Disclaimer: I do not own Newsies Jack or Spot. I wish I did, but you don't always get what you want I suppose. And the lyrics of the song used are by one of my favorite local bands: Cardboard Cutout. If you live in the South suburbs of Chicago area, you should really check them out. Amazing music.
Author's Note: So this idea came to me yesterday morning sometime while listening to this song, and I stayed up half the night finishing it. I have never done Spot and Jack together before, they are not one of my favorite pairings, but I toyed around with other couples and none were quite so dangerous, or so poignant as Spot and Jack. No one else could get my point across like these two. Anyhow, I think this is a little different than most things I've written, but I am very fond of it. I hope you enjoy it, and as always, please leave me some feedback. Oh, one last thing, thanks especially to my kick ass sister, Mary, who Beta'd this story for me!
I want your kiss to mean so much,
That when we hit, we get that rush.
I want my lips to taste like,
Such a risk that you're willing to take …
Everything you know …
And forget something …
You don't know …
How crazy this sounds.
We could be something more.
And I know I'm not a sure thing.
Who are we kidding, 'cause we're not perfect.
But who's to say we can't be perfectly in love?
Defying every angle, and we were
Touched by the angels,
Forget your self-control and be with me tonight,
As long as there's no feelings inside.
In the beginning, everything about Jack that drew me in was physical. I found myself unable to tear my eyes from the way he glowed in the sunlight after a swim on the docks. The way he walked – that cocky saunter of his – could make me stare. When he flipped his golden hair out of his eyes and flashed that wonderful, winning smile. The one that makes you trip over yourself because suddenly all your senses are gone, and you are simply floating in a state of euphoria where all is well with the world cause those blue eyes are happy and so what could possibly be wrong? It was at times like these that I was forced to stop and remember myself. Because everything physical about Jack was calling to me, making me short of breath, raising feelings I shouldn't have had.
It wasn't until later that the rest of him became just as provoking. All of a sudden his cockiness made me want to punch his face in. The eagerness he had to please everyone made me want to slap him and scream at him that he's not even that fucking great of a guy. And the way he knew he was gorgeous – knew he made me feel all these things – and that smile, well, they made me want to kiss him. Kiss him hard, until he bled.
I can't say quite how long I've had these feelings for Jack. But I can't ever remember not having them. And we've had our moments. Sometimes I wonder if Jack knows all about my lust and finds pleasure in tormenting me.
Once – we were both pretty fucked up – we found ourselves in an alley well after midnight. The air was dank and heavy. So was his breath. He had me pinned to the brink wall. We both reeked of gin and sweat, only inches apart. I felt my skin prickling with anticipation and my chest rising and falling quickly with his closeness. His body was pressed flat against mine, so that every part of him was touching every part of me. His eyes were lazy as they assessed me.
"Ya've got da most …" Jack had said, lolling his head slightly, and then staring me down again. "Ya eyes … dey're …"
I thought that was it right there. I was already leaning forward to meet him halfway when I felt his body thud by my feet. I looked down and Jack had collapsed, and was giggling drunkenly at himself on the ground. His face fell dramatically when he saw my scowl though. There was nothing at all funny about his actions. Jack wouldn't remember the night the next morning – he couldn't be held responsible. I kicked him so hard I swear I'd broken a rib. And then I left him there.
I hate everything about him. And that makes me want him. Desperately.
"I'd say s'bout time tah call it a night," Jack says, struggling to find the table to set down his drink. In the end he fails and we both flinch as it shatters into a million bottle-green shards on the cement.
The night is warm. Not hot, but the air is heavy with midsummer. All around, sounds of twilight are muted. I hear a woman laugh guardedly, as if she's laughing at something she shouldn't be. I can almost see the guilty smile on her face for finding amusement in something which is probably lewd, judging by the time of night and the crowd which prowl the streets now.
