Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Word Count: 594
Notes: Um, I blame -TheSingingBlob- for this, my second Newsies fic in two days. She made me watch the movie and started an obsession that refuses to die. :)
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David is the Walking Mouth, and Jack thinks if there's a better name for him, he hasn't found it yet.
David has words; he controls them effortlessly; they do his bidding. David could convince a whore to drop her skirts and become a nun.
Jack likes it second-best when David forgets himself enough to let his thoughts come out how they must sound in his head. In frustration, in anger, in humor, his voice curls sarcastic, sly. His words are touched with irony, razor's-edge-sharp. Sometimes he remembers himself, and his cheeks color brightly, and he snaps his mouth closed and retreats a little. David doesn't realize that the other boys appreciate his irony, that they take pride that the Mouth is one of them. He doesn't realize that it makes something warm curl in Jack's stomach. David is the smartest of them all; Jack has always known that, and he likes seeing David's words convince those who are a little bit slow to catch up.
Jack loves David. It's something he has known for some time, since the first time he saw Sarah next to David and felt—wrong. Jack loves every incarnation of David: smart-mouthed David, earnest David, confident, brilliant David, who makes Jack's heart thump faster.
Jack loves it best when David is happy. Sometimes David forgets to smile—that's all right, that's what Jack is there for—but when he does smile, it is something glorious.
His lips curve up, slick-pink and full, and Jack feels his breath catch in his throat. He finds himself holding it, waiting for—yes—the moment when the smile widens, broadens, tumbles into a laugh, high and clear and infectious. David holds his stomach, sometimes Jack's arm, and the untroubled, free look in his eyes makes Jack's heart jump. I put that there, he tells himself, with pride and love, and he silently promises never to leave, if only because no one else can make David laugh like that (no one else can make him happy like that).
It could be enough. David is Jack's best friend, and Jack is his, and it could be enough to walk the streets by his side, shoulder-to-shoulder, to make him laugh when no one else can. It could be enough.
Only—David laughs with abandon, eyes blinking back tears, mouth open, and Jack wants to know what powerful words, words that could change the world, would taste like pressed against his lips.
They taste like laughter, sharp and sweet. They taste like surprise and revelations, like apprehension and hope and lust and—love.
They taste like David, beautiful and complex, and Jack doesn't realize he has his eyes closed until he slowly pulls away.
David's eyes are wide and dark. His mouth is slack, lips parted, and Jack has to clench his fists at his sides just to keep from pulling David to him and taking his mouth again.
"Jack," David murmurs, and his name has never sounded so wonderful. This time, it is David who leans forward, David who kisses him, David who tangles them together until there is no space between them.
"Jack," he says again after he pulls back. Jack feels a hot thrill run through him, at the thought that he has taken David's words away, at the thought that eloquent, articulate David can think of nothing else to say but Jack's name, each time sounding sweeter than the last.
"Yeah, Davey," he whispers back, and all he can do is lean down and kiss him again.
Neither of them needs words right now.
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