Thanks to Andy for helping me with these next few parts!
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Inner Turmoil-Chapter 10
Buttercup returned home that night to a rather unpleasant sight.
"Where have you been?!" Blossom cried shrilly, her arms folded in the most uptight of manners. "We've been worried sick!"
Buttercup walked into the living room and threw her bag onto the couch. She tried to arrange her face into something expressionless, but she was finding it very difficult to stop smiling.
"I was out," Buttercup said, flopping herself down onto the couch while searching aimlessly for the remote.
"So I noticed. Where were you all this time?" Blossom said, moving over to the side table, where the remote was sitting next to a small lamp. She picked it up and dangled it in front of Buttercup's face tauntingly.
"What do you care?" Buttercup said dully, making a good, quick snatch for the remote, but Blossom pulled it back before she could get it.
"That's not good enough Buttercup. You missed dinner," Blossom said, once again bringing the remote back around as if she was going to drop it on Buttercup's lap. She held it firmly, pursing her lips.
"Who died and made you my mother?! Give it to me!" Buttercup leapt up and made one last grab for the controller, grasping it firmly in her fingers and yanking hard. Blossom let go willingly, but she also was giving Buttercup the impression that she was hurt somehow.
"That isn't funny Buttercup," Blossom said softly. Discussing any sort of mother was a touchy subject for all of them. Buttercup sat back down onto the couch and attempted to ignore Blossom, but she didn't move. "And why are you smiling?!"
"Because I'm happy. Now get out of my way!" and Buttercup swung her arm around as if she was doing nothing more than swatting a harmless fly away. "I was just walking."
"You could have at least called," Blossom mumbled, and then she walked away, slightly hurt, leaving Buttercup to watch TV alone. Blossom did fully regret telling her sister that she thought she was useless, but at the time she had been making her so angry. Blossom just wished that Buttercup would get a clue that the whole world didn't revolve around her. Her macho act just didn't fool anybody anymore; it was a cry for attention in Blossom's eyes.
Blossom walked into the professor's study, planning on finding a good book to get her mind off of things, when she found him walking around aimlessly as if he was looking for something.
"Do you need something?" Blossom asked him curiously, walking over to one of the tall bookshelves. She turned her back to him and began scanning the labels of all the professor's science books.
He opened a drawer of his desk carelessly, and Blossom heard the whole thing crash to the floor with a loud clatter. He was muttering under his breath as if Blossom hadn't even entered the room.
Noticing an interesting looking book on mammals, Blossom pulled it out of its niche and turned around. The professor was padding his pockets, clearly looking for something he'd lost.
He stopped short and looked at Blossom suspiciously as if he thought she was guilty of something.
"Have you seen my pipe?" he said, eyeing her coolly. Blossom sat herself at his desk and put the book in front of her, opening it silently while the professor waited for some sort of response.
"Oh, I hid it." Blossom said leisurely, licking a finger lightly to turn the pages. She heard the professor's arms smack down to his sides in exasperation.
"You know I hate it when you do that. Where is it? You're closet? The pantry-"
"The roof."
"The WHAT?!" he cried in disbelief, but there was light humor in his voice.
"Oh yeah, Bubbles and I hid it in the gutter the night you were out with the other professors," Blossom said casually, as if it was nothing more than doing laundry. "Smoking is bad for you."
"Oh, good grief. If you want me to quit there are other ways of doing it." the professor said, and he left the room. Bubbles walked in a few minutes later, looking slightly disturbed.
"Buttercup is scaring me," she said softly. Bubbles turned around very quickly like she was checking her shoulder for some sort of oncoming attack. "She's watching a shopping network, but she's sitting all alone, smiling like it was Christmas!"
"Oh yeah? She's really irking me right now. I don't know why she's doing that, but I'm afraid of what it could mean," Blossom said, turning some more pages in the book she was reading. Bubbles started spinning the large globe that sat on a pedestal in the far corner. Then she asked a question that Blossom was hoping to avoid,
"Why does Buttercup hate the professor?"
