#also javid

[mostlybroadway]

i’ve been thinking a lot about crutchie recently.

charles morris. charlie. crutchie. born to a “loving” single mother who abandoned him when he first got sick. the convent was better equipped to handle the polio virus anyhow, and that’s just where he stayed. the fever subsided fairly quickly, but his leg never worked right again. at the age of five he has to learn to walk with a third leg, without a family by his side.

the nuns were nice enough. they gave him food, helped him learn how to live after his paralysis hit. but they weren’t family. the solace he didn’t find in the nuns, he found in God. he prayed nightly, hoping for someone to come along and save him. a family to take him from the convent and show him what truly living was really like. and then he met jack kelly.

crutchie was convinced that jack was a literal godsend. they were both thirteen and too scrappy for their own good. jack and his expert persuasion convinced the sisters that crutchie was ready to be off on his own, beginning a life as a newsboy. crutchie was over the moon. his disability suddenly became a goldmine, and he had the closest thing he’d ever had to a family. he had a brother, hell, many of them, and he was happy.

his leg never got better. not that he had expected it to. not that it mattered.

it was him and jack for years in their penthouse above kloppman’s boarding house, until the strike. until david jacobs. and suddenly jack had a new right-hand man, a new protege. and crutchie found himself in the refuge.

he had a lot of time to think there. he realized that he’d likely been in love with jack as long as he’d known him. it was impossible not to be. jack kelly oozed charisma, and his smile could melt anyone’s cold heart. crutchie fell instantly. but he also realized that they would never be more than friends. crutchie saw how he looked at davey, like his eyes held all the stars in the sky, and it didn’t hurt him. not like he thought it would. he still wrote to jack, but as brothers. and just as soon as he realized his crush, it was gone.

strike settled, snyder imprisoned, and crutchie is back to selling. jack sells with davey and les now, which doesn’t bother crutchie as much as it should. they’re still best friends—jack still stays in their penthouse when he isn’t at the jacobs house. and besides, crutchie has finch now. finch who wouldn’t leave his side after he got back from the refuge, who bandaged all his scabs and listened to his sobs when he got a particularly bad reminder of his time in the refuge. they sold together now almost every day, and crutchie had honestly never been happier.

charles morris had lived more, lost more, and loved more at eighteen than most people did in their entire lives. and he did it all on one good leg.

[honeyywoods]

btw Jack is a victim of the constantly drawing Davey epidemic. which isn’t really an epidemic hes the only one who does it but it is CHRONIC. Davey will literally just be sitting there and Jack will abruptly stand up and scramble to find the first piece of paper and writing utensil he can. He loves Davey so bad and at the same time feels like he won’t possibly have him forever, so he wants to have something to remember him by. Jack “I’m scared tomorrow’s gonna come and change everything” Kelly feels the need to memorize every detail about Davey’s face because he loves him so much and can’t bear the thought of forgetting the way his nose scrunches when he laughs, or the shine in his eyes when he speaks. it’s also a very vulnerable point to him and when Davey asks about why he draws him so much one night while they’re lying on the rooftop, Jack holds him tighter and hides his face in Davey’s shoulder, mumbling the reason as casually as he can but even then his voice cracks. and Davey leans back to meet his eyes and tells him that he would never want anyone besides Jack, and that if he could he’d marry Jack on the spot. Davey reassures him that he knows things might get hard given that they’re still just teenagers who are both boys in 1899, but that he would go to the ends of the earth if it meant being with Jack. it confuses Jack a little bit, that Davey’s so sure that he’ll stay with him, but Davey reminds him that he has no plans of going anywhere whenever he needs it. and from then on, Jack doesn’t feel so compelled to draw Davey all the time, because he knows he can experience the real thing instead.

[upside-down-sock-drawer]

I think Jack and David should have kissed, and my feeling about that is... how do you know they didn't?

[jack-kellys]

the reason bway javid got that subtle somethin somethin is because jeremy jordan and ben fankhauser were both in theatre college at the same school at i believe the same time… for a year i think.. and as someone who’s witnessed what a BFA acting program does to men who r not in a relationship, and the production casts them as best friends, well. let’s just say. they got somethin somethin.

