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This is a very Red summer, it seems.
This series has really got me by the neck right now.
Title: Digestif
Characters/Pairing: Blossom; Reds, background Greens.
Rating: T for language. And uh, general horniness?
Disclaimer: I don’t own the PpG. Also I am once again begging you to please not alert CMcC to my existence.
Summary: Blossom has learned to drink slowly.
Notes: I am deep in Reds hell, folks. Follow-up to Timing, itself a follow-up to Small Talk. One more part to go. Un-beta'd.
Digestif
-sbj
Blossom liked the dress, even if it was a little tight.
It was a gift from Bubbles, naturally. A work dress, she’d claimed, because it was black and not one of the many other brighter colors on the spectrum that Bubbles more typically bought for herself. Blossom supposed it counted, though it was not a number she ever would have purchased on her own. She’d worn it exactly once before tonight, paired with a blazer to business it up a little for a press conference a while back, making it a few years old. Probably a little out of style. But the form-fitting silhouette was classic and sexy and made her feel invincible, which, for a woman with superpowers and near-invulnerability, maybe seemed a little silly. But feelings were feelings.
Tonight was now the most recent of several dinners she’d had at Buttercup’s still-running and still-illegal apartment restaurant endeavor. All of them solo, save for the initial night with what’s-his-face. It had actually become something of a nice ritual. Reservation for one. Roughly every one to two weeks. Sometimes she brought a book or reviewed items for work in between courses. It was relaxing. And at the end of the meal, when the rest of the room was filtering out the door, she finished her wine in the kitchen.
She did help with the dishes, a few times. They didn’t always talk, but most of the time they did. Sometimes Buttercup and Butch were around, and on those nights Blossom just liked to sip her drink and observe the odd trio’s rapport. It was somewhat fascinating, the level of casual familiarity that existed between Buttercup, Butch, and Brick. They were so easy with one another. All day, every day. It made her miss being a child. Blossom couldn’t fathom what that was like now, certainly not in a professional working environment.
Maybe that was why she liked coming here, even if she should’ve written her sister up, or at the very least fined her, several months ago. It was just nice. A nice ritual.
Here she was allowed to get a little snappy, a little mean. She could blow off some steam and call someone an idiot and not have to worry about consequences. It was nice that they knew her like that. That he knew her like that. He even seemed to relish it at times.
It was hard for her to admit, but the nights where Buttercup and Butch were elsewhere, either canoodling on the balcony or just cleaning up the living room, leaving her and Brick to banter in the kitchen—she preferred those. Something to look forward to.
It was combative often, yes, but not in the way it had been before, when they were kids and every unkind word had serrated teeth lining its letters. Pointed comments about past transgressions felt more like half-hearted pokes and ribbing, as opposed to verbal attempts to gut someone with a knife. Brick was interesting to talk to when they talked about “back then.” He gave her a perspective that had been completely inaccessible to her in her youth. Everything, from simple gossip about former baddies to the more guarded, cryptic gripes he had about his own parents, felt shiny and new to her.
You could make a glass of wine last as long as you wanted. And Blossom, for better or for worse, had gotten into the habit of drinking very, very slowly.
***
One thing that Blossom’s professional life had capitalized on and further enhanced was her inclination towards planning and rehearsing. A lifetime of being the de facto leader and forward face of her sisters, of being constantly in the public eye, had conditioned her to intentionality in all action and speech. Practice made perfect, or, at the very least, reduced the chance of failure.
Blossom had practiced for tonight. A lot, actually. In a way she still wasn’t entirely sure she was comfortable with. But she also wanted, in a way she hadn’t really wanted before.
Which was why she now stood in Buttercup’s bafflingly spotless bathroom and examined the dress from all angles, wary of wrinkles and puckering fabric. She’d worn her hair down tonight and allowed herself a triumphant grin at how impossibly smooth it still looked, without a flyaway in sight. She’d gone light on the makeup, as usual, and still had a bit of a glow about her. She touched up her lips anyway.
He’d notice. She knew he would. Every night since the first she’d felt the weight of his gaze lingering a little longer, had seen the edge in them softening a little more. Each and every night. And each time she wanted a little more. Just a little more.
There were a few guests still leaving when she exited the bathroom, and she nodded politely at them. Buttercup and Butch were preparing to head out, too.
“Going somewhere?” she asked them.
“Mitch is in town,” Buttercup said, pocketing some cash as Butch bent to tie her laces for her. “We’re having drinks with the guys. Mini-reunion.”
“Have fun,” Blossom said, collecting her wine glass.
“Do me a solid and lock up for me, huh?”
Blossom smiled. “I thought you had a busboy for that.”
