javey. dave is performing with an orchestra and has like 3 massive solos, jacks come to support bc why wouldn't he come watch his crush best friend perform the performance of his LIFE.
the performance goes REALLY well, davey absolutely eats it up, and finds jack after the concert and they walk home tgt to their shared dorm. along the walk, davey complains and complains how hot his concert blacks are and then as soon as their dorm door closes, the tie and the shirt and the shoes all come off at once. davey is a master at taking clothes off fast, and now all he's in are a pair of pants fitted very nicely around the waist.
jack falls over dave goes jack what happened are you feeling lightheaded, jack tries to remain suave as this Hot Ass Man is helping him up and rubbing his back consolingly .... then they kiss or whatever
just had a psychiatry assessment today I am NOT schizophrenic!! 🎉🎉
Give me Newsiee Theatre-AU
Give me Stressed-Out Stage Manager Albert and Best Friend-Character Racetrack, who won't stop talking backstage and driving Albert mad.
Give me Set Designer Jack and Love Interest David, who always practices his ballad in the theatre while Jack works on a background, though Jack's really only focusing on him.
Give me Costume Designer Buttons and Chorus Member Elmer, who's constantly accidentally tearing his costume while doing tricks and having to go into Buttons to get it fixed.
Give me Techie Specs and Crutchie, who only signed up to watch their friends perform every night for free, but end up actually enjoying each other's company each show.
Give me Bully Character Spot, who has to slap the lead, Katherine, but has started to apologise afterwards every time they do the scene because they feel bad afterwards.
race: we all know my job here is to look hot.
hi hi first let me just say you are absolutely my FAVORITE Javid writer and I love reading ur work while kicking my feet and giggling
and if u are still taking ideas for the cozy+content prompts could I maybe request “what’s wrong?” “your feet are cold!” with Davey having very cold hands and feet and Jack warming him up
so fun fact these two asks both gave me heart attacks when i first read them. i am not wired to receive compliments it makes me short circuit. but thank you! thank you very much!! i hope you don't mind me shoving these two asks together - i had an idea in mind for the first and the only thing i could come up with for the second was essentially along the same lines but with jack at the centre, and my jack voice is,,, not accurate imo. so i hope you enjoy it!
(also. um. i fully intended this on being a silly fluffy tumblr minific and it became 3000 words by mistake so. sorry bout that)
Davey’s already shuffling eagerly in bed when he hears Jack opening their creaky apartment door. He’s curled up in bed beneath two extra blankets with his knees up to his chest, and he’s still got a chill in his fingertips. It’s manageable, of course, but Jack gives him some much more than what’s manageable, and it’s safe to say Davey’s become a bit spoiled for it. There’s a quiet thrum of something through his body, a wash of comfort over his skin, as he hears Jack’s steps approaching. Soon, is all his sleepy mind is saying. Warm soon. Jack soon. Soon.
Jack stumbles into their room – Davey can’t help but smile into the pillow as he thinks it, their room – uncaffeinated and no doubt bone-tired, but Davey still makes out his soft and pleased hum when he sees him, huddled up under their blankets.
“Davey, darling,” Jack sighs over the slight jangling of him shucking off his jeans, “you are a sight for sore eyes.”
“Long day?” Davey mumbles, his voice muffled by the chunk of comforter he’s stuffed over his face to keep his nose from freezing. He feels more than hears Jack’s resonating groan, and he knows from reflex alone that Jack’s got his head tipped all the way back as he grumbles loudly at the ceiling, determined for the whole world to know that he is upset, thank you, and is going to make it everyone’s problem.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Jack says petulantly – Davey can hear a soft brushing of fleece on skin as he steps into his sweatpants. “Fuckin’ lecture hall was freezing, I think all my pens have turned into ink-cicles – oh, but of course old Professor Asshole-”
“Ashcombe.”
“He’s not even your professor, Dave, you don’t gotta do the teachers pet thing.” Says Jack, and Davey can hear the smile wrapped around the words. If it were anyone else, he might freeze, his brain backfiring as it turns the words over and over and over again, running through every possible implication – but he knows where he stands with Jack. They play with each other – but they don’t hurt each other.
“Anyway, the asshole kept his whole ‘no coats and jackets’ policy because apparently my phone’s wrong and it’s actually the nineteenth century or whatever the hell,” Jack continues, his voice muffling slightly as he tears his shirt over his head, “even made me take off my flannel, which is, like, hello? Since when is a flannel a jacket? Dude’s a dinosaur.”
Davey makes a small, humming laugh – he’s still all tied up in his cold-protective ball, arms and knees hugged to his chest, so it’s all he can really manage. He loves the way Jack just talks. Talks and talks like it’s his God given right to comment on every little thing, not bothering to stop for silly things like changing his clothes and climbing into bed. It’s nice, knowing Jack wants to tell him every little thing. Knowing he’ll listen if Davey does, too.
