#but davey has never been able to dream like that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sednonamoris · 1 year

Text

dear john

Pairing: John Marston x gn!reader

Summary: A year’s worth of letters, never sent.

Warnings: Angst, canon-typical language, epistolary chapter, emotionally constipated idiots

Word count: 1,236

A/N: I think the prior chapter does a lot of legwork for this one, but I really wanted to cover John's missing year in a succinct way that still got across the complicated feelings and hurt that came with it. I'm still deciding the direction the next two or three chapters will go - if we head straight to Blackwater and dig into the game's timeline at last or spend some more time before all that. All this to say the next updates might take a bit longer. If you have anything you really want to see please let me know!!

Series masterlist • AO3

—

Marston,

Goddamn you right to hell you stupid, yellow-bellied bastard. Too much of a coward to even say goodbye. Best friends, was it? Real funny way of showing it to leave me behind like that. A few weeks to clear your head I can understand, but over a month seems an awful long time.

I would have followed you anywhere.

Guess you didn’t care to have me along.

Ghost

—

Dear Marston,

I don’t have an address to post this to, but don’t think I’ll let you off easy. You don’t want to raise this kid? Fine. But you should come home. I miss The gang could use you. Arthur and I got a good lead on a bank but you know how twitchy the trigger fingers are on these Callander boys.

I am fine, thanks for asking, and so is everyone else. Arthur is even madder than I am, so I wouldn’t expect letters from him anytime soon.

Ghost

—

Dear Marston,

There’s more work to be done between me and Arthur now that you’re not here to share the load. Arthur says you weren’t much help anyhow, but as much as I hate you for leaving we both know that ain’t fair. Tried to hunt rabbit with him the other day and he shot them all full of holes. Pearson almost laughed him out of camp when he went to hand in a brace anyhow. You at least remember to switch your ammo.

My point is that we could use you, wherever you are. You’re a rotten friend for leaving like that.

Ghost

—

Dear Marston,

It’s awful tiresome being mad at you. I wish you’d come back so I could stop pretending and everything could go back to normal.

Jack don’t know any better, little as he is, but Abigail misses you about as much as she curses your name. Dutch and Hosea miss you more, and Arthur does too even if he won’t say it. The worst is people who act like you’re dead, not gone. Almost knocked Bill’s teeth out for that the other night.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that wherever you are I hope you’re happy, because we sure ain’t.

Ghost

—

Dear John,

Camp’s on the move again. If you ever bother to come back I’m sure you’ll be able to track us, but I had to say it just in case. Like you’re even reading this letter I can’t send.

The country out this way is even more beautiful than I dreamed. Growing up in a desert gives you a real appetite for green, and these plains go one forever and ever. We passed a river the other day with grey waters - nothing close to San Luis blue. It made me think of you and drowning. When Javier caught my stare he said he’d take me fishing. Maybe I’ll catch some real bass, not like Arthur’s pretend ones two summers ago.

Ghost

—

Dear John,

You’ll like our new camp. Everyone does. Even Trelawny crawled out of whatever fancy-pants hole he’s been in to drop a visit. He has a lead on a big blackjack game two towns over. Dutch wants Arthur to play. These little plains towns are small but there’s real money in some of the landowners.

I’ve got my eye on some nice horseflesh but Dutch wants me playing bodyguard just in case. I told him to send Davey instead and got a lecture on trust and family. He gave me that sad look at the end that always means he’s missing you.

Guess I ought to say I miss you too.

Ghost

—

Dear John,

Sometimes I feel like I’ll never see you again, and other times it’s like you could walk into camp any second, easy as you like. Sometimes I see you in people we pass on the road, or in towns. Sometimes I feel it in my chest that you’re gone, like I’m missing a piece.

I hope you’ve been safe, wherever you are. Hell, I even hope you have someone watching your back out there. We both know it should have been me, but it’s a little late for that now.

I think about what I would have said if you’d asked me to come with you some nights that I can’t sleep. This gang is my family. I know I would have gone with you, but I also know I would have regretted it in the end. Maybe it’s better this way. Sure don’t feel like it.

Your Ghost

—

Dear John,

I haven’t been fair to Abigail at all. Guess I needed you to leave us both to see that. She’s a hard worker and a natural mother and Jack is lucky to have her. I think you were too. Maybe you still are, if she’ll have you.

I caught Arthur making eyes at her across the fire the other night. If Mary Linton’s hurt weren’t so fresh I think he’d let her make an honest man of him.

I don’t know that anyone can make an honest man of you.

If you ever come back maybe I’ll try. Or at least we can go on being dishonest together. Best friends, right? Since you left these letters have been my friends, and I have to tell you they’re a sorry replacement.

Ghost

—

The day of John’s return happens just like you said; easy as you please. He rides in on his chestnut mare, one hand on the reins and the other shading his eyes from harsh midafternoon sun. There’s a guilty look shadowed on his face and the shyest smile you’ve seen on that sharp mouth of his.

You want to kill him. You want to kiss him. You settle for a withering glare he has the good sense to cringe from.

“Where the hell have you been, asshole?”

“Lot of places,” he says, “but I… finally figured it was time to come home.”

Home.

He says it while looking right at you.

You should kill him. You should kiss him. But just like that he’s forgiven.

Dutch makes a speech and the gang welcomes him back each in their own way and you think Hosea even starts to cry. Abigail smacks him the second he gets close enough and then kisses him full on the mouth. John looks stunned, holding his face, and Arthur glares, and you still don’t know what to do with yourself. You just sort of stand there while your world tilts on its axis and watch it spin.

When the night has finally quieted and everyone else has gone to bed you sit at the fire alone and burn the letters. Ink turns to ash. Every bit of love and longing trapped in those pages goes out into the air, smoke on the wind.

From that smoke John appears, his eyes full of sorrow and regrets and a heartbreaking hope that has your chest in a vice grip.

You rise slowly, like he’s some wild animal you might spook. Then before you have a chance to react he closes the distance between you and holds you close enough to hurt. In the crush of his embrace it finally registers that you have your friend back. Your best friend. Your John.

“I really missed you, you know,” he rasps into the fabric of your shirt.

“I know,” you say through the tears. “I know.”

“I know,” you sniffle through the tears. “I know.”

#john marston x reader #rdr x reader #rdr2 x reader #fran writes #ghost story #ch. 8

49 notes · View notes

newsie-collective · 1 year

Text

Cowboy (Jack Kelly)

Quickfire favorites!

Food: "Anythin' from Medda 's always real good"

Color: "Red. Don' tell Conlon."

Season: "Springtime. 'S the easiest time ta go sellin'."

Weather: "Cloudy bu' not rainin'."

Hobby: "Paintin' o'course."

Animal: "Meadowlark"

Memory: "Meetin' Davey. He was shy 'n awkward at firs', an' o'course he had that mouth on him. I know'd from that day he was gon' fit right in. An' Les o'course fit in from tha second he was there."

Comfort Item: "The blanket Medda made fo' me 'n Francis before we got to the Lodge."

Jack Kelly. A.K.A. Cowboy. A.K.A. Francis Sullivan.

Well... Not so much that last one. Just because Snyder couldn't get his name right, doesn't mean that was it.

His name, from birth, had always been Jack Kelly. The newsies called him Cowboy, but he'd never gone by anything else.

Francis Sullivan had been his big brother's name. They looked so similar they could've been twins, though they were separated in age by a few years.

But, Jack looked up to his big brother, followed him everywhere. When his brother would get into trouble, or into fights, he would tell Jack to hide or run.

That's why Jack took a liking to Les so quickly. He had loved his brother so much that he was excited to be able to fill that role for someone else.

His parents weren't around, he and Francis lived in 'The Lodge' (as Francis called it) with the other newsies from a young age. Jack can't remember a time from his childhood he wasn't cramped into a bed between Francis and Mush.

Their father was good friends with Medda, and Francis continued that connection with her, dragging Jack along to shows and to help with the sets. Francis was far better at actually building them than he was at anything else backstage.

Jack was too young to actually help build when they first started going, so he would just sit and watch Francis build.

At least until he would get distracted by the people painting the gorgeous backdrops.

And they finally let him pick up a paintbrush.

And this boy was ass at painting at first, but the other guys around encouraged him and helped him get better, and he eventually got to where he would paint backdrop after backdrop. He spent every day there between selling times, with or without Francis.

And then Francis had made enough money building things around town, that he could head west. He told Jack that he would find somewhere to live, and come back and get him.

Francis left when Jack was 13, and would send him letters day after day. They told no one that he was leaving, which is why Snyder thought that Francis Sullivan was still around the many times Jack was arrested.

And one day they just stopped coming. The last letter he got was postmarked from Santa Fe, which is why he was so hellbent on going there. It's why he could paint the town without ever having been there. His brother sent him photos with almost every letter.

Jack worked harder after that. He was trying to save up money to go after his brother.

The big problem with that was that Jack is an absolute sucker. Especially for newsies.

He would give everything to keep them safe, and fed, and comfortable, and happy.

Literally anything.

He's given up his freedom.

He gave up his dream.

Everything for his newsies.

His brother had gone west and disappeared, and stopped sending anything

Jack has always assumed that Francis had forgotten him. Had moved on with his life.

So Jack threw himself into selling papes, still wanting to go to Santa Fe just to know what happened.

And then he met Davey, and it was all over. From the second he laid eyes on him, he was Davey's.

He still wanted to go find out what happened to Francis, but now he had a reason to stay.

He had his newsies, and his paintings, and his Davey.

Medda always made sure he was taken care of, but he hated taking things from her. He hated taking orders from people. Even Medda's well meaning advice earned some special rebellion.

After Francis, it was hard to listen to people.

But, Davey made it easy. He was infuriatingly level-headed and thought everything through. It was easy to stop soaking scabs and to stop mouthing off as much to Medda, and to actually start accepting help.

Davey also really helped him define his self worth.

It isn't perfect, but it's getting better.

It's easy to let Davey take control of the brainy side of the strike. Jack had been taking care of the boys in The Lodge for years, and had had the weight of the world on his shoulders. And with Davey it just falls away. And he doesn't know how he could ever repay him or thank Davey enough for everything he's done to help him or his family. Even Kloppman couldn't get this stubborn dumbass to accept help or handouts (even though this stubborn dumbass gives help and handouts like it’s the holidays)

Davey helped Jack get smarter. In a way that he never thought would ever be possible.

Absolutely knows everyone’s special interests.

This is from a fic I read but it was so FUCKING Jack Kelly. I’m gonna try and find the link (fair warning I’m fairly certain it was smut (it is) so do with that what you will)

“Davey’s eyes are utterly, impossibly blue. It drives Jack all kinds of crazy. They’re easily Davey’s most striking feature: big and expressive and capable of crumbling Jack’s willpower into dust with a single pleading look. It’s unfair, really, that Davey has such ridiculously pretty eyes. He’s already so good with words that he could talk a lemon into tasting sweet, he really doesn’t need another weapon at his disposal. He’s not sure what it is about Davey’s eyes in particular—Jack’s dated plenty of people with blue eyes before and they never drove him half-mad with want—but Jack’s spent hours staring at them, thinking about them, painting them. And, hell, he knows he’s a sap, knows that Davey would probably find his constant staring really creepy if he ever stopped being so oblivious, but Jack just can’t help himself. He’s pathetically gone over on the guy.”

Painting, art in general really, became an escape for Jack. It was how he really learned how to express himself.

Natural born leader (mostly), cares about everyone far more than he should. More than he cares about himself. Please dear god someone help this boy find some self worth. He put it down somewhere so he wouldn’t lose it. And fucking lost it. I think Francis took it to Santa Fe

Dumb as fuck, but, unlike the others, he knows and will readily admit it.

He has mad street smarts though

Jack is totally definitely older than Davey and not in denial at all about that fact

Jack sings in the shower, but only when he’s alone

He’s an insomniac. Too good at staying up into all hours of the night, usually painting

Someone always has to be up with him, though. If he spends too much time alone he starts to spiral

This boy thinks too much about David fucking Jacobs. Everything he talks about leads back to him.

Jack why do you paint?

“It helps wit' me emotions. 'N makes me feel closa to tha people I cares 'bout. 'Specially Davey”

Jack what’s your plans for the future?

“Move in wit' Davey. Live in a house too big fo' us. Have kids. Treat 'em betta than we eva was.”

Besides Davey, what’s your biggest muse when it comes to art?

Radio. Fucking. Silence.

Jack found Racer when he was ten. And all but dragged him to the Lodge (it totally helped that he “bought” Racer a cigar from the corner store)

Kloppman knew this motherfucker was gonna stay. And he death glared Jack. Because he didn’t need another one. But Jack wasn’t letting this child go hungry… hungrier?

He was quiet. For like a week. And then he was just pure unbridled chaos

Will flip anyone and everyone off with force. No I will not be elaborating

Jacks lengthy morning rambles to Crutchie went from Santa Fe to a real life with Davey (with at least three dogs and two kids. And Les was def allowed to live and/or visit with them in these fantasies) where Davey has some super cool high-end job that he wants, and Jack spends his time taking care of the household and painting and probably hosting several dozen newsie parties

Pulling Davey in by the belt loops to kiss him (and the other way around) drives him insane

Head kisses, temple kisses, cheek kisses literally anything he can reach he is gonna go for it

And if Davey does it?

Jack melts into a puddle

Jack and Racer have kissed accidentally.

They were so comfortable around each other that people kept asking when they were going to date.

Every time someone asked, they would jokingly turn like they were gonna kiss, but almost always shoved each other.

Once they both expected the other to push them.

Neither of them did

It was really awkward, lasted like .2 second, and they both laughed til they cried.

Jack always starts pillow fights.

He never wins

He also never learns

Because everyone gangs up on him

He has a giant sweet tooth but it makes him really hyper and that makes him really anxious

Jack realized he was gay. Eventually.

He had this moment at like 12 where he was sitting with a boy who he was friends with at lunch and had the very clear and exact thought “I bet it’d be nice to kiss him” but legitimately though it was a Friend Thing™️

It honestly took Medda sitting him down after hearing the millionth rant about Davey's eyes

And she was like “Darlin' you’ve gotta get your shit together”

And LET SOMEONE TELL ANYONE THAT THEIR FEELINGS/GENDER ARENT VALID

JACK MOTHERFUCKING KELLY WILL POP THE FUCK OFF

Jack rambles in Spanish when he gets anxious. Because that’s how he and Francis kept their secrets when they were on the streets.

I was gonna talk about how awful his handwriting definitely would've been, but this bitch doesn't know how to write. He can piece together enough letters to read, but writing is a whole new monster.

Jack: This is Davey, my partner Davey, internally: Partner? That's so adult, I'm really proud of him! He didn't just call me his fella like the others do Jack: 🤠

Bonus Round: Medda Larkin/Larkson

She’s not his mother. A lot of people probably think so. She and Jack are close and she was friendly with his father.

She might not be his mother, but he was definitely her son.

Jack’s dad is why she stopped working for the circus. He was a hired hand one night in New York and they became friends quickly. Medda talked about how hard she was working to be able to afford her theater. He told her that she’d never get there if she worked herself to death. Later, she met one of the patrons at the circus and played romance with him. They were married quickly, allowing Medda to leave the circus.

She had considered marrying Jack’s dad, but decided against it. She knew that he was a man to marry for true love and didn’t wanna take that away from him or to whoever he’d marry.

They stayed close, and she loved his sons.

Francis was her first boy. He was a dreamer, like Jack, and a bit more sensitive than others. He’d build sets and bring Jack along. And when Jack picked up that paintbrush… His first paintings weren’t great, but you could tell he was going to be amazing. All the work and love he put into his art…

She had just bought the theater when Francis left. He had taken a few days off and wrote her a letter saying goodbye and to look after Jack while he was gone(she would have even he he didn’t ask). He wrote to her a few times, and she has all the letters saved at home.

👻

Please someone ask me about my trans!Oscar hc I beg of you 😭

#`newsies #92sies #askthenewsies #carrying the banner #newsies #newsies of new york #livesies #king of new york #jack kelly #francis sullivan #medda larkin #medda larkson #santa fe #jack still needs that self worth #if anyone in santa fe has seen francis plz let him know that jack needs that back #see if he'll bring it back #not me posting on time for once #👻

17 notes · View notes

lilshocker8 · 1 year

Text

Refuge Rulers Masterlist

Somewhere to keep links to all my stories and story ideas for this world!

Main Series The main, multi-chaptered fics focused on the titular Refuge Rulers and the people around them.

Summer, 1899

In July of 1899 there is a Newsboys Strike in Lower Manhattan in every iteration of every universe. The people involved and the outcomes change, but there is always a Strike, and there is always a story surrounding it.

This is just one.

COMPLETE

The Solitary Situation

The Strike is won and Snyder is arrested. Unfortunately for the Newsies, arrested doesn’t mean sentenced, and they have a long year ahead of them making sure the man called Spider actually stays behind bars where he can’t hurt anyone else.

Somehow, this is the least stressful part of the year.

COMPLETE

5 to 1 (Never Tell Me the Odds)

Race always assumed that when he was older he’d marry some nice girl, have a couple of kids, and live happily ever after.

That is not what happens.

(Or: Life rarely goes the way you're expecting)

PLANNING

Intercuts Stories that take a look at events in the main series from a different perspective, or which occur during the events of the stories but off-screen.

You Jump Or You’re Screwed

Crutchie is dragged off to the Refuge, and he accidentally learns a bit more about the brothers that have been tormenting him.

COMPLETE

For Every Working Kid

The Crusade is a brilliant idea, if Katherine says so herself, but as with most great ideas it can't be done alone. Luckily Katherine is very good at recruitment - even people she never meant to recruit in the first place.

COMPLETE

Ain’t We the Hoi Polloi

With the strike settled and their father finally able to get a job again, Davey and Les no longer have to sell papes. Davey finds it harder than expected to step away, and he ends up bringing some of his new family home to his old one.

NOT STARTED

Where Better to Escape Trouble

When Jack brings her a boy looking for a job, surprised is the least of what Medda is feeling. But she’s never been one to turn away a child in need – even if that child is Oscar Delancey.

NOT STARTED

Backstories Exactly what it sounds like.

Bonds Beyond Bridges

When Mush is released from The Refuge he goes to Brooklyn, because that’s what you do to stay out of Snyder’s clutches. However, he finds himself drawn back across the bridge when he meets a Lower Manhattan Newsie who makes him feel like a person again.

COMPLETE

Proud to be Part of Your Revolution

Bill had never thought about how different his life was from that of his best friend until he nearly gets the other boy killed.

COMPLETE

This Is Entertaining

Darcy Reid can’t remember a time in his life that Katherine Pulitzer wasn’t present, and, as stressful as she’s made his life, he wouldn’t trade a minute.

NOT STARTED

Guess He Didn't Take Care of Me

He doesn’t do family, never has. It’s never done him any good, after all, and caring about people only ever hurts in the end.