“I heard that,” Brick’s irritated voice called from the kitchen.
“Bye, busboy,” Butch hollered back.
“Fuck you and your sugar mama.”
And the shutting of the door left two. Blossom listened to Buttercup and Butch’s departure for a moment, underneath the clattering of dishes in cabinets coming from behind her. She had a sip of her wine and made her way to the kitchen, pausing to lean in the doorway. Where the light would hit her just so.
He glanced at her, his eyes sweeping first across her face, then down, before returning to his work. “Hey.”
“Hello, Brick. You didn’t leave any for me?”
“I should’ve,” he said, pulling out the stopper in the rinse side of the sink. He flicked some dishwater in her direction, but not far enough to reach her. “Would’ve made me laugh to see you doing dishes looking like that.”
She smiled and swirled her wine glass. “Looking like what?”
He dried his hands on the dishtowel hanging on his shoulder and didn’t answer, not really. “You do a press conference today or something?”
She watched him bustle around the kitchen, eyes on the floor, not looking at her. “Or something. You like it? I don’t usually wear black.”
The sudden snatches of a conversation outside down the street caught her attention, barely muted to someone with superhearing.
Holy shit, I can’t believe we were sitting next to her.
Oh my God, right? She looked like a million bucks! I’ve never seen her up close like that before!
I wish they hadn’t taken our phones, damn. Seriously, she was gorgeous. I couldn’t believe it.
Hypothetically, except not really, if you ever wanted to do a threesome—
Blossom tuned out. Brick was looking at her now, his expression a little guarded.
“That bother you?” he asked. His tone was hard to read.
“Does what bother me?”
“Did you hear them?”
She laughed, a polite, mean little laugh. “Oh, I heard it.” She always did. “They can’t help it. They don’t know we can hear them. You get used to it. You know?”
“Yeah,” he said, staring at her glass. He drew a little closer and beckoned for it. “Give that here a sec.”
Her eyes lifted in a question and she held it out to him. He grasped it by the stem when he took it from her, seemingly careful to avoid touching her, and chucked the liquid in the sink.
“Are you cutting me off, sir?”
He took a clean wine glass out and set it on the counter before retrieving an unopened bottle from the kitchen cabinet that housed all the liquor. “Don’t tell her I’m opening this for you,” he said, zapping a cut in the foil with his eyebeams while taking a corkscrew out of his back pocket.
Blossom watched in silence, savoring the fluidity of his movements, each action flowing seamlessly into the next. She’d watched others do the same before, but there was something about the way Brick moved, how at ease he was in this kitchen, in his body. She hadn’t noticed this when she was a kid, probably because she’d always been with her sisters, but being an adult surrounded by normal people every day had inured her to mankind’s inherent clumsiness. Even the most practiced individuals could not escape those tiny moments of a misjudged extra step, a glass set down too hard on a counter, the weight of a door they hadn’t expected.
Brick did not move like that. Brick knew the weight of what he grabbed instantly, never missed a step, could measure and cut without looking. She’d watched him in this kitchen enough to know. He was always aware of his surroundings. He moved like he wasn’t just a part of this universe, but like an extension of it. He moved like he knew. He moved like her.
The cork released with a soft pop. He poured, just a splash for her to taste, and she watched him twist the bottle as he pulled it away so none of the wine would drip. He held up her glass.
She brushed her hand against his when she took it, not caring that he noticed. “Thank you.”
In truth, she barely tasted it. He set it down on the counter a little hard, and that was the other thing. Because it fascinated her to watch him move in a way that she understood and knew innately, but then there were those moments of clumsiness, those moments where she forgot to taste her food and drink and he forgot the weight of a thing, forgot to offer her a full glass—those unexpected moments that she had no category for, that felt more meaningful, somehow. Moments that made her spend a little longer checking herself in the mirror, that made her sip a little slower.
“You haven’t brought a date by in a while.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly an unexpected thing for him to say, but it jolted her from her quasi-reverie, anyway. She smiled wryly. “I wouldn’t bring a date here.”
“Oh?” He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the counter. “Where you been taking them, then?”
She cradled her wine glass close to her chest, against the square neck of her dress. Practiced. “I haven’t been taking anyone anywhere lately. I usually leave the first date up to the guy, anyway.”
He snorted and she looked at him.
“What?”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” he said, a nasty light glinting at the edge of those red eyes. “Letting the guy take the lead.”
She looked back down at her glass. “Can’t argue.”
“What kind of first dates have you been on? Dinners, movies? The opera?”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” she said. “Coffee. Lunch. A book signing, that was interesting. This one guy got us box seats at a baseball game. I think from his company.”
