She was cold. No, she was very cold. No, she was freezing. Frigid? Icy? Chilly? Frosty? Hyperborean? Geez, why wasn't she able to find a word strong enough for it?

Blossom was sitting on her bed huddled under nearly every blanket in the house. For the past hour she had been perusing different dictionary and thesaurus sites, trying to find the best synonym for the word 'cold'. Her quest had come to naught; there was not a single word that could accurately describe how she felt at the moment. She threw her laptop down on the ground, then instantly regretted it when she heard a small 'crack' as it landed. Well, shoot, she would just have to fix it later. She had no trouble fixing electronics; Buttercup constantly broke her phone and computer, so Blossom had had plenty of practice with fixing them. No, the problem was getting her hands to stop shaking with cold long enough to actually get things done.

Needless to say, Blossom was miserable. This had been going on for weeks, and it was only getting worse. Her sisters didn't have to go through crap like this, so why did she?

As the girls grew older they grew stronger, and with every growth spurt they had, they each experienced a sudden increase in their powers, especially those 'special abilities' they possessed. Blossom eventually got to the point where her ice breath had turned into general icy awesomeness that she could summon at any point with little effort. She had openly laughed when Frozen came to theaters in Townsville. Elsa had nothing on her.

Of course, though, that had to come with a price. Each growth spurt saw Blossom huddled up next to a heater as her body cooled beyond human possibility. There was even one awful year where it happened in February and had given her hypothermia. She couldn't fight or go to school for a week.

When she and her sisters turned fifteen, the Professor assured them that the sudden growth spurts were over. They were grown enough that any further growth would be gradual. No more sudden, miserable bursts of power.

So why the heck was it happening again? She hadn't experience cold like this since the eighth grade. FOUR FREAKING YEARS AGO. And she swore this time was worse. Her lips were turning blue, there were signs of mild frostbite on her nose and fingers, and all the heaters and blankets in the house were doing nothing for her. Not to mention that it was the hottest July the city had experienced in years and the AC was off.

The Professor was freaking out. Bubbles and Buttercup had sacrificed the sheets and comforters off their own beds to bury Blossom in. There were two heaters pointing at her. And yet, nothing. She hadn't stopped shivering in a week and a half, and it had been snowing in her room for the past four days.

From inside her cotton cave, Blossom could hear the muffled sound of the hotline ringing. Strange, there hadn't been an attack in a couple of weeks. It was simply too hot outside; villains and monsters alike were unwilling to venture out into the sweltering heat. Oh, what Blossom wouldn't give to be one of them right now, lying around and complaining about the warmth of the summer months.

She could hear Bubbles answering the hotline, and telling Buttercup about the Rowdyruffs robbing a bank downtown. Blossom popped her head out and told them to wait up for her before beginning the unnecessarily complicated process of extricating herself from her blanket pile.

Both of her sisters looked wary, and when Blossom made it out and said, "Let's go," Buttercup reached out to stop her.

"You sure about this, Bloss? You don't look so good," the brunette said. Bubbles agreed with her.

Blossom only smiled and flew to the closet to dig out her coat. "Absolutely. Maybe moving around will help. Besides, you have to handle Butch and Boomer already. I'm not gonna dump Brick on you guys, too. It's not fair. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine." She shot out the window in a flash of pink, and her sisters, after sharing a look of concern, followed.

The boys weren't exactly hard to find, and the girls wasted no time in going after them. They didn't even stop to exchange insults - after years fighting each other, they had completely run out of original put-downs. Instead, they simply launched into battle.

For a few moments there was complete chaos as loud bangs and flashes of light rained down around them. Blossom felt a hand twist into her hair, and suddenly she was being dragged up towards the sky. Before she could pull herself away, she was slammed down on top of a building. Something landed on top of her, and she looked up to find furious red eyes only inches from her own.

She tensed as she prepared for the beatdown that was surely coming, and it was a few moments before she realized that Brick had moved away. Seizing the opportunity Blossom stood up and set herself in a fighting position. She tugged at the collar of her coat mindlessly. Dang, it was really warm out here.

Wait.

It was warm?

She looked down at her midsection in confusion as two arms wrapped around her and pinned her own arms to her side. A gravelly voice sounded next to her ear.

"Damn, pinky. You're freezing."

"What the heck! Let me go," she protested as she began to furiously struggle against his hold.

"Calm down, it's not like I want to do this. Something happened to my fuckin' powers and I've been hotter than hell for the past week, and not in the good way. I tried to rig the air conditioner to get even colder, but then I broke it and can't fix it and now we need money to pay the damn repairman. What are you, made of ice or somethin'? This is the most comfortable I've been since...well, it's been a while."

Something in the tone of his voice was very familiar to Blossom. If she didn't know any better, she would have said that he sounded almost desperate. Her eyebrows furrowed as she asked, "You too?"

"Me too what?"

"Something happened to your powers too? Something that hasn't happened in years?"

"Well, yeah. I kinda just said that, didn't I? Wait, how did you know that it's been years?"

His grip loosened, and she turned around and took a step back to look him in the eyes once more. "Because it happened to me too! Well, kinda. I'm having the opposite problem. But that's probably because I control ice, and you, well, you know, have that thing with the fire."

She took another step back and, as if to prove her point, goosebumps appeared on her arm and she began to shiver slightly.

Brick took a deep breath and, with a look of revulsion, said, "Alright, here's the deal. In light of what's going on, how 'bout we just sit this one out?"

