"Well, ya remembah what Trick was sayin' about Spot handin' Brooklyn ovah to him under, uh, special circumstances?" Bittah asked.
"How could I evah ferget...dose 'circumstances' was me moider!" Whiskey scoffed. "Although it seems odd, I mean, why da hell would anyone want ta take ovah Brooklyn is beyond me! Nothin' but stinkin' docks and hard streets."
"Exactly!" Bitter said enthusiastically. "Neither a us knew anythin' about Trick wantin' ta take ovah Brooklyn, or who da hell he was! But he seemed to think he was pretty important."
"Great, another unexplained piece ta da puzzle of what da hell we'se gonna tell dem..." Whiskey mumbled softly under her breath as she heard steps coming back towards the door. Bitter heard them too and feigned a faint as Doc and Spot walked in the room. Doc proceeded to look over Bitter's wounds and then ran smelling salts under her nose causing her to wake with a cough.
"Glad you'se could re join da ranks a da conscious," Spot stated sarcastically as Bitter came to. "So, you got anythin' ta tell me about?" He asked once more, glaring at Specs who made his way in right before Bitter began, juggling a bottle of bourbon and two full glasses of water. Whiskey gratefully chugged down the water and refilled her cup half way with bourbon and sipped the liquor.
Bitter threw Specs a grateful smile and sipped on her water, smirking at the impatient Spot. She let him pour her some liquor and stared at it for a moment or two.
"It'll help de pain," Whiskey said with an encouraging smile, swigging another cupful.
Bitter grimaced slightly and quickly shot it down her throat. Her eyes watered and she set herself back down on the bed, closing her eyes. Spot stomped his foot impatiently. It was not that he did not care for her, but he needed to know every detail of what happened and he needed it as soon as he could get it. See, what the girls did not know was that Jack had abruptly left after the girls were being taken care of, and suspiciously enough, Spot was enraged and confused, not knowing at all what was happening. All he had was the little snippets that Specs had told him.
"What's de story?" Spot asked.
Bitter opened one eye to look at Whiskey who was busy drinking another cup of the liquor. She sighed heavily as she caught her friend looking at her and put the unfinished drink down and looked seriously at Spot and Specs. "Well, ya know us an' our dear little pranks we pull every once in a while," she started off, trying to buy time.
"More like de trouble da two of ya get inta every day," Specs muttered under his breath.
Whiskey glared at him and crossed her arms, looking to Spot for help. Spot glared at him as well and stated coldly, "Shut de hell up an' let de goil talk."
Before Specs could protest, Bitter chimed in a few words. "We'se went ta Manhattan an' were lookin' fer trouble. So we lured two tough looking newsies dat looked lost, an' were definitely not from de area, into an alley an' we well . . . caught 'em off guard an' started fightin'," she said, her voice scratchy and her eyebrows curving up in pain with every word she spoke.
"Whatta ya mean 'caught 'em off guard'?" Spot asked, his eyes icy as he slipped into his role as the hardened leader of Brooklyn.
Whiskey seeing the pain Bitter went through with every attempt at speaking hurried a reply. "Think about it Spot, when was da last time you evah saw Bittah and I in a dress, hm? Nevah. Heh, amazing what feminine wiles can do to a guy, eh?" she chuckled nervously as she watched both Specs and Spot put two and two together, their eyes growing wide.
"So, dat's why you'se was dressed up as common whores, well dat was me next question, thank foh answerin' it ahead a time," Spot stated, trying to keep his cool and get more info out of the two girls. "Go on."
"While we was uh, teachin' dem a lesson, you know just toyin' wit dem really...Bittah and da guy named Trick got into a knife fight. He was bettah den she expected an' she ended up pinned against da alley wall wit Trick holdin' a knife ta her. I heard her thud against da wall, got distracted, and was thudded in turn by me own boy," Whiskey explained as she downed another glass of bourbon.
"Ease up now, you'se a mean drunk sometimes," Specs stated concerned.
"Alright, alright..." Whiskey said handing over the bourbon glass and taking the water one instead. "But if ya ask me, da drunker ya get me da more detail I'll go inta..."
After a moment of thought, Specs reluctantly handed the glass of liquor back into the expectant hands of Whiskey. "Thankye me little sex kitten," she hotly whispering in his ear a seductive grin crossing her face even in her current condition, as she enjoyed the slight blush that crossed his cheeks accompanied by his knowing smirk.