Brick let out a low whistle. “Pulling out all the stops to try to impress you, huh? Did he at least get a second date?”
“He did,” she affirmed, toying with an edge of the wall calendar.
“Oof. You felt so bad about that that you went on a second date to make it up to him?”
She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What, like pity?” Brick sneered. “What was his name?”
She blinked, exhaling slowly. She had practiced. “Touché,” she said simply, and quirked the corners of her lips at him. “I guess it was pity, after all.”
A few weeks ago he might have laughed, might have been a little gleeful, even, self-satisfied with such an admission of judgment from her. But a few weeks ago she never would have admitted it. And now, now he just looked at her, the sneer fading from his face. It faded faster every time.
Blossom heard silence and took her opportunity.
“Where do you take someone on a first date, Brick?”
He shot her a look. She kept her face neutral, channeling serenity, and sipped the wine she was barely tasting.
“Fishing for ideas?”
“Just curious.”
He took a deep breath and let out a little huff of a laugh, crossing his arms.
She decided to give him another little nudge. “Nighttime or daytime?”
He automatically shook his head. “No daytime shit. No lunch, no coffee, or museums. Anything during the day, really. I don’t want to be spending a whole day with anyone.”
“Unlucky dates,” she said, then, before he could react, “Nighttime, then.”
“Yeah.” He glanced out the window and paced to the other side of the kitchen. She started moving to the counter he’d just been leaning on, circling on instinct. “I stick with evenings. Maybe an installation or art walk. Then I’m at least getting something out of it. Even when they’re shitty. Shows are good, actually. A show means I don’t have to talk to them about their stupid, boring lives the whole time.”
“Dinner?”
He shrugged. “Depends. If it’s fast, yeah.”
“It kinda sounds like you don’t even want to go on these dates at all.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
“And nobody protests? Nobody wants to do more?”
“Of course not,” he said, scoffing. “It’s all secondary, anyway. If they’re trying with me in the first place it’s usually because they’re trying to get plowed by a Rowdyruff.”
Derision, scorn. She recognized it—not just the tone, but the feeling. “Ah.”
He was at the tiny kitchen table now, his hand on the back of one of the chairs. He looked at her, and his eyes were edgeless, as was his voice when he said quietly, “You ever get that?”
She stared at him for a long moment. When she finally spoke she wondered if he could hear the tinge of bitterness in her voice, or if it was the hollowness he picked up on instead. “I’m familiar with a version of that, yes.”
The silence that followed was one of understanding, one she allowed herself to appreciate, but only for a moment. She wasn’t terribly interested in going down this path tonight.
Her heartbeat started hammering. She took another swig.
“Well, on the topic of first dates, let’s say—and this is purely a hypothetical—where would you take me?”
The silence that followed now was definitely not quiet understanding. The air was suddenly charged, crackling, somehow fraught. Brick blinked at her, suddenly set upon by one of those unexpected moments of not knowing where he was, of having the rug pulled out from under him mid-step. Blossom wondered whether he would deflect, if he would scoff again, or just ignore her as he had earlier.
“Are you flirting with me?” he said, and oh, okay. The direct approach.
“I’m posing a hypothetical,” she said.
“Answer the question.”
“You answer mine and then I’ll answer yours,” she said, secretly delighting in the seriousness of his tone, his humorless expression. The edge had roared back into his eyes, full-force. “So do I unlock the illustrious coffee shop date?”
He stared and stared at her, and she wondered if he was running calculations in his head, trying to figure her out, trying to outchess her. He really didn’t need to. It was just a simple question—
“No,” he said, and the lowness of his voice struck her somewhere deep, almost broke her practiced, languid smile. She thought he might draw closer, but he stayed rooted to where he was, by the wall and the table, eyes boring into hers from across the meager room. “If—hypothetically—I was taking you out on a first date we wouldn’t do any of that shit. I’d have you over at my place—”
“Ha!” Blossom could not help but practically bark a sharp, shocked laugh, any desire that may have been building to a thunderous crescendo instantly deflating, because in all her imagined conversations, all her predicted paths, somehow she had not expected him to be this crass, but how had that not been obvious to her? How could she not have seen this coming? “Oh, wow—”
“And I would make you dinner,” he continued, clearly having expected that, but it worked, because she stopped, waiting to hear what came next. He looked at her, and she thought she saw the slightest movement in his throat. “I wouldn’t take you somewhere where we would be gawked at and whispered about, and definitely not someplace where we’d have to eat some mediocre chef’s idea of overpriced gourmet food. I would invite you to my place so I could cook for you and feed you myself.”
