#I first wanted Swifty or Bumlets to put a flower behind Skittery's ear but wasn't really working

[chaosfairy18]

Swifty and Bumlets sell together, which means passer bys are always in for the charm of the pair of them. Their kind smiles and charming personalities coming forth to woo whoever into buying a pape. Ocassionally they pick wild flowers to hand out with the papers, their charm not immune to even husbands running late from work, "and a flower for the other half?" Swifty asks and who would be a fool to not fall for their perfectly worked out salespitch, even coming back to the lodging house with a few flowers left over :)

Took a bit to answer because I really wanted to write something with it because it's just so cute! I'd look forward to ideas like this in my askbox more often, I just love my boys. Not quite happy with the end, but it's still nice

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While Skittery, Bumlets and Swifty were inseparable on most occasions, selling wasn’t one of them. As Tumbler was both difficult to keep track of and very attached to Skittery, it was easiest to have their littlest little sell with Skittery which also immensely increased the often grouchy boy’s sales as he had the cutest kid with the biggest pleading eyes with him.

Since 4 newsies selling close to one place really wasn’t profitable, they split up in groups of two most of the time, Bumlets and Swifty as well as Tumbler and Skittery – sometimes Flipper begged Bumlets to sell with him, but that wasn’t too often. The thing about Bumlets and Swifty selling together was that they could both talk their way out of most trouble and knew how to use those charms well for selling too.

And as much as Bumlets usually didn’t need to talk himself out of trouble, he had more than enough use for his charms with bailing Swifty out too, if need be.

But that day there hadn’t been any trouble – Bumlets just turned a blind eye as Swifty lifted a passerby of his pocket watch because no matter how often he told him it was dangerous, he wouldn’t stop anyways – instead of trouble they actually found themselves selling even better than usual. They sold close to a park and, thinking back to his parents and how his mother had loved it if his father had come home with a flower he’d picked up on the way home from work, Bumlets thought they might even make a good selling day into a great one.

He and Swifty gathered some of the wildflowers growing in the grass, enjoying the rare minutes in nature in a city as big and bustling as New York before going back to work.

“Miss, care for a pape and a flower?”, Bumlets asked a well-dressed young lady walking by, upselling his sales pitch with: “I’d even give you two flowers, one couldn’t possibly match your beauty, Miss.”

She giggled, flattered, and took the pape and flowers for two pennies, holding both close to her heart and smiling even wider as Bumlets slightly bowed to her with a grin before going back to selling. Skittery would probably say something about overselling it, but she was a pretty lady, and no one had to know he’d never do more than exchange some flowery words for he already had someone.

“A pape fer yourself and a flower for the other half?”, he heard Swifty call out to a man passing by him who quickly stopped, looking surprised for a moment before switching to relief.

“Exactly what I need right now, kid. Might make her less mad I couldn’t get outta work sooner.”

He took the newspaper and flowers and Swifty called after him: “Good luck on that, mister!” It made Bumlets smile, even if he saw Swifty grab a note poking out of some bank worker’s pocket with the hand he wasn’t waving after the man who’d just bought the pape from him.

They sold all of their papes and most of the flowers by evening and after stopping by where Swifty usually peddled his ‘extra earnings’ and made them into money, they walked back to the lodge, Bumlets carefully holding the few flowers they had left. They still looked nice, and he was sure Kloppman would appreciate them.

He gave the superintendent all of them except two, hiding them away quickly, and Kloppman shook his head trying to find a small vase in his cupboards. Leaving him to it, Bumlets pulled Swifty over to where Skittery sat at the windowsill, keeping watch over Tumbler playing swords with Les.

Before he could react, Bumlets pushed one of the flowers in his hand, the other going to Swifty. “Hope your day was good.”

“Just got better.”, Skittery murmured, looking at the small red flower, turning it in his hand. “Thanks, Bum.”