Newsies One Shots

Suckers - Javey

Prompt - None
Au - Coffee shop
Triggers - None

•••

Jack watched his feet and listened to the click of his heels, dull and muted on the pavement. It was cold today, a bite in the air as November drew closer. Not cold enough for Jack to warrant a coat, but enough to make him keep his hands in his pockets with his sketchbook tucked under one arm.

New York was alive, as always. Alive with the buzz of life that Jack always found refreshing. The chatter and roar of a city that could be oppressive at times, could bear down on you like a stifling blanket that smothered you if you weren't careful, weren't used to it. Which Jack was. A little too used to it, maybe.

He pondered a little as he traced the familiar path to his favourite spot, barely even needing to look up to avoid a streetlamp here and a post box there. Jack was a dreamer, always had been and his thoughts had this tendency to run away with him, grip him tight and toss him into a sea of ideas and wild fantasises that swirled as brightly as if they were fireworks behind his eyes lids, imprinted like a film reel.
That film reel played on a loop, a never ending stream that kept Jack in his own world, and sometimes he had to remind himself what was real and what was a product of his mind.

Maybe that's why he was an artist. It was a way to get out that stream of dreams and fantasies, capture them to be looked back on with both fondness and sometimes regret. It was better than finding someone to listen; Jack wasn't the greatest with his words, at expressing his ideas and thoughts. That would change one day, he hoped. Someone would put up with his nonsensical ramblings and-

Jack shook his head. He was doing it again, he realised. Back in his own little world full of certain hopes that weren't so certain at all. He sighed, half content, half something else and looked up, a smile crossing his face as he made it to where he was going and shouldered open the door. The creaked protest of the wood and the bright tinkle of the bell that hung above it was a welcome familiarity.

The café was small, tucked away among closed down bookshops and a train station that made the whole place rattle. An unevenly planked floor worn smooth with age and a low beamed ceiling gave the place a warm atmosphere. Small round tables dotted it, surrounded by rickety chairs, not one of which matched. There were a few booths with cracked red leather seats at the back and Jack slipped into one of these, breathing in the warm, coffee scented air.

He laid his sketchbook on the table, glancing at the patrons that dotted the room. For a run-down looking business, it was surprisingly full and that was probably why Jack liked it so much; there was always someone new, some new story to tell and face to sketch. Jack ordered a coffee and flicked open his sketchbook.

It was near full, that particular one, graphite sketches mainly. All of them were of people he'd seen in this café, some hurried or unfinished, sloppily done half from memory when his muse had left before his was done, some almost photorealistic, catching even the light in someone's eye, the curve of an eyelash or a single hair. Jack always loved drawing people; it allowed his daydreamers mind to tell a story, to run with someone's appearance, their expression or  posture and paint a picture in his mind as well as his page. It was freeing in a way, relaxing.

Jack pulled at the sleeve of his ratty denim jacket and chewed the end of his pencil as he looked for someone to draw. He'd started coming here a month ago, per Katherine's recommendation after he'd mentioned how his university work was getting to him and had fallen into a routine with the place, a routine that he was grateful for. It was nice to have some sort of familiarity in the manic swirl of essays and notes and lectures he'd been dealing with this last few months.