Entry tags:
You never forget your first.
More Than Human, ch7a
part 1
part 2
Title: More Than Human
Chapter 7a: Can't Sleep, But... or Some Other Beginning's End
Pairing: Buttercup/Mitch
Rating: R/M, because they're teenagers and a good handful of them use terrible, filthy language.
Disclaimer: Pay your respect to Craig, not me.
Summary: This is the ending to a different story. Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. – Camus
Notes: I still remember my own. My car felt very lonely as I drove away. I thought I'd never stop crying. Thanks to![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mathkid and juxtaposie for the close attention they paid to a fictional character's heartbreak. This is a small prequel/backstory mini-chapter, though you probably don't even have to have read the rest of TEF to follow this. Regular TEF timeline resumes next chapter.
More Than Human, Pt. 0.25 – Winter Previous
December – Can't Sleep, But... or Some Other Beginning's End
-sbj-
On the first day of their winter break, Bubbles awoke to the smell of breakfast flooding the house. After a sleepy, idyllic smile, she dragged herself up, surprised when she glanced over and saw she was alone in the room. When they didn't have school, Buttercup was usually the last one up.
The blonde scrambled into some clothes and, after a visit to the bathroom, jetted down the stairs. She paused at the kitchen door, eyeing an unnaturally alert Buttercup messing around with breakfasty things at the stove. Blossom and the Professor were seated at the table perusing the paper.
“You’re up early,” Bubbles said, voice carrying just enough suspicion to offend her sister. “For you, I mean.”
“So what?” Buttercup threw over her shoulder, not even looking. “Sounds like someone doesn’t want any pancakes.”
“Buttercup, tie your hair back or you’ll singe it off,” Blossom warned in a sing-songy voice, and everyone paused to recall the few inches they’d had to shear off of Buttercup’s long dark locks only days before. Their hair wasn’t as super-powered as the girls it sprung from.
Bubbles zipped to the stove and unwrapped one of the bands around her wrist, gathering her sister’s hair up and into a taut ponytail.
“Ow! Watch it!”
“Wow, Buttercup, your hair is way smoother than… wait.” Bubbles leaned in and sniffed experimentally. “This… you washed your hair? What did you use?”
“Shampoo,” Buttercup said curtly. “And don’t say it like I’ve never washed my hair before.”
“She borrowed my conditioner,” Blossom answered, and Buttercup shot her a dirty look. Bubbles stared and ran her hands through and through her sister’s hair.
“Oh my God. I didn’t think hair like this grew on you.”
“Okay, you know what? You don’t get hair-touching privileges anymore, and pretty soon, you’re going to lose your pancake-eating privileges too,” Buttercup threatened.
There was a loud SWOOSH followed by lots of tumbling into things, and a very tousled Blossom and Professor directed annoyed looks at Bubbles as they rose from the floor and readjusted their chairs.
Now seated primly at the table, she gave them both a very innocent look as she patted her hair and smoothly poured herself a glass of orange juice.
“Blossom, you are looking exceptionally professional this morning,” she said airily.
“I'm representing the Townsville Community Center on the news and talking about our Christmas Day soup kitchen.”
“My noble young lady,” the Professor said approvingly. He peered over his paper at Bubbles. “What are you up to today?”
“Meeting Will and the gang for shopping and lunch,” Bubbles said, and the Professor crumpled the edges of his paper.
“How nice,” he said in a strained voice.
“Presenting pancakes,” Buttercup announced, setting a huge stack of them down on the table.
“Joy!” Bubbles squealed, and dug in.
“What about you, Buttercup?” their father asked as she sat.
The girl mumbled something.
“What was that?”
She spoke up, but still the Professor couldn't make it out. Those with superhearing, however, did. Blossom's eyes darted briefly to her sister, while Bubbles' lit up with mischief.
“She's got a daaaate with Mitch,” Bubbles sang, and an angry blush rose to her sister's face.
“Shut up,” she growled, glaring daggers at Bubbles.
The Professor's paper was no more, smashed into a wrinkled ghost of its former self. The Professor wiped his ink-stained hands on a napkin.
“A date with Mitch,” he repeated, eye twitching, and Buttercup flushed red, bright enough to light a runway. “How... nice.”
***
Blossom and Bubbles scurried out the door right after breakfast. Buttercup lingered at the window and waited till the girls were out of sight, then thundered upstairs to their room, pulling her hair out of its ponytail. Taking care not to disrupt anything, she slowed as she gingerly approached the vanity her sisters shared and leaned close to the mirror, scrutinizing her face. Her eyes fell upon the reflection of numerous lipsticks and other… powdery, face things that she had no names for, and paused, considering. Then she came to her senses and shook her head, made a face for good measure, and pulled back. She paused again, then cocked her hips, inspecting her freshly laundered jeans. After a moment, she turned around to inspect her backside, making a point of rolling her eyes and sighing to demonstrate to any invisible audience members that this was completely pointless and she wasn’t doing this because she wanted to or was worried about it or anything.
Discarding the faintly giddy thought that her ass looked damn good with that denim hugging it, she smoothed out her t-shirt, briefly brought her hair up with both hands in a fake bun, reminded herself that she liked the feel of his hands running through her hair, and dropped it down again, combing it through with a brush she snatched off the desk.
She took a deep breath and exhaled, slapping the back of the brush against her mitt. She gave herself one last once-over, carefully extracted her hairs out of Blossom’s brush before setting it down, and then made her way to her bed, reaching for the worn leather bomber jacket hanging off the headboard, the M on the inside lining catching her eye and inspiring the faintest hint of a blush across her cheeks.
Mitch had mentioned something about going to the skate park, maybe. She wanted to avoid coming back, if possible—she'd rather spend her whole day out with him. She grabbed her skateboard and darted down the stairs.
“Bye, Professor,” she called to the kitchen, where he was doing dishes.
“You tell him I'm watching! Always!”
Buttercup paused as she tugged on her sneakers.
“What?”
“Have a good time, sweetie!”
A rare, happy smile flashed across Buttercup's face, and had the Professor been looking, he would've melted.
“I will.”
The outside world was glowing with winter sunlight when she stepped out. The chill of winter was dim, just enough to be refreshing and not bone-shivering. She relished the feel of it on her cheeks as she took off in the direction of the Townsville Mall. Mitch had suggested they meet there as he still needed to get a gift for his dad, who he'd be seeing in a matter of days. He was leaving for Montana tomorrow. Today was their only day together.
Buttercup had gotten excited and said she could fly out to Montana, no trouble at all.
“I'd like to meet your dad,” she'd said, sheathed in her jacket that had once been Mitch's that had once been his dad's. Mitch had laughed, a little nervously.
“I'd... kinda like it to be me and him time,” he'd mumbled. After a second's thought, he'd hastily suggested, “But maybe I can ask him to visit next summer! I'd really... I'd really like him to meet you.”
There was something about the way he'd said it that had made Buttercup feel all warm and dizzy, and, after checking to make sure no one was watching, she'd curved her arms around his shoulders and blushed as she kissed him.
Even the memory of that made her blush now. Sure, they'd been dating for nearly three months, and nobody had been around, but Buttercup just wasn't an openly affectionate girl, even around their friends. She was only just now getting comfortable with holding hands in front of the boys.
She reached the mall, briefly sending up a prayer of gratitude for the gift of flight as she bypassed all the mall-goers trapped in parking lot gridlock. She touched down at the north entrance, where they'd agreed to meet. Now it was time to engage in the exciting activity of... waiting.
She held the skateboard against the back of her waist and paced the curb, pausing frequently to allow people to pass. Some of them grinned at her, some said, “Hello,” and some even (a lot of younger kids, mostly) looked a little frightened yet awed as they approached her. She acknowledged them in some form or another—a grunt here, a nod there. For the kids she permitted facial tics that could've been construed as smiles.
On one of her infinite cycles of pacing the curb, she found a dark-haired, freckled little girl of about two or three standing directly in her path staring up at her, and she stopped. After a second, her mouth twitched into a lopsided grin.
The girl just stared. After a second, Buttercup looked around. Where were her parents?
She looked back down and said, “Hey there.”
The girl continued to look up at her, a little reverence entering her expression. Or maybe it was fear. It was kind of hard to tell. Buttercup shifted.
“Um... where's your mom and dad?”
No response.
“They go into the mall?” Buttercup pointed. “There? Are they in there?”
The little girl shook her head.
Encouraged at having finally culled a response, Buttercup pointed at the parking lot.
“So they're out over here?”
The little girl shook her head again, and Buttercup slumped in defeat.
“You gotta be kiddin' me,” she muttered, and started to make for the entrance to talk to the Lost and Found folks. She halted, realizing the potential danger of leaving a child unattended, and turned back, taking the little girl by the hand. “C'mon.”
The little girl's feet scuttled across the concrete as she fought to keep up with Buttercup, who guiltily realized she was kinda dragging her along, and slowed her steps to match the little one's. Which meant, unfortunately, that they had to move painfully slow. People fanned out around them, and Buttercup watched covetously as people poured into the doors while they approached the mall's entrance at a snail's pace.
The little girl gripped her hand tightly, and Buttercup glanced down at her.
Something off in the distance caught Buttercup's attention, and she frowned, pausing and turning to scan the area. The dim, high-pitched drone of complicated working machinery—that's what it sounded like—
“Mwahahahahahahahahahahaaaa!”
People suddenly began screaming and scattering as Mojo Jojo appeared in one of his outlandish contraptions, cresting the roof of the north entrance and laughing maniacally, as villains do. On cue, the mallgoers burst into screams.
“Shit!” Buttercup hissed. Naturally, the little girl who, prior to this, had evidently taken a vow of silence, decided to copy her.
“Shit!”
“Um,” Buttercup said, but then snatched the little girl up away from a wayward laser beam. “Somebody take this kid!” she cried; anybody would do, but it was absolute chaos and no one was paying attention to her, and Buttercup was not going to risk ruining this jacket by fighting in it...
She bit back a swear and took off for a conveniently located copse near the mall, the chaos fading to dim background noise as she did so.
“Buh'ercup!” the little girl said, and the object of her exclamation looked at her.
“You know my name?”
“Shit!” the little girl said triumphantly, and Buttercup winced as they landed.
“Look, uh, you shouldn't say that word,” she reprimanded, setting her skateboard down and shrugging off her jacket. She located a band in the pocket and tugged her hair back into a ponytail. “Because if you do, then...” She paused, trying to come up with a good enough story, and then pointed back at the mall. “Then the crazy monkey will come and blow up your house and family and everything will die.”
The little girl stared up at Buttercup, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.
