Notes, disclaimer, and the like: First off, I don't own Newsies. I just own
this fanfic and all original characters therein. Which, ah, adds up to one
background character. Check my mad OC skillz =P
In this chapter, my darlings, we meet Spot and Racetrack. Hee hee hee.
...That was horrible. I'm sorry. Anyway, I'm writing this chapter at 3 in the morning, so I'm incredibly sorry if it seems rushed. I'm going away tomorrow for a week to some vague island off the coast of the city tomorrow, so I didn't want to have to procrastinate yet more with this story. So! Hopefully it's not too bad, but keep in mind that it is both late and rushed =P Sorry all! I will probably redo this chapter just a bit in the future.
So. Here we go!
-Ish
************
To Louis, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars was nothing less than a godsend. Were he to call it such a thing in the presence of his parents, of course, the reaction would have been vile: one did not combine the shameless fag heathens in the media with the divine.
But that's what Ziggy was. Divine. Louis had even admitted to himself that this David Bowie fellow wasn't bad looking, although saying he was attracted to him would have been going a bit far. It was the music, and the message therein, that Louis truly found divine. Every time his parents went out, he would play the album, savouring it at the prudently low volume at which it was played, dreading the day he would have to return it to Jack.
On one such day, when he parents were out at an early matinée - hosted by David's parents, Louis believed - Louis lay back on his bed, listening to the celebrated guitar solo of Moonage Daydream, losing all sense of time and place. The tunes took him away, made him daydream that he lived in a place where his parents were accepting, where David didn't speak out against gays, where Jack was widely accepted and everyone admired Louis for being a close friend of his. All this was, of course, nonsense: neither David nor Louis' parents were likely to change their views anytime soon.
As for Jack, Louis was only a vague acquaintance. He'd been to see him once since Jack had lent him the album, asking if he knew of any more people who were fans of Bowie. Jack had replied cryptically that he knew of several others, and then had dismissed Louis in a very polite, friendly, but rather secretive manner.
The one thing Louis could never fight against, of course, was the call of Mother Nature. Getting up from his bed, he headed to the bathroom to relieve himself. He set the toilet seat up and began to do his business. Shortly after this, he heard the click of the door downstairs, and the thump-thump-thump of his father walking into the house with his customary heavy gait, with his mother's voice following him in pleasantly.
From his room, Louis heard the chorus of "Lady Stardust" starting. He swore vigorously at himself and silently urged his bladder on, and, having over and done with, yanked his pants up and dashed out of the bathroom. Into his room he hastened, hurrying towards the record player, making to tear the needle away from the album regardless of the damage he might do to the player.
There was no need to do this, however: the job had already been done for him.
"Er," said Louis. "Hi, Dad."
Jake did not reply. His expression was inscrutable, but his eyes shone with horror, anger, and fear. There was a vein standing out on his forehead, which, along with the rest of his face, had turned slightly red.
"My, uh. My friend told me it was good, um. Music. Good music," said Louis, trying and failing to sound composed.
Still there was silence from his father. His face, now, was showing more obvious signs of anger: his mouth was twisted into a knot, like he was trying to tie down all the ferocities he wanted to expel at his son. One of his eyebrows was twitching steadily, and it seemed to Louis that with each twitch, Jake's face became redder and redder.
"Have you, um, heard any of his songs?" asked Louis tentatively. "They're really quite-"
"I told you," said Jake slowly and quietly, though it was plain it took a lot of effort to do so. "I told you of the dangers of this kind of music. A valiant attempt to protect you from the poisons that this world is unleashing upon us. But here you are," he hissed, "purchasing music made by some man - no, not some man. Some faggot who is attracted to his own sex. Do you know how unnatural that is? Has it ever occurred to you that it's not right? I'm sure you know about sex, son, and how it's done. Think. Can you figure out how they do it? How two men have sex - no, how they fuck?"
