shoved into a carriage between Pulitzer’s head thugs and driven to the front door of his mansion.

Uriel and Virgil were not exactly gentle when they pulled Dean from the carriage, and they kept their hands wrapped tightly around both his arms as they marched him inside and down a hallway to an office near the back of the house. Dean barely glanced at the ornate display of wealth surrounding him; given that he and his fellow newsies were fighting for a measly tenth of a cent per paper that they sold, he didn’t really need to be reminded of exactly how wealthy the man who was fighting them over that pittance was.

Dean had seen enough pictures in the pages of the newspaper to recognize the man sitting behind the desk in the center of the room as Joseph Pulitzer, but when he also recognized the man standing beside Pulitzer’s desk, Dean’s blood started boiling. “You know, if you wanted to have me arrested, you could have just said so,” he spat out in lieu of any sort of polite greeting, “and saved your goons a lot of trouble bringing me all the way here.”

“Mister… Winchester, I presume?” Pulitzer’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise as he looked Dean up and down. “I see that you are already acquainted with Mister Alastair. You have nothing to fear from him at the moment. He is simply here to confirm your identity for me, and to assist in any… negotiations that we might be entering into tonight. It is my understanding that he holds a rather substantial bargaining chip in these proceedings at the moment.”

“You bastard,” Dean growled as he glared at the man who had made his life a living hell for four months when he’d been housed at the Refuge two years ago. “What have you done to Sam?”

“Me?” Alastair asked. “Why, Mister Winchester, I have done nothing but offer your little brother food, shelter, and a chance to overcome his low and criminal upbringing. If you are truly worried about his wellbeing, you can blame the fine gentlemen currently escorting you for the state that he was in when he arrived on my doorstep.” He flashed Dean a predatory smile.

Dean’s fury nearly boiled over, but before he could lunge at the man, Pulitzer held up a quelling hand. “As entertaining as I am sure you would find it to go at one another like common street thugs, I must ask that you all adjourn to the other room for a moment while I take care of another matter. Mister Winchester, if you value your brother’s safety, you will not make a sound until we have a chance to speak again, is that understood?”

“Huh?” Dean had no idea what was going on, but before he could ask for any clarification, he was being dragged through a side door into a smaller room and shoved against the wall next to the door. Alastair followed him and his escorts in, taking a seat in a nearby chair. The look on his face indicated that he was expecting quite the show. Dean wanted to snarl at him, but the man held Sam’s life in the palm of his hand at the moment, so Dean did as Pulitzer had ordered and kept his mouth shut. He heard the door to Pulitzer’s office open and close, then a voice said, “You asked to see me, Father?”

Cas?

“Yes, James. Have a seat. I saw the front page of the New York Sun today.”

“Oh.”

“‘Oh’? Is that all you have to say for yourself? When were you going to tell me that you went to work for another paper, James? Or that you chose to do a story on the street urchins who are currently trying to bring down my business? I believe both those questions require a bit more explanation than a simple ‘Oh’.”

“To be fair, Father, they are not trying to ‘bring down’ your business. They are simply asking to be treated fairly, and I believe that if you would give them a chance, you would not find their demands unreasonable.”

“Is that so? And how do you know that they are being honest with you, ‘Castiel’? Because you have been so open and honest with them? Do they have any idea who you really are? Do you think they would trust you if they found out?”

“I have more than proven my loyalty and dedication to their cause. Have you ever considered, Father, that it is you who has no idea who I really am? I went to another paper because I knew that I would never be given a chance to prove myself as part of yours. Uncle Zach made it very clear that no one here thinks I can amount to anything without your name to clear my path. I plan to prove you all wrong, and if I have to side with your rivals and the people that you have stepped on in order to make your way to the top to do it, then so be it.”

“Sit down, James. This conversation is not over.”

“Yes, it is. I have my own job, my own apartment, and people who will support me no matter what you say or do, Father. When you want to treat me like an adult, you know where to find me. Until then…” There was the sound of footsteps, then the door to Pulitzer’s office being opened and slammed closed.

The slamming door jerked Dean out of his shocked stupor. Cas was Pulitzer’s son? As he was dragged back into Pulitzer’s office and saw that the man looked like the cat who had just eaten the canary, Dean decided not to give Pulitzer the satisfaction of dwelling on that little revelation. He would take it up with Cas the next time he saw him. Instead, he smirked and said, “Man, he really told you, didn’t he?”

Pulitzer’s satisfied smirk dropped off his face. “I’d watch what you say, Mister Winchester. It should be apparent to you right now that I am the one holding all of the cards here. One word from me, and neither you nor your brother will taste freedom again. Another word, and my son will never work as a reporter in this town again either. I can have all your little urchin friends arrested, or run the lodging house and dance hall that you frequent out of business. Thanks to your involvement with my son, I know everything about you, Mister Winchester.” His returning smile made Dean’s blood run cold. He hadn’t been that far off the mark when he’d compared this man to a snake. “Now, I believe we have some terms to discuss?”

Chapter Text

Castiel was smiling and practically humming to himself under his breath as he headed down the street towards Harvelle’s with a box of pastries for the hard-working strikers. An unexpected confrontation with his father last night had lit a new fire in his heart; he needed this strike to succeed now as much as any of the newsies did. He’d officially moved out of his family mansion last night, and he’d gotten up before sunrise this morning in order to get to the bank and remove as many of his assets as he could out of his father’s reach. He was expecting to be completely cut off and disowned by the end of the day, and for all his bluster about being able to stand on his own two feet, he had no illusions that the lifestyle of a rookie reporter would be anything like what he’d been used to, even with the inheritance money that he had stored away.

It was a liberating feeling, though, to know that he no longer had to answer to his father for any reason, or seek his approval. There was a world outside the World after all, and people who believed in him and would support him without knowing that his surname was Pulitzer. The only good point that his father had brought up last night was the fact that Castiel was technically lying to his new friends by not telling them who he was. That was an error in judgement that he should probably rectify as soon as possible… starting with Dean.

He had to balance the box of pastries precariously in order to keep from dropping them while he struggled to open the heavy stage door in the alley behind Harvelle’s, and almost lost the battle to gravity. He was saved at the last minute by Jo and Charlie, who opened the door for him from the inside and caught the box just before it slipped from his grasp. “Thank you,” he said as he stepped inside. “It would have been a shame to spoil my gift to all of you right there on the doorstep.”

Jo giggled, and Charlie said, “Cas, someone really needs to sit you down and teach you how to talk normal.”

Can cocked his head at her, puzzled. “I do not understand what you mean.”

“Man, you talk like you were raised in a mansion or something,” Charlie said. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that if you were, but if you’re gonna fit in around here, you gotta loosen up your grammar a little.”

She had a very good point; it was past time for him to start shedding his sheltered rich boy persona, given that he wasn’t likely to be one for much longer. “I will endeavor to…” he began to say, then caught her exasperated glare and amended himself. “I’ll try.”

“Well, it’s a start, I guess.”

“Is anyone else here yet?”

“Yeah, most everyone’s onstage or in the dressing rooms, sorting through props and getting everything set up for tonight. Jo and I are heading out to pick up a few things for her mum and make sure the word’s gotten out to all the right people. If Dean gets here before we get back, tell him it’s okay if he wants to head out to Brooklyn without us. He didn’t get around to getting news of the rally to the Angels yesterday, and everyone else is too chicken to go without him.”