Blossom closed the book she was reading and slid it along the table away from her. She turned to her blonde sister and put her hands on her knees.
"She- well- I think Buttercup doesn't fully trust him. I mean, you know that we've been suspected things about our past for a long time. Buttercup is just expressing her suspicions differently, that's all. She doesn't hate the professor," Blossom said.
"Oh."
"You know Bubbles, I think I'll ask him soon. You remember what we talked about a few nights ago?"
"Uh huh."
"Good. I'll ask him, and then everything will be back to normal. Buttercup won't hate the professor anymore, because lord knows its getting irritating." Blossom said finally, talking very fast.
Satisfied, Bubbles changed her expression into something a bit more cheerful.
"Oh, heh, I should probably go get the professor's pipe off of the roof," Bubbles said, turning to leave. "Before he flips out again. We don't want another garden episode." she laughed.
Ever since they could remember, the professor had always been fond of walking around the house with his little black pipe sticking from his mouth. It had never really bothered them when they'd been younger, but as they grew older, his smoking habits had become quite irksome. He seemed to think it looked dashing and intellectual, but the girls just thought it was gross.
About three years ago, the three of them had developed a new pass time in order to get the professor to quite his pipe-smoking ways. It was called: "Hide his pipe in the most ridiculous of places where he would have a snowball's chance in hell of finding it." A current favorite was somewhere on the roof, but one time they'd buried it in the backyard, turning up all the professor's prized begonias into a heaping mess on the grass. Needless to say, he hadn't been too pleased.
"Make sure you snap it in half too. That'll force him to have to buy a new one. which we'll promptly confiscate," Blossom winked at her sister, who giggled with giddy delight. Blossom could swear that they'd probably purposely broken his pipe at least a dozen times, but every time he'd secretly buy a new. At first he tried to hide it, but they'd always end up finding his pipe, which he always put in the same place. Having super sensitive smell is in fact good for something.
Bubbles scampered out of the room, and a moment later Blossom yawned widely. She stretched heartily and rose from her seat, planning on a good, comfortable rest in her room. Buttercup had already stolen the TV and the professor was obviously pre-occupied, and there wasn't much else to do that night.
Bidding the professor, and Buttercup (who's only response was a grunt of recognition) good night, Blossom made her way to her room, looking forward to the comfort of her cushy bed. It was deathly hot out, so she cracked her window, listening to Bubbles stomp around on the roof to claim the professor's lost pipe.
The heat made her too lazy to really do anything, so she flopped onto her bed, sending the stuffed unicorn to the floor with a mighty leap, where it lay amongst a pile of Blossom's books. Not bothering to get under the covers, Blossom laid her head on her pillow and began to think, twirling a small strand of her hair around her finger.
Then Blossom dozed off just lightly. Always faithful, her dream came almost as soon as she drifted off.
Dying, dying, dying-
-So confused. I just want to close my eyes and sleep. it hurts badly-
-Stop laughing! STOP LAUGHING!-
-Be very, VERY careful. appearances are deceiving-
-Soon, very soon, I will die. but how-
-I. Can't. Breath.-
She woke with a very muffled gasp, realizing that she'd been smothering herself in her pillow. She wasn't screaming this time, but she was shaking so badly it was hard for her to hold her body up with her hands as she tried to pull herself up. The dream had been just the same, terrible and ominous, and Blossom couldn't help but feel a little sick. She froze her entire body for a few moments, afraid she was going to be sick on her pillow, but it passed.
Still shaking, she sat herself up on the edge of her bed, and looked at the clock. The glowing numbers read two A.M. She sat alone, letting the darkness and warmth of her room blanket her, trying to even her breathing out. Blossom ran both of her hands through her hair, feeling the sick moisture of sweat amongst her scalp, when she suddenly realized she didn't want to be alone anymore.
Her feet carried her there automatically, and she didn't really realize where she was going until she found herself standing outside the door of the professor's room, which stood slightly ajar. There were flashing lights coming from the other side, and Blossom thought that the professor was probably still awake, when she opened the door slowly, poking her head around the door cautiously.