Louis had never really thought of this, it not having been on his list of things he really wanted to have a mental image of. He shook his head slowly, although it didn't take him long to understand. Jake pounced on this reaction and shouted,
"It's the ass, son. They fuck each other up the ass. What is this shit you've brought into my house? The so-called music of some girly-guy that fancies other men." Jake paused, breathing heavily. "I can blame myself," he continued in a softer, though far from pleasant tone. "I've sheltered you too much. You need to know about the atrocities that are committed. Well, now you do. You know that you should never have brought this into the house, and I'm sure you will dispose of it as soon as possible, won't you, son?"
Frightened out of his wits by what was going on, Louis' vision was obscured by tears. His father was now just a blur, a terrible blur of fury and hatred.
Jake noticed this, and strode quickly up to Louis. "Don't cry," he shouted, shaking him by the shoulders, as though Louis' tears were some sign of suppressed effeminacy. "Don't you fucking start crying!" He pushed Louis away and raged over to the record player. "Damn this fucking fag! Straight to hell," he screamed, picking up the record and, to Louis' horror, bringing it down over his knee, the snap of plastic echoing in Louis' subconscious for several long seconds after the sound had ceased.
***
"It's not the record I'm worried about. There are plenty more where that came from, believe me. I think each of my friends has at least one copy, actually," said Jack, a half-laugh accentuating the last sentence.
Louis sat shaking on a large, stuffed chair in Jack's living room. It was so soft and deep that he felt as though it would swallow him up soon - indeed, he wished it would.
Jack sent him a concerned glance and dragged a wooden bench from in front of his polished black piano in front of Louis, sitting himself down on it. "Damn, Louis. Trust me, I'm not mad at you. I knew that if your parents found out they'd react badly, I just." he stopped, and tried unsuccessfully to catch Louis' eye. "I didn't know it would be this severe." He turned the two halves of the Ziggy Stardust album over in his hands pensively.
"I don't want to be here anymore, Jack," said Louis tearfully. "I'm tired of all these people hating people like you."
"Like us," said Jack.
"Er," Louis began, turning a deep shade of red. "Erm, I'm not, uh, you know."
"No worries, man," laughed Jack. "That's not what I meant. It's the accepting people that are feared here. They hate things they can't accept, and people who accept these new ideas and lifestyles are hated because of that. It doesn't matter whether the people actually participate in them. Not here, at least."
"I don't want to be here," said Louis again.
This time, Jack managed to gain eye contact with Louis, and it was as though a lightbulb had just flashed on inside his mind.
"Hey, Louis," he said. "Have you ever been to the city?"
"No," said Louis. "Can you take me there?"
"Sure thing," grinned Jack. "Don't worry, you'll be back soon enough that your parents won't be worried - it's still kind of early in the afternoon."
A smile lit up Louis' face. Go to the city; that's where Jack's friends were, he knew. Where people like Jack - like the two of them were. Maybe he'd even meet Jack's boyfriend, who he'd heard a lot about. His name was Theodore, but Jack usually called him Spot, which was his stage name.
"Spot? That's a dog's name," Louis had pointed out skeptically.
"Yeah, well," Jack replied with his trademark wry grin. "Spot's my bitch."
***
Their method of transportation was Jack's small, tomato juice-red car that looked like it had been through hell and back. "That's why it's red," Jack had explained. The inside was plain, very grey, but it was comfortable enough. It was slightly cramped for Louis, and was probably more so for Jack, who was a good head taller than Louis, although Louis was taller than a lot of people he knew.
The city, like Jack's car, was very grey and haphazard, and smelled strongly of chemicals. They drove for well over two hours, but, to Louis, the time seemed to fly. He and Jack talked about everything under the sun and, at one point, some things beyond it.
Eventually, Jack pulled the car up in front of a small bar, with a flashing sign that stood out in the dusk that was settling over the city. The sign red: "The Tainted Seraph" in red cursive writing, with white wing contours on either side, and the entire logo surrounded by a rectangle of flashing alternately purple and yellow lights.
"Well, we're here," said Jack, taking the keys out of the ignition and pulling a small, beaten-up duffel back out from the back seat. "Tainted Seraph. 'dirty angel' in less impressive words."
Louis jumped out of his reverie. "What?" he asked. "Here. Oh, that bar?"
"Yeah, a gay bar." Jack looked amused, the same endearing grin returning to his face: "Man, someone's got the skitters."