I am jealous of this woman. As clearly as I can see her, I can also see the gentleman who would have whispered the comment in her ear to illicit such a reaction from her. They are happy together. Their relationship probably seems dangerous to them: out this late, very indecent for upstanding gentlemen and ladies such as they undoubtedly are. They will find a place to stay the night, I am sure. And they will make promises to each other, despite what their parents and elders might advise…
The couple are only in my head, but I've made their story so real that, by this point, I could pick them out of a crowd.
"Yeah," I say to Jack grudgingly.
I don't want him to leave. Though he's had much more to drink than I have, I've had enough to be a little looser with my feelings. Instead of forcing them deep down past the pit of my stomach, as I am accustomed to doing, I allow them to travel upwards and have free reign over my heart.
"S'been fun …" Jack mumbles.
I notice the way Jack's lips are so full and perfect: they make forming words look like a delicate art. In the distance, the woman's laughter is back. But she lets it flow freely now, holding nothing back. I realize it's a sign. Hold nothing back.
Before he can leave, I tell Jack plainly I'm not ready to call it a night, and ask him up to my room for a few more drinks. He shrugs and follows me upstairs. All the while, I am conscious of the fact that it's only the alcohol making me do this. That if I were sober, this would be a bad idea. But somehow my judgment ends there – it doesn't tell me to stop.
So we get to my room. Jack sits on my bed, and this alone excites a reaction from my body. I perch myself on a desk in the corner. I think about the couple from the street. They think sneaking out at night to see a lover is dangerous. They have no idea. Were they to be caught, who would care but perhaps their own immediate families? They are nobody's. Jack and I, should we be together, now there's dangerous for you.
We are not merely Jack Kelly and Spot Conlon. No. We are Manhattan and we are Brooklyn. Leaders. We cannot act of our own self interest. We carry with us the hopes and expectations of every one of our boys. For the most part, they can be a solid support for us. But sometimes, like tonight, they are a burden to weigh us down.
"'Cha thinkin' 'bout Kelly?" I ask and Jack shrugs.
"Nice night," he says vaguely. Now I have been getting drunk with Jack Kelly for years, and I know the guy. As soon as the alcohol hits him, he starts thinking hard about stuff. When Jack drinks, he will keep mostly to himself for a while, then the brutal honesty kicks in.
The boy will spend all night without saying a word to anyone, and then out of the blue he'll start spilling his guts. Like that night in the alley. We had been content to drink our fill in silence, but when we left the bar he had me against that wall, about to tell me something about my eyes.
As if on cue, Jack chuckles lightly. "Ya know ya da only real friend I evah had," he says to me.
I chuckle too, and tip the last swallow of my beer down my throat. I set it aside and say to Jack. "Dat ain't true. Ya know it ain't."
But we both know there's an essence of validity to the statement. I was the first boy Jack met when he became a newsie. I taught him everything I knew. He took my guidance, my advice. He made it his own and ended up matching me for leadership ability – taking command of his own borough.
I am the only person Jack's ever been honest with about his past. He told me all about Francis Sullivan and the dream of Santa Fe, which was no more than that: a dream.
And, in turn, Jack is the only person I've ever felt comfortable confiding things in. I can tell him when I'm scared or upset. The only thing I have never told him directly is how his smile makes me want to throw him down and love-hate him until we are both too tired to move.
"It is," Jack argues. Then he lifts his eyes to meet mine, and the flash of emotion there startles me. His eyes are soft and slightly bloodshot. They seem to be apologizing to me for all the agony he's put me through. But Jack isn't supposed to know, and so I don't know how this can be.
But there it is, all the same, that look of sorrow, remorse, a desire to make all well again. Before I have time to think, or Jack has time to breathe, I am across the room, kneeling beside the bed, looking up into that face I can't chase away from my dreams. The one which will forever haunt my nightmares after tonight.
To my surprise, Jack slides down on the floor beside me. We are staring each other down. Every thought I've ever entertained of Jack and I together this way is flooding my brain, and the fantasies threaten to overcome reality. But to make them reality. Is that possible?
