The paintbrush hangs limp in his hand, the canvas as blank as it had been when he walked into the class. As the time ticks slowly away, his mind wanders to more appealing thoughts, like going to the tree he's reserved for taking a smoke, or Blossom's legs, or anything that takes his mind off the fact that he's sitting in art class.

Art class that he didn't want to take.

"Problem, Butch?" asks Mrs. Carlyle once she catches sight of his canvas. "Don't you have inspiration?"

"I've got plenty of that," he murmurs, his thoughts still on the mile-long legs of the redhead. "I'm just not an artist kinda guy."

"Don't be silly. Everyone's got a bit of art in them, they just have to find it!"

Well, mine's clearly hibernating, he thinks. He doesn't even want to be here; Miss Keane asked him to give the class a shot after she stumbled upon a sketch that had fallen out of his backpack in one of the hallways. He cursed his broken zipper to hell once he got home and trashed the backpack, opting to take one of Boomer's instead. But the damage was done, and now he's here, powering through a class about as interesting as watching paint dry (pun intended) and he sure as hell knows that he's had enough of art for the rest of the day. Or preferrably, his entire life.

"Maybe you need a muse?" Mrs. Carlyle offers, and another image of Blossom pops into his head. A grin creeps onto his face as he pictures more inviting, and naked, possibilities.

"Nah, that's sorted," he says, and the blonde-haired woman nods at his satisfied grin.

"Well, even if you do, you're not putting any ideas down." She slips into thought for a few moments, and then she looks up suddenly, her lips stretched into a smile. "Okay, I'll let you leave the class now, since you don't seem to flow in here."

He's out of his chair in seconds and the doorway has never looked more appealing to him in his life.

"But I'm giving you a little assignment!"

"Damn," He curses very quietly. All relief leaves his body, and he wants to melt into a miserable puddle on the ground and have this lady carry him out herself. As if forcing him to attend a class he didn't even like because of something he had drawn when he was bored wasn't enough, he was going to leave with an ever-present reminder that he's going to have to come back tomorrow. He debates ditching; it isn't like Miss Keane can do more than give him detention. He can't do anything now, though. Not when the art teacher places a large sketchpad in his hands with a smile.

"I want at least one art piece by tomorrow, alright?" she says. "It doesn't need to be anything spectacular. Whatever you can come up with, as long as it classifies as visual art."

"Uh, sure," he says, and then he stuffs it into the backpack slung over his shoulder, trying to decide whether he should shred it at home and make up a story, or shred it at school and tell Miss Keane he shredded it. It was his fault for bringing the sketch to school; he thought it looked cool, even if it was just a sketch. He had been bored at home and the city had been there, sitting outside his window, under the evening sky, and he felt like he was supposed to do something with it, so he drew it, and it was almost like he was watching someone else draw; he just saw the pencil move and his memory hazed out and when he came to, there it was, just sitting in front of him like it had been there the entire time.

He saunters out of the class and heads straight for the field. The tree isn't anything spectacular, which aids him in his bid to be inconspicuous. He climbs up and lights a cig, each long drag seeping into his bones until he's spaced out enough to forget what art even is, all he knows is that it's stupid and gets him unnecessary homework and he isn't touching that sketchbook.

It's only after a couple of hours, when he's run out of cigarettes and the entire school is empty, that he sees her run onto one of the courts, clad in a loose shirt and shorts. He snorts because she looks like a hesitant rookie, and then he remembers that she always looks like a dork, and then he remembers that he doesn't care. She has a basketball tucked under her arm and her expression is hard. He knows she's in a mood and he debates riling her up even more, but he decides against it once she starts dribbling the ball.

She moves around the court as if there are other people there. Once she's tired of jerking around she shoots; the ball bounces off the basket, and she just...stops. Butch sits up and leans forward, even though he can see just fine because he can see her, how her entire body just droops like she can't withstand the force of gravity, and her hair's hiding her face and the ball is at her feet and she's just not moving.

Just when he starts getting confused and thinks of throwing a rock at her head or something to jerk her back to life, she does it by herself; she straightens all of a sudden and snatches the ball off of the ground, glaring at it like it kills baby pandas for a living, and then she hurls it at the basket with such ferocity that the ball explodes upon contact, the basket breaks in two and the metal pole bends backwards. He raises an eyebrow.

And then, like a lot of other times, she does something that he could not even begin to expect, no matter how desensitised he has become to all of her antics, and her in general.

She sinks to the floor and starts freaking crying.

He sits up, taken aback. He's been in awkward situations, but seeing Buttercup Utonium cry is on a whole other level of 'hell-will-be-an-ice-rink-first' type of situations. He watches in astonishment as she folds her legs against her chest and buries her head on her knees.

This is weird. He can't handle it. But for some reason, he can't bring himself to look away, and there's this familiar, intense feeling in his body, like he needs to do something. He can't get rid of it, so he rummages through his backpack for a lone cigarette he might stumble upon. Some nicotine will do the trick.

Instead, his hand lands on the cover of the sketchbook.

That freaking sketchbook.

He wants to set it aflame and throw the fireball at Buttercup's head but his hand has a life of its own all of a sudden. He pulls it out and opens the first page. Blank, as underwhelmingly usual. But then the feeling's back, and his hands are defiant again, and they're reaching for a pencil and an eraser nub he's forgotten about. His eyes keep darting to Buttercup's body and he doesn't know why.

