Okay, first off, I'm sorry I didn't get this published sooner. School is killing me and emotions are killing me and so I didn't get this up as soon as I had planned, and for that I am sorry. But it's here now! This is for BlackBandit111, who, in short, told me I needed to get off my lazy ass and write more of these two (sort of). So here you are, dearest, I finally did it! Anyways, that's how that is. Then after this I've got obligations to a friend to write her some JackCrutchie, aka Crack, and that'll most likely be up next.
Oh, and also, I took some liberties with Davey's name in this. You'll see what I mean, but just keep it in your head that these are, in fact, the musical characters, even if it's a modern!AU.
Now go forth and read, minions! Love to you all!
It's All in Your Head
The hallways are nearly empty, in fact almost eerily so, though the few stragglers that are left behind take advantage of the ability to walk in the middle of the wide halls without being slammed into sweaty, cranky high schoolers during the normal hustle and bustle of the seven-hour school day.
Jack Kelly is one of these stragglers, and, for once, he's walking out of a classroom after school and he isn't in trouble. In fact, quite the opposite, which is equally as rare as when he is, though once you see that it's the art room he's exiting, it doesn't seem quite so surprising.
He's just had quite a lengthy discussion about a new project of his, various praisings from the teacher about his technique and the coloring and how maybe, if he was willing, he might like to teach a class himself sometime.
He grins. "Of course, ma'am. That sounds great. Well, listen, I've got to start getting home."
"Of course, of course! We'll follow up later."
"Okay. Have a great rest of your afternoon, ma'am."
"You too, Mr. Kelly."
The few other people around, fewer than twenty or thirty, are coming from extended detentions or the extra long clubs that he would never join. Like the theatre folks, for instance, are still in rehearsal in the auditorium (some of the guys begged him to audition, but he's content with helping paint the backdrops when needed) and some dance club or another are shaking the ceiling in the studio above him when he walks under. Thank God Specs had never asked him to try out for that.
He gets past the computer lab, almost to the main stairwell and to freedom, and that's when he hears shouting.
It comes from one of the side hallways, one he's never really been in and doesn't really know about because that's where all the smart kids go to class during the day and the worse-off kids go after school's out. Jack walks down it anyway, willing to risk it for the opportunity to play hero.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Walking."
The reply is quiet, and that's when Jack rounds a corner and gets a clear view of the situation:
It's a freshman, he thinks, one he might have seen a few times in the library before, only in passing, always with his nose buried in a book. The kids surrounding him Jack recognizes as a couple of juniors, and not any of the nice ones. From what he can gather, the kid had run into one of them, the one backing him up against the wall, and his books had tumbled out of his hands all over the floor, where they still remain. A few of the older boys tread on his open textbooks and twist the pages under their shoes.
"Well learn to walk on the right side, kid. It's January already, you should know who's way to stay out of by now."
"Hey, I recognize him!"
"Yeah, he's the one who turned up in our territory Monday."
"What's this, then, twice now? Maybe you need to be taught a lesson."
The whole argument is completely ridiculous, and it gets even more so when the junior boy hoists the freshman off the ground by the collar of his shirt, shoves him up against a wall and pulls his other arm back, hand in a fist that will clearly do some serious damage.
And Jack has to step in. He did come here to play hero, after all.
"Hey! Leave him alone!"
He rushes the junior, tackling him off the kid, though not quite as fast as he could have. The boy drops to the floor, but doesn't slide down the wall soon enough to dodge the fist that connects sharply with the side of his face.
Jack throws them off, shoves a few of them back while he stands in front of the boy, dodges a couple punches and lands a few kicks to their knees and shins. They retreat none too soon with promises of payback that Jack laughs at to their backs.
He turns around, and the kid is on his hands and knees, collecting up the various papers and books and binders that have scattered from his arms, an empty bag slung over his shoulder that Jack guesses is where the books should be.
"You alright?"
The kid nods, and that's when Jack sees a drop of blood splat onto the floor. "Shit," the boy mutters quietly, and wipes angrily at his cheek, his fingers coming away smeared with more blood. He hisses, and Jack crouches down right next to him and grabs the kid's chin, turning him gently so he can see the damage. He, too, makes a sound of sympathy and disdain. He's never seen a bruise spring up so fast, and that cut right on his cheekbone is already dripping crimson.
"No, you're not alright." The kid yanks his head away and pulls the messy pile of books and papers into his arms, wipes away the blood from the cut onto his shoulder. It stains his sleeve, and he seems to regret it. "Let me get you a paper towel or a Band-Aid or an ice pack, at least."
