#sappy bullshi

[bones-of-a-rabbit]

do you want to be needed, or do you want to be wanted?

*throws this betrothed au sappiness at you* i hope u enjoy this despite how low effort and smashed together it is pls forgive me srry *scuttles back under my littel moss covered rock*

[deprivedofbraincellsandsleep]

Uh ok so im assuming I'm supposed to uhh write a rlly sappy mssg for hitting 100 followers. Honestly, I js feel bad for yall, yk with having to deal with my bullshi. So thank you to everyone who continued dealing with me being weird on this blog

[violetwolfraven]

Marked For You

((Am I writing a post-strike javid soulmates AU with several background ships? Possibly! No one asked for this but y’all can’t stop me.))

...

Davey liked to think that being among the Newsies, he was bolder than before. He didn’t scare as easily and he wasn’t afraid to stand up for what he believed in or be himself unapologetically.

After all, that was what all the Newsies were; themselves. They didn’t care what each other thought, not that any of them ever seemed to seriously judge the others. Each Newsie was openly himself or herself, plain and simple.

This kind of unjudging openness that Davey knew and loved didn’t mean he wasn’t shocked as hell when he and some of the fellas were talking, like they did practically every day, and the conversation turned to soulmates and soulmarks.

Soulmarks were a stripe of color on the inside of your wrist, said to be the color that represented who your soulmate was on a fundamental level. Their soul-color.

Davey’s soulmark was a bright, clear blue, like the sky on a clear summer day.

To be fair, the person Davey had been before meeting the Newsies probably would have completely freaked out at what the fellas were talking about. Davey managed to only be moderately surprised and kind of confused.

Because Race was talking about how his soulmark was dark red, the same color as Spot’s favorite shirt, and it just represented him so well and—

“Hold up,” Davey interrupted, “Your soulmate is Spot Conlon?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Are... are you sure?”

“Of course. Um... it’s not a new thing. We’s both known for months.”

All the fellas had guarded looks on their faces. Like they didn’t known how Davey was going to react and it scared them.

Davey had, of course, heard of people having same-sex soulmates. Most people seemed to regard it as wrong for some reason, but...

No one chose their soulmates. All scientists seemed to agree on that.

So why should something you had no control over be regarded as wrong, especially when soulmates were the kind of love that made each other happy?

Now that Davey was thinking about it, blue wasn’t a common color documented to represent a girl.

The idea of his soulmate being a boy didn’t freak him out as much as it probably should.

“I didn’t think the King of Brooklyn was the lovin’ type.”

Everyone visibly relaxed.

“You’d be surprised,” Race said with an uncharacteristically soft smile, “He kinda freaked out on me at first, but we talked it over after he got some time to process, we’s been together nearly a year now, and... he’s good to me.”

“He better be,” Romeo said, “Or Manhattan’d go to war.”

Albert snorted, “Half the Newsies of New York would. Racer, ya got a shit ton of friends.”

“Heh. True. There might actually be enough of ya to stand a chance against Brooklyn.”

“Bold of ya to assume half the Brooklyn boys wouldn’t be on your side,” Jojo pointed out.

Davey had to admit, he couldn’t think of a single Newsie who wouldn’t beat up someone stupid enough to break Race’s heart.

Ike shrugged, “Hotshot’d probably side with Spot. Sorry, Race. Oh! Davey, Hotshot’s mine, by the way.”

Ike showed his red soulmark, a brighter scarlet than Race’s. Hell, the thing was so bright, it practically glowed in the late afternoon sun.

Seeing Mike’s, which was electric blue, Davey wondered how he’d ever had trouble telling the twins apart.

Mike noticed him looking and grinned, throwing an arm around Jojo, who blushed a little. His soulmark was an almost-golden shade of yellow that Davey had to admit suited Mike well.

Of course, it did make him curious, how he’d always heard of people with same-sex soulmates as a rarity, an anomaly that barely ever happened.

And here was 6 that he knew personally. Probably more, now that he was thinking about it, looking back on the way certain pairs of his friends acted.

“How common is it?” he asked finally, “I always heard of same-sex soulmates as rare, but—“

Blink snorted, “It ain’t. Not as much as they’d have ya believe, anyhow.”

His fingers brushed over a mint green soulmark gently.

“Yeah, mine’s Finch,” Albert said, displaying a mark the color of sage.

Romeo grinned, showing his, which was an indigo halfway between blue and purple, “Take a guess.”

Looking back on casual touches that weren’t as hidden as they probably should be, for safety reasons, Davey realized that he was an idiot for not having realized it sooner.

“Specs?”

“Bingo! Ya got in in one!”

“And Blink... I’m guessin’... Mush?”

Blink shrugged sheepishly.

Davey really felt like an idiot for not fully registering until right now how defensive, tough Kid Blink was soft and gentle with Mush in a way he wasn’t with anyone—not even the littles.

