This Ain't Just Newsies No More ~ Sprace & Javid

16 | New Day | David

"You should have heard Momma and Papa after you left with Davey last night!" Les gushes. "First they couldn't stop talking about how you were making history leading a strike, and now they won't stop talking about how Davey and I are friends with the leader of the successful strike!"

"Is that so?" Jack chuckles.

"Yeah!"

"Well," he looks David in the eye. "I couldn't have done it without Davey here."

David's heart flutters. 

"You know, those words were mine," David plays along.

"And they was beautiful," Jack tells him. "They'se the reason why we had a strike in the first place."

"You got that right."

"Hiya, Davey!" Crutchie greets him brightly when the rest of the newsies catch up with them.

"Hi, Crutchie."

"Hi Davey!" Mush says next, patting him on the shoulder. Then more newsies come. Blink, Race, and the rest. All very handsy still--seriously, newsies hands are everywhere, all the time. David's gotten used to it. Now he can't imagine a non-handsy newsie.

"We heard about you and Jack last night," Blink tells Davey, wiggling his eyebrows. 

"You made 'im real happy, ya know that, right?" Mush adds.

More people come, adding in more things.

"Okay, okay!" Jack breaks it up. "Settle down, settle down. We don't wanna miss the circulation bell, now do we?"

"When the circulation bell starts ringing, will we hear it?" Les repeats from a couple days ago.

"Atta boy!" Race jokes, then pats Les's head.

David could be imagining it, but Race seems a little subdued. But it's so subtle, that maybe he is just imagining it.

Except they actually hear the circulation bell, and should probably head there sooner than later.

Davey puts down the coin. "Hundred papes." Now he says it so confidently. He sees Jack give him a smile from a far. David turns to look at Jack and smiles back fondly.

"Ya ready?" Jack asks, shuffling his papes, as David walks toward him with his papes.

"Ready as I'll ever be," David replies, putting his papes over his shoulder like Jack does. Les trails behind them.

They walk in comfortable silence for a few minutes. That is, until Jack starts shouting headlines, real, and fake. Mostly just exaggerated ones. David shouts some too. He's learned that headlines don't sell papes. Newsies sell papes. And in order to sell papes, there needs to be a catchy headline. And if there isn't one, you make up your own, and hope the person your selling to is gullible enough to buy the nonsense spewing from your mouth. Of course, no one has put that exactly into words, but, well, some things are learned from experience, and others get lost in translation. But it's the unspoken language of the newsies, and David considers himself newsie enough.

After a while, Jack says. "Hey Davey, I don't know about you, but I'm getting kinda hungry."

"Me too."

"Tibby's, then?"

"Is this a second date?"

Jack chuckles. "If you want it to be, then definitely yes."