“Will do,” Castiel said, looking to Charlie for confirmation of the correct expression and getting a nod and a grin from her in return. “Before you go, take a pastry. I brought enough for everyone.” The girls both eagerly dug into the box, said their goodbyes to him with mouths full of sticky sweets, then headed out the door as he turned and headed down the hallway to find the rest of the newsies.

As soon as he entered the dressing rooms, he was mobbed by hungry kids. He passed out all of his pastries to eager hands, and was just contemplating running back up the street to get some more when Chuck came into the room.

“Damn, I thought you were Dean,” he said as soon as he saw Castiel.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Castiel said with a shrug, passing Chuck the last pastry.

“Oh! Sorry, it’s not… Good morning, Cas. It’s good to see you.”

“And you as well,” Castiel replied. “Are you worried about the fact that Dean isn’t here yet?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m trying not to be, but we made plans last night to meet here at six, so we could get to Brooklyn and recruit the Angels for the rally before they all scattered to the four winds, and he’s going on three hours late.”

That did send a prickle of worry down Castiel’s spine, but he hadn’t known Dean long enough to make any assumptions about his punctuality. “If you’d like, since time is of the essence, I am more than happy to accompany you to Brooklyn. Gabriel and his band of newsies are… basically family to me, so I’m sure they’d be just as willing to hear us out as they would Dean.”

“Really? I was wondering what all that was about the other day when you went down there with us and Gabe seemed to know you. You sure you’re okay to hoof it all the way out there, though? You don’t have any new front-page articles to write or anything?”

“My next front-page article is being written all around us, Chuck,” Castiel said with a grin. “In fact, if we catch a cab out there, I can probably justify it as a business expense.” They both laughed at that, but Castiel hadn’t been joking. Twenty minutes later, he was hailing a carriage outside of the bakery down the street, freshly provisioned with more pastries for his brothers, and trying not to laugh at the uncertain looks that both Chuck and the cabbie gave him when he stated his intended destination.

Castiel had intended simply to start his search for Gabriel at the pier where he’d met him earlier in the week, so it was a bit of a surprise to find him there already, along with most of the other Angels. Even more worrisome was the somber pall that hung over the entire group. There was no teasing or roughhousing, and though Gabriel was using a slingshot to knock bottles off the bridge again, his heart just didn’t seem in it this time. At a shout from Ezekiel, he turned, but it wasn’t until he recognized Castiel that he managed to smile.

“Cassie! Didn’t expect to see you around here again so soon. Don’t you have a job or something?”

Castiel returned the smile and the hug that his brother gave him; up close, he could tell that something was really wrong. “This is my job, Gabriel, remember? Reporting on the strike? I have you all to thank for spreading my words all over the city yesterday, don’t I?”

“Oh, yeah. All part of the service we offer here, don’t’cha know?” Gabriel’s tone was light, but the wry humor that normally infused his every word and expression was missing. “I read your article. It was good.” The smile slowly fell away from his face. “Too bad it didn’t help any.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Sun raised its distribution price this morning. Why do you think we’re all sitting around here? It was tempting, just to say ‘screw it’ and earn myself enough to eat for another day, but I made Dean a promise, an’ I ain’t no backstabber, so…” He shrugged, then looked over Castiel’s shoulder at Chuck, who was passing out the pastries and talking to a few of the other newsies in the crowd that had gathered around them. “Where is your boyfriend this morning, anyway? Didn’t figure him for the type that would send you out here alone.”

Castiel glared at his brother, not sure whether to be embarrassed at the fact that Gabriel just called Dean his boyfriend, or outraged at the implication that he somehow couldn’t take care of himself. At the smirk Gabriel was giving him, though, he decided to ignore the ‘boyfriend’ comment. “I can take care of myself, Gabriel. I have lived in this city my entire life.”

“Yeah, if you can call what you did at that fancy house of yours, ‘living’,” Gabriel muttered.

Castiel let that comment go too. “Besides, he knows my brothers would never let anything happen to me. He had other business to attend to this morning, business that concerns all the newsies in the city. There’s going to be a rally tonight, down at Harvelle’s Dance Hall. We’re going to get all the newsies together in one place, show Pulitzer and the rest that we’re not beaten. Will you join us?”

“Will we… News flash, Cassie, we are beaten!” Castiel had rarely ever seen Gabriel angry, and he’d never seen him hopeless. The combination was heartbreaking. “Didn’t you read today’s front page? You think it says anything about the strike? Your little article may have gotten its moment in the sun, but people have moved on. No one cares what happens to a bunch of street urchins. There’s plenty of us around; Pulitzer and the rest don’t even have to try to find kids to replace us. They just need to reel in the poor bastards who are even more down on their luck than we are. Trust me, in a couple weeks, we’ll all be back working for him too, and no one will remember why this stupid strike even happened.”

“Well, not with an attitude like that, they won’t.” Castiel wasn’t surprised to feel anger bubbling up inside him; it was becoming a welcome sensation after everything he’d been through in the last few days. “What happened to my badass ‘big’ brother, anyway? After all the shit you took in the orphanage, pulling pranks to keep us distracted and taking the blame as the troublemaker for the rest of us… you never let anything get you down. You managed to keep all these kids together, to give them a life and a family to lean on when they would have scattered to the four winds otherwise. You are the leader of the toughest gang in this city; I have seen men twice your size who are terrified at the thought of stepping foot in Brooklyn because of you. And this is what is going to break you? Really?” He turned away from Gabriel, primarily so that his brother wouldn’t see the shock in his face over what he had dared to say. “If you won’t do it for Dean, or for your own reputation, at least do it for them,” he said roughly, gesturing at the crowd of boys milling around the pier. “They look up to you, Gabriel, like I… did. They don’t deserve to have that faith shattered. Not like this.”

“Cas…” Castiel turned back at the hand on his shoulder, and was surprised to see his brother looking apologetic. He was fairly certain that Gabriel had never apologized for anything in his life. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Things have been status quo for so long… But look at you! Standing up to me. I never thought I’d see the day.” He punched Castiel in the shoulder, then pulled him into another hug, which Castiel returned awkwardly. “You grew up better than I would have expected, kiddo, given where you ended up.”

“Oh, trust me, my recent upbringing has nothing to do with any of this.” Castiel gave Gabriel a sheepish grin. “It has more to do with being reminded that I wasn’t always the only son of an extremely rich man. Not that I expect to be that much longer.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, my father… found out about the article that I wrote for the Sun yesterday. We had… words about it last night. I’m not entirely sure what has to be done to formally disown one’s child, adopted or not, but I am certain that he is drawing up the necessary papers as we speak.”

“Damn, Cas. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” Castiel shrugged. “When I was younger, before Mother passed away, I thought he might have cared about me, but in the last few years… I think he just wanted someone that he could mold into a good little yes-man, someone that he could leave his business and his money to that wouldn’t do anything with it that he didn’t want. Well, he’s not going to get that, and I think he knows it now, so there’s no reason for him to keep pretending that I’m his son.”

“Well, I’m sorry for ever underestimating you, at least, Cassie.” Gabriel gripped Castiel’s shoulder hard. “You’re a good man, and I think I owe Dean a hell of a lot more than I realized for bringing you back to us. So, whaddya say we give him the best damn rally this city’s ever seen?”

“Sounds like a plan, Gabe.” Castiel could feel a grin spreading across his face to match the one that had returned to his brother’s. “Once they hear we’ve got the Angels standing with us, every newsie in the city will be there. That’s something no one will be able to ignore; not even Pulitzer.”

* * * * * * * * * *

“Have you seen Dean? This thing needs to start soon, or we’re gonna have a riot on our hands.”