No. He was obviously asleep, but the TV was still on. He was lying on top of the blankets, still dressed and obviously too hot seeing as the very top of his shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his chest just slightly. He looked so peaceful, with one arm lying across his forehead, and the other one atop his chest, the remote nestled beneath his hand, his chest rising and falling evenly with deep, peaceful breaths.
Blossom stood frozen in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, too afraid to move for fear of waking her father. He never stirred, and she very cautiously crept over to his bed, leaning over the mattress just enough to free the controller from under his palm. With a soft click she turned off the TV and stood at the side of his bed for a few moments, afraid of many things.
She didn't want to wake him or disturb him in anyway, but for some reason she couldn't will her legs to carry her back to the room. Blossom stood there nervously, her mind very quickly deciding on leaving, then changing its mind for her to stay.
Finally she made a decision, and very carefully crept onto the professor's mattress to curl up next to him like a lonely puppy. He never stirred, but Blossom, unable to fall back asleep right away, watched the professor for while until she finally dozed.
Blossom slept uneasily, somewhere between her dreaming state and complete unconsciousness. She never realized it, but the rest of the night she spent tossing and turning on the professor's bed, but never enough to wake him.
Her mind was in so much disarray that it would be hard for her to distinguish between her woken realities or if she was still dreaming. Everything seemed very blurred and confusing, and by the time Blossom woke up around eight in the morning her mind was already a jumbled, groggy mess.
Blinking very slowly in the now dimly lit bedroom, Blossom could feel the professor next to her. Slowly, her head a fuzzy mess, she turned onto her side to see if he was still sleeping, but what she saw came as quite a shock.
Almost immediately her heart started thundering as if it had just been given a shuddering jolt. Blossom cried out involuntarily, her body freezing on the spot, her eyes widening in shock-
-The professor was not lying next to her, he wasn't even in the room, but the reality was far worse than worrying about his absence. In the spot where the professor had been sleeping just hours before, nestled close to where Blossom now lay, was none other than the very last person Blossom wanted to see-
-There was an ear splitting shriek as the being known as Him rolled over very quickly, pinning Blossom onto the hard mattress with his crab-like claws, a wicked grin on his devilish face.
On instinct, Blossom forced her hands upward to push him off, every rough breath a shuddering gasp of air. Him didn't budge, and in a blind panic, her mind racing, Blossom did the only thing that came natural to her. He was going to kill her; she could see it in his eyes.
She bunched her fist very tightly, barely noticing that her vision was beginning to blur, barely feeling the demon's claws against her shoulders. In one very swift motion, and a cry of anger Blossom drove her powerful fist into the demon's face, sending Him sprawling backwards with a thundering crash. There was a loud crunching sound as his body went across the room, drywall and wallpaper splitting with the force of Blossom's panic- driven blow-
-Screaming, Blossom leapt up in bed with a sudden gasp of breath, her hair a tangled mess of sweat and sleep. Her heart beat relentlessly against her ribs as her whole body trembled with anticipation, confusion and disillusionment swimming inside her brain as she prepared to attack again if necessary. But something in her brain told her to freeze-to not attack- something comparable to an alarm, telling her that something had gone horribly wrong-
Blossom looked around the room blindly, slowly becoming aware of the events that had just transpired. She had been dreaming. she had been dreaming. but it had been so real. somebody had been touching her shoulders.
-But then she screamed again, this time out of complete horror. Something was in fact very, very wrong.
Instead of the body of Him lying sprawled up in a heap against the wall, which in itself was enough to bring tingles down anyone's spine, what was actually there brought Blossom no more comfort.
The professor was doubled over weakly, swaying, clutching his head in his hands as pieces of the wall crumbled downwards, dusting the professor's shirt with a light film of fake snow. He cradled his face in his hands, groaning, and blood seeping between his fingers, almost as if he'd just been punched in the face-
Oh no.