Satisfied, Buttercup hung her jacket gingerly over a branch, and said, “Now, you stay here. I'll be right back.”
The girl toddled after her the second Buttercup stepped away. Buttercup shot her a look, and the girl stopped. Buttercup turned and took another step and heard the girl start up again.
“Oh, for God's sake,” she muttered, and tied the girl to the trunk of the tree with the jacket.
“Stay,” she commanded, and took off to join her sisters, who were engaging in the familiar pre-battle exchange.
“Powerpuff Girls! Youuu cannot defeat me and my Giant Robo Jojo, for I am undefeatable, and therefore cannot lose! Which is to say, if you were to fight me, as well as disregard the outcome of all our previous encounters, you would not win, for I—”
Buttercup plowed into him and sent him flying across the parking lot.
“Let's pick this up, Mojo!” Buttercup shouted. “I don't got all day!”
“Oh, how cute!” Bubbles latched onto her sister from behind. “Someone's all excited about her daaaaaaate.”
“Shut up!”
“Girls! Stop goofing off!” Blossom ordered as the Robo Jojo rose again.
“I will defeat you and therefore keep you from winning!” Mojo bellowed. In a flash, the Giant Robo Jojo was upon them, and its arms shot out, pinning the three of them to the ground.
“Augh! See? This is why you don't hug me! Hugging me gets us in trouble!” Buttercup snapped at her sister.
“But you're so soft and squishy and cute!” Bubbles whined. Blossom, in the meantime, had punched through the giant hand of Mojo's robot and was back at work. She bent back the fingers of the hand trapping Buttercup and Bubbles (Mojo yelped in pain, which they could only assume was for dramatic effect) and the three of them were back in the air.
Buttercup shot towards Mojo, whose arm had now produced an enormous gun, and eyebeamed it, the green lasers cutting through the metal and singeing off the weapon.
“Hey! I was looking forward to using that!” an offended Mojo shouted. Meanwhile, Bubbles and Blossom had taken their own eyebeams to the Robo Jojo's torso. They didn't split it in half, but did leave a burning, charred trail carved into the robot, and several sparks flew off of it.
The Robo Jojo swiped at them, and as Buttercup and Bubbles spun out of the way, Blossom took the chance to ice breath the shoulder joint of the robot, and Bubbles grabbed the arm, breaking it off easily now, like a toothpick.
“Noooooo! That is my arm!”
Buttercup snatched the arm out of her sister's hands and arced it back.
“Was your arm,” she corrected, and swung it like a bat into the Robo Jojo's face, sending it flying once more.
The Robo Jojo might have had a fighting chance if it had managed to retain that one limb. But the girls had been at this for years and had grown much more than Mojo had. Also, they were all busy teenagers and had better things to do.
Buttercup snatched the other arm and pulled it back as Blossom ice breathed the joint, and Bubbles slammed through it, shattering this one off, too.
The Robo Jojo kicked ineffectually at them, and two more snapped limbs later only the torso of Mojo Jojo's Giant Robo Jojo laid on the ground, its captain screaming at them.
“Curse you, Powerpuff Girls! I will have you know this does not count as a loss for me!”
Blossom crossed her arms as the three of them loomed over him, floating.
“Not a loss, Mojo? Your latest invention is lying on the ground with no arms or legs.”
“It's just a flesh wound!” Mojo claimed desperately, sparks jettisoning out of the limbless parts. Meanwhile, Buttercup had picked up a chunk of asphalt and now tossed it lightly at the glass dome encasing Mojo.
“Why, you—” Mojo cut off, taking note of the crackling glass around him. The debris had bounced squarely off of it but left a crack, which now spidered out across the entire rounded surface of the glass before shattering.
“Speaking of flesh wounds,” Buttercup sneered.
A few well-placed punches later, Mojo Jojo was groaning on a stretcher as it was wheeled into a police van.
“Nice work, girls,” Blossom said proudly, then looked around to find neither of her sisters nearby. She spun in place, searching, and found Bubbles in Will's arms and Buttercup flying off towards a small grove of trees.
“Hey! Listen to me when I talk to you!” she screeched.
Buttercup tuned her out and furrowed her brow as she navigated the trees—there weren't many, and she could've sworn she left it and the little girl here...
The more she searched the more she began to panic. She'd left them here! Where were they?!
You lost them, a horrible little voice in her head said, and she was so shaken by the possibility that she had to respond out loud.
“No, I didn't,” she said, thinking about wayward lasers and singed leather and the M on that jacket and the little girl's tiny hands. “The fight never even got close.”
Somebody took them.
Rage was bubbling up in her at the mere thought of someone, anyone having the audacity, the sheer stupidity—
She wasn't your fucking kid, she thought, and the rage subsided, just a bit, making room for despair to take its place. And M, M could be anybody, nobody would think of you—
“Looking for something?”
Buttercup twisted to find her scruffy, scraggly, warmly-bundled boyfriend standing behind her, his jacket (her jacket) hanging over an extended arm and a familiar little girl in tow.
Relief flooded her face, as well as her standard flush at the sight of him.
“Mitch! Hey! Thank God, I thought—”
The little girl broke into a grin and ran to hug Buttercup's leg, which inspired a grin of her own.
“Just... never mind what I thought.”
Mitch studied the little girl thoughtfully.
“Kid's got the right idea,” he concluded, and he unfolded the jacket and moved close to pull it around Buttercup's shoulders before wrapping his arms loosely around her for a hug. Buttercup tensed for a second, then relaxed. The little girl looked up.
“You're so pretty!” she said brightly, and Mitch laughed as Buttercup sputtered and blushed more.
“I totally agree,” he said, and Buttercup's eyes softened as she looked at him.
“Buttercup!” Bubbles suddenly called, jarring Buttercup out of her reverie and causing her to jump back, away from Mitch and the little girl.
“What?!” she snapped at the blonde floating at the edge of the woods.
“News teams are here.”
“So? Let Blossom deal with 'em!”
“Paper's here, too. They want a picture.”
“For friggin' real? Jesus,” Buttercup muttered, then winced as she remembered her company. She chanced a glance down at the girl, who had a look on her face that suggested she'd learned some very cool words today and couldn't wait to try them out at home.
“Go fly ahead, I'll catch up,” Mitch urged. “I'll even watch the kid for you.”
“No, I got her,” Buttercup said, shrugging out of the jacket before picking up the little girl easily, one-handed. “But you can watch this for me. Keep an eye out for my skateboard, too—it's around here somewhere.”
She floated up to meet Bubbles, and then back to the site of Mojo's defeat, where the Giant Robo Jojo's torso still reclined, crackling faintly.
“Bethy!”
Buttercup looked up to find a woman running towards her, arms outstretched for her cargo.
“Thank you so much!” the woman cried, reaching to lift the little girl away. Buttercup instantly pulled back, and the woman looked a little shocked.
“Are you her mom?” she asked. The woman blinked.
“Yes! Yes, of course I am!”
Buttercup looked at the girl.
“Is this your mom?”
Even before she nodded Buttercup knew the answer. They shared the same dark hair and eyes, and the faint smattering of freckles across their cheeks. But she'd wanted to ask, just in case.
“Alright,” Buttercup said, drawing closer so the mom could take Bethy from her. Buttercup heard the telltale shutter of a camera going off, and she whipped her head around to find a cameraman catching the exchange.
“Hey! I told you guys to stay away from me!”
“Buttercup!” Blossom called.
“I'm coming!” Buttercup barked, then turned to wave reluctantly at Bethy as her mom carried her away. Bethy's eyes were wide as she watched Buttercup fade from sight, and she reached out a little arm and waggled it.
Buttercup floated over to the Robo Jojo, where her sisters were already perched on top of it. Blossom, her arm cocked on her hip, watched as Buttercup took her place flanking her leader's right, then turned and beamed heroically at the camera. On her other side, Bubbles tilted her head and giggled, a wide-mouthed grin lighting up her adorable face.
Buttercup had one of two expressions she used for photos like these: a smirk or a scowl. She thought again of Bethy and went with a smirk, since it was closer to a smile.
The cameramen crouched to get a better angle, and as Buttercup crossed her arms for the full effect, Mitch came up behind him, still cradling his jacket (her jacket) in his hands. He sneered at her and waved.
The smirk on Buttercup's face faded into a genuine smile at the last possible second before the flash went off, and when both photos appeared in the next day's paper people who were paying attention remarked at how soft Buttercup's eyes seemed.
***
Immediately after the photo, Blossom, as was her self-imposed duty, stayed to take questions from the press. Bubbles squealed and giggled at Will some more before the two of them took off. Buttercup took back the jacket but didn't put it on—it was a brisk winter day, but she was still warmed up from the fight—and she and Mitch strode away. The skate park wasn't far from here.
“So much for shopping for your dad, huh?” Buttercup said, glancing back at the mall. Part of the parking lot was totaled, and the part that wasn't was covered with news crews and a giant dead robot.
“We can do it later. Or, you know, I can do it when I get to Montana.” After a moment, he reached a hand for her hair and delved his fingers into it, loosening her ponytail. His fingertips brushed against her scalp as he did so, and she tensed, a little shiver skittering across her chest.
He held the little elastic band up in front of her, and she shyly took it. Her hair spilled down around her shoulders, ending just past her shoulder blades. Mitch combed his fingers through her hair, and she hoped he couldn't feel her trembling as he did so.
“Different shampoo?” he asked after a second.
“Conditioner,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. “Um, I used conditioner.”
“Your hair's really soft today.”
“You like it?”
“It's weird.”
She gaped at him. “Fuck you!”
“Good weird!” he laughed, clenching her hair in a fist so she couldn't pull away. “It's good weird. Just different. Fuck, you know...”
He colored at his ineloquent recovery, trying to hide his face with his skateboard, clenched in his other hand.
“Mitch, you are soooo smooth,” Buttercup said sarcastically, grinning.
“Look, what do you wanna do today?” he interjected abruptly. “Like, I said skate park and shopping, but we don't have to do that... that was just all I could think of. I don't know, do you wanna do a movie, or, uh...” He trailed off, unable to suggest anything else. “I don't know.”
She shrugged. “I'm cool with whatever.”
“Well, but I don't just wanna do, you know... 'whatever,'” Mitch said. “I won't see you for like, three weeks.”
Buttercup smirked. “You sayin' you're gonna miss me?”
Mitch wasn't looking at her. “Maybe,” he mumbled.
She grinned at him. “Aww, that's adorable.”
“Fuck you,” he groaned, his hand leaving her hair so he could shove at her. She laughed.