“Maybe he likes seeing all you handsome young artists without your layers on.” Davey points out, trying to lilt his voice playfully, but the slight chatter in his teeth makes it come out stilted. “One of those repressed Republican things, y’know?”
“Aw, c’mon, Davey, ew!” Jack snickers as he clambers under the covers, flopping down with all his weight like a great big cat ready for a well-deserved nap. “God, I’m gonna think that every time I see him now.”
“Another patented Davey-Brainworm.” Davey says with a smile as they shuffle towards each other without any hesitation, pulled into each-others gravity. “You can have that one for free.”
“And I guess I got what I paid for.” Jack scoffs before promptly shoving his face into the bend of Davey’s neck like he lives there – Davey sighs, bone-deep, as he arches into the warmth of Jack’s nose, his mouth, his soft breath on Davey’s skin. He unwinds his balled-up arms, wincing a little at the numbness, until he’s got them tangled through Jack’s own and wrapped around his waist, pulling him close enough that they slot against each other. Jack sighs long and slowly through his nose, nuzzling against Davey’s shoulder as he winds around him.
“Jeez-us, I needed this,” he sighs as Davey unlocks his knees and wraps them between Jack’s own. “Been so fuckin’ tense all day, like my spine’s just – fuck!”
Jack jolts upright like he’s been shocked right through the spine, tearing himself out of their comfortable cuddle-pile, and Davey can’t help his unhappy whine.
“Jesus, Dave!”
“What?” Davey blinks, suddenly very, very awake. “What’s wrong?”
“Your feet are cold!” Jack cries, as if Davey has committed the world’s greatest sin. Davey rolls his eyes and grins, pushing his toes against Jack’s calves.
“Are they?”
“God – fuck, Davey, no, you’re not being cute about this.” Jack says firmly. “Where are your socks?”
Davey feels his shoulders hunch up to his neck. This isn’t right – Jack usually loves joking around with him. But now it feels like he’s being scolded, and if there’s one thing Davey hates more than scolding, it’s being scolded by Jack. Jack’s not meant to make him feel like a child, neither of them are – it’s how they work. It’s like breaking a rule, their big rule, and it roils in Davey’s stomach like boil.
“I don’t like socks.” Davey mutters. “They scratch. You know that.”
Jack looks like he’s about to open his mouth, then blinks for a moment, trying to meet Davey’s eyes from where they’re burning into their sheets.
“I do know that.” Jack nods slowly. “Sorry, I wasn’t – I didn’t mean…” He sighs, sliding his hand forwards enough to bump against where Davey’s fingers are tangling in the bedlinens. “Davey, you’re cold. Why didn’t you turn the heating on?”
Davey scoffs, still feeling stung, and then immediately winces, because wasn’t that a petty, childish thing to do? No wonder Jack’s frustrated.
“We don’t need it, Jack, it’s summer.” He reasons. Jack only stares at him with a flat faced and raised brow, sending a flush up high on Davey’s cheeks.
“It is barely April, Davey,” Jack says, gently this time, because gentleness comes so naturally to him. “I know you’re bad with dates and all, but that’s a pretty big difference.”
Davey’s throat clicks as he tries to work his mouth, but he’s all caught off guard by Jack being cute, damn him.
“We don’t need it.” He echoes, but even he can tell the sound is distant. He can feel the way Jack’s looking at him as he says it, and he can’t help but roll his eyes. “Oh, come on, Jack, that’s not – it’s almost May, it’s warm out-”
“It’s April sixth, forty-four degrees and raining-”
“I know how to take care of myself, Jack!” Davey snaps before he can help it. Jack flinches backwards, one hand raised up reflexively – then pauses, swallows, eyes still wide, but body less taut. Davey shifts until he’s sitting properly, head ducked low between his shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
Jack nods slowly, still not looking at him.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” Davey says firmly. “We don’t yell at each other.”
Jack sighs, eyes so painfully soft, and nudges closer until their shoulders brush together. Davey takes the olive branch like a dog with a bone, melts into Jack’s side and crushes one hand against Jack’s chest like he might disappear.
“Hey.” Jack says quietly, nudging Davey’s temple with his nose until he looks up. “Tell me things.”
Davey’s lip quirks upwards without his permission.
“Things.” He says dutifully. Jack only watches him, the way he’d watch a painting on a wall, trying to unpick the colours and untangle the strokes, trying to weave himself into the frame and figure it all out, inside and outwards.