COMPLETED

Terrible

The worst parts of life don't seem so bad if you have someone to come home to at the end of the day.

NOT STARTED

Future Fics Stories that look towards what happens in the years and decades after the strike is settled. (Mostly intercuts for 5 to 1)

What Was Ours

When she first met Jack, Katherine found him cute and vaguely amusing, but she never dreamed it would go farther than that. Now she can’t picture a life without him.

NOT STARTED

Hello Beautiful

Specs and Romeo are far from a perfect couple, but they’ve always made things work. But this may be what finally tears them apart.

NOT STARTED

No Use for Moonlight

Annie Cohen has a plan. It's a good plan. A great plan, even. One that's going perfectly right up until she accidentally falls in love with the completely wrong person.

NOT STARTED

#Refuge Rulers #newsies #masterlist

10 notes · View notes

caniruineverything · 1 year

Text

i wanna taste her lips (yeah, 'cause they taste like you)

Chapter 3: i hope (s)he does, I hope (s)he does

Chapter Summary: Jack contemplates his new discovery, is surprised by Davey in the park, and confessions ensue.

"Yep, you is. Took ya long enough." A slightly out-of-sorts Race walked in, teasing Jack gently.

"Wait," Jack was confused. "Ya know too?"

"Course, dummy. All ah us knows. Ya ain't exactly subtle."

"But I didn't know dat 'til now. How'd all ah ya know?" Was he the only one who didn't know?

"Again, ya ain't subtle. Also, ya kinda dense."

"Hey!" Now that he was closer, Jack could see Race better. His lips were suspiciously red, and were those bruises on his neck? Not the time, he supposed, but he did need to have the shovel talk with Spot. If he ever hurt Race. . . well, it wouldn't be pretty, at the very least.

"Rude. Are ya that rude with Spot? He the one that put them bruises there?" Race had the grace to blush at this, and walked out, shaking his head until he was out of sight.

"Sooooo," Crutchie began, and his tone alone warned Jack that he probably wouldn't like the rest of what he has to say. "Ya gonna tell Davey?"

"What? Course not. Why would I do that?”

"'Cuz he feels the same, duh." What was he even talking about?

"No he doesn't. Remember? I saw 'im kissin' Kath. He don't like me, he likes her."

"Oh, yeah. Dat's a bit odd. But trust me, he likes you."

"You's wrong."

"No I aint'. I weren't wrong about ya lovin' Davey. Ya gotta trust me. Just ask 'im." How could he just ask him? It would be hard enough to face him with his newfound feelings, let alone confront him about his reasons for kissing Katherine.

"Nope. No way."

"C'mon. What's the worst that could 'appen?" Oh, you really wanna go there, huh?

"He could figure out I like 'im, and get disgusted and leave. God, he'd hate me. I's not gonna be able to live with that. No. No, I can't tell 'im."

"Jack, Davey could never hate ya."

"How would ya know that?" Crutchie faked hurt, but Jack knew him well enough to know when he was joking. He was joking about being hurt, but not about Davey.

"'Cuz I know dat he loves ya. Like, in love with ya. Just as you's in love with him."

"How is you so certain?" Jack hated the uncertainty in his voice. He was the confident one, the one who protected the unsure ones. He wasn't meant to be the uncertain one.

"'Cuz I know ya, and I knows Davey. He's definitely in love with ya. Ya know the signs I mentioned with ya?" Jack nodded. "Yeah, well, he has 'em too."

"God, I hope yer right." He meant it too, he wanted Davey to be in love with him, however unlikely that might be.

"I is." Jack wished he had that confidence in the notion. But that was for another day.

"Alright, Mistah Knows-It-All, it's time for bed."

"Aight. Night, Jack."

"Night, Crutch." Jack fell back into his bed, thinking. This day had gone nothing like how he'd planned. It made so much sense now, all his jealousy that felt slightly misplaced. Feeling sad when Davey left, more so then when Katherine wasn't around. Loving his freckles more than anything else about anyone. Drawing him all the time. Now he prayed that he had been right, when he said they felt the same way he felt about Katherine, platonic.

But how would he explain the kiss? That was a sure sign, right? How could it not be? He just wanted to close his eyes and go, off to a world where his feelings for Davey were requited. His subconsciousness complied, and his dreams were full of freckles, sunlit kisses, and a strong solid chest that he leaned against, feeling the warmth of the person he loved against him.

When he woke, he immediately wanted to fall back asleep again. At least there he could be with Davey, and not have to deal with his unrequited feelings. No such luck, though. Now that he was awake, he was awake. There was no going back to sleep until tonight. He threw the covers back, hot now that sunlight was streaming through the curtainless windows.

The building was filled with the sounds of tens of boys getting ready for the day. Jack took comfort in it, glad that even when his life felt so uncertain, he would always have his boys. He often found himself grateful for their presence, but unable to express just how much he loved them.

He got ready for the day, put on his favorite shirt, and grabbed an apple for breakfast. They had more food now that they were paid a bit more, a fact which every newsie was beyond grateful for. He walked, savoring the crisp sweetness of the fruit in his hand. He wasn't sure where he was going, exactly but it wouldn't be the first time he had walked around the city aimlessly.

Walking helped him think, and walking with no purpose often led him to a place he ended up needing to be. He was glad he had the day off from selling, again, but Crutchie had assured him that it was fine, that he 'deserves a break', and that Crutchie wished said break 'could last forever'. He did still need to help out, though, even though he was almost too old to really be helping. Younger sold better; no one took pity on a boy who was as old as he was.

He soon found himself in the same park where he had witnessed the fateful kiss that threw his world into disarray. He sat on the same bench Katherine and Davey had been sitting on, wishing he could know what they had been thinking.

"Hey, Jackie. What are you doing today?" He looked up to a familiar voice, and found himself staring at the freckled face that had filled his dreams the previous night.

"Oh, hey, Dave. Nothin' much. Ya got any plans?" God, he was gorgeous. Jack wasn't sure how he didn't realize sooner how gone on this boy he was. His hair shone in the early morning sunlight, and his beautiful brown eyes were happy and bright.

"Nope. Sarah and Katherine are spending the day together, so I'm alone, I guess. Unless you wanna hang?" Well, he had not expected to be alone with the boy he had just realized he had feelings for not twelve hours earlier.

"Uh, yeah, sure. Been a while since it was just the two ah us, huh?"

"Yeah. I miss you. I feel like you've been distant recently. Is everything okay?" Of course he would ask. Davey was one of the most caring people he'd ever met, save for Crutchie, of course.

"Me? Oh, Dave, don't worry 'bout me. I's fine. I just miss ya too. We's gonna fix that today though, right?" The grin Davey shot him was brilliant, and Jack wonders again how he missed how deeply in love he was. Denial was a powerful thing.

"Yes. Definitely. Absolutely!" Oh thank God, he still likes me. Jack wasn't sure why he thought Davey would just stop wanting to hang out with him, but he was really happy that was not the case. Before they did anything, and Jack lost his courage, he decided to just put something out there.

"Hey, Davey, I gotta tell ya somethin'." Davey brow furrowed as he glanced at Jack, probably able to see the nerves written all over it.

"You can always talk to me, Jack. What is it?" He was just so nice. And to have all his attention fixed on Jack? Is this heaven?

"Well, uh, I's not sure how ta start this. Ya know how Race likes guys and Sarah likes girls? Well, I like guys and girls." He closed his eyes and bowed his head, unsure of how Davey would react. Since his sister liked girls, he'd probably be fine, right? What if liking both was too much?

"Oh, Jack. You don't have to be scared. It's alright. It's called bisexuality. Katherine is bi as well, and I'm completely fine with it." At this, he glanced up, hopeful.

"You sure?"

"Definitely. And I'm, uh, I'm gay. See, we're both queer, we can support each other." Gay. Davey was gay. He could maybe, just maybe, like Jack! Wait, why was he kissing Katherine then?

"That's great, Davey. We's gonna support each other. Thanks for tellin' me." Davey looked relieved, like he wasn't sure if Jack would hate him for being gay, the same way Jack had been scared Davey would hate him for being bi. They both knew they shouldn't be, that the other could never hate them for that, but still. Irrational fears are hard to get rid of.

"Thanks for telling me you're bisexual. It means a lot, knowing you trust me with that. Coming out is hard."

"Dave, I'd trust ya with anything. You's my best friend."

"And you're mine." They both looked a little awkward saying that, Jack because he wanted it to be more. He wasn't sure why Davey looked nervous, though. He did have one more thing he wanted cleared up.

"Uh, I saw ya and Kath the other day." Davey looked back at him, listening to every word, looking him straight (or maybe not) in the eye.

"Why didn't you come up to us? We would have loved to talk to you."

"Yeah, not in this case. Ya were, uh, kissing. Each other." As if that needed any more clarification. But there, it was out.

"Oh!" Davey laughed, confusing Jack even more. He wasn't angry? Jack had basically been spying on them! Though they had been in public. "We were, um, practicing, I guess. So we knew how to kiss when we kissed the people we actually wanted to kiss."

Oh. Jack felt a bit stupid, and it must have been relieved on his face, because Davey added, "I know, it's kind of confusing. I am definitely gay, and I don't like her romantically. Wait, do you?"

"No, why?" He wasn't going to go into specifics of when or how exactly he figured that out. Not now, at least.

"Oh, just because she's in love with Sarah. And I'm pretty sure Sarah loves her, too. So you wouldn't have chance with her." That made sense, actually, and recontextualized some of the conversations Katherine and Davey had recently.

"Do I got a chance with you?" Jack clapped both hands over his mouth. He hadnt meant to say that at all. No, Davey was going to hate him now! Instead of seeming mad though, Davey mostly looked confused.

"What did you say?" Jack's first instinct was to deny everything. But he figured he might as well get the rejection over with. Even if Davey wasn't in love with Katherine didn't mean he was in love with Jack.

"I said: Do I got a chance with you?" Davey looked surprised now, and Jack thought he detected a bit of hopefulness as well.

"Oh my god. Oh my- you're not playing with me, are you? This whole thing isn't some giant joke intending to out and embarrass me?" How could he think that? Does he really think that's more likely than me liking him? Hurt, Jack recoiled, and defended himself.

"What? No! I would never do dat to ya, or to anyone! Do ya think I would do dat?" A million emotions flashed over Davey's face, far too rapid for Jack to catch any of them.

"No. Sorry, I just panicked. You want to date me?" Yes! Now he was getting the right idea!

"Yes. I wanna to date ya. So, what do ya say? Do I got a chance with ya?" Davey smiled tentatively at him, and as Jack's heart hammered in his chest he replied,

"Yes. I would love to date you. I just never thought you would want to date me."

"I meant what I said. I wanna date ya, I wanna romance ya, I wanna call ya my boyfriend, and I would very much like to kiss ya now, if that's alright with you." Davey blushed when the meaning of Jack's words hit him, then smiled wider than Jack'd ever seen before.

"Yes. God, yes. Kiss me, Jack Kelly." And, hey, Jack was never one to deny David Jacobs anything, not when the thing Davey wanted was something Jack wanted just as much.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

#newsies #jack kelly #davey jacobs #david jacobs #javey #javid #fanfic #my writing

0 notes

heliads · 2 years

Note

hi! idk if you still do newsies requests, and if not thats ok, but if so do you think you could write one with a fem reader with either jack, race, or davey as the love interest? im a sucker for the stories where the boy accidentally says something that could be perceived as hurtful and the reader takes out of context and the love interest has to make it up to her and comfort her. if you decide to do this i’ll give you the freedom to go wherever you want to with this and i get it if you don’t want to :)

no pls i always do newsies reqs. anything for my boys.

masterlist

Thinking about this moment, you realize that this might be the happiest you’ve ever been in your life. It’s hard to appreciate life while you’re still living it, like rose-tinted glasses only exist when you’ve started missing what you should have loved while you were going through it, but right now, you’re beating the odds. This is good, and you still have it to treasure in the palm of your hand.

Still, even the knowledge that what you have is good still stings, in a way. You’re catching at the golden grains of sand even as they fall down the hourglass. You can stretch these blessed few hours out for as long as you can, but eventually, they’ll end. Some part of you wants to play God until the end of time, to reach out and tie everything down, but everyone leaves eventually.

As of right now, though, this doesn’t include the boy next to you. Jack Kelly is special, the kind of boy who only appears once in a person’s life, blooming as bright as a forest fire before he disappears without a trace. Right now, he’s yours for the taking, but he could be gone as soon as tomorrow.

The two of you are curled into a fire escape landing really only meant for one person, a hazy tangle of stretched limbs and worn clothes. Tomorrow, your legs will cramp up from the knot they’re in, but you can pretend you don’t notice it now. You and Jack have been watching the sun cross the horizon, reveling in the glory of not having to work at the moment.

You cast a quick glance his way, letting your gaze rove over his messy head of dark curls. They pour like water over his eyes, shading out his normally bright stare. It must be the artist in him, but you swear that he always seems hyper aware of just about everything, like he could find you in a crowd of millions or spot the one person who needs him the most. At the moment, it’s you, but again, your best strokes of luck could change in a moment.

Truth be told, you’re afraid for when this will end. Jack has been your closest friend for a long time now, although you developed feelings for him a while back. He’ll never feel the same way, obviously, because one cost of knowing all of Jack’s secrets backwards and forwards is that you’ve had plenty of time to hear about all the times he couldn’t care less about the various girls who make Manhattan their home. Jack could have a supermodel asking for a date, and he wouldn’t give her a second of his attention if he didn’t feel like it.

That should mean that days like this, when you’re able to share his afternoons, should mean more than usual, but even being the brightest star in his line of sight still isn’t enough for you. You don’t just want his attention as a friend, you want his love. You want your fingers curled around his heart, you want to know that he is yours, now and forever.

The only problem is that Jack refuses to let himself be tied down. He’s restless, constantly searching for a way to get out, out of the streets, sometimes even out of the city. You’re certainly grateful that he’s here, but you’ve heard the way he talks about Santa Fe like it’s the greatest dream to ever bless his head. Someday, even you won’t be enough to stop him from going, and you’ll have to live with that absence for the rest of your days.

For this afternoon, for this month, for even this year, though, he is here with you, and that means everything. For a few blessed moments, you can convince yourself that this is going to last forever, and that’s enough for you.

Jack looks at you now, the corners of his lips tugging up in something like self-consciousness. He’s usually confident, the boy who could be yours, always walking around the other newsies like he’s never doubted himself for a second. You’ve been able to learn the difference over the course of the past couple months. Witnessing the moment his facade breaks down is stunning, and the first time you saw it you didn’t know what to do with yourself.

By now, you’ve learned that the difference in him is normal, that he likes to pretend he’s something more just to make sure none of the other boys have to worry about themselves half as much as he does. You’re not sure why Jack thinks it’s okay to let down his guard around you, only that you’re glad to see it, and not just because it gives you a false hope that he could feel the same way about you as you do about him.

Jack rubs the back of his head, further mussing up his hair. “What?”

You repeat the question right back at him. “What?”

Jack makes a face. “You were looking at me. Do I have something on my face?”

The way he says it, so full of fear that you’d think he was worried about a deadly serpent instead of a smudge of dirt, makes you laugh. “No, you’re fine. Besides, you’ve literally never worried about that before.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Well, excuse me for wanting to look my best. Some of us have standards.”

You arch a brow. “Does that mean I don’t?”

Jack gestures at the haphazard mess of limbs, the aftereffects of both of you trying to cram yourselves into this narrow fire escape. “It’s incredibly improper for you to be up here with a boy, you know. Who knows what could happen?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “I live in a house with thirty other boys. Also, we’ve been cloudwatching. The only thing that’s happened is that you’ve come close to falling asleep four times now.”

Jack frowns. “That’s so wrong. Maybe two times at most. I am very invested in these clouds.”

You chuckle. “Of course, I should have known.”

Jack’s eyes flash to you again, lingering on the tilt of your chin as you laugh. You wonder if he’s mapping you out in his head, tracing where he’d draw the shadows on your face. Regardless, it takes him quite a long time to manage to drag his eyes away once more.

“Listen, Y/N, I was thinking–”

Whatever Jack was thinking, he’s cut off by the sound of someone shouting his name from inside the Lodging House. He makes a face, and you swear you can watch his usual confident exterior wrap back around him like a shell, protecting him from having to take a single thing seriously again. Jack tries to ignore the summons in the hopes that the caller will go away, but when his name is yelled again, he groans and starts to stand up.

“One of the boys probably twisted an ankle again, I bet. Either that or Race dropped his box of cigars between the wall and his bed and thinks someone stole it. I’ll be back soon.”

You nod, and watch as Jack grabs his cap from where it’s long since fallen from his head. He disappears back inside, then pops back out again just as quickly, looking oddly panicked.

“You’ll wait for me, right? I swear, I’ll wrap this up as soon as I can, but I really need to talk to you. You’re going to be here when I come back?”

You give him your best attempt at a reassuring grin. “This is the only place in the entire Lodging House where I can actually be alone for once. Trust me, I’ll be right here.”

Jack grins, clearly relieved. “Ok, great.”

He heads back inside, and you’re left wondering what Jack could possibly have to say that would be so important he’d have to check and make sure you’d still be here. Usually, he seems to take your presence for granted, but not today. Interesting.

You’re a little too curious for your own good, so after a couple of minutes pass and Jack isn’t back yet, you decide to creep inside the Lodging House and see if you can find out what was so important that he’d have to dash away for a while in the midst of his seemingly crucial conversation.

You climb back through the window, and after padding down the hallway for a few meters, hear the sound of voices coming from a nearby room. You know that eavesdropping is rude, but you hear your name tossed back and forth between the few assembled newsies, and you know you have to listen.

Albert is talking to Jack, you think, with maybe Jojo and Race there too. “Hey, we’se not saying anything. We just want to know what’s going on.”

Jack sounds frustrated. “Nothing, alright? Nothing’s going on. We’se just talking.”

Jojo interrupts. “Oh, ‘cause that’s totally true. You’ve been out there with her for hours. That’s not nothing.”

You have a feeling they’re talking about you, the afternoon spent out on the fire escape. Some part of you wants to know Jack’s take on the matter, so you lean closer. He doesn’t disappoint, either, and speaks up soon enough.

“Like I said, it’s nothing. Y/N’s just a friend, if that. Stop trying to look into things if there’s nothing there.”

You feel your stomach drop as he says it. Thankfully, Race seems to want clarification, which saves you from the trouble of having to burst in there yourself.

“What do you mean, ‘if that?’ Why would you guys be anything other than friends? Unless, uh–”

Jack cuts him off hurriedly. “Nothing like that, Racer. Get your head out of the gutter, kid. All I mean is that, well, it’s like we talked about the other day, right? Sometimes people have different expectations for what they mean to somebody, and sometimes they’re wrong. It’s like that.”

All of a sudden, you think you’ve heard enough. Not only does Jack know how you feel, he doesn’t feel remotely the same way. You feel sick to your stomach. How could you have thought that he’d even want to love you, he scarcely even thinks of you as a friend?

