Speaking of... More Than Human, ch8, part 1

[essbeejay]

It's a big 'un. Enjoy.

More Than Human, ch8

part 1
part 2
part 3
part 4

Title: More Than Human
Chapter 8: With the Girl at the Rock Show, or I Was A Heavy Heart to Carry
Pairing: RrB/PpG
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: There is no way I can make this sound original, ever. My attempt to write a believable RrB/PpG in high school fic. Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. – Camus
Notes: Thanks to mathkid and juxtaposie for knowing when to leave me to my own devices and when to call me out on my bullshit.

More Than Human, Pt. 2 – Senior Fall Semester
August – With the Girl at the Rock Show, or I Was A Heavy Heart to Carry
-sbj-

“Yes, we'd definitely be interested!” Blossom floated around the kitchen in an endless circle, the excitement on her face apparent. Buttercup, seated at the kitchen table, flicked her eyes to her sister, then back to her new cookbook.

“What date were you looking at again?” Blossom paused in front of the fridge and located a scrap of paper. “Hold on, I need to find a pen... okay, go ahead. The twentieth... Thursday?” She glanced at Buttercup. “We do have school... but it wouldn't be difficult to make up the day we'd miss. I mean, we have to do that anyway when the city is attacked. What publication did you say this was for? Okay. And your contact number?” She repeated the ten digits to herself as she jotted them down. “Got it. All right! Well, I'll check with my sisters and our father and give you a call back tomorrow. Mm-hmm. Yes. Sure. Thanks again!”

Blossom hung up the phone and turned to Buttercup, beaming. “Modern Girl wants to do a piece on us!”

“I gathered,” Buttercup said disinterestedly. “What the hell is Modern Girl?”

“An adolescent women's magazine. Commonly known as MG, actually. They want to interview us for their November issue, complete with a photo spread and everything! The article will be about ordinary girls doing extraordinary things—I mean, obviously we have superpowers, but besides that part we can certainly serve as role models for girls without superpowers—”

“Bored now,” Buttercup announced, and Blossom made a face. “I asked one question, not twenty.”

“Well, I'm going to call the Professor to let him know what's going on and to make sure he's okay with it, then I've got to go get my youth team ready for their show. Why don't you call Bubbles and tell her the good news?”

“She's supposed to be back in, like, half an hour.”

Blossom crossed her arms and said dryly, “She's on a date. You really expect her to be home in time for dinner?”

“When I tell her what I'm making, she will be,” Buttercup said, already tugging out her phone. She glanced out at the sunny world beyond their kitchen window, simmering in the August heat. “It looks like it's a million degrees outside. I wonder what they're up to?”

***

Boomer's knees were bumping into Bubbles' as they sat on the tire swing, legs dangling through the hole in the middle. It made him nervous and excited and uncomfortable, so he tried to edge his knees away from hers as much as possible.

They'd taken refuge from the heat in the park playground and the tire swing was the only thing completely shaded by the surrounding trees. Shade could only do so much, though; they'd also snagged a couple of cones from the ice cream man that had driven by. Now Boomer's was rapidly melting as he watched Bubbles eat hers.

Boomer had always bitten ice cream, so he'd never understood where this whole licking ice cream thing came from. It just seemed a waste of time—your ice cream melted faster, and you couldn't really taste it because your tongue would get all numb from the cold.

It occurred to him now as he watched Bubbles lick hers that really, the whole licking ice cream thing was less for one's own benefit and more for the benefit of anybody watching.

He swallowed as Bubbles innocently consumed her chocolate ice cream in the most excruciating manner possible, until she noticed his own cone was dripping a vanilla storm.

“You're losing all your ice cream,” she pointed out, and he glanced at it.

“Oh.” He didn't care, not really, but bit into it anyway. He'd waited too long; now it had softened to the point where once the slightest pressure was applied, the whole scoop instantly threatened to slide off the cone entirely. He was already at the point where he was fine with losing it, so it came as a real shock when Bubbles saved it for him.

Oh my God.

Bubbles had saved it for him by leaning forward and, um, kind of stopping it with her mouth, so now they were leaning towards each other, both their mouths on Boomer's rapidly deteriorating ice cream, and Boomer's knees were bumping into hers and he felt nervous and excited and uncomfortable, and it was all a little too much, so he pulled away. Bubbles did, too, and cocked her head.

“Not hungry?”

“Different type of hungry,” Boomer muttered.

“Huh?”

“No, not very hungry.” She was wearing shorts, and the vanilla of his cone didn't look nearly as inviting as that pale, soft skin. It was summer and she was still so pale; what was up with that?

He almost placed a hand on her bare thigh, caught himself, and wolfed down his cone as a sort of pseudo-punishment-slash-distraction. The act seemed to come out of nowhere, and Bubbles giggled.

Empty-handed now, he pouted at her. “What?”

She shook her head. “You're just...” She shook her head again, smiled. “Nothing. You're silly. Cute.” She leaned a little closer, holding her ice cream out to the side, away from them. “You know, that sort of thing.”

Boomer's hands, sticky from drippy vanilla, fumbled for the chains of the tire swing and closed around them. Bubbles' knees were most definitely touching his now, starting to move past them, even, and there was a sort of come-hither look she was giving him that he didn't think was legal, or at least shouldn't have been, because man, if girls went around making faces like that all the time the men of the world would pretty much just roll over and die on account of the exploding heart epidemic.

Boomer sensed a soft rumble, vibrating through her knee against his inner thigh, and he cleared his throat, said, “That's,” paused, cleared his throat again, and said, a little louder, “That's your phone.”

“That's okay,” she whispered, face closing in on his. Boomer wondered if he had any ice cream residue left on his face.

“Um, i-it might—might be your sisters.”

“I don't care.”

“Or the distress signal?”

“No, it isn't.”

“Your, uh, your...” He swallowed. “Your ice cream's melting.”

Her head was already angled, her eyes already closed. When she whispered, the swell of her lips bumped against his.

“So. What.”

It was safe to say Boomer never expected this, that when he first saw Bubbles he really only saw a target: a cute, deceptively vulnerable girl with a gorgeous voice, and wanted her for his own the way an eight-year-old might want a toy. And then the toy turned around and kissed him, and bumped her knees against his, and could make this face that had definitely not been advertised, and at first it had been a matter of just owning it, but if that was the case, then who owned who now, exactly?

Their legs were touching so he could still feel her phone, vibrating ceaselessly, could dimly register the rapid disintegration of her ice cream as it dripped on the ground, and when she kissed him his hands, still wrapped around the chains of the swing, clenched, and the metal made a nasty grinding sound as it yielded to the pressure.

