Blue Bruise
Peering out the window, Boomer watches the trees pitch violently against the winter winds. Summer had been unnaturally warm that year with temperatures just shy of unbearable. It was so hot that summer couldn't contain it and the heat spilled over into the next season. As a result, the leaves were scorched red and yellow and orange while the tree barks burned black in the heat. It wasn't until November that the temperature finally let up. Now, the cold winds howled down the streets to make up for being held at bay for so long.
Unfortunately for Bubbles, the sudden change in climate made her sick.
Fortunately for Bubbles, Boomer swears to take care of her until she gets better. He knows that when she wakes up, she'll thank him with a bright smile and say his name with that wonderful laugh in her voice. And when she does, he'll grin back and give her the biggest hug she's ever received.
"Boomer!"
His extra-sensitive hearing picked her voice out from the swelling hum of voices in the airport. Before he had the chance to look for her, she crashed into his side and encircled his waist with her arms. He looked down and blushed at the sight of her dazzling smile. His mind went blank momentarily before it rebooted and he quickly disentangled himself from her.
"Bubbles, please." he said half-jokingly. "This is a public area."
She laughed and his heart skipped a beat. "How was your semester abroad in Germany?"
"It was good. Their chemical engineering program was better than I thought it'd be."
"So you're definitely going to college there then?"
He nodded and pulled his suitcase along with him as they walked out the gates, stopping in front of a sleek black car. They both climbed in after placing the luggage in the trunk. Brick sat behind the wheel and Boomer was mildly surprised to see Blossom in the front seat.
Blossom smiled at him and asked, "How was your trip?"
"Good." Boomer responded. "It was good."
"I'm so happy you're back!" Bubbles exclaimed, hugging him tightly. "I missed you so much." Blossom laughed at her sister's antics, eyes discreetly flickering to Brick who was busy adjusting the rear-view mirror.
"Er, yeah." Boomer chanced a peek at the driver's seat and caught the reflection of Brick's intense eyes boring into him in the rear-view mirror. The warning in those red eyes was unmistakable. "I missed you too." he said, carefully placing an arm around Bubbles under the disapproving eyes of his oldest brother.
Boomer throws another blanket over her body and tucks the corners in. "You have to stay warm, Bubbles." he says quietly, affectionately. "You can't get better if you don't."
He tucks her limp blonde hair behind her ears (careful or you might tug it off like last time. She'll be mad if you do it again). He colors boyishly and softly whispers, "I'm going to kiss you now. I've always wanted to kiss you." His fingers gently trace her blueberry lips. "I just never told you because…well, I don't know why." Boomer laughs at himself. "But it doesn't matter, right? Now you know and I'm going to kiss you."
He looks around quickly, as if to make sure he's alone, before leaning down. Just before his lips touch hers, he adds, "And my kiss will be better than all the other kisses you've had."
"Um, maybe you should get going."
"M'kay." she agreed into his shoulder. Slowly, he detached himself from her and gave her hand one last squeeze before moving away. "Hey! Where's my goodbye kiss?"
"Er." Mac glanced back at the house and shrugged helplessly, as if that was all there was to say. "You know."
"I can't believe you're still so worried after all this time." she said, slightly exasperated but her affection lingered in her tone. "He's completely fine with it. It's my sisters you have to worry about."
"Are you sure?" he asked skeptically. "I get the feeling that he doesn't like me—"
She cut him off with a kiss, her lips melding softly with his.
"The only one you have to worry about liking you should me be," Bubbles assured, smiling against his lips, "no one else." Mac hummed in agreement and drew her closer to him.
Boomer switched off his x-ray vision with a heavy, aching heart and the wall materialized back in front of him. He couldn't bear to watch anymore.
Her lips are cold (because she's sick) and unmoving (because she's asleep and people don't respond to kisses in their sleep) and dry (because she hasn't had anything to drink in months), but Boomer still thinks that she's a great kisser. He peppers her lips with a few more kisses before pulling back with a smile on his face. Secretly, though he doesn't admit it to himself, because if he does he'll blurt it out to his brothers and they'll laugh at him for being a sissy, Boomer's hoping for that fairytale magic.
True love's first kiss will wake her up. Happily ever after. All that jazz.
"He's the one, for sure." Bubbles said confidently, so confidently that the words sharpened themselves on what should have been his non-existent heart.
"How would you know?" Boomer asked thinly.
"From his kiss," she replied, "the first time he kissed me, it felt like I suddenly woke up and everything was brighter somehow. Newer." Her eyes acquired a shine that Boomer had never seen before.
