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Now Riff’s got one of the other Jets hanging off his shoulder, half-conscious, a little guy the boys nicknamed Baby John. The latest tussle came over a few Sharks that had been squatting in a building set to be demolished a few days from now. Walking down those cold cobblestone streets now, Riff recognized just how foolish the fight had been. Why bother when the apartments would be rubble twenty-four hours from now? He’d bared his teeth for a graveyard. Still, the summer heat got the best of him. Bernardo had gotten him on the concrete when Baby John tried to be a hero and come in between them. His reward for his bravery was a few knocked out teeth and what was coming to be a concussion.
At this time of night, there were few places Riff could go for quick medic help. Graziella’s got a first aid kit in her mother’s medicine cabinet, but so early in the morning would wake up the whole damn neighborhood. What was left of it, anyway. So there was only one place to go.
Riff shook the iron gates out in front of Doc’s corner store, patting Baby John whenever he made a particularly pained groan. The desolation spread out beside the corner store had Riff’s breath catching in throat. He’d known folks who had lived down there. And out in the apocalyptic masses of torn rock and sentiment, what Sharks could be lurking to finish the two of them off? A bunch of hyenas, they were. Inside, the shop lights flickered to life.
Riff knew he had a 50/50 chance of getting help. If Old Lady Valentina was the one to open the door, she’d take Baby John without complaint. She had a soft spot for him, Riff thought. Riff would have to wait outside, but that’d be alright. It gets hot inside the store, anyway. And then he’d leave Baby to lick his wounds with rubbing alcohol off the top shelf. The other 50 was a lost cause.
Speak of the devil, ‘cause just while Riff was thinking all this the door to the corner store opened to present him with a half-naked Tony standing in the doorway. Just what he needed after a night like tonight. Tony rubbed at his eyes, perhaps disbelieving the two were actually on his step. And the regrets for trying Doc’s corner store in the first place swam into Riff’s stomach like fat bricks. How fast could he get with a dead weight like Baby John hanging from his shoulder? Maybe he’d just leave him behind. Maybe Tony hadn’t seen him yet.
“Riff? What the hell are you doing here so late?” Tony muttered, voice thick with sleep and hair a mess. Riff wanted to melt into the street. How someone could be so attractive so effortlessly alluded him. His vacant hand ached to reach up and pat down Tony’s stray hairs. Instead, it came up to grip the doorway awkwardly.
“Baby John here got himself roughed up pretty good,” Riff gestured with his shoulder to the half-dead boy hanging off him. For the first time since he’d opened the door, Tony looked at something other than Riff.
“Oh, shit! Come here, give ‘em to me,” Tony reached for Baby John, strong arms effortlessly picking up the frail preteen and pulling him into the store. He left the door open behind him, and perhaps against his better judgement Riff took that as an invitation.
In the week or so he’d spent avoiding the store (since Tony got back from upstate) the place looked like it’d reverse-aged about twenty years. The counters were polished, floors spotless, shelves stocked neatly and organized. Riff admired both Tony and his handiwork as Tony got himself busy turning the shop counter into a hospital table. Baby John shifted around in discomfort on the hardwood surface.
“Are you gonna tell me what happened?” Tony asked, grabbing some rubbing alcohol and gauze off the shelf. Riff pulled himself away from the allure of Tony’s upper arms and found distraction in the many dials on the jukebox.
“Uh, yeah, we got into a rumble with the Sharks over some terrority a few blocks west. Baby John tried to be my white knight,” Riff said, absently pressing buttons.
“He’s missing more teeth than usual,” Tony said. Through his warped reflection in the glass of the jukebox, Riff watched himself take a deep breath. Tony was nothing, damnit, compared to the hell he’d just come from. The urge to run far, far away was still strong. But he was a Jet. And Jets don’t run from their problems - they fight them.
Riff turned around and walked to stand on the opposite side of the counter from Tony. In the fluorescent lighting of the store, John looked a little worse for wear than previously suspected. Something had torn up his leg, maybe a jagged piece of the wood flooring from the apartment they’d been tussling in.
