NEWSIES: The Ultimate Modern AU

How Jack Found Out About Jimothee

Jack stumbled into the kitchen at 2am with groggy eyes and a dry throat. He grabbed a glass from the bench, unaware of who used it last, nor did he care. The boys practically lived in each others arm pits, drowning in the same scents, food and lifestyles . The tap made an aggressive splatter before the water came running pathetically. It was another sleepless night for Jack Kelly, he sat the glass on the table and flopped down. As he raised the glass to his lips, he almost choked when he saw a small black shell swimming on the table, and he snorted and spluttered as the water went the wrong way.

He grabbed the glass and rushed over to the couch and caught sight of the first interrogation victim. He saw them and threw the water on their face. They awoke quickly, confused. In a hushed voice, Jack whisper yelled at him, "Specs, why the fuck is there a turtle on the table?"
Specs rubbed his eyes and squinted at Jacks dark figure in the night light. He hesitated. "Well, while you were out with Katherine tonight, Albert kinda found a turtle and-"
"He FOUND a turtle? I don't know about you, but last time I checked you can't just find a turtle! Where on the world does one find a turtle?"
"Well he said it was down the road, you know, the house with the bathtub out front? The woman's crazy anyway, it's not like she'll notice. Plus the tub is filled with stale water and fish and plants. It probably already has five turtles in it, not like she's counting or some shit." Jack blinked blankly, processing all that he just heard. "Now go to bed, some of us have things early in the morning."
"You and your fancy ass scholarship I swear- we can't just keep this thing!"

Specs was already half asleep as Jack finished his sentence. "Think of Crutchie, he loves that thing."

He really used the Crutchie card. Of corse, Jack couldn't argue with that. He looked around the room at the other fellas, some with dribble dripping down their chin, glistening in the moonlight, while others swatted feet out of their faces as they slept head to tail on the mismatched couches that had been found in dumpsters. The glass was cold in his hands now, and he turned back to the table. The turtle stared up at him, next to the pasta dish was a yellow post-it note with the words 'Jimothee :)' scribbled on it. "Well Jimothee, this is all just a happy accident."

He grabbed out his phone from his pocket, a text from his data provider popped up, alerting him of the limited data left. He brushed it off and opened Katherine's contact.

J| you awake
K| It's 2am are you ok?
J| yeah but you won't believe what the boys did
K| Jeez what now?
J| we have a turtle now.
K| I'm sorry did you say a turtle?
J| yeah, his name is Jimothee -_-
K| Jimothee?
J| yeah... look I'll tell you about it tomorrow k?
K| Okay then, I'll see you tomorrow :)

His phone clicked off, and he smiled to himself about tomorrow's plans with Katherine. The happiness was temporary before he snapped back to what was around him. Resting his face in his hands and rubbing his inner corners of his eyes with his fingers, he exhaled deeply and a bit of the stress on his back left. His shoulders relaxed a little bit and he stared at the turtle.

Although he wanted to like it, it only stressed him out. They had to feed it now, and how on the world would they do that if they were barely feeding themselves.
Thinking of food, his stomach growled in protest and he recalled the last time he ate, at least 12pm. No wonder he was so tense, Katherine would call him 'hangry kranky pants', the thought of that made him relax a little bit.

He opened the pantry to find a few cups of two minute noodles, a bread loaf that had been thrown around so much it wasn't much of a loaf and more a bag of bread slices. He reached further into the pantry and felt around in case there somehow majestically was something else hidden in the very very back where no one would see. He sighed and grabbed the noodles.