"I love him." she admitted so softly, so sincerely, that he had to look away. His fists clenched against his thighs.
"What if someone else made you feel that way? Then what?" he asked when he was able to look at her again.
She smiled at him. Her face was so unbearably gentle that he should've known better than to hope. "Don't you know? You only get one true love in life, Boomer."
He's very disappointed when Bubbles keeps sleeping.
"Dumb stories." he mutters sulkily.
Then he remembers that Bubbles should be getting as much rest as she can and wonders why he wants her to wake up so badly. His stomach twists, and for a moment, Boomer thinks he's coming down with the same thing Bubbles contracted. After all, he's been around her for months. Surely he would've caught something for always being in that room. A nagging little voice in the back of his head tells him that's impossible because you can't catch – (don't think about it, stop, stop, stop).
Boomer decides firmly that his stomach is acting up because he's hungry. "I'll be right back, just getting something to eat. I'm not leaving you." he promises.
She looked up at him with panic stricken eyes, her face crumpled in tears. "I don't know where he is, Boomer." she cried into her hands. "I can't find him anywhere. Where did he go? Where did he go?"
He gathered her into his arms and wiped her tears away, inwardly marveling at how soft her skin was. Did she always smell this nice? Boomer couldn't resist gently kissing the top of her head when she curled up against his chest. He wondered if she could feel his heart racing beneath her hand.
"It's alright, Bubbles. I'm here for you." he said soothingly, running his hands through her silk-spun hair.
Hidden a few feet away was a motionless body with a syringe sticking out of its neck.
He closes the door behind him and takes a deep breath of fresh air. Making his way down the hall, he passes by open doors that revealed empty, dust-covered rooms. There was a time when those rooms were filled with more than just cobwebs and abandoned things. Glancing into one room, he can still see Blossom brushing her long hair in front of the mirror and smiling at him when she caught his reflection there. The next room was where Buttercup used to do push-ups with one arm behind her back to the latest rap-metal band.
But the memories fade as quickly as they had appeared and Boomer keeps walking.
He clears the staircase and turns around a corner, noting a dent in the wall he's been meaning to get fixed. He makes a mental note to call the plasters in the morning as he steps into the kitchen.
"Where have you been?"
Bubbles paused at the threshold of the kitchen, her good mood slipping away when she noticed the room occupied by angry siblings and indifferent counterparts. "Um, I was out with Mac."
"We've been trying to reach you for hours. We needed back up on a robbery downtown." Blossom informed her with disappointment in her eyes.
"It was our anniversary." Bubbles said as she moved past her sisters and around the counter where the boys were watching the scene unfold. She opened the fridge and put her half-eaten cake inside. "Besides, it was just a robbery."
Buttercup snorted. "Yeah, until the twenty-foot sea monsters decided to pop in and say hi."
"You've been flaking on your duties lately. What's going on, Bubbles?" Blossom demanded.
"Nothing!" Bubbles whirled around. "I just wanted to spend time with my boyfriend, okay? Can't I do that in peace without getting the third degree from everyone?"
"Sorry if Townsville ain't under attack after your dates. We'll work out a timetable with the bad guys to avoid future inconveniences." Buttercup sneered.
"We could've been in serious trouble. If Brick and the others hadn't been there to bail us out in the end, downtown would've been destroyed." Blossom lectured angrily.
"But they were there! Everything is fine. What's the problem?"
"The problem is that we're a team, Bubbles." Blossom argued. "We needed you and you weren't there."
Her light blue eyes burned with frustration. "Well maybe I don't want to be there anymore!"
The tension in the room spiked. "Excuse me?" Blossom's pink eyes narrowed dangerously.
"I'm sick and tired of always having to put my life on hold to save the day. I just want to be a normal girl and have some time for myself and the people I care about. Is that so wrong?"
"Are you kiddin' me?" Buttercup exploded. "Fighting monsters and catching the bad guys are our jobs. It's everything we are!"
"No it's not. Not for me. There are so many other things I want!"
"Don't tell me you're in love with that guy." Buttercup said distastefully.
Bubbles jutted her chin out defiantly. "So what if I am?"
Blossom looked sharply over at Boomer. "Did you know about this?"
Boomer opened his mouth to respond, but Bubbles cut him off. "Leave Boomer out of this. It's got nothing to do with him!"
Something akin to understanding flickered across Blossom's face, but it wasn't enough to curb the angry words that rushed out of her mouth. As the fight grew worse, Boomer stuck his head in the fridge under the pretense of getting something to eat in order to escape his brothers' piercing stares.
