There were many ways that Mayer Jacobs could have learned his son was a fairy. Perhaps David could have gotten a job at a pansy ball or brought home a rich young man who would pay them to keep their mouths shut. Instead, his stupid, wonderful son came back from work one night with lipstick smeared on his cheek and a bruise around his eye, half-dragging his beau, who could barely stand. That was the night Mayer truly saw the red bandanna for what it was.
Mayer was a good father. He tried his damnedest to be. He worried about the fairy punks on street corners, and he worried his sons would end up like them. Not that they'd be fairies, never that, but the kind of work they could turn to because of his leg. The newsboys were hard workers and they kept his boys off the streets. If he had any issues with their personalities, it shouldn't matter.
But, by Adoshem, they got into so many fights. They had the good sense to shelter Lesham and David, who they thought were soft from school and house, but Mayer had seen even the youngest of the boys sporting black eyes proudly.
On the night the fairies came home from a fight, Esther had sent the other children to bed early. Mayer lifted Jack from David's arms, despite his son's protests, and barely managed to set him in a chair before his leg gave out. David rushed quickly to his aid, catching Mayer's shoulder and holding him up. He was much stronger than last year, from work and the strike and whatever else those kids got up to in the daytime. He couldn't hide the pain, though. Mayer knew the look on his face.
David held his boy's hands as Esther cleaned them up. He whispered in his ear and pressed a kiss on Jack's forehead. "Come on, Jackie," he kept saying. "Wake up, Cowboy."
It was a very long night.