“Hey, well, we could always call Harry. Or the twins. You know those guys are always up on what's going on—”
“I don't wanna call 'em,” Mitch said, a little abruptly. “This is... this is my day with you. So... yeah.'
Buttercup looked at him, feeling light and glowy and deliriously happy.
He shot her an embarrassed, almost sullen glance, then reached his hand for her shoulder and pulled her close.
She'd just parted her lips when a car suddenly went zooming by them, and she snapped away, curling into herself a little and blushing furiously.
The hand of his that had drawn her towards him hovered in the air, and he stared at her.
“Sorry,” she whispered, then cleared her throat because she hadn't meant to whisper. “Sorry. I just... the public thing, it's weird. Um.”
She was staring at his shoes as they walked—the oldest pair of Chucks he owned; he'd been wearing them for so long she couldn't remember what their original color was. They angled away from her a little after she said that, and she bit her lip. Shit. She needed to get over this.
“It's okay,” he muttered, and then his Chucks drifted back, just slightly. “We could... I don't know, go somewhere more... private?” She looked up and gave him a skeptical look.
“Like where, exactly? Your place, with your Grandma glued to her chair in the living room? Or my place, with the Professor and his phasers set to 'Kill?'”
Mitch cringed. “Good point.”
“We're here, anyway.” The skate park was busy, but not terribly crowded, and Buttercup dropped her board to the ground, shrugged her jacket on, and stepped on the deck, grinning back at Mitch. She smirked at him. “Tag.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Tag? We're playing tag? You haven't tagged me, you know.”
She darted a quick glance around to confirm no one was watching, then dipped forward, pecking him lightly on the lips.
“There,” she said, forcing another smirk through her blush as she turned and pushed away. She threw a quick glance back to watch him rapidly diminishing in size as her board carried her away from him down a roll-in ramp.
Within seconds she heard him rolling towards her, a litany of obscenities spilling out of his mouth. She pumped forward, dodged other skaters, and zigzagged across the repurposed landscape, up mini-ramps and banking along halfpipes before coming to an abrupt stop on a funbox. There was scattered applause and cheers. She wobbled her board around so she could sneer at Mitch.
“Mitch, you suck!” she called out as he barreled towards her, the wind whipping his scruffy hair all around his face. He flipped her the bird and changed direction, heading instead for a grind rail, where he ollied onto it and into a bluntslide.
She crossed her arms as the trick inspired a round of cheering, more than she'd received. Inwardly, though, she was overcome with elation and pride and a sudden swelling of—
“Watch it!” someone cried out, and she came to in time to see Mitch hit the funbox she was on way too fast.
“Holy fu—”
Mitch was thrown off his board and went crashing into her, cutting her off, and the two of them tumbled end over end before settling into an undignified heap. Both of them instantly held up an arm each to indicate they were okay. Nervous scattered laughter echoed around.
She heard Mitch groan as he propped himself up on his palms, pausing as he looked down at her. With him looming over her and her back pressed to the ground, Buttercup suddenly felt exceptionally vulnerable. She laughed nervously and slapped his arm as she started to sit up.
“Okay, move—”
He firmly grasped her shoulder and held her in place, and she halted, only her head lifted. His eyes were heavy-lidded as he looked at her, and she felt that swelling of emotion in her chest again, the one she'd gotten when he'd gone into the bluntslide.
He'd executed that trick perfectly, and she'd felt such a possessive pride, knowing that that was hers, that he was hers—
She lifted her hand to touch his and slid it hesitantly along his forearm, following the faint rise and fall of the tense muscle. Mitch had never been built, or a hugely active athlete—really, he was kinda lanky and thin as far as guys went, and when he didn't keep up with cutting his hair he started to resemble Shaggy from Scooby-Doo—but for as active as Buttercup was, she'd never been into the jocks or the gym rats.
When she thought about it, though, save for a silly little five-year-old schoolgirl's crush that had barely counted, she'd never really been into much of anybody except Mitch.
She stared up at him, feeling a deep red warmth rising to her face and the sudden onset of a quickening heartbeat. He started to lean towards her. She gasped and snapped her hands to his chest, but didn't push him away.
“For Christ's sake, there are people here!” she hissed, face on fire.
“So?” he challenged, and she blinked. His hand shifted from her shoulder to the back of her head, fingers curling in those long dark tresses he loved so much (he'd told her so), and she was so dazed by his defiance that her brain only dimly registered the catcalls that would serve to fuel her anger and embarrassment later.
In this moment, though, with his mouth on hers and his fingers in her hair and his thumb gently tracing the line of her jaw, she closed her eyes and loved Mitch. She loved him more than anything else in the whole wide world.
***
They weren't at the skate park for long. There were a bunch of stupid, younger teenagers there, and they kept snickering and making kissy noises every time Buttercup went by. They left after she shattered a couple of their skateboards, but by then the fun was gone for her. She and Mitch went to go grab some hot chocolate.
She muscled her way out of her jacket again as they stepped into the heated coffeeshop, then took their place in line. The cashier grinned as they came up.
“What can I get for you guys?” she chirped.
“Hot chocolate,” Buttercup and Mitch said simultaneously.
“One or two?”
Buttercup and Mitch looked at each other.
After a second, Buttercup said, “I think one will do it. One large, to share.” The cashier grinned as she punched in their order.
“Sharing a hot chocolate on a cool winter day. How adorable!”
It suddenly became a very cool winter day indoors as Buttercup iced over, glaring at her. Mitch hastily paid and pulled his girlfriend away.
“What the hell is everyone's problem?” she groused. “Why are we any of their fucking business?”
“Dude, Buttercup, it's just... just people. Just relax.”
“Just give us our fucking drink!” she hissed under her breath, ignoring Mitch's attempt to console her. “You gotta deliver fucking commentary on us when we're trying to fucking order?”
“Chill out,” Mitch urged. “It's not like they're attacking us. And really, the attention isn't that bad—”
“I don't want their fucking attention! I want a fucking hot chocolate!”
“Hot chocolate for the two young lovebirds!” the girl behind the counter called out. Mitch managed to drag Buttercup outside before she could commit mass homicide.
“This better be the best God damn hot chocolate I have ever had,” she swore under her breath, then scalded her tongue as she chugged it down. Mitch took it from her and sipped.
“It's not bad.”
“Mmph.”
He guided them to an outside table and wrapped his hands around the cup as they sat. Buttercup glared at the table's surface as the Chemical X slowly began to heal the burn on her tongue.
“Buttercup,” Mitch said, and she looked up. He was staring into the distance, off across the street somewhere. “Does it really bug you that much? People knowing that we're a couple?”
For a second she only looked at him, stunned that he could ask such a ridiculous question. She was crazy about him. She'd been crazy about him for the longest fucking time.
He shifted his gaze to meet her eyes, waiting. She just didn't think it was anybody's business. She didn't need people to know everything about her, about them. She didn't want to be open about stuff like this. This was private. This was important.
She sighed and, after a moment's thought, placed her hands over his around the cup.
“Mitch, no, it's just—”
“Holy crap, what the hell are you guys doing here?” Harry suddenly asked, and Buttercup snapped her hands away. Harry was standing at their table, holding a struggling boy of about ten by the hand.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
“We're having a hot chocolate,” Mitch explained, his expression stony and his eyes on Buttercup's hands, clenched together on the table. “Duh.”
The boy was straining to pull Harry along.
“Come on, Harry! Let's go!”
“Hey Stinky,” Buttercup said, and Stinky blushed and stopped struggling as he caught sight of Buttercup.
“Hello,” he mumbled.
“This little snotrag wants a hot drink,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “The 'rents got me babysitting him for the day. Me and the twins took him out to RDKade to try out the new racing cabinets they just got.” Buttercup lit up.
“They got new stuff? Are you kidding me? They haven't gotten a new game in years! I thought the place was going to go under!” She looked at Mitch. “We gotta go try those things out!”
Mitch's expression did not match hers, not by a long shot.
“I don't—really, Buttercup? I don't know if I feel—”
“Oh, come on, Mitch, you love racing games,” Buttercup said, already rising out of her chair. Their loud conversation was causing a ruckus and attracting all the other patrons' attentions. Many of them already looked uncomfortable at the presence of loud, semi-rowdy teenagers. It was familiar territory for Buttercup; almost a relief. It was all she could do to keep from sneering at them.
I'll give you fucking lovebirds, she thought to herself. She grabbed Mitch by the arm to drag him up.
“Harry, go get your brother his hot chocolate. Mitch and I will go meet the twins and see you there.”
***
“Ha!” Buttercup clapped her hands and whooped in triumph at having schooled Mitch yet again. “Baby, I got this down.”
“You conquered that thing in just an hour,” Floyd said, impressed.
“Because I am just that good,” Buttercup said, spinning the wheel. “You know, the trick is to use your gear shift. Most people don't even bother with that on racing games.”
“Hey, Buttercup,” Mitch said, climbing out of his seat. “I think I'm done.”
“Alright, so who's next? I need some fresh meat!”
He leaned over the back of her chair.
“No, I mean, I'm done, as in... as in let's go do something else,” he said in an undertone to her.
“Just one more, okay?” she asked, letting her voice go all sweet. Mitch pressed his lips into a thin line and sighed, stepping back.
“Fine. I'm going to go find a fighting game or something.” After a pause, he said, “Harry, come on. Fight me.”
“You guys better keep an eye on Stinky,” Harry threatened the twins before he left.
“Stinky's fine,” Buttercup called as Stinky clambered into the challenger's seat. “He's with me.”
Five races later she did not feel the same way.
“How are you beating me?!” she cried, as Victory! flashed on Stinky's screen for the fifth time.
“Kids these days,” Lloyd muttered to Floyd. “They're all fucking wizards at this stuff by the time they're five.” Mitch and Harry reappeared then.
“Who's winning?” Harry asked.
“Me!” Stinky said proudly, and Buttercup held out her hand to Mitch.
“Got any spare quarters?” she asked.
“Fresh out,” he said bluntly. “Are you done? Let's go.”
“Nonono, I gotta beat this kid at least once,” she said, clambering out of the seat and pushing past him for the change machine. “Save my seat! I want a rematch!”
“Buttercup!” Mitch hissed as he tailed her. “You said only one more like half an hour ago!”
“You didn't come back after one more, did you?” Buttercup said, digging in her pocket for some bills.
“I was trying to be nice! Look, I'm done, can we just go? The kid's going to be here all winter break; you can beat him some other time—”
The machine spit out her change and she turned, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“One more. I promise. I just want to beat him, and I can do it in one more.”
He glared at his watch.