You slip back down the hall, but this time, you don’t return to the fire escape. Let Jack head back there, feeling all victorious for tricking you yet again. You hope he happens upon that empty space of iron railings, you hope the pleasure gushes from him and leaves him feeling half as useless as you do. You don’t want to see him anymore, and you certainly don’t want any more of his conversation. Jack can keep his secrets, and you’ll keep the last of your pride. He can’t have any more of it.

In the end, you don’t know how Jack reacts. You do your best to avoid him, which is fairly easy with the number of newsies crammed into the Lodging House growing by the day. You can eat your meals at different times, sell your papes in different places with different partners, and stop seeking him out as you once did. All the while, you nurse your broken heart like a shattered bone, and no matter how few times you see Jack’s face, the hurt of it all still threatens to kill.

It won’t last forever, but you still weave this protective shroud of solitude about your shoulders, pretending it brings you warmth so you can at least feel something other than devastating chill. You can’t believe Jack would say such a thing, which makes it all the worse. It seems as if both of you have been recently disappointed by the other.

Despite this, Jack takes it upon himself to track you down after a week and a half of your supposed exile. You thought you were doing a good job of losing him, and then you round a street corner only to see him bearing down on you. You try to double back and lose him, but it’s too late by now. He’s seen you.

Jack jogs up to you, slinging an arm around your shoulders partially as a friendly gesture and also to make sure that you can’t run anymore. “There you are, Y/N. It’s funny, I almost thought you were avoiding me.”

He casts you a sharp look as he says this, daring you to confirm his suspicions. You just shrug.

“It’s a big city, Jack. It’s not impossible to go a day or two without seeing you.”

A furrow deepens in Jack’s brow. “See, that’s what I thought at first, but it’s been a week. Big city or no, I would have run into you at some point before today.”

When you refuse to elaborate further, he sighs. “Look, I just want to know what’s wrong. When I came back to that fire escape and found you missing, I assumed the worst. Can you at least tell me what’s going on?”

You waver, but cave under the force of Jack’s beseeching stare. You’ve never been able to hide anything from your friend, apparently not even your feelings for him.

“I was going to wait on the fire escape, but I went inside briefly. I came in just in time to hear you talking about how I didn’t mean as much to you as some of the boys thought.”

A dawning look of horror is growing on Jack’s face. Rather than bear witness to it any longer, you shake loose his arm and take a few quick steps away.

Jack shakes his head hurriedly. “That’s not what it was like at all, I swear. I would never say something like that.”

You fold your arms across your chest, doubtful. “Then what was it like?”

Jack rakes a hand through his hair. “The boys were confronting me about you again. They have all these crazy ideas about how I feel about you, and I didn’t want them spreading rumors that weren’t true, so I tried to shut them down. Looks like I was a little more overbearing than I needed, huh?”

Jack tries for a weak laugh, but you don’t join in. Instead, you’re just disappointed. Sure, at least you know that Jack doesn’t hate you, but you’re just back to square one of him not loving you.

“Why did the boys want to confront you about me? Has this happened before?”

Jack looks oddly nervous. “What? Oh, uh, no. Never. Why do you ask?”

This makes you more curious. “You said they were confronting you again. Like they’d talked to you about me before. Why?”

Now it’s Jack’s turn to quail beneath your inquisitive gaze, and like you, he’s unable to withhold the details.

“They think I like you,” he mutters under his breath, “they have for a while. Not sure why, of course, but—”

A slow smile is growing on your face. “And do you? Like me, that is.”

Jack looks away frantically, but no rescue is in sight. At last, he sighs, and nods slowly. “Yeah, I do. And you’d better not say a word to the other boys, because they’ll never let it go.”

You laugh. “Why would I say a thing to the other boys? Unless we wanted to, of course.”

Jack squints at you. “Wait, ‘we?’ Does that mean that you like me too?”

“Of course I do,” you say, “Have for a while, actually. That’s why I thought you were having that conversation in the first place, because you had to convince the boys that even if I was crushing on you, you didn’t feel the same.”

Jack stares at you for a moment, as if processing the whole conversation. All of a sudden, his face splits with a breathtaking grin. “Shoot, you like me. We should have talked about this earlier.”

You arch a brow. “Why, what would you have done differently?”

Jack looks oddly proud of himself, and seconds later, you figure out why. “This.”

When he kisses you, it feels perfect. Not too rushed or too slow, just the perfect conclusion, the one the two of you have been rushing towards perhaps since the moment you met. It is you and Jack until forever, and you couldn’t ask for anything else.

newsies tag list: @lovesanimals0000, @misguidedswagger, @thatfangirl42, @amortensie

#jack kelly #jack kelly imagines #jack kelly x reader #jack kelly oneshot #newsies #newsies imagines #newsies x reader #newsies oneshot #newsies live #newsies live imagines #newsies live x reader #newsies live oneshot #newsies jack kelly #newsies jack kelly imagines #newsies jack kelly x reader #newsies jack kelly oneshot

272 notes · View notes

livesincerely · 3 years

Text

So here’s something else I’ve noticed/been thinking about with how I write Jack and Davey, specifically pining Jack and Davey.

Jack is very much a doer. Words are fine and all, but it’s actually taking (or not taking) action that counts most of all. For him, masking his feelings for Davey is all about not acting on his impulses—not reaching out for him, not staring too long or standing to close, not leaning in to kiss him no matter how badly he wants to. As long as he doesn’t go through with any of those actions, he figures he’s done a bang up job of keeping things under wraps.

But the thing is, while Jack doesn’t go through with these wants when pining, he absolutely thinks about them. Like, constantly, all of the time. Because it’s fine—it’s safe—to think about all the romantic/sweet/sexy things he’d love to experience with Davey because those are just thoughts—it’s the actions really that count.

Jack is also reasonably quick to put some of those thoughts to words—example, all of the flirting that’s almost as heartfelt as it is playful. Because again, words are just words until you do something with them, so they’re a safe place to test the waters.

I think that’s why Jack’s internal monologue, and even some of his confessions, are so wonderfully romantic. Because he really does think about it all the time, (like, allllll of the time) in the privacy of his own mind. It’s actually really sweet—he’s so worried about not coming on too strong physically that he has no idea how ridiculously obvious he’s being in all other aspects.

Except, Jack’s also not nearly at good as controlling his conscious body language as he thinks he is. Even when he’s trying to hold back and play it cool, you see a lot of affectionate touches and other physicality sneak into his behavior because that’s how love manifests most organically for him.

Therefore, big actions like a kiss/an embrace/etc. are usually either very deliberate “okay, wow, he likes me too, we’re really doing this, okay, okay,” type actions, or are reactionary in some way—an attempt to comfort or to protect, or spurred on by jealousy, joy, sorrow, etc. Jack’s such a physical person and it’s in those kinds of charged situations that he instinctively expresses himself through touch; the words (and everything else) come as an afterthought.

It’s a whole different story for Davey.

Whereas Jack will wax poetic about Davey’s eyes/hands/voice/whatever as freely and languidly as you please, most of the time Davey doesn’t even let himself think about his feelings for Jack. Because Davey’s the planner, Davey’s the one that thinks big and sees the whole picture of a given circumstance, and he knows that when he really, fully starts to think about something, he won’t ever be able to stop.

And Davey honestly does know—he knows—how good they could be together, he knows how wonderful things could be, because he’s always thinking ahead and imagining outcomes and possibilities. All he does sometimes is think, and he’s really good at it. But at the same time, it’s the wanting and imagining and dreaming about what a relationship with Jack would be like that hurts the most, because all it really does is remind him that he doesn’t have that.

And maybe that he never will.

So Davey doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t read anything into any of Jack’s behavior, doesn’t let himself wonder if any of those flirty, affectionate touches are significant or if the soft look in Jack’s eye means anything, because in his mind, odds are high that they don’t mean anything at all. People say and do things all of the time without there being a particular meaning behind it—Jack’s just being friendly, or Jack’s just being a flirt, or Jack’s just in a weird mood, or Jack’s just being Jack—and trying to decide what any of it means, or if it means anything at all, will only drive him crazy.

But, this has the side effect of, since Davey’s so caught up in not thinking about Jack and not letting his feelings for Jack color his perception of Jack’s behavior, he ends over correcting in the other direction. Which then results in him being completely oblivious to the incredibly obvious indications of Jack’s feeling for him because they simply do not register for him as anything out of the ordinary.

It’s just Jack being Jack.

So Davey’s internal monologue tends to be much sparser than Jack’s — you sort of have to plug in the variables of ‘Jack does A,’ ‘Davey’s reaction is B,’ therefore ‘Davey’s feelings are C,’ because Davey certainly isn’t going to think about his own desires long enough to characterize them.

And meanwhile, Jack’s just screaming internally in all of his inner monologue like ‘wow, Davey’s the best, he’s so pretty, I love him so much ahhh’ because he doesn’t navigate his feelings in the same way.

Davey’s true feelings are most obvious when something pushes him to act impulsively. He gets so caught up in the jealousy/worry/anxiety/joy/flusteredness etc. that he will finally act without (over)thinking about it—usually saying something very earnest that he didn’t mean to let slip or doing something physically affectionate that he didn’t mean to act on. But even then, once his brain catches up with him it’s an immediate ‘oh no oh no what have I done, abort abort abort’.

So, yeah. There’s not really a point to this except that putting this into words was helpful, and it’s interesting to see what sorts of patterns I use when writing these characters, even when I didn’t know I was doing it.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of ✨Thoughts with Ciarra✨

#*editor's note #javid #newsies #this is long but I hope it made some kind of sense ~slash~ was entertaining #this is what Ciarra’s mind is like lol #inspired by all the pov shifting I’ve been doing #keepsakes/trinkets really made me go ‘why does Jack’s inner monologue look like A and Davey’s look like B’#don’t mind me i’m just screaming

53 notes · View notes

tahitianmangoes · 4 years

Text

Absolution

Pairing: Micah x Arthur Summary: Micah often felt like he and Arthur were two sides of the same coin. Whether or not Artur shared that sentiment, ever since an encounter out west, inexplicably they keep finding themselves pulled back to one and other. Smut | Not canon compliant

Chapter One - Two Sides of the Same Coin

Chapter Two

It was hard to believe that less than a day ago, they had been in the sticky New Austin heat and now, Micah Bell was spending the night freezing his balls off in some godforsaken outhouse half way up a mountain with Bill Williamson snoring loudly beside him.

Things turn on a dime, Micah knew that better than most.

Micah doesn’t sleep. He’d been part of the Van der Linde gang for around six months and that was probably one of the few things that people really knew about him. No one cared to ask why he didn’t sleep, not that Micah would tell them anyway. He would usually sit around the campfire, sharpening his hunting knife or cleaning his revolvers. Sometimes sleep would get the better of him and he’d be woken up by the sudden jerk of his head falling forward onto his chest and that’s when he would hear it - that voice that still struck fear into him even twenty years on: Do it!” The voice screamed at him, “prove to me you ain’t the yella bellied coward you say you aint, boy!”

Just one day ago, Micah had been doing just that, sitting at the campfire in their camp outside of Blackwater. His hat was pulled low but he was listening, he usually was; he could hear John Marston and Abigail Roberts squabbling as usual, he could hear Lenny and Jenny twittering like lovebirds and Reverend Swanson’s drunken singing off in the distance somewhere.

It was Dutch and Hosea that Micah was listening to, though. They were arguing in Dutch’s tent. Dutch was playing his gramophone in a bid to muffle them but Micah didn’t have to hear them to know what it was about; Hosea didn’t think they should do the ferry job the next day. Hosea and Arthur had a lead, what it was Micah hadn’t asked but probably something akin to a theatre vaudeville performance if he knew Hosea Matthews at all. Micah wasn’t a fan of all of the conmanship - it felt underhand. Of course doing what he did, going in all guns blazing, was no better but it didn’t feel as sly - you knew where you stood with a gun being pointed at your head.

Micah was told that Dutch and Hosea used to have more of a united front, in more ways than one but it looked to Micah as if this had run its course.

To Micah, Dutch and Hosea seemed so very different; Dutch was charismatic, charming and spoke such pretty words and had big ideas. He was an optimist, believing that he could change the world and Micah believed him, so did everyone else for the most part. Hosea on the other hand was a pessimist. He sat around the camp with a dark cloud over him, picking Dutch’s plans apart and doubting him at every turn. Dutch, of course, was as patient as a saint with his partner - more than lenient with him in Micah’s opinion - but even a saint has their limits.

So Dutch had proceeded without Hosea this time, entrusting Micah with helping him with this job. It didn’t go unchecked by Micah that this was a big deal; he had been part of the gang for less than a year yet Dutch trusted him to help him with this job. He had to do his best to impress Dutch because who knew where this could lead…

Micah had never known the gang so quiet or sombre the night before a big job. Some people retired early but Micah knew they weren't sleeping, they just didn't want to talk about it. Charles disappeared for guard duty, Javier wasn’t playing guitar and Arthur lay with his hat over his face so Micah couldn't see him but he had a feeling that he was listening hard to Dutch and Hosea too.

For a few moments, Micah let his attention settle on Arthur Morgan - Dutch’s right hand man. Arthur didn't like Micah much but Micah got the impression that Arthur didn't like many people. Arthur had intrigued Micah ever since Micah had joined the gang. From what he understood, Arthur had been taken in by Dutch and Hosea when he was just a kid - it sounded like something out of a boyhood dream, to be taken care of and raised by outlaws… Whether Arthur was grateful or not, it wasn't clear; he was sullen and surly, got that moody cowboy thing down to a T. Always complaining about something or other. He was as stubborn as a mule and as dumb as a dog yet Micah was drawn to him inexplicably.

Maybe if things had worked out differently, he would have been more like Arthur. If his daddy had been a fine man like Dutch. Maybe Micah and Arthur were two sides of the same coin… Micah wondered if Arthur saw that they weren't so different, too. Regardless, Arthur avoided Micah wherever possible, especially after what had happened out at Gaptooth Ridge…

Micah let his thoughts settle back there for a while. It wasn't a particularly happy memory but one he played over and over to himself, trying to work out what it meant. Maybe it didn't matter anymore. So why did he keep thinking about it? Letting himself get lost in the gentle morning sunlight again and again when he closed his eyes, imagining Arthur lying beside him, feeling the heat coming from the younger man and remembering the look in those brilliant blue eyes...

He often wondered if Arthur thought about it too. Right now, in the small, delipidated building on the mountain, he thought of Arthur in the next building over and wondered if Arthur couldn't sleep either.

****

Sooner or later, a job's going to go wrong and boy oh boy, did the ferry job go wrong. Maybe they'd been set up because no sooner had the ferry been too far out for them to retreat, there were Pinkertons and lawmen everywhere. Everyone had been whipped into a frenzy, John Marston , Mac Callander, Davey Callander and Jenny Kirk had all gotten shot and the latter hadn't made it out alive. Charles Smith injured himself and Sean Maguire was taken captive by some bounty hunters. And then Dutch shot that girl...

It was a mess. Micah had never seen a job go so wrong so quickly, not since him and his daddy...

They'd managed to flee to camp, to pack up in record time though things were lost and misplaced along the way and Dutch told them that they were heading north. "North?" Hosea repeated looking sceptical. "North." Dutch replied firmly. "We gotta get outta here and we got get outta here fast." "What... What happened on that boat, Dutch?" Hosea asked sheepishly. Dutch turned his dark eyes to his partner and said solemnly, "nothing good."

Dutch had meant north as they headed deep into the mountains of Ambarino. Soon, a terrible storm set in. The snow swirled around them and Miah could hardly see three paces in front of him if it weren’t for his lantern. He followed the caravan blindly, his loyal Missouri Foxtrotter Baylock stepping carefully through the snow that came almost to the horse’s forearm.

He accompanied Arthur and Dutch in the hopeless pursuit for supplies once they found somewhere to settle. All they found was O'Driscolls and another mouth to feed, a woman named Sadie Adler. Exhausted and freezing, Micah curled up on the floor of the building he'd been delegated to with Bill Williamson, Lenny Summers and Charles Smith. He dozed for a short while but he heard that voice again, piercing his slumber and jerked awake to find that light was seeping in through the cracks in the rotting wood of the structure.

That next day was calmer, as if the storm before had never happened. Outside was bright, the cold sun reflecting off of the untouched snow.

Javier Escuella shivered around a small fire. He’d been outside all night on guard duty. Javier was warmer to Micah than Arthur or even Hosea. He wasn’t brooding or stoic, he could take a drink and a joke and Micah liked that about him.

He wasn’t dressed for the cold, a poncho slung over his shoulders and a denim jacket the only thing between him and the sub-zero temperature only made worse by being sent up a mountain earlier that morning with Arthur to rescue John Marston who’d gone and got himself lost in the storm.

“Are you taking me off?” Javier asked, tired eyes looking hopefully at Micah. “Dream on,” Micah replied gruffly. There was no way he was taking up guard duty out in the cold without orders from Dutch. Javier narrowed his eyebrows, looked like he might want to argue but maybe didn’t have the energy.

Micah warmed his hands briefly by the fire, not that he could feel them and if he didn’t hold them out in front of him, he could have sworn that they had fallen off in the night. Javier muttered something inaudible before disappearing towards the stables.

They had managed to find a place up on this godforsaken mountain, a place that could hold all of them - for now. It looked to have been a mining town at one point but long abandoned now, most of the buildings still stood but were derelict, some beyond repair. They wouldn’t be able to stay for long - sure Pinkertons might not be dumb enough to follow them up here but they’d most likely starve, freeze to death or both if they didn’t leave soon.

Micah never thought he’d miss their camp out of Blackwater, god knows he’d been complaining about wanting four walls and a roof over his head but he hadn’t factored in the snow...

As Micah moved away from the fire, he could hear voices coming from the next building. He recognised the familiar low rumbles of Arthur Morgan. Before Micah had time to move, Arthur and Dutch spilled outside, Hosea hovering in the doorway.

“Arthur, we’ll starve up here,” Dutch was saying. His voice had changed over the past couple of days - he sounded tired, desperate in a way but not yet defeated. “Dutch, I ain’t no hunter.” “I know, son. But we got no supplies here - Miss Grimshaw and Mr Pearson did their best but… We got a few cans from the Alder woman’s homestead and we can’t ask Charles to hunt with his hand in the state it is…” “I don’t know what I can do.” Dutch looked up and caught sight of Micah “Take Mr Belll here with you, go scouting. There’s gotta be something else up on this miserable mountain,” he said. Micah knew he was grasping at straws if he was suggesting that the pair of them went out scouting together. Arthur heaved a sigh, not needing to say anything. Dutch continued, “You’re two of the fittest men we got …I wouldn't normally ask like this. Please, son. We gotta try. People are dependin' on us.”

His voice was soft and coaxing, he usually used that voice when he wanted something from Arthur and Arthur usually fell for it. This time was no different. “Fine.” Arthur muttered in a tone that suggested that it was anything but fine.

