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My first (and only) attempt at Blossom/Boomer leaves a lot to be desired.
A couple entries back I mentioned finding a super old Blossom/Boomer fic I wrote. I'm pretty sure I wrote this at the time to break the color-matching habit most of the PpG/RrB fans have/fall into; unfortunately, it is most definitely not great. I'm not going to go through it line by line with a red font tag (it's nine pages typed, which is eight more than I was actually willing to type today for a tfr post), but if I were to give notes now to my then-self, here are some general ones:
Going back over this dredged up some of the resentment I felt at the time towards fans who kept bitching about how unoriginal PpG/RrB was, how writers rarely mixed up the characters, how uncreative we were, etc., etc.. I feel like this tfr!fic is kind of indicative of how writing an "original pairing" (which in this fandom used to translate to anything except color-matched PpG/RrB) isn't going to fucking work if you can't even write the characters believably in the first place. But if your only stipulation for what made a good fic was "not color-coded PpG/RrB," then I guess strong characterization was a non-issue. Congrats! You truly earned your Elitist FanDouche card. /BOFQ /get offa my lawn /does this even count if it was 8 years ago /what's wrong with me
But hey. Here's my totally fucking rejected attempt at Blossom/Boomer, from over eight years ago.
---
Blossom whipped by in a blast of glowing pink, trying to avoid extensive wind damage to the other students' booths—after all, as the Senior class chairman, it WAS her job to oversee this whole event and make sure absolutely NOTHING got out of hand. With practically all of Townsville High's students amalgamated in one huge social gathering like this, the odds that something were to go completely awry was highly likely.
She just hadn't planned for such a thing to occur within 5 minutes of the Spring Fling Festival Fundraiser's Opening.
“God, I hope I get there in time,” she huffed, more as a fervent prayer than anything else as she wove between students and their booth setups. There hadn't been time to alert Bubbles and Buttercup (both of whom were still sore about having to help her “babysit” the event rather than engage in the festivities like everyone else, but HONESTLY, it was their duty to oversee these things with her!), and besides, if anyone was best qualified to handle this situation, well OF COURSE it'd be Blossom—
“There you are!”
Target detected, she veered to her left and brought her arm back to make the first hit.
***
“Hey, Oscar, where'd you put the da—”
*SMACK*
“OW! What the hell?! Who—” A shock of blond hair twisted out of sight to reveal stinging blue eyes, and Blossom met Boomer's expression grimace for grimace. After a beat his snarl melted into a smirk. “Oh, it's YOU. What the hell—”
“Watch your language,” she snapped.
“—are you doing here?” Boomer finished, flipping a hammer up in the air before turning his attention back to a single protruding nail in the countertop of his booth.
“I have every right to be here; I'm overseeing the whole event. You, on the other hand, haven't been authorized to—”
Boomer laughed and straightened, pulling a folded set of papers from his back pocket. “Begging your pardon, sister, but I get the feeling my little friends here say otherwise.” He waved the forms in front of Blossom's face. “Read 'em and weep, toots.”
With a final dirty look thrown in his direction Blossom snatched the papers from him, scanning the fine print with careful eyes. Her mouth dropped open. “I... I don't believe this,” she whispered helplessly. “You... how could you go over my head to get approval, I... I was in charge of everything, I was supposed to—”
“Well, see, this is how it works,” Boomer drawled, plucking back his papers. “Long story short, I'm failing German—”
“THAT hardly surprises me,” Blossom muttered, regaining her composure.
“—but the band goes to UIL in two weeks, and without me their percussion section goes to pot. Now, our band directory, he doesn't want none of that, so he cut a deal with my German teacher. See, the German club's short a small sum of money they need for THEIR UIL trip, so bang—I scrounge up the rest of the cash for the German club, I get by with a D for German, and I'm off to UIL with the rest of the band. Nobody saw need to notify you, since you ain't a FACULTY member—” Blossom bristled at that— “so we just got the go-ahead from your festival sponsor, Mr. Raby, and everything's peachy keen. Everybody wins.”
It was near impossible for Blossom to keep the scowl from her face. “Atrocious grammar aside, I get that. But what's in it for you? Seems like extra work on your part—if you just took the failing grade you wouldn't have to be here NOR at the band's UIL concert. You're not THAT stupid, are you?”
Boomer's eyes darkened a moment. “You're starting to sound like my brothers,” he growled, and turned, giving one final pound to the wayward nail jutting from the counter's surface. His eyes were bright again when he looked back at Blossom. “Well, I WAS going to decline, but then I had this brilliant idea to raise up the cash. And that's how I get my fair share of the winning draw.” He twirled the hammer in one hand and lowered his eyelids at Blossom. “Go ahead. Ask me what it is.”
Blossom only glared at him from beneath her orange-red bangs, then, without a word, flew over the counter to the other side and turned her head towards the sign. The air turned very cold, very suddenly.
“A KISSING BOOTH?!?!”