Inner Turmoil-Chapter 10
Buttercup returned home that night to a rather unpleasant sight.
"Where have you been?!" Blossom cried shrilly, her arms folded in the most uptight of manners. "We've been worried sick!"
Buttercup walked into the living room and threw her bag onto the couch. She tried to arrange her face into something expressionless, but she was finding it very difficult to stop smiling.
"I was out," Buttercup said, flopping herself down onto the couch while searching aimlessly for the remote.
"So I noticed. Where were you all this time?" Blossom said, moving over to the side table, where the remote was sitting next to a small lamp. She picked it up and dangled it in front of Buttercup's face tauntingly.
"What do you care?" Buttercup said dully, making a good, quick snatch for the remote, but Blossom pulled it back before she could get it.
"That's not good enough Buttercup. You missed dinner," Blossom said, once again bringing the remote back around as if she was going to drop it on Buttercup's lap. She held it firmly, pursing her lips.
"Who died and made you my mother?! Give it to me!" Buttercup leapt up and made one last grab for the controller, grasping it firmly in her fingers and yanking hard. Blossom let go willingly, but she also was giving Buttercup the impression that she was hurt somehow.
"That isn't funny Buttercup," Blossom said softly. Discussing any sort of mother was a touchy subject for all of them. Buttercup sat back down onto the couch and attempted to ignore Blossom, but she didn't move. "And why are you smiling?!"
"Because I'm happy. Now get out of my way!" and Buttercup swung her arm around as if she was doing nothing more than swatting a harmless fly away. "I was just walking."
"You could have at least called," Blossom mumbled, and then she walked away, slightly hurt, leaving Buttercup to watch TV alone. Blossom did fully regret telling her sister that she thought she was useless, but at the time she had been making her so angry. Blossom just wished that Buttercup would get a clue that the whole world didn't revolve around her. Her macho act just didn't fool anybody anymore; it was a cry for attention in Blossom's eyes.
Blossom walked into the professor's study, planning on finding a good book to get her mind off of things, when she found him walking around aimlessly as if he was looking for something.
"Do you need something?" Blossom asked him curiously, walking over to one of the tall bookshelves. She turned her back to him and began scanning the labels of all the professor's science books.
He opened a drawer of his desk carelessly, and Blossom heard the whole thing crash to the floor with a loud clatter. He was muttering under his breath as if Blossom hadn't even entered the room.
Noticing an interesting looking book on mammals, Blossom pulled it out of its niche and turned around. The professor was padding his pockets, clearly looking for something he'd lost.
He stopped short and looked at Blossom suspiciously as if he thought she was guilty of something.
"Have you seen my pipe?" he said, eyeing her coolly. Blossom sat herself at his desk and put the book in front of her, opening it silently while the professor waited for some sort of response.
"Oh, I hid it." Blossom said leisurely, licking a finger lightly to turn the pages. She heard the professor's arms smack down to his sides in exasperation.
"You know I hate it when you do that. Where is it? You're closet? The pantry-"
"The roof."
"The WHAT?!" he cried in disbelief, but there was light humor in his voice.
"Oh yeah, Bubbles and I hid it in the gutter the night you were out with the other professors," Blossom said casually, as if it was nothing more than doing laundry. "Smoking is bad for you."
"Oh, good grief. If you want me to quit there are other ways of doing it." the professor said, and he left the room. Bubbles walked in a few minutes later, looking slightly disturbed.
"Buttercup is scaring me," she said softly. Bubbles turned around very quickly like she was checking her shoulder for some sort of oncoming attack. "She's watching a shopping network, but she's sitting all alone, smiling like it was Christmas!"
"Oh yeah? She's really irking me right now. I don't know why she's doing that, but I'm afraid of what it could mean," Blossom said, turning some more pages in the book she was reading. Bubbles started spinning the large globe that sat on a pedestal in the far corner. Then she asked a question that Blossom was hoping to avoid,
"Why does Buttercup hate the professor?"