Bubbles was cute and kissing him and was his (or he was hers, maybe), and on this excruciatingly hot August day she tasted like the best fucking chocolate ice cream he'd ever had.

***

“I see.” Mrs. Morbucks paused to sip at her coffee. Brick sat across from her at the grand table where, almost six months ago, he'd been sitting in this very chair next to Blossom as Mrs. Morbucks introduced him to the love of his life. His hands were wrapped around his own coffee, otherwise untouched. She smiled at him.

“Just out of curiosity, Brick, how much pride did you have to swallow before coming to me?”

“I don't know that it was so much pride as it was another rent check,” he said quietly. He'd just barely had enough to cover it this time.

“Mm. Obtaining money shouldn't be a problem for you and your brothers.”

“We wouldn't have a problem securing funds, no,” he said carefully, and thought of Blossom. “The problem would follow very shortly after securing them, though.”

In three streaks of pink, blue, and green. Yes, that would pose a significant problem.

Mrs. Morbucks was looking at him expectantly, and he made sure to let no trace of the tension he felt seep into his expression. This wasn't a matter of pride. This was a matter of business.

“I believe—if you need further convincing, that is,” he said, “that you could consider this a sort of long-term investment.”

She lifted her eyebrows, curious. “Is that right?”

“You spoke to me about PRM partnering with JS. If you decide to take on my request, I could guarantee such a partnership would take place.”

She studied him a long moment. “How long before that can happen?”

“The original plan was to act in roughly four years.”

“And have the recent personnel changes at JS, Inc. affected this?”

“Some, um, restructuring of the plan will have to be done.” Brick rubbed at the lip of his cup, glaring past it. “But I'm still aiming for four.”

“Ambitious boy,” Mrs. Morbucks said, and sipped her coffee. Brick stayed quiet.

“So four years,” she sighed, tipping her head back against her chair to think. “To be honest, I wasn't expecting the wait to be so short. In which case.” She lifted her head to look Brick in the eye. “As a sort of payment for services, I suppose I can provide you and your brothers with a monthly allowance so you can maintain your current standard of living. Within reason, of course.”

Brick tried not to sigh his relief. “Of course.”

“I'll just consider it the price I'll be paying for accelerated, high quality work,” she said, and Brick sensed the underlying warning in her voice.

“You won't be disappointed,” he said smoothly, and finally lifted his cold coffee cup to his lips.

“You know, Brick, I have a bit of a proposal for you as well,” she continued, and he paused before sipping. “Since I'll be staying in Townsville for awhile yet, and since idle hands are the devil's tools,” (Brick politely refrained from commenting) “I thought I might enlist your help again for another few events I'd like to put on here at the Manor.”

He hesitated before saying, “With Blossom?”

Her smile said it all. He lowered his coffee cup back to the table and said, “Have you... spoken with her yet?”

“I thought I might ask if you were interested first.”

Far from it, he thought vehemently to himself, the image of Blossom dancing in his shirt burning his mind's eye. “Beyond our monthly allowance, would there be any additional incentive for me to participate?”

“I know people, Brick,” she said with a sly smile. “And you could know people, too.”

He stared at her, contemplating. A woman like Mrs. Morbucks would know a lot of Reccardis.

He shrugged. “Consider me interested, then.”

“Good to hear. I'll get in touch with your partner this week, before school starts. I imagine I'd like to do at least two more events while you two are Seniors. Is there any more business you have to discuss with me?”

Brick glanced to the side. There was a phone at the end of the table, silent, waiting.

“Actually, Mrs. Morbucks, I was wondering if I could use your phone.”

***

“JS, Incorporated, how may I direct your call?” Penny's familiar voice sounded through the earpiece, and Brick's hand clenched around the phone.

“Hello, Penny,” he said quietly, and he could almost sense the woman stiffening on the other end. Brick couldn't say it was him; he was sure they were monitoring calls. As expected, Mrs. Morbucks had set up her line so that any calls made out of her house were untraceable.

It was good to hear Penny's voice again. “I was wondering if you could tell me if the Rowdyruff Boys are available for a job.”

“Regretfully, the Boys are currently on leave from the company,” she said. Brick had expected that answer; he imagined Penny herself had added the “regretfully” and was almost touched. It was a setup question, though, for the really important one to follow.

“That's a shame. How long will the Boys be on leave?”

“Currently indefinitely,” she replied, not skipping a beat, and Brick clenched his empty hand to keep from crushing the phone. Darius had been bullshitting him about only a year, the fucking bastard.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” he managed through gritted teeth.

“You aren't the first, sir,” she said flippantly, and Brick unclenched his fist, waiting. “The requests for the Boys have been piling up. We've had to put a significant amount of client requests on hold for the time being. Whenever the Boys get back, they're going to be very, very busy.”

He wondered if they were losing clients to competitors. Then again, if they were, the requests wouldn't be piling up, would they? He almost asked, but he'd already kept Penny on the phone long enough for someone who was calling with a job, and besides, a potential client with business to do wouldn't ask about something like that.

“Do you need me to put your request on hold?” Penny asked.

“That isn't necessary,” he said. “I was wondering, though, if Cole is still at JS, Inc.” Depending on the way Penny worded her answer, he could tell whether Cole was—

“Cole is no longer with the company,” she answered. Shit. Cole was dead. Had he just been relieved of his position she would've said he had moved on to “pursue other endeavors.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for your time, Penny,” he said, and the phone clicked as he set it back in its cradle.

Mrs. Morbucks was politely waiting outside the room for him, and fell into step beside him as he exited.

“Informative phone call?” she asked. Penny's indefinitely rang in his head.

“Yes.”

“So I've given some more thought to the events I'll be throwing,” Mrs. Morbucks said, moving on. “I believe the first will be in November. I'd like to commission you and Blossom to be in charge of the choreography.”

Brick blinked and looked at her. “I'm sorry?”

“Actually, we should discuss this with Blossom present. Do you want to come with me to her show?”

He furrowed his brow. “'Her show?' Is she dancing today?”

“At the community center, yes,” Mrs. Morbucks answered. “All the dancers that use the space are putting on a little performance tonight. I believe she choreographed the five-year-old ballerinas and will be dancing with a crew and doing a solo as well. Come along, I'll give you a ride.”

“I'll pass,” he muttered, ignoring the part of him that regretted saying so. “Just fill me in later on whether she agrees or not.”

“Oh, she'll agree, Brick,” Mrs. Morbucks said, opening the front door for him.

“You sound pretty confident for not having even asked her yet.” The sky was on the hinge of dusk, and the air was still heavy with heat.

Mrs. Morbucks smirked as he left. “Even seasoned women such as myself all started as young girls, once.”