The pair of them looked at each other; it wasn't the fact they were being asked to go scouting but the fact they were asked to go together.

****

They rode in silence for what seemed like a long, long time, Arthur just up ahead of Micah, obviously not interested in small talk.

These mountains were all but barren - they saw some deer that fled too quickly for either Micah or Arthur to pull their rifle out, heard the echoes of a distant grizzly bear washing over them periodically but nothing else.

"Maybe we should just head back now." Micah suggested after over an hour of them riding away from camp and seeing nothing but more snow. The sun would soon be going down and the last thing they needed was to be stumbling about in the dark. "Jus a little further…" Arthur muttered. Micah knew Arthur didn't want to let Dutch down - he never did.

So they carried on, climbing and following a trail so buried by snow it was barely visible. Once they reached the top of the climb, a basin came into view - a frozen lake surrounded by trees whose leaves had never cared to grow back and at the top of the frozen lake was a small cabin.

The pair urged their horses towards the cabin, a spark of hope for the first time in days. Arthur went to knock on the door only for it to swing open at his touch. The cabin consisted of one room: a small cot was pushed up against one wall, a table was in the centre of the room beside a fireplace. There were various cupboards and chairs but not much else. It looked like someone had been there once upon a time but not now. Everything looked to be covered by a thick layer of dust but there were provisions - mainly canned goods. On the table was rancid bread and cheese that was covered by mould and newspaper clippings that when Micah inspected them, saw they were from three years prior.

"Well, looks like they won't miss this stuff," Micah said more to himself than Arthur as they set about taking whatever they could. It wasn't a huge haul but it would be enough to feed them for a day or two when added to what they found in the Adler house. “This oughta keep us goin’ til we get off this goddamn mountain.”

There was a pause before Arthur shot back, “we wouldn't be stuck on this goddamn mountain if it weren't for you."

Micah turned to look at Arthur now. He was older than Arthur by around five years, they were around the same height, give or take an inch or so, both blond however Arthur’s hair was more a fawn colour and looked soft to the touch. Both had blue eyes, Micah’s icy and Arthur’s rich like the ocean. He was broader and more muscular than Micah who was perhaps thirty pounds heavier than Arthur and couldn’t boast of the same brawny frame as the younger man. Arthur was handsome, even if he couldn’t see it. Maybe Micah resented that, resented the way that his uncomplicated good looks often made things easier - women around the camp didn’t look at Arthur with the same repulsion they did Micah and maybe even Arthur’s looks meant that he was treated more favourably by Hosea and Dutch - not having to go on guard duty, always getting a tent with a cot and having any mistakes he made glossed over so easily...

Different sides of the same coin

Micah drew himself up to his full height before responding. “And how'd you come to that conclusion, cowpoke?” Micah asked, rolling his eyes at Arthur. Arthur always had something to say about him or the way he conducted himself.

“If you hadn’t egged Dutch on with all the ferry crap, we’d be well on our way to gettin’ ourselves some land. Me an’ Hosea had it covered-” “Sure looks that way,” Micah retorted with a sneer, “what was it this time? Hosea pretendin’ to be an college professor or maybe a magician? And you his pretty assistant? Or maybe you was both dressin’ up as ladies and stealin’ from a church fund?” “I have had enough of you!” Arthur snapped, “all you done since you joined us is cause problems, an’ now we lost Jenny, Davey, maybe Sean and Mac too!” “Less mouths to feed don’t sound like a problem to me, cowpoke.”

Arthur made a sound similar to a growl. Micah saw his fists ball, Arthur was the type to settle his scores with fights rather than words, maybe because words so often illuded him. Micah smirked. “Go on then cowboy, show me what you got.”

Micah saw the thought flicker through Arthur’s eyes briefly like lightning in the night’s sky and then he decided against it.

He turned, heading back to the door of the cabin muttering about going back to camp. When he flung the door open, the light had dwindled considerably quicker than either of the could have imagined and snow was coming down in thick, heavy flurries. “Shit!” Arthur hissed. “Well,” Micah sighed, heading to the door too and surveying the magnitude of the situation, “don’t look like we’re goin’ anywhere fast, sweetheart. Jus’ you an’ me now.”

****

There were logs that had been left by the previous tenant that Arthur threw into the fireplace and proceeded to light. The pair of them sat close to the fire, the night had drawn in fast and not only was it the only source of heat in the small cabin, it was also the only source of light.

Micah could see that Arthur was shivering, his arms folded flush across his chest and jaw tight. He glared into the fire. “I’m freezin’ my ass off,” He grumbled. “Well we wouldn’t want that now, would we?” Micah replied with a hint of snideness about his voice. Arthur shot him a look colder than out in the storm but Micah continued, maybe because he liked to see Arthur squirm. “You ain't cuddlin' up to me to keep warm if that’s what you want.” “I’d rather die o’ hypothermia than let you anywhere near me.” But they both knew that wasn't true.

Both knew the other was thinking about Gaptooth Ridge again now. It was all Micah had thought about since the day it had happened. Every time he closed his eyes, he was back in their tent, panting and moaning softly with Arthur’s lips on his like nothing else in the world mattered, and perhaps didn’t even exist anymore. He could hear trains rumbling in the distance and condors circling above, the warm air enveloped him just as Arthur’s smoky scent did and everything in the world was still aside from his racing heart.

“When we gonna talk about it, Morgan?” Micah asked without even thinking. He’d wanted to ask Arthur for weeks but Arthur had been avoiding him even more than usual. He felt so weak caving and asking first. He didn’t know what he wanted the answer to be; did he want this to be a thing? No. That wasn’t Micah’s style… Yet… He couldn’t stop thinking about it. Thinking about Arthur. About the way they had been together that day.

“Ain’t nothin’ to talk about.” Came Arthur’s gruff reply. Micah let out a snort of disbelieving laughter, “ain’t there?” “No. There ain’t.”

Arthur got to his feet now and walked to the back of the cabin, Micah's eyes followed him. Micah watched as Arthur leant against the wall and nonchalantly lit up a cigarette and smoked it, not looking at Micah but watching the tip of the cigarette burning down in his fingers between drags.

“Bullshit.” Micah said hotly, squaring up to Arthur. “You’re talking bullshit as usual.” “I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout it, Micah. As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t even happen. It was nothing.” A twisted smirk crept across Micah’s face. He wanted to play it the hard way, huh? “That ain’t what you was sayin’ when you had my dick in your mouth.” Arthur’s eyes flashed and his face turned stony. “You watch what you say to me.” He growled. Micah wasn’t about to back down, his body pumped with adrenaline. “What would ol’ Dutch say if he knew what you got up to? Or does he know you like to get on your knees-”

Before Micah could finish his sentence, Arthur had grabbed him by the collars and pushed Micah up against the wall with such force that his hat toppled from his head. Micah would have laughed if the wind hadn’t been knocked from him. Arthur threw his cigarette to the floor and that hand found its way to Micah’s throat. Micah’s eyes flickered, Arthur was panting, they stared at each other wordlessly. Micah still wore his lopsided smirk, as if willing Arthur to do it.

Arthur’s brows were knitted together, eyes mean and jaw clenched. He looked like he would kill Micah. Micah didn’t doubt that he could.

Before Micah knew it, Arthur had pushed his lips to Micah’s in a kiss. Micah made a sound - a groan. Oh, how he’d longed for this again, thought maybe it would never happen and that their time out at Gaptooth Ridge had been a one off, one of those crazy things that never happen again no matter how hard the yearning. Arthur kissed hungrily, one hand still pressed against Micah’s throat and Micah kissed back eagerly, tongue sliding into Arthur’s mouth and Arthur permitted it with a sigh, as if he had been longing for this too.

Micah brought his hands up, cupping Arthur’s face, the skin cold, the stubble scratching against his fingertips and Arthur shivered at his touch. Arthur removed his hand from where it rested now so Micah could breathe again and tugged Micah’s head back by his hair, exposing his neck so he could kiss it bruisingly, making Micah gasp.

He placed his hands on Arthur’s broad shoulders, fingers curling around the thick material of Arthur’s winter coat, submitting to the younger outlaw, almost paralysed in pleasure at the feeling of Arthur’s hot mouth - tongue licking and teeth grazing - sucking at the sensitive skin of his neck.

He felt Arthur wedge his thigh between his legs and his hips moved instinctively before he could stop himself. The friction was delicious, Micah was uncomfortably hard in his pants already and he let out a soft moan at the relief Arthur’s leg provided. He heard Arthur growl into the crook of his neck. They remained like that, Micah shuddering as he rutted against Arthur and Arthur biting at Micah, hard enough to leave bruises, hands groping at him through his clothes, making Micah sigh and moan.

Suddenly, Arthur ripped away from him. Micah panted, whimpering quietly- unsatisfied. His breath visible in front of him in the cold, cold cabin but the heat between them was like a furnace. Micah stared at Arthur, for once lost for words. Arthur’s expression was unreadable. Had Arthur come to his senses?

Perhaps not. Arthur’s gaze was fixed on the bulge in Micah’s pants. He was hesitant as he reached to press his hand against it but Micah didn’t stop him, of course not. He had wanted this, hadn’t he?

It didn’t go unnoticed by Micah that Arthur’s fingers seemed to tremble as he unbuttoned Micah’s pants and freed his erection. Micah turned away at this, slightly embarrassed at how hard he was. He could hear Arthur’s breaths heavy and hard before he felt the other man’s hand wrap around his cock.

Arthur held him firmly. Micah let out a sound, higher pitched than normal. He felt his cheeks burn but he didn’t have time to feel embarrassed, the feel of Arthur’s hand on him so starkly made him quake. And then Arthur’s hand moved, grip strong as he pumped Micah’s cock. “M-Morgan..!” Micah choked. Arthur's shimmering eyes met Micah's, as if asking for permission to continue. Micah didn't say anything, he leant his forehead against Arthur's shoulder and let his hips rock into Arthur's hand.

Arthur stroked him fast, making Micah's breath catch in his throat. He found himself clinging to Arthur, clawing at the other man's wide back as he tried to stop himself calling out. He felt Arthur's lips on his neck again, kissing along the exposed collarbone to his shoulder. Arthur's name tumbled from Micah's lips like the snow from the sky outside.

It took an embarrassingly short amount of time for Micah's orgasm to coil in his stomach. He found himself moving faster, rutting helplessly against Arthur as he began to shiver, knowing he couldn't hold on any longer. He tried to stifle himself as he came, burying his face in Arthur's neck, taking in Arthur's strong musky scent of gunpowder, cigarettes and whiskey.

He stayed like that for a few moments, blood pounding in his ears, eyes closed trying to compose himself. Arthur didn’t move either, they leant against each other. It was Arthur that moved away first. Part of Micah wished Arthur would stay like that just a little longer.

Micah’d gone soft now, his release was on his pants, on the floor and on Arthur’s pants, too. When he looked back up at Arthur, he could tell that the younger man wasn’t finished with him just yet. He had a dark look in his eyes that Micah wasn’t sure he had seen before. Arthur didn’t say a word, his eyes still fixed on Micah’s. It was his turn to unbutton his pants now and then, he laid his hand on Micah’s shoulder, gently but firmly pushing Micah down to his knees. Micah didn’t resist.

Arthur’s length was strainingly hard and tip slick with precum as he freed his cock from his undergarments. Micah'd seen it before, of course; part of him had known that Arthur’s cock would be generous in size and he had been right about that in both length and girth. Micah had never felt an urge quite like it, an instinct almost, to take it into his mouth and suck. Tentatively, he touched the reddened skin of Arthur’s throbbing erection, it was burning hot under his fingertips. He wet his lip before he opened his mouth and as he did, Arthur grabbed a fistful of his hair and stuffed his length down Micah’s throat without giving him a chance to adjust. Micah made a choked sound and tears instantly filled his eyes at the stretch from the sheer size of Arthur. Arthur didn’t relent. Micah knew this was punishment but part of him didn’t even care, there was something about having Arthur above him like this , powerful, doing his best to repress his moans that turned him on.

Arthur didn't talk, just fisting Micah’s hair and snapping his hips forward rhythmically so he can fuck the older outlaw’s throat. They didn't talk last time either, just their touches had been enough. Micah's gags and heavy breathing filled the room along with Arthur's low growls and soft curses. As the length hit the back of Micah’s throat, Arthur hissed and fuck, that sounds made Micah’s own cock twitch awake again. Micah felt his face redden, he could feel the drool and precome spilling from the sides of his mouth and his jaw ached. He tried to steady Arthur, putting his hands on Arthur’s strong thighs, using them as an anchor so he can bob his head back and forth on the length, sucking as best he knew how, using his tongue to pressure the underside of the shaft like the whores he’d used before had done to him… like Arthur had done to him before.

He closed his eyes now, getting used to breathing through his nose. He hollowed his cheeks and sucked hard, drawing back to pay attention to the tip and then taking as much of the length in its entirety at a time. He used his tongue to flick the tip, let his throat and jaw go slack so Arthur could press in further until he felt the younger man shiver.

Arthur groaned softly, when Micah looed up, Arthur's eyes were closed and his face was sheer portrait of perfection - lost in a rhapsody of bliss. Micah took hold of his throbbing cock now, needing some relief and as he did, Arthur gasped, hips stuttering, eyes open now, a flash of blue as he cursed loudly, "shit, Micah!" and spilled himself into Micah’s mouth.

Micah retched at the taste but was taken by surprise, swallowing the majority of it and coughing as Arthur pulled out. Arthur’s breathing was hard as he moved away from Micah and tucked himself back into his pants. Micah remained on his knees and wiped his mouth. He stared after Arthur who returned to the fireside, composing himself.

Arthur didn't look back at him as he spoke. “Now we’re even.” Arthur said almost emotionlessly. Micah didn’t want to admit it to himself but it hurt.

#morbell #rdr2 #red dead redemption #arthur morgan #micah bell #writing

49 notes · View notes

oof-musicals · 3 years

Text

Together, me and you//Chapter one

This is the first chapter of a project I haven't been able to stop thinking about. I'm so excited about it and I just,, I'm really proud of this guys. I’m not the too educated on travelling out of the occasional trips I’ve been on, so thank you so much to Chandler for talking it out with me, you are a lifesaver. Anyway, here it is guys, I hope you enjoy it:)

Tag list: @tarantulas4davey, @racecrack-higgins

(let me know if you'd like to be added to the tag list!)

“Racetrack Higgins has always been apart of the busy city of Manhattan, he loved the busy streets and lively aspects that accompanied the state. He had never thought about leaving until now.

Albert DaSilva moved to Manhattan from then the never-sleeping New York. In the 6 years he'd lived here, he had started to build his life in the city he now called home. But from time to time, he can't help but want to experience the quietness of a small town again.

With impulsiveness and desire, the two set out on a trip across the country. 50 states. Two boys set out for an adventure. One trip.

They got this.”

Road trip au

Content Warnings: Implied child abuse (Not explicit and it’s like 0.2 seconds), Self-esteem issues.

Words: 3142

Read on Ao3

Anthony "Racetrack" Higgins was a city boy. Living in Manhattan and visiting nearby boroughs often since the day he was born made navigating the subway - though he opts to walk instead - fairly easy. He loved the city. The lively energy of the city and the never-ending busy streets made him feel at home. He'd never thought about leaving before, could you really blame him? He’s been here for twenty-five years. He has a great life. He loved it here. Why would he leave?

Albert DaSilva, unlike Race, grew up in a city in Illinois. He moved to New York shortly after his two years of community college and never looked back. That’s what he needed. An escape from his family. Well, his father. He hadn’t seen his brothers since his sophomore year of high school. And his father was just… not the best. So moving away was probably one of the best things he could’ve done. He had a great job and he made a family here. He had good friends and a boyfriend he loved very much. Still, as much as he loved New York, he missed the quietness of the Midwest - how could he not? His hometown had friendly faces that were much more common than in the active streets of Manhattan and the way some nights were just simple. When he was growing up, he loved falling asleep to the cicadas outside his window. Falling asleep to cars honking just wasn’t the same. Sometimes, the desire to go back to that was too much to handle.

Right now, the desire was too much.

He doesn’t know what brought it on, but Albert recognized the feeling of homesickness the moment he woke up. He felt selfish to feel like this, especially when he had a good life with his boyfriend of five years. Race was his rock, the love of his life. To say he missed Illinois felt like he was saying he never wanted to meet Race. And while Race would probably understand that’s not at all how Albert meant it, it troubled Albert deep down.

Albert had decided to open up about it to Finch a while ago. It was probably the best decision Albert has made in a long time. Finch was actually pretty good when it came to giving advice. Davey would’ve been too pushy - not that it was totally Davey’s fault that he came on a little strong sometimes, that advice was not something Albert was particularly looking for. He didn’t want to go to Race - Race was amazing and great and Albert didn’t want to bother him with any problems he might have. Finch was the best person he’d had to give him advice lately. And today was no different.'

It was hard to concentrate on work all day. Sure work was never the best but he had the job of helping design video games. This was a teenage boy’s dream and he had trouble concentrating because he was missing his hometown. It sucked. He hated his hometown for the nineteen years he lived there, and now he couldn’t help but miss it.

Finch noticed. He noticed almost immediately. Albert noticed Finch eyeing him multiple times throughout the day and Albert could tell what he was concerned without him even needing to say anything. And, almost predictably, he brought it up when they were finally alone during a lunch break that they thankfully had together, despite them having separate jobs.

“Okay, I’m just gonna get to the point,” Finch announced as they sat down to eat lunch. “You’ve been off. What’s going on?”

“First of all, you’re blunt.” Albert sighed. “Second of all, what are you, my therapist?”

“Albert.”

“Okay okay, fine.” Albert stirred his water with a straw. “I’m just, missing Illinois and shit, and I kind of want to go back.”

“Like, move?” Finch’s voice had the slightest hint of sadness to it.

“Nonono not move,” Albert replied quickly. Sure, he missed home a lot but he couldn’t leave his new life behind. Not his friends. Not Race. “I don’t want to be in New York for the rest of time either.”

“Okay then, what about just visiting?”

“No, I can’t just go.” Albert opposed Finch’s suggestion. “I’d love to but, Race and I have a great relationship and I don’t want to mess that up with my own issues. I don’t want whatever I have with him to crumble.”

Finch was silent for a moment before he finally spoke his mind. “Albert. You are my best friend and I completely understand where you’re coming from but can I say something, as your friend?” Albert nodded. “You are such fucking idiot. Race loves you. He never shuts up about you! Even when you are around. You’ve been together five years. If he wasn’t completely in love with you, he would’ve left a long time ago. And Al we both know he’d be down for the idea to travel the world with you if he could. I get that you feel that you are one step away from messing things up with Race but seriously, I don’t think he could love you more than he already does. Just, talk to him. And if something horrible happens, which it won’t, I’m only a phone call away.”