“I just-” Davey sighs, biting down on his lip. Jack’s quiet. He lets him click the words together in his head, puzzle them out. “I don’t… I don’t need it. And I don’t like it when people tell me what to do, like I’m stupid.”
Jack makes a dissatisfied noise in his chest, curling his arm around Davey’s waist.
“You know I don’t think you’re stupid.”
“I know. M’sorry.” He mumbles into Jack’s chest, hot shame burning at his neck. “That was… Mean.”
“S’okay, baby.”
“We’re not mean to each other.”
“There’s a difference between being frustrated and being mean.” Jack says firmly. “That’s what you always tell me when I stay up ‘til 2AM painting, or when I’m tearin’ my hair out after work, or-“
“That’s different, though.”
“It’s really not.” Jack insists, and Davey’s about to disagree with him when he just barely rakes his nails along Davey’s scalp, just the way he likes, and sends him melting into Jack’s bones, the cheater. “Things ain’t different when they happen to you, babe. You’re allowed to be frustrated.” He dots a tiny kiss to Davey’s temple, holds him ever closer, presses the dorsum of his feet against Davey’s own. “You’re allowed to be warm, too.”
Davey winces, glancing towards their bedroom door where he knows the thermostat's waiting, mocking him.
“I was getting to it…” He tries weakly – Jack only raises an eyebrow.
“You get home an hour before I do. And your last class was cancelled today.”
Davey clicks his teeth. Right. Yes. Curse Jack and his intimate knowledge of Davey’s entire life. He must make a face, because Jack sighs, presses a hand to where his neck meets his jaw and tilts him upwards so that they’re looking at each other, so that all of Jack’s openness is laid out in front of him – and that’s just unfair, really, because how is Davey meant to lie when Jack’s doing that?
“C’mon, Dave,” Jack says softly, his voice low and warm, “you don’t need to do this anymore. You don’t gotta shiver in the fetal position just to get warm, you don’t gotta take showers that are, like, one notch above lukewarm and time them for seven minutes, don’t even try denying it,” he adds the second Davey opens his mouth, “you have the timer pinned on your phone.”
Davey curses under his breath. Damn his useless brain’s need for consistent organization. Jack keeps staring at him, keeps waiting for him to stay something, and Davey wants to be furious at him for it, wants him to just leave off and leave him alone and let him do what he’s always done, but… That’s not fair. Not when he’s always bugging Jack into doing better. Into sleeping on time and eating a proper lunch and warming up his wrists before he paints. They help each other. That’s what they do.
“It just…” Davey says quietly, struggling to push the words out from where they’re hiding beneath his tongue. “It’s hard. Like – at home? We couldn’t just… Do that. And it feels so – weird, a-and wrong to just do that here, when I know Aba’s still wearing long-johns to under his clothes all day and Ima’s still budgeting their hot water and-”
“Breathe.” Jack murmurs – Davey immediately sucks in a breath, suddenly realizing the way his whole body’d been straining for it without his notice. He screws his eyes shut and plants his face against Jack’s shoulder, like he might be able to hide from Jack’s gaze entirely. Jack only smiles – Davey can tell even without seeing it. He knows the little noise Jack makes when he’s smiling, even if he’s displeased, that little hum that gets tugged out from the base of his throat with the movement.
“Davey, baby,” Jack says gently – if Davey can repeat himself, your honour, unfair. “You don’t need you to freeze every night to prove that you understand the value of money. You’re good. We’re good. We can afford to put the thermostat up one night.”
Davey sighs. He knows this. Logically, he knows it. But Davey’s not the best with logic, no matter what all their friends think – it gets too tied up in all his nerves, all his thoughts, until it’s bent into something completely different. The sentiment’s still there at the heart of it, but – well, that’s just it. But. He knows he can afford to turn up the thermostat in his own home – but…
“I could deal with it.” He mumbles, a bit too childishly. “I could.”
“I know, baby.” He can feel Jack’s gentle smile in his hair. “But you don’t have to.”
“But-”
“But you don’t have to.”
Davey groans, more for the performance of it than anything else.
“Jack…” He mutters – but Jack only blinks at him expectantly. Not pushing. Just waiting. Davey tips his head back and sighs long-sufferingly, screwing his eyes shut once before turning back to glare in Jack’s direction.
Jack only blinks again.
“Will you please,” Davey says, trying to sound only a little bit irritated, but there’s no denying how quiet he sounds, barely audible even in the silence of their room. “Turn up the thermostat for me?”
Jack smiles at him gently, pushing an errant curl from his face.
“Of course, baby.”
He doesn’t let it linger – he gets up, stretches his arms over his head, snips the tension away in one neat cut, and Davey loves him for it. He leaves the door open as he hops through the living room with his feet still bare, wincing over every other step, because Jack is a man on a mission when he’s decided to cheer people up, and he simply doesn’t have the time for frivolous things like socks or slippers or common fucking sense. Davey rolls his eyes; he really does love him for it.