Every head within a mile radius of the booth suddenly whipped around, zeroing in on Blossom's horror-stricken face.
“That's right, doll!” Boomer exclaimed gleefully. “And now I won't even have to bother advertising! Thanks!”
Blossom grit her teeth and hissed, “You aren't going to get away with this, you little—”
Completely ignoring her, Boomer lifted the hammerhead to just under her chin. It caught, and he pulled her in over the counter. “Now, publicity work like yours can't go unrewarded,” he murmured, then shouted, “Folks, a demonstration!”
“'Demonstration?!' What do you—”
All of a sudden Boomer grabbed her by the waist, tugged her onto the countertop, twisted her to the side, and kissed her open mouth.
Since the next word out of her mouth would've been “think,” she'd brought her tongue to the edge of her teeth. Subsequently, since her teeth were VERY much near the opening of her mouth, it was only natural that she find her tongue conveniently pressed to the line between Boomer's lips. And then, well... she guessed it was, um, also natural, maybe, that Boomer, um, well, open his mouth too, and, uh, then it just kind of um, well, uh, ok, oh—OH. Oh... oh dear. Uh... what was it that—oh... DEAR. Oh my... WOW.
Thus her brain had been effectively shut down for exactly 5 seconds—well, ok, maybe... maybe 6 was more like it, or... or... oh, God, what came after 6 again?
She chose that moment to blink (and was tempted to KEEP them closed, but come on, that was crazy person talk) and suddenly she was back on the ground, blinking dazedly at Boomer, who had this evil sort of smile on his face, and oh, that wasn't sexy at all, not ONE bit and OH GOD why was she blushing.
His gaze broke away from hers, and he hollered, “So ladies, who's next?!”
One look at the typically uptight, no-crap-taking Blossom in a mute, dazed state was all it took, and in the next instant a near tidal wave of young women swarmed around the booth.
***
“That idiot,” Blossom grumbled to herself at the end of the day. “That... that JERK. That big, dumb, stupid... JERK! First he disrespects me with his non-notifying me, and then—then he has the nerve to publicly humiliate me, and now he's making me resort to the vocabulary level of a 10 year old!! That big, dumb, stupid... JERK!”
She stabbed her pen at the checkout list in her hands, punching a sizeable hole in the paper. “ARGH! Now look what he's made me too!!!” she screamed, tossing aside the obvious fact that he hadn't a thing to do with her idiocy, at least not directly.
With a deep, controlled, breath, she pulled a fresh sheet from her folder and started recopying the list of students, their respective organizations, and their booth numbers in her neat, meticulous print.
She gave it the once over when she was done, then another. And another. And then one more, just to be sure. She groaned, and thwacked her head against the table. “Don't tell me he's still HERE,” she whined, voice strained and muffled against the wood surface.
“Not anymore I ain't.”
At the sound of his voice Blossom went rigid, then slowly lifted her head to look at him.
Boomer held his registration ticket in front of her face and waved it up and down. “See? Last one. You're finished, I'm finished, everybody gets home in time for the X-rated skinflick on HBO.”
Blossom sat up straight and yanked his ticket away from him, making the final entry and shoving it, along with his ticket, into a brown envelope. “I hope you're happy,” she snapped, throwing all her things into her bag.
Boomer grinned, obviously very amused. “Why wouldn't I be? I met the German club's mark in record time, if I do say so myself. Wanna hear the final figure?”
Blossom swung her bag onto her shoulders and scrunched her face together as she started floating away. 'Don't ask don't ask don't ask,' she feverishly thought to herself, because of course it would be some outrageous disgusting number—
“Well, to be honest I can't recall what it was exactly... ” Boomer mused to himself, hovering behind Blossom.
“That's great,” Blossom spat.
“But I DO know that one of the girls got away without paying, and that irks me to no end—”
“Serves you right, you supercilious dimwit!” Blossom exploded, praising the heavens for returning her higher level advanced vocab skills to her. “Charging people to KISS you, GOD, it's a wicked, vile thing—”
“Now wait just a minute, my rates were perfectly fair!”
“Oh, is that right?!” She spun on him and glowered up into his face—he was still smirking, that wretched excuse for a human being!
“Of course. A dollar for your regular, run of the mill kiss, and 3 for a... well, one with a little something... extra.”
And now it wasn't so much that he'd been selling kisses like, like they were candy or something, but more because he had to say it that way, with that voice and with that look, as if doing all those things was supposed to bend people to his will or something, and it was WORKING, for God's sake, it was WORKING, and that was SO WRONG!
“You're a complete idiot,” she huffed.
“What, you and my brothers read off the same script or something?” he said sarcastically, feigning incredulousness, then stated, “Anyway, idiot or not, you still need to pay me.”
Blossom goggled. “WHAT?!?!”
“You heard me.” Boomer crossed his arms and shrugged. “Whoever told you the best things in life are free was lying, sugar.”
One part of Blossom continued to goggle, one part was shrieking, “'SUGAR?!?!'” and one part just cracked and gave in.