Blossom closed the book she was reading and slid it along the table away from her. She turned to her blonde sister and put her hands on her knees.
"She- well- I think Buttercup doesn't fully trust him. I mean, you know that we've been suspected things about our past for a long time. Buttercup is just expressing her suspicions differently, that's all. She doesn't hate the professor," Blossom said.
"Oh."
"You know Bubbles, I think I'll ask him soon. You remember what we talked about a few nights ago?"
"Uh huh."
"Good. I'll ask him, and then everything will be back to normal. Buttercup won't hate the professor anymore, because lord knows its getting irritating." Blossom said finally, talking very fast.
Satisfied, Bubbles changed her expression into something a bit more cheerful.
"Oh, heh, I should probably go get the professor's pipe off of the roof," Bubbles said, turning to leave. "Before he flips out again. We don't want another garden episode." she laughed.
Ever since they could remember, the professor had always been fond of walking around the house with his little black pipe sticking from his mouth. It had never really bothered them when they'd been younger, but as they grew older, his smoking habits had become quite irksome. He seemed to think it looked dashing and intellectual, but the girls just thought it was gross.
About three years ago, the three of them had developed a new pass time in order to get the professor to quite his pipe-smoking ways. It was called: "Hide his pipe in the most ridiculous of places where he would have a snowball's chance in hell of finding it." A current favorite was somewhere on the roof, but one time they'd buried it in the backyard, turning up all the professor's prized begonias into a heaping mess on the grass. Needless to say, he hadn't been too pleased.
"Make sure you snap it in half too. That'll force him to have to buy a new one. which we'll promptly confiscate," Blossom winked at her sister, who giggled with giddy delight. Blossom could swear that they'd probably purposely broken his pipe at least a dozen times, but every time he'd secretly buy a new. At first he tried to hide it, but they'd always end up finding his pipe, which he always put in the same place. Having super sensitive smell is in fact good for something.
Bubbles scampered out of the room, and a moment later Blossom yawned widely. She stretched heartily and rose from her seat, planning on a good, comfortable rest in her room. Buttercup had already stolen the TV and the professor was obviously pre-occupied, and there wasn't much else to do that night.
Bidding the professor, and Buttercup (who's only response was a grunt of recognition) good night, Blossom made her way to her room, looking forward to the comfort of her cushy bed. It was deathly hot out, so she cracked her window, listening to Bubbles stomp around on the roof to claim the professor's lost pipe.
The heat made her too lazy to really do anything, so she flopped onto her bed, sending the stuffed unicorn to the floor with a mighty leap, where it lay amongst a pile of Blossom's books. Not bothering to get under the covers, Blossom laid her head on her pillow and began to think, twirling a small strand of her hair around her finger.
Then Blossom dozed off just lightly. Always faithful, her dream came almost as soon as she drifted off.
Dying, dying, dying-
-So confused. I just want to close my eyes and sleep. it hurts badly-
-Stop laughing! STOP LAUGHING!-
-Be very, VERY careful. appearances are deceiving-
-Soon, very soon, I will die. but how-
-I. Can't. Breath.-
She woke with a very muffled gasp, realizing that she'd been smothering herself in her pillow. She wasn't screaming this time, but she was shaking so badly it was hard for her to hold her body up with her hands as she tried to pull herself up. The dream had been just the same, terrible and ominous, and Blossom couldn't help but feel a little sick. She froze her entire body for a few moments, afraid she was going to be sick on her pillow, but it passed.
Still shaking, she sat herself up on the edge of her bed, and looked at the clock. The glowing numbers read two A.M. She sat alone, letting the darkness and warmth of her room blanket her, trying to even her breathing out. Blossom ran both of her hands through her hair, feeling the sick moisture of sweat amongst her scalp, when she suddenly realized she didn't want to be alone anymore.
Her feet carried her there automatically, and she didn't really realize where she was going until she found herself standing outside the door of the professor's room, which stood slightly ajar. There were flashing lights coming from the other side, and Blossom thought that the professor was probably still awake, when she opened the door slowly, poking her head around the door cautiously.