Brick wasn't sure what that had to do with it, but when he turned around to ask, Mrs. Morbucks had already closed the door.

***

“Buttercup,” Blossom said sternly, hands on her hips and foot comically tapping the floor. “Get. Up.”

Buttercup mumbled in her sleep and curled tighter into her blankets.

“It's the first day of school! Set a precedent for the rest of the year! Or this morning, at least!”

“I'm going to be up at five am every morning starting next week,” Buttercup muttered, pulling her ratty old green throw over her head. “I'm enjoying this precious sleep time I have left while I still can.”

“Get up! The Professor is almost done with breakfast!”

Buttercup responded by curling away from her sister, to the wall.

“Butter—”

Blossom was interrupted by the sudden VRRRRING!!! of the vacuum cleaner, and she jumped. Bubbles steered the offensive noisemaker over to Buttercup's bed, where the green lump burrowed tighter into itself, obstinate in its refusal to awaken. Bubbles responded by lifting the vacuum onto her bed, where the corner of her precious green blankie was mercilessly sucked in.

Buttercup was instantly up and screaming, “HEY! Cut that out! You'll ruin it!” She snatched the mass of blanket that was threatening to be devoured and pulled. Bubbles only clicked up the intensity of the vacuum, and the volume of the whirring increased.

The bedroom erupted into a cacophony of discordant noise as Buttercup and the vacuum cleaner tried to out-volume each other. Blossom watched dumbly, feeling a headache coming on. She finally intervened by pulling the plug on the vacuum cleaner just as Bubbles aimed it at Buttercup's chest, and Buttercup was able to extricate her sleepwear from the offending appliance.

“You know what sucks?” Buttercup snarled, rolling her childhood safety blanket into a protective ball and tucking it behind her pillow.

“Vacuum cleaners?” Bubbles said, blinking wide, innocent eyes as she held up the item in question.

“You!” Buttercup snapped.

“Good morning to you too, Buttercup,” Bubbles replied airily, and floated out to join the Professor at the breakfast table. Blossom sighed and followed suit.

After some heated grumbling to an empty room, Buttercup made her way downstairs in record time. The Professor greeted her but was mostly preoccupied with drilling Bubbles about her new beau.

“I want you to bring him by,” he said, looking very intense for the morning.

“Oh, Professor, you've been so busy,” she said, spooning out grapefruit.

“I need to meet him! If he's going to date one of my girls—”

“You'll meet him soon. I promise I'll bring him by.”

“I mean, honey, I don't ask for much, I try not to put restrictions on who you date—I know you girls are perfectly capable of taking care of yourselves, to a point—but you know at the very least you need to introduce me to him, especially considering he's... you know...”

“A Rowdyruff Boy?” Buttercup and Blossom finished simultaneously.

“Yes! That is a pretty big deal, Bubbles! I mean, it sounds like he's... settled down...” And here the Professor clutched his spoon in his hands and bent it unwittingly as he spoke.

“He has,” Bubbles assured him, gently tugging the spoon away from him and bending it back into form. She looked their father in the eye. “I promise, you'll get to meet him. Very soon. I'll even let you have as much time with him as you want.”

This calmed the Professor down. Buttercup and Blossom exchanged a glance with each other, then looked at Bubbles, who hummed cheerily to herself as she finished her breakfast. The Professor began to wax on poetic about the pride he felt at his girls entering their final year of high school, which ended—rather predictably—on a tearful note as he lamented how big they'd gotten, how time had flown, and how it seemed like it was only yesterday that they were five and little, the most precious things ever, and that no matter how big they got they would always be his three precious little girls.

Bubbles patted him affectionately and then got up to get their massive first day lunch out of the fridge. Buttercup and Blossom, meanwhile, only wondered what the Professor had in store for Boomer.

***

Blossom was being civil to him, or at least, they weren't getting into screaming or death glare matches like they had at the beginning of last semester. She was very obviously resisting eye contact, though. Not that Brick cared or anything. It wasn't like he was looking. He just. Um. He could sense things. Yeah. That was it.

According to Mrs. Morbucks, she'd already spoken to Blossom about her plans for the two of them to dance together again, and Blossom had agreed. The news had simultaneously surprised Brick and... something else. He wasn't—well, he hadn't been disappointed. Just surprised and... something else.

However, he himself hadn't spoken to her, and Blossom hadn't given any indication that she'd spoken with Mrs. Morbucks at all. He suspected she was upset. She wasn't spitting at him, granted, but she was practically ignoring him. Which was, in some ways, even more irritating.

They hadn't interacted or seen each other since Boomer and Bubbles had gotten together on that ridiculous day, and Brick thought that Blossom had had more sense than to hold a grudge against someone who had, for all intents and purposes, saved the day. Even if it did involve nearly sacrificing her sister to do it, and had been a risk at that, but still! Brick had turned out to be right, hadn't he? After all, Bubbles herself didn't seem to be holding a grudge...

As evidenced by her gleeful salutation when Brick entered their Art class.

She beamed and tugged up a student Brick didn't recognize. “And this is Brick! Our resident tall, dark, and moody bad boy. He's a Rowdyruff Boy, you know.”

The girl Bubbles was gripping by the hand blinked a little fearfully. Brick turned on Bubbles and snapped, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Class introductions,” she said innocently. “This is Julie. We were in Kindergarten together, but then she transferred to Herriman's Private Academy, and now she's transferred back to Townsville High!” She nudged Julie. “Say, 'Hi.' He's not going to bite you.”

“Don't make assumptions about what I will and will not do,” he said darkly.

“He might allow some evil squirmy thing to possess your body, though, so just keep your distance when there's an attack,” Bubbles continued.

“Um, hi,” Julie said, less fearful and more confused now.

Brick ignored them and sat down.

Miss Maybury brought the class to attention and began her introductory lecture. They were going to start off the semester with sculpting, and she was passing out a list of materials they'd need, along with the paperwork permitting the students' pieces to be displayed in the gallery. Brick felt the teacher's eyes on him as she went over the handouts, and he pretended to busy himself with reading them.

“Oh, there is one thing to note!” Miss Maybury said. “Something very exciting! Next week—I know it's early, but the opportunity was too good to pass up—there's going to be a photo shoot here in Townsville, featuring—” And here she indicated Bubbles, who grinned sheepishly. “Bubbles and her sisters!”

The class offered various congratulatory remarks and questions about who the shoot was for.

“Modern Girl magazine,” Brick heard Bubbles reply.

