newsies highschool au

chapter 2

     Jack waited quietly in the library with his school laptop and his notebook from his science class, the one he was struggling the most with. He was twirling his pencil around and doodling in the margins of his notebook every now and then. Honestly he thought his tutor wasn't gonna show up, until a tall boy tapped on the table across from Jack.
     "Excuse me, are you Jack Kelly?" The boy wasn't much taller than Jack, but definitely still tall. He wore his school uniform in a more formal way than Jack, actually following the dress code. His shirt was tucked in, his jacket was on, his tie was in place, with the Star of David hanging around his neck, which was the only thing about him that wasn't part of the uniform. He was definitely a nerd, the way he followed the dress code to perfection. Jack, on the other hand, never followed the dress code. Never tucked in his shirt either, he thought it was too uncomfortable. He didn't wear his jacket, he simply tied it around his waist and rolled up the sleeves on his arms. Again, he just thought it was uncomfortable.
     Jack put his pencil down and leaned forward onto the table, resting on his elbows, "Depends, you Davey Jacobs?"
     "David, and yes," He pulled out the chair across from Jack and sat down.
     "So, you tutoring me on somethin' specific or am I supposed to tell you's what I'm struggling with?"
     "I'd prefer we start with whatever you have trouble with, but if it's any sort of writing class I'm not gonna be much help," Dave chuckled a bit, it was small and barely noticeable, filled a bit with anxiety, but then again everything about this kid seemed to be filled with anxiety.
     "Surprisingly that's the one class I'm actually good at. Still failin', but I'm good at it," Jack looked at Davey for any sort of reaction on his face, seeing if he reacted to the playful way Jack spoke, and he did, but only with the slightest smile on his face, "I struggle the most with science, I got my notebook right here," and he slid it across the table to Dave.
     Dave paused, taking a moment to look at Jack's notes, "Well, here's your first problem, you seem to have an awful lot of doodles and not many notes."
     "I got plenty notes!"
     "This page is literally half full. This sentence right here just says, 'particles do a thing sometimes and go wild,' can you even tell me what that means?"
     "Well it means what it says Davey, particles do things," Jack smiled playfully at Davey, leaning even more forward on his elbows, and Dave just sighed.
     "That's real helpful," He stared at Jack for a moment, then back at his notes, "The teachers put the slides they show in class on their google classroom, let's take a look at that and I can help you figure out what these notes mean and put them in an understandable way."
     So for the next hour, that's what they did. Honestly, Davey wasn't as insufferable as Jack thought he would be. His was a bit serious, yeah, but he was patient and explained things to Jack calmly, and seemed to open up a bit by the end. Besides, if he was a friend of Katherine he wasn't gonna be a total ass, Kath usually didn't have the patience for those people.
     "Thanks for the help Davey," Jack was already standing up from his seat with his backpack hanging off of one of his shoulders as Dave still packed up his things.
     "It's not a problem Jack," And he joined him in just standing around the table, with his backpack on both his shoulders, "When do you wanna do this again?"
     "Can we try tomorrow? I got a history test in two days and I'm not the best at studyin'."
     Dave smiled at Jack, "That works. See you tomorrow," and he walked out of the library, Jack close behind him. Once they both left the library, they went two separate ways to the two exits on each side of the school.

     As Dave hopped into the front seat his older sister's car, he was met with his younger brother rambling in the back seat.
     "David! How was school? Is the kid you're tutoring nice? Are you guys best friends now? What's his name?" Les was always so excited to see Dave, and he was always talking so much, but Dave never minded.
     "It was good, he seems nice, even if he does seem to be a bit of a troublemaker from just his general looks and stuff, no we're not best friends, and his name is Jack Kelly."
     Sarah laughed, "You don't gotta answer every single one of his questions y'know?"
     "They're easy questions."
     "What does he look like?" Les was curious, but he's nine (almost ten,) so Dave didn't really expect anything else of him.
     "Well he's a bit shorter than me, doesn't follow dress code, like at all. I mean, his shirt's not tucked in, his jacket is tied around his waist, his sleeves are rolled up, even his shirt is unbuttoned a bit. I have no idea how he gets away with it."
     "Other than his uniform, did you notice anything else about him? Anything cool? Any mysterious scars?" Les was obsessed with this idea of Dave finding some cool mysterious person in school and going on epic adventures, but that was mostly because he watched way too much TV.
     "No, but he did have like. Really strong arms," Dave stopped talking. They were at a stoplight, and Sarah looked over at him.
      "You gonna finish that sentence?"
      "That was the entire sentence, he's just got strong arms."
      "Mhm, guess you were pretty focused on his arms," Sarah leaned over a bit, smiling tauntingly at Dave.
      "Oh shut up, the light is green."
      When they got home, Dave went straight to his room to do his homework, waving at his mom at the kitchen table working on something on his way. Sarah brought him his dinner in his room, she didn't really find it useful to try and convince him to come eat, he was too busy being engrossed with his homework.
     Dave did look up from his homework at one point though, to a text from Katherine.

katherine
you're tutoring jack kelly, right?
me
yeah, why?

katherine
i know him, he's a friend of mine
just wanted to make sure it was you and not some other david jacobs
me
i'm pretty sure there's not any other david jacobs in the entire school

     After that, Katherine didn't reply. She was probably busy with her own homework, and Dave didn't wanna bother her anymore. Eventually, he finished his homework and laid down for the night, shutting off his light and crawling into bed, too tired to change out of his school uniform.

     Jack, on the other hand, had changed out of his uniform hours before. As soon as he finished walking home he threw down his bag in the audience of Medda's theatre and went upstairs to change into his painting clothes.
     Medda's theatre was huge, and it came with a small living area tucked away on the second floor, above the costume, prop, and set storage (all separate, of course.) Medda had adopted him and Crutchie a few years prior, and that's where they had all been living together since, and Medda has been encouraging Jack artistic side since then as well, having him paint sets and giving him an allowance for it.
     While Jack was in the backstage "shop," area of the theatre, where all the sets were made, he could hear the dancers out on stage practicing a number. Two of his friends were apart of these dancers, Specs and Race, which meant along with coming over to visit Jack and Crutchie, the entire journalism club would regularly gather to watch whatever show they were putting on at the moment.
     Jack walked out into the wings to take a break from painting, watching the actors dance around while music blasted. After a few minutes, the music stopped and Medda called out something about pizza, causing everyone, including Jack, to rush offstage and into the audience, where three large pizza boxes were waiting.
      This was basically a typical Tuesday for Jack, other than the whole tutoring thing.
      "So's, you mentioned at lunch something about a tutor? How'd that go?" Race talked in between pizza bites, earning a comment from Medda about keeping his mouth closed when he eats.
      "It was good. Guy's definitely a nerd, but at least not a stuck up one. He seems nice."
      "Good, if he was bein' an ass to you I'd have to get Spot to beat him up."
      Jack let out a laugh, "Ain't no one needs to be beaten up, Spot's already got enough of a record."
      When all the actors and dancers had left, and Jack had finally finished the piles of homework his classes gave him, he curled up in his bed and let sleep overtake him.