Chapter 5: Down by the River

Spot and the Brooklyn newsies were quite a sight, parading down the street to their lodge, half of them drunk, half of them buzzed and all of them in good humour. They ran and stumbled, jumped off barrels and jumped on the wheels of wagons carrying wagon-wheels singing ribald ballads and goofing off.

They entered the lodge tired and happy, Spot the last to enter.

"Oui, Spot, hereh." the Owner held out the wierdest thing Spot had ever seen.

It was in the shape of a heart, and it was fringed with lace, bordered in gold ribbon, and in the center was a ridiculously chubby cherub holding a golden bow, the arrow of which had a message attached. There were roses and other flowers (Spot wasn't one to be able to identify them) surrounding the fat kid with wings.

"What does it say?" Spot asked.

The Owner put on his glasses and brought the card close and read aloud, "Come to the river for a sweet surprise."

Spot expression was clearly one of, "what the hell?"

"Da person who gave it ta me to give ta you said to tell ya its fer 'Valentine's Day.' "

Spots' smirk was one of the most condescending, sarcastic smirks the Owner had ever seen.

"I see. Did 'dhis person' say where by ta Bridge?"

The Owner shook his head now, and Spot raised on eyebrow.

"I'll be back late." he announced and left the lodge.

Jack hid himself in the shadows of the bridge, and waited for the approach of Spot. To pass the time he pulled out the tin box of cegars the girl had given him.

"What was hoir name? Oh yeah, Mary."

He examined the tin closely, noting every detail down to the misprint of the shadow on the 's' of 'Hershey's.' Bored with that, he began tossing the tin in the air, and catching it just to throw it up again. He played with the different directions it could flip and waiting to the last moment before it would fall before catching it. In his game, he took of Skittery's mittens.

After a particularly bad toss and difficult catch that covered his clothes in the powder, Jack decided it was time to set up. Grabbing some sticks, he made a little hut, covered it in snow, placed the tin of chocolate, lit the candle and placed that inside too.

"Poifect

...shit! It blew out!"

Jack scrambled with his makeshift igloo, until finally he had an effective enough wind barrier. Returning to the shadows, he made himself comfortable for the wait.

Luckly, before he could get bored and distracted again, he noticed someone on the road at the top of the hill, but through the thick snowflakes and darkness it was hard to figure out if it was Spot or not.

The figure looked lost, as he kept walking back and forth and moving his head back and forth.

Jack grinned in his shadows, it was Spot. He had caught sight of the cane the newsboy carried with him.

Spot must've saw the flickering candle light, 'cause the small irish boy suddenly jumped over the curb and slip-slided down the hill.

He approached the igloo thing with a curious smirk.

Jack grin wider and more deviously as he began (silently) to gather snow.

Spot stopped a few feet from the candle to look around for its owner. As he turned his face to Jack's shadow, a perfect snowball hit him square in the face.

"Hey! Wha..." He started but Jack had sprung up and using his height and element of surprise, tacked Spot to the ground, straddeling him to keep him from moving, and proceeded to give him a thorough face-washing.

Jack had forgotten about Spot's arms; however, so was caught completely unawares by Spot's retaliation. Jack's instinct told him get the cold water out of his eyes. He raised his arms to his face to wipe, but had to lean back off Spot's hips to keep his balance.

This movement gave Spot quite a bit of freedom. When Jack's hands were not in Jack's face, Spot sprang-sat up grabbing Jack's chin with both hands and pulled their mouths together. The water began to trickle down from their sopping hair, and the two fall backwards still kissing. Jack deepened the kiss, exploring Spot's mouth, tasting the alchohol. Spot broke the kiss to run a trail of light nips and featherlight kisses down Jack's neck. At Jack throat, Spot could feel on his lips the gentle pulsating of arteries stemming from Jack's heart as it raced to catch up, and Jack marvelled at Spot's dexterity. Once Spot had traced his way back to Jack's lips, they kissed deeply again.

After quite a while, Spot asked, "And what's all dhis fer Jacky-boy?"

"Why love, its Valentine's Day! Didn't ya like da card I gave ya?"

Spot eyebrow shot up, and his smirk pouted enough to make his irresistably adorable. Jack kissed him again.

"Come on now Spot, don't be like that. I gots ya sumt'in' else too." Reaching inside the igloo, Jack pulled out the tin of chocolate segars.

Spots eyes widened, and he carefully opened the tin only to discover not segars, but a mass of melted chocolate.

He looked at Jack, "Chocolate Segars, huh?"

Jack looked crestfallen as he tried to reason out the reason, "Well I did have dhem in my pocket all day, dhen they were under da candle, which gots pretty hot..."

Spot's smirk broadened into more of a smiled, then he grinned wickedly. " 'Sokay Jacky-boy. Don't tell me dhat stuff. I've got an idea."

He dipped his finger into the melted chocolate, and scooped up the treat. He brought his finger to his mouth and cleaned it of the creamy candy. Then he leaned forward and kissed Jack, and this time Jack tasted chocolate instead of alchohol.

Together they ate the tin of chocolate, sharing the taste of it together.

Jack smiled, "Happy Valentine's Day Spot."

Author's Note,

ahaha, Jack remembered the girl's name wrong!
eee, snowballs, kisses, and chocolate!!! XDDDD
Its been fun, and I hope you enjoyed it! (let me know if you did, kay?)
(And yes, I am a very happy author right now. Things went fantastically well with the boyo!)