"Buttercup," Blossom said faintly. "Please stop screaming..." Her voice was far too quiet and weak.
"I'm sorry!" Buttercup immediately apologized, not just for the noise but for everything else. For causing this whole mess in the first place. She held her sister tighter and lowered her voice into something suitably quieter for her desperate, relentless contrition.
"I'm sorry, Blossom. I'm so, so sorry..."
Meanwhile Bubbles' eyes were fixed to the ceiling, wincing at every awful sound she could hear from up there. She took shelter down in the lab from her siblings in the same way a regular person might take shelter from a bad storm. Instead of any rain, hail, or wind though, Bubbles was hiding from the two bickering whirlwinds that were her sisters.
"I don't like arguing," She whimpered, really hoping that they would stop all this before it all got out of hand.
The Professor heaved a sigh at his desk and hunched himself heavily over it. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "It's like I can't even leave them for two seconds! I'm starting to think I made those two girls out of oil and water instead of sugar and spices—for some reason, they just can't mix!"
His wry little joke didn't even prompt a cynical laugh, not from himself or his daughter. This was really far too dire to be funny and the only thing the scientist and Puff could feel was raw misery.
"I wish they would stop. Octi doesn't like all the arguing either." Bubbles had brought her stuffed little octopus with her too and held him tightly with this declaration.
"Neither do I, Bubbles." Professor said. "If this keeps up any longer, I'm gonna have to call in a family counselor!" And that would just about be one of the most embarrassing things ever he'd have to do for his bickering children.
He guessed he could count his blessings though. "Well, on the bright side," He began, trying to adopt his usual optimism. "At least nothing's been-" A loud CRASH! from upstairs was heard. "... broken." He finished lamely. Guess he spoke too soon.
Sighing again, the Professor let a hopeless hand cover his entire face.
"That sounded like the coffee table!" Bubbles said, having a better sense of hearing than her dad did.
"I swear, it's like these kids are trying to make me go bankrupt!"
He took a moment to mourn his poor coffee table that had been doing nothing wrong at the time of this latest fight. It had only been standing there, minding its own business, caught up in the wrong place and the wrong time.
"It was hand-carved mahogany," He said to his daughter Bubbles now.
The blonde gave him a sympathetic pat on his hand, frowning at him consolingly. "Sorry, Professor."
Hopefully they would be able to build him a new one from scratch. In the meantime, he had to deal with this latest mess.
He waited for the inevitable just before he rose from his chair.
"PROFESSOR!"
Yep, there it was. Buttercup hollering out for him from the top of the stairs. He could most likely expect a lot of finger pointing and attribution when he got up there too, each one of his daughters shifting blame to the other for who was responsible for breaking the coffee table.
Even though he already wasn't looking forward to whatever he had to deal with it this time, the next words out of his green-schemed daughter's mouth only made things even worse.
"BLOSSOM'S BLEEDING! COME UP HERE, QUICK!"
Professor Utonium's eyes doubled in size. "What?!" He exclaimed.
Bubbles made a gasp too and slapped a hand over her mouth at this frightening new development. The Girls had never made each other bleed, not even with their worst fights.
The Professor ran instinctively for the first aid kit hanging off the wall, the kit that was right next to the fire extinguisher in case of explosions or accidents down in the lab with chemicals. "Oh, for goodness' sake! I hope this isn't serious!" he said, popping open the box and taking the first roll of bandages he saw out of the kit.
"PROFESSOR!" Buttercup screamed again, sounding for all the world like her sister was practically dying. "GET UP HERE!"
"COMING BUTTERCUP!" Professor yelled back up to her, though he didn't quite know if she could hear him very well.
Instead of having to come up there though, the Professor saw the object of his main concern right at the top of the stairs.
"Daddy..." Blossom said, sounding so strangely weak. She floated down the stairs slowly and at first the Professor was questioning.
"What in world is going on up there-"
Then he saw the blood completely covering the right side of her face, the blood on her blouse, and the thick wooden splinter sticking straight out of her right eye.
"-BLOSSOM!"
Bubbles screamed at the sight of this and turned three whole shades paler.
"H-Help me, daddy..." Blossom pleaded, just as her father leapt out of his chair (knocking it over in the process) and raced to her side. He dropped down to his knees and took a hold of her shoulders.
"Blossom, what happened to your eye?!" He shouted, all while Bubbles made a loud retching sound in the background, just barely restraining herself from being sick all over the white tiled floor. "Baby, what happened?!" He asked again when Blossom didn't answer, instead trembling greatly and making ragged, pained breaths.
The answer she gave came out halting - a stammering, stuttering mess. "B-Butter... cup... a-and I were... f-fighting..."
Buttercup came down only a few moments after Blossom and the look over her face was just as horror-stricken as the Professor's. Her father looked at her as if she were a monster... at least that's how it seemed in Buttercup's head.
"BUTTERCUP UTONIUM! WHAT DID YOU DO?!"
"I-I-I-I didn't mean it!" The green Puff in question cried, her body a trembling mess. Her forehead also had beads of sweat over it and there were tears plainly visible in the corners of her large lime green eyes.
"Buttercup, what did you do?!" Even Bubbles shrieked at her, looking at her just as the Professor was... as if she were something to be feared and loathed.
"I didn't mean to!" She desperately repeated.
"S-She pushed me..." Blossom struggled to explain further. "It w-was an... accident..."
"What did you push her into?!"
"It was the coffee table!" Buttercup explained. "I didn't mean to, I swear!"
"What were you two even fighting about!?"
The reason seemed laughable. It was chocolate. Chocolate had caused all this.
"I don't know!" Buttercup cried, her voice wobbling with her stress. "I'm sorry, Blossom! Dad, can you get it out?"
The Professor only had to look over his bleeding, injured daughter for a minute to figure out that this was really a terrible idea. That splinter was in far too deep and if he tried to get it out on his own, he would only end up causing his daughter irreparable harm.
"No!" The man shook his head. He let go of his daughter's shoulders and raced across the room to search for his sneakers. "We've gotta go to the hospital! Bubbles, help me look for my shoes!"
"Yes, Professor!" Bubbles squeaked, not wanting to waste a single extra minute.
Buttercup stuck close to her sister while Bubbles was busy helping the Professor but since she didn't have the stomach to face what she had done head-on, she never saw the moment that Blossom began to grow faint.
She did hear a moan escape her lips though, and when she turned around to investigate, she found her sister backed against the wall, slowly beginning to slump down to the ground.
"Blossom!"
Buttercup grabbed both of her shoulders, trying to guide her descent to the floor. "Blossom, sit down!" she instructed shakily, realizing far too late that she should've been pressing her to do that in the first place. It was too dangerous for her to remain on her feet.
Eventually Blossom lost the ability to stay airborne altogether and ended up sitting with her back against the wall. This seemed like the preferable position for her to remain in so Buttercup tried to get her to stay there as she held her. She could see her uninjured eye beginning to roll into the back of her head and before the green Puff knew it, her sister collapsed onto the floor.