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“Welcome to the Lodging House, Romeo.” Jack announces, “I can’t really show you the ropes today since I promised Medda that I’d paint her a backdrop today. If it’s good with you, Specs is gonna show you around.” Jack points to a tall kid with glasses leaning against a wall. Wow he’s really attractive, Romeo makes eye contact and looks away, hoping to avoid blushing.Of course, that fails. Evident by a cry of “Aw the kid’s shy!”
“Am not!” Romeo cries out indignantly. A chorus of laughs erupts from everyone, including Specs. They don’t seem to be laughing at him, it seems more friendly than jokes made about him used to be. Jack rolls his eyes at the boys, “I can always help Medda out tomorrow though.” Romeo shakes his head, “I can go with Specs, it’s okay.”
“If you’re sure..” Jack hesitates. Romeo nodded, “Go ahead. Specs can probably handle this.” Jack nods and leaves the Lodging House at a borderline sprint. Specs nods Romeo towards the stairs and they walk up side-by-side. “Upstairs are the bedrooms. Usually when new newsies come they have to share a bed till someone gets too old to stay were, but luckily for you, someone just left.”Specs weaves Romeo through the maze of beds before ending up in front of two bunks pushed together. “The two bottom beds are taken by newsies who have a bad habit of falling off the bed, but when the beds are pushed together like this, they manage to stay on,” Specs explains, “For you, that means you’ll be a lot closer to me than you’d probably like.”
Romeo practically squeaked at that, hell, he didn’t mind, but he wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d really get sleeping next to a face like that. Specs continues leading Romeo around the lodging house, sometimes pulling him by the hand when he got distracted by something. Romeo ‘got distracted’ almost every few minutes after he figured that out.
“And the last place is the washing room,” Specs announces. ”The oldest bathe first and you are-” Specs hesitates.
“Fifteen,” Romeo replies, much more confident now that there aren’t so many strangers watching him. Specs laughs, “That mean’s you’ll be one of the last to get to bathe, sorry.” Romeo shrugs, he was used to it. This lodging house was already much better than what he was used to. “The rest of the newsies should be getting back soon from selling so you can officially meet the lot of them,” Specs laughs, “There are a lot of them, you didn’t see everyone when you arrived.” Romeo laughs with him before pausing, “Did you lose pay to show me around?” Specs nods, “Yea, but it was my turn to show the new guy around.”
“Oh.” Romeo was hoping Specs had volunteered and thought he was cute. “I’m glad you were the person I got to show around. I really like you.” The last sentence sounded almost like an afterthought. Whether it was or not, he ducks his head and grins. When he looks back up, Specs is staring at him with almost a dazed expression. “What?” Romeo asks, turning red. Usually he was the one making other people blush, this was not fair. He has to get the upper hand, he decides. “Specs, your glasses make your face look, uh, nice?” Romeo stutters before sighing. Specs chuckled, “Good try.” Romeo internally groans, I actually was flirting with him; is he really that uninterested that he can’t even appreciate my bad attempt?
Specs, on the hand, is trying his best not to match Romeo’s shade of red. First he just got caught staring at a very cute boy, then said cute boy flirted with him. It was a terrible attempt, sure, but no one had ever blatantly flirted with him. With no idea how to respond, he just brushes it off. Besides, his name is Romeo, obviously he flirts with everyone. Both stand in awkward silence for a few seconds, Romeo still red, when a loud shout comes from the bottom floor of the lodging house. Specs dashes towards the staircase, grateful for an escape, but stop before going down. “You coming?” He asks. Romeo wordlessly follows him, eager to see what the commotion was about.
A blonde boy holding a cigar, a boy with an eyepatch, and a dark haired boy are all laughing so hard they’re turning red. Most of the other newsies are laughing too. The dark haired boy stops laughing long enough to make a comment about ‘Jack’s poor sneaking skills,” which causes a few more boys to laugh. It takes Romeo a moment to realize that’s what the boy is saying because the boy’s lisp made his words mush together. Jack is standing in the middle of the room, turning pink and trying to hide his face in his newscap.
“What happened?” Romeo whispers to Specs.
“No need to whisper, they’re not paying any attention anyway. But I’m guessing one of those three caught Jack with the guy I told you about earlier.”
“A guy?”
Specs freezes. “Oh no. Please don’t be weird about it, none of the other newsies are,” he pleads.
