author's note: The son recommendation this time is by the same band as last time! Unconsolable, by the X Ambassadors!

Friday, Feb. 26

It took her breaking her leg to finally manage to forge a close bond with the last of the brothers.

Brick already looked at her like he was her protective older brother, despite her being older than him. Boomer was literally her counterpart and someone she personally saw like a twin brother, a feeling that was constantly made known to be mutual. But she and Butch had never really managed to get close, not until that fateful night at the docks. They'd interact and all, but theirs was that of a loose friendship. They never really texted or called unless the others didn't tell them something first, and they never really hung out alone.

But Butch was weirdly there for her when she needed it that next day, after everything happened. He was so, so easy to just… be around.

They didn't have to talk, and they could just exist together. Their talks were flirty and playful, teasing and blunt. They were honest with each other- always. They understood one another's personal boundaries, though she wasn't sure if that's just because they were too unfamiliar with one another to break those boundaries the way she did with Brick and Boomer or if it was a more genuine respect from both sides of the coin.

Even still, she didn't think too hard about how easy it was to be around him.

Because when she did start to think too hard about it, it led her tumbling down a slippery slope of rapid fire thoughts, inevitably finding her landing smack in the face of a crush.

And that definitely wasn't what she needed.

Especially not now.

She was the first to wake up again, and again they had fallen asleep on the couch (this time in his apartment), tangled so together that she barely knew where one ended and the other began. The difference this time? It was entirely on purpose. She was laying on his chest, her chest against his, her legs in between his and her arms around his waist. Both of his arms were around her, his hands resting on her back and on her thigh as he held her close to him in his sleep. Coffee was curled on top of their mess of legs, and Candy had curled up on the back of his couch.

When she looked up at his sleeping face, her heart sputtered and stalled. His cheekbones were illuminated in the morning light, his warm, golden skin glowing with health- well, all save for the little bandaid over his left eyebrow. His hair was curly- as it naturally was- and it fell in his face just a bit, tickling just between his eyes. Normally, he'd have it styled and gelled into spikes…

But she kinda preferred the looser curls.

Her eyes followed the strong, smooth bridge of his nose down to the faint wisps of a mustache threatening to break through. He'd probably need to shave tomorrow morning. But that didn't matter to her when her eyes looked at his lips.

She'd never felt such an intensely impulsive urge to do anything as strongly as she felt the need to just lean forward and kiss him.

And that was enough to throw a wrench into the cogs of her brain.

Like a bull in a fine china shop, that thought came through with alarming suddenness, no warning, and shattered all other thoughts she could have had.

Soft footsteps barely alerted her to someone else being there before they spoke, and she latched onto that sound. "You're up, now?"

Bubbles couldn't bring herself to be surprised. Despite all six of them claiming they wanted more independence, more self-reliance and their own places, it genuinely felt like none of them knew how to be alone for too long. Which, honestly, made a lot of sense with their respective childhoods. Trauma bonding could bring you closer and more reliant on one another than was healthy- and boy howdy did they all go through some shit together.

Not only that, but he basically handed her something else to focus on on a silver platter.

She did not want to dissect that previous thought right now.

She turned her head to see Brick standing behind the loveseat with a black mug of heavily sugared coffee in his hands. Her blue eyes glanced back up to Butch's sleeping face, then back to the redhead. "Are you here to grill me again?"

"No, I think you've got a pass this time," he answered softly. Those fire red eyes of his seemed more understanding and a lot softer than she'd seen them in a long, long while. "Your sisters told me about yesterday."

Butch inhaled a little deeper than he had prior, a silent indicator that he was waking up.

She missed it, however, more focused on the leader of the Ruffs and his words. The wolf's graying muzzle came to her mind and she found herself already blinking rapidly to push the reforming tears back down. "Dammit…"

"Brick, if you're just gonna antagonize her 'till she cries again, you can get the hell out," Butch mumbled, still barely half awake. His hand on her back started rubbing soothing circles between her shoulder blades again, as though it were part of his automatic functions. You know, eat, sleep, breathe, soothe Bubbles' worries, walk, use the bathroom, and so forth.