Boomer tosses the half-eaten apple in the trash as he makes his way back to the room, oblivious to the cloud of fruit flies that rises from the bin. He quickly goes to check up on his patient. Careful hands anxiously ghost over her face and body, as if to make sure that she was still whole. Smiling in relief, he drops a kiss on her forehead, thrilled at how easy it is to kiss her now. "Told you I'd be back."
Glancing at the clock, he announces, "Time for your shot."
He opens a nearby cabinet and pulls out the usual batch of liquids needed for her daily injection. "I know you don't like needles, but this is the fastest way to get it in your system." Adding one last thing to the concoction (you're running low on formaldehyde, remember to restock on your next trip to the lab), he gives it a quick stir before filling the syringe. "But you know I'd never hurt you, right?"
He glances up and catches his reflection on the mirror in front of him. Surprised, he stares at his sunken features and at the large, mottled bruise covering the left side of his face. He lifts his hand to touch it.
"You in here, Boomer?" Butch's voice rang out on the other side of the door.
Caught off guard, Boomer hardly had time to gather his wits before the door slammed open. Butch took one step inside and immediately covered his nose with sleeves, making a gagging noise. "Shit man, it stinks in here!"
Boomer hissed at him to be quiet and quickly glanced over at his patient. Miraculously, Bubbles didn't stir from her rest despite the racket. Sighing in relief, he whispered that he'd be right back, absentmindedly running his hand through her hair. He stood up, taking several locks of dull blonde hair with him, and pushed his brother out into the hallway so that Bubbles wasn't disturbed.
"Why are you here?" Boomer asked impatiently.
"I came to see how you're doing. Brick's orders." Butch answered with a scrunched up face. "When's the last time you showered?"
"Figures you only show up when it's an assignment." Boomer snorts.
"I said Brick's orders. The company's got nothing to do with it."
His blue eyes narrowed into slits. "It's the same thing. Brick's the company's lapdog."
"I'd like to see you say that to his face."
"Maybe if he showed his face around here, you will." Boomer leveled his blue eyes with his brother's green ones. "I'll ask one more time. Why are you here?"
"I came to snap you out of it." Butch replied bluntly. "Get your stuff. You're moving back to the apartment. We even got someone to clean up your room and–"
"No." Boomer interrupted. "I have to stay and take care of Bubbles. She's still not better."
Butch's face twisted into a grim expression. "You've taken care of her already."
"Not completely, I–"
"I ain't gonna keep entertaining these games, bro." Butch scowled impatiently "You're coming and that's final." He hauled Boomer away by the arm and made it to the stairs before Boomer broke his hold.
"I said I ain't going!" Boomer hissed.
"So you're gonna spend the rest of your life in that room with a goddamn cor–"
"I told you to stop saying that!" Boomer found himself shouting with his hands shaking at his sides. "It ain't funny!"
"Oh yes it is," Butch sneered, "I always thought you were hung up on her, but I never thought you'd go this far. It's a fucking riot."
"You're disgusting." Boomer snarled, clenching his hands.
"Oh really?" Butch goaded. "That's funny since out of the two of us, I ain't the one who smells like deat–"
Boomer's fist smashed into Butch's jaw, sending him careening down the stairs. "Shut up!"
Butch slowly straightened up and wiped the blood from his lips. Something inside of Boomer recognized his brother's dangerous stance and tensed up. Panic weighed him down. Everything in him was telling him to run, but Boomer couldn't leave Bubbles alone with his psychopathic brother. Butch might end up killing her and that was not going to happen.
"I'm gonna make you regret that, Blondie." Butch promised darkly, his murderous green eyes locked onto his little brother's wild blue eyes.
Boomer winces as his fingers pressed down on his injury, jolting him out of his recollections. Agitated, he runs a hand through his hair. "Look at me," he half-laughs at himself, "I'm so caught up in caring for you that I forgot to take care of myself."
He turns to look at the silent figure on the bed, trying to find some solace in her. "But you know I always put you first, right?" he asks imploringly, his dark blue eyes unnaturally bright. "I'm looking out for your best interest. That's why with Mac, well, he was no good for you. Not like I am."
"Here, drink up." Boomer said, handing Bubbles a mug of hot chocolate. She took it numbly but made no move to drink it. "C'mon, Bubbles." he coaxed. "Buttercup and Blossom's finished their share already. You love hot chocolate, remember?"
Mechanically, she takes a deep gulp, barely tasting the sweet liquid, and then goes back to clutching the mug in her hands. "I don't understand." she whispered to herself. "People don't just disappear like that."
Blossom placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "We'll find him." she reassured. "The police are doing everything they can to find–"
The sharp buzz from the telephone cuts her off.