And that’s why he went to Finch for advice. Albert smiled a bit. Even though he wasn’t the most convinced that his relationship was a landmine, Finch was probably right. Race has done crazier things than just travel to a different state (even when he’s never been to a different state). Really, what’s the worst that could happen?

___________

The first thing Albert was greeted to when he entered the front door to his apartment he shared with Race was their cat, Fishy, rubbing up against Albert’s legs. It was an interesting name to give a cat, and it was definitely a joke Race had stolen from the stage adaptation of Waitress, but the little guy seemed to love the name. So it stuck.

“Hi Fishy,” Albert kneeled down to scratch behind the cat’s ears gently. “Where’s your papa?” He asked, getting a purr in response. Albert checked his phone to see a text from Race, saying he had to go out and help Jack with an unspecified project - which kind of worried Albert, but not to the point he should be - and would be back with dinner in a couple of hours.

That left Albert to himself. Well, himself and Fishy. He didn’t do anything special during his time alone. Just put on an episode of The Good Place and played with his cat.

Soon enough, Race came home with dinner, The two rarely actually ate out, both opting to eat actual meals together. But tonight, neither of them had the time to get up and cook - so rice and dumplings made a good substitute.

“Jack wouldn’t stop calling me to help him with this top-secret project for Davey and he annoyed me enough I gave in.” Race rolled his eyes as he recalled the reason he left. “I swear ever since they got engaged Jack has talked more about Davey.”

“Well, do you think that’s going to change once they actually tie the knot?” Albert took out two plates from the cabinet and set them on the table.

“Don’t know, but he’s still gonna annoy the hell out of me. Even if he’s my best friend.” Race fed a tiny bit of rice out for Fishy - which was, fortunately, one of the things they were a hundred percent sure she could eat. Regarding Jack and Davey, they, despite being the second-worst couple to get their shit together, had gotten engaged 2 months ago and become the first couple in their friend group to do so. Jack was Race’s best friend, so of course, he was excited for him and Davey, but he was also annoyed. So so annoyed.

The two spent most of the meal enjoying each other's company. Race took up the opportunity to talk about his job as an astrologer, which Albert didn’t really know anything about, but still loved when Race talked about it, and Albert spent the whole time listening to his boyfriend and just adoring the boy in front of him. As the conversation drifted from stars to life back on the ground, however, Albert’s homesickness started to creep up on him again. Race must’ve noticed because he didn’t push Albert to talk and opted out of talking about everyday life. Soon the conversation became a comfortable silence between the two. Just them. No talk about work, no talk about life. Just them.

"Do you ever just get tired of the busy life in the city?” Albert said suddenly, looking up from his plate. “Like, do you ever want to get out?”

“Well, I’ve never thought about actually leaving.” Race admitted. The idea of leaving was intriguing once he thought about it. But Manhattan was home, he couldn’t leave all that as much as he wanted to. That’s the reason Jack didn’t move to Santa Fe out of college and was now getting married to Davey in New York. Family had a strong tie. “Manhattan has always been home for me.”

“I’m not saying we should move away from family, I’d never make you do that if you don’t want to,” Albert assured. “I’m just saying, do you ever just - want to get out of the city? Even if it’s just for a day?”

“I mean- I guess.” The blond set his fork down before standing up and taking his plate into the kitchen. “I’d love to see what life is like outside of a major city, someday. And you’re bound to miss home at some point, so I’d be open to going with you if you’d ever think about going back.”

Wow. Well, Albert was worrying over nothing.

“You’re the best boyfriend in the world, you know that?”

“Yeah, I do.” Race smirked. God damn. Why was this man so amazing? And amazingly sarcastic? “Seriously though, if that’s what you want, I’m down. I’ve never been out of New York and cities close by, so getting the chance to travel with you is something I’d be down for.”

Albert chuckled. “At this point, we need to take you to every state.”

“Why don’t we do it now?” Race suggested, setting his plate in the sink.

Albert snorted. “Yeah, let’s do it,” It took a second for him to realize what Race really meant. “Wait Tony are you serious?”

"Hell yeah! Let's just - travel the country!" Race turned around to Albert. "We can get a rental car to visit the connective states or whatever shit it's called we can buy plane tickets to go to the last two states and it'll take like what? A month at most? Let's do it, baby."

"I meant traveling the country as a joke, T,”

“I know, but honestly, Al,” Race walked over to the table, placing a hand on Albert’s cheek. “We’re young and stupid. It’s arguably the best time to do something like this.”

Now that he thought about it, Race was the perfect one to travel the country with. As dramatic and annoying Race was even when driving from Manhattan to Brooklyn, Albert would drop anything to be with the blond. And they were young and stupid, just like Race said. If down the road they got married and had kids, having the chance to do this - which with the help of amazing friends, they wouldn’t have to worry about their apartment or Fishy (as much as they would probably want to take her) - would be now. He wanted to do this with Race so bad. But there was still that part nagging at him. Something that stopped him from throwing caution to the wind and doing this with Race.

“Can I think about it?” Albert tried not to feel guilty when Race nodded silently. But he just needed a minute. A minute to reassure himself. Just a minute.

The rest of the night, Albert kept thinking about what Race said. He was definitely down for the idea, but some part of him was fairly hesitant. Hesitant that sometime on the trip Race may realize that he and Albert would probably not work out long term. Hesitant that

When he was comfortably sleeping in Race’s arms, Albert realized he had definitely lucked out with the boy. To have someone who not only understood Albert missed his home but also was down to get up and travel the country with him. In his few serious relationships he’d had, Albert had never come close to someone as lovable as Race. Sure, he still was worried about the possibility that Race would realize he may not want to make this a long-term thing but Finch was right. It’s been five years, and here they still were.

And if Albert was being honest, he’d be more than happy to travel the world with Race if he asked.

“You know what? Let’s do it.” Albert broke the silence. “Let’s go travel the country.” The redhead turned to Race, who grinned sleepily.

“I knew you’d say yes.” Race laughed quietly.

“Yeah, right.”

_______________________

They hadn’t finalized the idea of going across the country that night. Of course they hadn’t made the decision in one night. Traveling to all the states in the country took lots of planning - even for the most impulsive couple on the planet. First of all, they needed some form of transportation. Both Albert and Race had driver’s licenses - even if the idea of Race having a legal document allowing him to be on the road was terrifying - sure, but they favored using public transportation or just walking to get around. Luckily, New York has numerous car rentals. Second, this trip was going to be expensive. Really expensive.

That’s what they were discussing now. It was nearly one am and probably not the best time to be discussing where a huge amount of their finances will go but nevertheless, here they were. Discussing money over microwaveable pies in the middle of the night.

“What about where we sleep?” Race asked, throwing away the box for the pie in the recycling before shoving half the pastry in his mouth “Should we set aside a chunk of money to stay somewhere occasionally?” He asked between chewing.

Albert drew out a breath before rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know, hotels are expensive and motels are shady. For the sake of our wallets and safety, we can sacrifice a month of comfortable sleeping and we can sleep in our car."

“Motels aren't shady." Race rolled his eyes, setting the other half of the pie on a plastic plate.

"Yes, they are."

"You just don't want the extra excitement."

"I don't want to get murdered."

"Okay, okay valid point," Race finished off the pie. "I'm going to bed."

Albert let out a hum of acknowledgment. “I love you, Racer.”

“I love you too.” Race kissed Albert’s cheek. “Don’t stay up too long though. We may be prone to pulling all-nighters but doing math isn’t the best at one am, and this is coming from a math whiz.”

“Shut up I hate you.” Albert pushed Race jokingly, a smile forming on his face.

“You love me.”

Yeah. He really did. He really really did.

___________________________________

It only took a week or so to get everything in order to hit the road. It's honestly crazy how fast the most spontaneous couple in their friend group put so much thought into a trip. At least it was a crazy thing to Davey, who somehow found himself helping his friends load up a rental van to travel the country.

Traveling the country was not for Davey. For his boyfriend - no fiancé. He and Jack were engaged. For his fiancé, the idea would be sold. A trip around the country was probably high on Jack's bucket list. The idiot was almost as impulsive as Race and Albert. But for Davey, not so much. He loved traveling, sure. But that's something he wanted to do after he got married. Not on a whim in the middle of June.

But his preferences aside, here he was on a Saturday morning, helping Albert and Race pack up a rental van for their trip to visit 49 states. That and get their apartment key so he could be in charge of watching their house and cat for upwards of a month.

“Are they really taking five different blankets?” Jack’s voice interrupted his thoughts, holding a clump of said blankets. “It’s the middle of summer.”

“Different climates, Jackie.” Davey kissed his fiance's cheek before taking a box full of very unhealthy snacks to the car. He definitely was friends with some of the most impulsive people ever, it seemed.

Outside, Race set his duffle bag into the trunk. Well, one of his duffle bags. Davey might’ve rubbed off on him a little and he ended up overpacking a little. Granted, they didn’t know how long this trip was going to take in days, but he was pretty sure 4 duffle bags was a little extreme. Still, it’s not like he really cared.

“Seriously," Albert said, "One or two was enough."

"I'm sorry I wear more than sleeveless shirts and snapbacks."

"How about three?" Albert ignored Race's comment and took out two of his duffle bags, despite the disapproval whine Race let out. "We can always wash clothes."

"Whatever."

Jack eventually appeared out of the apartment complex with the blankets, nearly tripping around four times, catching himself almost every time. The last time he ran into the rental car. It was kind of funny to Race. Jack glared at the blond's snicker, causing Race to smile innocently.

Soon, Davey came out with the rest of the stuff they really needed plus a backpack that the nurturing side of him probably put together. He made a switch of giving Albert the snacks and Race the bag that included chargers, a list of numbers in the event they needed to contact someone without having their cell phones, a book or two, water bottles, and actually healthy snacks. He really was the mom friend. Race gave him a key to the apartment and Albert snuck him a short list of what to do with Fishy that only consisted of 'remember to clean her food & water bowl' and 'she has sharp claws. Race was supposed to take her to get them cut but he didn't so sorry about that'. Race and Albert said goodbye to Fishy and then to Jack and Davey.

And then, they were in the car. Ready to go on a trip across the country.

“Holy shit. We’re doing this.” Race breathed, buckling his seatbelt.

“We’re doing this,” Albert repeated.

They were actually doing this.

#newsies #ralbert #racetrack higgins #albert dasilva #newsies fanfiction #audrey writes #I'm so proud of this yet so nervous at the same time #Ralbert road trip #tw abuse #javid #javey #david jacobs #davey jacobs #jack kelly #finch cortez #long roads au

17 notes · View notes

we-are-inevitable · 1 year

Text

actually shut up. davey being an author and jack is his ex and they both know it was a right person wrong time kind of thing. they both knew they were losing each other too soon but how could they fix it? david needed his career to take off and jack needed life to slow down. david spent a lifetime stalling and jack spent a lifetime running and now david wants to go go go i need to go i need to do this i need to work need to be better need to be the best need to do this, jack, i need to do this, please support this, please. and all jack wants to do is slow down and stop and breathe and davey i cant, i need you here, you need to be here, please stay here stay with me i know you need to run with this but i need you to lay here for just another minute, please.

and they both pause. both understand. both know they need something different in life right now. david needs to experience a fast-paced world of publishing and writing a mile a minute with his ever-running mind, and jack needs to experience a slow-paced world of galleries and painting a stroke a day with hands that need a rest from always itching for more. and so they stop, they separate. they kiss one last time and wipe each other’s tears and suddenly their shared apartment is empty, so empty, leaving jack in the dust and davey in a rundown townhouse in brooklyn.

and here they are, ten years later: davey has that bestselling book series he spent so long on and jack has quite the following with his art and they’re both still hurting, still healing. as we know, creatives have their content ripped out of their chests whether they like it or not, sentences and brushstrokes, painstaking edits until the piece is exactly how they’ve imagined, how they were forced by their own minds to create it.

and give me jack, a tortured artist stereotype (he hates it he hates it why does he hate it), who wanders into a bookstore; he has some extra cash and he wants one of those nicer leatherbound sketchbooks that he knows they sell. he walks in and sees a face, davey’s face, his davey’s face, on a display of books, all brandishing the name David Jacobs at the bottom. so, he’s made it. good for him.

and give me jack, delicately picking up a book as though he may tarnish it, just as he feels he tarnished their relationship. and give me jack, opening up to the first page, and reading:

To J, for haunting my memories enough to keep me awake. Your apparition is the only reason this book is finished— what else was going to make me write until sunrise?

jack closes it. places it back down, picks up the sequel sitting right next to it.

To J, for being there when this started. Maybe you’ll see this when it’s finished. I don’t know. I still have a third book to write.

and maybe that spurs jack on. maybe he’s not J, but he rather wishes he was- he wishes david still thought of him, just like how jack has still been using david’s essence as painting inspiration all these years ago, just how he’s never been able to take another relationship seriously, just how he’s certain that he gave everything he had to david and has nothing left for anyone else.

he takes the plunge. he sends a letter. david’s third book is published later that year.

To J, for coming home. Writing this book with your head on my chest is the forever I’ve been dreaming of.

#fuck……. i have the brain worms bad about this #tortured creatives etc etc ….. yeah this is my favorite brand of javid #jack kelly #davey jacobs #david jacobs #newsies #jac txt.#livesies #javid #javey #newsies musical #newsies live #jac writes #author davey

348 notes · View notes

willowistic22 · 4 years

Text

Compulsive redfinch (Acne prone! Albert) headcanons!!!

So yes, this will be some hardcore self projection mini (??? idk how long this will be) compulsive headcanon but i don’t care I need something like this right now. Having acne prone skin has ruined my self image, but today i will turn those insecurities into headcanons bcs idk how to deal with them the healthy and proper way :D and you guys should know better that i would self project on my fav ship so yeah, here, have some random redfinch stuff for the night. you will be getting some skin positivity related redfinch headcanons whether yall like it or not!

Will i write this into a proper one shot? most likely but idk so i’m not promising anything yknow

Albert has acne prone skin ever since puberty first hit him (about the age of thirteen). It used to be all over his face, mostly his forehead, and sometimes on his neck, back, and chest.

Some kids like to poke fun out of it, with no means to bully him but his feelings still get hurt and has made him grow up to be very insecure. Not only in his looks, but just Albert being himself in general

All his friends (the newsies) will defend him to no end. Not to say that he can’t fight, it’s just hard punching people when your head is beating yourself up too. Other occasions, his eyes gets watery a bit too quick to be able to punch a straight line.

Race, Spot, and Hotshot defends him the most bcs they are his best friends :D

It’s one thing when other ppl insult him. It’s a whole other ppl when parents do it. Most of his friends don’t really know abt that but Race, Spot, Hotshot, Davey, and Jack does.

He’s the only one in his family that has shown signs of having acne prone skin since an early age. His father and two older brothers doesn’t. His mother does but the symptoms didn’t start until she first got pregnant.

Albert’s mother is hell bent on tryin to clear his skin. And both his parents have indirectly called him ugly and disgusting. It always hurts Albert the most when it came from his parents.

It has ruin his self image so bad to the point he has accepted his faith that he’ll be single forever. Until Finch Cortez happened.

Albert knew Finch since high school. By then, his skin has gotten slightly clearer but it wasn’t ‘clear’ enough. Albert can’t deny how attractive he thought Finch was when he first got a one on one interaction with him and he felt quite embarrassed bcs at the time he forgot to do his nightly skincare routine the day before which resulted in more pimples and dry skin than usual.

Finch was charming and mysterious on the surface. But what made Albert crush on him was what’s under the surface. A caring, bold, passionate, soft, and surprising person emerged and Al was head over heels for this boy.

He could only dream of having someone like him to be his boyfriend. So naturally, in sophomore year, he was surprised when Finch asked him out on a date in the middle of a Monday. Albert tried his absolute best to make his skin appear as presentable as possible, telling Finch that he’s only free on Friday bcs he needed to make a skincare appointment the day before.

And then there was the second date, since the first one was declared as a success. Then the third, the forth, and the fifth. Albert thought he was dreaming. Their dates were sooooo cute. (if i try to elaborate it will make this longer and also requires more energy and so i decide not to)

On the sixth, Finch was for sure he wants them to be in a committed relationship. Al was unsure because despite after six dates he still believes that his faith is to be single forever.

After hearing his explanation, Finch explained how handsome he thought Albert was and Al pulled him into a kiss bcs no one has ever called him handsome before. (akjdfaljkfblkjsfmcjkhfjlkscghjsh)

Since they’re in high school, they just do the ‘go with the flow’ sorta relationship. Whatever happens will happen and whatever feels right will feel right. That relationship actually continued on even after high school. (till marriage actually :)))))

Like abt a year or so in their relationship, Albert brought Finch home for the first time. His brothers knew that Al has a boyfriend named Finch (when his brothers are home they do a lot of catching up and basically never keep secrets and all) but has never met him. His parents had no idea he has a boyfriend in the first place, or the fact that he was gay.

So Al’s like, ‘surprise i’m gay, i’ve been dating this guy for about a year, and he’s going to eat dinner with us tonight :)’, and his parents are like, ‘oh........ okay.......’ (this was his compulsive decision to bring Finch home one day after school)

His family likes Finch instantly. They had a peaceful dinner. Until his mom mentioned what Albert looked like in middle school and just downright embarrassing his son in front of his boyfriend.

Al didn’t say or do anything. He just sits there, trying to ignore her reading a list of all the things Albert hates about himself. Finch noticed his silence and, in the most respectful way, defended his boyfriend.

Finch knew about Al’s insecurity ever since that sixth date but never knew what happened at home. So now he carefully watches his boyfriend. Anytime he picks up body language that indicates he’s feeling bad about himself, he will be sure to be there to remind Albert how handsome he is.

Finch would kiss the textured parts of his skin that he hates and Albert would blush and giggle and get all soft. He reminds Albert how handsome he is. Some days Albert actually believes it himself.

Finch loves caressing Albert’s textured skin. One of his many love languages towards the boy. There are other times when Al felt bad abt himself and didn’t like the hand touches, so Finch diverts it by intertwining their fingers.

When Finch catches Albert staring at a mirror for too long while focusing on one of his huge pimples, Finch will remind him how handsome he is. Al would laugh, seeing Finch being all sweet while tugging on his arm and move on from the mirror.

So Finch has memorized Al’s skincare routine. Sometimes he does it with him and by the end of it all they’d be wearing Korean sheet masks in Al’s bed and watching some movies while bundled up in a blanket and cuddling. Snacks will come after the sheet masks are taken off. (yus very soft much fluff can you tell that i’m pining?)

When they’re in college, they became roommates in their college dorm. Sometimes Albert comes home too tired or too drunk to do his skincare routine so Finch does it for him.

He earns hundreds of face kisses the next morning.