She did her best to ignore his gravelly, sleep laden voice.

It didn't work well , but it worked a little.

"I made you two breakfast, put it in the oven to keep it warm and kept Boomer from waking you up again and this is my thanks," he huffed. "I see how appreciated I am."

"Boom probably wouldn't have upset her so soon."

"Alright," Bubbles cut in, stopping their little spat before it had a chance of really getting off the ground. She was barely awake and had no desire to break up a fight. Coffee hopped onto the back of the couch next to his sister when the blonde moved too much for him to keep sleeping there. "I'm fine, I'm fine, I swear. No need to get into it over me."

"You two slept like the dead through all of my cooking," Brick commented, raising a brow at them as the blonde managed to pull herself up and off of Butch (and the couch in general). "You must've exhausted yourself."

The blonde was, usually, one of the lightest sleepers of their group. It wasn't unusual for Buttercup or Butch to sleep like they were dead, but it was a little odd for Bubbles to. On the other hand, with how rough her day was, she wasn't so shocked. It was basically exactly what she'd told Butch before. "I'm not surprised. I cried like seven or eight times," the blonde admitted. She stretched towards the ceiling just before rubbing at her eyes. "Does Buttercup have any clothes over here?"

"Both bottom drawers in the bathroom have her shit in it," Butch answered just before he yawned.

"I'm gonna take a shower, so the door is gonna be locked," she warned.

He scrambled up. "Hold on, let me piss first."

The green Ruff stumbled tiredly to his bathroom, leaving her alone in the living room with his older brother.

Brick came over silently and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. She returned his hug, wrapping her arms around his waist. They stayed there for just a moment in the embrace. Her fiery haired 'big brother' (though again, she was the older one) didn't often offer comfort to much of anyone at all, and Bubbles wasn't going to turn the rare showing of affection away. "You gonna be alright today?"

"I'll be fine," she nodded against his shoulder. "Boomie should have a free day today- I plan on annoying him so I won't be alone."

He gently squeezed her shoulders. "Still not gonna tell me how you're pissing your sisters off next week?"

She saw his words for what they were: a purposeful switching of topics to hopefully keep her spirits light. It wasn't much, but it was more than enough for her. A laugh spilled from her lips and she pulled back from him. He patted the top of her head. "As if. You might try to talk me out of it, too."

His brows rose at that. "Oh yeah? I might not cover you Friday, if that's the case."

Her blue eyes narrowed, her brows furrowed and her bottom lip jutted out in a bit of a pout. "You shook on it. Besides, I'm doing it Wednesday, not Friday. We've been over this- Friday is just giving me more time to diffuse their tension, giving them a little more space and extra room to talk."

Red eyes rolled. "Bubbles…"

"Oh hush. You don't have to wait that damn long."

Butch walked out of the bathroom then, and Brick's narrowed eyes went to his brother as he came back down the hall. "Stop hanging out with her. She's picking up on your shitty language choices."

"Pot, meet kettle," Bubbles deadpanned.

Butch laughed and shook his head. "Bathroom's all yours, Sweetcheeks. What did you make anyway, Brick?"

"Just some bacon and eggs for you and a veggie breakfast quesadilla for Blondie here."

She smiled brightly at him. "Hell yeah!"

"Butch, I swear, if it happens one more time-"

"I can't control her mouth!"

Her giggles filled the apartment while she scurried off to the bathroom, not seeing the two soft, warm smiles on Ruff faces.

Bubbles bit her lower lip and pulled Boomer's spare key from its hiding place. Under two of the loose bricks in the pathway to his door, buried exactly five centimeters under the surface. She unlocked the door, replaced the key and the bricks, and stepped inside.

"Boom Boom! It's just me!"

He was somewhere in or around his room, much further back in the apartment, based on how muffled and far back his voice was. "Give me a minute! I'm about to get out of the shower!"