"Yes Mayor?" Buttercup answered. "Gotcha, we're on our way." Slamming the phone down, she turns to the others in the living room. "Monsters. One by City Hall and the other was spotted heading toward the electric power plant outside of the city."
"That's more or less in the area where you go hiking, Buttercup. You take care of that one." Blossom said, standing up.
"Butch, go with her. Blossom and I will clean up City Hall." Brick added.
Butch and Buttercup looked at each other in agreement before they took off, leaving two tones of green light trailing behind them.
Brick spared a glance at Boomer and said, "Take care of Bubbles."
He left with Blossom heading toward the center of town in the opposite direction that Butch and Buttercup went.
"I've always taken care of you." Boomer is by her side now, crouching down so that his elbows are resting on the edge of the bed. "You know why, right?" he asks with a hint of panic in his voice. "You've gotta know."
He grabs her arm and drops it quickly, shocked at how cold she is (you're not being careful, remember she's so very, very breakable).
"I met this guy during my semester abroad, did I tell you?" he asked conversationally as he held Bubbles by her neck in the air, cutting off her air supply. She let out a pained rasp and clawed at his hand, desperately trying to break his hold.
"He explained how the body reacts to certain compounds and stuff. Chemist, you see." Boomer continued, tightening his grip.
Bubbles tried drawing her powers in her hands, but pain crackled through her veins instead of energy and her body jerked uncontrollably.
"You should stop doing that," he advised, slamming her into the wall. Stars exploded in her vision when her skull made a dent in the wall. "Antidote X burns away the Chemical X in your system. By trying to use your powers, you're focusing the chemical to one spot. The Antidote X will notice and destroy it at that particular site. You'll just hurt more if you do that."
"Antidote X is interesting like that," Boomer eased the pressure on her throat but easily kept her pinned in place. She coughed violently as her lungs reached for much needed air. He smiled gently at her, proud he was able to give her what she needed. "I wanted to see what it would do to a non X-person. Y'know, wonder if it'd cure things like bad eyesight, asthma, puncture wounds and everything we never have to worry about."
His eyes were bright when they met hers, wild with a peculiar kind of excitement. "It was so nice of Mac to volunteer for the experiment."
Bubbles stopped struggling, her eyes wide with shock. "Why would he…he was completely healthy." she rasped out.
"I know!" he said exasperatedly. "I mean, the puncture wounds were no big deal. I did that in less than a minute, but it took me weeks to induce his stupid pollen allergy into chronic asthma, and then another week to get his eyes to go bad."
Her fingers dug into his wrist. "Boomer, where is he?"
"He had a bad reaction to it." he shrugged. "Apparently, Antidote X works like a fast-acting poison in non X-beings. That loser stopped breathing before I even finished jotting down that discovery. Go figure."
With a roar, Bubbles blasted him across the foyer. When he got back on his feet, Boomer casually walked back to her, dusting off his shoulder. Bubbles was on her knees, trembling with hers hand pressed over her face. "Didn't I tell you not to use your powers?" he scolded.
She dropped her hands. He could see her eyes flicker between red and blue when she tried to use her eyebeam on him again. Her pupils dilated from the strain and she cried out as blood welled up out of her eyes.
"Now look what you've done." he frowned. "You've just fried your optical nerves."
"Why are you doing this?" she croaked weakly. She didn't understand how he had just turned on her so quickly and so viciously. It didn't made any sense.
"It's because I like you." he whispers desperately (stay calm, stop talking, just stop right there). "I've always liked you. But I couldn't tell you because the company wouldn't have liked it, and then, then Mac stole you from me." Before he knows it, he's reaching for her hands and the words he doesn't remember are spilling out of his mouth. "I had to get you back. Then the orders came and I couldn't say no–"
Brick pulled into the driveway. Bubbles and Blossom went into their wing of the house while Boomer lifted his luggage out of the trunk. He avoided his brother's gaze as he rummaged through it.
"Boomer." Brick said sharply. "I hope you're not thinking about turnin-"
"Three doses of premium Antidote X, coming right up." Boomer cut in, pulling out a compact steel case. He held it out to Brick and said firmly, though his insides were shaking with nerves, "No, I'm not."
He felt Brick measuring him silently, and nearly sighed in relief when his brother took the box. "Good."
"and you didn't have to say no–"
"Boomer, it's me. Don't you care about me?"
Bubbles couldn't control her tremors when he started laughing. It made for a terrifying soundtrack as the dark blur came closer and closer.
"Of course I care." he smile sharply, forming an electric blue energy bomb into his hand. "Do you care about me?"
