Work Text:
A lot of the newsies were hanging out at the lodging house in the evening since most of them were done selling for the day and Race and Davey were sitting near the window talking.
"Hey, Race, why did you call me 'punk' the other day?" Davey asked. "You know, during the whole tap dancing and spoon fighting after Katherine came by with us on the front page."
"Why is you askin'?" Race responded with a puzzled look.
"I mean, what way did you meant it? I'm just wondering. 'Cause if you meant 'worthless person' it's a little hurtful, don't you think?"
"Who says I means it in that way?" He raised and eyebrow.
"Oh," there was silence for a second. "So, you meant it as..."
"Well, yeah. Is it not true?"
"I'm not-" He said loudly and stopped himself to look around for a second to check if all the other boys and girls were out of earshot, which they were. "I'm not a bottom." He continued in a whisper.
Race looked very amused at that statement. "And I'm supposed to believe that? I didn't even means it that way but yer reaction tells me maybe that ain't wrong either."
Davey was left speechless so he just slaped himself in the forehead gently and rubbed it like he was the mother to approximately 50 childeren and was very done with his kids being idiots that make him very frustrated.