AAAAAA I'M EXCITEDDDDDD

Enjoy! :)

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Race and Spot kiss exactly at midnight...

...Then are instantly interrupted by a loud sound.

Startled, Race pulls away and looks at his surroundings. He blinks. Then blinks again.

This isn't the lodging house at midnight.

This is the streets. 

In the daylight.

Ma che cosa?

"Race?"

Race turns around so fast he can feel his neck crack, and lets out a huge sigh of relief to see that Spot is standing next to him. Even if he has no clue what the heck is going on, he's got Spot beside him.

"Are we dreaming?" Spot asks.

"Uhhh..." Race pinches himself with one hand and Spot with the other hand. When they both yell "OW!" Race lets go, concluding, "guess not."

Spot huffs. "Seriously? Wasn't there a better thing you could have tried?"

Race puts his hands up in surrender. "Well what else would you have liked? Me slappin' ya?"

"It's a better reason to shout out in pain than my sweetheart randomly decidin' to pinch me."

Race stops. "Even after that, I'm still ya sweetheart?"

Spot huffs again and shoves Race without any real force. "Yeah, you are, I still likes ya even when you're does stuff like this, yadayadayada--let's just start tryin' to figure out what in the world is going on, okay?"

Race finally slows down for a moment. "Okay."

Staring into each other's eyes, they take a deep breath in together, and a deep breath out. Holding hands, they look at their surroundings.

It's New York...but not their  New York.

Something shiny is on the ground. Its glint attracts Race. Like a cat hunting a mouse, he focuses on it, and closes in.

Spot watches him, shaking his head. "I swear you're a magpie in human form."

Race shushes him, not taking his eyes off the quarter, only a little miffed by Spot's statement (but considering that him being attracted to shiny things led him to impulsively spend a day's pay on that harmonica, Spot really isn't too wrong though), squats down so as not to touch the dirty ground more than he has to (even if it's not his New York he reasons that any New York is as dirty as heck), and as carefully as he can picks up the quarter.

"Ain't it bad luck to pick up a quarter?"

"Nah, I think that's just pennies."

"I thought it was good luck to pick up a penny."

"Well it is until it's heads down..." Race stares at the back of the quarter.

"Don't tell me. Yer superstitious AND it was lyin' face down."

"Nuh-uh." Race shakes his head, still staring at the quarter. "Spot, ya ain't gonna believe this."

"What?"

Race beckons for Spot to come closer. He does, but then Race brings up a hand to flick him away when he's breathing down Race's neck, not unlike what Jack did back in Tibby's over the summer when Spot was too eager to see his picture.

"Oh come on!" Spot complains. "I'm King of Brooklyn, why does everyone treat me like a gosh darn FLY?"

"Spot." Race finally has enough and shoves the quarter in Spot's face. "Look."

Spot stops and looks. There's a look on his face that lets Race know that Spot found exactly what Race wanted him to find.

"That's impossible," Spot breathes.

"Well, either this is one strange dream with a funny misprint, or this coin was in fact made in the year 2005," Race responds, "which means...we might be in 2005."

Spot staggers back.

Race springs up, suddenly cheerful. "C'mon! Let's see what the future's all about!"

Spot lets go of his tension and laughs, a smile coming on his face. "Only you would be this excited to see the future 'stead of panicking."

"C'mon!" Race grabs Spot's hand and starts running.

"Race, not too fast," Spot warns, breathing just a little ragged.

"Yeah I know, I know," Race brushes him off. He realizes he and Spot shouldn't be running too fast, but he is way too curious about the future to slow down.

They stop when they see a big gathering of people--a lot of them decked out in rainbow outfits for some reason--who are surrounding a big rectangular thing with words on it--This must be the modern day version of our chalkboard, Race muses. Gotta love updated technology.

That's when he sees the headline.

SAME SEX MARRIAGE OFFICIALLY LEGAL IN NEW YORK AS THE MARRIAGE EQUALITY ACT IS FINALLY SIGNED

His heart skips a beat.