“Ok, you know what, FINE!” She tore into her bag for her wallet and thrust three dollar bills into his chest, insanely disappointed when it didn't knock the wind out of him. “Take the stupid money and leave me be. I'm going home,” she grumbled, and whirled away from him.
“Hold on a minute, there, you made a mistake—wait.”
Muscles spasming, Blossom stopped in her tracks and without turning back around growled, “What. MISTAKE.”
“You thought that was a three dollar kiss, didn't you?”
Her entire body stilled, and she slowly turned her head, eyes wide. “What?”
Boomer flicked the three bills back and forth in his hand. “You overpaid me. I gave you a one dollar peck on the mouth, and here you've given me an extra two bucks.”
“Think of it as a tip,” Blossom retorted in a shaky voice, and started walking again. If that had just been a one dollar kiss—
There was a sudden flash of blue, and then it was looking her in the eye, and she hastily stepped back from Boomer's bright blue gaze.
“Look I'm a fair guy here. If it's a three dollar kiss you want, well, it's a 3 dollar kiss you'll get,” he whispered in that hushed tenor intonation that had to be the work of something dreadfully evil, because how else could she just... just melt like that, and then his mouth was on hers and it wasn't just oh WOW this time but it was Holy Mother of Oh My God How Can That Not be Outlawed followed by a string of incoherent mumblings and fuzzy white static in her brain.
So a “little something extra” was just a clever phrase that meant a little more tongue, a bit more of the teeth, and a hell of a lot of extra movement in general, but the thing that really clinched it was his utilization of all 3 things at once, and that was what triggered her to reciprocate, which had to be the absolute worst bit of all, and then she just kind of stopped thinking about it, dropped her bag, and fisted her hands in his hair, which he maybe hadn't been expecting, because he moaned a bit, suddenly, and they kind of toppled to the ground, which prob ably hurt but evidently not enough, because neither of them really... stopped.
Eventually Booomer had to come up for air (Blossom's teeth caught on his lower lip as he pulled away, resulting in a tiny noise of distress on her part) and he gasped, “That... that was more like a... a 3 dollar... kiss... sort of.”
Blossom blinked up at him, arms still around his neck, trying to think clearly.
“But...” Boomer swallowed, then said, “But this next one I'll give you free of charge,” and he leaned down and kissed her again.
This was where Blossom got thrown off, because there was tongue and teeth and moving still, but it seemed to be increasing at an exponential rate, and she seriously didn't recall TOUCHING in that last one, which there definitely was here. Somehow her hands found themselves in his jean pockets, and his wound up... well, up her shirt, and there was still the tongue and the teeth and the moving bit (at some point there'd been necking, she was pretty sure) and man it was a good thing it twas nighttime and dark and no one was around besides them two—
Just as he undid the fastener on her bra her cell phone went off.
Both of them abruptly paused, Blossom's lips hovering near Boomer's collar, tongue prepared to lick a very, er, pleasureable trail along his neck.
After the second ring they both moved at the save time, Boomer slipping his hands back to his sides and sitting up, while Blossom untangled her legs and fumbled for her bag, tongue back in her mouth where it belonged.
She got ahold of her cell and raised it to the side of her face. “H-hello?”
“Blossom? Blossom, where are you?”
“Tell her we're all at Jim's and we ordered for her—”
“Buttercup, hush, I—oh, just a water, that's—hello? Blossom?”
“Yeah,” Blossom breathed, “I'm here.”
One of her hands scrabbled at her back and uselessly tried to hook the clasp of her bra.
“Blossom, are you ok? Have you been running or something?”
“N-no, no,” Blossom huffed into the phone, “I just—um, well—y-yeah, I-I had a bit of a run.”
Boomer sat back and watched her with neutral eyes, and that did NOT help.
“Are you finished with your paperwork and everything?”
“Yeah, yeah...” Blossom pressed the phone to her cheek with her shoulder and tried to use both hands on the clasp, under the highly illogical assumption that THAT would work. She was looking everywhere but at the blue-eyed blond sitting across from her.
“S-say, Bubbles, I've got a few more—”
The phone slipped from her shoulder and clattered harshly on the concrete. “Shoot!” She hastily reached for it and asked, “Bubbles? You still there—”
Without warning Boomer's arms slid around her, working to hook her bra back together. Her breath caught in her throat and she glanced nervously at his face (it was SO CLOSE). He was staring off somewhere behind her, his expression far from readable.
“Blossom? Hel-LO?”
Blossom blinked and turned back to the phone. “Bubbles. Uh, yes... Sorry. I... had a few last things to take care of—”
She felt her bra snap back into place and Boomer's hands graze her skin as they extricated themselves from her shirt. He sat back, crossing his arms over his bent knees and looking straight at Blossom.
Their eyes met and held for a moment, then she looked away and said, “I'll see you there in about ten minutes. Order for me, I don't care. Thanks.”
She snapped her cell shut and looked back at Boomer as she lowered it to her lap. She pressed her lips thin.
