Erm….ooookay…another Sprx/Nova one shot, 'cos I'm a sucker for the pairing…and oh, look, I was actually intelligent enough to put up the fact that it was a one shot this time! Oh, I love one shots indeed I do…

Heh, the ending is a bit weird but if you've read the fic carefully then you should be able to grasp why I've ended it like that…but most importantly of all, fellow monkey lovers, enjoy!

The fluffy whiteness dripped onto the young girl's tongue as she swallowed the icy mouthful with relish. She then brought her young arm up to her face to slurp off the reminder of the treat that had somehow managed to reach her wrist and was gushing down it in a snowy fountain.

Nova shuddered. How could anyone eat that stuff?

Unfortunately, ice cream was all the rage now that Shuggazoom was experiencing a heat wave. Everywhere the yellow monkey looked, she could see greedy eyes and sticky chins. She watched disgusted, as one overweight man stuffed a double toffee sundae into his mouth, wafer and all. Indeed, she almost wrenched when she witnessed him practically choking on the glass container. Sighing, she hurried over and whacked him on the back with one of her enlarged hands causing a few splinters of the substance to whiz out of in mouth in powerful, choked wheezes.

The man blinked down at her blurrily.

"Hey there, monkey!"

He reached down to pet her head in the way in which someone might pat their dog. Nova squeaked as the man's dripping fingers came into view and quickly dashed off as dollops of ice cream splashed down in the place she had been inhabiting seconds ago. She twisted this way and that, rapidly serving to avoid people's legs and narrowly missing an ice cream van by mere inches. Gasping, she abruptly turned off down an alley way, praying that there were no more ice cream guzzlers. Seeing no one, she allowed herself a sigh of relief.

"Hey there, gorgeous!"

Nova sputtered incoherently as Sprx stepped out from behind a trash can, a large vanilla flavoured cone being perfectly balanced in his hand. However this display was completely ruined by the fact that the half of the original amount of the snack was smeared all over his mouth and halfway up his face. His tongue flicked out, scooping up another nibblet of ice cream into his mouth.

Nova stared at him in unmasked disgust before folding her arms in contempt.

"How can you eat that stuff!" she demanded, hotly.

Sprx frowned.

"Excuse me?"

"It's cold and icky and urgh!" Nova spat, shuddering slightly.

The red monkey stared at her incredulously.

"Are you serious? You mean to tell me that you don't actually like ice cream?"

"Like it? Like it! I HATE IT!" screeched Nova, her hackles bristling like a ferocious, untamed alley cat.

Sprx raised an eyebrow. 'Feisty' he thought before dismissing the word from his mind and staring down at the spitting female. A serious look appeared in his eyes.

"Right. You. Me. Ice cream. Now." he commanded, pointing to Nova and then himself and the cone he was holding, in correspondence to his words.

Now it was Nova's turn to look incredulous.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I know a nice little ice cream parlour, two blocks away from here," he said casually, firmly directing her out into the open and down the street.

Nova blinked, trying to wash away the stinging sunlight out of her eyes as they walked down the road, hand in hand. She was wondering why she hadn't yet clobbered him, deciding that it was the shock of him speaking to her like some form of dictator that was distracting her from her usual Sprx induced rage. Wait…they were walking hand in hand? Suddenly her face froze as her eyes wandered down her arm to where they widened upon seeing that her hand was firmly connected to Sprx. Haltingly they travelled up to Sprx's face. He was staring straight ahead determinedly, although she noted that his cheeks seemed to be stained a darker hue of red than the rest of him was. And now that she was concentrating on the warm sensation of his hand wrapped around hers, she could feel strange, sharp tingles racing up her arms, rocking her breathing into an unsteady pattern. With a thin intake of breath, she yanked her hand out of Sprx's grasp fiercely, trying to ignore the feeling of loss she experienced.

The red monkey didn't falter though she could have sworn she saw a flicker of disappointment race through his eyes and hear an inaudible sigh issue from between his lips.

"Well…we're here…"

She blinked at his voice before staring at the garishly decorated window display where rainbow coloured images of assorted flavours twinkled back at her merrily. The next second Sprx had swung open the door and whisked her inside, steering her towards a round table for two by the window.

"Wait here", he muttered out of the corner of his mouth before marching up to the counter.

Nova gazed down at the brightly chequered table cloth admirably, raising her head up suddenly when she heard a squawk from the shopkeeper and a loud crash. Her mouth dropped open as she saw Sprx lumbering over to her, pushing along the entire refrigerator that housed a vast collection of ice cream tubs.

"Don't worry, I'll give it back after I've finished!" he called over his shoulder to the woman who was making flustered movements with her hands.

Nova waved awkwardly at her before glaring at Sprx.