All these people in rainbow clothes start cheering loudly. He sees a lot of screaming, a lot of crying, a lot of hugging, a lot of jumping up and down, and hears a lot of "WE DID IT!"

Then he sees something that takes his breath away, a sight he never thought would have been possible in 1899: two men kissing on the street.

Two men. Unafraid of something bad happening to them.

There are several couples, couples of men, couples of women, who are kissing passionately.

And that is when it hits Race.

The love between two men. The love between two women. 

It's legal.

His jaw drops. He feels a tear start in his eye. He wants to stop it, but for once he lets emotion overwhelm him.

Spot notices. He turns to look at Race, eyebrows knotted a little, concerned, and asks softly: "are you alright?"

Race smiles. He means to nod, he means to say yes, he means to do something. Whatever he was planning on doing goes out the window as he says two words he never would have dared to utter in public if they were back home: "kiss me."

Spot doesn't hesitate for a second.

Just like all these couples around them, they are kissing too.

For the first time ever, they can do it in public.

No hiding in closets. No more closed doors and cautious glances.

Spot's hands move to Race's waist, Race's hands move to Spot's shoulders as they continue to kiss passionately.

Now Race has to requestion if he is dreaming. 

Because this feels way too good to be true.

Finally, when they stop kissing, foreheads pressed together, Race murmurs, "I never thought I would see the day when we could do something like this."

Spot strokes Race's face. "Me neither."

They pull back and look into each other's eyes.

Suddenly, Race's eyes widen. "Spot! SPOT!"

"What?" Spot asks, exasperated but only a little bit.

Race grabs Spot's shoulders. "We can get married."

Silence as they think on what that means.

Suddenly, Spot pushes Race back. "No we can't."

Race stumbles, bewildered. "Whaddaya mean no? It's legal now-"

"We're sixteen."

Race stops and stares. "Since when has our age ever stopped us from doing anything?"

That gets Spot to burst out laughing. Race laughs with him.

"Do you think the legal adult age is lower in the future?"

"I doubt it."

"Oh come on! You must have seen that sign on the way here! Advertisin' a hamburger for five dollars. On sale. Surely other crazy stuff has happened too!"

"Mmm, I think older adults like their power too much to allow anyone much younger than they are to have adult status, and therefore a say in matters."

"Yeah can't argue with that." He pauses. "Wait."

"What?"

"So you're telling me I have to wait five years to marry you?!" Race exclaims. 

"Sounds like it."

"But I don't wanna wait till we're 21," Race whines. "What if I wanna marry you now?"

"You don't have to be 21. You can just be 18."

Spot and Race turn around at once to try to figure out who spoke to them, startled that someone overheard them. "What?"

"Well, if straight people can get married at age 18, I don't see why gay people can't," the person continues.

"Why 18?" Spot asks tentatively.

"Well, it's because that's when you legally vote, and become a legal adult," the person responds smoothly. "But you do still have to wait until age 21 to legally have alchohol." A sly smile. "I am 21. I can legally drink. Or I can remain sober all the time and watch all my friends be mortified that I don't crave that stuff and can actually live without it."

Spot and Race continue to stare. That was a lot of words thrown at them at once. Some of them they only understood separately.

This person...well, neither Race nor Spot can tell the gender of this person. The style of clothing this person wears is completely neutral, and does not give any tell of being on the body or a male or female, and the hair cut doesn't really help either.

"I'm Rain." the person sticks out a hand. "Rain Dove. My pronouns are they/them."

It takes an extra second to register, and then it does.

Just like the people who weren't born in the right bodies just like them, just like others they knew, this person is using the pronouns that fit best. However for this person, the best pronoun is they.

Spot and Race take turns shaking their hand.

"I'm Race."

"I'm Spot."

That's when they realize those aren't normal names.

