You call it madness, a newsies fanfic

Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.

Notes: Hooray, I have returned to the Newsies fandom! :D Wordy boys and the boys that love them ftw! Title is from a quote by Don Byas, "You call it madness, but I call it love." This is how I get my titles, people. Don't judge. :D

You meet Jack Kelly when you are twelve years old; his grin is wider than anything you've ever seen, and he talks to you like you're—interesting. Like maybe you don't have to be ashamed of your grades and your fierce desire to learn, to figure out the world until it lies docile in your small hands. Like maybe instead of laughing at your too-serious ways, he might understand that there are words shaping themselves inside your head, struggling on fragile butterfly-wings, eager to fly out.

He says to you, You're different, and the sick dropping of your stomach settles when he follows it with, We're going to be best friends.

It's something you learn about Jack later: he says things he cannot possibly be sure of with unshakable certainty, and he is always right. All you know at that moment is that something inside you believes him, and flutters gently to life.

-O-

Against all odds that promise of Jack's is fulfilled; he shines with so much charisma that it hurts to look at him sometimes, but even when other people start noticing, he stays with you. Girls giggle and twirl their hair, flirting with him because they all want him as their own, every single one of them. Boys slap him on the back and laugh with him deeply and want to be his best friend, and you could, so easily, slide into the misery you remember from your first years in school when you were the nerd that spoke too old for your age, except Jack laughs with those boys and then brushes them off, always comes back to you.

He sits with you on your front porch and watches your little brother run around with his friends in the yard, kicks you when the sky starts to darken and you start to yawn tiredly. The wind is crisp and cool on your cheeks but Jack's arm is warm where it touches yours, and when he smiles at you brightly and tells you, You know you're my best friend, right? you wonder at this happiness taking root inside your chest, hold it to yourself like a flame from which you're drawing heat.

-O-

The entirety of your friendship can be written as a seamless partnership, of Jack-needs-something tumbling into you-take-care-of-it. Jack wants to run for class president? You make the posters, you recruit people to help him, you write the rhetoric that makes him seem more than a teenager in a school race, that shows the flashes of the leader he will become. People will follow him in throngs, one day. If Jack wants to pull a prank on the football players? You try to talk him out of it and crumble in the face of his entreating smile, you make sure anything he does cannot be tied back to him, you forego your fears and your rules to follow Jack, because that is what you do. That is what you will always do.

It comes down to this: Jack is a dreamer the likes of which this world has not yet seen, and you? You just make sure it all happens for him.

-O-

You know, you've always known deep down, exactly what it is you feel for Jack. Because mornings are a little clearer when he knocks on your door and drives the two of you to school, wind throwing his hair back in streamers and lighting his cheeks pink; you tease him and laugh with him and wonder at the fact that he cannot see the longing that weighs you down like immovable stone. Because for twelve years of your life you were basically alone, or at least that kind of alone that meant you had no one who really understood you; you had your intelligence and you had your words, but when you met Jack you found the face that you would write all your words for after that.

You know that you cannot imagine ever wanting anyone else, and you know that it is written all over you in indelible ink for everyone to see, and you know that Jack does not see. You know that the poetry you read for class shapes the lean lines of Jack's body, and the poetry ringing in your ears that you dare not even write down is for no one else but Jack. Always Jack.

You know that Jack will never feel the same way, until the day he presses you against your bedroom door and runs a thumb over your cheekbone with aching tenderness, and it turns out that maybe you know nothing at all. His hand is calloused and gentle on your flush-warmed skin, and the look in his eyes—it shakes you down to your very core.

You are speechless and you are breathless, just less in everything important until he leans down to kiss you; you feel like you're missing something vital until the hesitant moment his wavering lips are pressed against your own. There is an ache in your chest too sweet to call pain, and when he curls his rough, clever fingers into your hair and knocks your forehead against his, breathes out softly, Davey, my Davey, you pretend your eyes are not burning, and you pretend your breath hasn't caught jaggedly in your throat, and you pretend there is no tremble in the hands clutching his shirt.

You are raw, cracked open wide for his searing gaze, sure that he can see everything inside you, every fear and hope and nervous want. He presses a hand to your heart; you know how fast it's beating, you know it only beats to the quick time of his name, Jack, Jack, Jack.

Five years ago he took your hand in fearless friendship; he has taken your sleep from you so that you spend night after night in twisting dreams of his golden skin, his flashing smile, the slight rasp in his voice; he has taken the breath from your body and the ready words from your mind, and doesn't he know it, he took your heart long ago and still holds it firm in his hands.

I know, he whispers into your ear, the way he can sometimes read your mind. He knows your soul throughout, the workings of your mind are no mystery to him. I know, he says again, and his breath is hot against the side of your face. Blindly you turn your head and taste his lips again, feel the brushing of his hair on your neck; he brings his hands up to hold you in place.

His hands are shaking, too.

And suddenly you know, by the waver in his voice and the hitching of his breath, by the wondering way in which he says your name, like it is the most beautiful of words created: he took your heart from you long ago, but he has given you his own in its place; it is a gift and a plea to keep it safe, and you will hold it to you forever, will never let it go.