This is adorable and amazing, with a nice balance of major and minor characters interacting together. I thought I was going to die of amusement and appreciation when Crutchy revealed his role in the incident that took out Blink's eye. At this point, I really want to read the entire story, complete with everyone's reactions. It is now headcanon for me that this impromptu slumber party happened and that Blink and Crutchy ever after would drive Les crazy by insisting that Crutchy's leg went lame in a battle to save Blink's life from this monster, and that even as an adult it would drive Les crazy but he'd ultimately laugh and go along with it because of the good memories it brought back and that it's basically become a private joke among the newsies. Thank you for this! I wish you had more just like it!
Oh, and when all the other boys came in to see what all the commotion was, and Crutchy proudly showed off their masterpiece (you nailed his voice, btw) and they all ran off to be copycats instead of mocking the boys for doing something they're too old for... I laughed so hard! Nice to see that our boys can exercise the Tom Sawyer effect without even meaning to. The snippets of dialogue showing their gradual conversion from "no way" to "maybe" to "this is awesome and everyone else wants to get in on our awesome idea" were both hilarious and totally believable.
Well this is getting long but there was just too much here to love! Thanks for sharing!

This was so cute and I loved it!

Oh this was lovely! There aren't enough gen friendship Newsies fics! Great job!

Yeah, I don't think they used term blanket fort in 1900. But if it makes you feel any better, I thought this story was awesome. I loved reading it.