Let's get to it! Here's my gift to you guys! Chapter one, baby! Wooooo! So many exclamation points!
Disclaimer: I don't own any characters or settings from The Powerpuff Girls, all belong to Craig McCracken. I also do not own anything by MTV, or BMW. I wish I had a BMW, though.
Sorry for errors!
Chapter One
-Blossom's POV, Present Day-
I tapped my foot impatiently as I listened to the line ring again and again. My stiletto heel popped loudly against the wood floor. A few feet away, Bubbles was telling Buttercup all about her sorority, something I was positive that Buttercup cared nothing about.
Before the last ring could come, I hung up. I had already left two somewhat nagging voicemails, and I had no desire to leave another one. "Brick, you're killing me here." I muttered under my breath.
Buttercup, cutting Bubbles off mid-rant—something about the last spa night she'd had at her sorority house—looked up at me in the manner of a dog pricking its' ears up at a weird sound. "He hasn't picked up still?"
I shook my head. "Nope."
Bubbles, after briefly getting over her irritation that our green-eyed sister was no longer listening, looked at me in mild concern. "Seriously? Isn't that the sixth time you've called him now?"
I sighed. It probably was, but then again, I'd been calling him for about an hour by this point, and I'd begun to lose track. "Yeah. I have no clue where he could be." I looked down at my hot pink pencil skirt and black lace blouse, the date outfit that had somehow taken me at least two hours to pick out, an entirely painful process that I had no clue would be so difficult. Everything else looked too wrong, too frumpy, too casual, too plain. It was so hard to be a girl.
"Well, at least sit down until he gets here," Bubbles offered. "Come talk with us."
I looked at her, appalled. "I can't sit down. It'll wrinkle my skirt."
Buttercup looked up at me dryly. "Brick won't care if your skirt is wrinkled." She paused, popping a grape into her mouth from the bowl on the table. "And if the wrinkles on your skirt is all he notices whenever he looks in that region, and not your ass, then we have an entirely different set of problems."
Bubbles snorted, and I chose to ignore that comment.
I knew I was overreacting, of course, but I was anxious to see Brick again. Since our freshman year of college had started, we'd both been so busy, especially since the Rowdyruff brothers had opted to go to the University of Townsville instead of Warner University, as we'd chosen.
While Bubbles and Buttercup had both been busy with sorority and dorm parties, respectively, I'd spent my free time either studying in my dorm room or at the campus coffee shop, or going to visit Professor. All of that left little time to take visits to the UofT campus to go see my boyfriend, which sucked, but that was the repercussion of being a biochemical engineering major. Aside from the occasional study date at the cafe, we mostly had to talk on the phone, online, and with video chatting, but none of that really helped the dull ache of his absence go away. It was why I was so excited for this date, our first real date in a while.
But Brick had told me the day before—Thursday—that he'd pick me up at six, which had gone by an hour and a half earlier. He'd never been so late for a date before, and it had started to make me wonder if I was the only one really anticipating this date.
I sighed and gave in, going over to our designated table in the large dining hall and sitting down at it. The dining hall was considerably full by then, filled by students eating and some occupying their tables with books instead of food, a low hum of chatter echoing off the walls in the area. I stared at my sisters' empty plates and the small bowl of grapes sitting in the middle of the table, thinking about how I could've been eating a delicious dinner with my boyfriend by then.
As if she read my mind—she didn't, none of us had mind reading powers, which was probably a good thing—Buttercup pushed the bowl towards me. "Might as well," she said, shrugging. "No use starving to death while Brick takes his sweet time moseying over here."
I didn't even bother verbalizing my agreement; I reached for the bowl so fast. I was so hungry that my stomach ached with hollowness. I ripped three grapes off of the vine at a time and stuffed my mouth with them. "God, I'm hungry," I mumbled around my food.
My sisters looked at me in sympathy, and Bubbles reached a hand over to my hair. "Your curls are falling out," she pointed out, her face scrunching in disappointment. "Your hair was perfect when I did it an hour ago."
Grabbing another four grapes from the bowl, I took a quick glance at the ends of my red hair, which tumbled down to my ribs. Sure enough, the curved ends were straightening out, looking more flat and strangled than pretty and bouncy. I ate the grapes in my hand, taking care not to bite my tongue in my haste. "Sorry," I said between chews.
"Maybe I should have used more hairspray," Bubbles murmured to herself, fluffing my hair to arrange it so it looked better.
