23
This was the second day in a row that Blossom had got up to get ready for school on autopilot, except that this time she had stopped herself halfway through, and was now sitting on the sofa in her pyjamas and wondering what she should do with herself.
Bubbles eventually wandered into the living room around ten o'clock, fully dressed and mostly awake.
"Morning," she said brightly, disappearing into the kitchen for a moment or two and coming back with a glass of orange juice. "I've got a meeting about the New York trip again today; you wouldn't believe the amount of stuff we have to do."
"At least you're keeping busy." Bubbles tilted her head to the side.
"What's up with you, huh? Bored since school's off?"
"I suppose so. I don't really know what to do with myself."
"Well, you haven't been over to the dojo in a while." That was true actually. Given all the recent upheaval, Blossom had been neglecting to practice her aikido. Still, somehow she just didn't feel motivated enough to feel as outraged at herself as she probably should.
"You know, I think I might just go to the library for a while or something."
xxx
The library had seemed like a good idea until she'd got there and seen this. Blossom was having flashbacks to those horrible days when Brick was leaving roses everywhere for her. Yet somehow, this was still worse.
"Where did these come from?" she whispered, vague horror in her voice. In front of her was a large poster proclaiming her as being due to perform a charity violin performance at the city hall next Tuesday, with a big blown up picture of her taken from a recent news article. In fact, the posters seemed to be everywhere. She had never agreed to this. Who had-
Oh of course. Oh he was dead. He was so dead.
xxx
"If I told you, you would have said no!" Her fist missed him by inches as he spun out of the way and and leapt backwards. She chased him, eyes blazing.
"Miss Bellum said it was a great idea! And if you do this, you don't have to go for the advertising deal, and the school still gets the arts department back. It's win-win!"
"No it isn't you moron!" She launched herself at him and finally managed to clip him in the side. Granted, it was a completely superficial strike, and he reacted by simply laughing and twisting away from her again. She continued chasing him.
"Come on, what's the big deal?" he asked, jumping back over her and grabbing her arms from behind, pinning them to her sides. She struggled briefly, although given how much stronger he was than her, it was basically useless.
"I... I hate performing. It's pointless, and stupid, and I might as well draw a huge target on my chest and people could get hurt and-" He turned her around to face him, looking skeptical. Her arms were still firmly pinned to her sides.
"Seriously?"
"Wha- of course seriously! I'd be making myself extremely vulnerable to attack, in an enclosed space where innocent civilians could and would get hurt!"
"Oh, I get it. You're scared that you'd mess up the performance in front of that many people, aren't you? Never pegged you for being shy." She felt her face flushing.
"That isn't it!" She took a breath and tried to compose herself. "Urgh, I wouldn't expect you to understand. It's not like you've ever felt the need to protect anything except yourself and your own stupid pride."
"Hey, I protected you from Butch, didn't I? And Buttercup."
"That's not-" She felt his fingers lift her chin to look at him and was suddenly aware how very close together they were standing. But it wasn't awkward, it wasn't uncomfortable. She was still angry at him and he was still holding one arm to her side and there wasn't any sort of tension other than faint aggression between them right now. But she didn't want to punch him in the face any more.
"Bloss, why don't you do this? It'll get the school back to normal and you'll be as a big a hero as ever."
"That's not what this is about, Brick." He let her arm go and dropped his other hand from her chin. Something in his expression had shifted, and for some reason, Blossom understood that he hadn't done this to humiliate her, or to hurt her in any way. He genuinely thought that it would help.
And it would. She knew it was a good idea. Every rich businessperson in the city would be tripping over themselves to show support for something like this. They'd up their reputations by turning out at anything to do with the Girls, and throwing a bit of money into it wouldn't hurt either.
"I... I suppose if it's just this once. And you've already put these posters everywhere-"
"That was Boomer actually," Brick cut in. "Butch is passed out at home after finding Boomer's weed stash, so he was already going out for more and-"
"Stop, I don't need to know. The point is, it is a good idea, and it will help the school. The only thing is..." She took a breath. "I'm... going to need help practicing and choosing the pieces I play."
The smirk that slid onto his face told her exactly what he was going to say, so she decided to slug him across the jaw and say 'thank you' instead of letting him actually say it.
xxx
"My god, the front door?" Blossom rolled her eyes as she slid her key into the lock.
"You were allowed through the front door the other day when you carried Buttercup home for us."
"Yeah, but I don't have an armful of Powerpuff this time. Unless-"
"No. Just get inside. Living room's straight ahead."
As she closed the door behind them, she suddenly heard a dull thud and a surpised male squawking noise coming from the direction of the living room. Upon inspection, this turned out to be Buttercup with Brick in a choke-hold, with the thud appearing to have originated from the empty mug she'd apparently dropped in order to put him in said choke-hold.