“So what we'll do—sorry, I lied about the sculpting—is open the semester with a few weeks dedicated to photography. Thanks to various people—including Mrs. Morbucks and Modern Girl—we'll be attending the session as a class, and will get the opportunity to shoot some photos of our own with the new camera equipment Mrs. Morbucks has donated to our department. A select few students' photos will be displayed in a special section of the magazine, alongside the interview.” Miss Maybury clapped her hands. “Isn't that exciting?! A professional photo shoot!”

Yay, Brick thought joylessly to himself. Great.

Miss Maybury gave them the rest of the class to tinker around with the camera equipment. Mrs. Morbucks had been generous; she'd paid for top-of-the-line digital SLR cameras, nearly enough for the entire class. They were going to split into groups for the shoot and trade off between the digital SLRs and the traditional film-based SLRs amongst themselves.

“You know what I used to call these when I was a kid?” Bubbles said as she pointed one of the older models at Brick. “Elephant noses!”

“Is there any film in that?” Brick asked in a bored tone as he navigated the menu of a digital model.

“No.” Bubbles lowered the camera. “Why? Do you want me to take your picture?”

“Absolutely not,” he said. “I was only curious.”

“Miss Maybury says we'll get to use the darkroom in the journalism room!” Bubbles said, near-to-bursting with excitement. “Isn't that cool?! I've never been in there before! I'm going to take, like, a bazillion pictures on film so I can watch them all develop!”

“Does that mean you'll only be taking, like, a bahundred pictures digitally?” Brick asked mockingly.

Bubbles snatched the camera he was looking at out of his hands and replaced it with hers. “Here. Switch with me.”

He glared at her. “You know, generally? You ask permission before doing that.”

“Generally you ask permission before letting a giant black spike of death stab a pretty girl in the heart, too,” she responded.

Brick didn't have a retort for that.

The bell rang for the passing period, and on his way out the door Brick was accosted yet again by Bubbles, who also had Julie in tow.

“What now?!” he demanded as she dragged them both along.

“It's lunch, duh!” she said, steering them through the crowd to the cafeteria.

“I do not eat lunch here!”

“No, you just glare at your food until it gets scared and eats itself,” Bubbles said. “I know. I've seen you.”

“No you haven't!”

“Well, I'm a good guesser.”

Brick was about to ask why she was so hellbent on getting him to eat lunch with her when he spotted all their respective siblings clustered at one table. Boomer was handing a giant bag to Buttercup, who opened it and inspected it shrewdly.

“Hi everyone!” Bubbles greeted loudly, and pecked Boomer on the cheek. “Hi, Boomer.”

Boomer only blushed.

“Thanks for letting us keep lunch in your locker,” she said, beaming at him as they sat down. Brick rolled his eyes and turned to leave, but Bubbles snatched him by a belt loop and yanked him down into the seat next to her so hard the table's opposite end rose off the floor.

“Oh, no you don't,” she warned.

“I am not even hungry,” he lied.

“Good,” Butch said, mouth watering as Buttercup started distributing tupperware. “More for me.”

Brick's curiosity got the better of him. “What's all this for?”

“This is the first of the first school days where me and my sisters actually have lunch together,” Bubbles said. “So I wanted to do something special! Then I found out from Boomer that you guys were in this lunch too, and I thought, well, the more the merrier—”

“Butch, you do not have this lunch,” Brick said abruptly.

“Nope,” his brother responded casually. “But I had a class that was just dying to be skipped.”

Blossom, who, to her immense dissatisfaction, was seated next to him, said, “You are setting a terrible example as a Senior.”

“I set a terrible example as a person,” Butch corrected.

Brick glanced at Blossom, who had scoffed and was now re-focused on her AP Economics reading. Whether she felt the weight of his gaze on her or not, he wasn't sure, but he did see her glance at the empty seat next to her.

His own attention was drawn to it, and he glanced away, then back—

“Oh, Julie! I completely forgot to introduce you. Here, sit next to Blossom. Girls, it's Julie Bean! She's transferred back from Herriman's! Guys, this is Julie. She's new. To you, at least. Us girls were all in Kindergarten together.”

“Julie?” Blossom looked up. “We haven't seen you in years!”

“I know, it's crazy,” Julie laughed, a little nervous.

“I totally didn't recognize you,” Buttercup said, then squinted. “Did you...” She trailed off, then indicated her own face. “Did you get something done?”

“Buttercup!” Blossom scolded.

“Um, yeah,” Julie mumbled.

“You look good,” Buttercup said, looking only slightly apologetic about the faux pas. Bubbles waved at Julie to get into her seat.

“Fresh meat, you said?” Butch asked, eyes glittering as Julie took her seat. He reached a hand around Blossom's shoulders for Julie's hair. “You've got something in your—”

Blossom immediately smacked him face first into the table. She turned to Julie. “Do not let him touch you.”

Julie looked from a groaning Butch to Brick. “If you're the tall, dark, and moody bad boy, which one is he?”

“The one with a mental disability,” Brick said bluntly.

“And the cute one is mine,” Bubbles said, giggling as she leaned her head on Boomer's shoulder. Boomer, meanwhile, looked as if red was his new permanent color.

Buttercup gagged as she passed a container to Julie (“You can have mine, I'll share with Boomer,” Bubbles urged). “You two are disgusting. You hear me? Disgusting. We shouldn't have bothered packing dessert, because in about five seconds you both are going to make me start barfing cupcakes.”

Bubbles cocked her head. “If you could barf cupcakes, what flavor would they be?”

“Could we stop talking about barfing when we're about to eat?” Blossom said in a strained voice. “And when we have company?!”

Buttercup nodded at Julie. “Sorry about earlier. But seriously, you look good.”

“She thinks you're cute,” Butch explained, and Buttercup whacked him in the head.

“Oh,” Julie said, blushing. “I'm not—”

“Neither am I,” Buttercup said, glaring at Butch.

“So what do you think of public school compared to Herriman's?” Bubbles asked, spooning a bite of food into Boomer's mouth (“I feel a vanilla with sprinkles coming on,” Buttercup gagged).

Blossom perked up. “I've heard they have a great academic program there. And those girls really know how to move. We faced Herriman's in last year's state competition!”

“State competition for what—” Suddenly Julie's eyes lit up. “Oh my God, Dance! That's right! You were, like, unstoppable! I was on the team; we couldn't stop talking about you and how amazing you were—”

“Oh, geez, thank you,” Blossom said modestly—

“Don't make her head any bigger than it already is,” Brick commented, finally prying off the lid to his lunch, and Blossom glared at him.

“I don't believe anybody asked for your opinion.”

“A mistake a lot of people make.”

Blossom huffed, “I wouldn't solicit advice from someone who tried to sacrifice my sister in a dire situation.”

“That was an act of heroism!” he snapped.

“Except it was going after you,” Bubbles pointed out.