His voice had gotten impossibly quiet. Blossom felt the world shifting around her, hyperaware of Brick’s eyes and a threshold she had come in knowing was here but now found herself suddenly desperate to cross.
“What would you make?” she whispered.
“What do you like?” he whispered back, and something about the way he asked was a little too needy, a little too earnest, which was good. It snapped her to attention, and gravity returned. Her practice wouldn’t go wasted.
She smirked, but not unkindly. “Who’s flirting now?”
He blinked, looking a little upset, but recovered quickly. When he spoke, the earnestness had been displaced by his usual snide tone. “Uh uh. Your turn to answer my question.”
“You mean the one about if I was flirting?” she asked, and drained her glass before setting it next to her on the counter. She looked behind her and found the bottle he had poured for her. “Honestly, Brick, I thought I was being pretty obvious about it.”
She sensed him clamping his mouth shut and looking down. She reached for the bottle with one hand and examined the label, watching him in her peripherals.
“It sounds like a very sweet first date,” she said.
“It’s a hypothetical,” he said. The walls were back up. But that was okay.
“Right. I mean, that’s obvious.” She moved to pour her glass one handed, feeling the weight of it, knowing it innately. “Because I wouldn’t go to your place for our first date.”
Brick scoffed, shaking his head in amused and bitter disbelief, clearly disappointed with himself for slipping, for taking the bait, for folding like a paper fan.
“No,” she whispered, leaning back against the counter as she poured. Perfectly practiced, perfectly orchestrated. “I would have you over to mine.”
Blossom had superhearing, which meant she could hear not only the glug of the bottle as the wine filled her glass, but also Brick’s heartbeat. She had heard it accelerating and decelerating all night, every time she applied a little pressure to the pedal, every time she had backed off, and now, now she heard the skip. Brick’s heartbeat skipped, and she heard it, louder than the wine she had finished pouring, louder than any whispered conversation about her when people believed they were out of earshot.
She set the bottle down and reached for her glass with the same hand, bringing it to her lips and taking a sip. She wondered if Brick had actually picked this bottle, if he had selected it with her in mind, if he had waited for an excuse to pour it for her. She sipped it and tasted it, for real.
She looked at his stunned face, at how he had been unable to recover in time to compose himself, and wondered if gravity had disappeared for him too.
“When are you free, Brick?” she asked, and suddenly he was a mélange of unexpected clumsiness, of uncharacteristically wordless gaping at her while an alphabet’s worth of expressions paraded across his face. She sipped at her wine and slowly approached him, knowing that yes, she looked like a million dollars as she walked towards him but more importantly, she felt like every last penny of it as the color drained out of him. Sullen, snippy, joyless Brick, suddenly bereft of his meanness and edge and bite, looking all manner of ways she had never expected to see. Hopeful, wanting, awed. She wasn’t sure if she deserved all that. But seeing Brick look at her like that made her want to believe she did.
She drew closer, watching his head dip imperceptibly down, his eyelids lowering, and felt deliciously cruel when she passed him to look at the calendar.
“You’re off Tuesdays, right?” It was rhetorical. She already knew Buttercup had started closing dinner service on Tuesdays. “Would you be okay having to cook on your night off?”
She looked back to see him still fumbling in place, seemingly unable to form a sentence. A moment of doubt crossed her mind, and she thought maybe she’d pushed a little too hard.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t assume. If you don’t—”
“No,” he said hastily. “I just—” He cleared his throat, looked around the kitchen, heartbeat thudding in his ears and hers. “Tuesday is, Tuesday’s fine.”
She smiled at him and watched his ears go red. “This Tuesday?” Today was Friday.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Give me your phone real quick?”
She set her glass down on the table as he handed his phone over; she had to pass it back for him to unlock. Once he had she entered in her contact info, careful not to pry into the other entries in his address book.
“This is me,” she said, flipping the screen around so he could see her address.
“Okay,” he said, taking his phone back.
“Call.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
He punched the call button, and her phone started ringing.
“There,” she said. “Proof.”
They looked at each other again.
“I get off at five,” she said.
“When do you—I mean, when should I—”
“How about six?”
He nodded. “What would you like me to make?”
“Surprise me,” she said, and indicated her wine glass. “I trust you.”
She polished it off and handed the empty glass to him. His hand brushed hers as he took it from her.
“I guess I’ll see you Tuesday, then,” he said.
She smiled, thinking it was too bad he had to work weekends, too bad that they had to wait. But if the past few weeks had taught her anything, there was certainly a case to be made for taking your time.
“It’s a date.”
-fin-
AO3 | FFNet | AskFM | Ko-Fi
Title: Digestif
Characters/Pairing: Blossom; Reds, background Greens.
Rating: T for language. And uh, general horniness?