The kid hugs his books closer to him, and shakes his head, refusing to meet Jack's eyes. He's pretty cute, Jack notices, especially for a freshman. But the more he looks, the older the boy seems to become, and he looks quite a bit older now than Jack originally thought.
He's got this kind of curly mop of hair that flips up in the front and it's absolutely perfect for his face that's rather puppy-like, with a nose that's a little too big but somehow just the right size in the middle of two green eyes that are really more hazel, at second glance. The bruise and the blood ruin it, but if that ugly purple color weren't spreading from the top of his just-right nose to the corner of his jaw, Jack might have said he was a very, very beautiful boy.
Might have.
"No," the boy says. "Nah-uh. I'm alright, really. I don't need any help."
Then he bolts before Jack can get another word out. Jack tries to chase after him, manages to keep a pretty good distance behind him as they get farther down the empty main hallway, but the boy keeps running and disappears into the stairwell. Jack goes to the railing and peers down, hears a door slam open. He runs to the window, and sees the boy burst through the side door leading out to the traffic circle. He stops on the sidewalk, bends over with his hands on his knees for a minute. Then he seems to take a deep, calming breath, pick himself and his books up and carries on.
Jack watches, in awe and surprise because damn, how did he get down those stairs so fast? and disappointment because dammit, why am I still up here staring when I could be out there catching up to him right now?
But he can only watch, can't bring himself to chase after the kid anymore as he shuffles off down the sidewalk, turns a corner and vanishes behind another brick wall, as though nothing abnormal has happened.
# # #
He waits anxiously for the weekend to be over. You might think this is odd, and it certainly is. Jack Kelly wanting to go back to school? He tries to distract himself and take up as much time as possible with homework he normally wouldn't even start on until the morning of the due date. He works on old art projects, finishes those, starts new projects, finishes those. Nothing helps, and all he can think about is the boy. It shows when his "new projects" turn into poor sketches on good paper of his beautiful, beat-up face.
(And he hopes, someday, that he will be able to sketch it without the bruise and the blood, and from something more than a frantic memory he latches onto in his dreams.)
Then Monday comes, and Jack is actually early. The other guys laugh at him, and they sounda nervous about it, and Race even puts hand on his forehead. It's only slightly jokingly. He flips them all off over his shoulder as he makes his way to his first period class, peeking into every single room he passes as best he can. He gets several odd looks from people he doesn't when they make awkward eye contact, and by the time he reaches his own classroom he's rather undecided as to whether they were all worth it when the kid from Friday doesn't turn up. But he keeps searching in this manner the whole day and then half of Tuesday before he finally spots him.
They pass in the hallway on their way to third period.
They're on opposite sides, both being shouldered aside as bustling freshman rush to get their classes on time, the only ones actually worried about it. The boy has his head ducked and turned towards the wall, watching the people around him out of the corner of his eye. The side of his face pressed close to the wall is the one that was bruised, Jack notices. He also notices that he looks a little bit more grown up today, however shrunken in on himself he is.
(… might have said he was a very, very beautiful boy.)
"Kid! Hey, wait!" he shouts as he tries to make his way across the slow-moving traffic of the main hallway. He gets many protests as he does, nearly knocking a few people over and getting shoved aggressively in return, but he is fixated on the boy he tries to catch up with. But just as he does, just as he reaches a hand out to tap his shoulder, a doorway seems to open up out of nowhere in the wall and the kid ducks into it.
Jack stands in the doorway and gets bumped into and sworn at by the oncoming mass of students, craning his neck to follow the boy as he goes to find a desk near the back, by a window - Jack wouldn't have pegged him as one of those kids, but he figures he might also be trying to keep attention off his injury. Then he sees the board.
AP Psychology.
Psychology? AP? AP Psych?!
But the kid's a freshman, isn't he? How the hell is he even taking that as a freshman? That's not possible. That can't be possible!
The bell rings.
He has to run, then, and he's three minutes late to class. But neither the teacher nor the other students bat an eyelash, as it's a usual occurrence and nobody really thinks anything of it when he doesn't pay attention at all in class, either, or when he begins to sketch.
He surprises himself, though, when he glances up at the teacher once, then back down at his paper and the boy's face is staring back up at him at the bottom of his Algebra 2 worksheet, beginnings of a bruise and all. He makes a very unmanly squeak, which only Romeo, who sits behind him, hears. He leans over Jack's shoulder, sees the image and snatches it from him.
Why did you draw David? Why's he got a shiner?