"Can we talk about something else?" I asked, resting a hand under my chin. Maybe talking about something else would take away the anxiousness in my gut. "Buttercup, how's your Wing Chun club going?"
She leaned back on her hands, a smirk spreading on her face. "Oh, you know. Too easy, as usual. Fun though."
Buttercup had gotten into different types of martial arts later in high school, she'd found it a relaxing and useful outlet for her anger. Admittedly, it had taken her a while to learn to control her strength with her human sparring partners— there had been a few accidents—but in the end she had chosen Wing Chun as her favorite, as it involved more skill and wit rather than strength and power. As someone who used to only rely on her own brute strength, it challenged her more than the rest.
"I sparred with Butch the other day." She continued. "Took him down in thirty seconds."
"Why do I have the feeling that your sparring didn't end with that kind of wrestling?" said Bubbles. I almost choked on my grape at the look Buttercup shot at her.
"Excuse you," Buttercup said indignantly. "We were in public. I have standards, you know." She lifted her eyebrows. "And besides, we have his dorm room for that."
"Apparently," I said. I reached for one of the unopened cans of Coke that Buttercup had bought for herself. She was always buying them in bulk so that she could take the extras up to our dorm room. "That would explain why you're gone somewhere else seventy-percent of the time that you're not at parties."
She snorted. "Oh, like you're Miss Innocence over there?" She shook her head at me. "I've seen the way Brick looks at you."
"How does he look at me?"
"Like he's seen you naked," she said loudly, like it was the most obvious fact in the world. A few people walking by our table paused and looked at her in alarm. She winked at them tauntingly.
"Buttercup. Would you keep it down?" Bubbles scolded, giving the random group a tight smile as they walked away and then glancing around to make sure nobody else had heard.
I felt a burn under my skin spread past my hairline and all the way down to my collarbones. In discomfort, I raised a hand to smooth across my forehead. "No," I said quickly. "No, no. He hasn't. We haven't done…that…yet."
"Uh huh," Buttercup nodded slowly. "Sure."
"Really!" I exclaimed, feeling my skin burn brighter. This entire conversation was thoroughly embarrassing to me. It certainly shouldn't have been, I was 19 now damn it, but I was presently redder than a strawberry. "We haven't. It just…hasn't been the right time."
Bubbles looked suddenly shy about our topic of conversation too, a self-conscious little grin on her face. "Me and Boomer haven't either," she said to Buttercup. "We just want to be sure we were both ready."
"Well that's all fine and dandy," Buttercup replied, an impatient look on her face. "But you guys have been dating them for about three years now, just as long as Butch and I." She gestured at us. "How is that even possible? What, did the saint-like-restraint gene miss me, or something? I mean…haven't you wanted to?"
I took that moment to pop open the top of my soda and take a large swig.
Bubbles cleared her throat, running her fingers through her blonde, recently cut chin-length bob. I missed her long hair, but this cut flattered her just as well. She still looked like a super model either way. "Can we please change the subject? I'd rather not talk about this right now. Especially not here." She looked around again, making sure no one else had been listening in.
"Seconded," I cut in, swallowing my soda. "Especially while I'm sitting here waiting for my super tardy boyfr—" My cell phone went off then, ringing with Bricks' ringtone and buzzing and lighting up, scaring the living crap out of me. Quickly getting over it, I snatched my phone from the table, pressing the green 'SEND' button on the touch screen. "Hello?"
"I'm parked outside," Brick said by way of greeting. "Give me a chance to explain in the car. I have a good excuse, I promise."
Slightly relieved that he called me back, and yet still annoyed by how late he was, all I could do was say nothing and press 'end' with a displeased huff. I stood from the table then, bending to reach underneath the table to grab my purse.
"He'd better have a good excuse," Buttercup said as if she'd heard Brick, or maybe she actually had. Advanced hearing, and all. "He's really asking for it lately."
As irritated as I was, I shook my head, stuffing my cell phone into my pink purse and then reaching for my pastel pink peacoat. "He's just preoccupied with school," I said in his defense. "I don't think he can help it."
"Boomer takes school seriously, too. But even when he's running late to come see me, he makes the time to call. But Brick…" Bubbles pressed her glossed lips together and shrugged, leaving the rest of her sentence hanging in the air.
I sighed, not answering her. I tucked my hands underneath my now flat hair and pulled to free it from underneath my coat. "Leaving," I said, turning to walk away. "Call you later."
Bubbles waved, and Buttercup called after me, "Hey, slap him for me, will you?"