Disclaimer: I don’t own the PpG. Also I am once again begging you to please not alert CMcC to my existence.
Summary: Blossom has learned to drink slowly.
Notes: I am deep in Reds hell, folks. Follow-up to Timing, itself a follow-up to Small Talk. One more part to go. Un-beta'd.
Digestif
-sbj
Blossom liked the dress, even if it was a little tight.
It was a gift from Bubbles, naturally. A work dress, she’d claimed, because it was black and not one of the many other brighter colors on the spectrum that Bubbles more typically bought for herself. Blossom supposed it counted, though it was not a number she ever would have purchased on her own. She’d worn it exactly once before tonight, paired with a blazer to business it up a little for a press conference a while back, making it a few years old. Probably a little out of style. But the form-fitting silhouette was classic and sexy and made her feel invincible, which, for a woman with superpowers and near-invulnerability, maybe seemed a little silly. But feelings were feelings.
Tonight was now the most recent of several dinners she’d had at Buttercup’s still-running and still-illegal apartment restaurant endeavor. All of them solo, save for the initial night with what’s-his-face. It had actually become something of a nice ritual. Reservation for one. Roughly every one to two weeks. Sometimes she brought a book or reviewed items for work in between courses. It was relaxing. And at the end of the meal, when the rest of the room was filtering out the door, she finished her wine in the kitchen.
She did help with the dishes, a few times. They didn’t always talk, but most of the time they did. Sometimes Buttercup and Butch were around, and on those nights Blossom just liked to sip her drink and observe the odd trio’s rapport. It was somewhat fascinating, the level of casual familiarity that existed between Buttercup, Butch, and Brick. They were so easy with one another. All day, every day. It made her miss being a child. Blossom couldn’t fathom what that was like now, certainly not in a professional working environment.
Maybe that was why she liked coming here, even if she should’ve written her sister up, or at the very least fined her, several months ago. It was just nice. A nice ritual.
Here she was allowed to get a little snappy, a little mean. She could blow off some steam and call someone an idiot and not have to worry about consequences. It was nice that they knew her like that. That he knew her like that. He even seemed to relish it at times.
It was hard for her to admit, but the nights where Buttercup and Butch were elsewhere, either canoodling on the balcony or just cleaning up the living room, leaving her and Brick to banter in the kitchen—she preferred those. Something to look forward to.
It was combative often, yes, but not in the way it had been before, when they were kids and every unkind word had serrated teeth lining its letters. Pointed comments about past transgressions felt more like half-hearted pokes and ribbing, as opposed to verbal attempts to gut someone with a knife. Brick was interesting to talk to when they talked about “back then.” He gave her a perspective that had been completely inaccessible to her in her youth. Everything, from simple gossip about former baddies to the more guarded, cryptic gripes he had about his own parents, felt shiny and new to her.
You could make a glass of wine last as long as you wanted. And Blossom, for better or for worse, had gotten into the habit of drinking very, very slowly.
***
One thing that Blossom’s professional life had capitalized on and further enhanced was her inclination towards planning and rehearsing. A lifetime of being the de facto leader and forward face of her sisters, of being constantly in the public eye, had conditioned her to intentionality in all action and speech. Practice made perfect, or, at the very least, reduced the chance of failure.
Blossom had practiced for tonight. A lot, actually. In a way she still wasn’t entirely sure she was comfortable with. But she also wanted, in a way she hadn’t really wanted before.
Which was why she now stood in Buttercup’s bafflingly spotless bathroom and examined the dress from all angles, wary of wrinkles and puckering fabric. She’d worn her hair down tonight and allowed herself a triumphant grin at how impossibly smooth it still looked, without a flyaway in sight. She’d gone light on the makeup, as usual, and still had a bit of a glow about her. She touched up her lips anyway.
He’d notice. She knew he would. Every night since the first she’d felt the weight of his gaze lingering a little longer, had seen the edge in them softening a little more. Each and every night. And each time she wanted a little more. Just a little more.
There were a few guests still leaving when she exited the bathroom, and she nodded politely at them. Buttercup and Butch were preparing to head out, too.
“Going somewhere?” she asked them.
“Mitch is in town,” Buttercup said, pocketing some cash as Butch bent to tie her laces for her. “We’re having drinks with the guys. Mini-reunion.”
“Have fun,” Blossom said, collecting her wine glass.
“Do me a solid and lock up for me, huh?”
Blossom smiled. “I thought you had a busboy for that.”
“I heard that,” Brick’s irritated voice called from the kitchen.
“Bye, busboy,” Butch hollered back.
“Fuck you and your sugar mama.”