"It's okay Buttercup, you can put him down. He's... he's with me." Her sister's eyes widened momentarily, flickered to Brick, and then back to Blossom. Although she still seemed wary, she did let go. To give Brick credit, he didn't flop to the floor gasping for air, although he was looking very red in the face and his cap had half fallen off. Despite herself, Blossom let out a small snigger.
"Sorry to disturb you Buttercup," she said, as Brick straightened himself and his cap. "He's helping me with violin practice." Her sister raised an eyebrow.
"Here? That's a new one." She glanced at Brick. "Not trying anything funny with my sister, are you?"
"No more than usual, but I promise my intentions are strictly honourable." She smirked at the response, apparently satisfied.
"Fine, but I'm gonna be in my room just down the hall, so I'll feel it if you two start-"
"Buttercup!" Both her sister and Brick adopted identical catlike grins as Blossom felt her face go bright red. "That is not appropriate."
"Nope, not in the slightest. Later." She scooped up her mug and dumped it in the kitchen before heading upstairs to her room, leaving a sudden awkward silence in her wake. Well, it was awkward on Blossom's end. Brick, on the other hand, still seemed extremely amused and totally unfazed.
"Come on," she growled tugging his sleeve roughly as she stormed past him. "You've got a concert to help me plan."
xxx
Three hours later, concert plans were not going well. Brick's insistance that Puff the Magic Dragon be present in the song list was ensuring that Blossom's temper kept rising.
And then there was a banging noise from downstairs, and Bubbles was yelling her name. Wonderful.
"What is it?" she asked, drifting down the stairs. She blinked and dropped her feet to the ground when she saw Bubbles standing with Boomer and looking mildly outraged. Boomer too looked mildly outraged, but this might have been because of the petite blonde with the rather painful looking hold on his ear. His spine seemed to be bent at a rather odd angle because of it.
"I found him putting these up in town," she said, waving one of the concert posters at her.
"Oh. Oh you don't have to blame-"
"Why did I not know about this?" Bubbles let go of both Boomer and the poster and started pacing agitatedly around the living room. "I mean really, I'll need to find something to wear, and something for Buttercup and you, because you're both hopeless, and then there's the shoes-"
"Wait, wait, wait, I didn't even know about this until this morning, and why on earth did you drag him home with you?" She gestured at Boomer, who was still rubbing his ear and seemed confused.
"Oh, I just saw him putting up the posters and just sort of grabbed both of them. Anyway, how could you not know? This is like, a huge thing. I thought you didn't like performing anyway."
"It was Brick's idea, to help raise money for repairing the school. I don't like it much, but it is a good idea. Also, he had the posters made up and put around town before I found out; there's nothing I can really do about it now." She sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose.
"Hmm, well, if that's the case then you can leave it to me to sort out your outfit. And I'm sure Brick will be going too, so he'll need a suit." She whipped out her mobile and started dialling furiously. "I'll call Sally; her dad runs a formal hire place. I'm sure she'll get us a discount if I tell her it's for a good cause. Are you coming too Boomer?" He blinked at her.
"Uh..."
"Okay, so that's two suits, maybe a trip to the barber too. Oh nevermind, I can cut your hair myself; it's not like it's hard."
"Hey! I never agreed to this!" She rolled her eyes and started jabbering down the phone to Sally, leaving Boomer getting steadily more flustered and Blossom feeling more and more disoriented by the whole affair.
Buttercup and Brick came down the stairs after another few minutes, and Blossom briefly heard her sister muttering the word 'Butch' under her breath, followed by an equally hushed reply from Brick. Their conversation ended the second they reached the base of the stairs however, and surveyed the scene currently happening in the living room.
"Brick, man, help me. This blonde chick is nuts." Brick raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you said she was cute."
"Dude!" Boomer shot a glance at Bubbles to make sure that she hadn't heard. Then of course he noticed that Blossom and Buttercup had heard, with the latter grinning in a decidedly evil sort of way, and his already red face went positively crimson.
"Okay, that aside, can we all just stop for a moment?" Blossom pleaded. She currently had one sister in an outfit planning frenzy and two Rowdyruff Boys in her living room. Top that off with the fact that one of them had been in her bedroom all afternoon and also that she was suddenly appearing in concert next week, and you had a recipe for Blossom to suddenly feel just a little bit fragile.
In the background, Bubbles laughed merrily, said goodbye to Sally and hung up, turning her blue eyes to Blossom.
"Oh, did you want your dress to be pink, or red? I was thinking maybe pink, but red seems much more mature, don't you think?"
"If she's wearing red, I demand a red shirt." Bubbles nodded enthusiastically at Brick's suggestion as Blossom felt the situation slipping helplessly through her fingers. This was it. She was clearly doomed.