Castiel turned from where he was peeking out of the curtains in the wings to see Jo standing behind him, wringing her hands. “I thought I saw him in one of the back dressing rooms a little while ago. If you want, you can tell your mother to get a pre-show act out there to keep everyone distracted while I go track him down and see what’s delaying him.”

“Okay. Thanks, Cas. And can you ask him where he’s been all day? I mean, we weren’t short-handed or anything, but it’s just not like him to make plans and then not show up like that.”

“Of course,” Castiel agreed, but as he headed backstage, he decided that conversations of that nature could wait until after the rally. Dean had likely lost track of time, or had suffered an attack of nerves over what he was planning to say tonight.

Castiel was halfway down the hall leading towards the dressing rooms when he heard a thud, followed by a string of curse words, coming from one of the storage rooms that held old stage decorations and canvases. The voice was familiar enough to stop him in his tracks. “Dean,” he called out as he knocked on the door, “is that you in there?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” came the muffled reply. “What’s up?”

“The rally’s about to start,” Castiel reminded him. “Everyone’s waiting for you to give the opening speech.”

“Right.” There was something wrong with Dean’s voice, but without being able to see him, Castiel wasn’t quite sure what it was. When he went to try the door, though, he found it locked. “I’ll be out there in just a minute,” Dean said in response to the rattling doorknob, though he appeared to be making no move to actually open the door.

“Dean? Is everything all right?”

There was a moment of silence from inside the room before Dean said, “Yeah, everything’s gonna… everything’s fine.”

“Okay.” Castiel was not reassured, but he supposed Dean could just be nervous about speaking in front of so large a crowd, so he let it go. “Good luck out there tonight, Dean.”

“I… Thanks.”

Castiel headed back to the backstage area to tell Jo that Dean was almost done getting ready and would be out shortly, then he made his way out one of the side curtains and down into the audience. Gabriel and the rest of the Angels were right down in front, where they could see and be seen by all the other newsies; he took his place with them, feeling proud to be counted as one of their number again. He found himself idly wondering what it would take to get his name legally changed back to Castiel Novak once any remaining business with his soon-to-be-former father was concluded.

A ripple of surprise ran through the crowd as the curtains opened and Dean stepped out. Castiel’s heart-rate spiked along with the noise; something was definitely wrong here. If he hadn’t been standing so close to the stage, Castiel wouldn’t have even recognized the young man standing onstage. Gone were the well-worn but ill-fitting shirt, knickers, and vest that Dean normally wore. Instead, he was dressed in a crisp, clean white shirt and a pair of grey woolen trousers with a matching jacket. His old leather boots had been replaced with a pair of mirror-polished black dress shoes, and his normally-spiky brown hair had been combed and oiled down and topped with a grey newsboy cap to complete the ensemble. It took a moment, but Castiel eventually recognized the outfit as being identical to the ones he’d seen the few scabs that had made it through the picket lines wearing as they sold the World downtown.

Under the cover of the noise still coming from the crowd, Castiel leaned down to whisper in Gabriel’s ear. “Be on your guard. Something’s not right here.”

Gabriel looked up at him. “You mean to tell me you’re not the one who dressed your boy up there?”

Castiel shook his head. He was about to tell Gabriel his theory about who had done so, but then Dean began to speak, and the entire crowd got too quiet to hide his conversation. With a last warning look at his brother, Castiel turned back to the stage, practically vibrating with nerves.

“Newsies of New York City,” Dean said in a loud but flat voice, “thank you all for coming. A week ago, when I called for a strike against the World to protest their decision to increase the distribution price of their newspaper, I never would have expected so many of you to stand with me. Your strength, your continued support of this cause, and your faith in me are… more than I deserve. That is why it pains me to stand in front of you today and tell you that this is never what I wanted.”

Shocked whispers ran through the crowd, forcing Dean to raise his voice to be heard, and under the commotion, Castiel heard something else. He tapped Gabriel on the shoulder and pointed questioningly in the direction of the exit door that they were closest to, asking with his eyes if Gabriel had heard the same thing he had: the sound of footsteps. Gabe nodded and turned to whisper something into Samandriel’s ear. Within a minute, all the Angels were on the alert.

Castiel returned his attention to Dean. He hadn’t known the young man long, but it was obvious to him that Dean’s words were not currently his own, and it was becoming more obvious by the second that the rest of the crowd was starting to realize that too. Still, he continued to speak in a loud monotone, seemingly oblivious to his increasingly-restless audience. “The newspapers in this city are too big and too important to be controlled or brought down by the likes of us. In the grand scheme of things, a tenth of a cent means nothing to us, but everything to them. My anger at their perceived injustice was misplaced, and I apologize for bringing all of you along with me on this misguided crusade. That is why it is my duty to announce that, as of this moment, this strike is over. The price increase will become standard across all of the newspapers in the city tomorrow morning. All I would ask of you now is that you return to your jobs and your lives without complaint. Thank you for your time.”

Castiel had to strain to hear the last few lines of Dean’s speech over the roar of the crowd, which had erupted as soon as he had said the words “the strike is over”. Newsies began to shout and curse and throw things at Dean. A few of them even tried to rush the stage, but were held back by the Angels, who had spread out and were trying their best to keep the crowd under some sort of control. As soon as Dean’s speech was finished, two men—Castiel recognized them as two of the DiAngelus brothers, employees of his father—came onstage to lead Dean away, and, as if that was some sort of signal, all the doors to the theater burst open. The hall was suddenly flooded with policemen and thugs, all wielding bats and billy clubs and handcuffs. As soon as the newsies realized what was happening, any modicum of control that Gabriel and his brothers had managed to gain over the crowd was lost to a panicked riot. Castiel found himself frozen in place, torn by the desire to wade into the fray and help his brothers and the panic in his gut that was telling him to run away from here as fast as he possibly could.

Gabriel made the decision for him. “You have to get out of here, Cas,” he shouted as he grabbed Castiel and shoved him towards the stage door that he had come through earlier. “I know Dean didn’t mean a word of what he just said. You’re the only one that can find out what happened and get him to set this right, but you can’t do that if you get arrested. Now, run!”

Castiel wanted to protest, but he knew his brother was right, so he ran. He bolted up the stairs, yanked open the stage door, and hurled himself into the mass of curtains in the wings, not even stopping to see if anyone was following him. But he time he was halfway down the backstage corridor towards the exit to the alley, he was pretty sure that no one had seen him leave, but then a deep voice from ahead of him, talking about ‘picking off stragglers’, froze him in his tracks. With a wild look around, he grabbed the first doorknob he saw, twisted it, and stumbled through the open door before the owners of those voices could turn the corner and see him. Leaving the door ajar, he hid behind it, holding his breath until they passed and he could close it soundlessly without them noticing.

As he turned to see where he’d be hiding out until the coast was clear, he realized that he had inadvertently entered the storage room where Dean had been hiding before the rally started. What he saw in front of him was not at all what he had expected, though. This storeroom was full of shelves of paints and brushes, stacks of old canvas backdrops, easels and drawing boards in various sizes, and a wall covered in smaller canvases that depicted a number of the stage backdrops at smaller sizes. Castiel knew from Jo’s bragging about it that Dean was the artist responsible for most, if not all, of the paintings in this room. In fact, he could probably pick out exactly which ones had been Dean’s work; as he examined the wall more closely, he noticed that a number of the canvases had been slashed through or defaced with ragged brushstrokes of black paint. In the far corner, next to an easel with a half-finished painting still sitting on it, a small table had been overturned, scattering paints, brushes, and several leather-bound books across the floor. Castiel bent over to pick up the book closest to him. He recognized them; Dean was always carrying one around in his back pocket. When he flipped it open, he wasn’t particularly surprised by what he saw.