“You know it's almost fucking four o'clock.”
“It won't take five minutes!” she called back. She was already heading back to her seat. Mitch let out an irritated sigh, then slowly padded over and sat at an adjacent racing game, watching and waiting for that one more race to end.
***
“What time is it?” Buttercup asked as she stood. Harry glanced at his cell phone.
“Quarter to five.”
“Holy shit, I'm sorry that took so long, Mitch,” Buttercup said, then looked around. “Mitch?”
The guys followed suit. “Mitch?”
“That's weird,” Lloyd said.
“I don't remember him leaving,” Floyd said.
“I'll check the bathroom,” Harry said.
“Ha!” Stinky cheered as he joined them. “Baby, I got this down!”
“Don't get too full of yourself,” Buttercup warned. “I'm going to beat you at some point this winter break. Mark my words.”
“Let me go check the fighting games,” Floyd said.
Harry reappeared. “Nothing.”
“No Mitch!” Floyd called.
Buttercup furrowed her brow and tugged out her phone. No calls. No texts. She scrolled to Mitch's number and called him. It dumped her into his voicemail.
“Hey, Mitch, it's Buttercup,” she said. “Just... wondering where you are. Give me a call.”
She flipped her phone shut, then flipped it back open to send a text, just in case.
“Want us to help look for him?” Harry asked.
“No, it's cool.” She shook her head. “I'll track him down.”
The guys said their goodbyes as she left, stepping back out into the crisp winter air. The day was dimming rapidly, and she shifted her board from one hand to the other, unsure where to start. He hadn't said where he was going, had he? Had she missed something?
She took off and tried to do a search from the air, but within five minutes that proved to be impossible. She decided to drop her board off at home first—she was getting sick of carrying it around—and after dumping it on the doorstep she went off to search their usual hangouts: the skate park, an ice cream shop, a burger joint, another arcade on the other side of town. In between every other stop she tried to call him again. Every time she got his voicemail.
Where the f r u? she texted after she found the discount theater Mitch-less.
Her stomach suddenly rumbled, and it hit her that she hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning. She went back to their favorite burger joint, just in case Mitch was there now (he wasn't), grabbed a double double with cheese, and wolfed it down on her way to his place.
Even before landing in the trailer park she knew he wasn't there. The lights in his room were all dim. She let herself in anyway.
“Hey Grandma Mitchelson,” she greeted the woman growing into the armchair. The glow of the television bounced off her skin. She may have grunted as Buttercup floated by, but otherwise didn't acknowledge she was there. Mitch's mom was probably at work.
Buttercup knocked on Mitch's door, and after five seconds of no response, entered.
Empty.
She flipped on the light and stuffed her hands into the pockets of the bomber jacket, rubbing at old receipts and hair ties as she floated to the edge of the bed and sat. It was getting colder now that night had fallen, and Mitch's place tended to feel the weather. She curled into herself a bit, letting her eyes drift around the familiar surroundings.
There was a duffel bag on the floor, half full. She stared at it for awhile, then got up and walked around. She kicked aside broken CD cases, half-buried in the carpet, blew the dust off of his bookshelf, flipped through a guitar magazine. She found Cameron's—the former lead guitarist for No Neck Joe—college contact info on Mitch's desk. Shoot, that reminded her. Once Mitch got back from break they'd have to start looking for a new lead guitarist. Floyd was all right, but even he himself recognized he wasn't at the level he needed to be to take the lead.
Mitch's camera was also on his desk—weird, he hadn't brought it today. He always brought his camera. He was always taking pictures of her when they were out.
I should've noticed that, she thought, then powered it on and held it at arm's length to snap a self-photo. It took her five tries to angle it just right; she deleted the rejects and left the last good one on as a surprise for him when he got to Montana.
As she set the camera down and picked up the P-Bass—the very bass she'd selected and bought for his birthday—she started to grow a little irritated. He was leaving tomorrow morning, early. Like six am early. She was going to try and meet him at the airport early to send him off, but they'd been planning on spending the whole day today together...
She lazily plucked out a bass line, feeling slightly guilty about the arcade.
But he didn't tell me where he was going. He hasn't been picking up my calls, or responding to my texts. I'm sure one of the guys would call me if they ran into him.
She furrowed her brow and set his bass down. The thought was in her brain before she could stop it.
Unless he's being held hostage.
Buttercup zipped back into the living room and made a beeline for the front door, flinging it open.
No. Who would take him? Surely if that had happened, they would've sent a stupid note, or made one of those stupid “I have something you want” phone calls to either her or her sisters. He'd been missing for—she glanced at her cell phone—two hours now. Had he been kidnapped, they'd have heard by now. Townsville's villains may not have been entirely effective over the years, but when it came to summoning the girls' attentions, they were remarkably efficient.
The sky was tinged purple now; she could see the moon.
Where are you?
She sat on the rickety metal steps leading to his front door and waited.
***
Buttercup hastily stood as the familiar pock-pock sound of Mitch’s skateboard wheeled towards her. She heard him pause as he caught sight of her, kicking up his board and coming to a stop.
“Hey,” she said, eyes adjusting, picking up his outline in the gathering dark. He just stood there.
“Hey.”
Some receipts fell out of her jacket pocket as she pulled her hand out; she bent to pick them up and stuffed them back before pushing her hair out of her face.
“We were... I was kinda wondering what the hell happened to you.”
He held up a bag she hadn't noticed.
“Went shopping for my dad.”
Anger flared in her, but she tried to ignore it.
“I wish you'd told me.”
“You wanted to play that stupid game,” he muttered, and now that anger was impossible to ignore.
She exploded, “You still could've told me! I would've stopped! If you'd said, 'Buttercup, let's go shopping for my dad,' I would've wrapped it up and left with you!”
“I said, 'Let's go do something else,' didn't I?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Just 'cause I didn't give you a good enough reason to leave, that's why you wanted to stay?” He looked like he was about to throw the package in his hands. “I'm your boyfriend, and it's my last day before I fly out of here for almost a month! Isn't that a good enough reason, Buttercup?!”
“Of course it is! But you said yourself you didn't know what to do—”
“I also said I didn't want to spend it with the guys! I wanted to spend it all with you!”
Buttercup felt a stab of guilt amidst all that anger, but that was no excuse. He should've told her, he still should've told her...
“You know, Buttercup, that's the thing! Every time we go out, just the two of us, you never want to act like I'm your boyfriend! You still treat me like I'm 'one of the guys.' You don't let me hold your hand, or touch you, or kiss you—you know, all that shit that actual couples do—”
“You don't have to do those things!” she shouted.
“I don't do them because I have to, I do them because I want to!” he shouted back, and it was supposed to be sweet, that was supposed to be a sweet revelation, but both of them were too angry to acknowledge it. “Even around the guys, even around Harry and the twins, you never act like we're going out!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Coffeeshop! Perfect example! Your hands are holding mine, and the second Harry appears you pull them away. And even after seeing it's Harry, who knows we're dating and doesn't call us out on it like that lady you got so worked up over, do you settle down and put them back? No! You keep them to yourself! Like you can't stand being seen with me!”
Her eyes were wide with shock and horror. He couldn't mean that! Did he have any idea? Did he have any fucking idea?!
“I wasn't—I wasn't even thinking about that! How can you even say that?! I can't stand being seen with you, that's the biggest load of—”
“And then at the arcade, everybody heard me saying, 'Buttercup, let's go,' me, your boyfriend, and you totally blow me off so you can play that dumb game and hang out with everyone else—”
“They're our friends, Mitch, for Christ's sake—”
“You're going to be seeing them the whole God damn winter break!” he yelled. “You can hang out and flirt with them all you like then—”
“WHAT?! Are you fucking kidding me?!”
“You heard me,” he snapped.
“Since when do I flirt with them?!” she demanded, wanting to punch something, wanting to hit something. “Since when have I ever treated anybody the way I treat you?!”
“I don't know! You don't treat me any fucking different! You just treat us all the same, like you wanna keep your options open—”
She grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and wanted to fling him somewhere, make him shut up.
“How can you say that to me?!”
“Because all of them are fucking crazy about you!” he exploded, and she released his collar, gaping. Panic began to well up in her as his words echoed in her head, numbing her senses.
“Wh-what?”
“You can't honestly tell me you never noticed,” Mitch said, and she shook her head.
“No, you can't... you can't be serious!” They liked her? They liked her?! No, they were her friends, they wouldn't do that, Mitch couldn't be serious—
She was almost shaking from the revelation. They liked her. As in, the way Mitch liked her. And Mitch was one thing, she'd always liked Mitch, they'd always liked each other, and the boys had just been friends; she liked them too but not that way...
They just see me as another girl. How could anyone like her? She went so out of her way to not be a girl! Didn't they get that? They had no idea who she was, oh God, they'd never had any idea, they were only friends with her because they wanted her as a girlfriend!
The anger had faded from Mitch's face at her silent, shocked reaction, and he reached a hand for her.
“Buttercup?”
She slapped it away, her expression instantly hardening.
“How could you tell me that?”
Mitch stared at her.
“Why would you... fucking say that to me?!” she shrieked, that panic coursing through her, spilling out in words, fuck, Mitch was an idiot, they all were!
“What, that they liked you? Like it's not an open secret—”
“Why would you tell me that?” Years of friendship, years of nights out and skating and bad movies, everything, down the God damn fucking drain. She couldn't think straight, could only see images flashing in her head, one after the other in some blinding, horrific slideshow. Every laugh and open-mouthed grin the boys had ever given her was a mask hiding a face that had only wanted to kiss her.
She thought the guys understood, but nobody got her. Nobody ever did.
Something else Mitch had said emerged out of the chaos of thoughts and images in her brain, and she glared at him.
“And you think I want to 'keep my options open?'” she snarled at that idiot, that fucking idiot. Mitch had no idea. She could still feel those years upon years of friendship unfolding into something more within her, something that had ached when he wasn't near, had swelled at the sound of his voice, had wanted every moment they'd spent together to just never end.
There'd never been any other option for her. There'd only ever been Mitch, Mitch, Mitch.
He didn't get her either. And he had been her best friend.
Mitch steeled his shoulders.
“What am I supposed to think, when every time we go out you hardly act like my girlfriend?”
The stupid fuck. That made her want to break his stupid fucking face.
“Fuck you, Mitch,” she snarled. “Fuck you, and fuck this. Stay in Montana, for all I fucking care.”
The next second the wind was screaming around her, and she flew as fast as she could as she hurtled home, trying to drown out the voices in her head that begged her not to leave him, not to do this, please, don't do this.
