Hidden Artists
After the horror of what was in my inbox, I needed some comfort. I’ll take that comfort in the form of modern AU Javey fluff <3
Warning(s): gun mention
Word Count: 808
“So what exactly is in those notebooks that you carry around?”
Jack smiled at Davey and squeezed his hand. “Well, a bit of this, a bit of that...”
Davey could tell that he had caught his boyfriend off guard. “A bit of this and a bit of that is why you always have one on you?” he pressed before licking his lips nervously.
Jack paused a moment, clearly thinking. He kissed Davey’s forehead absentmindedly before responding. “Alright, alright. You can look in my notebooks. I’ll pull all of them out. Just...I don’t wanna be here when you do, alright?”
This made the taller boy’s heart beat faster. “Jack, you don’t h-”
“I want to.” Jack stood up and went to his room. About thirty seconds later he came back with a box filled with three notebooks. “These are in order, oldest in the back, newest at the front. Except, obviously, that one on the table.” The strike leader stood awkwardly for a few moments, looking as if he wanted to say something, before changing his mind. “Ay, Davey, go to our coffee shop when you’re done. I’ll be waiting there.” Without giving his boyfriend a chance to respond, he quickly left his apartment.
Davey looked at the box in silence for a couple of minutes, not sure what to think. Jack was acting very suspiciously, which made Davey wonder if these notebooks would be a dream or a nightmare. He eventually pulled himself from the comfort of thinking on the couch and into the risk of the strange box.
The first notebook that Davey pulled out was the oldest one. The cover was faded and the binding falling apart. Graphite smudged the outside of all of the pages. He opened the book, shocked by what he saw. It was a drawing of a man who he didn’t quite know but had the same nose as his beloved boyfriend. He began flipping through the pages, marveling at each new thing he saw. Close up flowers, the skyline, entire landscapes, and more images of who Davey was beginning to think was his father littered the notebook.
The next notebook was instantly different. The very first image was unmistakably Snyder, pointing his gun directly at the viewer. Jack’s drawing style had progressed from childishly curvy lines to scared, angular marks making an entire image. This notebook was filled with the horrors of The Refuge, and it made Davey get up and pace while looking through it because the images were so horrifying.
The third notebook opened on an image of Crutchie. He was laughing. This notebook was filled with the newsboys, ranging in emotions from pride to hatred to sadness to exuberance. In the middle, there were a lot of drawings of Katherine, which Davey figured had been from when they dated. He stopped dead when he got to the last page of this notebook. It was an image of him watching Meda perform. Although Miss Meda was singing in the foreground, it was obvious that Davey was the center of attention. He shook his head in wonderment, wondering if the elegance he saw on the page was really how Jack saw him.
Despite feeling like his heart was about to explode, Davey went to the notebook that rested on the coffee table and opened it up. Inside were portraits of all kinds, but unlike the rest of the books, they all centered around one thing: him. He saw himself laughing, crying, dancing, sleeping, reading, and even rolling his eyes. All of them had a painstaking about of detail.
Shaking, Davey raced downstairs and across the street to the coffee shop that he and Jack had coined as theirs. He went blindly to their booth and sat down next to his boyfriend, who set down his water. “Davey, you okay?”
“You didn’t tell me that you could draw.” Davey had tears in his eyes as he put the notebook on the table.
“And you didn’t tell me you could write,” Jack replied nonchalantly, sliding the notebook closer to him.
Davey blushed a deep red. “Wh-how-”
“I pretend to be asleep so that you’ll read what you wrote to me,” Jack confessed, smiling sheepishly. “Before you try to explain yourself, let me tell you this: I never knew love like this before you, either.”
Davey had no words left, so he threw his arms around Jack’s shoulders. “I treasure you more than anything else in the world.”
Jack returned the hug and pulled Davey in closer. “I would turn away the entire world for you. You’re my muse.”
With a snort, Davey pulled away. After taking a deep breath, he tried to pretend that this was just a normal date. “Why are you just drinking water?”
Jack looked down, feeling his ears warm up. “I forgot my wallet at home.”
“Oh, Jack...”