It was a sketchbook, done with the same hand that had painted the now-damaged canvases on the wall. Every page was filled with pencil drawings of people, places, and objects around the city. One page was a detailed study of hands, another a rough outline of the city skyline at sunset. A drawing of a toddler with a broad smile and sparkling eyes shared a page with an ethereal drawing of a young woman holding a baby and a man with a haggard face that carried the faintest traces of an affectionate smile; down in the corner, in a rough scrawl at odds with the steady hand that had drawn the figures was a single word: Family. With a lump in his throat, Castiel righted the table and placed the book reverently on top of it, then bent down to pick up the next one.

He flipped through each book as he picked it up to set back on the table. There were drawings of many of the newsies that he had come to know over the last few days, sketches of people on the street, and a few risqué portraits of girls and boys both that made Castiel blush and close one sketchbook prematurely. One book contained a series of pictures of horses, cactuses, and desert landscapes, followed by a page of scribbled notes, numbers, and dates that appeared to have been recently updated. Another held a breathtaking study of the ocean, including one of Sam standing with his feet in the water at the beach, his expression distant as he stared out at the endless horizon. The only thing Dean never drew, Castiel noted, was himself.

But nothing truly stopped him in his tracks until he opened the last book. There was nothing beautiful about the drawings in that book. The faces of the children in its pages were hollow with hunger, their eyes void of life and hope. A hand holding a riding crop was raised threateningly over a bare back covered in welts and bruises whose owner was so thin that the shadows of their protruding shoulder blades looked like wings. Maggots crawled out of a piece of moldy bread so realistically drawn that it made Castiel a bit nauseous. A pair of hands, the wrists connected by handcuffs worn so long that they had left bruises, were clutching at metal bars set in a tiny window through which only a sliver of the sky could be seen. The entire sketchbook was full of similarly heart-wrenching images, each one so accurately captured that there was no denying that they had been taken from real life. But it was the last drawing in the book that truly shocked Castiel. He swallowed a sob as he closed the book and slipped it into his coat pocket instead of placing it next to the others. He no longer had to speculate about what had driven Dean to give up on the strike, and, what was worse, Castiel couldn’t even blame him for making the decision he did. The only problem now was that he wasn’t sure that there was anything he could do to make this right.

It wasn’t going to stop him from trying, though, as soon as he could find a way out of here and track his friend down. He had just about made up his mind to brave the corridor again and try to get to the exit when he heard the door behind him open. He froze, waiting for the person who entered to make the first move. He heard footsteps, then the door closed again and a voice said, “Hello, James.”

Castiel closed his eyes. It was too late. Because he knew that voice, and if it knew him by that name, then the strike was as good as over.

Chapter Text

It was finally over. For real, this time. As Dean watched the cops surge through the theater doors, just before Uriel and Virgil grabbed him and dragged him back through the curtains, he could see that the riot would fall out as expected. By morning, most of his friends would be in jail, the strike would be over, and his only salvation would be the fact that he was never going to see any of his fellow newsies again. He hated himself for betraying them, but he couldn’t help but wonder if any of them would have understood if he’d been given a chance to explain why he did it.

It was too late for what-ifs now, though. Too late to do anything but gather up his things and try not to look back as he left behind the only home that he had ever known. Despite the fact that he’d spent years wanting to get away, now that it was finally happening, it was harder to let go than he had expected. Maybe that was just because of the circumstances behind his departure, though.

Whatever the reason, he couldn’t leave without taking his memories of the city with him, so when his two escorts got distracted in their attempts to clear a path for him, he slipped away from them and headed back to the storeroom where he’d left all his sketchbooks. They would track him down again, eventually, and if they didn’t, it wasn’t like he was really going anywhere. Pulitzer still held his only chance at freedom, after all.

When Dean reached the storeroom, he was surprised to find it occupied, and his heart sank when he recognized the intruder. This was the one confrontation that he’d been hoping to avoid the most. The room’s occupant was standing between Dean and his sketchbooks, though, and if Dean left now, he would probably never get another chance to retrieve them. Best to get it over with quickly.

“Hello, James.”

Cas flinched, and Dean knew that the other man had recognized his voice. He turned to face Dean, his expression not one of anger, as Dean had expected, but resignation. “Hello, Dean. I’m surprised you’re not already far away from here.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I don’t want to be. I just needed to pick up some things that I left here before I go. If you don’t mind?” He gestured at the table, and Cas stepped aside, silent and watchful as Dean crossed the room to the table and started slipping the sketchbooks into the pockets of his new coat. He could feel Cas’s eyes on him as he examined each one for signs of damage from his earlier outburst. It was making his shoulder blades itch. Finally, unable to stand the silence any longer, he blurted out, “Aren’t you going to ask?”

“Ask about what?”

About why he was doing this, about why he’d sold out and betrayed his friends… The words were on the tip of his tongue when Dean decided that he didn’t want to know the answer to that question, so he blurted out instead, “About how I know your real name.”

“Oh, that.” Cas looked uncomfortable. “I surmised, from your speech out there and your new attire, that you had spoken to my father. I assume that it was he who told you my full name and my real identity. I don’t blame you for being angry at me, Dean. I should have told you the truth from the beginning. I only hope that discovering my deception did not constitute the bulk of your decision to turn your back on the strike, because, though I may have lied about my name, I never lied about my intentions. I always believed in you, and in the strike, and I still do.”

A lump rose in Dean’s throat, and he couldn’t look Cas in the eye. “Yeah, maybe you should have told me, Cas, but finding out that Pulitzer’s your father didn’t have anything to do with it. He didn’t tell me who you were. I think he knew I wouldn’t have believed him if he had, so he showed me instead. I was at his mansion last night, held by his thugs in the other room when you came in to talk to him. I heard every word you said to him, Cas. So, no, I never doubted your intentions, and I understand that you not telling me who you really were had nothing to do with me or the strike and everything to do with you deciding who you really want to be. That’s not why I made the speech, or why I’m leaving.”

“I know.” Cas reached into one of the pockets of his coat and pulled out one of Dean’s sketchbooks. It was Dean’s turn to wince when he realized which one it was. “I looked through all your sketchbooks, Dean. You are a truly gifted artist. I was hoping you would explain this one to me, though. I will not diminish the suffering you have obviously seen and experienced by asking if all of these sketches come from real life, but I would like to know where and when these things happened, and if there is anything I can do to help.”

Cas flipped the sketchbook open to the last page, and Dean was instantly transported back to the events of last night. After he had finished with his threats, Pulitzer had been generous with his terms. “But, if you help me use the rally tomorrow to end the strike,” he’d said, “I will promise you three things. I will not interfere with my son’s life or his future career, I will not press charges against any of the newsies, provided they agree to return to work without complaint, and you and your brother will both be released and given enough money to start lives elsewhere, as long as you agree to leave the city and never return.”

“Not like I’d be able to, with terms like that,” Dean had retorted. “I sell out my friends like you’re asking, I’d never be able to show my face around here again anyway.”

“Precisely, Mister Winchester. Now, I believe that my terms are reasonable and straightforward, but I do not want you rushing into a situation that you may later come to regret, so I am giving you the night to think it over. And, as a show of my good intentions, Mister Alastair here is going to take you to see your brother.”

