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Jack, currently sat on his penthouse, tapped his charcoal stick against the blank piece of paper. He groaned, leaning his back against the metal railing. Artist’s block. It wasn’t anything that was new to the boy, but it didn’t happen often.
He stared up at the sky; the sun was starting its descent to the other side of the world. Still, the sky’s bright blue still popped out of the smog from the factories.
The boy had finished selling all of his papes earlier than even he expected, so he climbed up to his penthouse. As much as he loved his Newsies, he needed a breather from their chaos every so often.
The boy heard clinking from below. He furrowed his eyebrows.
“Crutch?” he called, getting up to help him. It wasn’t an unusual sight; Crutchie would climb up to his penthouse to ramble about his day, or to look up at the stars at a higher ground, or to simply enjoy Jack’s presence.
“Nope,” a voice called back. He smiled, immediately recognizing it. His heart involuntary fluttered, and he had to mentally scold himself. Jack peered down at the ladder, seeing a burnt out Davey climbing him. Davey scowled when he saw Jack’s too-happy expression. Jack wheezed and returned back to his spot as Davey made it to the top. The taller panted, saying, “Why are you up here so early? For all I know, Race and Tommy Boy could be sneaking up on Brooklyn again.”
“In broad daylight? They’s know better than ‘dat,” Jack joked with a small laugh.
Davey grimaced, “You never know, with those dumbasses.”
“Ha. Ha.”
Jack patted the spot next to him, and Davey got comfortable. He was wearing his usual attire, except he wasn’t wearing his usual cap. His hair was tousled, as beads of sweat trailing down his forehead and neck.
“Where’s ya cap?” Jack clicked his tongue, pointing at the weathered gray, Newsies cap on his own head.
Davey reached into his bag, holding out his cap. Jack’s mouth formed a small “o”, nodding. Davey let out a short chuckle.
“Where’s Les?”
“I took him home,” Davey said as he shoved his hat back into his empty bag. Jack only hummed in acknowledgment, drumming the metal sheets he was sitting on. “Any more questions?”
“None,” Jack fondly smiled at the other’s teasing tone.
“Am I allowed to ask some?”
“You already asked two.” He continued to hold up two fingers to further annoy Davey. Davey only rolled his eyes. “But go ahead.”
“So, whatcha drawing?” the taller brunette nodded his head towards the blank page.
“I is not sure,” Jack sheepishly admitted, picking back up the charcoal stick. Medda really was too kind for her own good. “Feelin’…stuck.”
Davey hummed, tucking his feet beneath himself. He tugged at his pants, picking random spots to pull before letting go.
“I’m no artist, but is there any way I can help you…jog your imagination?” Davey asked. Jack sighed, meeting his eyes. An idea clicked.
“Pose,” Jack shrugged.
Davey blinked, instinctively leaning in, needing to make sure he heard the other right. “What?” he asked for confirmation.
“Be me model,” Jack gestured his hands to Davey, waving them. “Why would I needs help draw something fake, when I gots a real model in fronta me?”
Davey snorted. “Right…” he said, clearly unconvinced.
“Nah, Dave, I is serious. Try to look…shit, I don’ts’ know…”
“…Do you want me to smile?” Davey hesitantly suggested, finally giving into the idea.
“No,” Jack shook his head, “I wants you to look…sad?”
“Like ‘on-the-verge-of-crying-sad’? Because I’m not that good of an actor.”
“No,” he gave a short laugh. “Like…like…”
“Solemn?”
“What now?” Jack had read that word before in the papes, but never understood what it meant.
“It’s like…” Davey’s face dropped into what Jack could only assume was a solemn face. It was one of those facial expressions he would draw quite frequently, simply because the stillness and seriousness of the expression was easy to draw.
“Not that, either,” Jack sighed.
“Make up your damn mind, Kelly,” Davey pretended to be annoyed, rolling his eyes for good measure. Jack scoffed mockingly.
“Act like you’se inspired,” Jack suggested with a coy smile. Davey scrunched up his facial features before creating a very exaggerated “inspired” look: a mouth formed into a wide “o”, a raised pointer finger, and a hand on his hip. Jack shot a disapproving glare, all in good humor. “Okay, tone it down a notch. Act’ally, jus’ do whateva.”