I teetered out of the noisy dining hall and towards the front entrance. As I pushed the doors open, I was ambushed by bitingly frosty air, and it knocked the wind out of me momentarily. For the middle of November, it was already unseasonably cold.
My breath puffing around my face in small clouds, I turned my head to peruse the area, and when I looked to the left, I saw Brick's burgundy BMW stalled by the curb with the engine running. Despite my aggravated mood, I couldn't help the flip that my stomach made.
As soon as I reached his car, I threw the passenger side door open and plopped down into my seat. I shut my door and sat for a moment, just staring out the windshield grumpily. The entire car was toasty warm, and it smelled like him, like spearmint and aftershave. After a few beats passed, I turned my head to look at my boyfriend, whom was already looking at me guiltily.
"Hey," he said mildly. He wore a black trench coat over a red cotton shirt and black jeans, his hair grown slightly past his chin, shaggy, and gloriously sexy. He made it look so easy. Damn him.
I sniffed, looking away again theatrically. "Hello, empty car seat. When you see my boyfriend, can you tell him he's ridiculously late?"
Brick managed a snort, and then sighed as he said, "I'm sorry, baby. I swear I did not mean for this to happen."
His apology already having loosened me up considerably, I glanced at him again with a smirk. "'I didn't mean for this to happen', he says."
"Really, I didn't!" He said lifting his hands and dropping them to slap down onto the steering wheel. I pinched my lips together to keep my smirk from growing into a smile. He continued. "My last class ran way late. The lecture was long enough to begin with, but then Professor Cavadini started talking about erosion and the effects it has on soil, and she went on this ridiculous hour-long tangent about the effects of pollution on economics and—"
Grabbing his chin, a bit stubbly now with the slightest bit of five o'clock shadow, I cut off his rant by pressing my lips to his tenderly. I broke the kiss, eyeing him with a smile. "I love it when you talk geeky to me."
As I started to pull away, he put his hand at the back of my head, curling his fingers into my hair, and pulled my lips back to his, kissing me with such warmth that I'd forgotten why I was mad in the first place.
Pulling away finally, he settled back into his seat with a satisfied grin. "So am I forgiven, then?"
I feigned an exasperated sigh and tapped a finger to my chin, pursing my lips. "Maybe," I said. Then, leaning down to free my feet of the stiletto heels for the car ride, I added, "But that's what you get for taking Cavadini's Agronomy course."
Brick laughed then, and then glanced down to shift the car into drive to pull away from the curb. "I'm starting to realize that, thanks." He looked at me sidelong. "I was going to buy flowers, but I didn't have time. If it helps my case any, I think you're real pretty."
I smiled and waved a hand, feeling a blush creep onto my face. I was glad to know my hard work hadn't been fruitless. "You're not bad, yourself." I lay back against dark leather seat with a sigh. "So, how has school been? How has life been? It feels like haven't seen you in years."
"School's good. Life's…well. It'd be better if I could see you more." We began driving away from my campus, then, and I felt myself let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.
"I know," I said. "Workaholics, both of us. We need to make more time." I reached my hand over to rub and squeeze his shoulder. "I miss my boyfriend."
He glanced at me, the side of his mouth turning up in a half smile that looked sort of sad. "I miss you too." His face turned solemn and he turned his gaze back to the road, his voice sounding softer. "You're always on my mind, Bloss. I hope you know that."
My heart picked up pace. Sometimes when he said things, things like that that made me forget how to breathe momentarily, I couldn't believe how lucky I was. Even after being with him for three years, whenever I thought about how much I loved him, it overwhelmed me.
"I know," I told him. It was all I could say.
He took a hand from the steering wheel and reached over to lace his fingers through mine. And as we drove to wherever our date would be, I leaned on his broad shoulder and drank in his company, the company I missed every moment we were away from each other.
-Buttercup's POV-
"Buuuuuuubbles," I whined despairingly to my sister on the other side of the room. "Get off the phooooone."
By way of reply, Bubbles turned her back to me, pressing the phone closer to her ear. Rude. "What about Sunday, then? We could go for coffee. I wanna see you."
I sighed dramatically, falling over face first onto Blossom's pink comforter. I lifted my face from the bed then. "You talk to him on the phone all the time. I'm still sitting here, you know." At her continued cold shoulder, I cupped my hands around my mouth, shouting, "Helloooooo?"