“No flies escape my web for long.” Alastair had smirked as he had taken Dean’s arm from the grip of the DiAngelus brothers. Though Pulitzer’s offer had seemed like a kindness, it had only taken getting into Alastair’s carriage with him to realize that it had been anything but. That was when the handcuffs had gone on, and everything had just gotten worse from there.

Dean took the sketchbook from Cas and traced one finger over the image that he had committed to paper this morning. “Two years ago,” he said in a soft voice, “before Sam and I had jobs as newsies, we were living on the streets, barely surviving. Our father had just died, and though he hadn’t been the best provider, with him gone we’d lost the roof over our heads and the money that he’d brought in working odd jobs when he was sober. We were hungry, and desperate, and I was too scared to ask anyone we knew for help, so I tried to support Sam all on my own. I couldn’t let my little brother starve, so I worked when I could find it, begged when I couldn’t find work, and stole when there was nothing else I could do. And, one day, I got caught.

“They’ll tell you that they go easy on young first-time offenders, that the Refuge is there to reform and rehabilitate young criminals, but they’d be lying. I spent four months behind bars in that hellhole; I drew all that when I got out, so that I would never forget the others that were still suffering, even if I couldn’t do anything about it. And when I say I got out… it wasn’t like they released me once I’d served my sentence or anything. If I hadn’t escaped, I’d still be there. But I wasn’t about to leave my brother alone out here—he could have starved on the streets, for all I knew—so, after weeks of planning and the help of some of the other inmates, I managed to slip out of there underneath a visiting big-wig’s carriage.”

“Any big-wig in particular?”

“The governor, actually.”

“Roosevelt?”

Dean nodded. “He was a regular visitor. Making sure the government’s money is being well-spent, I guess.”

“He’s seen that place and doesn’t do anything about it?” Cas was looking appalled and… disappointed? That seemed odd, until Dean realized that, with his connections, Cas had probably met the man before.

“He doesn’t know how it really is. They’re scheduled inspections, so Alastair always whips the place into shape just for him—puts blankets on the beds, gets rid of the moldy food in the kitchen, buys fruits and vegetables—and knowing what he can do once the inspection’s over to anyone who says a word about the deception is more than enough to keep the kids’ mouths shut. Anyway… staying as far away from that place as possible has been my only goal ever since I got out… or, at least, it was until this whole fiasco. If I ever got sent back there, I’d never breathe free air again—instead of getting out at eighteen, they’d send me straight on to prison. I wasn’t going to risk that, not with Sam to look after. But then the price increase happened, and I had all these kids looking to me, kids that I could help, that I could protect from the people in power who do nothing but beat them down and step all over them. I didn’t forget what was really important, but I didn’t realize how easy it would be for someone to use it against me. Bobby tried to warn me, but I didn’t listen, and now…”

Dean closed the sketchbook. He didn’t need to look at the drawing of his brother in order to relive last night in all its gory details: the biting cold that had gone straight through his clothes as soon as he was shoved into Sam’s cell, the sharp tang of blood and urine that had permeated his nostrils and made his eyes water as he strained to see into the darkness. Not that he’d needed to see to know exactly where he was—he’d spent most of his four months at the Refuge locked up in that very same room. He’d known it more intimately than he cared to remember, which meant that he’d known exactly where to look to find his brother.

Sam had been curled up on a filthy mattress on the floor along the room’s far wall—not that ‘far’ was a particularly accurate description, given that it was less than five paces from the door. His eyes had been closed, and he’d been shivering in his sleep. Dean had pulled off his jacket and gone to his knees to cover Sam with it, and that was when he’d seen Sam’s crutch lying shattered on the floor, and the bandages wrapped around his forehead and his arm and his chest, some of them still spotted with blood, and the bruises all over his face, and the black eye that was still swollen shut. At least Alastair hadn’t been lying about doing something about Sam’s injuries, but the knowledge that his brother had probably been given nothing else before being locked in here to freeze and starve had brought tears to Dean’s eyes. He hadn’t even cared how it would look to anyone coming into the room to check on him later; he’d laid down next to his little brother and pulled Sam into his arms, soothing his soft whimpers of pain and whispering apologies as their shared body heat gradually lessened Sam’s shivering and allowed him to fall into a more restful sleep.

Alastair had come back for Dean after less than an hour to take him to his own cell for the rest of the night, and he hadn’t hesitated to make his own promises concerning Sam: namely, that if Dean didn’t take Pulitzer’s deal, Alastair would personally make sure that Dean never saw his little brother again. The choice to accept Pulitzer’s terms hadn’t been that difficult a decision to make after that. Nothing was worth losing Sam.

Dean had committed the image of his brother in that cell to paper in order to have some way of explaining to Sam why he’d made the choice he did, and though Cas was the last person that he would have wanted to see any of the things he’d drawn in that sketchbook, he couldn’t help but be glad that seeing it had helped Cas understand his choice also. At least he could leave the city knowing that there was one person who wouldn’t hate and despise him for it.

“What did my father threaten you with, Dean?” Cas’s voice pulled Dean out of his memories. He realized he was practically crushing the sketchbook in his hand; with an effort, he loosened his grip and slipped it into his jacket pocket with the others. “Because if it’s Sam’s safety,” Cas was saying, “there are other ways to fight that. You don’t have to just give up.”

Dean shook his head. “It’s not just that. And it’s not just what Pulitzer’s threatening. It’s what he promised. He didn’t just go after Sam; if I didn’t end this tonight, he would have gone after you, and all the newsies, and Bobby and Ellen too. But now, he won’t do anything to hurt any of you. Alastair will release Sam, and by this time tomorrow, Sam and I will be on a train out of here to Santa Fe, just like I’ve always promised him. Sam will get the life that he deserves, you’ll get your chance to be a reporter, and everyone else will get to keep the lives that they had before this whole mess began.” And all it had cost him was his soul.

Cas frowned, and opened his mouth, probably to say something about how he didn’t need protecting, but a loud banging on the storeroom door interrupted him. “Come out, Mister Winchester,” Virgil DiAngelus shouted from the hallway. “Don’t know what you’re hiding from, but the coast is clear, and the boss is waiting for you, so get out here, or we’re coming in!”

Dean motioned for Cas to duck down behind the shelves, and went to open the door, not even sparing a last look back or a glance at his friend. Just as he put his hand on the doorknob, though, it burst inward and Pulitzer’s thugs shouldered their way into the room. “Hiding like the rat you are, Winchester?” Uriel sneered as they reached for him. Then, they both froze in their tracks. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t little Jimmy.”

Dean glanced over his shoulder and almost snarled in frustration to see that Cas hadn’t made an effort to hide. He was still standing in the middle of the room, looking thoroughly unimpressed by the DiAngelus’s entrance. “Uriel, Virgil,” he greeted them cooly. “What business do you have here tonight?”

“We’re keeping an eye on this little punk until he fulfills his end of the bargain that he made with Mister Pulitzer to end the strike,” Virgil explained with a sneer.

“Really? Well, I’d say, given the effectiveness of his speech out there, that he has more than held up his end of the bargain,” Castiel replied. “Therefore, your services are no longer required.”

“I wouldn’t dismiss us so quickly, Jimmy,” Uriel said. The way that they kept saying Cas’s other name was starting to irritate Dean. “Your boy here made a lot of enemies out there tonight. He might be glad of an escort back to the World’s offices this evening, given that we know for a fact not all of the newsies were arrested.”

