note: dippin' my toe in the ppg fandom. this won't have a consistent upload schedule. i'll finish it eventually tho. characters are probably all pretty ooc

She read once that people who take hot showers subconsciously do it to mimic human touch. She thought that seemed believable. That might explain why she was sitting underneath the shower stream with the water so hot that it would've hurt a normal person but still wasn't enough for her. The thing was, she wasn't a normal person. Everyone made sure she wouldn't forget it.

Going back to the topic at hand, she was sitting under a shower stream trying to mimic human touch. It didn't make sense however because she had a loving family that might be a little too into hugs if you asked her sister Buttercup. So why was she doing this? Because, as terrible as it sounds, it wasn't enough. Even though she knew she was so incredibly loved, love couldn't beat the unbearable pressure she was under.

She sighed and stood up once she heard Buttercup knocking on the door aggressively. She liked showers because they were the only time in which no one was watching and she could completely break. They never did last long enough though.

She turned the lights back on and got dressed as she walked out of the bathroom to greet a simmering Buttercup.

"Damn it Blossom you're in there longer and longer everyday, what the fuck do you do?"

"Language Buttercup."

"Yeah yeah."

And with that, the green haired puff disappeared into the bathroom and Blossom could once again drop her facade.

School used to be something of great importance to Blossom. She tried hard in all of her classes although she had never needed to. She was determined to be ahead and be the best. Her sisters and the people of townsville were counting on it.

Recently however, she found no willingness to go the extra mile. Instead, that part of her brain was filled with thoughts. Thoughts of how everyone was counting on her, one wrong move could result in people dying, how she had to be perfect.

How she was never good enough.

So instead of doing getting ahead on next week's homework or taking extra college prep classes, Blossom would entertain these thoughts that were constantly swimming around her head. It was kind of obvious that something was up, her grades were still great, but they weren't excellent like before. The professor had asked her about why her grades were dropping but all she said was that it was due to a lack of sleep. It wasn't exactly a lie. She definitely wasn't sleeping as much as she should but how could she with all the voices and thoughts cramming her head. Her mind didn't have an off switch and so she couldn't sleep. But it was fine, she was fine. She had to be fine.

In school she would no longer listen to her teacher. She would mindlessly do the work and daydream in class, although it wasn't exactly "daydreaming." It was honestly more like a nightmare. She was physically there but mentally, she was trapped inside of her head. She wouldn't even compete with Brick anymore and it was starting to get on his nerves. He knew she was doing this on purpose. She was trying to make him let his guard down so she could sweep the rug out from beneath him, so he decided to confront her.

They shared all their classes together so it wasn't difficult to find her. He thought he was going to have to chase after her once class ended but it didn't even seem like she had heard the bell ring. He stood in front of her desk and she had yet to acknowledge his existence, so he slammed his history paper down on her desk. This brought her out of wherever the hell she had been and she finally looked up at him instead of staring into the distance. He couldn't help but notice her eyes looked dull as they seemed to lack the usual fire behind them.

"Oh, hi Brick. Did you need something?"

This further fortified the scowl on Brick's face. Him and Blossom didn't talk like that. If he ever did something like that she would have gotten in his face and asked him who the hell he thought he was. But she didn't. It didn't matter though. Brick was determined to rile her up.

"You've been slacking an awful lot pinky. I got a full 10 points better than you on that history essay." Said the red-eyed boy with a smile that would normally cause Blossom to snap. However, that did not happen. She continued to look at him, dazed and uninterested.

"Really? That's pretty good, congratulations."

Brick didn't let this deter him however.

"I guess we finally know who the better red is huh?"

Blossom didn't even twitch.

"Yeah."

That broke Brick's restraint as he immediately grabbed her wrist and shot through the hallways, not caring who he pushed out of the way. He brought them to the roof and set her down, his eyes burning with an intensity that he usually reserved for fights.

"Ok Pinky, talk. What the fuck is up with you?"

"Nothing is up with me Brick." She tried to walk away but Brick grabbed her wrist and turned her to face him. His look was calculating and decided and it made Blossom heat up.

"Something's wrong with you."

Something inside of Blossom snapped because there was nothing wrong with her. She couldn't afford to have something wrong. She ripped her wrist away from him and her gaze turned steely.

"You don't know what you're talking about Brick." With that she flew off in a pink streak, leaving the red 'ruff' confused. Something was definitely up, and he was going to do something about it.

The week that followed was similar to every week before that. Blossom lived life in a daze, remembering next to nothing about the day before because it all seemed to smoosh together. Her daze was interrupted by a familiar phone ringing. She really did not want to deal with business today. Lucky for her, bubbles answered the phone. The red haired girl zoned out of the conversation until Bubbles was literally in her face.

"Blossy did you hear what I said?"

"Huh? Sorry Bubbles I didn't"

The blonde tilted her head and scanned her sister's face quizzically. Nothing seemed to be wrong so she dropped it. "I said that the rowdyruff boys are vandalizing a park."