[thatoneandlonelyemo2005]

do you think david jacobs would go feral for jack kelly and his southern accent

[loving-jack-kelly]

ideal javid dynamic is davey constantly quaking with barely constrained rage and jack quietly egging him on to see him let loose

[emmedoesntdomath]

this might just be a me thing, but I’m such a fan of characters not referring to themselves with their nickname. like. they’re doing a whole inner monologue, and it’s sad, and depressing, and generally pathetic, but then their best friend calls them their nickname and it’s like. oh. yeah :)

because they may suck in their own heads. they could very well be the worst person alive in their own little brains. but when someone they care about calls them that one thing with that one tone of voice, suddenly they suck a little less. suddenly they’re less of a screw up. suddenly the serotonin hits their system and it’s like watching a light come on.

they might not be good enough, but the person everyone thinks they are is, and secretly, that makes them feel just a little bit better.

[real-odark]

just realized i never looked at jack in this photo. he wants him so bad

[to-be-a-dreamer]

Anyways, in the Newsies book, Davey refers to Jack as “dashing” in his inner monologue that is all thank you

[make-friends-with-the-rats]

they wanna hold hands so bad

[papersalligot]

I will be seeing (fingers crossed) my first live production of newsies next month and I will be judging it based on the chemistry between Jack and Davey

[blurglesmurfklaine]

Truth be told, Jack doesn’t remember the eight seconds he spent on the bronco’s back.

If any moon-eyed fangirls come up to him and ask about it, he plans on giving the standard blanket responses, like all he heard was the roar of the crowd.

In actuality, all he has are fragments from right before the livestock hands pulled that gate. It’s hard to forget that kind of anticipation racing through his veins, the sawing sound of rope pinning his riding glove to the back of the horse as Jack grit his teeth, ordering Racer to pull it even tighter.

Everything else, like the sickening crack from his head slamming against Midnight Train’s spine that made the audience cringe in horror, was told to him second hand. 

The trainer who checked him out gave him a lot of medical jargon he wasn’t too familiar with, but Jack gathered the important stuff. No riding for three days, get plenty of rest, neither of which he has any intention of following. And of course, there was the whole spiel about concussions affecting memory.

Imprinted in his is the face of one of the pick-up men as Jack faded in and out of consciousness, stern and cool and steady. He can nearly still feel strong arms around him, keeping him from falling into the dirt of the arena, can still hear the New York accent reassuringly mutter, “I’ve got you… I’ve got you.”

So if Jack can’t stop thinking of the pick-up man who hauled his limp body from the horse into his lap, he’s chalking it up to brain damage. 

He’s been named Rookie of The Year for Bareback Riding—Jack Kelly can’t afford to be distracted by any potential flings. 

And still, every time he blinks, that face is waiting for him just behind his eyelids.

It’s the longest, most agonizing twenty-four hours before an opportunity to make a bad decision presents itself to Jack. He usually doesn’t make it that long. He also usually doesn’t go that long without visiting Dancer, but his body needed to recover after being thrown off that horse in the arena. 

The first thing that greets Jack when he enters the stables is the very same face that’s been stuck in his mind since yesterday. The pick-up man is reaching up, brushing the soft golden mane of the quarter horse that pulled Jack off the bronco.

���Fancy meeting you here,” he greets, drawing up his most charming first-impressions smile.

“In the stables?” asks the pick-up man. Not an ounce of his attention dedicated to brushing his horse’s long blond mane is redirected to Jack. “Pretty sure this is the least fancy place to meet someone.”

“It’s as good a place as any to thank you. For yesterday.”

“I assume you mean when you got your ass bucked off of Midnight Train and I dragged you out?”

Jack scoffs. He should probably be accosted, but he’s only more intrigued. “That would be correct,” he admits.

“No need to thank me, in that case. Just doing my job.”

“Be nice if I had a name to the face that saved my rawhide.”

