Title - Metamorphosis
Summary - Butch's venture at grand theft auto was futile. How does the Professor decide to penalize the boy? Why, a ride to his modest home and a hot cup of chocolate, of course.
Pairing(s) - Butch/Professor (not romantically so please negate that)
Rating - K+
Status - Oneshot; Complete
Important Notes - the professor goes shopping, runs into lil ole butch, invites him to his home. what more is there to say.
Disclaimer - i do not own The Powerpuff Girls.
XXX
The days had been flying by much faster than the Professor counted on. The other day, cleaning and dusting around the house, he happened upon a tube of lip gloss that had rolled underneath the multi-colored bed. He screamed at a pitch inaudible to humans. When the girls had fllown in and soothed him with comforting words of promising him their eternal youth and everlasting daughterhood, he went to the corner to sulk in peace.
They're still young. The Professor warily stepped into the aisle, his hands and legs wobbly.
There's still time. His eyes skimmed the line of products, each packed in shiny plastic or cheap cardboard with bright and pretty letters scattered among the horrifying pictures.
He shuddered.
Everything is going to be fine. That's what he tried to convince himself as he plucked a name brand essential from the shelf, stuffing it into his basket, which was already full of pale colored, lilac or strawberry scented shampoos and lotions and perfumes.
He ignored the looks of suspicion from the younger women in the isle and allowed the cashier to swipe all the items across the scanner. He swore he felt his worry lines deepening as he pulled out a fifty dollar bill to pay for the cosmetics and miscellaneous products.
"Here's your change," the cashier handed him a ten dollar bill and some change. She looked a bit young, too. Maybe she was in her late teens or early twenties, it seemed. He briefly wondered if her father had ever gone through this when she, too, had come of age as he carried his bags out the door.
The tingle of a cold wetness that smacked his face was enough to tell him that it was raining. Quite heavily, too. The sound of the rain punching against the concrete was calling out for attention. The smell of the mist was also rather obnoxious, but it put him at ease. Maybe tonight would be a good night.
He popped open a gray umbrella. He'd expected it to rain earlier today, but he supposed it was a little later than previously scheduled. While he hobbled on through the eery parking lot and the ruthless storm, he finally made it to his beaten up, splodgy white car, when he noticed a peculiar figure by the driver's side.
It had to be a teenager. A boy, definitely. He looked about thirteen; the girls' age. Cloaked in a thick black hoodie, the teen was furiously shoving a hanger into the crease of the window. The Professor was still for some long moments, watching this boy grunt and flinch violently in his futile attempt at grand theft auto.
He didn't feel threatened by the child. "Hello," he said, smiling teasingly, and the boy made a breathy sound of surprise, "Are you having trouble there?"
The boy turned to face the Professor, but his hoodie still hung over part of his face. Though, from what he could see, this kid had abnormally green eyes. A dark green, but it retained a faint glow in the darkness of their setting. The boy was breathing unevenly and he looked a bit less frightened and a bit more infuriated. He calmed down a little, his hunched shoulders relaxing. "I've seen you before," the boy said, squinting his glowing eyes into slits.
The Professor thought that the feeling was mutual. He was one of those, uh, Rough Boys, was it? Something like that. He didn't care much for the title. What was his name? Of course it began with a B. Was it Brutus? No. Definitely not. It has too much literary background to even be considered as a name for one of these boys.
He realized he'd been pondering for a while when the boy spoke up again. "Ah, yeah. You're that scientest dude. The one that hangs out around the Powerpuffs." The boy scoffed and turned back to the window of the driver's seat. "Gives me even more of a reason to steal this car."
"What's your name?" the Professor asked, deciding he didn't really care that this boy was trying to rob him. His efforts were fruitless either way.
"The name's Butch. Don't wear it out," he replied gruffly, making another noise of frustration when his hanger snapped in half. He was getting soaked in rain. He pulled the hanger from the slit of the window, threw it to the ground with mighty force and then he leaned against the car, buring his face in his arms, seemingly defeated.
"It's not healthy to be out in the rain like this," the Professor remarked.
"Yeah, well, I ain't got any umbrella, so I don't have much of a choice there." Butch's tone was sharp and hostile.
The Professor sighed and moved to the trunk. He tossed in the bags, slammed the trunk door down, and then said to Butch, "Come here."
Butch raised his head, staring at the man with irregularity.
Seeing that he was too shocked to answer, the Professor motioned with his hand and repeated, "Come on."
"What – What d'you mean?"