Bubbles looked at me sharply over her shoulder, covering the receiver with her hand. "Buttercup, shut up." She turned back to her phone then. "Sorry, baby. Buttercup's being annoying." She said the last part loud enough so I could hear.
My mouth popped open, and before I could think twice about it, I leaned over, grabbed one of Blossom's thousand sparkly, furry decorative pillows and hurled it at her head. It struck her in the back of the head so roughly that her head jerked forward, her blonde hair flopping into her face. She dropped the phone and nearly fell to the floor until she grabbed the wall for balance. My hands flew to my mouth. Whoops. Too hard.
She turned and looked at me slowly, her blue eyes looking at me through her hair so maliciously that I thought she might use her heat vision on me. "Ow," she said, managing to put enough poison in the one-syllable word that it made me cringe. She blew some hair out of her face. "What the hell?"
I held my hands up in defense. "Sorry!" I said. "Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean to throw it so hard! I just wanted your attention!"
"So come over and talk to me! Don't bludgeon me with a pillow!" She rubbed the back of her head, grinding her teeth. "What are you, ten?" I could hear Boomer's tiny voice calling to her from her dropped phone, and Bubbles could too, because she quickly bent to retrieve it.
I leaned back against the rest of Blossoms pillows, folding my arms. "Well, excuse me for wanting to spend quality time with my sister without her boyfriend listening in."
Before I had enough time to react or to even notice what she was doing, Bubbles launched the sparkly pillow back at me. Sailing through the air in a pale blue blur, it walloped me directly across the face, knocking me completely off of the bed and onto the hardwood floor with a loud thump.
"GOD," I shouted, partly in resentment and partly in astonishment. Plus, it's not like it felt that good either.
"Sorry about that, hun. Had to take care of a pest." She cleared her throat loudly. "So, Sunday then? Okay. You'll pick me up from the house?"
I crawled off the floor and went to stand in front of the mirror on the opposite wall to survey the damage. I grasped my ravaged cheek, scowling miserably. It glowed with a bright red welt. I gently prodded my nose ring with a finger, which happened to be on the same side of my face, and it throbbed in answer.
"I miss you too, sweetie. I'll see you soon. Okay. Buh-bye."
My hair didn't look so hot either, but that was just because I hadn't had a haircut in a while. It was beginning to get too long for my tastes. I tugged on the too-long ends, falling way past my shoulders by now. Suddenly, Bubbles appeared by my reflection.
I glowered at her in the mirror. "Look what you did to my face!" I complained, pointing at the welt that was, to my chagrin, already beginning to disappear, thanks to that damned advanced healing ability.
She just shrugged at it. "Always dishing it out, and never taking it," she said with a smirk.
"Hey now," I pointed at her reflection now, raising my eyebrows. "There's a difference. Mine was an accident. Yours was just pure cruelty."
"Okay, okay, fine." She said, leaning her head on my shoulder. She pouted her bottom lip. "I'm sorry I hurt your face."
I looked at her sideways. "You'd better be." I turned sharply then, grabbing her wrist and taking her back over to Blossom's bed. We could've sat on mine considering it was only six feet away, but whenever Blossom was out I always preferred to sit on hers. It was plushy and soft like a giant pink cloud, and it was tons more comfortable than mine, with my flat black comforter, skull and crossbones blanket, and just two lime green pillows. It led me to think that perhaps I needed to go to one of those bedding stores that Blossom went to for her dorm decor. "We need to finish this movie. It was your idea to watch it in the first place."
As we sat on the bed again—minus the one sparkly pillow that we'd turned into a deadly weapon—Bubbles settled back and grabbed the bowl of potato chips off of the bedside table. "Sorry, I just got distracted. Okay, press play."
I leaned forward to grab the remote to the DVD player and pressed the play button. The movie on the TV started playing again, filling the room with sound.
Warner University was a private college, so that meant that the dorms were slightly nicer than the average college dorm. And not only that, but Professor had been willing to really splurge on our dorm supplies, even going as far as buying this television for Blossom and I and paying the college extra money so we could mount it on the wall. Since Bubbles lived in the sorority house with her super happy go lucky blondie sorority pals, she didn't get a television, but that place was basically a mansion anyway, so it wasn't like she needed it. But whenever she came over to our dorm to hang out, half the time she hogged it to watch her MTV reality shows. Annoying.
Only half-paying attention to the movie now, I watched as the leading lady got dipped over by the leading man, leaning in to kiss her.
"This movie's sappy," I announced.
Bubbles shushed me. "It's romantic. Now shush."