Well that explained why.

"Don't rush!" She toed her tennis shoes off and pulled off her jacket. Boomer and Butch were the only ones with apartments on the ground level, and Boomer was the one who somehow managed to land- and sustain- the largest and nicest apartment. He had a four bedroom, two bath, and Bubbles was the only one who had her own specified room in it. While not a lot of her stuff was there, enough of it was for her to be able to stay over for a week or more without needing to leave.

Brick liked to say he also had his own designated room, but he didn't.

Boomer would always remind him that Bubbles was the only one.

For a long, long while, the lass thought they'd end up married. Or, at least, they'd end up dating. There were far too many instances of Boomer sitting and just holding her while her negative emotions (like her sadness or even her anger) kicked up a storm. There were too many instances of him going out of his way for her- buying her flowers on Valentine's Day, buying her clothes, sharing candies, taking her out on outings that resembled dates…

For a long time, she thought Boomer was who she was destined for.

She'd developed a crush and wrote him a letter- and to their credit, they did try dating. For, like, two solid years, they had tried. Senior year of high school and in their first year of college- and then it all went to shit for reasons they still haven't told their siblings.

It was just easier to say that they saw one another too much like siblings.

That wasn't too far from the whole truth, anyway.

Bubbles leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, her blue eyes unseeing as she stared at his dinner table. She always felt so deeply, so fully- especially when she had a crush on someone. They both did; the Blues, as they were dubbed by their siblings, both tended to feel and experience their emotions much more deeply- or, at least, much more obviously- than the others. Bubbles knew they all felt very, very deeply and that she and Boomer were just the only ones comfortable showing it. She, herself, used to daydream about what their wedding would be like, but as she stood in his apartment without him in front of her, she couldn't help but be thankful it didn't pan out that way.

Especially when Butch's face returned to her mind.

She grumbled at herself. It hadn't even been four hours since she last saw him.

Her eyes glanced back down the hall, but the blond still wasn't coming out yet.

Instead of waiting for her counterpart, she just padded through to his kitchen to raid his fridge for drinks. He always kept the best selection of drinks- both alcoholic and non alcoholic. Her eyes lit up when they landed on a few bottles of regular apple juice hidden behind what looked to be his leftovers from some Italian restaurant, and she immediately snagged one for herself.

She had barely sat on his dark blue couch when he came out, still drying his hair in a black towel. He seemed confused about the apple juice, but didn't say anything about it.

"Everything okay, Bubsy?"

She smiled weakly at him and nodded. He was wearing a dark blue shirt with a single text smiley- ' :) '- on it in white; she'd bought it for him during a school trip their Junior year. She was surprised it still fit him, honestly. He also had on his black and white checkered pajama pants, but she didn't care as much about those. "Yeah. Just… didn't want to be alone. You can go back to do whatever you have to, I'm just… just gonna chill out here today, if that's fine?"

He frowned a bit and came around to sit next to her on the couch. "Still caught up about yesterday or is it something else?"

Bubbles sighed deeply. "Both?"

Boomer smiled, a knowing gleam entering his cobalt eyes that made the woman wary, and he flung his towel to the floor, uncaring of where it landed for the moment. "Both, huh. Can I hazard a guess?"

She eyed him warily, her concern rising. "…I hesitate to say yes."

"You're thinking about Butch, aren't you?"

Her face flamed red. "I-I wasn't until you said something," she tried to claim.

His smile turned into a smirk. Damn him. "You're a horrible liar, Bubsy."

"You're a meanie." She huffed and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her cheek on them. "You're not supposed to make fun of my feelings."

"I'm not." He chuckled, shaking his head and leaning back against the arm of the couch. He patted his chest in an invitation and she quickly, easily and readily curled right up to her best friend. Her cheek rested in a familiar spot against his left clavicle, her arms wrapped around his torso and her legs draped over his to allow her feet to dangle off the couch. It was a position they'd assumed probably somewhere near a thousand times now. "I'd only ever make fun of you for singing foreign love songs and expecting everyone to understand you."