"Fine by me," Blossom replied, and she walked over to the edge of the building and sat down, swinging her legs over the side and peering down of the fights going on below. Brick set himself down on her right, their arms just barely touching. Under normal conditions Blossom wouldn't have tolerated being so close to him unless it was necessary to win a fight, but, she had to admit, he was right. He was radiating heat like crazy, and this was the first time in days that she could sit without shivering. Heck, after a minute or two she even had to take her coat off. Granted, she was still wearing a sweatshirt and the day still felt much colder than it should, but hey, at least she wasn't dying, right?

"Question," he said after another moment of staring down at their brawling siblings below.

"Shoot."

"Why have we been fighting each other for this long if we know neither side can win?"

Blossom paused at his question. She had never thought about it before, but - dare she say it? - he had a point. "I...I don't know," she answered eventually. He grunted in response, then fell silent once more.

Unable to help herself, she turned her head to look first at him, then down at the place where their arms were touching. She gasped, and nearly fell off the building. Brick looked over and saw it too, the steam rising from the space between them. Her eyes met his, her panic reflected in his expression, and both stood up.

"Well, thanks, but I really should get going," she said as she hastily backed away and took off towards her house, leaving her coat behind.

Two days had passed since her encounter with Brick, and Blossom was back to her shivering, frozen state. Once more she had retreated into her blanket pile, and, to her horror, was beginning to consider hunting Brick down just so she could freaking warm up again. She hated him with every fiber of her being, and the memory of sitting next to him made her cringe inwardly every time she thought about it, but the warmth from their meeting had held for a good few hours last time, and she was willing to deal with Brick if it meant gaining feeling back in her fingers.

Suddenly, she heard the hotline ringing and one of her sisters - Buttercup this time - zooming over to answer. Blossom emerged from her cave to find her green-eyed sister slamming the phone back down. Buttercup looked up at her sisters and ran her hand through her hair.

"It's those fucking-"

"Buttercup!"

"Sorry, freaking Rowdyruffs again. They're not even doing anything productive, like stealing. They're just blowing things up near the mayor's office."

Bubbles sighed and turned to Blossom to ask, "Do you feel up to going, or do you want to stay here?"

"I'm fine," Blossom told her, a little too happily. She crossed her fingers that Brick was still in the same boat that she was in, and that she might get a brief reprieve from the cold. "Let's just go before they do anything else."

As one, the three sisters dashed out of the house and towards the mayor's office downtown.

Upon arrival, the girls found their targets zooming around and causing random explosions, just as Buttercup said they were. They split off into their usual fighting pairs, and once more Blossom found herself being dragged away from the others. This time, however, she went a lot more willingly, though if anyone asked her about it she would never admit it.

She was thrown against a wall, though, she noticed, it was much less forceful than the time previous. She stood and turned to face Brick, standing defensively but not yet attacking. "Look," she said, "I know we hate each other, but if I'm being honest-"

"Just shut up and sit down. I didn't blow up half the town to talk to you. Our air conditioning is back, but it ain't doin' its job well enough and I'm hotter than a bitch."

Blossom held back a smile at his obvious frustration, and did as she was told. They were sitting atop the same building as before, staring once more at their siblings throwing each other around the city and trying to ignore the strange steam rising between them. And, once again, Brick felt the need to break the silence.

"Hey, pinky."

"Don't call me that.'

"Sorry. I just wanted to know if you wanted any gum."

She turned and narrowed her eyes at him, shaking her head with contempt. "No, I don't want any gum."

He shrugged. "Well, you could use it."

She turned and smacked his arm, hard. He let out a snort of laughter.

"Fine," she said. "Give me a piece of stupid gum."

He smiled down at her. "Oh, I don't have any. I just thought you could use it."

She punched his arm again, then stood up to walk away. She changed her mind; the warmth really wasn't worth spending time with Brick.

He was still laughing as he said, "No, wait, come back. I didn't mean it," and reached out to grab her wrist to stop her from leaving. He missed and grabbed her hand instead, which caused both of them to freeze and stare at their hands. She jerked her hand away, and Brick did the same, shoving his in his pocket. Blossom did, however, return to her spot on the side of the building, her cheeks slightly tinged with pink.

"Aw, look, she's blushing. Guess the name pinky really does suit you, doesn't it?"

"Shut up. At least I'm not trying to hold anyone's hand."

"I-I wasn't trying to...it's your fault. You were walking away, which is really working against both of our interests."

"I'm just fine on my own, thanks."

He turned to her, his eyebrows raised and his eyes questioning.

"Shut up," she mumbled again.

This time they both stayed until the fight below them died out. As their siblings separated, Blossom and Brick stood up and began to move away from each other. Blossom had just began to float away when Brick called out to her.

"Hey, Pinky."

She turned and folded her arms. "What?"

"Same time tomorrow?"

His question threw her off. Did she want to meet him again? Was it worth it?

He smiled at her, and, embarrassingly, her cheeks warmed slightly once more. "I'll take that as a 'yes' then," he said, and flew away.

Okay, I know that at one point I said that if I started another story, it would be more along the Butch/Buttercup lines, but I thought of this last night and I just couldn't leave it alone, you know what I mean? I just love Blossick stories, they're my favorite. Besides, it's likely that I'll just forget about this and leave it as a one-shot anyways. Sorry if it seems rushed, or if there's a lot of mistakes. I wrote this kind of quickly, and I did read over it, but that doesn't mean I caught everything. Let me know if you see anything I can fix! Thanks!

Oh, also, I feel a little ridiculous using terms like "Blossick," "Butchercup," etc. I really don't like typing them. For some reason it makes me cringe just a little bit. Am I the only one who feels like that? I know that it's a ship and all, and that's just what you're supposed to do so the people of the fandom know what they're getting into, but I really just hate using them. Is that just me?

-ICantThinkofanOriginalName-