Notes: wow… I'm on chapter 4 already?! ::looks around in amazement:: woo!! For me this is rather quick. Okay, enough babbling…. No extra warnings this chapter! ..^_^..
Thank you's: First and foremost the reviewers (I love you guys)!!!! (Stage, Ann Valentine, Wizesandz and Carmen especially, thanks for your multiple reviews!! They make me happy as a chipmunk!!) Also, to Carmen, who I will probably thank at the beginning of every chapter. She deserves all of them. Thanks for your wonderful praise and your good ideas! If you hadn't helped me I'd still be obsessing over chapter two!! (I swear I would).
Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own 'em.
As usual, read, enjoy, review!!
Foundations
Chapter Four: A Crack in the Wall
Jack sat on cobblestones, leaning against the cold stone of the statue. He was thinking about his confrontation last night, and he was just as confused now as he had been before. Spot did that to him sometimes. He had thought that all of the others had gone off to lunch already, and was startled when he heard a soft voice speak, breaking the silence.
"Youse not hungry, Jack?" He looked up, and saw Snoddy staring down at him questioningly.
"Naw, not really. 'M jus'
thinkin'." He replied in much the same soft tone.
"Wha'cha
thinkin' abou'?" Snoddy asked curiously.
"Not much really…" He answered, not really wanting to discuss the object of his thoughts.
"Aww… c'mon!" Snoddy persisted, putting his hands on his hips. "Youse knows youse wanna tawk abou' it." Well, it didn't really seem as if the other boy was going to go away, so…
"Aiight. If youse really wanna knows. Ise made a mistake an' Ise don' know 'ow ta fix it. I'm jus' tryin' ta t'ink of a solution."
"Ooooh. Wha' kinda mistake?"
"A big one. Wit Spot. I ain't seen 'im fer six weeks now, neahly."
"Evah try talkin' ta 'im? I've 'eard dat helps sometimes." Snoddy voice became jokingly sarcastic.
"Yeh, but youse knows how it is. 'E still didn' listen. Dis is Spot wese talkin' abou' heah." Snoddy chuckled.
"Wha'd ya do, kiss 'im or somethin'?"
"Somethin' likes dat." Jacks voice grew serious again, Snoddy's eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly. "Ehy! Ise was drunk!"
"Jack, Ise don't really care why youse kissed him. Oar whatevah. I jus' wasn' 'spectin' ta hit da nail on da head. Youse don' really strike me as dat kinda poisen." Jack kept tactfully silent. He didn't really know what he was. "I t'ink you should t'ink abou' what youse feels and den go tell Spot." Snoddy sounded confident.
"T'anks fer da advice, Snod." Jack answered truthfully.
"Oh, an' Jack? It might do ya some good ta t'ink abou' dis: when youse is drunk, sometimes youse jus' do wha' youse wan' ta do when youse sobah, but don't have da courage." Snoddy then turned to get lunch, and thought as he was leaving 'Well, Ise hopes Ise did 'im some good. Aftah all, Ise knows my shit. Seein' as me and Skits have been toggedah fer almost a yeah now.' He hurried to catch up to his partner, leaving Jack still sitting and contemplating. Jack, for his part, barely noticed Snoddy's departure, so wrapped up was he in his thoughts. He sat there in silence for some time.
***
Spot was one of those people that didn't have to think while they were selling. He let his mouth do its thing, while his brain was off thinking of something completely different. This was the way he was this particular morning. He was shouting the headline (or as close as he could and still be able to sell papers), but he was really thinking about Jack. He knew there was something….peculiar about their relationship, that there had been from the start. He was mulling over their conversation and trying to put his finger on what it was. He was still drawing a blank.
It wasn't that they weren't good friends, but sometimes it just got strained. Mostly around Sarah. Spot really, really disliked Sarah, and he didn't know why. It wasn't like she was unpleasant to him, but she was so…clingy and helpless. And Jack acted differently around her too; it was like whenever she was around he would withdraw into himself and not come out till she left. He said he loved her. Is that how you act when you're in love? 'Humph! Good thing ise ain't gonna fall in love.'
A nauseatingly truthful inner voice made itself known in his consciousness, 'But if you aren't attracted to him, why do you get so angry when she kisses him, when she touches him.' Spot balked at the idea that he would ever care about such a thing. 'So that time when you stormed all the way back to Brooklyn, didn't happen to be because Sarah and Jacky-boy were swapping large amounts of spit in a public place?'