"Everyone says I'm jumpy," said Louis nervously. "My dad called it a bad case of the skitters."
"Hm." Jack looked at him for a moment, grinned briefly, and then suddenly appeared quite thunderstruck. "Louis," he said. "Louis, this is really important. Do you know what a drag queen is?"
"Er," said Louis, trying self-consciously to suppress a jump again. "Er, no."
"Oh." The worried expression was replaced by a sardonic, amused one. "Well, I guess you're going to find out. Anyway, out we get," said Jack.
And so Louis stepped out of Jack's car, and followed his host into the comparatively small, cube-shaped bar that was the Tainted Seraph.
The first thing Louis noticed was the smoke. Of course, people smoked in the suburbs, he did himself, in fact, but it was usually in a more open space, where the smoke could dissipate into the air harmlessly. The gasoline-dirtied air of downtown New York that he had found so choking was quite fresh compared to the concentrated air in the bar.
There was the actual bar at the back of the edifice, taking up half of the back wall. The bar seemed much larger than it had from the outside. Taking up the other half of the back wall was a stage elevated three or four feet off the ground, with no backdrop, and plain black curtains pulled back. A few yellow lights were switched on, shining at chance bits of the stage. Around the stage were several circular tables with chairs interspersed between them, though it was impossible to tell which chairs went with which table. The tables appeared to have just recently been wiped down, as had another counter taking up the front wall, looking out at the street.
"Jack, baby," came a somewhat affected male voice from the mostly empty bar. "You'se heah early tonight. We was all just getting' ready for the foist number."
Out from the shadows walked a short, straight-backed figure. Actually, he couldn't really be described as walking over to Jack: more like strutting over in a very self-aware manner. He was a very short, snub- nosed man who looked to be about nineteen or twenty, with striking, chesnut brown eyes.
"Spot," whispered Jack to Louis, before bending down to hug the character and peck him on the cheek. Louis was highly amused by the couple they presented themselves as: Jack, a tall, friendly, polite man who at the moment looked like someone straight out of the 'burbs. Spot was extremely short, and looked like he'd been treated as royalty all his life, a cigarette dangling from one hand, and a very self-absorbed look to him.
As Jack and Spot exchanged their show of affection, another young man appeared to greet Jack, and looked with interest at Louis through a mop of messy brown hair.
"This," said Jack to Louis by way of introduction, "is Racetrack."
Racetrack grinned and nodded at Louis. "How d'you do," he said, in a New Yorker voice with the slightest hint of an Italian accent in it. Louis smiled tentatively and stuck out his hand. As they shook hands, Louis noticed that this Racetrack man was wearing what looked to be eyeliner and glittery eyeshadow. In the semi-dark of the bar Louis couldn't be sure about this detail, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Racetrack was wearing lipstick, as well. Louis wondered if this was what Spot had meant by "getting ready."
"We know who Race is," Spot interjected impatiently in his heavy Brooklyn accent, making Louis jump with surprise and look sheepishly away from "Race." "But who's dat fella ya got wit' ya?"
"This," said Jack, putting his arm around Louis "is Skittery."
**********
Shoutouts!
hilaRyB - I'm so glad you love reading it as much as I love writing it, because I do, you know! ^_^ Thank you so much for the rave reviews *glomp* And more glomps for being a Bowie fan, of course! =D
misprint - ha HA, I warded off your obscene criticism skills! *does the warding-off-skillz boogie* But I'm so glad you like it, m'dear, and don't worry, I still think you're a smug little bitch even if you gave it a good review ^_~
Deejay Rockstar - Never be ashamed to sing out Bowie tunes at the top of your lungs! If singing loudly and off-key is a bad thing, I'm going straight to hell, where I will continue to sing loudly and off-key.
Gothic Author - Wow, I'm so proud of causing you to be nice to Jacky ^^ *hugs Jack* Glad you like it. "laughing at the lovely tone of storytelling," eh? Um, thanks ^^;;
Pesky the Gremlin Goddess - Well thank you, but you're still an authoress extraordinaire. No arguments allowed. Gay!Jack palooza once this story gets going, believe me.