“Right.” Jack nods to himself as he shifts the thermostat up a good few notches, bouncing on his toes once – his Dad Bounce as Davey’s dubbed it privately in his head, because even if he’s only joking, Davey’s not quite sure they’re anywhere near bringing up the word dad yet. Still, it’s heartwarmingly cute. “That’s goin’ good. Shove up, would’ja?”
Jack bustles around their apartment like the mother hen he is, taking a spare comforter from their closet, then all the blankets he can carry, and dumps them all on the Davey-shaped lump in their bed, entirely ignoring Davey’s squeak of protest. He hurries to and from their closet, their desks, their living room, snatching every pillow and plushie and throw he can find, dumping them all unceremoniously on and around Davey’s body.
“Jack-!” Davey yelps as Jack stuffs a whole Joltik plush over his face, but he can’t help but laugh at the absurdity. “What’re you doing?”
“One second!” Jack says dismissively as he fiddles with the fabrics, scrunching up the comforters into a circle around them, then filling it all in with every fucking blanket they own – Davey’s Middle Earth map, the quilt Medda made of all Jack’s childhood shirts, the weighted blanket they bought together on a whim, and the leaf-shaped throw that neither of them remember buying at all. He props all the pillows and plushes he can against the headboard, even the giant fluffy pumpkin they bought on a whim at Target because they couldn’t be bothered with pumpkin guts that Halloween – it’s bigger than both their heads and they love it – and once he’s done, he nods to himself, satisfied with his work, and all but launches himself into the nest he’s made for them.
“Oh-!” Davey huffs as Jack knocks all the air out of his chest. “God, Jack, this is ridiculous-”
“Ridiculously fun, thank you,” Jack grins as he starts bullying Davey into the little hollow between the pillows he’s fashioned for them, “now quiet, or I’m adding your beanbag.”
“Jaaack,” Davey whines, even as he allows Jack to flop firmly onto his chest like a sleepy old hound dog, pinning him into place. “We’re gonna get sweaty.”
“Then we can kick ‘em all off.” Jack answers with a self-satisfied grin. “But for now, you’re gonna warm up. Cool?”
“Technically, no.”
“I’ll kill you.” Jack huffs, and Davey can’t help but laugh into his hair. Jack’s head is resting against the crest of his sternum, a constant pressure anchoring him to the bed – and his whole body is plastered against Davey’s own, painting sunny yellows and warm oranges across his skin until he’s glowing from the inside out, safe in their little bubble of comfort.
“Jack?”
“No,” Jack grumbles into his chest. “Jack’s dead. He froze to death in class and Professor Asshole is writing him up for it.”
“Oh, shame,” Davey sighs, slathering his voice in fake-concern. “Is he gonna be okay?”
“Give him, like, two hours. And a hot cocoa.”
“Mm, that is the standard procedure, I hear.”
Jack digs his chin into the hollow of Davey’s chest, glaring up at him in a manner so very wronged that Davey has to try not to laugh, lest he disturb Jack any further.
“Davey?”
“Hm?” Davey smiles innocently.
“Go to sleep.”
Davey rolls his eyes, but obediently tips his head back against the pillows, running one hand down Jack’s spine and trailing his finger over the dip in the centre.
“I was just gonna say,” he says quietly into the pleasantly toasty air of their bedroom, “thanks for taking care of me.”
There’s silence, for a moment. Soft, comfortable silence, the kind that rests pleasantly on the ear. Welcoming and unjudgmental. And then he feels a press of warm lips against his breastbone, melting through his shirt, through his skin, all the way down to his heart.
“Welcome.” Jack murmurs. “Now go to sleep before I hit you.”
Davey rolls his eyes and tucks Jack’s head into his neck, one hand rubbing tiny circles into his scalp and the other tracing poetry into the small of his back.
(They wake up swelteringly hot, sweating through their PJs, a plushie sandwiched between both their faces and half of Jack’s spoils kicked onto the floor in their sleep.
It’s okay, Davey tells himself. He’s allowed to sweat every now and then.
And when Jack looks up at him, grinning bashfully and snickering against his skin, Davey decides he’s allowed that, too.)
race: we need you to create a diversion. we have to get out of this house.
davey: what happened to albert's diversion?
race: albert doesn't know what a diversion is apparently. he just ran directly into the house.
crutchie is a BIG fun socks guy ... he's got at least 10 pairs of utterly odd and colourful socks ... davey on the other hand only owns black socks and jack only owns white socks ..
he/him media enjoyer • roman/rome • australian, 17 • javey&ralbert centric • always down for a chat !!
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