WHO:Blossom & Anna WHEN: Late May WHERE: UC Irvine WHAT: Blossom creates a meeting and is bad at spying. RATING/WARNINGS: None! STATUS: Complete
Anna was at UC Irvine. After one of her morning classes she was planning on swinging by a Thai restaurant across the street from campus and grabbing a Thai Iced Tea. Because Anna needed the extra energy. She’d taken a lot of classes lately, and she was very much looking forward to summer vacation. Maybe she’d go on a road trip, or try to pick up a job, or something.
In any case, she wasn’t watching where she was going, and turning down the corridor she bumped straight into someone. A gentle “oof” escaped her as Anna stumbled to the ground.
Blossom was not stalking. Nope. Not at all. Okay, so maybe a little but she was totally justified in it okay. And that was probably not true either but she had turned in all her course work for this mornings class and she had until the afternoon before she was in another and honestly, stalking was such an aggressive word.
She was following up. Sure, that’s what it was.
She was following up on information from Caroline about Stefan that may lead to further answers on just how suitable Stefan was for Bubbles. She knew she was going over the top, but this was the first time Bubbles had been super serious about anything other than animals so Blossom was doing her sisterly duty.
When Anna was bumped to the floor, Blossom snagged the opportunity to not seem like a total creep. “Oh, my goodness, are you okay?” She waved away the guy that looked like he was about to be a decent person and help Anna, glaring until he backed away sheepishly. “That was a tumble, heh.” Points for not being weird, Blossom.
The guy was totally going to be nice and decent, but when he saw the glare from Blossom, he backed away. Quickly. Then rushed off to join his friends, all of whom were laughing at the poor guy.
Anna missed the entire interaction. She was turning over, nearly crushed by the massive weight of her backpack. The thing was huge, and carried pretty much every book she needed for the whole semester. (Understatement. Okay, so it wasn’t quite that big. But it was still really big, kay?)
She lifted her hands to brush hair from her face and gave the girl a flustered smile. “Yes, I… I’m all right. Scraped up my knee, but I’ll survive.” She climbed up to her feet, dusting herself off. The knee was scraped, but not bleeding. Small favors. Embarrassed, Anna laughed, “did you catch the plate of that truck?”
“From how hard it hit, it should’ve been a registered wall.” Walls didn’t get registered, Blossom, but still she just tried for a smile in return that wasn’t too forced or obvious. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Because even if Blossom was looking for a chance to talk to Anna without clearly having attempted to follow the girl waiting for that chance, she was a little sorry it came with a collision with a solid guy.
“Should have!” Anna agreed, giving her savior a bright smile. “Yeah, I think so. I was gonna go get a thai iced tea at the cafe. I hope my knees can handle the walk!” She lifted herself up and dusted off said knees. One of which was smarting like mad. “Thank you for your help. Man. I really need to take some of these books out of my bag!”
“Hey, I’m heading there too, I’ll walk with you.” No, Blossom was not going in that direction, but she could probably justify an extra coffee that day, if only so that she could blame her stalking on something rather than just her addled mind. “Do you need some help carrying anything? Oh, I’m sorry, I’m Blossom. Hi.”
Introductions, those would be good so that she could pretend she didn’t know who Anna was up until now.
“I’m good! I think?” Anna said, giving the other a bright smile. Thank goodness for people like her savior. Because there were dickheads in the world, and Anna was thankful for the good ones! “Blossom! Hi! I’m Anna. It’s nice to meet you!” She shuffled books into her bag and pulled it up onto a shoulder, then offered up a hand for the other redhead to shake. “You can at least let me buy you a drink for your help!” This was Anna, making best friends with a girl who was simply trying to be nice.
Blossom was already feeling bad about her ulterior motives, but figured that hey, maybe she could abandon that and hope that things just came up. “Oh, you don’t need to do that, I think if anything you deserve one on me after that.” And it would make Blossom feel a lot better about her little stalking thing. “You must be taking a whole lot of classes?”
“I want to!” Anna said, beaming over at the other redhead. “Seriously, you’re like a knight in shining armor. C’mon.” She turned and picked up her pace, leading the way down the hall and out of the building. They had about a block to walk to get to the cafe that sold the Thai Iced Teas. “I’m taking a ton of classes. It’s insane, really,” she grinned over at Blossom. “But I still find time to hang out with my friends and roommates. Somehow.”