***
(cont.)
part 1
part 2
Title: More Than Human
Chapter 7a: Can't Sleep, But... or Some Other Beginning's End
Pairing: Buttercup/Mitch
Rating: R/M, because they're teenagers and a good handful of them use terrible, filthy language.
Disclaimer: Pay your respect to Craig, not me.
Summary: This is the ending to a different story. Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. – Camus
Notes: I still remember my own. My car felt very lonely as I drove away. I thought I'd never stop crying. Thanks to
mathkid and juxtaposie for the close attention they paid to a fictional character's heartbreak. This is a small prequel/backstory mini-chapter, though you probably don't even have to have read the rest of TEF to follow this. Regular TEF timeline resumes next chapter.More Than Human, Pt. 0.25 – Winter Previous
December – Can't Sleep, But... or Some Other Beginning's End
-sbj-
On the first day of their winter break, Bubbles awoke to the smell of breakfast flooding the house. After a sleepy, idyllic smile, she dragged herself up, surprised when she glanced over and saw she was alone in the room. When they didn't have school, Buttercup was usually the last one up.
The blonde scrambled into some clothes and, after a visit to the bathroom, jetted down the stairs. She paused at the kitchen door, eyeing an unnaturally alert Buttercup messing around with breakfasty things at the stove. Blossom and the Professor were seated at the table perusing the paper.
“You’re up early,” Bubbles said, voice carrying just enough suspicion to offend her sister. “For you, I mean.”
“So what?” Buttercup threw over her shoulder, not even looking. “Sounds like someone doesn’t want any pancakes.”
“Buttercup, tie your hair back or you’ll singe it off,” Blossom warned in a sing-songy voice, and everyone paused to recall the few inches they’d had to shear off of Buttercup’s long dark locks only days before. Their hair wasn’t as super-powered as the girls it sprung from.
Bubbles zipped to the stove and unwrapped one of the bands around her wrist, gathering her sister’s hair up and into a taut ponytail.
“Ow! Watch it!”
“Wow, Buttercup, your hair is way smoother than… wait.” Bubbles leaned in and sniffed experimentally. “This… you washed your hair? What did you use?”
“Shampoo,” Buttercup said curtly. “And don’t say it like I’ve never washed my hair before.”
“She borrowed my conditioner,” Blossom answered, and Buttercup shot her a dirty look. Bubbles stared and ran her hands through and through her sister’s hair.
“Oh my God. I didn’t think hair like this grew on you.”
“Okay, you know what? You don’t get hair-touching privileges anymore, and pretty soon, you’re going to lose your pancake-eating privileges too,” Buttercup threatened.
There was a loud SWOOSH followed by lots of tumbling into things, and a very tousled Blossom and Professor directed annoyed looks at Bubbles as they rose from the floor and readjusted their chairs.
Now seated primly at the table, she gave them both a very innocent look as she patted her hair and smoothly poured herself a glass of orange juice.
“Blossom, you are looking exceptionally professional this morning,” she said airily.
“I'm representing the Townsville Community Center on the news and talking about our Christmas Day soup kitchen.”
“My noble young lady,” the Professor said approvingly. He peered over his paper at Bubbles. “What are you up to today?”
“Meeting Will and the gang for shopping and lunch,” Bubbles said, and the Professor crumpled the edges of his paper.
“How nice,” he said in a strained voice.
“Presenting pancakes,” Buttercup announced, setting a huge stack of them down on the table.
“Joy!” Bubbles squealed, and dug in.
“What about you, Buttercup?” their father asked as she sat.
The girl mumbled something.
“What was that?”
She spoke up, but still the Professor couldn't make it out. Those with superhearing, however, did. Blossom's eyes darted briefly to her sister, while Bubbles' lit up with mischief.
“She's got a daaaate with Mitch,” Bubbles sang, and an angry blush rose to her sister's face.
“Shut up,” she growled, glaring daggers at Bubbles.
The Professor's paper was no more, smashed into a wrinkled ghost of its former self. The Professor wiped his ink-stained hands on a napkin.
“A date with Mitch,” he repeated, eye twitching, and Buttercup flushed red, bright enough to light a runway. “How... nice.”
***
Blossom and Bubbles scurried out the door right after breakfast. Buttercup lingered at the window and waited till the girls were out of sight, then thundered upstairs to their room, pulling her hair out of its ponytail. Taking care not to disrupt anything, she slowed as she gingerly approached the vanity her sisters shared and leaned close to the mirror, scrutinizing her face. Her eyes fell upon the reflection of numerous lipsticks and other… powdery, face things that she had no names for, and paused, considering. Then she came to her senses and shook her head, made a face for good measure, and pulled back. She paused again, then cocked her hips, inspecting her freshly laundered jeans. After a moment, she turned around to inspect her backside, making a point of rolling her eyes and sighing to demonstrate to any invisible audience members that this was completely pointless and she wasn’t doing this because she wanted to or was worried about it or anything.
Discarding the faintly giddy thought that her ass looked damn good with that denim hugging it, she smoothed out her t-shirt, briefly brought her hair up with both hands in a fake bun, reminded herself that she liked the feel of his hands running through her hair, and dropped it down again, combing it through with a brush she snatched off the desk.
She took a deep breath and exhaled, slapping the back of the brush against her mitt. She gave herself one last once-over, carefully extracted her hairs out of Blossom’s brush before setting it down, and then made her way to her bed, reaching for the worn leather bomber jacket hanging off the headboard, the M on the inside lining catching her eye and inspiring the faintest hint of a blush across her cheeks.
Mitch had mentioned something about going to the skate park, maybe. She wanted to avoid coming back, if possible—she'd rather spend her whole day out with him. She grabbed her skateboard and darted down the stairs.
“Bye, Professor,” she called to the kitchen, where he was doing dishes.
“You tell him I'm watching! Always!”
Buttercup paused as she tugged on her sneakers.
“What?”
“Have a good time, sweetie!”
A rare, happy smile flashed across Buttercup's face, and had the Professor been looking, he would've melted.
“I will.”
The outside world was glowing with winter sunlight when she stepped out. The chill of winter was dim, just enough to be refreshing and not bone-shivering. She relished the feel of it on her cheeks as she took off in the direction of the Townsville Mall. Mitch had suggested they meet there as he still needed to get a gift for his dad, who he'd be seeing in a matter of days. He was leaving for Montana tomorrow. Today was their only day together.
Buttercup had gotten excited and said she could fly out to Montana, no trouble at all.
“I'd like to meet your dad,” she'd said, sheathed in her jacket that had once been Mitch's that had once been his dad's. Mitch had laughed, a little nervously.
“I'd... kinda like it to be me and him time,” he'd mumbled. After a second's thought, he'd hastily suggested, “But maybe I can ask him to visit next summer! I'd really... I'd really like him to meet you.”
There was something about the way he'd said it that had made Buttercup feel all warm and dizzy, and, after checking to make sure no one was watching, she'd curved her arms around his shoulders and blushed as she kissed him.
Even the memory of that made her blush now. Sure, they'd been dating for nearly three months, and nobody had been around, but Buttercup just wasn't an openly affectionate girl, even around their friends. She was only just now getting comfortable with holding hands in front of the boys.
She reached the mall, briefly sending up a prayer of gratitude for the gift of flight as she bypassed all the mall-goers trapped in parking lot gridlock. She touched down at the north entrance, where they'd agreed to meet. Now it was time to engage in the exciting activity of... waiting.
She held the skateboard against the back of her waist and paced the curb, pausing frequently to allow people to pass. Some of them grinned at her, some said, “Hello,” and some even (a lot of younger kids, mostly) looked a little frightened yet awed as they approached her. She acknowledged them in some form or another—a grunt here, a nod there. For the kids she permitted facial tics that could've been construed as smiles.
On one of her infinite cycles of pacing the curb, she found a dark-haired, freckled little girl of about two or three standing directly in her path staring up at her, and she stopped. After a second, her mouth twitched into a lopsided grin.
The girl just stared. After a second, Buttercup looked around. Where were her parents?
She looked back down and said, “Hey there.”
The girl continued to look up at her, a little reverence entering her expression. Or maybe it was fear. It was kind of hard to tell. Buttercup shifted.
“Um... where's your mom and dad?”
No response.
“They go into the mall?” Buttercup pointed. “There? Are they in there?”
The little girl shook her head.
Encouraged at having finally culled a response, Buttercup pointed at the parking lot.
“So they're out over here?”
The little girl shook her head again, and Buttercup slumped in defeat.
“You gotta be kiddin' me,” she muttered, and started to make for the entrance to talk to the Lost and Found folks. She halted, realizing the potential danger of leaving a child unattended, and turned back, taking the little girl by the hand. “C'mon.”
The little girl's feet scuttled across the concrete as she fought to keep up with Buttercup, who guiltily realized she was kinda dragging her along, and slowed her steps to match the little one's. Which meant, unfortunately, that they had to move painfully slow. People fanned out around them, and Buttercup watched covetously as people poured into the doors while they approached the mall's entrance at a snail's pace.
The little girl gripped her hand tightly, and Buttercup glanced down at her.
Something off in the distance caught Buttercup's attention, and she frowned, pausing and turning to scan the area. The dim, high-pitched drone of complicated working machinery—that's what it sounded like—
“Mwahahahahahahahahahahaaaa!”
People suddenly began screaming and scattering as Mojo Jojo appeared in one of his outlandish contraptions, cresting the roof of the north entrance and laughing maniacally, as villains do. On cue, the mallgoers burst into screams.
“Shit!” Buttercup hissed. Naturally, the little girl who, prior to this, had evidently taken a vow of silence, decided to copy her.
“Shit!”
“Um,” Buttercup said, but then snatched the little girl up away from a wayward laser beam. “Somebody take this kid!” she cried; anybody would do, but it was absolute chaos and no one was paying attention to her, and Buttercup was not going to risk ruining this jacket by fighting in it...
She bit back a swear and took off for a conveniently located copse near the mall, the chaos fading to dim background noise as she did so.
“Buh'ercup!” the little girl said, and the object of her exclamation looked at her.
“You know my name?”
“Shit!” the little girl said triumphantly, and Buttercup winced as they landed.
“Look, uh, you shouldn't say that word,” she reprimanded, setting her skateboard down and shrugging off her jacket. She located a band in the pocket and tugged her hair back into a ponytail. “Because if you do, then...” She paused, trying to come up with a good enough story, and then pointed back at the mall. “Then the crazy monkey will come and blow up your house and family and everything will die.”
The little girl stared up at Buttercup, slack-jawed and wide-eyed.