That afforded Dean a little relief from the knot in his stomach that swelled whenever he thought about what he had just done to all his friends. “It’s okay, Cas,” he said. “This is all part of the deal.” He stepped forward, pulling something from his trouser pocket that he had slipped in there before the rally had started. “Thanks for understanding, and trying to help me.” He took Cas’s hand and slipped the piece of paper into it. When Dean released his hand, Cas immediately opened it and looked at the paper. It was a sketch Dean had done of Cas up in the dance hall’s balcony the night they first met—the only sketch Dean had of Cas, but his friend didn’t need to know that—and, in Dean’s opinion, it perfectly captured everything that he knew and loved about the young man he’d come to know so well over the past week. Behind the intense stare and the seemingly permanent puzzled expression on Cas’s face lay a smile that could light up a room, a brilliant mind, a quick wit, and a heart that was a hell of a lot bigger than Dean had ever expected. He didn’t deserve Cas’s friendship, or his unwavering support, or his faith, but he had been given them, and he considered himself damn lucky to have known the man, even if it was just for a week. “Thanks for… everything,” he choked out as he clapped Cas on the shoulder. “Take care, Cas.”

His shoulder blades were itching again as he let Virgil take his arm and escort him from the room. He wanted to look back, to catch one last glimpse of those intense blue eyes, but he was afraid that if he did, it would become impossible to turn his back on them again.

* * * * * * * * * *

The cellar of the World’s office building was almost as cold as his cell in the Refuge had been. Dean had hated the clothes that Pulitzer had dressed him in for the rally, but now he was missing the warmth and weight of them as he shivered and tried to pull his old, threadbare jacket tighter around his shoulders. “It’s never cold in Santa Fe,” he murmured into the silence, letting visions of cactuses and dust devils and the heat haze of a desert sun dance before his half-closed eyes. In the morning, Pulitzer had promised, Sam would be returned to him and they would be dropped off at the train station with enough money in their pockets to take them anywhere they wanted to go… assuming he didn’t freeze to death first.

A soft scraping sound from across the room had him backing up against the wall in a state of high alert. There weren’t rats down here, were there? Well, aside from himself… The scraping sound came again, but this time it sounded loud and purposeful. Dean’s hand scrabbled against the machinery to his left, searching for a weapon and finding nothing. His heart was racing; he held his breath, trying not to make a sound.

Then, there was the sound of a match striking, and a flare of light, and then a hand, reaching up to light the wick of the kerosene lamp that Dean had hit his head on when he’d been shoved down here in the dark. Dean’s mouth fell open as the bright flame chased away the shadows and showed him the face of the intruder. “Cas? How the hell…?”

Cas was grinning broadly. “You’re not the only one who can gain vital information by eavesdropping at office doors,” he said, “though, in my case, it was rather more voluntary that yours. I followed you back here, Dean. I wanted to see if my father would keep his promise, and when I heard that he was locking you down here to wait out the night… this is an opportunity we can’t afford to waste, Dean.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you know what that is?” Cas asked, pointing at the hulking piece of machinery that Dean was standing next to.

Dean turned and took a look at it for the first time. “It’s a printing press,” he said after a moment’s study. “Not exactly obsolete, but not efficient enough to support the World’s distribution numbers.”

“Exactly,” Cas said. “They store half a dozen of these down here as a contingency in case anything goes wrong with the big machines upstairs. Do you realize what this means, Dean?”

Still confused, Dean shook his head. He was tired, and heartsick, and didn’t want to make this any harder on either his friend or himself. “Cas, please, can we just…”

“It means that Pulitzer’s just handed us everything we need to take him down once and for all.”

Anger welled up in Dean’s chest. “Give it up, Cas!” he found himself shouting. “The strike is over, don’t you get it? Over! I am not risking your life, or the lives of my friends, or the life of my little brother,” especially the life of his little brother, “on this stupid, pointless crusade any more! I can’t… I can’t lose anyone else. Please, Cas, just go home. “ His anger burned out as quickly as it had been sparked and he slumped back to the floor, pulling away as his friend came towards him. “It’s not worth it. I’m not worth it.”

“That’s not true, Dean.” Cas’s voice was low and soothing as he went to his knees and put a hand on Dean’s trembling shoulder. “You are worth it. I was captivated by your fearlessness and charm the first time we met, but it wasn’t until I saw you speaking at the statue out there, calling for a strike, that I realized that I had met someone truly remarkable. I know we can see this thing through. We can undo all the damage that my father tried to do by threatening you, we can clear your name and get all of our demands met, and we can do it all without risking Sam, or any of the other newsies, or ourselves. But I need you to trust me, Dean. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know…” Dean was too tired to argue with his friend any more. He had no idea where Cas was going with this, but it really seemed like his best strategy at the moment was just to sit back and let it happen.

Cas seemed a bit disappointed by his non-committal answer, but he didn’t let it dim any of his enthusiasm. “Okay, well, maybe this will change your mind.” He got to his feet and headed back across the room. Dean saw that a casement window in the wall at street level was slightly ajar; he was pretty sure that it hadn’t been that way when he’d first been dragged down here. When Cas pushed it open, it made the same scraping noise that Dean had heard earlier. In a loud whisper, Cas called through the window to the street, “Coast’s clear, but we don’t have much time left, and our fearless leader still needs some convincing. Anyone got any advice?”

Dean shot to his feet when he realized what was going on, and his heart began to beat faster as he watched Gabriel, Benny, Chuck, and Charlie climb through the window one at a time and land with a series of soft thumps on the cellar floor. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to them, and he still had no idea what Cas could be planning, but he was sure of one thing: whatever they did tonight was going to end this strike one way or another, once and for all.

Chapter Text

“Mister Winchester, would you care to explain this to me?”

Pulitzer was displaying a lot more self-control than Dean had been expecting, but he could tell from the red tinge to the man’s cheeks and ears that he was livid. Cas had given Dean a few tips on how to handle the man, though, and it appeared that they were about to be incredibly useful.

“It appears to be a newspaper, sir. I thought you printed these things for a living. Shouldn’t you know one when you see one?” That might have been a bit much, but Dean didn’t care any more. Though Pulitzer didn’t know it yet, he no longer had anything to hold over Dean’s head. Last night, in the basement of this very building, he had taken back his life, his freedom, and his integrity. With the help of his friends, and a few of Pulitzer’s own printing presses, he had given the strike more momentum than even he had thought possible. The proof of it was currently standing in the square outside and spilling out onto the streets for three city blocks in every direction, and the catalyst was the single sheet of newsprint sitting on Pulitzer’s desk. On one side, under the words “THE NEWSIES’ BANNER” the headline read, “THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE: When the Youth Speak Truth to Power,” by Castiel Novak. On the other side, accompanied by several of his very own drawings, was an article titled, “FOUR MONTHS IN HELL: Behind the Refuge Walls,” by Dean Winchester.

Dean had been extremely reluctant to let his words be printed alongside Cas’s in their newspaper, but he didn’t think he’d ever been prouder of himself over anything than he was over seeing his name in print like that. And though he wasn’t sure how, Cas had promised Dean that an article about the Refuge was just as necessary to their plans to end the strike in their favor as Cas’s own article about the exploitative nature of the child labor force in New York would be. Dean had seen the power of Cas’s words first-hand—they were the reason for the howling crowd outside Pulitzer’s office window right now—and he knew that he was not nearly as eloquent as his friend, but Cas had asked for Dean’s trust, and after the miracles that he had pulled off last night, he had it unconditionally.

