Chapter Text
It’s nearly Winter Break, and they’re hanging out in Jack’s room when Rhys spots it. He’s sprawled across Jack’s deep red duvet, listening to Jack talk his way through an argument in their paper--mostly tuning him out, if he’s honest--and a photograph catches his eye.
“Oh my god, are you a theatre kid? What play is this??” Rhys quickly flops over to the dresser--the bed is too comfy to leave--and snags the little framed square.
It’s Jack, in that makeup that makes everyone look sort of unreal, grinning huge and wild. He has his arm around Nisha, who’s in all black and has a headset curving around ear. She’s looking at Jack, smiling small and fond.
“Midsummer Night’s Dream, pumpkin. I rocked the faces off of people, back when I was into theatre. I’m a goddamn triple threat. I can act, I can sing, and I look amazing.” Jack says, having rolled his chair over to the bed and sprawled next to Rhys, looking over his shoulder at the photo. He’s plastered himself to Rhys’s side, so close Rhys can feel his breath on his neck. He can feel his cheeks heating up.
“I, uh, I don’t think that’s what a ‘triple threat’ traditionally is. I’m pretty sure it’s act, sing, and dance.” Rhys can’t help but point out.
“Oh? Well then I am a quadruple threat, that’s even better.” Jack crows, flipping onto his back and putting some space between them. Rhys breathes a little easier.
“Who were you even playing? Were you, uh,” and here, Rhys is scrambling to remember anyone in that play, “...Puck?” That doesn’t seem right. From what little he remembers about the movie, Puck had been all in greens, and the Jack in the picture is in a gauzy, sparkly black sleeveless shirt, and fake black tattoos of wolves and skulls and other slightly morbid stuff twisting over his arms. He looks--well, hot, but also not like Rhys remembers Puck looking.
Jack snorts. “Nahh. I was Oberon. King of the faeries. All-around badass.” Kind of a superdouche, Rhys completes mentally, the movie’s plot starting to come back to him.
“Do you still do theatre? You weren’t in the fall production, are you waiting to do the musical in spring? Is, uh, is Nisha still part of stage crew?” He stops abruptly.
Though his facial expression hasn’t changed, there is an unmistakable tension running through Jack. At that question, he cracks a grin. It isn’t a nice one.
“Ha! Nisha’s running that shit now, she made stage manager the very next show and they should be thanking their lucky goddam stars for it.” Jack says. “And no, kitten, I decided to wait til I’m out of this dump and at college to get back into acting, although hell, maybe I’ll try directing, I’ve learned from Moxxi what not to do so well.” He sneers.
Rhys’s eyes go wide, “Mrs. Hodunk? You, uh, you got into a fight with her?” Rhys can’t imagine--well, okay, this is Jack, but Mrs. Hodunk, despite her slightly goofy last name and frankly flamboyant makeup, seems so calm and unruffled, all the time.
“We had,” Jack says crisply, “artistic differences.”
“Oh? What-what did she want you to do?” Rhys says, feeling loyal suddenly, at the faint vulnerability he can see in Jack’s eyes; hurt that isn’t quite old enough to get bitter.
Caught wrong footed at the phrasing of the question, Jack stutters for maybe the first time Rhys has ever known him. “I, she, she kept having me play villains. Said I was perfect for them.” He sounds so bewildered, and it makes something in Rhys’s chest hurt. “I kept trying out for the hero, and she never would let me have it.”
“That’s crazy! You would be such an awesome hero, Jack, she’s nuts.” Rhys exclaims hotly.
“Thanks, sweetheart. I’ve always thought so, too.”