“And it’d be nice if you checked your staff sheet maybe once before you rode.”

Jack blinks. “Pardon me,” he begins, leaning an elbow up against Dancer’s stable, “but have I offended you?”

“Not yet.” His head twitches in annoyance. “But you’re a rodeo man. You’re bound to eventually.”

Jack crosses his arms. “I’ve been nothing but a gentleman.”

The pick-up man pauses and sighs, finally rewarding Jack with a look in his direction. He pretends not to, but Jack catches the way his eyes quickly scan him up and down. “David. David Jacobs. Which you’d have known if you’d check your staff sheet. You haven’t even bothered to give me your name, because you assume everyone already knows it.”

“So you’re saying you haven’t heard of me.”

“Oh, I’ve heard all about you, Jack Kelly,” David answers, turning his attention back to the silky mane he’d been brushing.

Jack looks up at the horse in question—a beautiful quarter with an unusual coloring halfway between brown and straight up golden. He steals another glance at David, head turned up in an admiration that’s reserved for the sacred bond between man and horse, as ridiculous as Jack admits that sounds.

Still, it’s quite the sight. David is quite the sight, beams of the setting sun reflecting off his green eyes, the shadows accentuating the perfect combination of curves and angles on his face.

 “Gorgeous,” Jack finds himself muttering.

“Thanks,” David replies, completely missing where Jack’s compliment was directed. “Shimmer’s my pride and joy. If you should be thanking anyone, it’s her. She’s a bit of a social butterfly. Even broncs love her.” He turns his gaze to Which one’s yours?”

“The skittery one right next door.” Jack points out the appaloosa horse, Dancer, aptly named for the way she fidgets her feet when she’s excited.

David snorts. “Figures. Shimmer’s obsessed with her. I always catch them talking to each other ‘cross the stables.”

“Funny. I’m obsessed with you.”

David rolls his eyes. “Maybe you should be obsessed with brushing up your technique, and you won’t get your ass handed to you so often.”

“Ass handed to me? I made it to eight seconds.” He also ranked fourth in the semifinals. As a rookie. But he won’t bring that up right now.

“It’s going to take a lot more than eight seconds to impress me.”

“Let me take you out to dinner then, darlin’. Show you that I can go all night.”

“You think you’re cute, don’t you?”

Jack shrugs. “To be completely honest, I think I’m downright adorable, but that’s besides the point.”

He thinks he might see David’s mouth twitch when he returns his attention to Jack. “I don’t sleep with cowboys. Kind of a rule of mine.”

“Believe me, sweetheart, you spend a night with me and we won’t be doing any sleeping.” He chances hooking a finger under David’s chin and dragging his mouth dangerously close to his ear. It’s entirely too brazen and forward, but Jack doesn’t know any other way to be. “You think Broncos are the only thing I know how to ride?” he asks, grinning when he hears David swallow around a drying throat.

“You couldn’t keep me saddled if you tried,” David mutters back, and his breath against Jack’s cheek sends a shudder from his ear, through his spine, all the way down to his toes.

And then David shoves him. Hard. Sending Jack toppling over his own feet and sprawling out onto the ground with an incredible lack of grace.

“Like I said,” David calls back as he opens the gate to Shimmer’s stable and saddles her up. “Technique could use some fixing.”

The click of horse hooves trotting against cobblestone fading into the distance, Jack decides he’s unequivocally in love with David Jacobs.

[ftm-megamind]

david whose hands are always cold and whenever he's walking alongside jack and he doesn't want to be too gay (hold jack's hand) so he just stuffs his hand into jack's pocket (trousers, vest, jacket, whatever) and that ends up being far gayer. but it does warm his hand so

[joeythefrog]

No thoughts just David leaning in as soon as he hears the words ‘you may now kiss the groom’ and giggling, whispering to Jack “Unioned we stand” before Jack kisses him

[jack-kellys]

they have more of a heated argument while race & spot act out a divorce across the way

[thatoneandlonelyemo2005]

gonna say it again but let Jack be the damsel in distress