Until the once-blank paper sits in front of him, the vividly realistic drawing glaring at him harder than he's glaring at it.

It's her.

Of course it's her. The proof is right there in front of him, and it's like a sucker-punch to the gut. But the weird feeling's gone and now he's left with a bitter taste in his mouth because of all the people in the entire world, he drew her.

Buttercup freaking Utonium.

He knows her last name. Why does he?

He doesn't even know anymore.

So he does the most plausible thing. He climbs out of the tree, thankful that Butterbutt's too busy with her sob-fest to notice him, and that's saying a lot; she's like a target when it comes to eavesdroppers.

But he wasn't eavesdropping. He wasn't big on watching any girl cry, let alone that one. It's not his fault he saw her. It's hers, coming to cry in the middle of the basketball court where anyone who has eyes can see her. He doesn't think about how it's almost seven o' clock, and the entire school's empty. He focuses on the fact that she made him involuntarily actually do his homework, which makes about negative-zero sense, but he doesn't care. It's not his fault he saw her cry. He doesn't even care that she cried. They share a beautiful mutual hate for each other, and he's perfectly happy that way.

"I don't give a shit," he says out loud once he lands in front of his (and his brothers') place. He says it to reassure himself, but he doesn't know why he needs to.

"Hey," Boomer greets from his spot on the couch as he enters. He grunts in response, not stopping the beeline he's making for his room. It's only when his backpack flies out of his grip with a flash of blue that he slows and turns around to glare at the blond who is once-again nestled comfortably on the couch.

"I'm not in the mood for your bullshit, Boomer," he deadpans, and his brother shrugs.

"Is anyone ever in the mood for my bullshit?" he asks, and then frowns as he holds up the bag and recognition sets in. "Why do you have my backpack?"

"Because you don't use it, and mine bit the dust," he responds, and then walks over to the couch. He reaches for the backpack, but then blue streaks past him again and Boomer's bedroom door clicks shut. He stands frozen for a moment, his mind still trying to register what just happened. When it does, he sprints for Boomer's bedroom and kicks the door to splinters, but the room is empty and the window is open, the curtain flapping around in the breeze. With an aggravated bellow he yanks the curtain right off of its rung and tears after his runaway brother. Luckily, he isn't far, and Butch spots him on the other side of the road four blocks away. Using the roof of a house as a push-off point, he takes off, shooting towards his brother's position at breakneck speeds.

He collides with Boomer so violently that they leave a crater big enough to destroy the entire road and a few surrounding houses.

"OW! What the HELL, you asshole?!" Boomer shrieks as Butch pulls him into a headlock powerful enough to break his collarbone. He cries out at the crack, and then goes limp in surrender. "Just take it! Jeez!"

He snatches the bag away and slings it over his shoulder, ignoring the terrified stares of the onlookers surrounding the scuffle. He cracks his neck joints and takes off for the house again, leaving the wreakage behind. The girls'll probably clean it up anyway.

Once he's in the safety of his room he pulls out the sketchbook and stares in horrified confusion at the now-empty pages. It takes him a while to see the tiny indication of a torn page at the beginning of the book, and then his window's broken and he's looking for Boomer again. Unfortunately, the little shit took the liberty of finding a hiding place this time. So Butch lands and starts walking, activates his x-ray vision and scans the city as far as his eyes can see, but there's no sign of the blond.

Shit, he thinks. Knowing Boomer, the drawing will either be used against him as blackmail material or end up torn to shreds at the bottom of a trashcan somewhere.

For his sake, he hopes it's the latter.

He passes the crater he and Boomer made in the road. At the sight of blond hair he swivels to the side, fists clenched.

But then he sees the two pigtails. He relaxes and rolls his eyes; they really worked fast, for them to be there now. His eyes instinctively search for Blossom, and he finds her talking to a spooked citizen a ways away from the crater. He sees her tense and turn around; she probably felt his x-ray vision boring into her back. Once she catches sight of him, her mouth turns down in a frown, and she begins to march over. Butch groans; hot or not, he is not in the mood for her scolding right now. Still, he stays put, his lips stretching into a lopsided grin.

"You think this is funny?" she hisses at him.

"Yeah," he says flatly.

"You know I could kick your ass straight into a jail cell, right?"

"Eh. Wouldn't be the first time," he says with a shrug. "Look, I wanna stick around, but I also don't." And he sticks his hands in his pockets and saunters past her, throughly enjoying the fact that she's watching him go.

He searches until dark. Then he finally gives up and decides to head back home, partly because he's exhausted and partly because he knows that he's worrying over the stupid drawing far too much. It's just a sketch.

A sketch of Buttercup Utonium in the most inconvenient situation ever, for her at least. A sketch of a situation that he shouldn't have been around to see.

"Fuck," he hisses. He can't stop thinking about it, and he doesn't know why, and it's pissing him off.

Once he's inside, he heads straight for his room, grabs the sketchbook and throws it into the back of his closet. He hears the sound of paper tearing, and only then does he calm down enough to be able to think about anything other than the drawing.

So he sits down by his window and stares out at the city, watching how its lights paint the night sky a slightly brighter blue. How it just tauntingly sits there, daring him to do something.

He ignores the urges, clenches his fists, and taunts it right back.