Pyromaniacal Llama - Hah, Davey anti-fans unite! (Or, as the more dyslexic among us would say: "Untie!") Glad you like ^_^
In this chapter, my darlings, we meet Spot and Racetrack. Hee hee hee.
...That was horrible. I'm sorry. Anyway, I'm writing this chapter at 3 in the morning, so I'm incredibly sorry if it seems rushed. I'm going away tomorrow for a week to some vague island off the coast of the city tomorrow, so I didn't want to have to procrastinate yet more with this story. So! Hopefully it's not too bad, but keep in mind that it is both late and rushed =P Sorry all! I will probably redo this chapter just a bit in the future.
So. Here we go!
-Ish
************
To Louis, Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars was nothing less than a godsend. Were he to call it such a thing in the presence of his parents, of course, the reaction would have been vile: one did not combine the shameless fag heathens in the media with the divine.
But that's what Ziggy was. Divine. Louis had even admitted to himself that this David Bowie fellow wasn't bad looking, although saying he was attracted to him would have been going a bit far. It was the music, and the message therein, that Louis truly found divine. Every time his parents went out, he would play the album, savouring it at the prudently low volume at which it was played, dreading the day he would have to return it to Jack.
On one such day, when he parents were out at an early matinée - hosted by David's parents, Louis believed - Louis lay back on his bed, listening to the celebrated guitar solo of Moonage Daydream, losing all sense of time and place. The tunes took him away, made him daydream that he lived in a place where his parents were accepting, where David didn't speak out against gays, where Jack was widely accepted and everyone admired Louis for being a close friend of his. All this was, of course, nonsense: neither David nor Louis' parents were likely to change their views anytime soon.
As for Jack, Louis was only a vague acquaintance. He'd been to see him once since Jack had lent him the album, asking if he knew of any more people who were fans of Bowie. Jack had replied cryptically that he knew of several others, and then had dismissed Louis in a very polite, friendly, but rather secretive manner.
The one thing Louis could never fight against, of course, was the call of Mother Nature. Getting up from his bed, he headed to the bathroom to relieve himself. He set the toilet seat up and began to do his business. Shortly after this, he heard the click of the door downstairs, and the thump-thump-thump of his father walking into the house with his customary heavy gait, with his mother's voice following him in pleasantly.
From his room, Louis heard the chorus of "Lady Stardust" starting. He swore vigorously at himself and silently urged his bladder on, and, having over and done with, yanked his pants up and dashed out of the bathroom. Into his room he hastened, hurrying towards the record player, making to tear the needle away from the album regardless of the damage he might do to the player.
There was no need to do this, however: the job had already been done for him.
"Er," said Louis. "Hi, Dad."
Jake did not reply. His expression was inscrutable, but his eyes shone with horror, anger, and fear. There was a vein standing out on his forehead, which, along with the rest of his face, had turned slightly red.
"My, uh. My friend told me it was good, um. Music. Good music," said Louis, trying and failing to sound composed.
Still there was silence from his father. His face, now, was showing more obvious signs of anger: his mouth was twisted into a knot, like he was trying to tie down all the ferocities he wanted to expel at his son. One of his eyebrows was twitching steadily, and it seemed to Louis that with each twitch, Jake's face became redder and redder.
"Have you, um, heard any of his songs?" asked Louis tentatively. "They're really quite-"
"I told you," said Jake slowly and quietly, though it was plain it took a lot of effort to do so. "I told you of the dangers of this kind of music. A valiant attempt to protect you from the poisons that this world is unleashing upon us. But here you are," he hissed, "purchasing music made by some man - no, not some man. Some faggot who is attracted to his own sex. Do you know how unnatural that is? Has it ever occurred to you that it's not right? I'm sure you know about sex, son, and how it's done. Think. Can you figure out how they do it? How two men have sex - no, how they fuck?"
Louis had never really thought of this, it not having been on his list of things he really wanted to have a mental image of. He shook his head slowly, although it didn't take him long to understand. Jake pounced on this reaction and shouted,
"It's the ass, son. They fuck each other up the ass. What is this shit you've brought into my house? The so-called music of some girly-guy that fancies other men." Jake paused, breathing heavily. "I can blame myself," he continued in a softer, though far from pleasant tone. "I've sheltered you too much. You need to know about the atrocities that are committed. Well, now you do. You know that you should never have brought this into the house, and I'm sure you will dispose of it as soon as possible, won't you, son?"