He did the same and started nodding. “Mmmmyep.”
“So... I take it that was more like a 3 dollar kiss?”
Boomer paused for a moment. “Er... yeah, yeah. Kind of. Um, maybe more like a... 7... or... a 20...” His voice was steadily decreasing in dB level. “Or a 50—”
“Yeah, ok, I get the idea.” Blossom stood on legs that, for whatever reason, felt uneasy and as if they'd been worked over with a couple of cement blocks.
Boomer stood up too, and a tiny scrap of paper fluttered out of his jacket pocket to the ground.
“You dropped something,” Blossom immediately said, and stooped to pick it up.
“Oh, er... yeah, thanks,” Boomer said stumbling a bit over the words as he took it from her (oh, there was no reason for her chest to feel so tight when their hands grazed each other's, no reason at all) and stuffed it back in his pocket.
Another five scraps puffed out the moment he got the one in, and Blossom would've bent to pick these up too had her eyes not fallen upon the scribbled lettering. Or, well, numbering.
7 digit numbers.
Not just any 7 digit numbers. Phone numbers.
Oh geez. That was NOT a twist in her throat, most definitely NOT.
Boomer swept them up instantly and grunted, “Ahem,” and meanwhile Blossom was thinking that well of course he would have numbers, he was doing nothing but kissing girls all day, it's only logical, natural, totally unsurprising and predictable.
Yes, well. Naturally.
“You're a popular boy,” Blossom finally said. “Those will... they look like they'll keep you busy every night for a month.” And her voice didn't sound fake or forced at all, and by the sombre look on his face he was very convinced.
“So!” she piped, chipper, “how many numbers did you get?”
He stared at her a long moment. “Let's just say—I'd change that month of yours to six,” he uttered, and why was her chest squeezing itself like that, for God's sake?
“... Oh.” Six months worth of phone numbers. Heh.
Well, despite the gross overexaggeration of statistics on his part, she still should've seen it coming.
She pressed her lips tightly together and nodded. “Good to know you'll ah, be keeping busy. Now if you'll excuse me...” Blossom edged around him and prepared to take off just as he grabbed the strap of her bag and said loudly, “Wait.”
She turned back around after a still moment and saw him yanking a fistful of paper scraps from his pocket. As soon as they were out they erupted in a burst of blue flame that he held up between them at arm's length.
Blossom stared at the ashes fluttering to the ground. She looked up at Boomer and asked quietly, “What'd you do that for?”
Boomer was too buys pulling another handful of paper out and incinerating that, too.
“What are you doing?” Blossom asked, louder this time, and grabbed his wrist (Stupid idea, she thought vaguely, there was hardly any need to TOUCH him) once the flame had put itself out.
He looked at her and when he part his mouth Blossom was momentarily distracted by the movement. She blinked and attempted to focus.
“—can't be sure of how many numbers I got today, but...” He cleared his throat and pulled his arm away. He took a deep breath, then said in a steady voice, “But I know there's only 7 I”m interested in, and they're yours.”
What happened, Blossom wasn't sure. And that was saying a lot, because Blossom liked to be sure of things, ALWAYS, and this, well, this was something else.
But it went something like an emotion overload, and she was shocked and speechless and, God forbid, relieved and maybe even the slightest bit thrilled, all at the same time.
Damned if she'd admit it, though.
She felt the makings of a smile on her face and knew she would never be able to live this down, EVER, not to her sisters, not to herself, nobody, period.
“And what if I decide to keep those seven a secret?” she responded, voice just the right amount of playful to make her mortified, somewhere in teh back reached of her mind.
Way, WAY back there.
He saw the corners of her mouth turn up and caught on. He stuck his hands in his pockets in a way that she might've found charming... in an alternate dimension. “Well, they're not a secret ALL the time, are they?”
“Most times,” she clarified, and yes, this qualified as flirting. In an alternate dimension, maybe.
“So I should ask again. Like every second. Just to make sure I don't lose my slim window of opportunity.”
“I wouldn't recommend it,” she returned. “Maybe you could try waiting for her to tell you herself?”
“Or maybe I could have a sudden stroke of genius and look it up in the school directory.”
Shoot. He was smarter than he looked. “Well, yes, there's that.”
“Or maybe,” he suddenly said, and yanked his hands from his pockets, rubbed them together, then flicked a slip of paper up in his left hand.
“Maybe I could just let you decide.”
She stared at him awhile, then said, “I suppose you're expecting me to take that?”
He smirked. Clearly he was a bastard. “Actually, yes.”
Ok. Definitely a bastard.
She crossed her arms and asked, “So other than your word, what reason would I have to take it?”
The smirk on his face faded as he lowered his head and kissed her softly on the lips. Automatically she closed her eyes and tipped her head up; she was pretty sure she had plenty of time to be justifiably horrified later.
---
- Don't break up your paragraphs so often
- But always break when new dialogue starts
- The characters talk too much
- Too many adverbs
- Too much description
- Too wordy in general; pacing is uneven and the story drags at many points
- Characterization isn't strong enough; why do they keep talking to each other? Specifically, why does she keep talking to him?