Before I allow myself time to think, the fantasies are crashing violently into reality, like waves on a cliff. I have Jack's face between my hands, my lips smashed against his. My eyes are shut tight, but he hasn't had time to close his. I can feel them burning holes in me. But he is either too shocked, or too drunk, or both, to respond and push me away as he should.
In fact, after a moment, I realize, his eyes aren't burning anymore. He has closed them, and he is leaning into the place where our mouths meet, hungry for the consequences of these rash actions.
Heat floods my face. I find myself reaching out for Jack, and his body is there where it should be, waiting for my hands. My fingers find the bottom of his shirt, and without allowing him to protest, I rip it over his head. In the moment that we break apart to allow Jack's shirt between us, we can hear our ragged breathing. I think it scares us, because we are kissing fiercely again in a second to stifle the sound.
I push Jack over and he lands on his back on the wooden floor with a hard thud. I bite his lip when this happens, and we can taste blood. But it only fuels the passion. Tomorrow we will be bruised and bleeding, but tonight the pain is only a necessary part of our love-making. We can't have one without the other: in loving each other, we must hurt each other.
Jack is ripping at my clothes now as well. We are both panting and groping and sweating, all the while in mutual understanding that, come morning, we will not speak of this.
I am thinking of the woman's laughter on the street. I am thinking of my boys sleeping downstairs or across the hall. I am thinking of anything but how much the fulfillment of this fantasy means to me.
This is because I know we could not be. For all I know, Jack might have the same feelings for me as I have for him. But it doesn't matter. We cannot say so out loud, and we most certainly cannot show so in the daylight. What we have is nothing.
It's okay though, because tonight is real. And tonight will be burned into my memory for as long as I live. It doesn't matter that tomorrow we will act as if nothing happened. It doesn't matter that we live in a place and time that would spit on us if they knew. It doesn't matter that we are just fuck-ups: a bad dream the real world is having.
We're not perfect. Far from it. But who says we can't just be perfect for a moment, maybe an hour? We could borrow perfection to share between us in a night like tonight.
I am listening to Jack's heavy breathing, tasting his sweat, and feeling him all over. I know he is not reliable, won't be here in the morning. We are two teenage boys – no roots, no goals, no promises we would dare give to each other. At least right now there is the promise of tonight. And glancing at Jack now - blocking out the prospect of tomorrow or any day after – Jack right now: everything about him seems fantastically real; solid. I can't help it. Something inside me snaps, and the sound it makes when it does so is remarkably like my own voice breathing "I love you, Jack."
We both know I've gone too far. But it doesn't matter. We can't stop here.
When it's over we find the bed. Jack passes out almost immediately. I know I'll need to wake him so he can get home before any of his boys – or any of mine – suspect anything. But for now I just watch him. We're not perfect, it's true.
But who's to say we can't be perfectly in love? As long as in the light of day we profess that these feelings never existed. I watch Jack's even breathing, and I vaguely wonder if it shall ever be any different for us. If perhaps one day we might have a chance.
I close my eyes on this thought, and behind the blackness I can see Jack and I. I realize with a stab of sorrow that it is only here that Jack and I are real: only in my head. That's the only place we exist perfectly, as I'd like us to be. Anywhere else we have to borrow, maybe steal, the perfection and use it sparingly. I've stolen enough perfection in this night to last me a long while.
Bitterly, I remember the woman and her lover from the street. It doesn't seem fair that they get to exist, but Jack and I do not …
I see his soft hair falling into his eyes, I see his hands resting in the sheets, and I see his beautiful lips, swollen now and parted slightly, his breathing even between them. I want him forever, not just for a stolen night. But I have to remind myself that it's impossible: what I want for Jack and myself cannot be real anywhere other than in my dreams. And sure enough, when I open my eyes Jack is gone - my aching limbs and bruised body being the only testament to the reality of our shared night of borrowed perfection – borrowed love. It is cheap and second-hand, run down and wore out, just like us newsies. But perhaps it's all we deserve. Who are we kidding, we could never be perfect…