Blossom couldn't get Him out of her mind. There was no use trying to walk it off; that had barely helped Blossom's efforts in forgetting about Buttercup, and the pain of her sister's problems was a dull and long lasting one. But Lord, how was she supposed to deal with Him?
Had she really seen Him at all? He was in a fire, and fires move around. Maybe she just saw some shape that looked a damned lot like Him. People are programmed to recognize faces, even if there isn't a face to recognize.
Who the fuck was she kidding? She had definitely seen Him. What on Earth would make her suddenly see his face in a run-of-the-mill flame? She hadn't even thought of Him for years, let alone had visions. She'd be damned if that wasn't an actual apparition of Him – in a pentagram, no less!
Blossom recalled Dr. Yanslip's email, her summons to his office in the first place. Buttercup was convinced, he had said, that she'd sold her soul to the Devil. Had she? Had Buttercup sold her soul to Him? Was that even a real thing, or just religious lore? How and when would she have sold her soul, assuming she could? Surely there'd be some flash of light or all consuming fire or something, and the nurses would have noticed. Had they noticed?
Blossom was on the verge of calling the both hospitals and finding out when she remembered she'd left her phone at home, likely uncharged. Damn it! It wasn't like she used her phone for phone calls much anyways, but it was an emergency on the rare occasion that she did. She was unwilling to race home and grab it – it was nearly nine thirty, and Blossom figured she'd better start heading toward Dr. Yanslip's office.
Of course Buttercup hadn't really sold her soul to Him. Buttercup was insane; she probably had a really strong nightmare. She must have been hallucinating about her old nemeses. It wouldn't be her first time… but she usually kept those sorts of dreams confidential between herself and Blossom. Why would she suddenly decide to tell Dr. Yanslip? Either he was doing some unorthodox thing Buttercup's last few psychiatrists hadn't, or Buttercup really believed she was telling an objective truth, and not some strange fantastical dream.
Buttercup may have gone insane, but she could still separate dreams from reality. At least, Blossom had been fairly certain that Buttercup had maintained herself in that capacity for the last twenty years. But from the events of the last day or so, with Buttercup slaughtering that nurse and all…
Was Blossom even able to do the same herself? Could she be sure that her sighting of Him was, in fact, real? If not, with what certainty could she dismiss it as a hallucination?
Blossom realized that she'd go back and forth on this forever unless she got some real information to break the thought spiral and give her something else to chew on. She needed Dr. Yanslip to tell her something profound.
Of course, the messenger didn't matter. It didn't have to be Dr. Yanslip. It could be Mitch.
Damn, what had Mitch been knocking so vigorously for earlier? Surely it had to do with Buttercup, right? What other dimension was there to their relationship? She worked with him professionally as equals and then casually as a source of information, and the former branch was essentially dead until Blossom returned to work tomorrow. Lord, tomorrow felt so close, and yesterday felt so far.
"Mitch, I swear to God," Blossom muttered, "If you could have shouted something through the door that would have put me out of my misery and you volunteered not to, I'll kill you." She had enough sense to keep her voice quiet, at least, while she told Mitch off out loud. It wasn't wise for a Powerpuff to go around wishing people dead with what Buttercup had done yesterday. Still, Blossom repeated, "I'll fucking kill you."
With a jolt Blossom realized that she was right next to the building Dr. Yanslip's office was in. Was it really that close? Either Blossom had been walking faster than she thought (as she had on her way to work yesterday), or space itself had contracted to ensure her safe and speedy arrival. Maybe it was Him helping her along – but why the hell would he do that? If it were up to Him, she would probably be dead right now.
Buttercup would probably be dead too.
Upon entering the building Blossom hurried to the front desk and asked where Dr. Yanslip's office was. The receptionist was rather taken aback by Blossom's curtness, and Blossom tried to adjust her outward self to its usual cordial disposition. It was hopeless; the lady was still giving Blossom strange looks after directing her to office number 774, and even still after Blossom had left the desk and was waiting for the elevator to open.
The elevator ride up was long and boring and lonely. Blossom couldn't think of the things she had been obsessing over on the streets, and she was glad of it. Maybe it was the cramped metal of this particularly dinky elevator, or perhaps Blossom had exhausted her capacity to stress and had to recharge before the appointment proper.
There was, as expected, a little gold plate next to room 74 on the seventh floor reading 'Dr. Freud Yanslip,' and in smaller letters, 'Psychiatrist.' Blossom entered onto a tiny three-seater lobby and a sign on the only other door in the room stating that the 'doctor' was busy. Were psychiatrists even doctors? Blossom wasn't too sure, but it really didn't matter a damn either.
Blossom took a seat on the sole couch in the space, the aforementioned three-seater that stretched from wall to wall. If Blossom had spread her arms, she could have touched both ends of the room at the same time, from the ugly forest green wallpaper on the side of the entrance to the deep red paint of the side nearer Dr. Yanslip. The colors made the waiting area seem even more off – as if it were decorated for some sadistic early Christmas. It was an ugly sweater and handful of mothballs away from being a storage closet.
Surely a Psychiatrist would know better than to make his waiting room so damn oppressive? Blossom supposed that Dr. Yanslip may have done everything on purpose as part of his psychiatric methods, but that assumption likely gave the man too much credit. No human could have the mental insight to conceive such a place – and for what purpose? If he had killed the waiting area intentionally for psychiatric reasons, what purpose could it possibly serve?
Blossom was about to find out. Yanslip's last patient, some large and ugly man with sickly green skin and a mop of orange hair, left the office. Dr. Yanslip stuck his head out the door shorty afterwards.
"Blossom? It's time. Come, let's talk about your sister, shall we?"
***Author's Note***
Yay, 50 chapters! Lord, it's been a while now – coming up on a full year in about a month. I think it's safe to say that the end is near at this point. Not too near… but significantly nearer than the beginning. I think. I don't know. I would say 'here's to another fifty chapters,' but the story's probably going to end before that.
As for the story itself, Blossom is about to get a big 'ol dose of Buttercup. At least as much as Dr. Yanslip knows. Let's see what he lets slip (his name – Freud Yanslip… Freudian slip… oh well I tried). I honestly don't know what's going to happen; I couldn't spoil it even if I wanted to.
Anyways, thanks for 50 fun chapters and thanks for reading and reviewing! You guys are the best! (By the way, I don't copy-paste that; I hand type it every time because I mean it every time)