- The "turning point" in the relationship comes too fast, does not feel organic
- Blossom at least has some personality, but Boomer is severely lacking; save for a couple of interesting points that are nicely alluded to he feels too much a stock Smarmy Romance Lead Male
- For the love of God write out your numbers!
- Don't use a five dollar word when a single will do the trick
- Blossom talks too much to herself
- Kill every "pet name" Boomer calls her
- This story is drowning in ellipses! Get rid of some, if not most!
- UIL is only a TX thing; find a generic national alternative
Going back over this dredged up some of the resentment I felt at the time towards fans who kept bitching about how unoriginal PpG/RrB was, how writers rarely mixed up the characters, how uncreative we were, etc., etc.. I feel like this tfr!fic is kind of indicative of how writing an "original pairing" (which in this fandom used to translate to anything except color-matched PpG/RrB) isn't going to fucking work if you can't even write the characters believably in the first place. But if your only stipulation for what made a good fic was "not color-coded PpG/RrB," then I guess strong characterization was a non-issue. Congrats! You truly earned your Elitist FanDouche card. /BOFQ /get offa my lawn /does this even count if it was 8 years ago /what's wrong with me
But hey. Here's my totally fucking rejected attempt at Blossom/Boomer, from over eight years ago.
---
Blossom whipped by in a blast of glowing pink, trying to avoid extensive wind damage to the other students' booths—after all, as the Senior class chairman, it WAS her job to oversee this whole event and make sure absolutely NOTHING got out of hand. With practically all of Townsville High's students amalgamated in one huge social gathering like this, the odds that something were to go completely awry was highly likely.
She just hadn't planned for such a thing to occur within 5 minutes of the Spring Fling Festival Fundraiser's Opening.
“God, I hope I get there in time,” she huffed, more as a fervent prayer than anything else as she wove between students and their booth setups. There hadn't been time to alert Bubbles and Buttercup (both of whom were still sore about having to help her “babysit” the event rather than engage in the festivities like everyone else, but HONESTLY, it was their duty to oversee these things with her!), and besides, if anyone was best qualified to handle this situation, well OF COURSE it'd be Blossom—
“There you are!”
Target detected, she veered to her left and brought her arm back to make the first hit.
***
“Hey, Oscar, where'd you put the da—”
*SMACK*
“OW! What the hell?! Who—” A shock of blond hair twisted out of sight to reveal stinging blue eyes, and Blossom met Boomer's expression grimace for grimace. After a beat his snarl melted into a smirk. “Oh, it's YOU. What the hell—”
“Watch your language,” she snapped.
“—are you doing here?” Boomer finished, flipping a hammer up in the air before turning his attention back to a single protruding nail in the countertop of his booth.
“I have every right to be here; I'm overseeing the whole event. You, on the other hand, haven't been authorized to—”
Boomer laughed and straightened, pulling a folded set of papers from his back pocket. “Begging your pardon, sister, but I get the feeling my little friends here say otherwise.” He waved the forms in front of Blossom's face. “Read 'em and weep, toots.”
With a final dirty look thrown in his direction Blossom snatched the papers from him, scanning the fine print with careful eyes. Her mouth dropped open. “I... I don't believe this,” she whispered helplessly. “You... how could you go over my head to get approval, I... I was in charge of everything, I was supposed to—”
“Well, see, this is how it works,” Boomer drawled, plucking back his papers. “Long story short, I'm failing German—”
“THAT hardly surprises me,” Blossom muttered, regaining her composure.
“—but the band goes to UIL in two weeks, and without me their percussion section goes to pot. Now, our band directory, he doesn't want none of that, so he cut a deal with my German teacher. See, the German club's short a small sum of money they need for THEIR UIL trip, so bang—I scrounge up the rest of the cash for the German club, I get by with a D for German, and I'm off to UIL with the rest of the band. Nobody saw need to notify you, since you ain't a FACULTY member—” Blossom bristled at that— “so we just got the go-ahead from your festival sponsor, Mr. Raby, and everything's peachy keen. Everybody wins.”
It was near impossible for Blossom to keep the scowl from her face. “Atrocious grammar aside, I get that. But what's in it for you? Seems like extra work on your part—if you just took the failing grade you wouldn't have to be here NOR at the band's UIL concert. You're not THAT stupid, are you?”
Boomer's eyes darkened a moment. “You're starting to sound like my brothers,” he growled, and turned, giving one final pound to the wayward nail jutting from the counter's surface. His eyes were bright again when he looked back at Blossom. “Well, I WAS going to decline, but then I had this brilliant idea to raise up the cash. And that's how I get my fair share of the winning draw.” He twirled the hammer in one hand and lowered his eyelids at Blossom. “Go ahead. Ask me what it is.”
Blossom only glared at him from beneath her orange-red bangs, then, without a word, flew over the counter to the other side and turned her head towards the sign. The air turned very cold, very suddenly.
