63rd Ash, 4606
He was alone in the cold, and the sun had long since sunk below the horizon. It would be more precise to say that he was unaided in the cold, though; there were no shortage of pedestrians, but most did not stop. Those that did looked at his patched, threadbare coat and hurried on, perhaps thinking it was some kind of a trick.
His tears weren’t freezing to his face, but the bitter wind blowing in from the docks stung and made him regret each one that fell. He was starting to wonder if he was going to spend the night on the street, which would be a first for him. He didn’t love Lady Ryan’s, but it had four walls, a roof, and a bed, even if the walls were thin, the roof leaked, and the bed was mostly just a wooden frame with some cotton batting on top.
“Can you stand?”
Only one person he knew had a voice that was this hoarse and rough, as though he’d just woke up, at all times: Ned.
He shook his head. “My leg, Ned, it’s–”
“Broken.”
Thomas nodded.
The bigger boy knelt beside him, put one of Thomas’ arms on his shoulders, and lifted him up without much effort. Ned worked on the docks while Thomas cleaned houses, and Thomas was just now starting to appreciate some of the benefits that conferred beyond the older boy’s developed physique.
Ned didn’t ask him what happened on the way home, or even really talk. They focused on getting back, and managed to make it back just before Miss Hannegan shut the door for the evening.
“You’re late, the both of yous!” She said, gaze lingering on Thomas. “Don’t expect any special treatment, Thomas. You’ll do your chores and your work, same as before, as you’re likely just fakin’ it. And Ned, no one gets rich being a hero. If you’re late again, I’ll leave you out in the cold.”
For the first time Thomas could remember, Ned spoke up. “He needs a doctor, Miss. He can’t walk.”
“No backchat from you, boy!” She backhanded him across the face. It didn’t really seem to have much of an effect apart from making her perennially bad mood worse. “Just cause you’re tall enough to touch the ceiling, think you run the sodding place. You want it, you can have it. Every one of these rotten orphans can be yours.” And then she wandered off, muttering some of her favorite epithets under her breath.
Thomas expected Ned to just sort of deposit him in the hallway, good deed done, but instead, the older boy helped him up the stairs to the smaller dorm where he, Ned, and a few others stayed. The No-Hopers, Miss Hannegam called them, because no family would ever adopt an orphan that old, although Thomas had never seen a family take anyone older than about seven, so he hadn’t had much hope from the start.
The teen boys’ room was much smaller than the large ward-like bedroom Thomas had grown accustomed to, but there were also much fewer of them. It was true that they had no hope of adoption, but many had something better: apprenticeships. Boys either moved in with their masters or quit the orphanage for boarding houses, which offered the sort of meager comforts that nevertheless sounded like paradise compared to Lady Ryan’s: sausages at breakfast, roast beef on Fridays, a much later curfew, and no chores beyond an expectation that boarders not make a mess. Other than him and Ned, there were just two boys in a room meant for eight people, and after so many years in the little kids dorm it felt oddly private.
Ned helped him out of his coat, and put away his book belt, dutifully storing it with Thomas’ other meager position. Then he put away his own coat, which had clearly had a blanket sewn onto the end so that it would hang down properly and account for the boy’s height. It looked silly, but Thomas had to admit it was likely warmer than his own, which had been a hand-me-down from the Ryans themselves, a stylish coat so savaged by moths that it sometimes felt like it was mostly seams.
“Toilet?” Ned asked and Thomas nodded, sheepish despite himself.
After he’d been so assisted, Ned helped him get his pants back up and supported him while he washed his hands, before getting him back to bed, where he sat, half in shock, as the bigger boy helped him get undressed, starting with untying his mismatched leather shoes: one much big with an extra sock in the toe, and the other a bit too small.
“Try to keep your leg straight,” Ned said, and Thomas did his best as Ned rolled his socks off, then helped him to a standing position so he could be assisted in getting his trousers removed too. There wasn’t an easy way to do this part. Thomas cried out as he bent his broken limb to get the trouser leg off, holding onto Ned’s shoulder to brace himself, then sat down on the bed to get the other one off.
Ned even put the blanket over him so he wouldn’t have to fight to get under the sheets.
“Ned?” Thomas asked when it became clear the older boy still wasn’t leaving. He was just kind of hovering there. “Why did – why did you do all this, for me?”
Ned colored a bit, and shook his head with a funny smile. “Cause you’re my boyfriend.”
Thomas was about to open his mouth to say that Ned was clearly mistaken, when he stopped. Ned sat with him at dinner every day, and had for months. He’d taken Thomas out to a play and made out with him after. He brought Thomas gifts almost weekly with his wages from working on the docks; it wasn’t much, but – it was something. And he seemed to always be around, and hang on Thomas’ every word even though he didn’t say much in return.
In retrospect, it was sort of obvious. Ned, like Thomas, faded into the background, but in Ned’s case it was more because he was intensely quiet to the point of being almost non-verbal. Thomas just did so to get out of things, but Ned seemed to hate being the center of attention, which meant it was likely difficult for him to be a head taller than most full grown men with a body conditioned from heavy labor. It also meant that perhaps spending time with Thomas, giving him gifts, and taking him out were his way of showing that he cared.
Beyond that, Ned was rather handsome. He had pretty blue-grey eyes and sandy brown hair that he kept shorn very close to his head, and was often under a knit hat. When he took it off, which was rare, it stuck up everywhere and looked shaggy, but Thomas thought it was cute. He had a long nose that was a bit large for his face, which Thomas had thought looked funny at first but was beginning to come around to, and when he smiled, it was appealing, in a sly, crooked kind of way. Also, he was built quite sturdily, and Thomas was realizing he liked that in a guy, or at least liked that about this one.
“Well,” he responded when he could find the words, “thanks for doing all this, Ned. I didn’t think anyone would – you know.”
“Care?” Ned offered, and Thomas nodded. “I care,” he said with some difficulty. Clearly, all of this emoting had taken some toll on him.
In response, Thomas patted the bed, the side by his good leg. “Please don’t go,” was all he said.
That alone cost him so much, now that Ned knew how vulnerable he was right now, he half-expected the boy to grin and tell him it had all been an elaborate joke, or for the other boys to stream in for a second round of hazing.
Instead, Ned grabbed a rickety wooden chair meant for a large child or a small adult and stayed by Thomas’ side, taking his proffered hand in both of his own, and looking at Thomas with a fond smile.
When it came time for bed, Ned got ready with the other two boys in their room and did not return that evening, but it didn’t matter. Thomas didn’t sleep much due to the dull pain in his leg, and all he could think about was what the older boy had done for him. It didn’t end there. Ned did his chore rotation in the morning, and fetched a doctor, who confirmed that Thomas did indeed have a broken shin and put him in a plaster cast with a pair of crutches. All of that, the other boy somehow paid for; Thomas’ wages at the cleaning job were nothing of the magnitude where he could afford any of this, and Miss Hannegan’s refusal to pay remained steadfast because it had not happened at the orphanage.
Ned brought him food in the morning and the evening, and made one of the other boys still attending bring him his schoolwork, which he found out he was actually rather good at when the alternatives were staring at the wall or taking a nap. Most importantly, there were many more occasions to kiss, to hold hands, and to think about what a life with Ned could be like. He found himself being glad things had transpired as they had, because he realized now what he wanted in life: to be with the boy who meant more to him than anything in the world.
