A/N: I'm not shirking my other stories, honest. innocent whistling ?Anyway, I don't own Newsies. It, like, most things, belongs to Disney. But if I did own it…I won't go there.
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Insipid bars of polluted, late morning sun oozed through the blinds and landed with an almost audible plop on the scuffed floor. Jack Kelly rose from his slumber, still in his clothes from last night. Not a strange occurrence at all. He popped his neck and stretched, surprised to find the majority of the mattresses empty. A few, hungover kids were asleep and snoring like so many revving chainsaws.
He rubbed under his nose with the back of his hand before making his way down the stairs of the squat where he and about fifteen other boys and maybe two or three girls resided. The lower level—such as it were—was completely deserted. Strange. Usually, it was filled with hungover kids, junkies, callboys, all moaning about headaches and backaches from the night before. Then laughter floated over to him.
Assembled on the worn, green couch were three boys clearly designated as Dutchy, Specs and Skittery. In the darkened corner, the television cast eerie shadows onto their faces. The ancient NEC television was nearing its last days but it didn't stop any of the boys from watching it. Jack headed over to them, stepping nimbly over the thick orange chord that extended into the liquor store next door.
"Hey, Cowboy," Dutchy said without looking up.
Before Jack could answer him, he let out a peal of laughter.
"Oh, my god!" he squeaked. "What is he doing with his eyes?"
The three dissolved into laughter. Jack rounded them and Specs immediately jumped up from his sprawl and scooted over so he could sit. The three of them were watching a vampire movie. It was beyond Jack what possessed them to watch these things. Most weren't any good. Just heavily sexual and stupid.
"Gross," Skittery observed. "Who would want to live in dirt?"
Jack looked at the squalor around them.
"At least it's better than dirt," Skittery mumbled into his t-shirt.
The four were quiet for a little bit before Dutchy spoke up.
"The lost boys lived in a cave," he said brightly. "They didn't live in dirt."
"Riveting," Specs mumbled.
Jack stood, no longer in the mood for horrible black and white movies.
"I'm out of here," he said tiredly.
The trio didn't pick up on that as they went into peals of laughter once more as the vampire did something unintentionally comical.
Jack shook his head as he left the squat. The smells of the underbelly of New York hit him like a fist. He swiped his hand under his nose, wishing that he had a cold suddenly. The second the wish registered in his mind, he took it back. Having a cold meant breathing through his mouth. The air was so foul that he would taste it. He hated the city with it soot and pollution. He wanted to go somewhere, maybe out west to the big blue sky and all of that stuff from old cowboy movies. What was that place? Santa Fe. Yeah, in New Mexico or Arizona or somewhere. He wanted to be there.
He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his very distressed jeans and ducked his unwashed head. It was a biting cold. One of those days where it seemed bright but there's no spot where the sun is there. Where everything seems like a horrid wasteland and all you can do is walk around aimlessly, not accomplishing anything. Not that Jack usually accomplished anything. By all accounts, he was a worthless human being. And he knew it. It was hammered into his head every day when his dad was around. He was a mistake, a waste of space, worthless. If Jack tried hard enough, he could remember when it had been better. Before his mom died.
He remembered coming home to their tiny apartment to find his father watching television, gripping a bottle of beer. The blinds were drawn and the darkness made the television cast the same shadows over his face that Jack had seen just that morning on Specs, Skittery and Dutchy. He had only been ten. There was no sugarcoating, no lying. He just screamed it at him.
Your mom killed herself!He shuddered at the memory, his father's words still resounding in his skull after all those years. He remembered that no one at school would speak to him anymore as if being around him would make their mothers kill themselves too. Jack tried to remember his mother but half of his life had gone by. He could only remember her scent of vanilla and roses and how she would smudge lipstick on his cheeks with kisses before rubbing it off. He remembered her watching sad movies so she could cry. But he couldn't remember what she looked like. Like he had blocked it out.
Jack swiped another finger under his nose and kept walking. He had no real destination (he never did) but he needed to clear his head. He stepped into an arcade, only mildly surprised to see two of his fellow squatters playing a video game.
"Hey," Snitch, a renowned thief said without looking up. "This place is so conspiratorial. They know that once I figure out this machine, I will rule the fucking universe. But they know that I will so they keep changing it so I can't win."
He bit down on his lower lip with his oversized front teeth and plunked another quarter in. Jack knew that it wasn't his quarter but probably that of the Hispanic boy's behind him. He also knew that if said Hispanic boy found out, Snitch would be one dead thief.
"Hola," he said. "Soy enfermo ahora, Jack."
"Sorry about that, Bummers," he said robotically.
Then Bumlets said something in Spanish Jack didn't catch. Nor did he want to judging by his expression as he said it. He bid the boys adieu and stepped back into the street. He felt restless. And those who were restless didn't spend their time in a cramped, dank arcade, watching a paranoid kleptomaniac play Galaga.
Jack walked until what he guessed was the sun rose to noon. His legs were starting to ache but he ignored it. That was when he saw the café. His stomach grumbled from the lack of food in about three days but it wasn't the smell of coffee wafting out like a seductive faun into the air, clacking its hooves and wrapping itself around Jack. It wasn't the pastries dripping with frosting and bursting with filling sitting on the wax paper of the restaurant.