“So it was less heroic and more cowardly,” Buttercup said.

“Say that a little louder, Buttercup,” Brick seethed, his eyes glowing red. “I didn't quite catch that.”

Unperturbed, Buttercup looked him right in the eye and enunciated, “You're. A. Pussy.”

“Fuck you!”

“Language!” Blossom snapped.

“You are so cute!” Bubbles cooed at Boomer.

“Speaking of fucking,” Butch moaned. “This food? Is like an orgasm in my mouth.”

“Did everybody miss the part where I said let's stop the gross talk when we're eating?” Blossom cried.

“You only mentioned barfing,” Boomer finally spoke up.

“I made that food,” Buttercup pointed out.

“I made dessert!” Bubbles said, pressing herself to Boomer's side. “Peach tart!”

“I love peaches,” Boomer mumbled, blushing again.

“I also love tart, juicy, supple peaches,” Butch sneered. Blossom and Buttercup both whacked him in the face.

“Don't think I didn't get that,” Blossom warned. “That was a sexual reference.”

“Brick, you haven't touched your food,” Bubbles said. “Here—”

Before Brick could respond Bubbles shoveled a spoonful into his mouth. He slapped her hand away and yanked the spoon out, ready to stab it into her eye, when he paused. Everybody stared at Brick as his eyes glazed over and he looked at his container of food.

After a swallow, he croaked, “What is this?”

“Tabouli Provençal,” Buttercup responded smugly.

“Holy shit, that's incredible,” Brick said, awed.

Julie was looking around at the group of them. “Okay, I haven't been around since I was five, so... are you guys... did you all grow up together or something?”

The entire table looked at her.

“It's just...” She shrugged and shook her head. “You know, never mind.”

***

Brick had only one free block this school year, and he spent it cruising around town in his Coil. Since he was out, he went ahead and bought all the materials he'd need for sculpting, then dropped most of his stuff off at home before heading back to school to corner Blossom.

They needed to reach some fucking conclusion on this whole working together thing. He figured when Mrs. Morbucks said she wanted them to choreograph a show, she mostly meant Blossom. Who'd probably enjoy it. The girl clearly liked being in charge.

After parking his car and entering the building, Brick was surprised to find the studio empty. He then recalled from conversations with Butch that the school was having a pep rally on the first day, and the Dance Company was very likely performing and announcing their new officers...

Blossom, as the Dance Major, was obviously going to be dancing there. Brick ignored the dim pull he felt in the direction of the gym—yes, definitely a pep rally going on; he didn't even need superhearing to pick up on the cheers—and seated himself in a corner of the studio, flipping open his sketchbook to keep himself occupied while he waited.

After some time, a few girls began to filter in. They were clearly surprised to find Brick there, and a little uncomfortable, but he paid them no heed, and after awhile they went on socializing as they warmed up. More girls arrived; Brick glanced up occasionally, but Blossom wasn't among them.

“Brick? I didn't know you danced.”

He looked up to find the new girl—Julie, or whatever—standing next to him, looking semi-relieved to see a face she recognized. Never mind that it was Brick's scary face, but then again, every face in a new high school seemed scary.

“Sorry to bug you, I just don't know any of these girls.”

He grunted.

“Are you with the Company?” Julie asked, and Brick shook his head.

“No. I'm waiting for Blossom.”

“Oh, of course.”

Something about the way she said it unnerved Brick, and he shot her a long, cold stare. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Julie seemed so relieved to be holding a conversation with someone that she was absolutely oblivious to the dangerous look Brick was giving her.

“Well, you guys are together, aren't you?”

“Absolutely not,” Brick growled. “What in the hell gave you that idea?”

To his irritation his reaction didn't seem to frighten her, but at least her eyes widened a bit and she said, “You aren't? I just thought that, because you kind of fight like you're an old couple and all—”

Brick was about to call it a God damn fucking day and just go home when Blossom and the rest of the officers waltzed in. A bunch of girls cheered; evidently their routine had been a hit. Blossom was smiling when she came in, but her expression soured when she caught sight of Brick. He suddenly wondered why the fuck he'd bothered coming.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You talk to Mrs. Morbucks yet?” he demanded.

She closed her eyes and sighed, then told her other officers to get started without her. She walked to a corner of the studio, out of the way, indicating for Brick to follow her.

“Yes,” she said, leaning against the wall.

Brick gave it a few seconds before saying expectantly, “And?”

“I agreed,” she muttered.

“You didn't fucking say anything.”

“Language. And what, like you didn't know? I'm sure she told you.”

“You've got such a big mouth I would've expected you to be going off about it all day.”

“You know what, Brick, I'm really looking forward to partnering with you again,” she said, glaring at him. “If it wasn't for the money she was offering me—”

“Selling out, are you?”

“Every cent of what she gives me is going straight to charity,” she snapped. “What about you? Hustling another car out of her? Or just play money this time?”

“None of your business,” he snarled.

“I don't even care,” she spat. “You know, you've got some nerve, talking to me the way you do. After what you did to Bubbles—”

“I did nothing to your sister—”

“And after the whole shooting in the gym, I thought you were—” Blossom cut off, then scoffed and shook her head. “Never mind what I thought. I thought wrong.”

“You think a lot of wrong things,” Brick grumbled.

“I think a lot of right things, too,” she responded in kind. “Especially when it comes to you.”

“And what's that?” he said, eyes flashing red, daring her to elaborate. Blossom stood her ground, refusing to flinch or so much as blink. She summoned a sardonic grin onto her face.

“I think you're really something, Brick. Really. Something.”

With that, she pushed past him, refusing to look at him or stand anywhere near his person a second longer, the same way she'd been doing all day. Brick glared at her over his shoulder as she continued to ignore him and joined the officers at the front to lead the Company into rehearsal.

Why had he even fucking bothered coming to see her?

He thought for a second about changing the fucking music on the stereo and interrupting her stupid practice, forcing her to start figuring out what the fuck they were going to do for this show, this dumb, stupid show that he shouldn't have agreed to in the first place, about leading her into a dance to show her, show everybody that he fucking belonged here, he fucking owned the place, what did they know, what did she know—

He thought of maybe blowing up the entire God damn studio, just to get her to stop this stupid fucking ignoring him shit.

Instead, he just left.

***

Friday afternoon arrived sooner than expected, and it had been, by Boomer's account, a pretty good first week. Butch seemed to think so, too. Brick was the only one who seemed to be struggling—and by struggling, that meant he was clearly making an effort not to explode and take the whole world with him when he did.

Boomer would have asked, but he was preoccupied these days, what with practicing with No Neck Joe and...