At that the green sister seemingly appeared iut of nowehere. "Damn! I've been wanting to fight butch for weeks! Let's go!"

She didn't even wait for her sisters before flying off, bubbles tailing her to remind her that she didn't even know what park they were at. Blossom was the last one out the door.

In all honesty, it was kind of weird that the rowdyruffs were causing trouble since they had given up that lifestyle as soon as they got into highschool. Bubbles and Boomer were actually dating, Butch and Buttercup sparred daily and Blossom and Brick exchanged snarky comments about superiority daily, at least they used to.

When they got to the park, no orders needed to be handed out by the pink leader as they already knew this routine. They paired off by color and commenced fighting, or, they were supposed to. The greens were the only ones actually fighting, the blues had flown off so that bubbles could interrogate her boyfriend and the Brick had immediately snatched Blossom and went to god knows where. Blossom wasn't really paying attention.

"What the fuck is up with you pinky?"

"I told you before that it was nothing right? Are you going to keep talking or are we actually going to fight?"

Brick's mouth turned up into a sick smile. "With pleasure."

It started off normal like all their fights did. Punches were thrown, laser beams were shot. The normalcy lasted for 10 minutes before Blossom started slowing down. Brick thought nothing of it and assumed she was tired, after all it had happened before. It wasn't until he knocked her down to the ground and cornered her that he noticed something was off. She did nothing to protect herself as he got closer, didn't even try to fly away. Brick was entirely confused as to why. They stared at each other for what seemed like eternity.

"Do you know what your purpose is?"

"Huh?" Brick asked intelligibly.

"You're my counterpart. You were made to destroy me, isn't that right?"

"What the hell are you getting at pinky?"

"Kill me."

Brick's eyes grew wide with shock. He couldn't have heard her right.

"Why do you hesitate?" Blossom questioned. "You've wanted this since you were born. You wanted to destroy me, to beat me. Here's your chance. Kill me."

Brick was stupefied. There was no fucking way Blossom, the commander and leader, was telling him to kill her. It had to be a trick right?

Except it didn't seem like a trick because when he looked in her eyes, he still found the dullness that had become more and more apparent these last few weeks. They seemed bored, dead of life and, sad? His thoughts were confirmed with her statement.

"Kill me," she repeated. "Please."

Brick wasted no time bolting out of there as fast as he could because he could deal with regular Blossom. The Blossom who bitched at him constantly, the cocky, quick to anger, easily flustered girl who never backed down from a challenge. He could not, however, deal with this broken down, poor imitation and shell of the puff he knew.

He flew around trying to find his brothers because this was definitely not right. He found Boomer talking to Bubbles and quickly apologized to Bubbles for cutting their talk short (because Brick Jojo wasn't a total ass) and pulled his brother away to find Butch who was still fighting Buttercup. He snatched the collar of his shirt and dragged him back (kicking and fighting) to their house along with Boomer while ignoring Buttercup's angry yelling.

The green powerpuff watched them fly away, considering whether or not to chase after them and give Brick a piece of her mind because dammit she was so close to winning, before she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to find Bubbles also staring at their retreating figures with a puzzled look on her face. They were soon after joined by Blossom and they were quick to interrogate her.

"What the fuck was that about?"

The pink puff sighed and rubbed her temples. "Language BC."

"No really Blossom what the hell happened? He just ripped Butch out of our fight."

"Yeah," the blue puff joined in. "he took off with Boomie too! He even apologized about it, did something happen?"

"I don't think so." The redhead lied. "He kinda left in the middle of our fight too. Maybe he left the stove off or something." She sighed again and closed her eyes.

"Is something wrong leader girl? You look pretty bad."

"Gee thanks Buttercup," her facade slipped for a second before she put it back up. "Sorry, didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just tired, I think I'm gonna head home." She left before her sisters had a chance to question her further. She knew all too well that Bubbles was too inquisitive for her own good.

hi. this isn't nalu, so it's definitely not IWIWH. sorry abt that. i'll post that this friday i sWEar.

1) i'll basically be updating this whenever i feel crappy. this is kind of a vent fic

2) i'm just starting to get into the ppg fandom so please don't crucify me because i don't know much abt it yet

3) have ya'll ever taken showers in the dark? they kinda slap ngl. they get me in a ~mood~ which is perfect for writing, the mood being depression lol.

4) that hot shower fact is real btw. i read it like a year ago and i was like 'oh fun! lovely things'

5) no one asked for my life story lol sorry abt that

6) i don't like the flow of this but i only ever seem to post things i hate so wE'lL sEe hOw tHiS gOeS. hopefully ya'll don't think it's ass

7) i actually proofread for once. yay me.

8) i hope you guys are doing good and staying healthy. thank for reading, ily i promise. have a goodnight, see u soon :)

-ghost