“I’m,” he hesitates for the right word, “okay with it.” He was much more than okay with it. The relief he felt knowing that the newsies didn’t think less of boys liking boys immediately brightened his mood. Specs released a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I need to ask Crutchie to see if I’m right.” Specs waves over a boy leaning on the wall.
“Was Jack stupid and got caught?”
“Yep,” the boy, Crutchie, says. “Race had a bet going with Blink. Race already knew about the kid from the theatre, so he knew he’d win. They waited outside the theatre till they caught Jack.” Specs groans and fished a dime out of his pocket. He hands it to Crutchie, who grins and heads back to Jack.
“Jack is probably gonna tell some stories to take the attention off of him getting caught. I wouldn’t believe the lot of them. Just ask me tonight afterwards if you’re really wanting to know.”
After everyone had calmed down, most of the newsies were spread throughout the bedroom. Romeo was sitting next to Specs, leaning against him. Jack was sitting on one of the beds in the middle of the room.
“We have a new newsie so I’m gonna start with everyone’s favorite story.”
Crutchie and least other three newsies smacked Jack with their caps. “What’s his favorite story?” Romeo whispers, but clearly not quiet enough as Jack is the one who replies. “Santa Fe! The greatest place in the whole world.”
“As you guys know, the moon is bigger in Santa Fe than anywhere else in the whole world.” Specs mutters something like “no it’s not,” but Romeo can’t be too sure. “And that makes Santa Fe the best place to find true love.” He looks around the room and groans, “Come on! The moon is a symbol of love .” Jack proceeds to explain his point for almost ten minutes with Specs making various comments under his breath. Once Romeo laughed at one of his comments, Specs started saying them louder so Romeo could hear them all. Romeo spent more of the time looking at Specs and listening to Specs than what he was complaining about. That caused him to not understand half his complaints, but he didn’t care.
Pretty soon Romeo was laying completely against Specs, quickly falling asleep. “Romeo,” Specs whispers, “Time for you to sleep.” Specs stands up and easily lifts the short boy onto his feet, still supporting most of Romeo’s weight. Romeo muttered something unintelligible and stumbles where Specs leads him. “Hey Specs!” One of the other newsies calls him, and he looks away from Romeo for two seconds when he hears a thump and a groan. Then another thump. Specs whirls around and Romeo is laying on the ground holding his head. “Romeo!”
“I was attacked!” Romeo’s arms wave around, “Specs, save me!” Specs shakes his head and lifts Romeo up. Romeo drapes his arms dramatically around Specs’ neck. “My hero!” He mumbles, just quiet enough that only Specs can hear. “I give up,” Specs sighs and picks Romeo up.
“Weeee,” Romeo giggles as Specs lifts him. He grins and adjusts himself to get more comfortable, while somehow managing to move closer against Specs. Specs carefully maneuvered himself up the stairs and around the beds. “You’re heavier than you look, you know?” Specs groans. Romeo just puckers his lips in response. Specs stops at the foot of their bed, “Alright time to get down so we can sleep.”
Romeo shakes his head, “You’re warmer than the bed.”
“You’d get warm if you went under the blankets.”
“Fine,” he whines. Specs lets go of Romeo’s legs. Romeo jumps on the top bunk and gets comfortable quickly. Specs climbs up and Romeo stares at his arm where his shirt sleeve had ridden up. “You met your soulmate? I wish you we-” the rest is unintelligible as he falls asleep.
“I haven’t met my soulmate, what are you…” He trails off as he realizes what Romeo must have been staring at. He lifts his sleeve to check, and sure enough there’s a tattoo there. It’s a red rose. Normally, that could mean a lot of people, but considering how he only met one person today, who just happened to be named after a character from a play with a quote about rose, he knew exactly who it meant. Romeo is my soulmate? I mean he is attractive, very attractive, but what if he doesn’t know he likes guys? What if he doesn’t even like guys? Romeo is a very tactile person, so I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world., being just friends. Specs groans and shakes his head. No point in losing sleep over it, he decides. He lays down next to Romeo, who hasn’t managed to be still for more than ten seconds. Romeo moving in his sleep provided surprisingly comforting background noise and Specs falls asleep quickly.
Specs wakes up and feels a large weight on his chest. He stiffens and slowly opens his eyes. He relaxed as soon as he sees that it’s just Romeo. Once it fully hits him what position he and Romeo are in, he starts worrying. Well great, now I’m stuck. I can’t get up, he looks so peaceful. While Specs debated with himself about what he should do, Race came running through the room banging on the bed posts and yelling, “The bell is broken, so I’m the new bell, wake up!”