These days he couldn't even think her name without blushing to the dust, or, if he was walking, tripping over his own two feet.

He darted a glance at the clock for the fifteenth time in the past three minutes. Fed up and impatient, he bid goodbye to Mitch and the twins and gathered his things, swiveling out of the practice rooms and over to the Choir Hall.

The dim drone of the marching band seeped through the walls, and he adjusted his hearing, trying to pick out the more subdued hum of the choir. The horns and percussion faded as the vocalizations of a couple hundred students in harmony rose to take its place, and he resisted the urge to quicken his pace. It really wouldn’t look very cool if he was spotted in the music hall at an all out run.

He made certain to slow his steps at the first glimpse of the choir, eyes immediately drawn to the corner of window where Bubbles would slide into his line of vision. He tried to pick her voice out of the crowd, but paused when he saw her and felt a little stupid, since she was sitting and studying her music with the rest of the Sopranos, mouth firmly closed and puckered in thought.

His heart knotted in his chest. It was always knotting these days, tying itself up over and over again when he saw her, or heard her, even when she crossed his mind. Every time it happened he thought of how clear her eyes had been amidst all that shadow, how she'd looked at him with a devotion he’d never been subjected to, how her fists had clenched in his shirt as she'd whispered three little words that he’d said once to her with no real weight behind them, words that had taken on new meaning and strength in that deceptively tiny voice of hers.

Choir practice wrapped up soon enough, and, as was customary now, he waited by the doors for her. A few students greeted him as they passed, and he nodded at them. Bubbles was one of the last students to leave, with Kim and Mary flanking either side of her.

She was already looking for him as she approached the door, and he swallowed his heart back into his chest as she caught sight of him and smiled.

“I'll catch up with you guys later,” she said to her friends.

“You're coming to the Dance Company's thing tonight, right?” Kim asked.

“Of course, my sister's in it,” Bubbles laughed, and waved at them as they left. She turned to Boomer now, grinning. “Hey there.”

He tried not to blush and failed miserably. “Hi.”

“You're coming with me tonight, yeah?” Her hand closed around his, and he clenched back to keep her from noticing he was shaking, very slightly.

“Of course.”

She sighed, resting her head on his shoulder as they walked out into the afternoon sunshine.

“Good.”

To kill time until she had to go home and freshen up, at Bubbles' suggestion they went for a walk. They meandered lazily about the suburban streets surrounding the school, and eventually the houses grew sparser and they found themselves skirting the edge of a deserted elementary school.

Boomer glanced at the playground. “Did you go here?”

She looked up. “Yeah. I remember when that playground was wooden, though. They replaced it after me and my sisters left.” She pouted. “I miss it. It was way more fun than that plastic one they have now.”

Boomer stared and tried to picture a younger Bubbles laughing as she darted around the playground, hanging off of monkey bars and clambering up the slide the wrong way.

“I wish I'd been around to see that,” he said, and meant it. He really did. He wished he hadn't been such a stupid little kid. He could've played with her, and they could've grown up friends instead of enemies, and he might've felt this sooner, this easing of an unbearable weight in his heart every time she looked at him, touched him, kissed him.

A drop of water suddenly spattered against his cheek, and they both glanced up.

“Oh my goodness,” Bubbles said, lighting up. “It's a summer rain!”

They both stared up at the light, sun-speckled rain until Boomer remembered his guitar was slung on his back, and Bubbles tugged them under the shelter of an old tree. Its branches were so dense that no amount of rain could reach them, and she laughed as Boomer shook the water from his hair.

“Is your guitar okay?” she asked.

“It's fine,” he said, after a quick inspection. Bubbles smiled and leaned against the trunk of the tree, inhaling deeply. After a moment she motioned at Boomer.

“Come here.”

He obeyed; how could he not, when she looked so beautiful and happy and so fucking perfect? She reached for his hands as he faced her and brought one up against her cheek. She kissed it, and God, he could've died there, right then and there.

The perfect moment. She was looking up at him, almost expectantly.

It was hard. He'd never been good with words, no, but these weren't complicated, the ones he was thinking, the ones he couldn't stop thinking when she was near to him like this. He'd even said them before. So why were they so hard now?

He kissed her instead, a soft, shy kiss, and still it felt like the world was going down in a fiery blaze of glory only to be reborn in that very instant. He had never felt this way before, ever.

She smiled into the kiss, was still smiling when he pulled away, blushing, like he always did. And then she proved she was far braver than he could ever hope to be.

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips, in a voice as small as the first time she'd said it, and she made it look so easy, sound so easy.

He immediately shrugged off his guitar, heard her yelp as it smacked against the ground, discordant notes protesting as they echoed in the well, and despite it being one of his most prized possessions Boomer couldn't give a fuck. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, really kissed her, pressed her against the tree and said it the only way he could. He felt her stifle a gasp, felt her shudder as his lips melted into hers.

It seemed like forever before he managed to pull himself away, their foreheads almost touching as they panted for breath. His eyes traced the swell of her lower lip, red and a little swollen.

“Wh-what was that for?” she whispered, cracking a dim, heavy-lidded smile.

He said nothing, only pressed his cheek into her hand when she touched it, wondering if she could feel how warm his skin grew against hers.

***

Against his better judgment, Brick went to the performance.

He found Buttercup and Butch soon enough—it wasn't hard; once he entered the Fine Arts Center's auditorium all he had to do was wait until he heard someone get smacked—and sat next to his brother in silence while they dicked around with their friends, seated on Buttercup's opposite side.

“Say,” he said to Butch, after a thought occurred to him. “Where's Boomer?”

“With Bubbles, hiding from her dad,” Butch said.

“The Professor's back there with some other parents,” Buttercup interjected, leaning over. “What are you doing here, Brick?”

He shrugged and grunted. “Nothin' better to do,” he muttered. Which was a lie. He always had something better to do. But the thought of showing Blossom just how damn mature he was gave him the tiniest modicum of self-satisfaction. She could ignore him all she wanted. He at least was going to be an adult about it.

“I am ready for the sexy-times to start!” Butch said as the lights dimmed, and Buttercup smacked him.

“My dad is up there and I am pretty sure he can hear you, fucker!” she hissed at him.

“Hey, Brick, did you bring any tissues?”

“No,” Brick said flatly. “Why? What for?”

“So I've got something to jerk off into when BlosOMPH—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Brick snarled, his fist in Butch's face.

“Are you even listening to me?!” Buttercup snapped, her fist in Butch's gut.

As Butch leaned over and rearranged his face, Brick settled back in his seat with a thump. He then straightened and lifted his chin as the curtain rose so Blossom could see him being a better person than her when they hit the lights. He wouldn't even laugh at her when she fell off from the shock, that was how mature he was.