He passes the paper back to Jack, who turns around in his seat and mouths, "You know him?" to Romeo, who nods and takes the paper back once again and writes, He sits with us at lunch. He's a friend of Crutchie's who transferred here when he moved back to NY
Jack thinks his jaw drops for a moment.
But isn't he a freshman?
No, junior like us
Damn! He got into a fight after school Friday, you know if he uses any of the rooms when everybody leaves?
Tell you after class
Jack thinks he's done entirely too much waiting around to find out who this kid is (well, not a kid, he now knows), and his patience is wearing thin. He still sticks it out and meets up with Romeo outside the doors, once again getting bumped into and sworn at as they block traffic flow.
"Who'd he get into a fight with?"
"Couple of other juniors. I thought he was freshman and that that's why they were picking on him. I don't know who their names, ya know, but everyone knows the bad crowds when they see them around here nowadays."
Romeo rolls his eyes. "We do, but David don't."
"But does he use one of the rooms after school? I know you know who's where and when after school, for no reason other than dragging Specs around to do whatever it is you two do in those empty classrooms…"
"You know it, Kelly!"
He grimaces. "Bleh, okay. Regardless of your intentions, the underlying question remains."
Romeo holds up his hands and inspects his fingernails from several angles. "Isn't it dangerous to use one's entire vocabulary in a single sentence?"
Jack shoves him, and he falls into the lockers with a clatter. "You're useless," he growls as Romeo laughs, Jack stalking away.
"Room 137, from 3:35 to 5:00 after school."
Jack doesn't respond as he walks away, and Romeo shrugs. "Asshole," he mutters. "His own problem." But Jack heard. Jack heard very clearly when and where he needs to be. And he's grinning like a fool. (His stomach is also doing little flips of excitement, and he kind of wants to jump around and dance in the halls. He doesn't, but he's very close to it.)
# # #
He tries to look inconspicuous for the first hour he loiters around the school hallways, even resorting to hiding in the bathroom with his phone (he leaves when a teacher walks in). But by the time 4:43 rolls around, he figures he'd just rather hang around the door. He slides down the wall with his backpack next to him and just stares at the closed door with ROOM 137 stamped haphazardly above the tiny window. He sits and he stares and that's pretty much all he does, occasionally putting his head in his hands and tugging at his hair, only to straighten it and slap his baseball cap back on top of the mess he turns it into.
Then finally, finally, the door opens. And out walks Smalls, David trailing behind her.
"Jack? Hey!" Smalls says brightly, then frowns. "Why the hell are you here?"
"Well, I could be askin' you the same thing."
She sticks her tongue out at him and his confused (not jealous, never jealous) face. "Mind out of the gutter, Kelly. David here's tutoring me in Psych. As per teacher's request." She slings an arm over his shoulder, and he looks incredibly awkward next to her. "He's a pretty awesome kid, though. You could learn a few things, ya know."
"I'm sure," he growls, pushing himself up off the floor and taking his bag with him. "Mind if I talk to 'the kid' for a minute." He does, in fact, use air quotes.
Smalls shakes her head, turns to David and ignores his pleading expression as she gives a little wave and walks off down the hallway. Both watch her go, though when Jack turns his head back, David's already staring at him. He's gaping, leaning forward in the doorway with both hands on the frame on either side of him to keep him from falling flat on his face on the dirty tiles. He's still gaping. But then just as Jack starts to clear his throat and break this awkward silence, he turns promptly and marches back into the classroom.
Jack follows.
"Hey, wait up a minute!"
"I don't have a minute. I have to walk home and then I have things to get done when I'm there. I don't have any time to keep talking to you."
"Well, you are." David looks up menacingly from where he's gone to a desk at the far side of the room to stuff his bag full of textbooks. "And there's nothin' stoppin' me from talkin' to you."
"I'm leaving. That sounds a good enough reason to me," he says as he goes to the teacher's desk and scribbles something on a clipboard.
(Jack surely doesn't stare. Doesn't let his gaze linger on the way he's leaned over and how his back is arched and how his shoulders roll back in irritation. Absolutely not.)
He keeps talking, just as he'd promised he would. "So I've only ever heard you called 'David'. You'd think the guys would have given you a nickname, they give everybody one."
David snorts and moves to another piece of paper. "It is a nickname. My friends - your friends - the guys -" he finally settles on, "don't believe that my name isn't 'David'. So they refuse to call me by anything else."
"What's your real name, then?"
"Davey. Without a 'd'." He says it with such a tone of finality that Jack's perseverance wavers for just a second, and he gives a heavy mental sigh.
It's so very clear that David really doesn't want to talk to him, and pretending that he doesn't care, that his ego isn't just a little bit dinged up by it is the hardest thing he's done in forever, including that Physics test from second period.