Satisfied, Buttercup hung her jacket gingerly over a branch, and said, “Now, you stay here. I'll be right back.”
The girl toddled after her the second Buttercup stepped away. Buttercup shot her a look, and the girl stopped. Buttercup turned and took another step and heard the girl start up again.
“Oh, for God's sake,” she muttered, and tied the girl to the trunk of the tree with the jacket.
“Stay,” she commanded, and took off to join her sisters, who were engaging in the familiar pre-battle exchange.
“Powerpuff Girls! Youuu cannot defeat me and my Giant Robo Jojo, for I am undefeatable, and therefore cannot lose! Which is to say, if you were to fight me, as well as disregard the outcome of all our previous encounters, you would not win, for I—”
Buttercup plowed into him and sent him flying across the parking lot.
“Let's pick this up, Mojo!” Buttercup shouted. “I don't got all day!”
“Oh, how cute!” Bubbles latched onto her sister from behind. “Someone's all excited about her daaaaaaate.”
“Shut up!”
“Girls! Stop goofing off!” Blossom ordered as the Robo Jojo rose again.
“I will defeat you and therefore keep you from winning!” Mojo bellowed. In a flash, the Giant Robo Jojo was upon them, and its arms shot out, pinning the three of them to the ground.
“Augh! See? This is why you don't hug me! Hugging me gets us in trouble!” Buttercup snapped at her sister.
“But you're so soft and squishy and cute!” Bubbles whined. Blossom, in the meantime, had punched through the giant hand of Mojo's robot and was back at work. She bent back the fingers of the hand trapping Buttercup and Bubbles (Mojo yelped in pain, which they could only assume was for dramatic effect) and the three of them were back in the air.
Buttercup shot towards Mojo, whose arm had now produced an enormous gun, and eyebeamed it, the green lasers cutting through the metal and singeing off the weapon.
“Hey! I was looking forward to using that!” an offended Mojo shouted. Meanwhile, Bubbles and Blossom had taken their own eyebeams to the Robo Jojo's torso. They didn't split it in half, but did leave a burning, charred trail carved into the robot, and several sparks flew off of it.
The Robo Jojo swiped at them, and as Buttercup and Bubbles spun out of the way, Blossom took the chance to ice breath the shoulder joint of the robot, and Bubbles grabbed the arm, breaking it off easily now, like a toothpick.
“Noooooo! That is my arm!”
Buttercup snatched the arm out of her sister's hands and arced it back.
“Was your arm,” she corrected, and swung it like a bat into the Robo Jojo's face, sending it flying once more.
The Robo Jojo might have had a fighting chance if it had managed to retain that one limb. But the girls had been at this for years and had grown much more than Mojo had. Also, they were all busy teenagers and had better things to do.
Buttercup snatched the other arm and pulled it back as Blossom ice breathed the joint, and Bubbles slammed through it, shattering this one off, too.
The Robo Jojo kicked ineffectually at them, and two more snapped limbs later only the torso of Mojo Jojo's Giant Robo Jojo laid on the ground, its captain screaming at them.
“Curse you, Powerpuff Girls! I will have you know this does not count as a loss for me!”
Blossom crossed her arms as the three of them loomed over him, floating.
“Not a loss, Mojo? Your latest invention is lying on the ground with no arms or legs.”
“It's just a flesh wound!” Mojo claimed desperately, sparks jettisoning out of the limbless parts. Meanwhile, Buttercup had picked up a chunk of asphalt and now tossed it lightly at the glass dome encasing Mojo.
“Why, you—” Mojo cut off, taking note of the crackling glass around him. The debris had bounced squarely off of it but left a crack, which now spidered out across the entire rounded surface of the glass before shattering.
“Speaking of flesh wounds,” Buttercup sneered.
A few well-placed punches later, Mojo Jojo was groaning on a stretcher as it was wheeled into a police van.
“Nice work, girls,” Blossom said proudly, then looked around to find neither of her sisters nearby. She spun in place, searching, and found Bubbles in Will's arms and Buttercup flying off towards a small grove of trees.
“Hey! Listen to me when I talk to you!” she screeched.
Buttercup tuned her out and furrowed her brow as she navigated the trees—there weren't many, and she could've sworn she left it and the little girl here...
The more she searched the more she began to panic. She'd left them here! Where were they?!
You lost them, a horrible little voice in her head said, and she was so shaken by the possibility that she had to respond out loud.
“No, I didn't,” she said, thinking about wayward lasers and singed leather and the M on that jacket and the little girl's tiny hands. “The fight never even got close.”
Somebody took them.
Rage was bubbling up in her at the mere thought of someone, anyone having the audacity, the sheer stupidity—
She wasn't your fucking kid, she thought, and the rage subsided, just a bit, making room for despair to take its place. And M, M could be anybody, nobody would think of you—
“Looking for something?”
Buttercup twisted to find her scruffy, scraggly, warmly-bundled boyfriend standing behind her, his jacket (her jacket) hanging over an extended arm and a familiar little girl in tow.
Relief flooded her face, as well as her standard flush at the sight of him.
“Mitch! Hey! Thank God, I thought—”
The little girl broke into a grin and ran to hug Buttercup's leg, which inspired a grin of her own.
“Just... never mind what I thought.”
Mitch studied the little girl thoughtfully.
“Kid's got the right idea,” he concluded, and he unfolded the jacket and moved close to pull it around Buttercup's shoulders before wrapping his arms loosely around her for a hug. Buttercup tensed for a second, then relaxed. The little girl looked up.
“You're so pretty!” she said brightly, and Mitch laughed as Buttercup sputtered and blushed more.
“I totally agree,” he said, and Buttercup's eyes softened as she looked at him.
“Buttercup!” Bubbles suddenly called, jarring Buttercup out of her reverie and causing her to jump back, away from Mitch and the little girl.
“What?!” she snapped at the blonde floating at the edge of the woods.
“News teams are here.”
“So? Let Blossom deal with 'em!”
“Paper's here, too. They want a picture.”
“For friggin' real? Jesus,” Buttercup muttered, then winced as she remembered her company. She chanced a glance down at the girl, who had a look on her face that suggested she'd learned some very cool words today and couldn't wait to try them out at home.
“Go fly ahead, I'll catch up,” Mitch urged. “I'll even watch the kid for you.”
“No, I got her,” Buttercup said, shrugging out of the jacket before picking up the little girl easily, one-handed. “But you can watch this for me. Keep an eye out for my skateboard, too—it's around here somewhere.”
She floated up to meet Bubbles, and then back to the site of Mojo's defeat, where the Giant Robo Jojo's torso still reclined, crackling faintly.
“Bethy!”
Buttercup looked up to find a woman running towards her, arms outstretched for her cargo.
“Thank you so much!” the woman cried, reaching to lift the little girl away. Buttercup instantly pulled back, and the woman looked a little shocked.
“Are you her mom?” she asked. The woman blinked.
“Yes! Yes, of course I am!”
Buttercup looked at the girl.
“Is this your mom?”
Even before she nodded Buttercup knew the answer. They shared the same dark hair and eyes, and the faint smattering of freckles across their cheeks. But she'd wanted to ask, just in case.
“Alright,” Buttercup said, drawing closer so the mom could take Bethy from her. Buttercup heard the telltale shutter of a camera going off, and she whipped her head around to find a cameraman catching the exchange.
“Hey! I told you guys to stay away from me!”
“Buttercup!” Blossom called.
“I'm coming!” Buttercup barked, then turned to wave reluctantly at Bethy as her mom carried her away. Bethy's eyes were wide as she watched Buttercup fade from sight, and she reached out a little arm and waggled it.
Buttercup floated over to the Robo Jojo, where her sisters were already perched on top of it. Blossom, her arm cocked on her hip, watched as Buttercup took her place flanking her leader's right, then turned and beamed heroically at the camera. On her other side, Bubbles tilted her head and giggled, a wide-mouthed grin lighting up her adorable face.
Buttercup had one of two expressions she used for photos like these: a smirk or a scowl. She thought again of Bethy and went with a smirk, since it was closer to a smile.
The cameramen crouched to get a better angle, and as Buttercup crossed her arms for the full effect, Mitch came up behind him, still cradling his jacket (her jacket) in his hands. He sneered at her and waved.
The smirk on Buttercup's face faded into a genuine smile at the last possible second before the flash went off, and when both photos appeared in the next day's paper people who were paying attention remarked at how soft Buttercup's eyes seemed.
***
Immediately after the photo, Blossom, as was her self-imposed duty, stayed to take questions from the press. Bubbles squealed and giggled at Will some more before the two of them took off. Buttercup took back the jacket but didn't put it on—it was a brisk winter day, but she was still warmed up from the fight—and she and Mitch strode away. The skate park wasn't far from here.
“So much for shopping for your dad, huh?” Buttercup said, glancing back at the mall. Part of the parking lot was totaled, and the part that wasn't was covered with news crews and a giant dead robot.
“We can do it later. Or, you know, I can do it when I get to Montana.” After a moment, he reached a hand for her hair and delved his fingers into it, loosening her ponytail. His fingertips brushed against her scalp as he did so, and she tensed, a little shiver skittering across her chest.
He held the little elastic band up in front of her, and she shyly took it. Her hair spilled down around her shoulders, ending just past her shoulder blades. Mitch combed his fingers through her hair, and she hoped he couldn't feel her trembling as he did so.
“Different shampoo?” he asked after a second.
“Conditioner,” she croaked, then cleared her throat. “Um, I used conditioner.”
“Your hair's really soft today.”
“You like it?”
“It's weird.”
She gaped at him. “Fuck you!”
“Good weird!” he laughed, clenching her hair in a fist so she couldn't pull away. “It's good weird. Just different. Fuck, you know...”
He colored at his ineloquent recovery, trying to hide his face with his skateboard, clenched in his other hand.
“Mitch, you are soooo smooth,” Buttercup said sarcastically, grinning.
“Look, what do you wanna do today?” he interjected abruptly. “Like, I said skate park and shopping, but we don't have to do that... that was just all I could think of. I don't know, do you wanna do a movie, or, uh...” He trailed off, unable to suggest anything else. “I don't know.”
She shrugged. “I'm cool with whatever.”
“Well, but I don't just wanna do, you know... 'whatever,'” Mitch said. “I won't see you for like, three weeks.”
Buttercup smirked. “You sayin' you're gonna miss me?”
Mitch wasn't looking at her. “Maybe,” he mumbled.
She grinned at him. “Aww, that's adorable.”
“Fuck you,” he groaned, his hand leaving her hair so he could shove at her. She laughed.