No. He was obviously asleep, but the TV was still on. He was lying on top of the blankets, still dressed and obviously too hot seeing as the very top of his shirt was unbuttoned, exposing his chest just slightly. He looked so peaceful, with one arm lying across his forehead, and the other one atop his chest, the remote nestled beneath his hand, his chest rising and falling evenly with deep, peaceful breaths.
Blossom stood frozen in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, too afraid to move for fear of waking her father. He never stirred, and she very cautiously crept over to his bed, leaning over the mattress just enough to free the controller from under his palm. With a soft click she turned off the TV and stood at the side of his bed for a few moments, afraid of many things.
She didn't want to wake him or disturb him in anyway, but for some reason she couldn't will her legs to carry her back to the room. Blossom stood there nervously, her mind very quickly deciding on leaving, then changing its mind for her to stay.
Finally she made a decision, and very carefully crept onto the professor's mattress to curl up next to him like a lonely puppy. He never stirred, but Blossom, unable to fall back asleep right away, watched the professor for while until she finally dozed.
Blossom slept uneasily, somewhere between her dreaming state and complete unconsciousness. She never realized it, but the rest of the night she spent tossing and turning on the professor's bed, but never enough to wake him.
Her mind was in so much disarray that it would be hard for her to distinguish between her woken realities or if she was still dreaming. Everything seemed very blurred and confusing, and by the time Blossom woke up around eight in the morning her mind was already a jumbled, groggy mess.
Blinking very slowly in the now dimly lit bedroom, Blossom could feel the professor next to her. Slowly, her head a fuzzy mess, she turned onto her side to see if he was still sleeping, but what she saw came as quite a shock.
Almost immediately her heart started thundering as if it had just been given a shuddering jolt. Blossom cried out involuntarily, her body freezing on the spot, her eyes widening in shock-
-The professor was not lying next to her, he wasn't even in the room, but the reality was far worse than worrying about his absence. In the spot where the professor had been sleeping just hours before, nestled close to where Blossom now lay, was none other than the very last person Blossom wanted to see-
-There was an ear splitting shriek as the being known as Him rolled over very quickly, pinning Blossom onto the hard mattress with his crab-like claws, a wicked grin on his devilish face.
On instinct, Blossom forced her hands upward to push him off, every rough breath a shuddering gasp of air. Him didn't budge, and in a blind panic, her mind racing, Blossom did the only thing that came natural to her. He was going to kill her; she could see it in his eyes.
She bunched her fist very tightly, barely noticing that her vision was beginning to blur, barely feeling the demon's claws against her shoulders. In one very swift motion, and a cry of anger Blossom drove her powerful fist into the demon's face, sending Him sprawling backwards with a thundering crash. There was a loud crunching sound as his body went across the room, drywall and wallpaper splitting with the force of Blossom's panic- driven blow-
-Screaming, Blossom leapt up in bed with a sudden gasp of breath, her hair a tangled mess of sweat and sleep. Her heart beat relentlessly against her ribs as her whole body trembled with anticipation, confusion and disillusionment swimming inside her brain as she prepared to attack again if necessary. But something in her brain told her to freeze-to not attack- something comparable to an alarm, telling her that something had gone horribly wrong-
Blossom looked around the room blindly, slowly becoming aware of the events that had just transpired. She had been dreaming. she had been dreaming. but it had been so real. somebody had been touching her shoulders.
-But then she screamed again, this time out of complete horror. Something was in fact very, very wrong.
Instead of the body of Him lying sprawled up in a heap against the wall, which in itself was enough to bring tingles down anyone's spine, what was actually there brought Blossom no more comfort.
The professor was doubled over weakly, swaying, clutching his head in his hands as pieces of the wall crumbled downwards, dusting the professor's shirt with a light film of fake snow. He cradled his face in his hands, groaning, and blood seeping between his fingers, almost as if he'd just been punched in the face-
Oh no.