“A KISSING BOOTH?!?!”
Every head within a mile radius of the booth suddenly whipped around, zeroing in on Blossom's horror-stricken face.
“That's right, doll!” Boomer exclaimed gleefully. “And now I won't even have to bother advertising! Thanks!”
Blossom grit her teeth and hissed, “You aren't going to get away with this, you little—”
Completely ignoring her, Boomer lifted the hammerhead to just under her chin. It caught, and he pulled her in over the counter. “Now, publicity work like yours can't go unrewarded,” he murmured, then shouted, “Folks, a demonstration!”
“'Demonstration?!' What do you—”
All of a sudden Boomer grabbed her by the waist, tugged her onto the countertop, twisted her to the side, and kissed her open mouth.
Since the next word out of her mouth would've been “think,” she'd brought her tongue to the edge of her teeth. Subsequently, since her teeth were VERY much near the opening of her mouth, it was only natural that she find her tongue conveniently pressed to the line between Boomer's lips. And then, well... she guessed it was, um, also natural, maybe, that Boomer, um, well, open his mouth too, and, uh, then it just kind of um, well, uh, ok, oh—OH. Oh... oh dear. Uh... what was it that—oh... DEAR. Oh my... WOW.
Thus her brain had been effectively shut down for exactly 5 seconds—well, ok, maybe... maybe 6 was more like it, or... or... oh, God, what came after 6 again?
She chose that moment to blink (and was tempted to KEEP them closed, but come on, that was crazy person talk) and suddenly she was back on the ground, blinking dazedly at Boomer, who had this evil sort of smile on his face, and oh, that wasn't sexy at all, not ONE bit and OH GOD why was she blushing.
His gaze broke away from hers, and he hollered, “So ladies, who's next?!”
One look at the typically uptight, no-crap-taking Blossom in a mute, dazed state was all it took, and in the next instant a near tidal wave of young women swarmed around the booth.
***
“That idiot,” Blossom grumbled to herself at the end of the day. “That... that JERK. That big, dumb, stupid... JERK! First he disrespects me with his non-notifying me, and then—then he has the nerve to publicly humiliate me, and now he's making me resort to the vocabulary level of a 10 year old!! That big, dumb, stupid... JERK!”
She stabbed her pen at the checkout list in her hands, punching a sizeable hole in the paper. “ARGH! Now look what he's made me too!!!” she screamed, tossing aside the obvious fact that he hadn't a thing to do with her idiocy, at least not directly.
With a deep, controlled, breath, she pulled a fresh sheet from her folder and started recopying the list of students, their respective organizations, and their booth numbers in her neat, meticulous print.
She gave it the once over when she was done, then another. And another. And then one more, just to be sure. She groaned, and thwacked her head against the table. “Don't tell me he's still HERE,” she whined, voice strained and muffled against the wood surface.
“Not anymore I ain't.”
At the sound of his voice Blossom went rigid, then slowly lifted her head to look at him.
Boomer held his registration ticket in front of her face and waved it up and down. “See? Last one. You're finished, I'm finished, everybody gets home in time for the X-rated skinflick on HBO.”
Blossom sat up straight and yanked his ticket away from him, making the final entry and shoving it, along with his ticket, into a brown envelope. “I hope you're happy,” she snapped, throwing all her things into her bag.
Boomer grinned, obviously very amused. “Why wouldn't I be? I met the German club's mark in record time, if I do say so myself. Wanna hear the final figure?”
Blossom swung her bag onto her shoulders and scrunched her face together as she started floating away. 'Don't ask don't ask don't ask,' she feverishly thought to herself, because of course it would be some outrageous disgusting number—
“Well, to be honest I can't recall what it was exactly... ” Boomer mused to himself, hovering behind Blossom.
“That's great,” Blossom spat.
“But I DO know that one of the girls got away without paying, and that irks me to no end—”
“Serves you right, you supercilious dimwit!” Blossom exploded, praising the heavens for returning her higher level advanced vocab skills to her. “Charging people to KISS you, GOD, it's a wicked, vile thing—”
“Now wait just a minute, my rates were perfectly fair!”
“Oh, is that right?!” She spun on him and glowered up into his face—he was still smirking, that wretched excuse for a human being!
“Of course. A dollar for your regular, run of the mill kiss, and 3 for a... well, one with a little something... extra.”
And now it wasn't so much that he'd been selling kisses like, like they were candy or something, but more because he had to say it that way, with that voice and with that look, as if doing all those things was supposed to bend people to his will or something, and it was WORKING, for God's sake, it was WORKING, and that was SO WRONG!
“You're a complete idiot,” she huffed.
“What, you and my brothers read off the same script or something?” he said sarcastically, feigning incredulousness, then stated, “Anyway, idiot or not, you still need to pay me.”
Blossom goggled. “WHAT?!?!”
“You heard me.” Boomer crossed his arms and shrugged. “Whoever told you the best things in life are free was lying, sugar.”