Riff picked up a cotton ball and doused it in rubbing alcohol. He held down John’s leg and gently rubbed the ball along the gash in his leg. Baby John whimpered at the sting.
“Come on, kid, you can take a little alcohol,” Riff said, not unkindly.
“The lost teeth aren’t too noticeable,” Tony came in with his official diagnosis. He grabbed and opened John’s jaw, peeking deeper into his mouth. “Oh, Riff. Holy shit.”
“What?” Riff said, abandoning his post at John’s leg to see.
“He lost two teeth. One in the front and one in the back left,” Tony gestured to these areas, “But it’s not bad because they were his fucking baby teeth. They had to get knocked out at some point.” Riff’s stomach dropped.
“The kid still has baby teeth?” Riff whispered. Tony pointed at the front tooth. Sure enough, the adult tooth just barely coming in was visible through the gum. Tony closed John’s mouth carefully. The two men stood there, staring at the sleeping kid. Riff could feel his stomach churning like a train leaving Grand Central. He swallowed hard. Tony left for the back of the corner shop, turning the faucet to wash his hands. Riff pushed back the sticky strands of John’s hair that had latched onto his forehead.
He’d been only fourteen when Tony and him had started up the Jets. They’d had a run-in with a small-time rival gang and been beaten to a pulp. But there was safety in numbers. So they got some guys together and called themselves the Jets, a scruffy pack of preteens stumbling around the streets of Manhattan looking for trouble. But baby teeth meant John was, what? Thirteen? Riff scruffed his hair around.
Tony returned from the sink with a dripping wet towel, cool to the touch. He laid it on John’s forehead carefully, like a father spreading a blanket over his child. The sight made Riff go hot.
“Come on, let’s get him bandaged up,” Riff said, muttering as he attempted to distract himself from the butterflies. He moved back down to John’s leg. Hopefully it hadn’t caught on metal. When the cut was clean enough, Riff tore off a piece of the gauze and began wrapping it carefully around John’s leg. He tried to tie it, but the knot slipped from his hands. When Riff grabbed the ends of the gauze, he could see his hands were quivering. Tony, stoic as he tended to be, rounded the counter slowly and came to stand at Riff’s side. Riff tried the knot again. No dice. A few curses were probably uttered.
He felt Tony’s hands come in from the side and wrap around his own. They were consuming, much bigger than Riff’s scrawny long fingers. Along the palms, which rubbed against the backs of Riff’s hands, he could feel Tony’s callouses. The hands were so unbelievably warm. Even in the dry heat of a New York summer, Riff yearned for Tony’s warmth - it radiated off of him in waves. Riff could feel his eyes start to close and himself lean back into Tony’s warmth, head begging to rest against his chest. But he managed to catch his feet before they gave way, letting Tony steady his hands well enough to tie the bandage. When the gauze fell back against the counter, a clean leg, Tony didn’t seem too eager to move away from Riff’s hands.
“Tony,” Riff said. He tried to inject a warning tone, but it mostly came out as a whisper.
“What?” You could hear the grin in his voice. Riff squirmed his way out of Tony’s grip and returned to the jukebox for distance. It was not a good idea to let himself fall back into Tony. He’d spent the last year crawling his way out of hell, hell Tony put him in. With those hands. Riff felt idotic, the way his heart was practically beating out his chest. It was a bad idea. Tony clearly did not feel the same. He moved his big feet over to the jukebox, letting Riff press buttons as he leaned on its side to watch his fingers move.
“Baby John can sleep over here tonight, if it’s easier for you,” Tony offered.
“I can carry him back to my place just fine,” Riff said.
“Nah, you shouldn’t…don’t worry about it. Valentina won’t mind, promise.” Riff rolled his eyes. Always the nice guy.