As the leading man grasped the woman's hands, pleading her to run away with him, I sighed and glanced over at my cell phone on the bedside table. I reached for it, pressing the envelope icon on the screen. I scrolled through the inbox, looking for any recent messages that I'd missed. There were none.
"I love you," the man in the movie said. "I've always loved you."
"How long have you and Boomer gone without talking?" I asked my sister suddenly.
She turned to look at me, potato chip half frozen to her mouth. "I don't know. Maybe half a week, once." She tilted her head. "Why?"
I shook my head, sighing. "No reason."
After five minutes more of sort of paying attention to the sap-fest, I could restrain myself no longer. I went to 'Butch' in my contact list and pushed SEND. I glanced over to Bubbles again, and she just smiled at me and turned back to the movie. "Try to talk quietly so I can hear this," was all she said.
Smiling slightly, even though she couldn't see it, I turned away so my feet touched the ground and I was faced away from the television. I tapped my toes restlessly against the floor. After four rings, he finally answered.
"Hello?"
"So, what," I started, now completely miffed and skipping greetings altogether. "I'm just supposed to call you first every time, or I don't get to talk to you at all?"
"Hello to you too, cranky." I heard him snort. "And by the way, I didn't call because I thought you were busy." He added defensively.
I rolled my eyes, trying hard to remain mad, but it was hard now that I'd actually begun talking to him and I was hearing his voice in my ear. "Busy my ass," I sighed loudly into the receiver, sounding dramatic to my own ears, but I kept it up. "Admit it. You just don't want to talk to me."
Bubbles shushed me. I waved a flippant hand.
"Buttercup, listen. I swear, I don't care if I was being eaten alive by a Chupacabra, or got trapped on an alien ship, or stuck in a room full of ninja assassins. I'd still want to talk to you on the phone." I could hear a smile in his voice, as there always was toward me, forever patient with my temper. Somehow, this was enough to calm me again.
I couldn't help it, I grinned widely now. "You're stupid," I said, my face burning. I knew he'd be able to hear me smiling too, but I didn't care. He was a dork. But he was my dork.
He laughed. "I love you, too, Buttercup."
-Back to Blossom's POV-
Four hours later, we were parked in front of my dorm's entrance again.
The difference was that this time, instead of sitting in my own seat, as soon as we had pulled up in front of the school, I'd scooted over the middle compartment and cup holders and curled up in Brick's lap, leaning my head on his shoulder. His arms held me close to him in the cramped space, one hand resting on my shoulder and the other holding my legs, tracing patterns into the thick fabric of my skirt. Anyone could have looked in and seen, but neither of us cared.
There was only him and I, and the soft sound of our breathing and our fast-paced heartbeats.
I grasped the lapel of his jacket, snuggling my face further into the crook of his neck. I breathed him in, knowing I couldn't for much longer. There was a 10 page College Chemistry I homework assignment to do, and a 15 page paper I had due in Academic Writing on Monday, and studying in just about every other class. It felt like the entire world was waiting for me outside that car, waiting for the moment when it could pile on top of my shoulders again. In here, it was warm, safe. Comfortable.
I let out a sigh. I lifted my face slightly, my lips brushing against his skin, and speaking into the pulse point underneath his jaw, I whispered, "I don't want to go."
And as predictable as it sounded, I really didn't. Because I knew if I did it would mean not seeing him again for who knew how long. And I didn't care if that made me that typical girlfriend who couldn't be away from her boyfriend, because being around him wasn't like an obsession. It was like a basic physical necessity, like breathing oxygen or drinking water, a necessary part of living for me. Even if every other aspect of my life changed in a second, if my entire world was different, there would always be him.
He turned his head to press his lips into my forehead, and then brushed his fingers across my hairline, smoothing my hair back. "I know, Bloss. I know."
We stayed that way for a while, I didn't know how long, but by the time I had gotten out of the car and into the cold again, it felt much too short.
As I approached the tall door to the dorm, my hand stayed frozen on the long handle, unable to pull it open again. I turned and looked over my shoulder, expecting Brick to have driven away already, but he was still stalled by the curb, his window rolled down and his eyes on me, watching me to make sure I got in safely.
I raised one hand in a wave, my gut beginning to ache with loss already, and before I could fly to his car again for one more kiss, just one more, I threw the door open and forced myself to walk into the building.
As the door closed, I stopped on the other side, looking back through its large window, and I watched his BMW drive away.
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-MsButterFingers