Davey laughed at his best friend’s lost hope. It was a bit depressing, knowing that it was due to him, but the hilarity of it cancelled the previous emotion.
The lanky boy repositioned himself into a simple cross-legged position, with his elbow resting on his leg, the side of his head resting on the palm of his hand. He looked in Jack’s direction, subtly raising his eyebrow, silently asking if it was an okay position.
“Should work,” Jack nodded.
“Now, make this quick because I’m not gonna sit here for the next few hours. I have places to be,” Davey shot him a sarcastic smile.
“Yeah, yeah,” the other rolled his eyes, reaching for his drawing utensils. He started with a small circle right above where the center of the page was. That would be the head (big surprise). He sketched rough rectangles, circles, and triangles, connecting them with thin lines, for the base of the body. Jack was sure it had been less than 10 minutes to draw the base, because he wanted to get shading down before nighttime and, of course, before Davey had to go back home to his folks.
He added rough outlines for Davey’s clothing. He quickly colored in his vest and shoes and tried to recreate the gingham pattern on his shirt, ultimately failing. He opted for a simple checkerboard pattern instead. The pants folds were difficult to recreate, but Jack managed, ultimately making the creases as black as possible. The shoes weren’t hard, since most of Davey’s feet were tucked underneath his legs; just a few curved lines to make up the soles and bam! : a shoe.
“Ya done yet?” Davey teased. Jack glared at him, clearly with amusement and fondness instead of actual anger.
“It takes time to draw perfection,” Jack said before really processing what he said in his brain. He silently cursed at himself when he realized.
Davey only smugly looked at him, a tad bit amused. Jack could see the blush forming on his cheeks (he could feel the heat on his own face) and knew that the cocky smile playing on his lips was to cover up the initial reaction.
“‘Perfection’, huh?” Davey softly laughed. Jack’s face was no doubt tomato red now. “Jack Kelly, aren’t you quite the charmer?”
“…Shaddup,” was Jack’s pathetic response. Davey couldn’t help but crack up laughing.
They’ve known each other’s feelings for months now, and only danced around the subject. They weren’t stupid; they knew that they wouldn’t be accepted by anyone. The fact that Davey was Jewish added another large glob of disapproval to the mix. (The bowl was overflowing at this point.)
Men and women who have feelings like them get called slurs and punched on the streets. Some of their lives and reputation has been completely ruined because of something that they can’t control.
Despite all of this, it didn’t — and couldn’t — stop Davey and Jack (and any other queer person, for that matter) from feeling and loving who they love.
Seeing Davey’s laughter, his eyes crinkled and mouth a wide grin, Jack realized that he wanted to imitate that. Not only the expression — he knew he was capable of that, but the melodic sound of it and the feelings it caused — Jack’s heart fucking soared at the sound of his genuine laughter.
“Jackie?” Davey tilted his head ever so slightly, trying so hard to not move much. It sucked how fluid his motions usually were as he spoke.
“Hmm?” Jack hummed, snapping out of his internal thoughts. He focused his energy back on his sketch, trying to carve details into drawn-Davey’s hand. Hands sucked .
“You alright?” Davey checked. “You’ve been…staring into space.”
It took a few moments for the other to reply, due to his focus on the hand.
“I’se fine. Just…thinkin’.” Jacks supplied. He frowned when he realized he smudged one of the lines.
“About what? I’m not some mind-reader,” Davey softly pried. However, he didn’t want to force him into confessing anything if he didn’t want to.
Jack kept his eyes on the page. “I like your laugh,” he simply replied, trying not to go into the details. The taller brunette audibly sucked in a breath and blushed, but didn’t move a muscle. Jack hesitantly made eye contact and smiled shyly, before redirecting his eyes to the paper again. He swore he was about to melt into a puddle any second.
Neither of them spoke the rest of the time Jack sketched. The only noises were the chattering and footsteps of the people below them, the scratching of the charcoal stick on the flimsy paper, and the occasional shift in Jack’s posture.
Though Davey didn’t move, his eyes were trained on Jack’s hand as he made quick lines on the page. He had always admired Jack’s talent and wished he was even adequate at any form of art.