When it came down to it, Riff knew he’d always find his way back to Tony. Even after that rumble a year ago, with another man’s blood on Tony’s hands, pigs racing after them, Riff let him hold him with those hands and drank all the promises of everything turning out alright. But then Tony disappeared upstate to the black hole of maximum security. Riff’d never been able to even say goodbye. And Tony never wrote, no matter how many embarrassing letters Riff mailed out over the months. So nothing was alright. Riff spent many long nights clinging to the fire escape and contemplating how quick it could be, if he slipped off the wet metal. Even in the heat, his bed was freezing. And the hole, consuming and inescapable, followed Riff like a shadow. It was a hole not easily filled.
It was never supposed to be like this.
“Do you want me to sleep over, too?” Riff snorted.
“Riff.” Tony’s tone was exasperated. When Tony reached for Riff, he side-stepped away. “Come on.”
“No, I’m sick of this! I’m sick of this, this dance ,” Riff said, gesturing to the whole six-foot something of Tony. “You’ve been stringing me along for a whole fucking year.”
“What?” Tony said. Riff traced the cracks in the hardwood with his gaze and avoided looking up.
“You never bothered to write, not even to let me know you got there safe. I bet you really enjoyed a year away from my shit, huh? I bet prison was a vacation from the Jets, from the upper west side, from me. Well, while you were having a ball in your dance hall, our neighborhood has been slipping away from us!” Riff gestured out the window, “Everyday another building comes down - Susie’s flower shop, Griz’s dad’s bar, the dress shop. Have you even bothered to look out at devastation beside the corner store? It’s the fucking apocalypse!”
Tony said nothing.
“I have done everything for these fucking kids! Kids we were supposed to protect. Together! And you can’t even bother, on your homecoming tour, to fucking say hello?” Riff wiped away the spit on the side of his mouth, feeling like he’d just puked all over the corner store floor. Tony blinked, as if to say you finished? Riff swallowed hard, and then suddenly was grabbing his collar. Tony slammed Riff into the wall of the corner store, not hard enough to bruise but enough to get his point across.
“You think going upstate was fun for me? Oh yeah, dickhead, I had a great time getting jumped at six in the morning and eating shit for dinner and working sixteen hours a day like a fucking slave. I was a fucking dog. I’ve scars all along me now, from fucking knives. A rumble is nothing. The upper west side is nothing . I have seen hell. You have no idea what that looks like,” Tony hissed through his front teeth, eyes wide and dangerous. He gave Riff another shove for emphasis, dropping him back onto the floor and storming away to pace like an upset bull.
“If the upper west side is nothing to you, why are you even here?” Riff snarled.
“Not like I want to be! There’s a reason I never said hello!”
“And what is that reason, Tony? The Jets too much to handle? I’m sorry you just don’t fuckin’ understand the concept of a promise-”
“No, Riff, you don’t understand! I was in the slammer for a fucking year! A whole year of time, to think about how fucking idotic this whole thing is!” Tony rubbed at his eyes, exhausted.
“We have shared the same pair of eyes for twenty years. Don’t try to make me feel like an idiot!”
“You’re not - God, can you shut up for one goddamn second?” Tony snapped. Riff opened his mouth to retort, shutting it promptly when he saw Baby John beginning to sit up on the counter. “I -”
“Buddy boy, you’re finally awake!” Riff cheered, slapping on a smile and rushing back over to the counter.
“Jesus, why are you fools yelling so goddamn much?” John held a hand to his head. “I’ve got a terrible headache.”
“You got banged up pretty good, boy,” Riff said. “But we patched you up alright. Tony’s kind enough to let you sleep over here tonight, so you don’t gotta walk home.” John blinked slowly and turned to Tony, moving like a sloth.
“Oh, gee. Thanks,” John murmured.
“No problem, Baby John,” Tony said, awkwardly shoving his hands in his front pockets and rolling on the balls of his heels. Riff could feel Tony trying to make eye contact. He kept his eyes on the floor.
“I’ll take you upstairs and get a blanket set up for you on Valentina’s couch,” Tony offered finally, walking over to Baby John and throwing an arm around his shoulder. He led Baby John towards the set of stairs in the back of the shop, glancing back at Riff over his shoulder.