However, Rain just smiles and nods. "Nice. I have many friends with chosen names that don't fit the mold but fit who they are. And there's me included."

Spot and Race blink slowly. This is just a bunch of dumb luck. They have found the most wonderful person they could have run into.

"Where are you guys from?" they ask.

Race is about to blurt out Manhattan, but then ends up saying "uh, Midtown."

Unfortunately at the same time Spot says "Brooklyn."

They glance at each other, trying to figure out what went wrong in their non-communicated improvised back story.

Rain doesn't seem to notice. If they do they just don't care. "I'm not from around here. But I knew that something big was going to be happening, so I knew I had to be here." They smile. "And here I am, June 24, 2011, nearly exactly 42 years after Stonewall, watching gay marriage become legal in this state."

"I never thought I was going to see something like this in my life time," Spot breathes out in awe immediately. Then he stops, fearing that that may have sounded weird.

Internally, Spot is stuck at 2011 and is just screaming the year over and over repeatedly. But he tries not to let that show.

But Rain agrees with him. "Yeah, me neither." They smile again. "But hey. Maybe in a few years, we will see gay marriage legalized throughout the whole country."

Race's eyes widen. "Now that would be something."

"I'm hopeful," Rain says.

Race thinks on it. Yeah, me too.

He blinks, still trying to process it all. Less than an hour ago he was in the newsies' lodging house of Duane Street, scared of what would happen if he and Spot were caught kissing in broad day light, and now he's here, somehow, in 2011, he's kissed Spot in broad daylight, and he's having a conversation with someone like him, someone like Spot: someone born a girl but is not a girl. But while Spot and Race are boys who weren't born boys, Rain is something else entirely, existing outside of the duality of man and woman. Race wishes he could have learned about this sooner. 

He wishes that he was taught more than just girls grew into women and boys grew into men, that men only liked women and women only liked men, that men were dominant and women were submissive, that the only way to be successful in America is to be a rich man with pale skin and a perfectly normal-working mind who was not a foreigner from a country looked down upon with disdain. Because of this system that has been taught to him directly and indirectly from what little he recalls from his family, the streets, and the judging looks of those more well off than him, a system which he has never fit into in any way whatsoever, he was always crushed by the weight of never being able to fit in, never being able to belong in society, always meant to be kept off the streets and hidden away.

But now? Now he has a chance to be free from all that.

He feels sad that he can't show the newsies of Manhattan this reality. He wishes he could show the boys that weren't born boys like little Joe and the boys who liked boys like Kid Blink and Mush, Jack and David, that there is a time where they could show their love, show who they are, without the fear of being killed.

Race misses them.

He misses all of them.

"I hope everything works out for you two," Rain tells them, getting Race out of his thoughts.

He can still feel the ache of missing them though.

Still, he smiles at them, as does Spot. "Thank you," they tell them gratefully.

"What are your phone numbers?" they ask.

Race and Spot glance at each other, panicking a little. "Uhhh, well, you see, we don't exactly..." they trail off, unsure of what they can say.

Rain gets it though. They look at the two. "You two are people with no place to go back to, aren't you?"

Spot and Race glance at each other again.

Rain did choose their words carefully. They could have asked if the two were homeless, and/or runaways. They can't tell what's up, but something's up. And they know they're right: they know the look of someone who does not have a home to go back to.

The pair nods slowly, tentatively, still a little unsure whether to trust this stranger or not.

Rain smiles. "Come with me. I'll help."

Spot and Race share a look again, silently trying to convey their thoughts. After a few seconds of pondering, they nod. "Okay." They turn to face them. "We'll go with you."

Rain smiles. "Anything for fellow queer folk, and folks outside the gender binary."

Spot and Race both flinch when they use queer, but then realize it must not be a bad word anymore if Rain uses it to describe themself and is fine using it. Then they realize what Rain is implying with the second half of that sentence. 

They both glance down at their chests. Did I not put on enough bandages today?