In short: Finch loves every part of Albert. In time, Al has learnt how to love himself. He’ll still continue to do his skincare routine but he’s okay with his textured skin. t h e e n d

#oh yes #it's pining hours bro #pining for clear skin #pining for a boyfriend just as sweet as finch #whoop we love that #anyways brb crying in the corner now #come join me :D #redfinch #redfinch newsies #newsies #albert dasilva #finch cortez #random writing #i will probably write a oneshot #but for now have a super long headcanon #tw bullying #well kinda

43 notes · View notes

offspring-of-calliope · 4 years

Note

I really like your writing, so if you're still taking drabble requests: how about some hurt/comfort for Ralbert? Maybe canon era? Sorry, I'm really bad at specific requests, but maybe this gives you an idea

Guess who only now realised that she still has to work through 15 pages of text in preparation for the lecture she has tomorrow morning and still prioritized finally writing this drabble? But hey, I really liked how this turned out, so maybe I'll regret it only half as much as I normally would.

I hope this fits your expectations and thanks for liking my writing :)

And don't be shy, you can still write me your wishes, I love writing something that others would like to see and enjoy.

So, for now I hope you'll enjoy this little drabble,

Sincerely, me,

Lélodie

-----

The sinking sun was painting the sky in a beautiful red colour - the same colour that had been used in the picture he held in his hands. Tightly, as if the memory of the boy who had drawn it would fade if he let go.

"There you is."

The sudden voice made him turn his head to see who was coming up to the rooftop. Jack und Crutchie's rooftop. "Hey, Albert," Racetrack Higgins greeted the newcomer, nodded slightly and then proceeded to stare at the picture in his hands.

"Oh, come on, Racer. Lighten up, you's lookin' as if someone's died." Albert said softly, sitting down next to the other boy and looking at him with worry in his eyes.

Race forced out a laugh. "Kinda feels like it. I mean, he's gone for six months. How's we gonna manage without Jack? And we ain't even having Davey who's lookin' after us like a mother hen!"

He was happy for Jack, he really was. Going to Santa Fe had always been the biggest dream of the oldest of the newsies, who'd also always been like a father figure to every one of them. And now, he was sitting in a train, on his way to visit Santa Fe for six months. It had been a surprise for everyone when Jack had suddenly told them all that he'd made enough money with his cartoon-drawing job - enough money to follow his dreams.

In addition to that, David's father had found a new job and since David hadn't stopped selling papers, he'd also saved a little money to be able to accompany Jack to Santa Fe. Katherine had become quite the famous reporter and therefore had had enough money as well.

The three of them were only going to stay in Santa Fe for presumably six months but in these six months, Race had to play their part that was leading Manhattan. Being the father figure to all the Newsies of Lower Manhattan. The problem was - how could he watch over all these boys when he wasn't even able to look properly after himself most of the time?

"Hey." Seemingly out of nowhere, a hand was touching his bare arm and he shivered in surprise. "I's basically able ta hear ya thinkin'. Relax for a moment, Racer. Take a deep breath."

"Did ya even listen ta me, Albie? Jack's gone! I can't look after the other boys without-", Race protested.

"Shush, Racer! Breathe. Trust me. In. Out," Albert tried again, now stroking both of Race's arms in a soothing manner.

"I don't think ya understand the situation I's -"

"Breathe."

"But -"

"Breathe."

"Al, I -"

"Jesus Christ, Racer!" Albert eventually exclaimed, grabbed Race's face and smashed their lips together.

Race revelled in the familiar feeling of Albert's lips on his, Albert's hands on his skin, Albert's presence in his heart. For just a tiny moment, his brain was empty. Not the bad kind of empty but a nice empty that made him feel free and careless, as if he could conquer the world.

After a while, Albert pulled back. "Sometimes I wonder if ya do it on purpose," he mumbled, stroking Race's hair, staring at him with a mixture of awe and amusement.

"Do what?" Race asked, finding himself grabbing Albert's shoulder, only subconsciously realising that the picture he'd been holding before had slipped out of his grasp.

"I don't know. Just. What I don't want ya to do, ya know?"

A smug smile graced Race's lips. "If I'd do what ya want me ta do, ya wouldn't kiss me ta convince me."

"So ya do it on purpose!" Albert laughed, leaning into Race's touch. "But honestly, Racer. The Newsies love ya. How could they not? You's wonderful. So what, you's irritated mosta the time, maybe not the most mature? It doesn't matter. They don't need someone who's mature. They need someone they can trust. Who they can rely on, as Davey would say. And that someone is you, ya know? And if ya need help, remember, you's not alone. You got me, Crutchie, Blink, all of the others. We can look after each other together."

Silence. For a long while, Race only stared at Albert, drawing patterns on his skin with his fingers. Then: "I love you." He held his breath. Never before had he said these words to Albert.

Albert smiled. "I love ya, too."

"You's the best." Race added, suddenly being able to breath more freely than before. He remembered the station, seeing Jack and the people he held most dear in this world entering a train, taking the first big step of their relationship. Jack deserved it. Race could let him go. Him and Albert would have their own big step to take the next few months.

Once again, Albert stroked his hair and gently kissed his forehead. "I know." Both of them laughed at that.

And the sun had set behind the rooftops of Manhattan but these two boys where as awake and as aware of each other as they'd never been before.

#newsies #newsies fanfic #drabble #ralbert #racetrack higgins #albert dasilva #jack kelly #canon era #writing #writer #newsies musical #musical theatre #musicals #newsies broadway #davey jacobs #katherine plumber pulitzer

31 notes · View notes

violetwolfraven · 4 years

Note

I already asked this in the @s, but I’ll ask it here too, javid with either 28 or 23, (I don’t really care) pleaseeee :0

We adopted a kid/kids.

and

What if we kissed because we were arguing and I really wanted you to shut up but we both enjoyed it? Lol jk... unless..?

How about kind of both? Lol. Get ready for a canon-era Something to Believe In scene rewrite with a side of The Truth About the Moon! Also, this gets corny as fuck towards the end FYI.

...

Davey was at home and he couldn’t decide if he wished he wasn’t or not.

He’d helped out at the Lodging House, comforting the others, as long as he could, but eventually, almost everyone was already asleep or dead on their feet, and Race just gave him a look that said he saw how drained Davey was, and told him to go home.

Besides, he needed to get Les to bed and tell Sarah what had happened, as she wouldn’t have heard with her factory job.

So, now, he was out on the fire escape with his twin, while their mom put Les to bed after he cried himself to sleep.

Davey wished Jack making Les cry made him angrier.

“Maybe he had a good reason, David. Maybe he—“

“Shut up, Sarah.”

His tone was barely above a whisper, but Sarah stopped talking for a second.

“David,” she said slowly, “We don’t have all the facts. We know Jack... we know he scabbed on us, but...”

She trailed off, seeming to realize there was no good explanation for this. There were no facts either of them could think of that would make this better.

“The point is, we don’t know what was going on in his head,” she said finally, “Jack’s smart. Maybe there was—“

“Shut up, Sarah!”

Davey turned around, ignoring how now that he had, she would see him trying not to cry.

“Saz, we both know there is nothing you can say to make this better, so why don’t you shut the hell up?!”

She only stared at him levelly, “Is it really me you’re angry at?”

Davey shook his head, “No. No, it’s not. I should be cursing Jack’s name; not yours. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not angry at him, either,” Sarah realized, “You can’t be. You’re angry at—“

“If you finish that sentance, I’m going to say something I’ll regret.”

Sarah stopped talking.

“Look, Saz... just... go. Please go.”

She sighed, “David, things don’t always have to make sense. Feelings rarely do, and... and that doesn’t make it better—in fact, it probably makes it worse—but... damn. I don’t know how to explain this. Just... I’ll go inside if you want me to.”

When Davey didn’t tell her to stay, she climbed in the window and left him alone.

Davey sighed. He was so messed up right now. He was so messed up because... because he wasn’t angry at Sarah. He wasn’t even angry at Jack. He couldn’t be, because...

Long story short, he was angry at himself, because he couldn’t be angry with Jack.

Davey looked up, seeing the moon shining above. At least one thing still made sense.

“Latin name: Luna,” he muttered absentmindedly, “Hundreds of thousands of miles away from here.”

He remembered reading about this. Thinking back on every fact he remembered about the moon was certainly better than thinking about his own emotions.

“No signs of water, or life, or atmosphere.”

At least facts never changed on him. They made sense. Davey wished everything could.

“This is the truth about the moon. The facts are black and white.”

He smiled, despite himself, thinking about only a few days ago, when things were simpler and nobody had gotten hurt yet.

About a boy who made it so not everything had to make sense, because you felt good when he smiled at you, and that was enough, even if it didn’t make sense. Facts didn’t have to matter.

Davey couldn’t deny what he was feeling, even if the facts didn’t make sense.

Jack was a boy.

Jack made Davey feel like no one ever had.

He smirked at the sick sense of humor the universe had and mumbled his thoughts to himself.

“Shall I try to deny all I know from moments that’s gone? Would my heart let me be someone different from me from now on..? No.”

Davey wished he could be angry, but he couldn’t. Because even if it didn’t make sense, he knew how he felt.

And he was completely, stupidly, still in love with Jack Kelly.

That handsome, charismatic, dime-novel cowboy who still believed in a fantasy called Santa Fe.

As confusing as they were, Davey still had some facts about Jack, and he might as well try to organize them.

“Given name: Jack Kelly. Someone who seems to get by with a smile.”

Jack was smart in his own way, could even have a way with words, sometimes, but he had never gotten an opportunity to go to school, or sit down and read a book, and often made his points by appealing to emotion instead of logic; something that was the opposite of how Davey had always done it, yet somehow was still effective.

“Having no substance, he compensates with style.”

It was so effective that he had everyone believing what he said. He had Davey believing in what he said, when he said he cared, when he said he wouldn’t give up.

The truth about that boy was that he was a leader, a protector, or at least everyone thought he was, and he had the kind of eyes that drew you in. That made you want to keep on looking at him and make him see you, too.

Davey still couldn’t quite be angry, but bitterness definitely crept its way into his tone.

“And if I first thought he was who he claimed he was, it’s just because that kind of boy must be good at what he does.”

Davey was so stupid. Jack had admitted that he had a way of improving the truth. He had proved that he didn’t have a problem with lying to survive.

The problem was that he was so good at improving the truth that everyone believed his truth was the real, actual truth.

Revising a previous thought, he lied to survive or to get what he wanted.

And he was too stupid to see that despite all he said, his dream was really of a home, of a family, and it was right in front of him. Santa Fe was nothing he didn’t already have and if Jack still couldn’t see that after throwing away what he had, then... then let him throw it all away and fly away to Santa Fe.

“Santa Fe,” Davey mumbled sarcastically, “You’re the scene of a dream, not a plan.”

A lovely, dream, sure, but nothing that was really out west, that was really real anywhere but right here in New York.

“The dream of a boy, not a man.”

Davey took a deep breath, realizing that he wasn’t close to tears anymore. Sorting through his thoughts and facts, about the boy and about the moon, had worked, for the most part.

He looked up. The moon was still there. It always would be.

“Latin name: Luna.”

He wished the boy was, too, like he’d made it seem like he would be.

It was what had made Davey fall in love with him, how he was clearly always there for his friends. His family.

He remembered that first day, how a few different kids had come up to him and Jack had hugged them, suggested how to fix a problem, helped patch up a scraped knee, all with the patience of a loving big brother even with no blood tying him to the others.

As much as Davey had loved his charisma, his fearlessness, it was that softer, gentler side that he’d really fallen for.

Maybe it had just been an act, but Davey was still in love with him, no matter how much he wished he could just be angry and hate him.

“Lovely name: Jack.”

“Davey?”

Davey reeled back towards the window as he realized who was climbing up next to him.

“Dave, wait, please.”

That tone in his voice, the broken, almost-crying one, was what made Davey pause.

“Give me one good reason not to go inside and lock you out here.”

Jack sighed, “I... I don’t have one. Not for me. I don’t blame ya if you never want to see me again, but... here.”

He held out a paper, and Davey took it, reading with suspicion.

“Katherine wrote it,” he explained, “Pulitzer has an old printin’ press in his basement we can use, and the idea is to pass these out to all the workin’ kids of the city. If we play our cards right, it might just work, but... but I can’t do it alone. And I know Race. I know he won’t so much as talk to me right now, but we need him to get the other fellas to help. Kath’s busy gettin’ some friends who know how to work the press, so... so I need you to get through to him. He’ll listen to you.”

“And who’s fault is it he won’t listen to you?”

Davey hadn’t thought he would be able to summon that much ice in his voice, but he was glad he could.

Jack took a shaky breath, “Mine.”

As he finished reading it... the article was good. Really good. It might actually work, if this was for real.

“Jack Kelly,” Davey warned, “I swear to God if you are bullshitting me right now, I will let Spot Conlon push you in front of a carriage. He already offered to do that, by the way. Race declined.”

“I’m not bullshittin’ you,” Jack promised, “I swear on my life, I—“

“What’s that worth?” Davey snapped, not meaning a word of the angry rant he stepped forward, getting in Jack’s personal space, “Two days ago, you told me you’d give your life for this strike, for these boys, and you betrayed them! You broke their trust, Jackie! You broke my trust!”

“I know, but—“

“No!” Davey shouted, “You don’t get to voice an opinion! You’re supposed to be the one that protects everyone! You know that more than a few of them cried on my shoulder tonight because they saw you as a big brother and you abandoned them? What—for a city you’ve never seen?”

Jack looked like he was going to cry. Davey tried to act like that didn’t bother him.

“Ya know what? Kath is right. You’re crazy, Jack Kelly. You paint a place you’ve never seen and call it home. You say you want a family and ignore the one right in front of you. And you are a goddamn idiot for trading your family in for a place where you will never find what you’re looking for.”

“I... I didn’t do it for Santa Fe.”

Davey scoffed, “Then why?”

Jack’s eyes still had something broken inside, but some of the strength from before everything started to go to hell was starting to come back.

“I did it for you.”

“What?”

“I did it for you,” Jack repeated, louder, “Pulitzer threatened you, by name. He mentioned Crutchie and Les, too, but he said he’d come after you and... dammit, I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let you go to the Refuge.”

“This was always going to be dangerous, Jack. That’s not good enough.”

“You don’t know nothin’ about the Refuge.”

“I knew the risk when I signed on to this strike with you!” Davey argued, “I knew from day one it could end in me goin’ to jail getting hurt or even dying, but I don’t care.”

Jack glared at him, and as he took a step forward, his voice sounded haunted and strong all at the same time.

“You have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

“What the hell are you—“

Davey stopped as Jack turned around, having pulled his shirt off most of the way, revealing...

Deep, criss-crossing scars across his back. More than Davey cared to count and certainly enough to shut him up.

“Snyder thinks it’s funny,” he said bitterly as he put his shirt back on, “First time was when I was 13. I got out the next night, but he got me again when I was 15, then again when I was 16. Each time, I barely made it out alive. Do ya think I would ever let one of mine go through that if I could stop it?”

“I ain’t one of yours,” Davey tried to argue.

“No, you ain’t,” Jack grumbled, “Mine let me protect ‘em.”

“I don’t need your—“

“Davey, don’t you get it?” Jack yelled, grabbing Davey’s shirt as he got all up in his face, “Pulitzer knew exactly how to get at me! He knew who to threaten because you won’t let me protect ya, but you’s probably the one I wanna protect the most! So hit me if you want, but agree to the Children’s Crusade because we don’t have time for this!”

Davey grabbed Jack’s wrists, “I ain’t gonna hit you, Jackie.”

“Just do it!” Jack shouted, “I know I deserve it! Kath already punched me in the face and she apologized but we both know I don’t deserve that shit because I’m a traitor and I hurt everyone including you so just—“

That was when Davey kissed him, needing him to shut up shut up shut up. To stop talking about getting hurt like he deserved it, to just be okay.

Jack gasped against his mouth and Davey almost pulled away, but then Jack was desperately kissing him back, gripping his shirt like it was a lifeline and half-sobbing as Davey let him pull him in closer.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as they pulled apart enough to breathe.

“We don’t have time for that,” Davey whispered back, “Be sorry later. Rally the troops now. I’ll meet you at the Lodging House.”

“Wait,” Jack said as Davey was about to climb in the window to grab Sarah and Les and let his parents know where he was going, “Wait, Dave. What... what’s this about?”

Davey knew he wasn’t talking about the strike.

“Am I... am I kidding myself, or is there really something..?”

Davey rolled his eyes in exasperation, “Of course there is.”

“Well don’t just say it like I happens every day!”

“Jack, I—“

“No! I’m not an idiot! I know boys like you and me...” he sighed, “I know we don’t get happy endings, but... standin’ here right now, lookin’ at you... I just wanna grab hold of somethin.’ Make time stop so’s I can just keep on lookin’ at you.”

“I know what ya mean, Jackie. But we have work to do, so we should just—“

“Wait,” Jack insisted, grabbing Davey’s arm, “Please. Can we just... can we talk? For 5 minutes?”

Davey could see how badly Jack needed reassurance. How bad he needed to see that no, this wasn’t just his imagination, a pretty painting in his head. This was real.

“Look,” he said quietly, grabbing Jack’s hand, “You snuck up on me, Jack Kelly. I never even saw it coming. Till the moment I found you, I thought I knew what love was. But now I’m learning what is true. The world finds ways to sting you, and then one day decides to bring you something to believe in for even a night. And if you’re gone tomorrow... what was ours still will be. I have something to believe in now that I know you believed in me.”

Jack nodded in understanding, “We was never meant to meet. And then we meet—who knows why? One more stranger on the street, just someone sweet passing’ by. An angel come to save me, who didn’t even know he gave me something to believe in for even a day. And if I’m gone tomorrow...”

He trailed off, and Davey grabbed his face gently to make him distract him.

“Do you know what I believe in?”

He hoped Jack could just look into his eyes and see.

They almost kissed again, but Jack pulled away at the last second.

“If things were different...”

They both knew what he was really saying, but neither of them said it.

“If you weren’t still chasing Santa Fe...”

Because he was. No matter how stupid that dream was, Jack couldn’t give it up just after a 10-minute talk.

“If Kath’s father wasn’t probably going to kill me.

“Wait, what?”

“Oh, it turns out Katherine is Pulitzer’s daughter. Don’t worry, though, she’s on our side.”

Davey decided to process that later, “You’re not really scared of Kath’s father.”

“No... but I am pretty scared of you.”

Davey slapped his shoulder gently, “Don’t be!”

“Well...” Jack smiled, finally, “I have something to believe in, now that I know you believed in me.”

Davey couldn’t help it. He kissed Jack again, quickly, then backed up.

“I’ll wake up Les and Sarah and meet you at the Lodging House, okay?”

“Yeah. And by the way, if we’s together now... I should probably warn ya that I might not always have time for ya. I’ve been sorta takin’ care of all the other fellas since I was 14, so...”

Davey rolled his eyes, “Jack, I’m already stuck with Les. I am more than happy to adopt all of your siblings, too.”

“Oh. Okay. Ya know they ain’t actually my siblings, though, right?”

Davey shrugged, “You always act like they are, so it’s close enough.”

