jabbathehutt | Mist under the East River

Mist under the East River

No one even noticed what happened to the kids on Delancey. Or never talked about it, which amounted to the same thing.

The papers covered the accident that took the life of three construction workers on the Manhattan side of what will eventually become the second East River Bridge. They said digging hit an underground cave they didn't know was there, and the families were compensated widely.

No one talked about the handful of street kids who had taken to using the site as shelter at night. Who had, due to dares and a morbid curiosity, snuck into the site to find - not an underground cave but a secret basement. And this is because no one survived to talk about it afterwards.

Except Ezra Bridger. Who never does talk about it.

In fact, most people have probably forgotten he was even friends with those kids.

Now he sells papes and lives by his wits on the Lower East Side, tries to avoid making any more friends, and keeps himself to himself.

Well, as much as that's possible among the ragged army of New York City newsboys.

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That still means nothing to Ezra, but 'he's a busy man' is something he understands.

"Sounds like that's better than him being at home with you," he says, semi-idly, not looking at Spot.

Spot tenses slightly, for just a moment before he forces himself to relax, and then he nods.

"In a lot of ways, yes it is." He agrees "much better."

Not least because it meant he could spend more time with the newsies.

Ezra looks away, ducking his head slightly, trying to ignore the tension and apologise for it at the same time.

If there was a way he could help that situation, he probaby would, but he doesn't know where to start, like so much of this.

He's quiet for a minute, trying to remember what he wanted to say that meant meeting in private, and how to bring that up.

Spot falls silent as well, wondering if Ezra will say anything - he was the one who suggested this meeting, so he wonders if it was for a purpose, or if it was just so they could talk without worrying about either of their secrets. When Ezra isn't forthcoming, he searches for something to say himself.

"I guess you probably don't have to worry as much about your secret getting out, unless it's not as easy to hide as it seems?"

Ezra shakes his head, still looking down at the path running through the park.It's not that hard, except:

"As long as I fight the urge to do that mind trick thing on random assholes in the street. Then someone might see."

Spot snorts slightly.

"Yea, but that someone might be kind of grateful you did." he points out, giving Ezra a light nudge with his shoulder. He is grateful, still, because everything had been about to come tumbling down for him before Ezra showed up.

"That's not why I did it," Ezra says. "I mean, you don't owe me nothing."

He's pretty sure that Spot knows that - that he shouldn't feel obliged to hang out with Ezra after hours when he might get in trouble, that he doens't have to keep the favour he promised.

"But it's kinda nice to talk to someone about it. I ain't spoken about any of it before."

Spot nods, but he doesn't agree - regardless of Ezra's motivations, Spot owes him big time, and he will find a way to repay him for what he's done.

"Yea," he nods easily "Guess it must get kind of lonely, not being able to say anything."

He's not projecting, you are.

A quiet nod, and then Ezra takes a deep breath, steeling himself to talk about why it's so lonely, why he doesn't let anyone in.

Spot's already mixed up in this, he guesses.

"You know the bridge they're building down the block? At Delancey?"

Spot must know it, it goes to Brooklyn, after all.

"Yea, I know the one." Spot nods evenly. He doesn't get where this is going, but he can tell that whatever Ezra's about to say, it's clearly taking him some effort, which means it's important, so he waits patiently for him to explain.

"You remember the accident?" he says, grateful for the time and space being given for him to work through the words. "With the construction workers who died?"

About a year ago, now.

"Wasn't just construction workers," he says without thinking - they didn't know for sure that the kids who'd disappeared had died, but everybody suspected.

It's not until the words are out of his mouth that something clicks, and he looks up at Ezra in surprise.

"...What happened?"

Well, at least Ezra doesn't have to explain that, just work his way through. He assumes he doesn't need to explain why they were there - construction sites are often good places to sleep if you can get in.

"There was this - basement," he says slowly. "Where the construction guys must have broken through. It had these - metal boxes, a weird shape, on shelves. We were being stupid, trying to figure out what had happened, and Zeb opened one.

"It was like," he pauses, hesitantly, aware he's describing something impossible but it actually happened, and Spot already knows he can do impossible things, "these rocks, crystals, with this weird smoke coming off them. When it touched Zeb, it covered him, turned him black like a statue. We tired to help him, but..."

He holds up his hand, remembering the way the black stuff had covered him, made it impossible to move.

"I thought I was dying, then it just... fell off me. I was the only one that survived."

It sounds unlike anything Spot could even imagine, but after what he's seen Ezra do, with the seriousness in his tone, he doesn't want any time not believing him.

"And you don't know how you survived and.. they didn't?" he asks quietly - he already knows the answer is yes, he assumes Ezra would have said if there was any kind of indication why he'd been spared.

"Is that when it started?"

Ezra shakes his head no to the first question, rhetorical as it was.

"Yeah," he continues. "After that. The city was suddenly noisy on a whole new level. Spent ages trying to get it to quiet down."

"That must have been a lot to deal with." Spot says after a moment, he's not sure what else to say, but he can't even imagine what that must have been like - to lose his friends in mysterious circumstances and then to suddenly be able to do things nobody else could do? It's a wonder Ezra didn't lose his mind completely.

"Yeah, no kidding."

Ezra surprises himself by actually smiling, albeit ironically.

"Feels good to finally tell someone though."

"Yea... kind of a relief, when somebody knows your secrets..."

He doesn't think Ezra will miss he's talking about both of them. As dangerous as it is to have someone who knows, it's something of a relief, too, knowing that there's at least one person he doesn't have to pretend around.

Ezra doesn't miss that for a second, and he nods in agreement. Of course, he still doesn't understand why Spot does what he does, but he can accept it.

"Is it weird I never tried to figure out if there was anyone else? Never even went back there when work started again."

"I don't think it's weird... I don't think you'd have any reason to think there is, whatever happened.. who knows if it happened anywhere else, or if it happened again there, and if you were the only survivor..."

It's possible it did happen elsewhere, buried somewhere in a gas main explosion or building collapse or one of those other tragic occurrences that pepper the papes, but how would you even figure out something like that?

"I can understand why you wouldn't want to go back there."

"Yeah," says Ezra again. Because it's obvious, said out like that.

"But I do wonder, I guess. Course, I do. But I don't know how I'd find out."

And he could put off those questions until some rich kid posing as a Brooklyn newsie actually started asking them for him.

"There must be a way..." Spot muses, half to himself. The thing is, if there is a way, he can't think of it - there's three million people in this city, and the only way to tell if somebody has Ezra's power would be to catch them at it, and there's no way to watch everybody at once.

"We'd need to figure out if it happened anywhere else." he says eventually "Look through old newspaper stories, find similar accidents and talk to survivors."

It wouldn't be easy.

"If we can get old papes," says Ezra. But his tone changes through the sentence. It starts off as incredulous - who keeps old papers, they're for fishes. But then his voice slows as he realises who he's talking to, and he looks at Spot sideways.

"Can you get old papes?"

"Uh, yea," Spot nods, rubbing the back of his neck a little awkwardly "old Journals, definitely, but I think even some competitors' old issues too... There's this huge records room at the offices... "

He thinks he might have to be the one to go looking, though, and he's trying to work out how to pass that off to his father. Showing an interest in the business was probably enough, but he'd need a good cover story to keep him from getting suspicious.

"I might be able to sneak you in..."

"Yeah?"

It's a surprise, and not a bad one at all, that Spot would be able to go out on a limb for him. It's a risk, and one he's taking for a kid he's only just met.

"You could?"

So he focuses on the how, and not on the why for now. "Wouldn't that be hard?"

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