And the shutting of the door left two. Blossom listened to Buttercup and Butch’s departure for a moment, underneath the clattering of dishes in cabinets coming from behind her. She had a sip of her wine and made her way to the kitchen, pausing to lean in the doorway. Where the light would hit her just so.
He glanced at her, his eyes sweeping first across her face, then down, before returning to his work. “Hey.”
“Hello, Brick. You didn’t leave any for me?”
“I should’ve,” he said, pulling out the stopper in the rinse side of the sink. He flicked some dishwater in her direction, but not far enough to reach her. “Would’ve made me laugh to see you doing dishes looking like that.”
She smiled and swirled her wine glass. “Looking like what?”
He dried his hands on the dishtowel hanging on his shoulder and didn’t answer, not really. “You do a press conference today or something?”
She watched him bustle around the kitchen, eyes on the floor, not looking at her. “Or something. You like it? I don’t usually wear black.”
The sudden snatches of a conversation outside down the street caught her attention, barely muted to someone with superhearing.
Holy shit, I can’t believe we were sitting next to her.
Oh my God, right? She looked like a million bucks! I’ve never seen her up close like that before!
I wish they hadn’t taken our phones, damn. Seriously, she was gorgeous. I couldn’t believe it.
Hypothetically, except not really, if you ever wanted to do a threesome—
Blossom tuned out. Brick was looking at her now, his expression a little guarded.
“That bother you?” he asked. His tone was hard to read.
“Does what bother me?”
“Did you hear them?”
She laughed, a polite, mean little laugh. “Oh, I heard it.” She always did. “They can’t help it. They don’t know we can hear them. You get used to it. You know?”
“Yeah,” he said, staring at her glass. He drew a little closer and beckoned for it. “Give that here a sec.”
Her eyes lifted in a question and she held it out to him. He grasped it by the stem when he took it from her, seemingly careful to avoid touching her, and chucked the liquid in the sink.
“Are you cutting me off, sir?”
He took a clean wine glass out and set it on the counter before retrieving an unopened bottle from the kitchen cabinet that housed all the liquor. “Don’t tell her I’m opening this for you,” he said, zapping a cut in the foil with his eyebeams while taking a corkscrew out of his back pocket.
Blossom watched in silence, savoring the fluidity of his movements, each action flowing seamlessly into the next. She’d watched others do the same before, but there was something about the way Brick moved, how at ease he was in this kitchen, in his body. She hadn’t noticed this when she was a kid, probably because she’d always been with her sisters, but being an adult surrounded by normal people every day had inured her to mankind’s inherent clumsiness. Even the most practiced individuals could not escape those tiny moments of a misjudged extra step, a glass set down too hard on a counter, the weight of a door they hadn’t expected.
Brick did not move like that. Brick knew the weight of what he grabbed instantly, never missed a step, could measure and cut without looking. She’d watched him in this kitchen enough to know. He was always aware of his surroundings. He moved like he wasn’t just a part of this universe, but like an extension of it. He moved like he knew. He moved like her.
The cork released with a soft pop. He poured, just a splash for her to taste, and she watched him twist the bottle as he pulled it away so none of the wine would drip. He held up her glass.
She brushed her hand against his when she took it, not caring that he noticed. “Thank you.”
In truth, she barely tasted it. He set it down on the counter a little hard, and that was the other thing. Because it fascinated her to watch him move in a way that she understood and knew innately, but then there were those moments of clumsiness, those moments where she forgot to taste her food and drink and he forgot the weight of a thing, forgot to offer her a full glass—those unexpected moments that she had no category for, that felt more meaningful, somehow. Moments that made her spend a little longer checking herself in the mirror, that made her sip a little slower.
“You haven’t brought a date by in a while.”
Well, it wasn’t exactly an unexpected thing for him to say, but it jolted her from her quasi-reverie, anyway. She smiled wryly. “I wouldn’t bring a date here.”
“Oh?” He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the counter. “Where you been taking them, then?”
She cradled her wine glass close to her chest, against the square neck of her dress. Practiced. “I haven’t been taking anyone anywhere lately. I usually leave the first date up to the guy, anyway.”
He snorted and she looked at him.
“What?”
“That doesn’t sound like you,” he said, a nasty light glinting at the edge of those red eyes. “Letting the guy take the lead.”
She looked back down at her glass. “Can’t argue.”
“What kind of first dates have you been on? Dinners, movies? The opera?”
“Yes, yes, and yes,” she said. “Coffee. Lunch. A book signing, that was interesting. This one guy got us box seats at a baseball game. I think from his company.”
Brick let out a low whistle. “Pulling out all the stops to try to impress you, huh? Did he at least get a second date?”