"So ya'know," he continues. "I thought you were a freshman at first, which would of been weird, ya'know, between you and Smalls. I mean, she's a junior and if you had been a freshman, I don't actually see how that would have -"
David slams the pen down on the clipboard and turns another annoyed, nasty glare on Jack, who, for once, feels just a little bit threatened in addition to his slightly smothered confidence.
"I. Am. Gay, okay?!" David almost yells, and doesn't really lower his voice at all, continuing. "So even if I was a freshman, which I'm not, there's absolutely no reason I would have ever even begun to think about her like that."
Jack stares. He stares and he stares and he stares and he's pretty sure his mouth might be hanging open, but he's not entirely sure because for all the things that he would have pegged David as - no, Davey, it's Davey now - 'gay' is not one of those things.
"Aaaaand that was exactly the wrong thing to tell you. Okay. Well, I'm just going to go now, before you start laughing and become that extra-annoying-asshole type Jack Kelly I was warned about. So… goodbye."
He tries to get the door, he really does, but Jack's snapped out of his trance-like state and moves to block his exit. He immediately, immediately, becomes his old, normal, cocky, self-absorbed self again.
"Ah, so you have heard of me."
Davey rolls his eyes, and then does it again for extra emphasis, just to make sure Jack gets the message that he is very clearly not impressed. "Get down off your high horse. You already clearly know that I know some of the guys, Romeo included otherwise you wouldn't know I was here, and they're the only reason I've heard of you. Mostly from Crutchie. All bad things, too. So, if you would please just let me -"
He leans against the wall, his hand flat against the cement block and his arm straight. Davey slouches enough from exasperation and from exhaustion that Jack towers over him, like some jock at a girl's locker. "Well, they can't have been all bad things. That doesn't sound like Crutchie at all."
Jack finds himself incredibly attracted to the ever-darkening shades of pink that tint Davey's cheeks, the way he stammers out a couple of sentence starters before finally managing to pick one, and the rest just follows in the most embarrassing word dump of his life.
"No, well, you see, I mean… He actually said you were an okay guy, I guess, a great guy, and he said you were an artist, too, but all the rest of the guys were saying all these things and Crutchie was the only one singing your praises so I didn't really think about what he said, and so you just became this terrible, awful person in my head that I never wanted to meet. I guess."
He rocks back on his heels, forward, back and forward again and again, clutching helplessly at the wide strap of his messenger bag crossing over his chest. He looks rather like he would very much appreciate the floor opening up and swallowing him for all eternity. He glances around the room, anywhere but Jack - at the clock, the whiteboard, the door, the clock, the door - and he pops his lips a few times and Jack thinks Davey's probably planning on jumping out the window if he doesn't say something soon. But he just can't seem to form coherent thoughts today, much less a sentence that makes sense out loud.
"Let me make it up to you," he eventually says, and by now Davey's managed to step around him and is two strides away from the door, hand already stretched out towards the handle. He drops his arm and turns, startled.
"What?"
"There's a cafe just a couple of blocks over, called The Mad Hatter's. You ever heard of it?"
He looks perplexed. "No…" He draws out the word, and it sounds very 'duh'-like in tone.
"Henry's parents own it." Davey still doesn't recall this ever coming up in any of his conversations. "Well, they've got the best coffee in town and amazing pastry things, like lemon bars and croissants." Jack sees him try not to snort at his pronunciation of the French word, which he wisely chooses to ignore, "... and those little Italian things with the cream and chocolate chips inside the baked shell or whatever."
"Cannolis?"
"Yeah, those!" Davey scoffs and turns back to door once more. He can't deal with this, not today. But then Jack's hand darts out just as fast as Davey's making his escape, his fingers wrapping tightly around Davey's arm. He stops in his tracks and looks down, but Jack doesn't let go. He knows Davey will leave if he does. "How bout you let me take you there, huh?"
He looks up at Jack, who notices with great smugness that it's so very clear that every protest Davey might have had planned just scatters. Jack's eyes flick over the bruise on his jaw, the scabbing cut below his eye, and honestly, he has absolutely no shame in thinking totally corny thoughts about kissing right along the edge of that bruise, the edge that's right below Davey's jawbone, until he doesn't even notice the pain anymore.
(Okay, maybe a little bit of shame.)