Jack bit his lip as he made it to the last thing he needed to draw: Davey’s eyes. He was fine with eyes; he usually never struggled with them. But he wanted to capture the life in his eyes and the bright blue of his irises. Jack knew that the life in Davey’s eyes wasn’t able to transfer onto paper, but he made a mental note to use paint to color in his eyes later (it would be as close as he could get).
He scribbled down two circles that looked similar, ultimately giving up.
Jack set the charcoal down and squinted at his work. On the page, Davey stared back at him. He was okay with the product, but it wasn’t ideal . He frowned, mildly upset with the end result.
“You done yet?” Davey asked.
“I think so?” Jack didn’t mean to have it come like a question.
Davey finally got out of his pose and stood up. He hissed at the stiff muscles, rolling his shoulders to try to relieve that soreness. He walked over to Jack, the metal creaking underneath him, and kneeled behind him. Davey looped his arms around his shoulders and he rested his head on the top of Jack’s. The shorter’s breath hitched.
Davey looked at the page, amazed with the accuracy in the details.
“That’s…insane,” Davey commented. As an afterthought: “A good insane.”
“It’s bad,” Jack shook his head. Davey furrowed his eyebrows, unable to see how Jack may deem his artwork ‘bad’. “The eyes is crooked, lines are smudged…your hand looks like — like a claw. It’s shit.”
“Jack,” Davey warned, though his tone was soft and affectionate. “You’re being too hard on yourself. You can’t expect everything to turn out exactly how you imagined it, but that’s okay. It’s all part of the learning process.”
He paused, trying to think of what words to say. He sighed and stood up, his heart stinging from the loss of contact. Davey sat down in front of Jack. His eyes were still glued to the page, finding every mistake, so Davey gently put two fingers under Jack’s chin and tilted his head to look at him. Jack’s breath got caught in his throat.
The taller continued with a steady voice, “I’m not saying to slack off. Actually, I’m saying exactly the opposite. As you draw and paint more, you will know exactly what you need to work on. And you practice what you need to work on.
“Talent is not natural. Talent only comes from strength, perseverance, self-confidence and an overall open-mind. You, sir, need to learn that it’s okay to not be good at something for the first time, but to not give up and instead grow .
“It’s just like the strike. You practically gave up once the bulls came to attack us. Despite the fact that that was the first time anyone has tried to do this. I know being the leader wasn’t easy, but we trusted and still trust you . And I wish you had the same amount of confidence in yourself that we had in you .”
Tears streaked both of their faces at this point — Jack more than Davey. But Davey had to choke back some more tears to utter one last sentence:
“But, I guess, all you need is a little push.”
With that, Jack couldn’t stand the distance anymore.
He connected their lips, silently hoping he didn’t mess anything up. He hoped not, because he’d die for the feeling of his lips on him again. Davey’s initial gasp scared him, but he was quick to reciprocate. Jack hesitantly slid his hands down Davey’s arms, locking their hands together when he reached the taller’s hands. The kiss was sweet and soft — no doubt a little awkward. But it was with each other and simply great.
Davey was the one to reluctantly pull away. Both of their faces were flush and gasping for breath.
“Well…” Davey murmured.
Jack weakly laughed, bringing him into a hug after yearning for more close contact. He buried his face in Davey’s neck, his breath fanning over the surface, goosebumps forming on his neck. Davey rubbed his back with his hands, fully accepting Jack’s ‘koala mode’.
“T-thank you,” Jack genuinely said. “I…I guess I neva’ had anyone to give me ‘dem pep talks.”
“What are friends for?” Davey said, his voice hushed. Jack felt himself stop breathing.
“‘Friends’?” he whispered, almost embarrassed at the question.
Davey swallowed. “B-boy…friends?” he tried.
Jack hesitantly removed his face from his neck to look the other in the eye. Davey looked at him unsurely.
“I…I think I like the sound of that,” Jack admitted. Davey giggled. “But maybe ‘secret boyfriends’ before ‘boyfriends’.”
“Most definitely,” the taller agreed with a small, genuine laugh.
That night, after he walked Davey to his home, Jack looked back over at his drawing of his now boyfriend — his heart fluttered at the new title — in the dim moonlight.
He thought about Davey’s words again — or at least the ones he picked up through his crying and internal freaking out.
As Jack picked up his drawing instrument, he realized that he really only needed a small push. He knew he was going to have a sleepless night, with strained eyes, a sore back, and a hand cramp in the morning.