“What about you?” Romeo asked, “Ya know who yours is, yet?”

Davey shrugged helplessly, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Well, show us the mark!” Ike urged, “We can’t guess if we don’t see the color!”

The others voiced their agreement until Davey extended his forearm towards them.

Honestly, his was probably the brightest and most defined of any of them, besides Ike’s.

Everyone went silent, and Davey knew his friends well enough to know that they weren’t quiet simply because they were thinking.

They knew something he didn’t.

“What?” he finally asked after a good 20 seconds.

“Ya really don’t see it?” Mike asked.

“I don’t think he does,” Albert admitted, stealing Race’s cigar.

Race stole the cigar back, “Tragic.”

“What do you all see that I don’t?”

“Ya know, it took me a while to figure out mine,” Jojo admitted, “I was raised to think lovin’ a boy would land ya in hell. But I still knew within a couple weeks, if ya don’t count how long it took me to accept it. Honestly, Davey, you’s known him for months. How haven’t ya realized yet?”

“You mean it’s one of the Newsies?”

Everyone groaned.

“Davey, who’s the one person who pops into your head when you think ‘bout love?” Romeo asked, “Just off the top of your head?”

Davey didn’t want to admit who his first thought was.

“I don’t know,” he lied, “In my defense, I didn’t even consider it bein’ a boy before today.”

“When ya find your soulmate, you know,” Blink said firmly, “It’s undeniable. Ya don’t know how ya know, but ya do. If you’s felt that and seen that color and still don’t know who it is, you’s the biggest dumbass in New York.”

Romeo swatted in Blink’s direction, “Lighten up, Blink. It’s cute in a frustratin’ kind of way.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell him,” Ike said mischeviously, “This is better’n watchin’ Race pine over Spot and yet not tell him that the light blue on his wrist is him.”

Race rolled his eyes, “Like you tellin’ Hotshot right outta the gate worked. He avoided ya for 6 months after findin’ out that stupid purple mark was you.”

“It ain’t that purple, Racer. It’s mostly blue.”

“Still don’t go with Brooklyn’s red shirts all that well.”

Davey ignored the others breaking up the budding argument in favor of trying to think. One face did pop into his mind whenever he thought about love, but there was no way he was that lucky.

“Think, Davey,” Jojo urged as soon as the group got back on track.

“Yeah,” Race agreed, “Who’s the one person with a soul like the sky?”

Davey really didn’t want to admit it, but he knew.

The sky was always there when you looked up to see it as Jack Kelly was always there for his friends when they needed him.

“Jack,” he whispered, and the others grinned.

“So, what are ya waitin’ for?” Mike asked, “Go get the boy!”

“I can’t,” Davey protested, “He might be my soulmate, but there’s no way I’m his! He’s courted Sarah and Katherine!”

“That ain’t how it works, Davey,” Blink said, “Yeah, Jack courted Katherine and Sarah, but do ya really think that periwinkle stripe on Kath’s wrist is for him? Or the pinkish-red on Sarah’s, huh? That’s real Jack-like, is it?”

“Just cause Sarah or Kath ain’t Jack’s soulmate doesn’t mean his is a boy,” Davey pointed out, “Jack doesn’t even like boys!”

Albert rolled his eyes, “Ya really think that?”

“I know he don’t.”

“Davey, let me tell ya somethin’,” Ike said, “Just cause Jack likes girls don’t mean he doesn’t like boys. It ain’t gotta be one or the other.”

“Ya think I only flirt with one?” Romeo asked.

Now that Davey was thinking about it, Romeo and Race pretty much flirted with everyone.

Race laughed, “I don’t think we’s ever told him that Jack and Spot was a thing, did we?”

“They what now?”

“It didn’t last long,” Romeo laughed, “Barely a week, and I thinks it was just angrily makin’ out, but it happened.”

“That was a weird week,” Jojo agreed.

“He had a crush on Specs a few years ago,” Ike added, “That was ‘fore Romeo came along, of course.”

Mike started laughing even harder than he already was, making Jojo smile all sappy at him, “I remember that!”

Davey tried to process this new information.

“Point is,” Blink said, “Jack likes girls and boys. And we’s known him a lot longer than you.”

“The color on his wrist definitely ain’t for Kath or Sarah,” Race summed up.

“What... what is it?”

Race patted his knee, “For that answer, you’ll have to ask Jackie Boy, himself.”

“Ask me what?”

The other boys exchanged delighted glances as Jack walked in, a bit of paint on his cheek from spending some time at Medda’s theatre.

“Look at the time,” Jojo said, ignoring the fact that he did not have a watch, “I think we’d best be gettin’ to bed.”

Mike raised an eyebrow suggestively, making Jojo swat his arm in exasperation, but the two of them left in the same direction, hand in hand.