“Hey, well, we could always call Harry. Or the twins. You know those guys are always up on what's going on—”
“I don't wanna call 'em,” Mitch said, a little abruptly. “This is... this is my day with you. So... yeah.'
Buttercup looked at him, feeling light and glowy and deliriously happy.
He shot her an embarrassed, almost sullen glance, then reached his hand for her shoulder and pulled her close.
She'd just parted her lips when a car suddenly went zooming by them, and she snapped away, curling into herself a little and blushing furiously.
The hand of his that had drawn her towards him hovered in the air, and he stared at her.
“Sorry,” she whispered, then cleared her throat because she hadn't meant to whisper. “Sorry. I just... the public thing, it's weird. Um.”
She was staring at his shoes as they walked—the oldest pair of Chucks he owned; he'd been wearing them for so long she couldn't remember what their original color was. They angled away from her a little after she said that, and she bit her lip. Shit. She needed to get over this.
“It's okay,” he muttered, and then his Chucks drifted back, just slightly. “We could... I don't know, go somewhere more... private?” She looked up and gave him a skeptical look.
“Like where, exactly? Your place, with your Grandma glued to her chair in the living room? Or my place, with the Professor and his phasers set to 'Kill?'”
Mitch cringed. “Good point.”
“We're here, anyway.” The skate park was busy, but not terribly crowded, and Buttercup dropped her board to the ground, shrugged her jacket on, and stepped on the deck, grinning back at Mitch. She smirked at him. “Tag.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Tag? We're playing tag? You haven't tagged me, you know.”
She darted a quick glance around to confirm no one was watching, then dipped forward, pecking him lightly on the lips.
“There,” she said, forcing another smirk through her blush as she turned and pushed away. She threw a quick glance back to watch him rapidly diminishing in size as her board carried her away from him down a roll-in ramp.
Within seconds she heard him rolling towards her, a litany of obscenities spilling out of his mouth. She pumped forward, dodged other skaters, and zigzagged across the repurposed landscape, up mini-ramps and banking along halfpipes before coming to an abrupt stop on a funbox. There was scattered applause and cheers. She wobbled her board around so she could sneer at Mitch.
“Mitch, you suck!” she called out as he barreled towards her, the wind whipping his scruffy hair all around his face. He flipped her the bird and changed direction, heading instead for a grind rail, where he ollied onto it and into a bluntslide.
She crossed her arms as the trick inspired a round of cheering, more than she'd received. Inwardly, though, she was overcome with elation and pride and a sudden swelling of—
“Watch it!” someone cried out, and she came to in time to see Mitch hit the funbox she was on way too fast.
“Holy fu—”
Mitch was thrown off his board and went crashing into her, cutting her off, and the two of them tumbled end over end before settling into an undignified heap. Both of them instantly held up an arm each to indicate they were okay. Nervous scattered laughter echoed around.
She heard Mitch groan as he propped himself up on his palms, pausing as he looked down at her. With him looming over her and her back pressed to the ground, Buttercup suddenly felt exceptionally vulnerable. She laughed nervously and slapped his arm as she started to sit up.
“Okay, move—”
He firmly grasped her shoulder and held her in place, and she halted, only her head lifted. His eyes were heavy-lidded as he looked at her, and she felt that swelling of emotion in her chest again, the one she'd gotten when he'd gone into the bluntslide.
He'd executed that trick perfectly, and she'd felt such a possessive pride, knowing that that was hers, that he was hers—
She lifted her hand to touch his and slid it hesitantly along his forearm, following the faint rise and fall of the tense muscle. Mitch had never been built, or a hugely active athlete—really, he was kinda lanky and thin as far as guys went, and when he didn't keep up with cutting his hair he started to resemble Shaggy from Scooby-Doo—but for as active as Buttercup was, she'd never been into the jocks or the gym rats.
When she thought about it, though, save for a silly little five-year-old schoolgirl's crush that had barely counted, she'd never really been into much of anybody except Mitch.
She stared up at him, feeling a deep red warmth rising to her face and the sudden onset of a quickening heartbeat. He started to lean towards her. She gasped and snapped her hands to his chest, but didn't push him away.
“For Christ's sake, there are people here!” she hissed, face on fire.
“So?” he challenged, and she blinked. His hand shifted from her shoulder to the back of her head, fingers curling in those long dark tresses he loved so much (he'd told her so), and she was so dazed by his defiance that her brain only dimly registered the catcalls that would serve to fuel her anger and embarrassment later.
In this moment, though, with his mouth on hers and his fingers in her hair and his thumb gently tracing the line of her jaw, she closed her eyes and loved Mitch. She loved him more than anything else in the whole wide world.
***
They weren't at the skate park for long. There were a bunch of stupid, younger teenagers there, and they kept snickering and making kissy noises every time Buttercup went by. They left after she shattered a couple of their skateboards, but by then the fun was gone for her. She and Mitch went to go grab some hot chocolate.
She muscled her way out of her jacket again as they stepped into the heated coffeeshop, then took their place in line. The cashier grinned as they came up.
“What can I get for you guys?” she chirped.
“Hot chocolate,” Buttercup and Mitch said simultaneously.
“One or two?”
Buttercup and Mitch looked at each other.
After a second, Buttercup said, “I think one will do it. One large, to share.” The cashier grinned as she punched in their order.
“Sharing a hot chocolate on a cool winter day. How adorable!”
It suddenly became a very cool winter day indoors as Buttercup iced over, glaring at her. Mitch hastily paid and pulled his girlfriend away.
“What the hell is everyone's problem?” she groused. “Why are we any of their fucking business?”
“Dude, Buttercup, it's just... just people. Just relax.”
“Just give us our fucking drink!” she hissed under her breath, ignoring Mitch's attempt to console her. “You gotta deliver fucking commentary on us when we're trying to fucking order?”
“Chill out,” Mitch urged. “It's not like they're attacking us. And really, the attention isn't that bad—”
“I don't want their fucking attention! I want a fucking hot chocolate!”
“Hot chocolate for the two young lovebirds!” the girl behind the counter called out. Mitch managed to drag Buttercup outside before she could commit mass homicide.
“This better be the best God damn hot chocolate I have ever had,” she swore under her breath, then scalded her tongue as she chugged it down. Mitch took it from her and sipped.
“It's not bad.”
“Mmph.”
He guided them to an outside table and wrapped his hands around the cup as they sat. Buttercup glared at the table's surface as the Chemical X slowly began to heal the burn on her tongue.
“Buttercup,” Mitch said, and she looked up. He was staring into the distance, off across the street somewhere. “Does it really bug you that much? People knowing that we're a couple?”
For a second she only looked at him, stunned that he could ask such a ridiculous question. She was crazy about him. She'd been crazy about him for the longest fucking time.
He shifted his gaze to meet her eyes, waiting. She just didn't think it was anybody's business. She didn't need people to know everything about her, about them. She didn't want to be open about stuff like this. This was private. This was important.
She sighed and, after a moment's thought, placed her hands over his around the cup.
“Mitch, no, it's just—”
“Holy crap, what the hell are you guys doing here?” Harry suddenly asked, and Buttercup snapped her hands away. Harry was standing at their table, holding a struggling boy of about ten by the hand.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.
“We're having a hot chocolate,” Mitch explained, his expression stony and his eyes on Buttercup's hands, clenched together on the table. “Duh.”
The boy was straining to pull Harry along.
“Come on, Harry! Let's go!”
“Hey Stinky,” Buttercup said, and Stinky blushed and stopped struggling as he caught sight of Buttercup.
“Hello,” he mumbled.
“This little snotrag wants a hot drink,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “The 'rents got me babysitting him for the day. Me and the twins took him out to RDKade to try out the new racing cabinets they just got.” Buttercup lit up.
“They got new stuff? Are you kidding me? They haven't gotten a new game in years! I thought the place was going to go under!” She looked at Mitch. “We gotta go try those things out!”
Mitch's expression did not match hers, not by a long shot.
“I don't—really, Buttercup? I don't know if I feel—”
“Oh, come on, Mitch, you love racing games,” Buttercup said, already rising out of her chair. Their loud conversation was causing a ruckus and attracting all the other patrons' attentions. Many of them already looked uncomfortable at the presence of loud, semi-rowdy teenagers. It was familiar territory for Buttercup; almost a relief. It was all she could do to keep from sneering at them.
I'll give you fucking lovebirds, she thought to herself. She grabbed Mitch by the arm to drag him up.
“Harry, go get your brother his hot chocolate. Mitch and I will go meet the twins and see you there.”
***
“Ha!” Buttercup clapped her hands and whooped in triumph at having schooled Mitch yet again. “Baby, I got this down.”
“You conquered that thing in just an hour,” Floyd said, impressed.
“Because I am just that good,” Buttercup said, spinning the wheel. “You know, the trick is to use your gear shift. Most people don't even bother with that on racing games.”
“Hey, Buttercup,” Mitch said, climbing out of his seat. “I think I'm done.”
“Alright, so who's next? I need some fresh meat!”
He leaned over the back of her chair.
“No, I mean, I'm done, as in... as in let's go do something else,” he said in an undertone to her.
“Just one more, okay?” she asked, letting her voice go all sweet. Mitch pressed his lips into a thin line and sighed, stepping back.
“Fine. I'm going to go find a fighting game or something.” After a pause, he said, “Harry, come on. Fight me.”
“You guys better keep an eye on Stinky,” Harry threatened the twins before he left.
“Stinky's fine,” Buttercup called as Stinky clambered into the challenger's seat. “He's with me.”
Five races later she did not feel the same way.
“How are you beating me?!” she cried, as Victory! flashed on Stinky's screen for the fifth time.
“Kids these days,” Lloyd muttered to Floyd. “They're all fucking wizards at this stuff by the time they're five.” Mitch and Harry reappeared then.
“Who's winning?” Harry asked.
“Me!” Stinky said proudly, and Buttercup held out her hand to Mitch.
“Got any spare quarters?” she asked.
“Fresh out,” he said bluntly. “Are you done? Let's go.”
“Nonono, I gotta beat this kid at least once,” she said, clambering out of the seat and pushing past him for the change machine. “Save my seat! I want a rematch!”
“Buttercup!” Mitch hissed as he tailed her. “You said only one more like half an hour ago!”
“You didn't come back after one more, did you?” Buttercup said, digging in her pocket for some bills.
“I was trying to be nice! Look, I'm done, can we just go? The kid's going to be here all winter break; you can beat him some other time—”
The machine spit out her change and she turned, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“One more. I promise. I just want to beat him, and I can do it in one more.”
He glared at his watch.