Dean wasn’t sure what had surprised him more down in that cellar: coming face-to-face with the friends he had betrayed and finding out that they all understood and forgave him for it, or being told that Cas had gone straight from their meeting in the dance hall’s storeroom to the jail, where he’d paid the bail for every single newsie that had been swept up in the raid. But the shock that he’d felt at those two revelations had been quickly subsumed by a new wave of disbelief when Cas had explained why they were all there: while Pulitzer and his cronies were still unaware of the fact that they hadn't broken the strike completely, Cas intended to make a move that would get not just the newsies, but every poor, young, exploited worker in the city on their side.

“I’ve been working on this article for a while,” Cas had explained, “about the child laborers of New York City. It was going to be my showcase piece when I started looking for work as a reporter, but I managed to get the job at the Sun before I finished it. Working with the strike gave me enough content to complete it, and now is the perfect time to print it, but as long as Pulitzer is keeping every paper in the city from printing anything that could even be seen as remotely sympathetic to our cause, no one will touch it. So, I figured, why not distribute our own paper? We’ve got all the equipment we need right here, and if we get it out there tonight, in the hands of the right people, by the time the rest of the city wakes up in the morning, it will be too late for anyone to do anything about it.”

“Who are the right people?” Dean had asked. He had still been confused, and wary of doing anything else to antagonize Pulitzer, but Cas’s enthusiasm had been more than a little infectious.

It had been Chuck who had answered him, though. “The kids like us,” he had explained. “The newsies, the shoeshine boys, the scullery maids, the messenger boys, the shop girls, the chimney sweeps, the kids who work in the factories and on the docks and in the warehouses… We’re not the only ones who get stepped on. We’re not the only ones who need a voice, but, right now, we’re the only ones who are trying to say anything. If we told them all what’s happening, got them all on our side and marching with us, this city would shut down. Pulitzer and his cronies and all the other rich people like him, they think they run this town, but they don’t. We’re the ones with the power. All we have to do is use it.”

“You’re not wrong,” Dean had told them, trying to keep from either agreeing enthusiastically with their plan or kicking himself for not having thought of it sooner, “but why do you have to involve me? You know why I tried to step away from this. You know what Pulitzer’s going to do to my brother if I don’t cooperate with him. I can’t risk Sam, not even for as perfect a plan as this one. I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Cas had told him, and everyone else had agreed, “but I can promise you that Sam will be safe. I have already called in a favor with an old friend. If you help us, Dean, by tomorrow morning, neither Alastair nor my father will be able to do anything to keep Sam away from you. But I need you to trust me, because, in order for my plan to work completely, I need something very important from you.”

“What’s that?”

“An article to print alongside mine. An article about the Refuge.”

It had taken a little more convincing than that, but in the end, Dean had chosen to trust his friend, and to say that he was impressed by the results would be an understatement. Last night, while the rich men who thought they ran the city had slept, Dean and Cas had cranked out their paper, and with the help of the Angels and the rest of the newsies, had managed to get it into the hands of practically ever kid in the city who had to work for a living. The people of New York had woken up this morning to find the whole place at a standstill, and Pulitzer had entered his office to discover that he was the cause of it all. His impotent rage at this fact made Dean happier than he was willing to express.

“I know it’s a paper, you insolent street rat!” Pulitzer growled, grabbing up the piece of newsprint and crumpling it in his fist. “Who printed it for you? I will ruin them so fast, they won’t know what hit them!”

“Why, that would be you, sir,” Dean said innocently. “I suppose I should thank you for giving me access to your presses last night. I know they aren’t where your best work comes from, but they were more than suitable to our needs. And your son was very helpful also. He’s going to be the Sun’s top reporter some day, you know.”

The sound that came out of Pulitzer’s throat at the mention of Cas was practically feral. “I will deal with my… son… shortly. I believe you have forgotten the terms of our deal, though, Mister Winchester. I have already placed a call to the Refuge. Mister Alastair should be along shortly to collect you. I hope you said your goodbyes to your brother, because I doubt that you will be seeing him again.”

“Yeah, about that…” Dean’s nonchalance was not feigned this time. “You don’t have a leg to stand on anymore, Joe.” He had seen the carriage that had been making its slow way through the crowd to stop in front of the building, and, much to his surprise, had recognized it. Pulitzer, it seemed, did not, or maybe he hadn’t noticed. Right on cue, there was a frantic knock on the door, then, before Pulitzer had even opened his mouth, his secretary stuck his head around the door.

“Mister Pulitzer, sir? There’s someone out here asking to see you?”

“Tell them I’m busy!” Pulitzer shouted back. “What part of ‘we are not to be disturbed’ didn’t you understand?”

“But, sir, it’s…”

The man didn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence before the visitor barged straight past him into the office, followed, as Dean had expected, by Cas, who was grinning from ear to ear. “Joseph!” the tall, imposing figure who’d just barged through the door was bellowing, “what’s the meaning of all this?” He was holding the Newsie’s Banner aloft in one fist. “You’ve shut this city down over a measly tenth of a cent per paper?”

Pulitzer’s face went white. “Governor Roosevelt, sir! Please, come in. I can explain all of this, I swear!” As Pulitzer stammered and babbled and ran across the room to get the governor a chair, Cas stayed in the doorway and beckoned Dean over. Though he would have loved to stay and watch the show, Dean figured things would probably go better if he wasn’t there to antagonize the situation any further, so he headed towards the door, grinning from ear to ear.

“How did you…?” he asked once he reached Cas, gesturing over his shoulder at the governor.

“I’ll explain later,” Cas said, returning his smile. “Right now, there’s someone else here who really wants to see you.”

Dean opened his mouth to ask who, but the question died on his lips as he caught sight of the figure standing on the other side of the room.

“Sam?”

Dean almost fell to his knees right there, but he somehow managed to gain control of his trembling legs, and the next thing he knew, he was across the room and sweeping his little brother up into his arms.

“Sam!”

Sam’s face was still pale and bruised and covered in bandages, but he had been given a bath and new clothes, and someone had taken proper care of his injuries and had given him a new crutch. Dean was crying, but he didn’t care. He was pretty sure Sam was crying too; he had his arms wrapped almost too tightly around Dean’s neck and his face was buried in Dean’s shoulder.

“Missed you, Dee,” Dean heard him murmur.

“Missed you too, little brother.” Dean held Sam as tightly as he dared and vowed never to take his little brother’s presence for granted again. Hell, Sam would be lucky if Dean ever let him out of his sight again… for the next few months, at least.

They held each other for a long time, but eventually Dean’s arms began to ache. He reluctantly released Sam and set him back on his feet, then looked directly into his brother’s eyes and said the hardest thing he’d ever had to say. “Sam, I’m so sorry. If it wasn’t for me…”

“Shh.” Sam put a finger to Dean’s lips, stopping him mid-apology. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know what would happen. And besides, it was worth it. I’m going to be okay, and you helped so many more people than we ever expected to. They’re going to close down the Refuge, Dean!”

“Seriously? But… how…”

“It was your article.” Sam was holding his own copy of the paper, Dean noticed. He beamed with pride as he held it up. “You should have seen it, Dean. The governor came barging straight into the building, shouting Alastair’s name and demanding to know how he thought he could get away with using the government’s money to treat children so abominably. He opened the doors to all the cells himself, and Alastair and all his lackeys were taken away in handcuffs. It was glorious!” Sam beamed and hugged his brother again. “I’m so proud of you, Dean.” Then, he craned his neck to look around Dean. “And you too, Cas.”

Cas, who had been leaning against the wall next to the now-closed door to Pulitzer’s office—probably eavesdropping again, if the look on his face was any indication—blushed scarlet and bowed his head, but came across the room to join them readily enough at Sam’s beckoning. “I just wrote about the things people needed to know,” he said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck as he took in the proud grins from both Winchesters. “I should be thanking the two of you for giving me something to fight for and a reason to stand up to my father.”