'No!' he exclaimed to himself, 'Ise 'ad jus' lost all o' my money ta Race in Poker! Dats why ise left fer Brooklyn!'
'Sure, sure, Spotty. Whatever you say.' The voice replied patronizingly. Now, if this was anybody else, they would have already succumbed to the fact that they were attracted to Jack, but this wasn't anybody else. This was Spot. And Spot was nothing if not stubborn. He refused to acknowledge the attraction, if for the sole reason that he was determined not to let Jack have any power over him. Spot could not, would not trust anybody enough to let them control him, no matter how small the amount of control would be. But this did not mean that Spot didn't wake up some nights covered in sweat, panting, aroused and think of a certain, very male, face before pushing it away and blaming it on the hot nights and teenage hormones coursing through his body.
Spot stopped hawking mid-sentence. 'Don't think about that…just don't.' He then noticed he was receiving confused stares and resumed loudly. And then that insidious little voice came back, 'You could have stopped yourself, you know that right?'
'Huh?'
'That night you had sex with Jack. You could've stopped yourself.'
'What're youse talkin' abou' Ise was drunk! How was Ise suppose' ta know what was gonna happen?'
'Oh, don't give me that crap. You've been drunk before. And you were just intoxicated, not incapacitated.'
'If Ise hadn' been drunk, ise nevah woulda done dat!'
'I didn't say you would've had sex with him if you had been sober, I just said you could have stopped yourself…if you had wanted to.' With that last ominous comment, the voice backed down again leaving his thoughts to sputter and halt like a dying car engine.
'I…could've stopped…myself…?' How did this voice even know? And why was he listening? But the seed was there, a disturbing idea that could grow like ivy on the smooth walls he had built around himself.
Feeling more than slightly disturbed, he began to stumble back to the lodging house, his last paper having been sold minutes before.
***
It was later that evening, and everyone had settled down and fallen asleep. There where many questions as to why Specs, Dutchy and Jack had missed lunch, questions that none of them were inclined to answer. Jack himself was mentally exhausted and so had not noticed that his belt was missing. He appeared to still be deep in thought and barely smiled when Snoddy winked at him knowingly. He settled down and fell into a deep sleep almost instantly. But that did not mean that he didn't dream restlessly.
-Jack looked up. He twirled in a circle, disoriented as to where he was. He was on some sort of bridge. Oh, the Brooklyn Bridge. Why was he on the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of the night?
Then he got his answer: "Ehya dere Jacky-boy" wafted a coy voice from behind him. The only one who called him that was….
"Ehy Spot." Jack turned around and saw the boy behind him had a mischievous grin on his face. Had he been standing there this whole time…?
"Whacha doin' here Jacky-boy?" The smaller boy asked, still grinning.
"I dunno." Jack answered honestly.
"Sure ya do!" Spot replied cheerfully. And then all of a sudden Spot was kissing him, he was so startled that he almost didn't respond. Almost. The kiss was brutal and primal, their tongues met and twined. Jack roughly pushed Spot against the railing of the Bridge, ravishing the warm, red cavern of his mouth. Jack kept on hand on Spot's shoulder, pinning him to the rail, but let the other wander down the boys chest and waist, sliding up under his shirt and around to the waistband of his pants. Spot moaned into his mouth and arched his back…-
And then Jack woke up. He opened his eyes, groaned and thought in slight panic 'Why was Ise thinkin' dat? Why was Ise dreamin' dat?' He wished he could deny it, but he couldn't. That was what he wished he was doing to Spot right now, and he hoped, perversely, that when he went back to sleep, he would pick up where he had left off. Although he had realized that he did indeed want to screw Spot senseless, he was still not quite sure where that fit in with his normal life, and what it implied about him and Sarah. Eventually he fell back into a deep sleep, and did not dream again that night.
***
End Chapter 4
Notes: The voice that pops up a lot in my fics, (and will in the future I'm sure) Spots voice in this case, is my demon voice, Murray. Yes, his name is Murray. I loves him ta pieces. ..^_^.. Yaaaay!!! Stuff gets a little happier after this. Still more plot, but also they start to figure stuff out finally! Yay! Took them long enough, ne? This is prolly gonna be around 10 chapters long… so…yeah. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!!
