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1.
The first lie he tells David is the same one he tells everyone else; that his parents are out West, that his name is Jack Kelly. The last part isn't a lie, not really. So what if he got to pick what people called him? So nothing.
It's the out West part, he knows, that gets to Dave. It's the part where Jack started their (friendship? partnership?) whatever they were dishonestly.
"My father taught us not to lie," he remembers David telling him that day they met, blue eyes shrewd and reproachful and too damn bright for their own good. Bright like they are now as he lunges at Jack, hands balled into fists, something akin to sadness beneath all that rage.
Too damn bright for their own good when David screams, "Never!" into Weasel's smug face.
2.
The second time he lies to David Jacobs is a minute before that.
"So this is why you didn't run away last night," he tugs at the fabric of Jack's new coat almost mockingly and he can't, he can't meet David's gaze when he calls him a liar. He give him the why's and the how's and the I did it because Pulitzer said he'd throw you all in jail if I don't's. The I refuse to do that to you's. He lets him yell, he lets him rage, hell, he goads him. Cmon Dave, punch me. Look at me, right in the eye. Hit me David.
He tries.
3.
The third time he lies to David Jacobs is only hours after (and really, this is a terrible track record he's racking up).
"I guess I can't pretend to be something I'm not," he says.
"What, a scab?" David retorts bitterly.
No, stupid, in love with you. Stop looking at me like that, please.
"No, smart," he says instead. It's a shit reason. He thinks David knows it.
4.
The fourth time they're on the fire escape again, the night they win the strike.
"Were you really going to go to Santa Fe?" David whispers, more to the horizon than to him.
Jack mulls it over for a moment, staring out across the city. It's bright and sparkly, and there's a sense of newness aligning itself with old habits in the harsh slope of each building. But there's no dime-novel wildness. No open sweeping spaces, not out here in the rickety tenant houses of Manhattan. He glances over at David and finds wide blue eyes holding him steady. Thinks back to the moment in the carriage when he realized suddenly that maybe the space between those parted lips might be enough for him.
"Yeah, I was. I had a plan and everything. I was gonna get me a nice plot of land, a ranch, some horses..."
"What changed?" Jack is taken aback by the question.
You.
"Sarah I guess," he replies, "and I didn't want to just leave, y'know? Not after everything we did here."
"Yeah..." David agrees, but there's a certain bland melancholy behind it, something of a longing Jack can't put his finger on.
"Maybe one day I'll go to Santa Fe. When the time is right, n' all that."
When you wanna to come with. When you find something better than us newsies. When I can't stand loving you any longer.
5.
The fifth time Jack lies is when he and Sarah break up.
"David, really, I'm okay."
He isn't, but not for the reason David thinks.
"I know you're in love with my brother."
The words had been spoken kindly on the roof. And Jack had spluttered and Sarah, Sarah had laughed.
"Do you really think I couldn't tell?"
"Well, I-"
"Jack, you look at him like he hung the moon. You're pretty awful at hiding it."
"Not like I hafta," he'd muttered defensively, "Most people ain't looking for boys lookin' at other boys."
"If it makes you feel my better, I look at girls the same way."
Jack started, "Really?"
She'd nodded, "You'd be surprised how many people ignore it," then adopted a serious tone, "Not to say that you wouldn't have to be careful, but-"
"Hold on," Jack interrupted, "Are you suggesting I... Court your brother?"
"Yes."
"Sarah!"
"Jack!"
He'd pursed his lips, "We could get arrested."
"So could I," she'd tilted her chin defiantly up at him, "But you deserve to be together. Isn't that worth it?"
"Not if it lands him in jail," Jack said, "People may not care that we look. They'd care if we stopped."
"Really Dave, I'm good," he says to his fretting best friend. That's all they'd be. Best friends.
+1.
They're fighting, the kind of hard, angry fighting that ends with fists in walls and tension that lasts for weeks. Except it's worse, because it isn't over something stupid like who's turn it was to wash the dishes, and David's crying frustrated tears and tearing at his hair while he screams, "Why won't you just tell me what's wrong?"
And for once Jack speaks to the ache in his chest, ”You're off to Boston at the end of the month! You're leaving!"
"So what?!” David throws his hands up and down and up again, “I'm a day's train away at the most! You can come visit me anytime!"
And Jack can't, he fucking can't alright? He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and wills himself not to crack open and spill everything he feels for David out on their years-weathered wood floors.
"Jack, you've known this was going to happen for months? Why are you suddenly so upset over this?!"
"Because I fucking love you!"
He can almost hear the drip drip drip of it all stuttering out. Everything speeds up and slows down and stops. They stare at each other for a long terrible moment and Jack is sure he’s fucked this up, he’s definitely fucked this completely and David will never look at him the same again if he ever looks at him at all and- then David's mouth is crashing against Jack's and his legs are wrapped around his waist and Jack has him bent back over their shitty little kitchen table leaving bruises from his ear to his collarbone.
"I love you," Jack presses into his hair, his neck, his chest. He says it to the space where David's shoulder meets his clavicle, "I love you and I'm never gonna be okay that I can't be there with you. For you," he places a chaste kiss to the underside of David's jaw.
"Come with me,” David offers breathlessly. His hands move restlessly through Jack’s hair, “We could live together, I want-“
David gasps as Jack sucks a bruise behind his ear - hidden from prying eyes and the inquisitive journalists that David is always surrounded by.
“I want to be with you,” he murmurs. Jack stops, pulls back to look at him. Those restless hands are roaming down his back now, feather light touches burning through his shirt, and Jack wants to remember this moment- wants to write it down so he’ll always have it even if he goes out of his damm mind. David Jacobs looking up at him, thoroughly debauched, blue eyes bright with hope and want and something deeper, something more desperate, something that reflects the thrashing Jack feels in his chest whenever David is near him.
Something like love.
“O’Neill won’t like it you know,” he sighs, “Me leaving on such short notice. And the landlord is gonna have a cow when I tell him I’m going with you. And Race- well Race prolly won’t be too surprised, actually, but he might-“
But David has already surged up to press his ever widening grin to Jack’s waiting mouth.
++1.
Jack wakes up with his face buried in a pile of brown curls. The morning is still dark and David is still snoring. His hand has come up to grip Jack’s shirt, but besides that he hasn’t moved from where he had flopped into bed the night before. Jack fondly brushes the errant curl from David’s forehead. He gets a loud snore in reply and chuckles, resigning himself to just stare at his partner. Fuck if Jack had known what he was getting into all those years ago. What deal that spit shake would seal. He would’ve offered it the second he saw David Jacobs. He thinks of all the late nights and early mornings they’ve had, all the ways David makes him better, all the ways he knows this boy like the back of his hand and foot and armpit.
“I love you,” he tells him softly. Far away, the sun breaks over the Boston skyline.