"If you care then why are you doing this? You're my best friend."
She felt him stiffen for a moment before that horribly bright light in his hand was suddenly in front of her. Her eyes stung as tears welled up in her eyes, adding salt to her blistering wounds.
"and–"
He manages to pull her hands from under the blanket into his own, grasping them tightly. The blanket falls off to the side, revealing (don't look, don't look, DON'T LOOK) a large discoloration on her caved-in chest through her tattered shirt. Startled, he dropped her hands. Her arms flopped heavily onto the bed like dead weights.
Boomer pressed his body against hers so that they were touching at every point from their ankles to their chests. He groaned and resisted the urge to kiss her, instead stroking her hair longingly with his free hand. His body reacted to hers and he pressed her even harder against the wall. Even covered in sweat and blood and fear, she still smelled like home to him. Sighing regretfully, he pressed the crackling bomb into her chest. It sank beneath her skin and slipped between her organs.
Bubbles screamed, frantically trying to pull his arm away and pull it out of her. She used to have a scream that could shatter all the windows within a half mile radius. Now, with her damaged vocal cords, she could only squeak out a breathless rasp. He frowned and flexed his fingers. The bomb crackled and struck her lungs, tearing the lower lobes. She coughed up blood.
"But don't you see?" he murmured against her ear while curling his hand into a fist. "We could've been so much more."
"Please, please, please don't do this, don't do it, don't do it." she begged, incoherent with fear and pain. Her face was streaked with blood dripping from her mouth and her nearly-blind eyes, and there were dark blue bruises around her neck in the shape of his hand.
Boomer couldn't understand how she was still so beautiful to him.
"You don't have to do this, Boomer. Don't–"
"Yes, I do."
He squeezed his fist against her collarbone and ruined her chest cavity.
"That's not what happened. That's not what happened. I'd never do that to you!" Boomer grabs the blanket and throws it over her again to cover her from the neck down.
"No, no, no. no. no." he chants, digging his fingers into his hair. "I take care of you. I always take care of you."
But all he can hear is her heart not beating and all he can see is her chest not filling with air and her pale, pale, pale skin that used to have more color and the needle that –
Boomer wildly snatches it and crudely, violently, shoves it deep into her arm, injecting the liquid inside. "You see?" he shouts frantically. "I'm taking care of you. I'm still taking care of you!" He rips the needle out of her arm and flings it behind him.
Stumbling back against the wall, he stares at the bed in horror. His heart pounds unsteadily and it only makes him that much more aware of her absent heartbeat. He feels sick enough to throw up. The clinical part of his brain is telling him that he needs to breathe because he is going into shock. A list of things that he can do runs through his head but the thoughts and the logic are being warped into gibberish. He fists his hair into his hands and he thinks he's going crazy, so crazy, because Bubbles isn't okay and he's not helping because he ki—
(Look! She's got some color back! Go look. You didn't do anything wrong or bad to her. She's fine, she's fine, she's fine.)
Boomer's eyes lock on her face. He stares unblinkingly at her and he thinks he's seeing things because there is no way that she is less pale than she was before. He rubs his eyes clear before looking at her face again (look, color on her cheeks!) and slowly gets to his feet to walk to her bedside.
Sure enough, there is a hint of color creeping on her skin.
Boomer yawned as he sat through another long lecture. It turned out that science was just as boring in a foreign country as it was in America. His blue eyes lazily glanced up at the teacher who was rapidly going through the material with enthusiasm.
"Pay attention while I explain the process." the professor instructed. "You will be using embalming fluids in our lab tomorrow and you have to be careful to use the exact amounts I tell you. First take the formaldehyde and measure…"
Boomer sighed and laid his head on the desk, half-listening to the instructions and half-amusing himself with how terrified Bubbles would be if she had to do a lab on dead bodies.
It brought a smile to his face.
His mind blanks out, all thoughts of impossibilities are gone because Bubbles seems to be getting better and he is so happy that he grabs her arm–
–and pulls away because she is still ice cold and her flesh is so soft, too soft, that it retains a perfect imprint of his hand.
(She's getting better, but she's not completely there yet. You still have to take care of her. Don't just stand there. She's cold, she's cold, she's cold.)
A smile slowly stretches across his face.
"You'll be better in no time, Bubbles. You just have to stay warm." He digs another blanket out of the closet and tucks her in. Boomer sits down on the chair by the window and finally allows himself to relax.
"You'll be better in no time." he repeats.
Peering out the window, Boomer watches the trees pitch violently against the winter winds. Summer had been unnaturally warm that year…
Boomer wants to be the Knight and forgets he's already the Dragon.