Romeo shoots up and Specs shut his eyes quickly, pretending to just be waking up. Race continues running throughout the lodging house, enjoying his job way too much. “Give me something to throw at Race.” Specs groans, earning a laugh from Romeo. Specs remembers his discovery from last night and stutters through an excuse for him and Romeo to leave. It’s, uh, time for us to, well, you know, get dressed.” Romeo hops off the bed and heads to the bathroom. He pulls his shirt off but stops when he feels the shirt sleeve rub against a sore spot. He hesitantly looks at his arm, hoping a spider didn’t bite him, but is greeted with a tattoo of a moon. It took less than a minute for him to figure out the obvious solution. “Jack?” He whispers to himself and groans. Sure, Jack is attractive, but he isn’t my type at all. He’s too- “Romeo?” Specs calls him, pulling him from his thoughts. “I’m almost done! I just got distracted looking at my, uh, abs!” Romeo bites his lip to keep from bursting out laughing at his ridiculous lie. Specs, however, laughs and blushes at his comment. I wish I could see his abs. Romeo rushes to finish getting changed and doesn’t bother checking how he looks. He walks out of the door trying to look casual when Specs busts out laughing.
“What?” Romeo asks, confused, but the only reply he gets is Specs pointing towards his shirt. Romeo looks down slowly and realizes half the buttons are not in the right holes. Romeo sighs and slowly starts unbuttoning the vest. Romeo’s fingers clumsily updo the vest, his embarrassment causing him to be even clumsier. Specs sighs goodnaturedly and pushes Romeo’s hands away from his vest, doing the buttons himself. Specs finishes buttoning the vest far quicker than either of them would have preferred. “Years of practice,” Specs explains, filling the empty space. “Specs I need to tell you something,” Romeo blurts out. Well too late to take it back now . “I know who my soulmate is.”
Specs’ breath hitches, but Romeo doesn’t notice. “It’s Jack.” Specs chokes and Romeo shoots him a confused glance but continues anyway. “I can’t believe it! Sure he’s kind of attractive, but he’s not my type, at all. My type is more-” Romeo cuts himself off as he realizes he almost started describing Specs to Specs. “It’s more, uh, intelligent?” He tries to be as ambiguous as possible. Specs barely notices the slip up as he is still trying to process the idea that his soulmate might not be Romeo. Suddenly one of Romeo’s previous statements fully registered.
“Romeo.” Specs looks at Romeo like he has a second head, “You’re attracted to guys?”
“What? Oh my god, I didn’t tell you. Well, um, I am. But anyway, I just don’t understand. He didn’t tell me he got a soulmate tattoo when I saw him last. That could also just be because he didn’t even realize he got one. He is very bad at noticing things. I mean, I’m not smart at all but I know the moon isn’t huge in Santa Fe.” Romeo rambles on for several minutes, Specs’ heart dropping. He finally interrupts Romeo and asks the one question that he’s been dying to know. “How do you know it’s Jack?”
“How do I know? My tattoo made it obvious Specs. I just need to tell Jack. Maybe we can work something out,” Romeo starts to run off to find Jack, but Specs grabs his hand. “Are you sure it’s Jack? Maybe it’s someone else. Can I see your tattoo?”
“Yeah, sure.” Romeo pulls the sleeve of his shirt up, revealing the moon. Specs breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that it’s in the same place as his. Once he fully sees the design, his relief turns to happiness. Sure, the moon could easily mean Jack, but Specs easily knows more about space than Jack. Specs grins a little, “Romeo, have you ever thought it could be someone else?”
Romeo pauses as he figures out what Specs is hinting at. He blinks and points at Specs hesitantly. Specs nods, “I got mine last night but I wanted to make sure I was right.” He lifts up his sleeve to show the rose tattoo. “I didn’t think it could be you, because I thought you’d already met your soulmate,” Romeo admits.
“Well I’m glad I hadn’t. I was really worried Jack actually was your soulmate, and this was going to end up being like Romeo and Juliet.”
“What happened in Romeo and Juliet?”
Specs freezes. “You don’t know the story of Romeo and Juliet? But you’re named after one of the title characters!” he exclaims.
Romeo bites his lip, “I can’t read and no one’s ever actually explained my name.” Specs throws an arm about Romeo’s shoulders. “I’ll read it to you.” Romeo grins and leans into Specs.