It was the boy in the green apron, cleaning up the table. He wasn't gorgeous, not even all that good looking but there was something captivating about him. The way his curls caught the faux sunshine as he rubbed down the table. They were a rich color, dark in the shop but then an astounding shade of brown when the sun hit them. Jack found himself being drawn to the large bay window. He pressed his palm onto the cool glass and stared at him.
He was transfixed ever the more as he lifted his head to reveal a pair of dazzling blue eyes. He nearly tumbled backwards. Who was that? They locked eyes through the glass. Jack saw two tiny versions of himself reflected in those eyes. But it was something more than the mini-Jacks. It was that the look in his eyes mirrored the one Jack saw if he turned his head slightly and saw his ghostly, glass reflection in the window. That was why he ran.
--
David stood frozen in the café, gripping the towel he had used to wipe down the table tightly. Who was that boy? Though gaunt, he was exquisite. His eyes, though behind dark circles, were…he glanced down. There it was. They were the same color as the mahogany table. His face was sad and captivating. It was amazing. Nervously, his hand went to his right ear and played with the little silver hoop piercing the lobe. It was a nervous habit he had acquired back when he was fifteen, trying to explain to his mother that he had chosen that ear in a veiled attempt to come out to them. She hadn't understood. In fact, she kicked him out of the house.
David sighed, having known even at the time that if his father was still alive. He had fallen off a boat and drowned at a party when David was ten. At least, that was the official report. That he was drunk and jumped off. He knew it was a lie. His father never drank, not even recreationally at parties to fit in. He knew the truth. That he found his wife fucking another man and jumped off. He knew he'd rather die than let his wife remain so unhappy with him that she had to sleep with another man.
"David?" his supervisor called.
He made his way back to the counter, shuddering from the memory that the boy in the window's face had triggered. To his surprise, a raw ache that he hadn't felt since high school and the captain of the swim team roasted in his stomach. It bloomed and started up into his body. He knew that he needed to find that boy.
Luckily for him, he needn't go searching. Later that day, as David was untying his apron and getting ready to leave, he was back. Back at the window. This time he wouldn't lose him. He threw his apron down, not bothering with his usual meticulous folding and burst out the now closed door, jarring the bell.
"Who are you?" he blurted.
The boy was startled at his sudden appearance. David took that moment to take in his entire form. He was dressed in a t-shirt with what appeared to be a long sleeved one under it if the sleeves sticking from his cuffs meant anything. The words 'FUCK YOU' were scrawled thinly in magic marker. He wore a leather jacket and a denim vest over it. There were jeans that were all but threads clinging to his legs and ending with a pair of grubby sneakers. His hair was unwashed and his hands wrapped in black, leather fingerless gloves. Still, he seemed to shine with this light that made him stop and stare.
"Jack," he said finally. "My name is Jack."
Jack smiled to reveal this amazing grin that caught him off guard. When his lips closed, David wondered what he could do to obtain that smile. He wished that he could tell him that. He got the sudden impulse to tell him to kiss him, tell him to make love to him, tell him to take him away from the city.
"I'm David," was what he did say.
They neared each other in the gathering gloom but didn't touch. There was just this moment. This perfect moment as the dirty honey sunlight blazed off the window and turned into the soot-like night. Finally, Jack reached forward and closed his hand around his wrist.
"David," he repeated.
David looked into his eyes and saw what he had thought was just a reflection of himself through the window. He saw the same pain, the same hurt in his eyes. He allowed Jack to pull him closer. The hand on his wrist and the close vicinity of his many-layered body was the most intimate thing he had ever had. More intimate than unfulfilling moments in a locker room senior year where the intimacy had been nothing but physical closeness.
"Jack," he said himself.
He didn't know how his feelings flared so suddenly for the boy he had just met. Maybe it was the smile, the eyes or the fact that he had found someone who could finally understand what was wrong with him.
Jack tugged harder on his wrist so that David could rest his head down on his chest and hear the watery thud of his heart. He felt his arms settled around his waist and he wrapped his own around Jack's shoulders that felt surprisingly delicate under the layers of leather and denim.
That hug, it was better than if they had made love. The embrace seemed to convey so much more. So much more than a sweaty, forgettable night when they'd wake up, mutter their good-byes and leave without number exchange. In David's mind, if they ever did make love, if they even ever saw each other after this moment, it wouldn't be forgettable. It would be fireworks exploding, deer making their first steps, eyes finally opening after being in the dark for ten years since the boat. He could just tell.
After an eternity in that embrace, they split. Somehow, it was as though they had swallowed a truth serum from the touch of their bodies. Jack opened his mouth and these words just came out.
"I live in a squat. My mother killed herself when I was ten."
"I'm gay. My father killed himself when I was ten."
Jack retook his wrist. "Come on."
And even though David, who never left work early without clocking out, who never left without folding his apron, who never met anyone who he felt so attracted to in his life, was all of those things, he went with him.
--
Months later, Jack arose to the brilliant sunset over the dust and grass, looming over the cacti by their adobe house. He stretched and went to the window, the adobe scratching his hands as he rested them on the sill. It filled his tarnished soul with hope each day, that sun did. It didn't ooze into the windows and plop on the floor. It was big, unpolluted, magical even. They were free from the city at last. Gone from the squalor, the brown rivers and the soot. They were out west.
He felt arms wrap around his waist. "Nice huh?"
Jack turned to look into the eyes of his brilliant café boy and smiled. "You got no idea."