Frightened out of his wits by what was going on, Louis' vision was obscured by tears. His father was now just a blur, a terrible blur of fury and hatred.
Jake noticed this, and strode quickly up to Louis. "Don't cry," he shouted, shaking him by the shoulders, as though Louis' tears were some sign of suppressed effeminacy. "Don't you fucking start crying!" He pushed Louis away and raged over to the record player. "Damn this fucking fag! Straight to hell," he screamed, picking up the record and, to Louis' horror, bringing it down over his knee, the snap of plastic echoing in Louis' subconscious for several long seconds after the sound had ceased.
***
"It's not the record I'm worried about. There are plenty more where that came from, believe me. I think each of my friends has at least one copy, actually," said Jack, a half-laugh accentuating the last sentence.
Louis sat shaking on a large, stuffed chair in Jack's living room. It was so soft and deep that he felt as though it would swallow him up soon - indeed, he wished it would.
Jack sent him a concerned glance and dragged a wooden bench from in front of his polished black piano in front of Louis, sitting himself down on it. "Damn, Louis. Trust me, I'm not mad at you. I knew that if your parents found out they'd react badly, I just." he stopped, and tried unsuccessfully to catch Louis' eye. "I didn't know it would be this severe." He turned the two halves of the Ziggy Stardust album over in his hands pensively.
"I don't want to be here anymore, Jack," said Louis tearfully. "I'm tired of all these people hating people like you."
"Like us," said Jack.
"Er," Louis began, turning a deep shade of red. "Erm, I'm not, uh, you know."
"No worries, man," laughed Jack. "That's not what I meant. It's the accepting people that are feared here. They hate things they can't accept, and people who accept these new ideas and lifestyles are hated because of that. It doesn't matter whether the people actually participate in them. Not here, at least."
"I don't want to be here," said Louis again.
This time, Jack managed to gain eye contact with Louis, and it was as though a lightbulb had just flashed on inside his mind.
"Hey, Louis," he said. "Have you ever been to the city?"
"No," said Louis. "Can you take me there?"
"Sure thing," grinned Jack. "Don't worry, you'll be back soon enough that your parents won't be worried - it's still kind of early in the afternoon."
A smile lit up Louis' face. Go to the city; that's where Jack's friends were, he knew. Where people like Jack - like the two of them were. Maybe he'd even meet Jack's boyfriend, who he'd heard a lot about. His name was Theodore, but Jack usually called him Spot, which was his stage name.
"Spot? That's a dog's name," Louis had pointed out skeptically.
"Yeah, well," Jack replied with his trademark wry grin. "Spot's my bitch."
***
Their method of transportation was Jack's small, tomato juice-red car that looked like it had been through hell and back. "That's why it's red," Jack had explained. The inside was plain, very grey, but it was comfortable enough. It was slightly cramped for Louis, and was probably more so for Jack, who was a good head taller than Louis, although Louis was taller than a lot of people he knew.
The city, like Jack's car, was very grey and haphazard, and smelled strongly of chemicals. They drove for well over two hours, but, to Louis, the time seemed to fly. He and Jack talked about everything under the sun and, at one point, some things beyond it.
Eventually, Jack pulled the car up in front of a small bar, with a flashing sign that stood out in the dusk that was settling over the city. The sign red: "The Tainted Seraph" in red cursive writing, with white wing contours on either side, and the entire logo surrounded by a rectangle of flashing alternately purple and yellow lights.
"Well, we're here," said Jack, taking the keys out of the ignition and pulling a small, beaten-up duffel back out from the back seat. "Tainted Seraph. 'dirty angel' in less impressive words."
Louis jumped out of his reverie. "What?" he asked. "Here. Oh, that bar?"
"Yeah, a gay bar." Jack looked amused, the same endearing grin returning to his face: "Man, someone's got the skitters."
"Everyone says I'm jumpy," said Louis nervously. "My dad called it a bad case of the skitters."