“He did,” she affirmed, toying with an edge of the wall calendar.
“Oof. You felt so bad about that that you went on a second date to make it up to him?”
She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”
“What, like pity?” Brick sneered. “What was his name?”
She blinked, exhaling slowly. She had practiced. “Touché,” she said simply, and quirked the corners of her lips at him. “I guess it was pity, after all.”
A few weeks ago he might have laughed, might have been a little gleeful, even, self-satisfied with such an admission of judgment from her. But a few weeks ago she never would have admitted it. And now, now he just looked at her, the sneer fading from his face. It faded faster every time.
Blossom heard silence and took her opportunity.
“Where do you take someone on a first date, Brick?”
He shot her a look. She kept her face neutral, channeling serenity, and sipped the wine she was barely tasting.
“Fishing for ideas?”
“Just curious.”
He took a deep breath and let out a little huff of a laugh, crossing his arms.
She decided to give him another little nudge. “Nighttime or daytime?”
He automatically shook his head. “No daytime shit. No lunch, no coffee, or museums. Anything during the day, really. I don’t want to be spending a whole day with anyone.”
“Unlucky dates,” she said, then, before he could react, “Nighttime, then.”
“Yeah.” He glanced out the window and paced to the other side of the kitchen. She started moving to the counter he’d just been leaning on, circling on instinct. “I stick with evenings. Maybe an installation or art walk. Then I’m at least getting something out of it. Even when they’re shitty. Shows are good, actually. A show means I don’t have to talk to them about their stupid, boring lives the whole time.”
“Dinner?”
He shrugged. “Depends. If it’s fast, yeah.”
“It kinda sounds like you don’t even want to go on these dates at all.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.”
“And nobody protests? Nobody wants to do more?”
“Of course not,” he said, scoffing. “It’s all secondary, anyway. If they’re trying with me in the first place it’s usually because they’re trying to get plowed by a Rowdyruff.”
Derision, scorn. She recognized it—not just the tone, but the feeling. “Ah.”
He was at the tiny kitchen table now, his hand on the back of one of the chairs. He looked at her, and his eyes were edgeless, as was his voice when he said quietly, “You ever get that?”
She stared at him for a long moment. When she finally spoke she wondered if he could hear the tinge of bitterness in her voice, or if it was the hollowness he picked up on instead. “I’m familiar with a version of that, yes.”
The silence that followed was one of understanding, one she allowed herself to appreciate, but only for a moment. She wasn’t terribly interested in going down this path tonight.
Her heartbeat started hammering. She took another swig.
“Well, on the topic of first dates, let’s say—and this is purely a hypothetical—where would you take me?”
The silence that followed now was definitely not quiet understanding. The air was suddenly charged, crackling, somehow fraught. Brick blinked at her, suddenly set upon by one of those unexpected moments of not knowing where he was, of having the rug pulled out from under him mid-step. Blossom wondered whether he would deflect, if he would scoff again, or just ignore her as he had earlier.
“Are you flirting with me?” he said, and oh, okay. The direct approach.
“I’m posing a hypothetical,” she said.
“Answer the question.”
“You answer mine and then I’ll answer yours,” she said, secretly delighting in the seriousness of his tone, his humorless expression. The edge had roared back into his eyes, full-force. “So do I unlock the illustrious coffee shop date?”
He stared and stared at her, and she wondered if he was running calculations in his head, trying to figure her out, trying to outchess her. He really didn’t need to. It was just a simple question—
“No,” he said, and the lowness of his voice struck her somewhere deep, almost broke her practiced, languid smile. She thought he might draw closer, but he stayed rooted to where he was, by the wall and the table, eyes boring into hers from across the meager room. “If—hypothetically—I was taking you out on a first date we wouldn’t do any of that shit. I’d have you over at my place—”
“Ha!” Blossom could not help but practically bark a sharp, shocked laugh, any desire that may have been building to a thunderous crescendo instantly deflating, because in all her imagined conversations, all her predicted paths, somehow she had not expected him to be this crass, but how had that not been obvious to her? How could she not have seen this coming? “Oh, wow—”
“And I would make you dinner,” he continued, clearly having expected that, but it worked, because she stopped, waiting to hear what came next. He looked at her, and she thought she saw the slightest movement in his throat. “I wouldn’t take you somewhere where we would be gawked at and whispered about, and definitely not someplace where we’d have to eat some mediocre chef’s idea of overpriced gourmet food. I would invite you to my place so I could cook for you and feed you myself.”
His voice had gotten impossibly quiet. Blossom felt the world shifting around her, hyperaware of Brick’s eyes and a threshold she had come in knowing was here but now found herself suddenly desperate to cross.