She was already there along with the rest of the Company, covering every inch of that stage. He saw Buttercup perusing a program out of the corner of his eye and reached for it; she automatically held it out over Butch so they could both see.

“She choreographed this one?” he whispered.

“Opening number, yeah,” she replied.

The music started, commanding their attention, and Blossom was already moving, slinking her way amidst all the still dancers on the stage.

She was amazing. Of course she was. Brick knew that. So he focused on sitting straight up in his seat, radiating waves of superiority at her. But halfway through it stopped mattering. Somewhere in the middle of the opening number, maybe when the hip hop team (led by Blossom, of course) gave way to the contemporary dancers (with Blossom there, on the right edge), Brick forgot about being superior and merely watched. It wasn't until the end of that number that he even realized she had not once looked at him.

The room exploded into applause around him. Buttercup was threatening Butch with her fists if he so much as uttered a word. Brick stared at the lights on the stage. That was probably what kept her from seeing him. The lights were too damn bright.

What followed were a few more numbers from the individual teams—Blossom was in a few of them—but what kept most of the guys in the auditorium planted in their seats was the promise of the Induction Dance, choreographed by last year's major, Alicia, and featuring the heavenly image of a tight-clad, corset-wearing Blossom. Nobody talked much about it, though, since her father was in the back, promising scientific warfare at every male student head he glared at.

Butch slept until the appointed time, while Brick took out his sketchbook and doodled. Eventually Buttercup nudged Butch awake, and they all sat up as the spotlights flooded the closed curtains.

“Whoo! Go Blossom!” some random guy shouted, and then something heavy connected with a body.

“I'm watching you, you little punk!”

“Oh my God, my dad is crazy,” Buttercup groaned, hunkering down in her seat in shame.

Brick pocketed his sketchbook as the music came on and the curtain rose, and then the oxygen intake for the entirety of the teenage male population in the auditorium plummeted.

Butch actually crushed the arms of his chair, splintering the wood. “Oh. My. God.”

Brick just stared, clenching his jaw again and again. It wasn't even like her costume was that revealing—save for her shoulders, she was almost completely covered. It wasn't even like the dancing was that suggestive; it was more fun, playful, like a Broadway routine. There wasn't any winking, any lip-puckering, any come-hither looks she was shooting the audience. There wasn't any of that. Blossom didn't do that. Blossom didn't need to.

She moved so fluidly, so effortlessly, even in heels, even in a getup that she would obviously be uncomfortable in despite its relative tameness. She had donned an oversized top hat—obviously a suggestion from one of the girls, maybe Bubbles, even—and God damn, did she wear it well. She wore everything well. She was just... well.

Never mind there were other girls on the stage. She could have easily been standing up there all by herself. Brick watched her, following her across the stage with his eyes almost obsessively, forgetting that they were mad at each other, that they were supposed to be mad at each other, all the time, because they were enemies and that was just how enemies worked.

The closing to the piece came all too soon. The music was building up to a crescendo for the finale, and Butch was leaning so far forward in his seat he was practically three rows ahead of them now, and then Blossom sauntered up the center of the stage, yanked off that magnificent accessory of a hat (man, Brick had a thing for hats), and her upheld hair suddenly came undone, cascading down along her shoulders and framing her face just perfectly, and then Brick heard it.

The sound of the crowd's applause slammed into him like a tidal wave, and he blinked, suddenly keenly aware of every boy in the room clapping for her, cheering for her, wanting her. The number wasn't even over yet, and they were all cheering, every last one of them.

He stared at those hips, those legs, that gorgeous body and that gorgeous face, and he couldn't fucking take this—

He leaped out of his seat, stalked to the aisle, and jetted for the door. He couldn't even remember why he'd come, and now the only reason he was staying was for her, and that was wrong. She wasn't a good enough reason to stay, she wasn't a good enough anything, she wouldn't even look at him, she didn't even fucking know he was here.

By the time the dance ended he was already in the parking lot. He hadn't noticed, on his way out, how Blossom's eyes had flickered to him as he'd left, the only movement in the audience attracting her attention, how she'd watched as he clambered to the door, her eyes widening in surprised recognition, and how disappointed she'd suddenly felt that he wasn't sticking around to say, “Hello.”

***

Boomer and Bubbles stared at Butch, prostrate on the ground. “He okay?”

“He saw Blossom's number—you know, the Induction Dance—”

There was a faint moaning sound from the direction of the floor. Buttercup rolled her eyes and dragged him up.

“Come on, loser. We gotta meet up with the guys.”

“Oh, at the diner?” Bubbles tugged Boomer. “We're going, too!” Suddenly her eyes picked up on something just over Buttercup's shoulder, and she immediately grabbed Buttercup, who grabbed Butch, and the four of them stole outside of the crowded lobby of the Fine Arts Center.

“Sorry,” she said as they stopped in a shadowy area by the entrance. “Saw the Professor.”

Boomer looked back. “I don't mind meeting your dad—”

“You'll mind,” the girls said in unison, flatly.

“But you'll get your chance soon enough,” Bubbles assured him.

“Come on, motherfucker,” Buttercup grumbled as she shook Butch. “Wake up!”

“Butch, boobies,” Bubbles said simply, and Butch suddenly shot to.

“Where?” he said, eyes frantically darting around.

“Okay, you'd think that would've been the obvious solution to me,” Buttercup said.

“Oh!” Boomer lit up, realizing something, and looked at Bubbles. “I gotta grab stuff for Floyd. I'm lending him some CDs.”

Bubbles wound her arm in his. “I'll go with you.”

“T-to our apartment?” Boomer stammered, red flooding his face. She only beamed at him.

“I better go, too,” Buttercup sighed. “To make sure no 'sexy-times' happen.”

“Aw, Buttercup,” Butch leered. “Don't you trust us?”

“I'm talking about her, jackass. Plus, I'm curious to see your place.”

Bubbles texted the Professor—he hated that, but it was better than nothing—to let them know they were going out with their friends to a restaurant, and then the four of them took off, the boys leading the way.

“Holy shit, this place is huge,” Buttercup said, awed as the girls stepped over the threshold. Her eyes caught on the television and she stifled a gasp. “Butch! Why are we not having Bad Movie Night at your place every freaking weekend?!”

“Bitch, make it happen,” he laughed, enjoying her reaction. As Buttercup flew over to inspect every facet of the home theater system they had set up, Bubbles turned to Boomer.

“It's nice.”

“Yeah?” His eyes flicked nervously to his room, a motion Bubbles caught. She looked, then floated over.

“Is this your room?” she asked, placing her hand against the door.