"Hm." Jack looked at him for a moment, grinned briefly, and then suddenly appeared quite thunderstruck. "Louis," he said. "Louis, this is really important. Do you know what a drag queen is?"
"Er," said Louis, trying self-consciously to suppress a jump again. "Er, no."
"Oh." The worried expression was replaced by a sardonic, amused one. "Well, I guess you're going to find out. Anyway, out we get," said Jack.
And so Louis stepped out of Jack's car, and followed his host into the comparatively small, cube-shaped bar that was the Tainted Seraph.
The first thing Louis noticed was the smoke. Of course, people smoked in the suburbs, he did himself, in fact, but it was usually in a more open space, where the smoke could dissipate into the air harmlessly. The gasoline-dirtied air of downtown New York that he had found so choking was quite fresh compared to the concentrated air in the bar.
There was the actual bar at the back of the edifice, taking up half of the back wall. The bar seemed much larger than it had from the outside. Taking up the other half of the back wall was a stage elevated three or four feet off the ground, with no backdrop, and plain black curtains pulled back. A few yellow lights were switched on, shining at chance bits of the stage. Around the stage were several circular tables with chairs interspersed between them, though it was impossible to tell which chairs went with which table. The tables appeared to have just recently been wiped down, as had another counter taking up the front wall, looking out at the street.
"Jack, baby," came a somewhat affected male voice from the mostly empty bar. "You'se heah early tonight. We was all just getting' ready for the foist number."
Out from the shadows walked a short, straight-backed figure. Actually, he couldn't really be described as walking over to Jack: more like strutting over in a very self-aware manner. He was a very short, snub- nosed man who looked to be about nineteen or twenty, with striking, chesnut brown eyes.
"Spot," whispered Jack to Louis, before bending down to hug the character and peck him on the cheek. Louis was highly amused by the couple they presented themselves as: Jack, a tall, friendly, polite man who at the moment looked like someone straight out of the 'burbs. Spot was extremely short, and looked like he'd been treated as royalty all his life, a cigarette dangling from one hand, and a very self-absorbed look to him.
As Jack and Spot exchanged their show of affection, another young man appeared to greet Jack, and looked with interest at Louis through a mop of messy brown hair.
"This," said Jack to Louis by way of introduction, "is Racetrack."
Racetrack grinned and nodded at Louis. "How d'you do," he said, in a New Yorker voice with the slightest hint of an Italian accent in it. Louis smiled tentatively and stuck out his hand. As they shook hands, Louis noticed that this Racetrack man was wearing what looked to be eyeliner and glittery eyeshadow. In the semi-dark of the bar Louis couldn't be sure about this detail, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Racetrack was wearing lipstick, as well. Louis wondered if this was what Spot had meant by "getting ready."
"We know who Race is," Spot interjected impatiently in his heavy Brooklyn accent, making Louis jump with surprise and look sheepishly away from "Race." "But who's dat fella ya got wit' ya?"
"This," said Jack, putting his arm around Louis "is Skittery."
**********
Shoutouts!
hilaRyB - I'm so glad you love reading it as much as I love writing it, because I do, you know! ^_^ Thank you so much for the rave reviews *glomp* And more glomps for being a Bowie fan, of course! =D
misprint - ha HA, I warded off your obscene criticism skills! *does the warding-off-skillz boogie* But I'm so glad you like it, m'dear, and don't worry, I still think you're a smug little bitch even if you gave it a good review ^_~
Deejay Rockstar - Never be ashamed to sing out Bowie tunes at the top of your lungs! If singing loudly and off-key is a bad thing, I'm going straight to hell, where I will continue to sing loudly and off-key.
Gothic Author - Wow, I'm so proud of causing you to be nice to Jacky ^^ *hugs Jack* Glad you like it. "laughing at the lovely tone of storytelling," eh? Um, thanks ^^;;
Pesky the Gremlin Goddess - Well thank you, but you're still an authoress extraordinaire. No arguments allowed. Gay!Jack palooza once this story gets going, believe me.
Pyromaniacal Llama - Hah, Davey anti-fans unite! (Or, as the more dyslexic among us would say: "Untie!") Glad you like ^_^