“Fair. Guess ya have been helpin’ take care of ‘em these last few days, so the change shouldn’t phase ‘em too much.”

“Yeah, they’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“So... you’re sure you’re in for... whatever this is? Cause there ain’t no goin’ back in time, so... are ya in for sure?”

Davey nodded, “For sure.”

Luckily, that seemed to put Jack’s mind at ease enough for him to leave.

#newsies #javid #javey #jack kelly #davey jacobs #jack x davey #angst #something to believe in #the truth about the moon #jack and davey are the mom and dad friends #canon rewrite #violet’s writing

52 notes · View notes

the-awkward-outlaw · 4 years

Note

Hi! I love your works and I was wondering if you could write something about a new "lost soul" saved by the gang and trying hard to fit in. A reserved female reader who secretly develops feelings for Arthur, knowing well he has no interest in getting involved with anybody. A good ol' heart-wrenching, I-will-pine-from-a-distance-and-suffer-in-silence kind of unrequited love. Ending is up to you (but maybe it's a happy one

This one turned out sweet. Arthur’s the biggest softy. That said, FLUFF AHEAD!

Masterlist

Read on AO3

You look around nervously, not sure you’re entirely in the right place. Everything’s changed so quickly, it’s hard to process. Sure, you’ve heard endless tales of gangs and outlaws, living wild and free, but you never knew the gritty details about any of it. Now here you are, living it.

You ended up here with the Van der Linde gang because your life has a funny habit of putting you in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’d been on the train two days ago, and it got robbed by a gang. As they were busy killing the engineer and the conductor and going through everyone’s possessions, a man you’ve come to know to be named as Arthur rode by and killed the bastards. You sank to your knees in fright, afraid you’d be killed too.

As you sobbed into the grass, your hero dismounted and comforted you. When you explained that you had no home, nowhere to go and nothing to return to, Arthur offered you to come with him. You accepted, of course, you just found yourself incapable of saying no. He put you on the back of his horse and rode down south of Blackwater and into a small hideout called Thieves Landing.

You’ve never been here before, your parents told you as a child to avoid the place as though it had the plague. Everyone south of the Upper Montana knew it was where criminals hid and because of its layout, it was hard for the law to take.

It was here that Arthur told you his gang was hiding out in and that you were welcome to stay until you got your life sorted. An older woman named Grimshaw immediately jumped on you and started barking orders, despite you being completely dumbfounded and confused.

It’s been two days since you were brought in, but you’re not entirely convinced you’re fitting in all that well. The gang’s big with at least twenty members. All of them, even the women, have a track record. The only one who’s as innocent is a child named Jack, but the rest have done something to earn them at least a few days in jail, but most have earned even the noose should they ever get caught.

It’s not a comforting idea exactly, but already you can see how tight-knit they all are. There’s a sense of family here, the likes of which you’ve never had the fortune of experiencing. While in the day, Grimshaw barks and even nips, at night she turns pleasant, making sure everyone gets a plate to eat and singing songs around the campfires.

She’s not the only one to let down their hair at night. Most of everyone does, telling stories about things that have happened or singing songs. You especially liked it last night when a young man named Javier sat down and played his guitar, singing in Spanish. Being from down south yourself, you were used to hearing his native tongue though you understood none of the words. It was still pleasant to hear.

“So, how’s you adjustin’?” asks the young girl next to you as you scrub at a shirt in the wash bin with a rather stubborn spot that doesn’t want to come out. She’s got brown hair and she’s wearing a faded purple dress with a rather pretty necklace.

“I… I think I’m okay. But… Mary-Beth, isn’t it?” you say. She nods. “Can I be honest with you?” She nods again. “I really don’t fit in here. Not because you’re criminals and I’m not, it’s just… I have nothing to offer anyone. I don’t know how to steal, shoot a gun. Hell, I can barely ride a horse.”

“And that’s okay,” Mary-Beth says with a small smile. “You can learn how to do those things. I’m more than happy helpin’ ya, and I bet the other gals will too.”

“Not only that, but we can always use another girl,” Grimshaw snarls, stomping over to you both. “Now get to work, both of ya!” She marches away to go bully Tilly.

“Don’t worry about Ms. Grimshaw,” Mary-Beth says when the woman’s out of earshot. “She likes to act tough, and sometimes she can be a little too forceful, but she does care.”

“That’s to be debated,” says Karen, walking over with a repeater in her hand. She must have just finished with guard duty. “That ol’ bat wouldn’t give a damn if we was all on fire, long as we’re workin’.”

Mary-Beth gives a little giggle, but Karen walks off to go and talk with a red-haired man. Because Thieves Landing is so large, you’re still learning the names of the members of the gang. You’ve kept your ears open though, wanting to learn about these people, see how the other side of society works.

Growing up, you never had many friends, always being very shy. At school, you were bullied a lot for reasons you couldn’t understand. Your parents tried to help you but there was little they could do aside from pulling you out of the school and teaching you themselves. They didn’t know much about math or science though, so they taught you what they knew: how to ranch and garden.

When you were about ten, your father got sick and died. A few weeks later, your mother, who had contracted his illness, died too. You ended up at your uncle’s house, but he was such an abusive, angry drunk you just left one day when you were 15. You’ve been on your own since, jumping from one job to the next. You were between them when you were on that train a couple days back, when Arthur found you.

As you sit and work, you smile as you think of your father. He used to tell you many stories, but your favorites were those about gunslingers and outlaws. Something about them seemed romantic and fantastical, the way they represented the idea of freedom, of never being tied down. You never thought you would be incorporated into a gang of them as an adult.

A few hours later and you hear the somewhat familiar voice of the camp cook Pearson shouting that dinner’s ready. You sigh in relief, knowing that dinner signals the end of the day’s work and you can relax. The past two nights you’ve spent alone on your bedroll, being too shy to mingle, but as you stoop to collect your stew, you wonder if you can muster the courage to change that.

Several of the gang has gathered around a large campfire to talk over dinner. There’s an empty seat, but it’s right next to Arthur Morgan. Sure, he’s the man who brought you here, but you feel especially unimportant next to him. He’s a big guy, much taller than yourself, broad, handsome. The girls told you he’s got a very rough exterior but secretly harbors a heart of gold. However, it wasn’t until you found out he holds some of the greatest weight in camp that made you shy around him.

A hand pats you on the back, making you jump a little. Turning, you see Grimshaw.

“Go on, have a seat, dear. You’ve earned it.”

Unable to say no to her, you walk over and take a hesitant seat next to Arthur, hunching down a little. He doesn’t seem to notice as he’s listening to a man named Hosea tell a story about how he’d nearly been busted for robbing a house during a wake but how he’d managed to act his way out of being caught. It’s a rather funny story and as the others laugh appreciatively, you feel yourself relaxing. That is until Hosea’s story ends and he asks you a pointed question.

“How are you settling in, miss?”

You hate being brought out in the spotlight like this and it doesn’t help that Arthur, sitting so close, turns to look at you, his expression neutral.

“Oh, I’m… I’m doing okay, thank you. Mary-Beth said she can teach me how to rob people, so I’m hoping I won’t be so useless to you anymore soon.”

“No one’s complaining about you being useless,” says a man named John, sharpening his knife on a whetstone. “When you start bein’ as useless as Uncle, then we’ll have a problem.”

“Hey, I work!” complains the man in question.

“Really? When was the last time you lifted a finger ‘round here, ol’ man?” Arthur challenges. The group happily begins to bicker, but you’re grateful as it’s pulled their attention off of you.

As the days pass, you begin to hear people in the gang beginning to talk about a big score. A member named Micah came in to bring the idea of a big river boat to the gang’s leader Dutch. From what you can make of Dutch, he’s a clever, calculating man who cares deeply for his family. Mary-Beth and Tilly told you how he and Hosea took both Arthur and John in as their sons despite not being much older themselves. They formed this gang together and it’s stayed strong.

Ever since Micah brought in the potential job, the gang’s been humming with excitement. It seems to be a very big score and will need a lot of help for it to work. You’d like to volunteer, to contribute something, but you know you’re utterly useless right now. Mary-Beth’s only begun to explain the basics of robbing to you. However, this job sounds like it’s to come with a guaranteed gunfight.

The day for the heist arrives and pretty much every man in the gang goes to do it. A few hours later, they return to Thieves Landing bearing bad news. Somehow the law knew the boat was going to be hit and they met the gang with fierce opposition. Poor Jenny, whom you’d just started to get to know, was shot and so was Davey and John. Dutch and Hosea start shouting for everyone to get packed up as the Pinkertons are in pursuit.

Days go by and Thieves Landing is far behind you and the others. The gang has moved north, still trying to shake the Pinkertons off. Jenny passed away two days ago, but no one has been able to bury her as a massive snowstorm moved in shortly after she passed.

Moral is at an all-time low, yours included. You wouldn’t dream of leaving though, these people have become your close friends and even border on something like a family. Grimshaw tries to encourage everyone to stay positive, but it’s clear she doesn’t feel it much either.

Night falls once again as the wagon train goes along a narrow pass, the horses trudging through the thick snow. The weather has stayed horrible for days, dumping the white powder in great heaps. The Pinkertons haven’t been seen in the past two days. Perhaps this means the gang can finally find somewhere to hide. Dutch sent Arthur out a few hours ago to scout, along with John and Micah.

Arthur returns just as Abigail makes note that Davey is nearly dead. He reports that he found a place to shelter and guides the train there. It’s a small town named Colter according to a small sign by the main trail. The gang moves into the largest building but Abigail says Davey’s passed. Soon after, Dutch and Arthur go out to find what else might be around and they end up bringing back a heartbroken woman named Sadie.

Two days go by and the weather’s hardly let up. You stand outside in the freezing, snowy morning. You just need a break from the others for a while. Even though you enjoy most of them, being cooped up in such tight quarters for so long has worn you out. However, you’re already shivering from the cold under all your layers.

“You doin’ okay? Ya look half frozen,” a voice says from behind. You turn and see Arthur, wrapped up in his big blue coat, his face hidden beneath his hat.

“Yeah. Yeah, just need a break. Been a tough few days.”

“It sure has.” Suddenly a fierce blast of wind whistles down the path and Arthur wraps an arm around you as though to protect you from it. As you lack a hat and your head’s covered only by a thin blanket, you bury your head into his chest. He lets you though, but as soon as the wind dies a little you pull away from him, your face red. You blame it on the cold wind.

However, something changes with your view of Arthur. Sure, you’ve seen him comforting most people in the gang and he’s known for being caring and gentle, interested in all movements in the gang. But you were never a receiver of that care until now. You try denying your feelings, saying you’ve just been isolated for too long.

Nearly a week goes by and you’ve tried keeping distance between yourself and Arthur, believing your feelings will cool down with the space. The weather finally breaks and Hosea suggests camping in a new place he knows in the Heartlands. The gang is moved into action finally and the wagon train moves down to it.

It’s a great relief to finally be surrounded by trees and green rather than white and feel the warm sun instead of cold wind. The new camp spot, Horseshoe Overlook, is beautiful. Immediately you’re set to work by Grimshaw, but when night falls, you’re allowed to rest.

You stand on the edge of camp near the cliff, overlooking the river and the canyon. This place is beautiful. You’ve rarely seen this much moving water, being from the desert. Arthur walks over with two bowls of stew.

“Here, noticed you ain’t eaten yet.” He hands you one and you thank him.

The two of you stand together, eating without speaking for a few moments.

“So, now you been with us a while and seen us at our best and worst,” Arthur says, “what you thinkin’ of doing?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean what you plan on doin’? You gonna stay or you thinkin’ of movin’ on? No one would blame you if you decided to leave.”

“Do you… want me to leave?” you say with a pang.

“No. No, far from it. I think you could easily find a place among us. Seems like you already have too. Pretty much everyone here likes ya.”

You blush a little and look away. “I think I wanna stay. I like it here.”

He smiles a little, his blue eyes shining. You feel a surge of desire to hug him, your heart beating a bit faster. “Well, good. Like I said, think you’ll fit in easy.”

He takes your empty plate and heads off, leaving you alone. You turn and watch him, wanting nothing more than to be with him. Part of you wishes he’d come back to you, but he heads off to sit next to John and Hosea at the campfire. You turn back to watch the sunset, trying to push him out of your mind. It won’t do you any favors.

The next morning, you’re sitting with the other girls doing chores. Mary-Beth turns to you. “So, saw you blushing when Arthur said good mornin’ to you.” She gives you a sly look.

“I… I thought I had to sneeze right when he spoke to me,” you lie.

“It’s okay if you like him,” she says consolingly. “To be honest, I think we all developed a little thing for him in the beginning. I did anyways.”

“I’d be lyin’ if I said I didn’t,” Tilly says. “But, do yourself a favor, Y/N. Move on from him. I ain’t sayin’ that out of selfishness or cruelty, but Arthur’s unavailable.”

“I didn’t know he had someone,” you say sadly.

“Well, he doesn’t anymore, but he can’t seem to move on from her,” Mary-Beth explains.

As if on queue, Arthur walks out of his tent, reading a letter. Susan walks up to him and they exchange words. You hear the name Mary and Susan tells him she never liked her. He says something to her and then heads out.

“And there he goes, off to see her,” Karen says sourly. “She barely has to say his name and he’ll move mountains to see her.”

Your heart sinks even further. You’d just begun to accept the fact that you have some strong feelings for Arthur, but this is a harsh blow. If he’s still attached to this woman, it means he’s definitely not interested in you. It’d be best if you give him up.

Night comes and Arthur’s returned. Once again, he brings you a plate of food as you stand near the cliff. A long silence passes between the two of you, your mind heavy.

“You okay? Awful quiet,” he says.

“I’m doin’ just fine, Arthur, thank you though,” you say somewhat coldly. You mentally make a note to be a little nicer. It’s not his fault you’ve got a crush on him.

“You sure? If ya need to talk, I’m always willin’ to listen. I want ya to be happy.”

God, why does he have to be so sweet yet so unavailable? It’s incredibly frustrating. You turn to him.

“Well, maybe you can help. Have you ever had real strong feelings for someone? Someone you couldn’t be with because you know they’d never want to be with you, and because they’re hung up on someone else?”

He gives you a curious look. “Who you talkin’ about?” His face falls a bit. “It’s John, ain’t it? You got a thing for him, don’t ya?”

Is that envy in his eyes? “J-John? No, Arthur, I don’t have a thing for John. Sure he’s nice and funny, but he’s not my type. Plus I think Abigail would murder anyone who tried anything with him.”

His face lightens up a bit. “I think you’re right there. Well, I don’t know much about relationships. Pretty useless, in fact.”

You smile up at him. “Well, thought I’d ask.”

“Who is this person?” he asks. “Anyone I know?”

“Definitely. He’s… someone in this gang, but like I said, he’s emotionally unavailable. Besides, I wouldn’t stand a chance with him.”

“Ah, don’t sell yourself short.” He sighs a little. “Well, maybe you just need to walk up to this feller, tell him exactly how you feel.”

“Okay. Arthur, I like you.”

“Exactly. Just like that.” He smiles. “See? It ain’t so hard.”

“No, Arthur, you’re not listening to me,” you say, your face beat red. “I said I like you.”

He blinks and straightens up a bit. He looks shocked. Or maybe that’s anger. Fear stings your stomach and you take a step back.

“I… I’m sorry. I was… just practicing.” You turn to walk away, deciding never to be alone with Arthur again. You can’t blame him for being angry either. You wouldn’t like you if you were him.

“Y/N, wait.” His hand’s on your shoulders. “Did you mean it?”

You look down at your feet. “I’m sorry, Arthur. I didn’t choose to like you, and I’m sorry for it. Not because you’re not a good man,” you say hastily at the look on his face. “What I meant is I’m sorry for… me.”

His eyes soften considerably. “Please don’t apologize. Especially for you bein’ yourself. Can I tell you a secret?” He leans in a little and whispers, “I’ve liked ya since that day up in Colter.”

You blush even deeper. “Me too.”

His arms suddenly slide around you, hot and gentle. Your hands are on his shoulders and he leans down, placing his lips on yours. Something flutters in your chest. It’s like a bird is trapped inside, fighting to get out. They’re slightly chapped, but the moment his lips touch yours, the bird settles and gives a satisfied purr. You lean into the kiss, sighing a little.

“Bout time you two finally did somethin’,” Hosea says, walking past. He gives you both a sly smile. “Dutch and I been gettin’ tired of seeing you two gettin’ all dovey eyed when the other wasn’t looking.”

You laugh and put your forehead onto Arthur’s chest, trying to hide your face as Arthur laughs.

“Sorry, Hosea.”

“Nah, you two kids have fun.” He walks off, chuckling a bit. Arthur looks down at you and smiles.

“You wanna go somewhere a little more private? Try that kiss where we won’t be spied on?”

You bite your lip and smile, nodding. Arthur takes your hand and leads you off into the trees. You pin him to a tree and kiss him hard, pressing your body on his. His arms slide up your back and wind into your hair. As the kiss deepens, you wonder where else this night will go.

#rdr2 fanfic #red dead fanfic #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x female reader #awkward asks

66 notes · View notes

loving-jack-kelly · 4 years

Text

Like Real People Do

The path was hidden. Barely visible. It was rarely used. Almost never, in fact, leaving the path faint.

The entrance was marked by a stone, perfectly round and covered in moss that was just slightly too bright green to be entirely natural.

It was always talked about in hushed whispers. Whispered warnings told to friends who wandered too far off the road.

If you wander, the whispers said, the path will appear. And once you take the path, you can’t step off of it until you’ve given it what it wants.

What it wants, nobody knows. Names, some said. Lives, souls, wishes, hopes, dreams, money, goods, anything you have. It wants.

But some whispers didn’t stop there. Some whispers kept going, some whispers dropped even quieter, hard to hear over crackling fires, hidden in the dancing shadows cast by candles. Some whispers went past the warnings and delivered the promises.

The promise that the path, if sought, not stumbled upon, could give up what you needed in return for what it wanted.

The path was dangerous if you wandered onto it by mistake. Keep your eyes on the road, watch for the round, mossy stone and the faint trail, and avoid them.

Perhaps, the promises said, the path was even more dangerous when sought. Perhaps there’s nothing more dangerous than seeking your wishes and being willing to give yourself up for them. But perhaps, for some things, it would be worth it. Perhaps, for some wishes, having no name would be worth it. Perhaps, for some dreams, fewer years would be worth it. Perhaps, to some, the most dangerous few, perhaps vengeance would be worth never leaving the path at all.

David had heard all of it before. It was cookfire gossip, stories of old relatives told to young children to scare them into staying on the well-traveled road and staying off the hunting paths. That was all. About a half-hour outside their little village there was a decent-sized rock that marked an old deer trail, and that was what kids pointed to to tell the stories. They dared each other to step onto the faintly-there trail, and nobody ever went through with it.

Because maybe they all claimed they didn’t believe the stories, but was it worth it, really? To risk it? To risk everything to test a story?