"That was one time," she huffed out.

He patted her back. "Three times, actually. What's on your mind, specifically? You're usually not this hung up on a patient. I know this one is a little different, but…"

She shook her head and curled impossibly closer. "I keep thinking about if he would have made it longer if we just… didn't go in. Didn't touch the tumors. Didn't try to do that."

"If he would have lived any longer, he would have been in serious pain the whole time, no?" he asked back.

She sighed deeply, her brows knitting together. "I guess. I just… I don't know… I feel like I could have- or should have- done something more…" He let her feel it out because he could hear that there was far more that she was struggling to say. He rubbed her back soothingly, and he could practically see the way she stumbled through her thoughts, piecing them together like a puzzle she was desperate to solve. Like so many times before, he wished there was more that he could do for her, that his brain could come up with something that was better than what he was able to give her now. He sighed, squeezing her tightly, and after a good few minutes, she finally spoke again. "It's… made me rethink becoming a vet."

He blinked, looking down at her with wide, cobalt eyes. "…this really hit you that hard?"

She nodded, her eyes misting slightly. "I don't… I don't know how many I can handle… How many animals do I have to watch just… Ugh." Her hands flew to cover her face, her curls shaking like leaves in the wind as her shoulders trembled. "I need to stop fucking crying already."

"It's okay to not be okay, Bubbles," he whispered. "You don't have to have all of the answers right away or be able to handle something like that right away."

She inhaled shakily. "I feel like such a child over it, though," she whined. It was probably the first time she admitted it out loud and it sucked. "I've seen so much worse shit. I've seen people do heinous things. I've witnessed a murder, I've seen the dark looks in rapists' eyes, I've seen demons from the underworld, I've seen those flesh and acid abominations- and this is what gets me…" A wry laugh fell from her lips. "An old wolf with health problems dying on me is too much."

He bent his knees, scooting her up his chest just a little in the process. "Don't tell him I told you this, but Brick is terrified of bees and wasps. If they have stingers on them, Brick's first instinct is to run away." She peeked up at him through her fingers. "I know Blossom is still scared of bugs, too… Buttercup's scared of needles, Butch is the messiest yet most claustrophobic of us… I think we all just have our weak spots." She pulled her hands down from her face and he offered her a small smile. "Besides, there's other things you can do with animals that don't involve being a vet. I don't think you need to make that big of a decision right away, but don't think this is your only option."

She sighed, looking at their reflection in the blank screen of his TV. "I just don't know anymore, Boomie… Why is everything deciding to get hard all at once?"

"Isn't there like some law that says that's just what happens? Anything that can go wrong, will?"

Bubbles groaned. "Don't make me think right now."

"You asked."

"You were supposed to answer with an answer, you butthole, not with another question."

Laughter bubbled to his lips, only to die just as easily when he heard her defeated exhale. He lifted her chin, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles into the apples of her cheeks. "Come on, Bubsy. You can make everyone around you smile and laugh, let's work on bringing yours back. Enough of the harder things, right now. What's going on with Butch?"

"I thought you said enough of the harder things," she grumbled, her cheeks burning red.

Boomer only raised a brow and waited.

Of all the times he had interrupted her, had poked and prodded and demanded with a teasing grin for her to hurry along, to move on to other topics, it would be the one time she wanted more than anything to talk about something else that he was being exceptionally patient. She couldn't count the number of times he'd try to shorten her stalling- on both her hands and both of her feet! But now? Oh, now he wanted to play at being the virtue.

Asshole.

After ten full minutes of silence while he waited- patiently- she finally caved.

"I don't know, okay? I don't think there's anything going on at all- I just don't know what I'm feeling or thinking or doing, alright?"

His brows raised and she suddenly felt incredibly small. "Bubsy, I love you to pieces and I respect you more than anyone else I know- but do you really expect me to buy that?"

She whined and hid her face against his blue shirt. "Boomie…"

"What's the first thing you think of when you think of his face?" he pressed.