Davey begins to vigorously shake his head. "No, waitwaitwait. No. I have tests coming up and homework and lots and lots of studying to do -"
So Jack shakes his head, too, interrupting Davey's protests now that they've wormed their way back into his head and have granted him with common sense again. "Fine, bring your book or whatever. It's the perfect place for studying. I won't even mind if you sit there and read a textbook the whole time, just let me make this," he gestures to David's bruise, "and this," he waves his hand at himself, "up to you. I'll even pay." He grins. "Maybe you'll think I'm a nicer guy in your head then, yeah?"
Davey starts making excuses again, but for every one he starts to make, Jack's grip on his arm tightens and the pleading, desperate look in his eyes he'll later deny with great passion grows and strengthens until Davey eventually just has to stop and sigh and agree.
"Okay. Alright. But only if you're paying and you won't bother me while I study."
Jack flashes another smile, all his teeth showing. He looks a bit thoughtful for a minute, a flash of debate might be seen in his eyes, and then his smile turns neutral again. He leans in. A little bit more. Tilts his head to the side, just like that, and then Davey finds that yeah, he's doing that, too. Their lips meet, and there's no fireworks like there are in all bad romance novels, the ones that Jack's been trying to find for years. But there's something, a little flash of heat that sparks in short bursts down his spine and back up again.
Davey's eyes are closed and he tries to follow when Jack pulls back just the slightest, but he doesn't go very far. His eyes fly open, and he looks so mystified, so confused that Jack feels a little bit bad about it, actually.
"Wait," Davey whispers. "You're…"
He nods just the tiniest bit to indicate his meaning and their foreheads knock together, and Jack, understanding exactly what he's saying, notices how close they've gotten. How Davey's hands have ended up on his waist. How his own hands have slid up Davey's arms and ended up on his shoulders. He nods a bit, too, and one of his hands moves to the back of Davey's neck and tugs a little at the hair there, simultaneously pulling him back for another much more sloppy kiss.
It's a good minute in, where Davey's actually starting to get a bit more enthusiastic Jack in general when realization hits the taller boy like a brick. He pushes Davey off him, who looks even more confused by the action. Jack's baseball hat is falling off the back of his head from Davey's hands running through his hair, and he pulls it back into place, yanking it down as best he can but it's a little too small for his head, now, and doesn't get anywhere close to covering his eyes the way he'd hoped it would.
And he just starts talking.
"Jesus, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, Davey, that was… I don't know what -"
The other boy laughs. "'Davey'?" He's smiling again now, and Jack wants nothing more in this world than to kiss him again. "Nobody actually calls me that anymore."
Jack scoffs. "What, really? I just kissed you and you're upset about the nickname?"
"It's not a nickname."
"No, I know, but you're upset about that? Really?"
"No, I'm not upset about it. Not at all."
He stops. He thinks. He takes a deep breath and, with a whole lot of hope he prays won't get knocked down, Jack says, "The name or the kiss?"
Then Davey stops, and he thinks and he takes a deep breath and responds much more quietly and with much, much less confidence, "Neither."
Jack smiles, a real, actual, genuine smile and not a smirk or a snicker or something smug, but an expression of true endearment, and he rubs his thumb over the hair at the back of Davey's neck with such fondness that Davey starts to realize that Crutchie, who said only good things about the (infamous) Jack Kelly, might have had the right idea.
"So... you wouldn't mind if I did it again?"
Davey copies Jack's smile, brings a hand off of his waist and tugs Jack's cap off his head by the brim. He shakes his head and says "Not at all."
So Jack backs him up, step by step, until Davey's pressed up against the wall and standing on his toes to try to make up for the two inches of height Jack has on him. He gives up, however, when Jack presses their lips together once more, because his knees go just a little bit weak and he will absolutely deny that he falls into Jack's arms, quite literally, and clings to him until they pull apart. Just a little bit at first, so they can look at each other and catch their breath, then Jack moves back farther and grabs Davey's hand, tugging on it just a little. He's still smiling.
"Didn't you have studying to do?"
They walk side by side down the street to the cafe, Jack's arm around Davey's waist and his fingers crooked around the belt loop at the front of Davey's jeans, pulling him right up against his side, from where he doesn't allow Davey to move until they sit down at their table. Jack talks and Davey studies, occasionally glancing up, smiling and nodding and inputting short thoughts of his own into the rather one-sided conversation, each of them sipping coffee and laughing when the other gets cannoli cream on his face.
Jack doesn't mind that Davey has to study and Davey doesn't mind that Jack does most of the talking, because this is just a moment for the two of them, a moment for two boys who don't know each other at all, really, to be together and happy again in the midst of so many other things that are not. A moment they both secretly hope so the first of many. So they'll take it however they can get it, one-sided conversations, fading bruises and all.
fin