One part of Blossom continued to goggle, one part was shrieking, “'SUGAR?!?!'” and one part just cracked and gave in.
“Ok, you know what, FINE!” She tore into her bag for her wallet and thrust three dollar bills into his chest, insanely disappointed when it didn't knock the wind out of him. “Take the stupid money and leave me be. I'm going home,” she grumbled, and whirled away from him.
“Hold on a minute, there, you made a mistake—wait.”
Muscles spasming, Blossom stopped in her tracks and without turning back around growled, “What. MISTAKE.”
“You thought that was a three dollar kiss, didn't you?”
Her entire body stilled, and she slowly turned her head, eyes wide. “What?”
Boomer flicked the three bills back and forth in his hand. “You overpaid me. I gave you a one dollar peck on the mouth, and here you've given me an extra two bucks.”
“Think of it as a tip,” Blossom retorted in a shaky voice, and started walking again. If that had just been a one dollar kiss—
There was a sudden flash of blue, and then it was looking her in the eye, and she hastily stepped back from Boomer's bright blue gaze.
“Look I'm a fair guy here. If it's a three dollar kiss you want, well, it's a 3 dollar kiss you'll get,” he whispered in that hushed tenor intonation that had to be the work of something dreadfully evil, because how else could she just... just melt like that, and then his mouth was on hers and it wasn't just oh WOW this time but it was Holy Mother of Oh My God How Can That Not be Outlawed followed by a string of incoherent mumblings and fuzzy white static in her brain.
So a “little something extra” was just a clever phrase that meant a little more tongue, a bit more of the teeth, and a hell of a lot of extra movement in general, but the thing that really clinched it was his utilization of all 3 things at once, and that was what triggered her to reciprocate, which had to be the absolute worst bit of all, and then she just kind of stopped thinking about it, dropped her bag, and fisted her hands in his hair, which he maybe hadn't been expecting, because he moaned a bit, suddenly, and they kind of toppled to the ground, which prob ably hurt but evidently not enough, because neither of them really... stopped.
Eventually Booomer had to come up for air (Blossom's teeth caught on his lower lip as he pulled away, resulting in a tiny noise of distress on her part) and he gasped, “That... that was more like a... a 3 dollar... kiss... sort of.”
Blossom blinked up at him, arms still around his neck, trying to think clearly.
“But...” Boomer swallowed, then said, “But this next one I'll give you free of charge,” and he leaned down and kissed her again.
This was where Blossom got thrown off, because there was tongue and teeth and moving still, but it seemed to be increasing at an exponential rate, and she seriously didn't recall TOUCHING in that last one, which there definitely was here. Somehow her hands found themselves in his jean pockets, and his wound up... well, up her shirt, and there was still the tongue and the teeth and the moving bit (at some point there'd been necking, she was pretty sure) and man it was a good thing it twas nighttime and dark and no one was around besides them two—
Just as he undid the fastener on her bra her cell phone went off.
Both of them abruptly paused, Blossom's lips hovering near Boomer's collar, tongue prepared to lick a very, er, pleasureable trail along his neck.
After the second ring they both moved at the save time, Boomer slipping his hands back to his sides and sitting up, while Blossom untangled her legs and fumbled for her bag, tongue back in her mouth where it belonged.
She got ahold of her cell and raised it to the side of her face. “H-hello?”
“Blossom? Blossom, where are you?”
“Tell her we're all at Jim's and we ordered for her—”
“Buttercup, hush, I—oh, just a water, that's—hello? Blossom?”
“Yeah,” Blossom breathed, “I'm here.”
One of her hands scrabbled at her back and uselessly tried to hook the clasp of her bra.
“Blossom, are you ok? Have you been running or something?”
“N-no, no,” Blossom huffed into the phone, “I just—um, well—y-yeah, I-I had a bit of a run.”
Boomer sat back and watched her with neutral eyes, and that did NOT help.
“Are you finished with your paperwork and everything?”
“Yeah, yeah...” Blossom pressed the phone to her cheek with her shoulder and tried to use both hands on the clasp, under the highly illogical assumption that THAT would work. She was looking everywhere but at the blue-eyed blond sitting across from her.
“S-say, Bubbles, I've got a few more—”
The phone slipped from her shoulder and clattered harshly on the concrete. “Shoot!” She hastily reached for it and asked, “Bubbles? You still there—”
Without warning Boomer's arms slid around her, working to hook her bra back together. Her breath caught in her throat and she glanced nervously at his face (it was SO CLOSE). He was staring off somewhere behind her, his expression far from readable.
“Blossom? Hel-LO?”
Blossom blinked and turned back to the phone. “Bubbles. Uh, yes... Sorry. I... had a few last things to take care of—”
She felt her bra snap back into place and Boomer's hands graze her skin as they extricated themselves from her shirt. He sat back, crossing his arms over his bent knees and looking straight at Blossom.
Their eyes met and held for a moment, then she looked away and said, “I'll see you there in about ten minutes. Order for me, I don't care. Thanks.”