“Just remembered,” Race said, popping to his feet, “I told Spot I’d spend the night in Brooklyn. Gotta go if I wanna not be walkin’ in the dark.”

“Mind if I come with?” Ike asked.

“The more the merrier! I’m sure Hotshot’ll be happy to see ya.”

“Make good choices,” Jack said pointedly, but he didn’t stop them, indicating that those pairings really had been going on for a while.

God, how many times had Ike or Race or both blatantly said they were going to Brooklyn when they left a card game or hangout? How was Davey just noticing this now?

Blink, Albert, and Romeo quickly made up bullshit excuses to leave.

Davey didn’t miss how Romeo mouthed a quick ‘good luck’ to him as he went out the door.

Unfortunately, neither did Jack.

“So, what’s that about?” he asked, seeming more amused than suspicious or anything.

“We was just talkin’ about something,” Davey said, feeling strangely awkward.

“What kind of somethin’?”

“Um... soulmates. That kind of thing.”

“Oh.”

The air between them was charged suddenly.

“What about ‘em?” Jack asked, sitting down next to Davey.

“Um...” Davey took a deep breath, “About how they think they know who mine is.”

Jack didn’t look him in the eye, and his response was almost too quiet to hear.

“Who?”

For some reason, Davey couldn’t outright just say it.

He turned his wrist so that Jack could see his mark, bright, vibrant blue.

He thought maybe something like recognition flashed through the other boy’s eyes.

“It’s someone who’s always there when the people he loves need him,” Davey said softly, “You know how you can always look up and see the sky if ya need to? He’s like that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s one of the things I like most about him.”

“What if he wasn’t?” Jack muttered, “What if there was a day the people he loved needed to see the sky more than ever and it wasn’t there?”

Davey remembered the terror after the first day of the strike. Crutchie was arrested, everyone was hurt, and few of the fellas were still MIA. Davey only had a few bruises, so he and a couple others had had to go find them.

Davey remembered finding Elmer unconscious in an alley. He remembered Buttons’s worry when he managed to wake him up and drag him back to the Lodging House, how panicked he’d obviously been, and now was wondering if those two had something going on.

That day, everyone had needed Jack, and he wasn’t there. That was true. They’d had to rely on Davey and Race and whoever else was unhurt enough to help them, then later, Katherine, when she showed up and nobody asked how she got that much medical supplies.

But every other day since then that Davey had been with the Newsies, Jack had been there, tirelessly comforting his friends after bad dreams, patching up scraped knees, making sure everybody had food in their stomachs and a roof over their heads. And he didn’t always have enough time to take care of everyone, but he sure did his damn best.

Davey reached over and intertwined Jack’s fingers with his own.

To his relief, the other boy squeezed back, just a little.

“Maybe he needs to take care of himself, too, once in a while,” he said, “Maybe everyone survived without the sky for a little bit, so there was no harm done. And Jackie... that was months ago. It doesn’t change the fact that you’ve been there every day since long before the strike and every day since then.”

Jack was silent for a second before he exhaled sharply and shoved his arm in Davey’s direction.

The strip of color on his wrist was clear blue. It was the sky on ice cold clear winter days. It was the cover of a book with characters you could relate to. It was a shade of paint Davey had seen in Jack’s backdrops many times.

Davey didn’t really know why, but the color was undeniably him.

“Jack...”

Jack looked at him, his eyes as soft as the tone in Davey’s voice.

“I knew since day one.”

“Why didn’t ya say anything?”

“I didn’t wanna scare you.”

Davey laughed, “Jack Kelly, if there is one thing you’ve never been to me, it’s scary.”

It was true. Jack had always felt safe, even when Davey was trying to avoid him out of pride.

Unfortunately, safe was the last thing whatever this thing between them was.

“How does it work?”

“What?”

“How does it work?” Davey repeated, “How do they do it? Race and Spot. Mike and Jojo. Blink and Mush. All the other pairs.”

“They be careful,” Jack answered, “If needed, the rest of us try and help cover for ‘em.”

“Can you be careful?”

A smile formed on Jack’s lips, “I know you can... how do ya think I stayed out of the Refuge so long after escapin’?”

Davey rolled his eyes. Jack still liked to bring up his grand escape.

“Hey, Davey... can I try something?”

Davey’s heart was in his throat. His chest was so tight he could barely breathe.

Still, he nodded.

Blink had said that when you met your soulmate, you knew.

Davey didn’t think he’d known before now. At least, not consciously.

But he definitely knew now, because it felt right. He knew because Jack’s lips against his own was the most natural thing in the world.

He didn’t think he’d ever want to kiss anyone else.

He didn’t know how he hadn’t always known that Jack was his soulmate.

Because the color on his wrist was Jack, and the color in Jack’s was him. They were quite literally made for each other.