Title: Fortress
Author: Alison H.
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. (Oh, but don't I wish...)
Distribution: If you want it for an archive, or just to make fun of endlessly, please ask me first.
Feedback: More than welcome. That fancy review box works just fine, or you can email me at Author's Notes: This is my first Newsies fic in, oh, a good three or four years. Hopefully I'm not too out of touch with the characters. :-) Also, this story is slash. So if that's not your bag, then don't read it. And finally... hi. I doubt any of you remember me, but that's okay. I just got bored of writing Rent fic all the time and thought I'd revisit an old obsession. This is what I came up with.
Summary: In which Jack reflects on his feelings for a friend. What do you know, I suck at summaries. Just read it. :smiles:
- - - - - - - - - - F o r t r e s s - - - - - - - - - -
I had an endless supply of excuses.
Sarah was the easiest one, of course. She loved me. And I loved her, or at least if I told myself that enough I could pretend it was true. Besides, love or not, you don't break up with someone for her brother. I may have been an asshole at times but at least I knew my chivalry.
It worked like a charm. Everybody said we went together perfectly. We were, if I do say so myself, a pretty cute couple. And after a while I started to believe I was in love with her, too. It wasn't hard. She was gentle and faithful and had the same gorgeous chocolate brown hair as her brother. Even if her soft waves could never match those adorably stubborn curls of his. And her eyes didn't flicker with gold when she smiled, the way his did.
Still. She was there, at least, and that was all I needed. Someone to distract me when my mind wandered to thoughts of him. Someone to fawn over in public without fear of what people might say or do. Someone to help me ignore that nagging voice inside that kept reminding: you're only doing this because you're too much of a chicken shit to admit who you really want to be with.
Even after Sarah and I split up -- she wanted to get married and settle down, and she figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't the one to help her fulfill that dream -- I had an arsenal of shiny new excuses prepared. Start with the fact that I was a jerk, a liar, a shameless flirt. I didn't deserve someone as wonderful and loyal as David. And life always had a cruel way of giving me exactly what I deserved.
On top of that, he was my best friend. There had to be some kind of law against falling for your best friend. What if he didn't feel the same way? What if things didn't work out? I couldn't risk destroying everything we already shared for a few secretive kisses and whispered promises that, with my luck, would never be kept. Good things didn't happen to bad people like me. I couldn't let myself forget that.
At least a thousand more reasons existed if I looked. And I did, polishing each one to perfection then placing them around me like a coat of armor. Then I could almost ignore his tousled hair and that sly 'I told you so' grin and the way his hand would always linger over my arm just a second longer than it needed to. Behind my fortress of excuses, I was safe. Maybe not from him, but from myself.
I couldn't figure it out, why he had this effect on me. I was Jack Kelly, the cocky, headstrong leader of Manhattan. The kid who took on the World, who believed he could do anything and feared nothing.
So why did my stomach twist into knots every time I saw David's face?
Him, of all people to fall in love with. And it would happen like that, the word slipping innocently in among my thoughts whenever I let my guard down. Love. But no, that was silly.
And yet... somehow it made perfect sense. We were right together. And not the superficial, just-for-show 'right' that Sarah and I had. The real kind, where you can talk for hours on end, or say just as much without any words at all. The kind of right where being apart starts to feel more foreign than being together. Where you're no longer just Jack or David, but Jack-and-David -- and you know that you're both better off because of it.
Sometimes late at night, I would stay awake and think about him. And I would tell myself that maybe, just maybe, I'd stop being stubborn and give up all my excuses. I'd take a chance, let him into my heart, and let myself be truly happy for once.
When I was a kid, my mom used to tell me that it takes years to build a kingdom but less than a day to tear it down.
I wondered, did the same hold true for fortresses?