The five minutes Riff waited for Tony to return to the first floor and probably beat Riff into a bloody pulp felt like waiting for death row. Felt like he was waiting a century. Riff walked back and forth, inspecting the candy, the various magazines, the cans of soda in the little fridge. Somewhere in the distance police sirens came and went. The dull buzz of the fluorescent open signs beat against Riff’s head, the colorful fist of a Shark, leaving him vulnerable on the corner shop floor. Despite trying so hard to avoid it, he was again desperately waiting for Tony to return and greet him. Finally, the stairs creaked.
“He’s a tough kid,” Tony said as he appeared at the end of the stairs, almost bashful in the way he ducked his head. Riff shuffled his feet, the lump in his throat blocking out almost all sound.
“Yeah, he is. I’m glad he’ll get some rest,” Riff agreed. “None of the Jets get any.” Tony cautiously took a step closer to Riff.
“You’re one to talk,” Tony cautiously joked. Riff found himself holding back a snort. It was scary, how easy it was to fall back into their tango.
“It’s hard to find sleep these days, fucking construction twenty-four-seven.”
“There’s always gonna be an extra seat with me and Valentina, if you want,” Tony offered. Riff folded his arms across his chest and turned towards the door. “I know food is tough, too.”
“Thanks, man, but no thanks. I know where I’m not welcome,” Riff said.
“No!” Tony said, voice echoing against the silent corner shop, now too close to Riff for comfort. “No, I…I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make you feel unwanted.”
“Really?” Riff said, snorting in disbelief.
“There’s never been a moment where I didn’t want you around,” Tony smiled and Riff could feel his feet lift off the ground. “But, jesus, Riff. I’m scared.”
“Scared of what?” Riff asked him quietly. He felt as though he were trespassing. Tony looked around anxiously. Riff stepped closer to him. Now about five feet apart, close by the counter, Riff could feel his hands itching to reach out and touch his.
“Scared of myself, mostly. And the Jets, and change, and all those nasty things. Things are so different now,” Tony shook his head. “I’m not who I was a year ago. You’re not who you were a year ago. And I did something…terrible. I never want to feel myself do that again.”
“You gotta get over that,” Riff said. “It’ll drive you mad, man.”
“Riff, I almost killed a guy. No, not a guy. A kid . For what? Territory? Some fucking block that’s gettin’ torn down the day after anyway?” Tony put his head in his hands. Riff reached out to grip his shoulder comfortingly.
“Sorry. I don’t mean to raise my voice again,” Tony smiled at Riff’s hand on his shoulder, “Do you wanna stay over? Maybe sleep downstairs?” The with me was unspoken. “It’s so late.”
“Sure, Tony,” Riff found himself answering before his brain could even really process the question. As Tony busied himself shutting down the store (turning off the lights, closing the gate, locking the front door) Riff could feel his heart beating in his throat. No matter how much he licked his lips, they stayed dry. Stayed planted at the counter, watching Tony with wide eyes. And then his feet led him after Tony down into the cool, dark basement of the corner store.
The majority of the basement was shelving for various products, all fairly dusty. There was a little mattress in the corner, with a tiny lamp balanced on a stack of pulp fiction and comics. The smile that bubbled to the surface Riff couldn’t contain. After everything, Tony still spent quarters on comics. But the smile had something else in it. There was something in the air of the basement, besides the dust bunnies beneath the bed. Both knew and did not say anything out loud, worried they might frighten the feeling away.
Tony moved over to his dresser and started getting out some pajamas, simple pairs of pants for the both of them.
“I know the bed is small, Riff, I’m sorry,” Tony said with his back turned.
“I’ve slept in worse places,” Riff shrugged. “Besides, you have a blanket. And a lamp. That’s five-star worthy.”
“Oh yeah? I hope I’ve been a good host,” Tony joked.
“Beside shoving me against a wall up there? It’s been alright,” Riff said. Tony flinched just slightly, turning to press his back against the dresser and face the other apologetically.
“Yeah, I’m sorry about that too. Sometimes I just get so…overwhelmed, with feelings you know, and I can’t think of any other way to get them out.”