The Professor walked over and handed the umbrella to a dripping and confused Butch, opening the car door with his keys and quickly shuffling into the driver's seat. He rolled down the window, and said to the teen, "Hop in the shotgun." He rolled the window back up. Within a couple of seconds, Butch's silhouette moved out of view.
The passenger seat's door clicked open. The sound of an umbrella flop closed was heard as the Professor shifted the keys into ignition. The wet fabric of Butch's clothes compressed under his weight and dripped a puddle into his seat and onto the floor of the car. Butch was frowning at his feet, arms crossed, making sure not to engage in eye contact. He squished and squeezed the sleeves that his hands were stuffed into to release the access liquid, and the engine roared, or rather, croaked. It was an old car.
They drove in silence.
...
Butch guessed the house was quite modest. The polished and porcelain furniture was set in such a neat way, it angered and soothed him simultaneously. It was much larger inside than it portrayed with its exterior. If he looked up at the railing of the second floor from where he sat on the plump, comfy white couch, he could see a pale-pink colored door. He assumed it was the girls'.
He scoffed, slouching in his seat.
It was still raining outside. The 'pricks' of the raindrops on the transparent door that led to the backyard was testing Butch's patience. He began to bob his knee.
He could hear some rustling in the kitchen, and the light from there flickered off. The Professor walked through the arch with two mugs in each hand. He held one out for Butch to take.
Butch didn't move a muscle and, with a nasty grimace on his face, looked the man up and down. "What is that," he blankly asked.
"Just try it." He thrusted the mug forward a little, urging Butch to take it.
Slowly, hesitantly, he raised his arm and grasped the mug's handle. He took in the scent, and found that his mouth was already watering. How long had he been so hungry? "Hot chocolate," Butch said, taking a small breath, "How'd you know I like chocolate?"
The Professor sat down on the other couch, opposite from Butch, and set his mug on the coffee table between them. He adjusted his labcoat subconsciously, smiling amicably. "You remind me of Buttercup in more ways than one."
Gag me. Butch made a noise of disgust. Speak of the she-devils, they seemed to be absent. "Where are they, anyway?" he grumbled.
"Nextdoor." When Butch still appeared confused, the Professor added, "Sleepover."
"Gross."
Butch guessed he looked pretty darn funny, because the Professor kept snickering at him. The squarish man ceased his laughter and looked the teen in the eye for a moment. "I'd personally like to know what you were doing out in the rain."
Butch was quiet for a long moment, simply staring at the smudgy marshmallows floating in the swirly chocolate within the mug.
"You know, you could get ill with such little protection." The man was looking at him, genuinely concerned, and it only confused him.
"I couldn't fly. I was bored," Butch answered quickly, sipping his hot chocolate. He suppressed any pleasant facial expressions he might've made from the sheer deliciousness of the substance.
"And that boredom pressed you to try and hijack a car?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you just break the window?"
Butch paused, favoring him once more with a bewildered expression. "I figured a car like that had an alarm. I wasn't in the mood to make a scene tonight."
Now it was the Professor's turn to be surprised. "Really?"
Butch scowled. "What? I can't have my off days now?"
"Everyone can. But I've just never seen you have one." When Butch didn't respond again, the Professor said, "I hope you know that you can talk to me. You may have done many bad things in your life, but I think there's more to you than that."
Butch breathed through his nose, averting his eyes. "And what if there isn't."
"There's always more to a person than you'd think." The man shrugged, that friendly ol' smile plastered onto his visage. "You've just got to give them a chance and, sure enough, a flower will bloom from what was thought to be infertile soil."
"I'm not gonna pretend I know what that means," Butch remarked. "Your geekiness is sorta pissin' me off."
"I get that a lot," the Professor was unfazed. "But if you'd consider it, I'd sure be grateful."
Butch was quieter today than usual. He was doing more thinking, which he didn't usually do. He took a ride from the guardian and creator of his blood rivals, which he didn't usually do. And, looking back, there was no one else to turn to.
"...My brothers and I had a fight," he admitted, his voice plain and vacant.
"Brick and Boomer, is it?" the Professor asked, joining his hands.
He looked to be listening intently, so Butch continued. "I felt angry today. It was just...one of them days where I didn't wanna talk, or eat, or do anythin', really." He felt a kind of pain welling up in his chest as he talked. "They kept asking what the deal was, why I wasn't up to joining them. I guess I snapped, I shoved at Boomer. I didn't want to. But he was just...so hellbent on knowing what was wrong with me that I..."
The Professor waited, and then pressed him on. "You...?"