“Wait, hold up,” he said, zipping over and getting between her and the door. “Let me make sure it's, um, you know, presentable first.”

He went in ahead of her while she politely waited, the door ajar. Boomer rustled around inside, then pulled the door wide open and backed up.

“Sorry about the mess.”

She smirked. “You are a boy, after all.”

He smiled nervously at her until she reminded him about the CDs, and he scrambled over to his shelves to rummage for them. He had a pretty impressive collection; albums on the shelves, scattered on the floor—she saw both his electric and acoustic sitting in a corner of the room. There was a dusty desk to one side—seriously, it looked like it had never been touched—and a more recently used laptop sitting on the edge of it.

“Butch, what kind of movies you got?” Bubbles heard Buttercup ask, back in the living room.

“N to Z,” Butch replied. “Ninja to Zombie.”

The two of them conversed all the way into what Bubbles assumed was Butch's room, and after a second she floated over and very quietly shut the door.

“Okay, got—” Boomer stood, then halted upon seeing Bubbles. His eyes darted to the closed door, and he suddenly had the look of a trapped animal on his face.

She smiled and flew up to him, gently lifting the stack of CDs he'd accumulated out of his hands and setting them on the bed. The bed which, Boomer abruptly realized, they were both standing very close to.

“Um, we sh-should p-probably go,” he sputtered.

“We can fly,” she said quietly, smiling as she placed her hands on his shoulders. “No rush.”

“I just—well, there are people waiting and—”

“No rush, Boomer,” she said firmly.

“Okay,” he agreed.

She sighed and wove her arms around his shoulders, gently lifting her feet off the ground as she did so. After a moment, Boomer hugged her back.

“That was some kiss earlier, you know.” she murmured.

Boomer lowered his face into her shoulder. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Don't even,” she laughed. She ran a hand through his hair, and he squeezed her a little tighter.

They stood there in silence for a while, just holding each other.

“It's nice here,” Bubbles finally said, happily.

Boomer let his hand drift down the curve of her back. “Yeah.”

***

Brick killed his engine and leaned his head on the wheel, exhaling heavily. He felt such a total lack of control these days. There was the whole thing with JS, losing the fighter and having to pay the rent, and then even when he was cutting deals with Mrs. Morbucks he still had the vague feeling that he was only playing into her hand. Then that whole stupid thing with Him and that stupid black mass with its stupid targeting reasons. And then Boomer had gotten together with Bubbles, and seriously, he was acting so fucking weird and quiet these days...

And then Blossom.

Brick rested his hands in the bottom curve of his steering wheel. He needed to stop going to these things, or at least figure out a way to keep his head together when he did. He didn't understand why he couldn't fucking focus, why he forgot his reasons for being anywhere she was. Hell, even when he remembered his reasons, they always seemed half-formed and more of an excuse than anything. And an excuse to what? To see her? Or to make sure she saw him?

He didn't like it, either way.

I want to go home, he thought to himself, and it sounded so pathetic, so fucking childish that he hated himself for it. But his misery outweighed his pride, and he thought it again, anyway.

I want to go home.

It was easy at home. He had a purpose there, a goal. He knew what he was doing. High school was another story. Townsville was another story. So was she.

He flew into their building and up the stairs to the door of his fake home, his temporary home, eager to just get inside and relax.

“I'll bet you fuckers stole that system,” he suddenly heard as he approached their door, and he halted.

“For your information, that thing was paid for.”

Butch? And...

Brick's eyes widened as Buttercup's voice said dryly, “Oh, right. By your—”

Brick threw open the door to their apartment, his furious gaze falling on Butch's open door, where his brother and Buttercup were plainly visible.

“What the fuck, Butch?! What the fuck is she doing here?!”

“Oh. Hey, Brick,” Buttercup said, then went back to examining Butch's DVDs.

“What, I can't have a fucking guest over?” Butch asked. Suddenly his eyes widened with a revelation. “Fucking Christ. This is the first time I've had a girl in my room ever since we got the place!” Anguish flooded his face. “I haven't fooled around with a girl here once!”

“Okay, so I'm going to go stand in the living room,” Buttercup announced, dropping the DVD in her hands as she floated to the door. “Bubbles! You guys ready to go?”

Brick stared at her, processing her words. Then his head snapped to Boomer's closed door and he dashed to it, crushing the doorknob as he threw the door open.

Boomer and Bubbles were just standing there, holding or hugging or whatever stupid mushy things couples did when they stood together.

“Hi, Brick,” Bubbles said with a smile.

“Oh my fucking Go—Boomer! Butch! What the fuck is the matter with you?!”

“Hey, yeah,” Buttercup added. “You didn't offer us drinks or anything.”

“Get them the hell out of here!” Brick ordered. What if they figured out where the Boys worked? What if they'd gone into Brick's room (I would've fucking flayed them alive, that's what, he thought) and discovered his desk? He had important shit in his room, what if they'd fucking discovered it? What the fuck, what the fucking fuck?!

Bubbles gave a low whistle. “Someone's grumpy.”

“Brick, chill. We're on our way out anyway,” Buttercup sighed, waving a dismissive hand as she walked to the door.

“Yeah, do you wanna come with?” Bubbles asked, still standing in his brother's room, holding his brother's hand. “We're going to—”

“Fuck no, I don't want to 'come with!' I want you to get the hell out!”

“No, Brick, it'll be fun! It'll cheer you right up, seeing other people. Here, I'll even call Blossom and—”

Brick tore into the room, stopping once his face was in Boomer's.

“Get your girlfriend the fuck out of here,” he snarled, his eyes flashing red.

Boomer stared at his leader, his face blank, then he looked away and tugged at Bubbles, who lowered her phone.

“Come on. Let's go.”

Brick's glare followed them all the way out into the living room, where Butch and Buttercup were waiting. Butch was staring off into space, while Buttercup was giving Brick a weird look. He ignored it.

“Oh, Boomer,” Bubbles suddenly said. “Your CDs for—”

“I'll give them to Floyd at school or something,” Boomer said.

She stared at him, then turned her eye on Brick, her expression darkening.

It was Buttercup who said, “Alright, let's go,” and opened the door. She glanced at Brick and rolled her eyes, and he distinctly heard her mutter, “Fucking drama queen,” under her breath as she left.

Bubbles wrapped her arm around Boomer's and beamed at him. “Come on,” she said sweetly, encouragingly. Then she looked at Brick.

A sudden chill shuddered through him at the sight of her expression, and before he could process it they were already gone. He couldn't even recall exactly what she had looked like as the door shut; it had happened so quickly and caught him so off guard.

He sank to the floor with a heavy sigh and fell back on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. He wasn't in control of anything anymore.

***

(cont.)