There was this little grain of hope that her counterpart wouldn't see her blush, but she could feel the heat in her ears and neck. "I don't-"

"Bubbles, humor me. Just picture his face in your mind and tell me the first thing you think of."

She whimpered a little, hating the idea of going through with it. She can't do this, shouldn't do this. Not now, not when everything she thought she knew seemed to be collapsing around her. Her brain was nothing if not imaginative, however, and before she could even try to take control it almost immediately conjured up Butch's face, painting the smile he gifted to her the night after he saw her passed out in the bath—soft and tender and warm, like starlight through the night.

Her heart thundered in her chest at the thought, the corners of her lips trembling as heat spilled into her cheeks. "Warmth… Joy… How happy it makes me to make him happy…" How much she wanted to hear his laugh and see that smile again over and over, as if he were an oasis and she, dying of thirst.

He could make just about anyone thirsty, though-

He hummed knowingly and patted her back before going back to rubbing soothing circles, pulling her from her thoughts. "I diagnose you with stage three crush status."

"Is it terminal?" she asked solemnly.

Boomer nodded. "It is, yes. It means you just really do want to be my sister so badly that you're willing to settle for my dumb brother."

"I might just give you a swirlie for that."

He winced. "Please don't."

She thought back to that morning. Waking up in his arms, so warm and comfortable and so very safe, was like waking up on cloud nine. Both times she'd done so, she'd been rudely interrupted by his brothers. But today, she was at least able to look a little longer.

If she'd had her way, she would have just watched him sleep and played with his hair for a while until he, on his own, woke up. If there was one thing she'd forever be upset with Boomer about, it was not giving her any time to enjoy having a shirtless Butch asleep on her. She's already forgiven him, but she'd forever be upset that she didn't have any time to wake up normally or even process it. Even if she didn't quite have a crush on him at that time, she would have still been able to look back fondly- but noooo, that time of theirs was cut short.

"So… You gonna ask him out?"

"Absolutely not," she scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I have a crush. Like with all of my other crushes, it'll go away eventually and I can spare myself the embarrassment by just waiting it out."

He scoffed back. "Oh please. You should do something for yourself. I, for one, support you no matter what."

"Thanks, Boomie." She smiled, her nose scrunching up like a rabbit's. "I am doing something for myself. Wednesday."

"Right," he nodded. "What did you have me clear my calendar for, anyway?"

"If I tell you, Brick will grill you for the answer," she deadpanned. "Just wait until I swing by to pick you up, okay?"

"You really aren't going to do anything about Butch?" His voice was softer, more concerned. "…Bubs, please don't let what happened between us get in the way of your happiness."

Sky eyes met cobalt, surprisingly confident. "I'm not, I promise."

His mouth set into a straight line. "Mmm."

Her eyes were almost sad when she sighed after that hum. "I promise, Boomie, I do," her voice was soft. "What happened with us was a one-off, I know. My whole thing is like… Butch isn't you, Boom. I don't know if I could live with myself if something happened… You and I will get mad at each other but come back and talk it out. If… ugh, I just don't want it to get awkward. I don't want to end up hating him. I just… If something didn't work… It's easier to leave it alone."

His hum was entirely noncommittal. "I think you're too focused on what all could go wrong."

"I'm not six years old, living in my imagination where everything goes smoothly," she whispered. "I have to think about what could go wrong."

Strong arms tightened around her, familiar and firm, but not even close to the strength and steadiness of the arms that she never wanted to let her go. "I'm not gonna push any harder, but I'm here whenever you need me, okay?"

"Don't say anything to him?"

"Never," he swore. "Not without your permission." The blondes slipped into a comfortable silence for a long, relaxing moment. "Are you gonna stay 'till Wednesday?"

"I can't. Coffee needs to be taken care of."

"Coffee is also welcomed here," he clarified. "I have the week free. Well, except Tuesday, so you won't have to be alone much."

She smiled. "If it's alright with you, I might just take you up on that."

"I insist you do."