"What in the name of Shuggazoom do you think you're doing?" she hissed venomously.

Sprx grinned at her, not in slightest bit ashamed or abashed.

"I'm going to cure you!" he announced happily.

"What?"

"Having a hatred of possibly the best medicine for fried monkey brain, isn't very healthy you know!" he remarked cheerfully, while dumping every single tub of ice cream in front her and prying of the lids. He then whisked a large spoon from nowhere while smirking evilly.

"And eating it isn't?" asked Nova eying the spoon apprehensively.

Sprx handed her the spoon, still smirking, while indicating the collection of ice cream with his eyes. Nova glared at him.

"What's to stop me shoving this spoon down your throat!" she demanded heatedly.

"Well I don't know about you, but having a spoon in my gullet doesn't boost my sex appeal. It doesn't exactly make me very kissable either…unless you're into that kind of thing…" Sprx remarked shrugging, just before letting a yelp escape him and ducking under the table as a spoon came clattering down against it.

"Can I come out?" he asked, his muffled voice sounding quite scared much to Nova's eternal satisfaction.

"Depends on how you feel about the afterlife", she remarked grimly, picking up the spoon again. She observed the tubs of ice cream with a bored expression before shrugging and shovelling one end of the spoon into the nearest one. The yellow monkey then stuffed it into her mouth, her face softening the next second as her expression morphed into one of sheer delight.

"oooooooooo!" she squeaked while hastily digging into the sweet with renewed vigour.

Hearing the joyful squeal, Sprx peered out from under the table cautiously before grinning at the spectacle of Nova munching heartily on the object of her hatred.

"This is really good!" she informed him excitedly, her anger previously forgotten as she gulped down mouthful after mouthful, "what is it?"

Sprx peered closely at the label on the side of the plastic container, sweat dropping at the way it shook frantically under Nova's actions.

"Strawberry", he told her before his face lit up, "hey!"

Nova paused, staring at him.

"Hey, what?

"Strawberries are red!"

There was a long silence.

"Well done Sprx", said Nova finally, returning her attention back to the ice cream.

"No! Don't you get it? You love strawberry ice cream! And strawberries are red!" he cried out, puffing out his chest like a well pumped balloon as though hoping she would notice something.

"Yeah…so?"

"Well, I'm-I mean my colour…my fur you see, it's red like strawberries…" he faded off as he received nothing more than a blank look from her.

"So you've managed to work out what colour you are. Guess you're brain developmental progress is starting to speed up. With any luck, it'll fill up your empty skull within the next millennium."

Sprx slumped back on his chair with a groan.

"Never mind."

Nova shrugged before continuing to eat more strawberry ice cream.

The male opposite her cracked open one eye to watch her silently. After a few minutes he smiled and sat up properly again, flashing both eyes open in high spirits.

"Hey", he said softly.

She looked up again, puzzled by the tenderness of his tone and froze like a rabbit in oncoming headlights when she saw something in his eyes that scared her.

Sprx smiled at her fondly as he noted her wide, wild eyes, that could portray so much emotion in a single heartbeat and observed the way she was hunched over her precious carton of ice cream, her tail curled neatly round her hind limbs in a petite fashion. Pink was smeared all over her mouth, the only thing that betrayed her new obsession but even that made her look…well, nothing less than adorable in Sprx's opinion.

"You've got ice cream on your mouth", he murmured, crawling over the table to close the distance between them.

"Sprx…what are you doing?" questioned Nova, partly excited, partly unsure as the spoon started to shake nervously in her trembling hand.

"Cleaning you up", he whispered before crushing his lips to hers in a swift, yet gentle movement.

The spoon clattered to the floor.

Nova felt her mind swimming as he pulled her up onto the table with him, arms tightening around her small body as he kept up the kiss. She started to respond weakly, her shaking arms pulling her towards him even more as they crawled around his neck. He made a happy sound as he felt her joining in and grasped her all the more firmly.

A few ice cream cartons were knocked to the ground.

Eventually he pulled back, licking the circumference of her mouth to rid it of all traces of pink before grinning at her.

"All clean!"

He faltered a little as he saw the stunned look in her eyes and quickly lowered his own gaze.

"I'm sorry Nova, I shouldn't-"

The female stared at him in disbelief as he tried to mutter an apology before deciding that yes, Sprx was right. She did like ice cream. And it was a good cure. But not for fried monkey brains. Denial maybe?

"Sprx?" she interrupted.

He halted in the middle of his garbled sentences and watched her curiously.

"Yes?"

"…you know, you still have ice cream on your face…"

He grinned and moved forwards again. This time there was no hesitation on either side as the taste of strawberry and vanilla ice cream was mixed.