“I’d say there’s plenty of thanks to go around.” Dean grinned and glanced at Sam, then the two brothers simultaneously tackled Cas, pinning him in two rib-creaking hugs. When they finally released him, all three were breathless and red-faced with laughter. “You’re a good man, Castiel Novak,” Dean said, putting an arm around his friend’s shoulders, “probably one of the best I’ve ever known. Never change, okay?”

“I’ll do my best not to,” Cas promised. He smiled up at Dean, then down at Sam. “I’m just glad that you are both all right. So, what happens now?”

“Well, that depends entirely on the two of them.” Dean gestured at the office door. “Any idea what they’re talking about in there?”

Cas shrugged. “My father was apologizing, and doing a lot of whining about his profit margins and how he was just doing his part to keep the rabble off the streets and give them a practical, real-world education. Didn’t sound like the governor was buying it. I hope they come to a compromise soon, though. Gabe was already getting antsy.”

“Think we should go down there and tell them to be patient?”

Sam wandered over and peered out of one of the windows overlooking the square. “Nah,” he concluded. “They’re restless down there, but not enough to cause trouble, and if we go out there too soon, we’ll just get their hopes up.”

“Well, since we’ve got time…” Dean made a beeline for the nearest armchair—an ornate, velvet-covered monstrosity—and flopped down in it with a sigh. “The rich may have terrible taste, but, man, do they ever know comfort.” He smirked at Cas, then said, “You gonna tell me how you got Governor Roosevelt in on this little scheme of yours? And why you didn’t tell me sooner?”

Cas shrugged as he took the armchair across from Dean, and Sam, not wanting to be left out, wandered away from the window and, after a judicious application of ‘puppy dog eyes,’ wormed his way onto Dean’s lap. “I wasn’t quite sure how to explain it,” he said, “and there were so many other things for you to worry about last night—writing your article, getting the paper printed and distributed—that I didn’t want to distract you. Governor Roosevelt is a friend of my father’s, obviously; I’ve known him for a number of years, and I’ve always respected his politics. I knew that, if I could just find some way to tell him the truth about the Refuge, that he would do everything in his power to stop it, which is why I had you write that article in the first place. Then, this morning, while everyone else was passing out the papers, I took one to his office and explained everything that’s been going on with the strike, and he reacted exactly as I expected him to.” Cas stopped talking suddenly and cocked his head, a bemused expression on his face. “Does that make me a newsie, do you suppose?”

Dean and Sam shared a look of their own, then they both laughed. “Absolutely, Cas,” Dean said. “Congratulations, you just sold your first pape. Not for money, exactly, but it makes you a newsie in my book.”

Cas blushed again, and started to laugh, but stopped suddenly at the sound of the office door opening. All three of them got to their feet as Pulitzer appeared in the doorway. “Gentlemen,” he said, sounding subdued. “Would you join us, please? I believe we have some business to discuss.”

* * * * * * * * * *

The restless crowd standing in the square outside of the World’s offices stilled at the sight of the office doors opening. Silence descended over four city blocks as the strikers and their supporters watched three young men and two older gentlemen exit the building. They stopped on the steps just in front of the closing door and looked out over the crowd, then the tallest of the young men leaned down and whispered something in the shortest one’s ear before lifting him up onto his shoulders and turning back to the crowd.

From atop Dean’s shoulders, Sam took a deep breath, then raised his crutch high over his head and shouted, “The strike is over!”

The crowd exploded in a cacophony of shouts and cheers. Kids threw hats, signs, and newspapers high into the air. Dean, Sam, and Cas descended the steps and were immediately mobbed by their friends and fellow newsies. Backs were slapped until they were sore, hands were shook until arms were tired, and hugs were given until their recipients were breathless. Dean’s head was spinning with so much giddy excitement that when someone asked him, “What were the terms?” he almost didn’t know what to say.

Cas came to his rescue. “The price increase remains,” he explained, “but Pulitzer has agreed to buy back any unsold papers at the end of every day, so you no longer have to eat the cost of any papers you can’t sell. He’s also agreed to add a liaison to his board of directors; someone who will be the voice of the newsies in matters pertaining to the paper as a whole.” The way that Cas refused to look at anyone while saying this told the assembled newsies exactly who’d been chosen for that position. “Pulitzer’s spoken to Hearst and most of the other newspaper men in the city, and they’ve all agreed to the terms as well. Also, the governor is going to be forming a committee on child welfare to make sure that all the other kids in the city that have to work aren’t being mistreated or exploited by their employers. Congratulations, gentlemen. You have accomplished a great thing here today.”

“You mean we’ve accomplished a great thing here today, little brother.” That came from Gabe, who’d edged his way through the crowd surrounding them to catch Cas up in a hug. “Congratulations, Cas.” Then, he turned to the crowd and boomed out, “Three cheers for Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak!”

“Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray! Hip, hip, hooray!” The crowd’s response was deafening, and before the echoes even had time to die away, the sound of the distribution bell could be heard pealing out over the din.

“All right, fellas, who’s ready to go out there and sell some papers!”

Dean’s head turned in surprise at the source of the shout. Chuck was standing on Horace Greeley’s statue so that he could be seen and heard by everyone, holding a stack of copies of the World aloft. The headline was something mundane about an increase in tariffs, but no one seemed to care. As the newsies headed off to pick up their own copies to sell, the rest of the crowd started to scatter back to their own places of employment, secure in the knowledge that, from today onward, things were going to be just a little bit better for all of them. In the end, only Dean, Sam, Cas, Chuck, Charlie, and Gabe were left standing in the square. A discarded copy of the Newsies’ Banner fluttered across the ground and came to rest across Dean’s shoe. He picked it up, looked at it with a smile, then smoothed it down, folded it, and slipped it into his pocket.

“So, what are you going to do now?” Cas asked.

Dean wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question. After hearing the terms that Pulitzer had initially put down on Dean’s cooperation, the governor had offered those same terms, no strings attached. If he and Sam really wanted to leave the city, they would be given train tickets to Santa Fe and enough money to help them get a fresh start there. The only problem was, Dean wasn’t so sure he wanted to go any more.

“What do you think, Sammy?” he asked, looking down at his little brother. Sam shrugged, looking as conflicted as Dean felt.

“Can I ask you just one question, Dean?”

Dean turned to look at Cas. “Sure, Cas.”

“What does Santa Fe have that New York doesn’t?”

Dean could have answered that question with a fairly extensive list, but it was Chuck’s question, interjected once the rest of them realized what was going on, that truly gave him pause. “More importantly, what’s New York got that Santa Fe doesn’t?”

The answer to that question was standing right in front of him. Santa Fe might have sunshine and open spaces and a fresh start, but New York was the only place in the world that held his friends, and the people who were as close to him as family, and the weight of a shared past that wouldn’t ever leave him, no matter how far he ran. This city knew him now, for better or for worse, and he had just fought a war to make it a better place for people just like him. Could he really turn his back on that accomplishment?

“You know,” he said after a long, tense silence, “Santa Fe’s not going anywhere. Who knows,” he put an arm around Sam’s shoulders and locked eyes with Cas, “maybe some day, we can all go visit it together.”

Grins slowly spread across the faces of his assembled friends, and Dean felt something warm blossoming deep inside his chest at the sight. Swinging Sam back up onto his shoulders, he turned towards the distribution office. “Now, whaddya say we get back to work? These papers ain’t gonna sell themselves, you know.”