Meanwhile, Spot had been prying more details out of Bitter, who was attempting to speak without moving her face due to the pain of the cut and the tenseness of the stitching. Bitter's mumbled explanations and Whiskey beginning to slur would have been comical under different circumstances, but Spot was not in mood for humor.
"So lemme get dis straight, you'se two was out seducin' a couple a newsies, then threatened and toyed wit dere egos befoh gettin' yer asses kicked because you were distracted, am I correct?" Spot asked rhetorically, his face turning the crimson color Whiskey had predicted. "And dis fella named Trick thought that wit Whiskey's murder an' Bittah's kidnappin' I'd hand ovah Brooklyn to him?"
"Yeah, but neither a us know who the fucker is!" Bitter stated, exasperated.
"What does dis Trick look like?" Specs asked tentatively, earning him a small glare from Spot.
Whiskey did not seem to notice as she rattled off the description, partially, reverting to her native Scottish accent as she usually did when she had had too much to drink. "Oh, 'E were a handsome devil! Lit blue eyes wi' a dangrus glint ta em an' black streaks a runnin' dun hid lit blond 'air. Bit o' a heidcase, I dannae rememba much else. Ask Bittah, she wi' da one gettin' up on 'im," Whiskey stated, taking her eyes off of Specs' smirking face and catching a glance at the extremely confused Spot. "Look at ye staundin' there like a glaikit airse! Ye've nae understan' a word I said?" she asked Spot, whose face scrunched up questioningly. "'E's a daft fecker idn't 'e?" she whispered to Specs, her slurred Scottish lilt nearly incomprehensible, as Spot turned to Bitter for a translation.
Bitter smirked at Whiskey calling Spot a 'daft fecker' and a 'glaikit,' or empty-headed, 'airse.' She was in rare form tonight and Bitter silently looked over at the nearly empty bourbon bottle. Turned towards Spot with the smirk she described Trick in the same words Whiskey used, leaving out the derogatory comments.
"Dat sounds like the self proclaimed leadah of Harlem," Specs interrupted again as Whiskey complacently sat there. "He's been kickin' da 'soft' newsies out a Harlem fer a couple of months now. Manhattan's been gettin' some recruits lately."
"Everything's makin sense now," Spot stated pacing back and forth as he pensively digested the information.
"Aye, an if'n Ah evah see 'im again ah'll malkie tha fecker!" Whiskey slurred, her green eyes taking on a dangerously reckless appearance as she attempted to sit up, moving her arm too harshly and nearly blacking out.
"Is she speakin' English!?" Spot exclaimed.
"She said she'll moider da fucker. Da same thing I'm gonna be doin' if I evah lay hands on dat bastard again!" Bitter stated maliciously.
Specs tried to calm Whiskey, but just succeeded in pinning her to the bed. She had soon cooed her way into his arms through sedate and whispering promises of what they would do once she healed into his ear as she faded into sleep.
"No more questions," Bitter said, her energy running low and talking becoming awfully painful for her.
Spot nodded and Specs left them alone reluctantly, as Spot yelled at him to get back to Manhattan. He could not argue Spot into letting him stay the night and soon disappeared. Bitter looked up at Spot, a bit frightened by the harsh tone he had been using all day.
Spot's rough statement dropped to one of love and caring as he looked over Bitter. She was incredibly worn out from the fight, the interrogation not helping. He took her hand into his and smiled lightly as she attempted a smile. "I'm sorry Bittah," he said quietly.
He hushed her when she tried to say something and continued. "I love you, an' I'se sorry I had ta put ya through dat all, but it was important. This Trick character . . ." he faded off, shaking his head.
"If I evah meet 'im, he's gonna wish he was dead fer laying a fingah on ya," Spot said angrily. Bitter squeezed his palm lightly, growing weaker by the second. He calmed himself and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Bittah, if anything had happened to you today, I don't know what I would've done," he said sadly, his eyes glowing with concern.
She smiled, her green eyes starting to tear up. Her face started to pale more and Spot knew she needed her rest. "Want me ta stay?" he asked, as he let go of her hand, getting up.
Bitter nodded slowly, becoming overwhelmed with pain and tiredness. He pulled over a big chair next to her bed and curled up in it, watching her as she slowly lost consciousness. He touched her cheek lightly with his lips as she slept. "I love you," he whispered. The edges of Bitter's lip twitched as he said that and he smiled in turn, leaning back in his chair and watching over her as she slept, like a guardian angel.
~ ~ ~