“Come on, man, you know I’m not worried about it,” Riff waved him off. “I’m just glad to see you. The Jets missed you, punk.” I missed you.
“I missed them too.” I missed you too. And suddenly all sins were forgiven. Riff moved closer, feeling himself catch on Tony’s orbit. In the chill of the basement, the heat radiating off of Tony felt irresistible - slowly Riff shuffled closer.
“Everything’s so messed up now,” Tony said with a frown.
“Once a Jet, always a Jet,” Riff smiled in reply. That seemed to abate Tony’s existential crisis for a few beats, but then the frown returned.
“What happens when the upper west side disappears?” Tony said quietly. It was hard to admit to the future. Even being the only ones up, whispers were necessary.
“We’re family,” Riff affirmed. “That’s why we started the Jets. No one gets left behind. That’s a promise.”
“But I don’t know who I am anymore,” Tony said. “Jet or nothing.”
“Whatever you are, you’re a Jet,” Riff said. “You’re my - my friend.” They rotated impossibly closer, bending into the atmosphere of one another like initiating a dance. In the low light of the bedside lamp, Tony’s eyes sparkled with warmth and something else. Riff held back the budding hope in his stomach. Disappointment in the form of a runaway Tony came far too often.
“Tony,” Riff said. In those warm breaths, the name sounded more like a prayer. Slowly, Tony’s hands found themselves on Riff’s waist. Although the basement was fairly dark, Riff still shut his eyes. He couldn’t handle watching Tony’s pretty face anymore. Couldn’t handle the rejection that might happen any second from now. Blind, he rested a hand on Tony’s chest and felt the bristles of short hairs rub up against his palm.
“Yeah?” Tony replied. He’d moved a lot closer to Riff’s face from when he’d shut his eyes. Surprised, Riff’s eyes flew open to see Tony’s just inches away, his breaths falling against his cheek.
“It’s alright,” Riff said. He meant it to be more of a question, but at this point he was having struggles moving his tongue around.
“It’s alright,” Tony repeated, through an exhale this time. He pressed the tips of their noses together. Tony’s breath smelled like chocolate. And ash. It was hot against Riff’s cheek in the cool basement, drifting like wind along the beach on his lips. Tony tilted his head just slightly to the right and their mouths met.
Riff had kissed plenty before. Hell, just this morning he’d been macking on Griz before an eight-hour shift at the auto shop. But kissing a man was different. Tony’s upper lip was clouded with five o’clock scruff, soft lips chapped from a dry summer, fast and rough. Riff was holding onto reality with just his pinkie, he could feel Tony dragging him down. Tony was dragging him down onto his crappy little mattress, flopping on top of him, writhing around like a starved man.
Riff desperately returned the kiss. He’d never wanted anything more in his whole life, knew if their lips broke apart for more than a gasped breath he’d die right here in Valentina’s basement. His hands drifted down to Tony’s hips, running along his warm chest and back. Tony’s hand came to the small of Riff’s back, to his ass, tossing him around like a bag of flour. Riff felt dizzy.
They broke apart then, as if waking up from a dream. Riff kept a tight grip on Tony’s arm, holding them together on the small mattress. Tony’s eye bags were exaggerated in the lamplight. He looked exhausted. But there was a trace of a smile on his lips that had Riff hesitating to call this whole thing off. Tony coaxed Riff back into his arms slowly, blinking rapidly to process who he was sharing this bed with.
“Sorry,” Tony breathed. Riff shook his head furiously, too breathless to communicate with words. The hand on his ass moved to lace through his hair, Tony holding Riff to his chest. “Let’s just go to sleep, alright?”
“Okay,” Riff whispered, mouthing the word into Tony’s shoulder over and over again like a promise. Quickly he could feel Tony give into sleep above him, small snores moving the top hairs on Riff’s head. He buzzed like a generator, radiating warmth. Riff curled deeper into his chest, taking in the cigarette and mothball scent of the basement with a smile buried in Tony’s chest.