“What would you make?” she whispered.
“What do you like?” he whispered back, and something about the way he asked was a little too needy, a little too earnest, which was good. It snapped her to attention, and gravity returned. Her practice wouldn’t go wasted.
She smirked, but not unkindly. “Who’s flirting now?”
He blinked, looking a little upset, but recovered quickly. When he spoke, the earnestness had been displaced by his usual snide tone. “Uh uh. Your turn to answer my question.”
“You mean the one about if I was flirting?” she asked, and drained her glass before setting it next to her on the counter. She looked behind her and found the bottle he had poured for her. “Honestly, Brick, I thought I was being pretty obvious about it.”
She sensed him clamping his mouth shut and looking down. She reached for the bottle with one hand and examined the label, watching him in her peripherals.
“It sounds like a very sweet first date,” she said.
“It’s a hypothetical,” he said. The walls were back up. But that was okay.
“Right. I mean, that’s obvious.” She moved to pour her glass one handed, feeling the weight of it, knowing it innately. “Because I wouldn’t go to your place for our first date.”
Brick scoffed, shaking his head in amused and bitter disbelief, clearly disappointed with himself for slipping, for taking the bait, for folding like a paper fan.
“No,” she whispered, leaning back against the counter as she poured. Perfectly practiced, perfectly orchestrated. “I would have you over to mine.”
Blossom had superhearing, which meant she could hear not only the glug of the bottle as the wine filled her glass, but also Brick’s heartbeat. She had heard it accelerating and decelerating all night, every time she applied a little pressure to the pedal, every time she had backed off, and now, now she heard the skip. Brick’s heartbeat skipped, and she heard it, louder than the wine she had finished pouring, louder than any whispered conversation about her when people believed they were out of earshot.
She set the bottle down and reached for her glass with the same hand, bringing it to her lips and taking a sip. She wondered if Brick had actually picked this bottle, if he had selected it with her in mind, if he had waited for an excuse to pour it for her. She sipped it and tasted it, for real.
She looked at his stunned face, at how he had been unable to recover in time to compose himself, and wondered if gravity had disappeared for him too.
“When are you free, Brick?” she asked, and suddenly he was a mélange of unexpected clumsiness, of uncharacteristically wordless gaping at her while an alphabet’s worth of expressions paraded across his face. She sipped at her wine and slowly approached him, knowing that yes, she looked like a million dollars as she walked towards him but more importantly, she felt like every last penny of it as the color drained out of him. Sullen, snippy, joyless Brick, suddenly bereft of his meanness and edge and bite, looking all manner of ways she had never expected to see. Hopeful, wanting, awed. She wasn’t sure if she deserved all that. But seeing Brick look at her like that made her want to believe she did.
She drew closer, watching his head dip imperceptibly down, his eyelids lowering, and felt deliciously cruel when she passed him to look at the calendar.
“You’re off Tuesdays, right?” It was rhetorical. She already knew Buttercup had started closing dinner service on Tuesdays. “Would you be okay having to cook on your night off?”
She looked back to see him still fumbling in place, seemingly unable to form a sentence. A moment of doubt crossed her mind, and she thought maybe she’d pushed a little too hard.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t assume. If you don’t—”
“No,” he said hastily. “I just—” He cleared his throat, looked around the kitchen, heartbeat thudding in his ears and hers. “Tuesday is, Tuesday’s fine.”
She smiled at him and watched his ears go red. “This Tuesday?” Today was Friday.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s fine.”
“Give me your phone real quick?”
She set her glass down on the table as he handed his phone over; she had to pass it back for him to unlock. Once he had she entered in her contact info, careful not to pry into the other entries in his address book.
“This is me,” she said, flipping the screen around so he could see her address.
“Okay,” he said, taking his phone back.
“Call.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
He punched the call button, and her phone started ringing.
“There,” she said. “Proof.”
They looked at each other again.
“I get off at five,” she said.
“When do you—I mean, when should I—”
“How about six?”
He nodded. “What would you like me to make?”
“Surprise me,” she said, and indicated her wine glass. “I trust you.”
She polished it off and handed the empty glass to him. His hand brushed hers as he took it from her.
“I guess I’ll see you Tuesday, then,” he said.
She smiled, thinking it was too bad he had to work weekends, too bad that they had to wait. But if the past few weeks had taught her anything, there was certainly a case to be made for taking your time.
“It’s a date.”
-fin-
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And Blossom is really interesting here too. I know this doesn't take place in the MTH AU but she's still got the same personality, except she's more mature. Anyway, love to see her being comfortable enough to talk to Brick and confidently at that. I love this confident Blossom.
I just love this story! <3