"Don't worry, it's not obvious," Rain explains quickly, noticing their panic. "It's just that I know how to sense others like me."

They relax.

"Alright." Rain smiles again. "Let's get you everything you need to be able to survive in this world."

And so the three start walking. Race feels excited. A new adventure is beginning. He has Rain to help him, and Spot by his side. This is all going so well.

"Oh, and if anyone asks about your outfits, just say that you're cosplayers," Rain tells them casually.

Silence.

"...what's a cosplayer...?"

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OF COURSE the longest chapter so far is the Sprace chapter.

We are at 2400 words and climbing y'all.

Also poor buddies haha. They have so much to learn.

I didn't want to put dialogue tags in that last sentence/paragraph, so it's up to you whether Race or Spot asked that. In my mind Spot asks it, but I wouldn't put it past Race to be the one to ask that question.

SO HOW WAS THAT?!

"Cosplaying" became a term in 1984, and it originated in Japan.

Back in 1899 the legal adult age was in fact 21, so it being 18 would definitely be surprising to them.

So Rain Dove Dubilewski is a real person. You can look them up online. They're an androgynous model, who will model both men and women's clothing. They call themself a "gender capitalist", which I will definitely start referring to myself as. I was looking for queer people in New York who probably would have been around when gay marriage was legalized in New York on June 24, 2011, and I chose Rain from the wikipedia list, and I'm glad I know about them now. They're a model and an activist and honestly really really cool. I have found a new non binary role model.

So at first I wanted to write about how resourceful Spot and Race were and how they probably wouldn't have needed anyone's help to survive but I also like this much better.

There was a real trans newsboy who went by the name of Joe. I can't exactly remember the specifics of when he was a newsie, but it doesn't seem to out of the ordinary to me for Race to know who he is even if Joe existed as a newsie before him. (I may do some rewriting when I choose to re-research this).

So next chapter picks up right where the last one left off: Crutchy and Race meeting in the modern time.

So we will be in the modern time once again, and you can find out what happened to Spot and Race after June 24, 2011 :)

I think I covered everything.

Oh right.

RACE AND SPOT ARE TRANS IN THIS STORY

Lowkey I kinda like writing Trans!Race more than Cis!Race. And while I'm fine either way with Spot, I feel like he'd have to be trans for this story, because they would have T4T love.

And usually I'm a sucker for cis x trans, because as a person under the trans/genderqueer umbrella I really like the idea of someone who is not like me still being able to fall for someone like me. I do this two with neurodivergent x neurotypical too. Race definitely has ADHD in this story. Still debating whether Spot will be neurotypical or not.

I think because I now have my first relationship and we are T4T, NB4NB, ND4ND (as well as ace4ace and both bi/pan), I now feel a stronger need to write X4X, because it's closer to my story.  And also I'm also just a huge sucker for "you and I are both messed up in society's eyes, but I understand you and you understand me, we Get each other, and together we can make it through anything."

(This is my first relationship ever, I still have to remind myself that it's real. Our first date was a couple Wednesdays ago, April 17, 2024--which I am stating the date of only because we have decided that that is our anniversary)

Wow. This is the first fanfic I'm writing where I actually have my own relationship. We're still pretty new into it and taking things very slowly (which I really like actually), so I don't have all of the experience that the characters I'm writing do, but I'm getting there.

Okay, NOW I think I have run out of things to say.

We are at 2900 words now. I doubt it will get to 3000 but we'll see. Knowing me that is very much a possiblitlity haha

Alright I won't keep you any longer! Happy reading the next chapter! :)

Please, no homophobia or transphobia, profanties directed at other wattpad users, hate etc in the comment section at all times.

Best,

~Your Beloved Author (who is probably gonna be really annoying because of this but they only have like twenty words left until it's at 3000 so they're just gonna keep typing until they reach 3000, which will happen right about NOW. Yay! They did it! But wait! Upon editing they found that we are now at 3100 words! They're keeping the author's note like this because they find it amusing haha)