“You know it's almost fucking four o'clock.”
“It won't take five minutes!” she called back. She was already heading back to her seat. Mitch let out an irritated sigh, then slowly padded over and sat at an adjacent racing game, watching and waiting for that one more race to end.
***
“What time is it?” Buttercup asked as she stood. Harry glanced at his cell phone.
“Quarter to five.”
“Holy shit, I'm sorry that took so long, Mitch,” Buttercup said, then looked around. “Mitch?”
The guys followed suit. “Mitch?”
“That's weird,” Lloyd said.
“I don't remember him leaving,” Floyd said.
“I'll check the bathroom,” Harry said.
“Ha!” Stinky cheered as he joined them. “Baby, I got this down!”
“Don't get too full of yourself,” Buttercup warned. “I'm going to beat you at some point this winter break. Mark my words.”
“Let me go check the fighting games,” Floyd said.
Harry reappeared. “Nothing.”
“No Mitch!” Floyd called.
Buttercup furrowed her brow and tugged out her phone. No calls. No texts. She scrolled to Mitch's number and called him. It dumped her into his voicemail.
“Hey, Mitch, it's Buttercup,” she said. “Just... wondering where you are. Give me a call.”
She flipped her phone shut, then flipped it back open to send a text, just in case.
“Want us to help look for him?” Harry asked.
“No, it's cool.” She shook her head. “I'll track him down.”
The guys said their goodbyes as she left, stepping back out into the crisp winter air. The day was dimming rapidly, and she shifted her board from one hand to the other, unsure where to start. He hadn't said where he was going, had he? Had she missed something?
She took off and tried to do a search from the air, but within five minutes that proved to be impossible. She decided to drop her board off at home first—she was getting sick of carrying it around—and after dumping it on the doorstep she went off to search their usual hangouts: the skate park, an ice cream shop, a burger joint, another arcade on the other side of town. In between every other stop she tried to call him again. Every time she got his voicemail.
Where the f r u? she texted after she found the discount theater Mitch-less.
Her stomach suddenly rumbled, and it hit her that she hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning. She went back to their favorite burger joint, just in case Mitch was there now (he wasn't), grabbed a double double with cheese, and wolfed it down on her way to his place.
Even before landing in the trailer park she knew he wasn't there. The lights in his room were all dim. She let herself in anyway.
“Hey Grandma Mitchelson,” she greeted the woman growing into the armchair. The glow of the television bounced off her skin. She may have grunted as Buttercup floated by, but otherwise didn't acknowledge she was there. Mitch's mom was probably at work.
Buttercup knocked on Mitch's door, and after five seconds of no response, entered.
Empty.
She flipped on the light and stuffed her hands into the pockets of the bomber jacket, rubbing at old receipts and hair ties as she floated to the edge of the bed and sat. It was getting colder now that night had fallen, and Mitch's place tended to feel the weather. She curled into herself a bit, letting her eyes drift around the familiar surroundings.
There was a duffel bag on the floor, half full. She stared at it for awhile, then got up and walked around. She kicked aside broken CD cases, half-buried in the carpet, blew the dust off of his bookshelf, flipped through a guitar magazine. She found Cameron's—the former lead guitarist for No Neck Joe—college contact info on Mitch's desk. Shoot, that reminded her. Once Mitch got back from break they'd have to start looking for a new lead guitarist. Floyd was all right, but even he himself recognized he wasn't at the level he needed to be to take the lead.
Mitch's camera was also on his desk—weird, he hadn't brought it today. He always brought his camera. He was always taking pictures of her when they were out.
I should've noticed that, she thought, then powered it on and held it at arm's length to snap a self-photo. It took her five tries to angle it just right; she deleted the rejects and left the last good one on as a surprise for him when he got to Montana.
As she set the camera down and picked up the P-Bass—the very bass she'd selected and bought for his birthday—she started to grow a little irritated. He was leaving tomorrow morning, early. Like six am early. She was going to try and meet him at the airport early to send him off, but they'd been planning on spending the whole day today together...
She lazily plucked out a bass line, feeling slightly guilty about the arcade.
But he didn't tell me where he was going. He hasn't been picking up my calls, or responding to my texts. I'm sure one of the guys would call me if they ran into him.
She furrowed her brow and set his bass down. The thought was in her brain before she could stop it.
Unless he's being held hostage.
Buttercup zipped back into the living room and made a beeline for the front door, flinging it open.
No. Who would take him? Surely if that had happened, they would've sent a stupid note, or made one of those stupid “I have something you want” phone calls to either her or her sisters. He'd been missing for—she glanced at her cell phone—two hours now. Had he been kidnapped, they'd have heard by now. Townsville's villains may not have been entirely effective over the years, but when it came to summoning the girls' attentions, they were remarkably efficient.
The sky was tinged purple now; she could see the moon.
Where are you?
She sat on the rickety metal steps leading to his front door and waited.
***
Buttercup hastily stood as the familiar pock-pock sound of Mitch’s skateboard wheeled towards her. She heard him pause as he caught sight of her, kicking up his board and coming to a stop.
“Hey,” she said, eyes adjusting, picking up his outline in the gathering dark. He just stood there.
“Hey.”
Some receipts fell out of her jacket pocket as she pulled her hand out; she bent to pick them up and stuffed them back before pushing her hair out of her face.
“We were... I was kinda wondering what the hell happened to you.”
He held up a bag she hadn't noticed.
“Went shopping for my dad.”
Anger flared in her, but she tried to ignore it.
“I wish you'd told me.”
“You wanted to play that stupid game,” he muttered, and now that anger was impossible to ignore.
She exploded, “You still could've told me! I would've stopped! If you'd said, 'Buttercup, let's go shopping for my dad,' I would've wrapped it up and left with you!”
“I said, 'Let's go do something else,' didn't I?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Just 'cause I didn't give you a good enough reason to leave, that's why you wanted to stay?” He looked like he was about to throw the package in his hands. “I'm your boyfriend, and it's my last day before I fly out of here for almost a month! Isn't that a good enough reason, Buttercup?!”
“Of course it is! But you said yourself you didn't know what to do—”
“I also said I didn't want to spend it with the guys! I wanted to spend it all with you!”
Buttercup felt a stab of guilt amidst all that anger, but that was no excuse. He should've told her, he still should've told her...
“You know, Buttercup, that's the thing! Every time we go out, just the two of us, you never want to act like I'm your boyfriend! You still treat me like I'm 'one of the guys.' You don't let me hold your hand, or touch you, or kiss you—you know, all that shit that actual couples do—”
“You don't have to do those things!” she shouted.
“I don't do them because I have to, I do them because I want to!” he shouted back, and it was supposed to be sweet, that was supposed to be a sweet revelation, but both of them were too angry to acknowledge it. “Even around the guys, even around Harry and the twins, you never act like we're going out!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Coffeeshop! Perfect example! Your hands are holding mine, and the second Harry appears you pull them away. And even after seeing it's Harry, who knows we're dating and doesn't call us out on it like that lady you got so worked up over, do you settle down and put them back? No! You keep them to yourself! Like you can't stand being seen with me!”
Her eyes were wide with shock and horror. He couldn't mean that! Did he have any idea? Did he have any fucking idea?!
“I wasn't—I wasn't even thinking about that! How can you even say that?! I can't stand being seen with you, that's the biggest load of—”
“And then at the arcade, everybody heard me saying, 'Buttercup, let's go,' me, your boyfriend, and you totally blow me off so you can play that dumb game and hang out with everyone else—”
“They're our friends, Mitch, for Christ's sake—”
“You're going to be seeing them the whole God damn winter break!” he yelled. “You can hang out and flirt with them all you like then—”
“WHAT?! Are you fucking kidding me?!”
“You heard me,” he snapped.
“Since when do I flirt with them?!” she demanded, wanting to punch something, wanting to hit something. “Since when have I ever treated anybody the way I treat you?!”
“I don't know! You don't treat me any fucking different! You just treat us all the same, like you wanna keep your options open—”
She grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and wanted to fling him somewhere, make him shut up.
“How can you say that to me?!”
“Because all of them are fucking crazy about you!” he exploded, and she released his collar, gaping. Panic began to well up in her as his words echoed in her head, numbing her senses.
“Wh-what?”
“You can't honestly tell me you never noticed,” Mitch said, and she shook her head.
“No, you can't... you can't be serious!” They liked her? They liked her?! No, they were her friends, they wouldn't do that, Mitch couldn't be serious—
She was almost shaking from the revelation. They liked her. As in, the way Mitch liked her. And Mitch was one thing, she'd always liked Mitch, they'd always liked each other, and the boys had just been friends; she liked them too but not that way...
They just see me as another girl. How could anyone like her? She went so out of her way to not be a girl! Didn't they get that? They had no idea who she was, oh God, they'd never had any idea, they were only friends with her because they wanted her as a girlfriend!
The anger had faded from Mitch's face at her silent, shocked reaction, and he reached a hand for her.
“Buttercup?”
She slapped it away, her expression instantly hardening.
“How could you tell me that?”
Mitch stared at her.
“Why would you... fucking say that to me?!” she shrieked, that panic coursing through her, spilling out in words, fuck, Mitch was an idiot, they all were!
“What, that they liked you? Like it's not an open secret—”
“Why would you tell me that?” Years of friendship, years of nights out and skating and bad movies, everything, down the God damn fucking drain. She couldn't think straight, could only see images flashing in her head, one after the other in some blinding, horrific slideshow. Every laugh and open-mouthed grin the boys had ever given her was a mask hiding a face that had only wanted to kiss her.
She thought the guys understood, but nobody got her. Nobody ever did.
Something else Mitch had said emerged out of the chaos of thoughts and images in her brain, and she glared at him.
“And you think I want to 'keep my options open?'” she snarled at that idiot, that fucking idiot. Mitch had no idea. She could still feel those years upon years of friendship unfolding into something more within her, something that had ached when he wasn't near, had swelled at the sound of his voice, had wanted every moment they'd spent together to just never end.
There'd never been any other option for her. There'd only ever been Mitch, Mitch, Mitch.
He didn't get her either. And he had been her best friend.
Mitch steeled his shoulders.
“What am I supposed to think, when every time we go out you hardly act like my girlfriend?”
The stupid fuck. That made her want to break his stupid fucking face.
“Fuck you, Mitch,” she snarled. “Fuck you, and fuck this. Stay in Montana, for all I fucking care.”
The next second the wind was screaming around her, and she flew as fast as she could as she hurtled home, trying to drown out the voices in her head that begged her not to leave him, not to do this, please, don't do this.
***
(cont.)