"I punched him. Pretty hard, too. I said things I didn't mean. Cliche, huh? He looked so sad, it got me angrier. So I just left. Told them I wasn't coming back. I couldn't fly through the rain, so I stopped at a random parking lot outside of a supermarket and tried to break into the first car I saw." Butch stopped to take a lengthy sip of his warm, savory hot chocolate.
The Professor's expression had long since softened. Butch didn't know why. "Do you know why you might've felt so angry?" he asked Butch.
He paused, and thought about it. "I...No. I don't know."
The Professor said nothing, deciding to see if he would continue.
He continued, alright. "What are ya, anyway? Some kinda psychologist?"
The Professor merely blinked, stunted for a short second. Butch supposed it was because of his use of such a big word. He caught a thing or two from his older brother. Though, he almost choked on air trying to pronounce it as it was.
"I'm not, actually," the Professor said, catching Butch's attention again, "But...If I was to be honest with you..."
Butch bristled in his seat.
"I've noticed the same type of behavior in Buttercup for a long while now."
Butch's face reddened. The fact alone that he and that wench had anything in common heightened his blood pressure.
But the conversation took a very sharp turn from there when the Professor enunciated his particularly uncomfortable theory.
"Your body is changing."
"Oh my God."
"It's normal, it's normal! Your hormones are firing up at this point in your life –"
"Stop."
"Your emotions are going out of control –"
"I'm warning you."
"It's all a part of nature, really." The Professor gloated, chuckling, "Why, even I went through quite the rebellious phase, if I do say so myself –"
"Oh my God."
The Professor smiled; Butch had shriveled up and slouched where he sat, hunching up his shoulders and meekly holding the mug. He was a young boy, after all. The only guardians he had to guide him through the process of puberty were a compulsive talking chimp and the Devil, for crying out loud.
"You said that the Buttercup chick is acting the same as me, yeah?" Butch indignantly asked the man.
The Professor nodded his head. "Yes."
"So...She's goin' through the thing as me?"
"Yes. Well...No. Not exactly."
Butch didn't understand. "And what's up with all them potato chip bags you bought?"
"Potato chip bags," the Professor repeated. "Oh, dear."
...
They talked.
They talked for so long.
The night seemed to waste away. Butch couldn't understand how he could possibly have so much to talk about with a middle aged scientist. But, truthfully, it wasn't much of conversation as it was a series of questions that spiraled into different topics that had nothing to do with the original question.
But it was getting late. It was almost midnight. Around this time, Butch would usually see Boomer snuggling into the puffy covers on one of the beaten up couches that Mojo had in his backroom. Brick was have his own couch, too, and he would take his cap off and hold it to his chest like a stuffed animal, but he refused to see it that way. Butch was on another couch, where he would watch his brothers fall asleep before himself.
They were at their calmest then. During the night, he and his brothers would give up their crazed, destructive exterior until the next sunrise. Because, at night, there was no one to watch them and expect anything else of them. They felt normal at night. They felt...carefree, so to say.
Butch still wanted something to punch. He always did. The rush of adrenaline when his knuckles crashed against another object and the skin tore and his blood ran; it was too powerful a feeling to ignore. It was probably innate. However, he didn't feel like it right now. He didn't feel like being angry again. He liked where he was at this moment.
But it was getting late, and, for the first time in his life, he actually cared.
The Professor noticed his drooping, dimming eyes. "I think you should go home, Butch."
Butch took a slow breath. "Okay."
...
It had stopped raining outside. All that was left was the humid, moist air and the scent of the chemicals in the acid rain. The air howled as Butch stepped onto the cobblestone path. He stared ahead, and then looked back at the Professor, who was standing by the door and returning his glance. The leaves rustled in the trees.
Butch's throat clogged up. He didn't know what to say. What was there to say? He stood there for hours, it appeared.
He thought of his brothers. The rigid and tattered couches they slept on. This weird sloshing that he felt in his stomach. Buttercup, even, and how their conducts paralleled each other's. The Professor and his unnerving optimism.
He felt different. Not too different, but different nonetheless.
He still didn't know what to say. His mouth was slightly parted, indicating that he wanted to speak, but he couldn't. He pressed his lips into a thin line and shook his head, preparing to leave.
"Butch."
He halted when the Professor called his name.
"You're welcome."
The front door closed shut.
...
Butch needed to go home.
Yes. He would go home. He would tell Boomer that he wasn't leaving. That he was never going to, anyway. He couldn't leave. And he would see the look of relief in Boomer's eyes and the simmer of Brick's temper. Maybe tonight he wouldn't take hours to fall asleep. Maybe.
He just wanted to go home.
END
headcanon: butch and the professor have a secret father-son type of relationship that sometimes neutralizes butch's impulsive tendencies.