She snapped her cell shut and looked back at Boomer as she lowered it to her lap. She pressed her lips thin.
He did the same and started nodding. “Mmmmyep.”
“So... I take it that was more like a 3 dollar kiss?”
Boomer paused for a moment. “Er... yeah, yeah. Kind of. Um, maybe more like a... 7... or... a 20...” His voice was steadily decreasing in dB level. “Or a 50—”
“Yeah, ok, I get the idea.” Blossom stood on legs that, for whatever reason, felt uneasy and as if they'd been worked over with a couple of cement blocks.
Boomer stood up too, and a tiny scrap of paper fluttered out of his jacket pocket to the ground.
“You dropped something,” Blossom immediately said, and stooped to pick it up.
“Oh, er... yeah, thanks,” Boomer said stumbling a bit over the words as he took it from her (oh, there was no reason for her chest to feel so tight when their hands grazed each other's, no reason at all) and stuffed it back in his pocket.
Another five scraps puffed out the moment he got the one in, and Blossom would've bent to pick these up too had her eyes not fallen upon the scribbled lettering. Or, well, numbering.
7 digit numbers.
Not just any 7 digit numbers. Phone numbers.
Oh geez. That was NOT a twist in her throat, most definitely NOT.
Boomer swept them up instantly and grunted, “Ahem,” and meanwhile Blossom was thinking that well of course he would have numbers, he was doing nothing but kissing girls all day, it's only logical, natural, totally unsurprising and predictable.
Yes, well. Naturally.
“You're a popular boy,” Blossom finally said. “Those will... they look like they'll keep you busy every night for a month.” And her voice didn't sound fake or forced at all, and by the sombre look on his face he was very convinced.
“So!” she piped, chipper, “how many numbers did you get?”
He stared at her a long moment. “Let's just say—I'd change that month of yours to six,” he uttered, and why was her chest squeezing itself like that, for God's sake?
“... Oh.” Six months worth of phone numbers. Heh.
Well, despite the gross overexaggeration of statistics on his part, she still should've seen it coming.
She pressed her lips tightly together and nodded. “Good to know you'll ah, be keeping busy. Now if you'll excuse me...” Blossom edged around him and prepared to take off just as he grabbed the strap of her bag and said loudly, “Wait.”
She turned back around after a still moment and saw him yanking a fistful of paper scraps from his pocket. As soon as they were out they erupted in a burst of blue flame that he held up between them at arm's length.
Blossom stared at the ashes fluttering to the ground. She looked up at Boomer and asked quietly, “What'd you do that for?”
Boomer was too buys pulling another handful of paper out and incinerating that, too.
“What are you doing?” Blossom asked, louder this time, and grabbed his wrist (Stupid idea, she thought vaguely, there was hardly any need to TOUCH him) once the flame had put itself out.
He looked at her and when he part his mouth Blossom was momentarily distracted by the movement. She blinked and attempted to focus.
“—can't be sure of how many numbers I got today, but...” He cleared his throat and pulled his arm away. He took a deep breath, then said in a steady voice, “But I know there's only 7 I”m interested in, and they're yours.”
What happened, Blossom wasn't sure. And that was saying a lot, because Blossom liked to be sure of things, ALWAYS, and this, well, this was something else.
But it went something like an emotion overload, and she was shocked and speechless and, God forbid, relieved and maybe even the slightest bit thrilled, all at the same time.
Damned if she'd admit it, though.
She felt the makings of a smile on her face and knew she would never be able to live this down, EVER, not to her sisters, not to herself, nobody, period.
“And what if I decide to keep those seven a secret?” she responded, voice just the right amount of playful to make her mortified, somewhere in teh back reached of her mind.
Way, WAY back there.
He saw the corners of her mouth turn up and caught on. He stuck his hands in his pockets in a way that she might've found charming... in an alternate dimension. “Well, they're not a secret ALL the time, are they?”
“Most times,” she clarified, and yes, this qualified as flirting. In an alternate dimension, maybe.
“So I should ask again. Like every second. Just to make sure I don't lose my slim window of opportunity.”
“I wouldn't recommend it,” she returned. “Maybe you could try waiting for her to tell you herself?”
“Or maybe I could have a sudden stroke of genius and look it up in the school directory.”
Shoot. He was smarter than he looked. “Well, yes, there's that.”
“Or maybe,” he suddenly said, and yanked his hands from his pockets, rubbed them together, then flicked a slip of paper up in his left hand.
“Maybe I could just let you decide.”
She stared at him awhile, then said, “I suppose you're expecting me to take that?”
He smirked. Clearly he was a bastard. “Actually, yes.”
Ok. Definitely a bastard.
She crossed her arms and asked, “So other than your word, what reason would I have to take it?”
The smirk on his face faded as he lowered his head and kissed her softly on the lips. Automatically she closed her eyes and tipped her head up; she was pretty sure she had plenty of time to be justifiably horrified later.
---