There was another stone. Further along the road, and smaller. Almost hidden in the undergrowth, but almost perfectly round, and covered in moss so green it almost seemed to glow. And just beyond it was a path so faint it was almost invisible, little more than a simple break in the trees. Too natural to be a hunting path, and almost too narrow to have been made by an animal.

That was the stone and the path David was staring at.

Was it worth it? Was it worth the risk of this being the real path? Was it worth giving up a piece of himself?

Yes.

It wasn’t as hard of a choice as it should have been.

David stepped onto the path.

It didn’t feel any different than the rest of the forest. It felt like what it looked like, a barely used rough path through the trees. He followed it, feeling the underbrush catch at his pants, the dead leaves and dry twigs crunch under his boots.

He was hyperaware of everything around him. He wasn’t even sure what he was expecting, but he kept waiting for the path to shift. To change. To become whatever it was that could grant his wish.

It didn’t.

The path ended against a boulder. It wasn’t a clearing, just a big boulder with the trees and brush growing up right against it.

David sat down with his back against the boulder. The path he’d followed hadn’t disappeared. It was still there, he could follow it back to where he came from.

Maybe this was the wrong path. Maybe there was another somewhere, hidden even better.

Or maybe he’d been stupid to believe the stories, even for a second. Even out of desperation. Maybe he’d just wasted his afternoon following a path to nowhere.

“Been a while since anybody’s been down here.” A voice came from somewhere above and behind him, startling him out of his moping. “You here on purpose?”

David stood up and turned around.

A man who looked like he was several years older than him was sitting on top of the boulder. David didn’t know him, had never seen him before, and hadn’t heard him approach or climb up the boulder. He was just…there.

“Must be, if you sat down. When people end up here on accident, they’re freaking out by now. Cursing the name of someone or other, whoever told ‘em to follow the path.”

He was grinning at David, a bright, disarming smile. Something about him just seemed…strange. Maybe it was his eyes, the same bright, bright green of the moss on the round stone. They didn’t seem to match the rest of him. He had dark hair, dark skin, his clothes were muted natural colors, and his eyes were so bright they seemed to glow.

“Nice to have somebody come visit who isn’t kicking and screaming. Guess that probably means you want something, though, huh? Nobody’s ever here just to visit. I wasn’t, the first time. Just got lost in the woods, picked the wrong place to wander.”

He was sitting cross-legged on top of the boulder, and as he spoke, he rested his elbow on his knee and his face on his hand, still grinning.

“Cat got your tongue? I don’t bite. Unless you try to trick me, then I do. It’s in the contract. Clause eight. If trickery is attempted, bite them. Hard. Draw blood. I’m paraphrasing, of course, no need to look so scared. I just have to trick back. You won’t try to trick me, will you? You gotta say something, here, I won’t be able to help if you don’t tell me what you want.”

“You’re…”

“I’m a wish-granter, a man of the path, a soul stealer. A life taker. I’ve been called many things. I guess you could call me Jack.”

“Jack.”

“That’s what everyone called me, once. A long time ago. Nobody has asked in a long time.”

“This is the wish-path, then.”

“That’s one name it’s been given.”

“What do you call it?”

“Home.” Jack’s smile widened, and David pinpointed another slightly unnerving feature. His teeth were ever so slightly pointed, just a bit sharper than a human’s. “And what do you want with it? Nobody comes here on purpose without a wish in mind.”

There was a glint of something in his eyes, David decided. He was speaking charmingly enough and seemed friendly enough, but he was dangerous. Maybe he’d been kidding less than he’d seemed when he’d said he would bite back.

But he was right. David had come here for a reason, and he did have a wish, and he was going to make it.

“I wish that my father was healed.”

“Oh?”

“He got hurt. Two weeks ago. He can’t work, and without him working our family doesn’t have enough. My little brother and I have to work, instead.”

“And you don’t want to work?”

“I don’t mind, but Les is only ten. He shouldn’t have to be working yet. He should be in school. Playing with his friends.”

“You know, making a wish is a dangerous thing. Answers come with a price.”

“I know.”

Jack’s bright green eyes seemed to look right through David like he could see his every thought and his true intentions and was analyzing them closely to see if he was worthy of the wish.

“And you’re willing to pay the price?”

“If I can.”

“I never charge an impossible fare. That’s also in the contract, clause two.” Jack smiled again. It was unsettling, how close he was to human with just the details slightly off. Human but a bit to the left.

“What would the price be?”

“Your wish is simply to heal your father?”

“Yes.”

“Your name.” Jack’s eyes flashed a deeper green, and David wasn’t sure if it was the light or if they’d actually changed colors.

“My…name?”

“I can heal your father if you give me your name.”

David knew those stories well. It seemed like such a simple request. Give Jack his name, just say the word, and his father would be healed. Only that’s not what Jack was asking, not in the way any normal person asked for David to give his name. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t “what is your name?”

It was a price. If Jack told David to give him his name and David responded, then his name wasn’t his anymore. It was Jack’s.

Was it worth it?

David thought about why he was here. About the expression on Les’s face when he had to go to work instead of to school, about how Les was too tired to play with his friends. Was it worth giving up his name for his little brother?

Yes. It didn’t take long to decide. Of course it was worth it. His family was worth anything.

“Okay.”

“In exchange for healing your father, give me your name.”

“David.”

In a flash of a moment, he could feel the difference. It wasn’t his identity that was gone. He knew who he was, where he came from, who his family was. Why he was here. He could remember that a moment ago, he’d had a name, and that it was David. But he could feel that it wasn’t his name anymore. He didn’t have a name. He was himself, but there was no name to attach to that.

Jack’s eyes glowed. This time he knew it wasn’t a trick of the light, light came from Jack’s eyes.

“That’s a nice name. Strong.” Jack looked down at him from his seat on top of the boulder. “Your father is healed.”

“Thank you.”

Jack hummed thoughtfully and slid down to the ground. Almost floated, really, very gently and gracefully. Jack was shorter than him by a few inches, and once he was close his energy was almost palpable, like the feeling before a lightning strike. Jack paused, looking into his eyes, and too late, he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to say thank you. After a long moment, Jack smiled, a much softer smile than the one he’d displayed before.

“You’re honest. You have a good heart. Take a gift from me. I give you a name, not as strong as the one you gave me, but a good one anyway. Davey. And I give you a promise, that nobody will ask to take it away.”

As soon as he said it, the void left by giving up his name was filled, and he knew that he was Davey.

A gift from Jack. Not a filled wish, not a trade, but a gift. Maybe that was even more dangerous, maybe it left a debt unfilled, but that was a powerful gift. A name that nobody would take away.

Jack reached out and touched the tip of his finger to Davey’s nose, and another space was filled, this time one he hadn’t even known existed until it was gone. His name was secure, now, immovable. The second part of Jack’s gift.

“Use it well.” Jack’s eyes flashed again, and when Davey blinked, he was back on the road, staring at the stone that marked the wish-path.

Wish-magic was a dangerous thing. Davey knew that. He’d known that before he sought the wish-path and he’d known that while he was making his wish and he knew that as he made his way home, a new name in his being and a gifted protection burning at the tip of his nose.

He could feel it, where Jack had touched him. The imprint of Jack’s finger, right at the tip of his nose, where the magic flowed around him and protected his name.

Wish-magic was dangerous, and gifts from wish-granters were dangerous, but when Davey got home and the village all knew him as Davey even if there was a little bit of confusion like they knew it had changed, and his father was out of bed, still weak but no longer in pain, it didn’t matter how dangerous the magic was.

He was home. He had a name, and a promise that he would always keep it. His family was safe and cared for. That was what mattered.

In the months and eventually years that followed, Davey was almost able to forget Jack, the man with the bright green eyes who’d granted his wish and given him a gift.

Twice, the tip of his nose burned like it had right after Jack had touched it. Once, when an old woman in the center of the village, passing through selling her wares, asked his name. He gave it, without thinking, and when his nose burned, he noticed her face fall.

And again, walking on the road and passing by a stranger going the opposite way. As soon as Davey looked at him, his nose was burning, and he knew better than to take a second look.

On those occasions, Davey was forced to remember his trip to the wish-path because it was clear the gifted promise was still in effect. When he passed the stone that marked the path, covered in its otherworldly green moss, he remembered. And sometimes, when he wanted something so bad it hurt, he remembered.

But most of the time, he didn’t think about it. The things he wanted were things he could get himself or go without, and he wasn’t stupid enough to think that he’d get off so easy on a second venture to the wish-path.

So while he occasionally thought of the wish-path and of Jack the wish granter, he didn’t really seriously consider going back.

Until, that is, he was told that he was to be married.

He knew that his parents wanted what was best for him and what was best for their family, but he also knew that he would never be happy married to the woman they’d chosen. Mostly because, well, she was a woman. And he didn’t want to marry a woman.

He knew they didn’t understand why it upset him so much when they told him, and he didn’t know where he was going when he left, but somehow he wasn’t surprised when he found himself standing in front of the moss-covered stone.

When he started walking down the path, his nose burned. The closer he thought he was to the end, the stronger the feeling got. It wasn’t painful, but it was very present.

“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a repeat visitor before.”

Jack’s voice hadn’t changed at all in the three years since Davey’s last visit. When Davey looked up and saw him, again perched on top of the boulder at the end of the path, his face hadn’t changed either. The same bright green eyes framed by dark, dramatic curls. The same muted clothes. He hadn’t changed at all.

By looks, Davey had caught up to his age.

“How are you, Davey?”

That question surprised him. He couldn’t think of any way it could be twisted around. He wasn’t be asked for anything, just a simple question.

“I suppose that’s a silly question, actually. Why would you be here if you were good? Your gift is serving you well, though. I can feel it working now, and I’m not even trying to trick you. I must have made it more powerful than I meant to.”

Jack’s eyes sparkled, and Davey was sure it was with humor.

He had a feeling Jack didn’t do much on accident.

“Do you have another wish?”

“I wish that I didn’t have to marry her.”

Jack tilted his head, and for a second time Davey felt like he was reading every detail of Davey’s mind, thoughts and motivations and desires.

“Strange,” he said after a long moment. “That’s a selfish wish, and yet you still aren’t selfish.”

“What?”

“People have made that wish before. It’s almost out of nothing more than selfishness. Because she’s too ugly, or he isn’t rich enough, not out of consideration for anything. You don’t want to marry her because it will make you unhappy, but also because you know it wouldn’t be fair to her. I’ve never seen that before.”

“Doesn’t everyone deserve to be happy? Is it selfish to want that?”

“It’s selfish to want your own happiness even if it means the unhappiness of others. I don’t think it’s selfish to want something for your own happiness when what you want will also make somebody else happy.”

Jack slid down to the ground, again with the otherworldly grace Davey had seen the last time he was here.

“Selfishness is addressed in the contract. Clause four. If a wish is made for selfish gain, it may only be granted at the highest cost. Even though I don’t think your wish is selfish, it’s a powerful wish. Much more powerful than simple healing. I can grant it, though.”

“What’s the cost?”

“Give me your time.” Jack extended his hand, his eyes glowing like they had when he’d healed Davey’s father.

Davey hesitated, but he took Jack’s hand. It was warm, and Davey could feel energy coursing through the connection, like the burning at the tip of his nose but more comfortable and powerful. After what only felt like a few seconds, Jack let go.

Davey felt dizzy. Something had happened, he could tell, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

“A powerful wish. A powerful price. I hope it was worth it.”

“What did I give you?”

“A year of your time.” Jack tilted his head, studying Davey’s reaction. “She’s married. Happy. There’ll be a kid in a few months.”

“You mean it’s been a year since I came here?”

“I told you. A high price for a powerful wish.”

“What will my family think?”

Jack shrugged.

“They know you’re safe. They probably know you found a path, people are smart about these things. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”

“I…I have to go.”

“Of course.” Jack’s eyes flashed again, and he gave Davey a small smile. “Hey!” He called when Davey started to walk back down the path.

“What?”

“You don’t have to have a wish to visit. Come back any time.”

“You…you want me to just come to visit?”

“Gets pretty lonely here. People don’t come very often. It’d be nice to have a friend.”

Davey’s family was glad to see him. His parents had tears in their eyes when they hugged him, and Sarah and Les did too. The people in their little village looked at him differently. He’d been gone for a year, of course they did.

He didn’t tell his parents, or his siblings, or anyone that his missing year had been a wish. Of course he didn’t, that would require explaining too many things. He told them he’d gotten lost. Took a wrong path while not paying attention, and when he’d found his way back, it had been a year. Just like that. A year passed in the blink of an eye.

And that was what happened. Technically. Just with a little extra intention behind it.

For a while, things were wonderful. Even though it hadn’t felt long for him at all, and he hadn’t aged that year he’d given to Jack, for his family it had been a long time that he’d been away from home. They were happy to have him around, happy that he was safe and home and with them again.

Every once in awhile, Davey found himself wandering down Jack’s path, spending an afternoon just talking to him.

There weren’t many people his age in the village. And he knew, obviously, that Jack wasn’t his age either. Jack was something old and powerful, not even human. But he had a face that seemed to be Davey’s age, and when he wasn’t talking in riddles or saying things just outside of Davey’s realm of understanding, he sounded like he was Davey’s age, too. In fact, he was easy to talk to.

Friendship with somebody like Jack was probably even more dangerous than wish-magic, but he was easy to be friends with. Easy to talk to. Even if the tip of Davey’s nose burned whenever he was there, it was easy to feel comfortable at the end of the path at the moss-covered boulder.

Jack asked questions about life. He’d been human once, Davey learned, a long time ago, before he signed the contract he kept referencing. He wanted to know how much had changed since then. The answer seemed to be not much.

Davey sometimes was brave enough to ask questions back. He learned that Jack was bound to his path, that he could walk from the top of the boulder to the smaller stone that marked the entrance, and no further. He learned that there were limits to Jack’s power, but not many. Jack could raise a person from the dead. He couldn’t force somebody to fall in love. He couldn’t change a person’s nature, make a bad person good or a good person bad.

It took a lot of visits before Davey asked why Jack had signed the contract.

It was clear that he was lonely. He missed being a human, having friends. He wanted to grow up.

“I found this path on accident and made a very, very powerful wish,” Jack said simply. “Signing the contract was the price I paid.”

“What was your wish?” Davey asked.

Jack’s eyes, which changed shades with his mood, darkened to the deepest green Davey had ever seen in them.

“Justice. Something the world rarely offers, which makes it a very costly wish.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Yes.” Jack didn’t hesitate. “Justice served more than me. It was a bigger cause than my life was worth. And one day somebody will come along and sign their name under mine, and I’ll be able to walk away.”

“That’s how it works? A trade?”

“Of sorts.”

For a while, that was wonderful. Davey was happy at home, and happy to continue his friendship with Jack. Happy to continue his relationship with Jack.

If wish-magic was dangerous and being friends with a wish-granter was dangerous, surely falling in love with one was deadly. But could Davey help it? When Jack was interesting and kind and always willing to listen, and always had something to say. Maybe for the same reason he’d been drawn to Jack as a friend, that there weren’t many boys his own age in the village, Davey couldn’t help it.

When his parents began to urge him to find a wife again, that only intensified it, because the way he felt when he was around Jack, leaned back against the boulder in a conversation he was actively enjoying…that kind of feeling never came from anybody else, least of all the girls his parents were pushing him towards.

It was that realization that took him down Jack’s path again, with a wish in his heart.

Whenever Davey came, Jack asked.

“Do you have a wish?”

Normally, Davey told him no.

“I do.”

“Really?”

“I wish that everyone would understand.”

Just like Davey hadn’t had to explain who he hadn’t wanted to marry, he knew he didn’t have to explain what he meant. Jack understood.

“That’s a selfish wish.”

“I know.”

“Clause four. I have to charge a high price.”

“I know.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Jack looked into Davey’s eyes, reading him.

“Give me your breath,” he finally said.

His breath.

That was a high price.

Before he could change his mind, he nodded.

Jack’s eyes flashed.

And then he kissed Davey.

It took his breath away.

When Jack pulled back, he was laughing.

“There’s more than one way to steal a person’s breath.”

“That seems like a cheat.”

“Isn’t that my job? To trick? I tricked you. I tricked the contract.”

Davey was also laughing when Jack kissed him again.

The summer sun streamed through the trees, the boulder was solid behind his back, and Jack stole his breath until the light was gold and he had to leave.

And when he got home, everyone understood.

It was a strange thing, long after Davey’s third wish had come true and everyone understood and nobody was trying to push him into a relationship. Long after he’d started to find excuses to spend sun-drunk afternoons with Jack, somehow easily falling into a relationship that should have felt impossible.

A man walked down the road into the village.

He looked familiar, Davey thought. Dark curls framing a dark face, worn in clothes that almost faded into the forest behind him. Eyes so dark brown they were almost black. He was pretty. He walked with a slight limp like there was a stone in his shoe.

Davey didn’t recognize him at first, not until he was much closer.

“Jack?”

“Hello.”

Davey’s nose wasn’t burning the way it always did when he visited Jack’s path. Jack’s eyes weren’t green, they didn’t shift when he smiled. But it was Jack. Unmistakably Jack.

“You left the path?”

“Somebody made a wish,” Jack said, sitting down next to Davey on the step to his house. “A selfish, powerful wish.”

“Oh?”

“There is nothing more selfish or more powerful than wishing to live forever. To leave behind everyone and everything, to cause your loved ones pain, and to disrupt the way of the world.”

“Somebody signed the contract.”

“And now he’ll live forever, and I can live my life.” Jack smiled again, and Davey decided that his brown eyes suited him much better than the green.

“I have one more wish, then.”

“I don’t know if I can grant it.”

“You can.”

“Oh?”

“I wish that you would stay. Here. With me.”

“That might be the most expensive wish from you yet.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Give me your life.” Jack opened his hand, palm up, and extended it to Davey. Resting on his palm was a ring, made out of something as green as Jack’s eyes had been. As green as the moss on the stone that marked the wish-path.

“Okay.” Davey took the ring and slid it on his finger. It fit perfectly. Of course it did, Jack seemed to know everything he wanted to.

Out of all of the prices he’d paid for his wishes, this was perhaps the easiest to pay. Hadn’t he already started to make the decision anyway?

Jack’s smile widened, and he twined their fingers together, staring at the bright green ring against Davey’s skin.

Davey realized that this was the first time he’d seen Jack smile without anything else behind it. Nothing but happiness.

And that meant that Davey’s wish wasn’t selfish. Jack had decided that before, that a wish wasn’t selfish as long as it was to make more than one person happy.

Maybe this was the most worthwhile wish yet, even if magic hadn’t been needed to accomplish it.

#Asper Yells #newsies #javid #davey jacobs #jack kelly #i wrote this #what started as an exercise in atmosphere has become javid because i love them simply too much #i haven't posted a fic on tumblr in a long time but it's too late to go on ao3 and i wanted it up Now #txt

80 notes · View notes