“I was sort of like that at the beginning of the year, but my dad talked me into pulling back a little.” She’d probably have sacrificed a little too much sleep for her dad to get like that, but then Blossom was majorly academic and it wasn’t like the Professor wasn’t happy to pay for her to attend an additional year if she wanted to retake some of those classes. “I have two sisters that don’t accept ‘I need to sleep’ as a reason to not to do things.” And that would’ve been interesting to juggle.
“You must be very dedicated.”
"I'm pretty motivated, I think." Anna said, nodding. "I love school. I love leaving my house, actually. I spent a lot of time in my life not leaving my own house because I was too sick. I was really sick as a kid. Now that I'm out here in the real world? I want to make the most out of it." She turned down the sidewalk that led to the cafe. "What are you studying?"
Blossom could understand liking school, she’d always enjoyed it, enjoyed learning everything she could. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” but being stuck inside, sick all the time? That must’ve been really hard for anyone. “I’m glad you’re doing better and able to attend.” It was important to be able to go outside and enjoy the world and all it had to offer.
“I’m majoring in molecular biology, but I’m taking journalism and media studies and women’s studies too.” She’d been convinced to drop the art class she’d wanted to take too, mostly because it would’ve probably eaten up too much time since she liked to be a perfectionist.
“It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” Well, a couple years ago. But still. To Anna a couple of years was practically a lifetime. She nodded, listening when Blossom explained what she was studying. “Oh! You know, there was a time when I was considering journalism, too! But I think that might have been my English Teacher. He believed in me, you know? And when you’ve got someone like that, you really think you can do anything.”
“That’s like my dad.” He was one of the most important people in Blossom’s life, and he always assured them that anything they dreamed, they could accomplish if they tried. He probably didn’t know how true that was now, but it really pushed Blossom to do her best in everything. “He tells us that we can be whatever we want to be, we just need to push ourselves. I’m sure your English teacher was right, you could do anything.”
Blossom was definitely feeling bad about attempting to spy on Anna just to find out about Stefan, she was so sweet and nice, and Blossom was being so deceiving. She was terrible!
Anna smiled warmly. “My parents were like that, too.” She said, thinking fondly, but sadly, about her mother and father. She let those thoughts go, though, as they reached the cafe. “So! Thai Iced tea? I’ll buy.” She pushed the door open and led the way into the air conditioned shop.
“Only if you’re sure.” Blossom wouldn’t be rude and push on the matter, she’d just need to make a point of returning the favour later and getting one for Anna later, or something similar. “And you promise to let me buy you one another time.” Because she was all about repayment. And making friends for real with Anna didn’t seem like it would be hard.
“Of course!” Anna said, beaming brightly. She loved making new friends and Blossom was … awesome? OMG rhyming words!! She’d have to bring that up later. “That’s a deal. You can get the next ones!” Together they moved to the register and Anna ordered two Thai Iced Teas. It only took a moment for the lady behind the counter to make them, soon they were handed over. Anna passed one to Blossom with a gentle “here you go!”
It was a sure fire way to make friends, right? Offer a return and then just keep going from there. Blossom figured it would probably only take the once, she figured she might have enough in common with Anna to make this a genuine friendship rather than some kind of subterfuge. “Thanks so much.” At least they could share taste in drinks. “What class are you heading to? I could walk you?”
“That’d be great!” Anna replied, then she glanced at her phone real quick. “It’s just about time for my class on the Impressionist movement. It’s back over in the art building.” Anna sipped from her drink, turning to lead the way with her new friend. Because Blossom was absolutely correct--it didn’t take much to become besties with Anna.
Art Building, okay, that’d be no problem. “You must walk so much around the campus.” And to be fair, Blossom did a fair amount of walking herself, although three of her classes were in the same building, the same block really, and the rest were sciences. She just spent her days wandering back and forth across campus like a slightly crazy person.
“Oh my gosh, my first couple of quarters here were crazy!” Anna said, giving Blossom a grin. “I totally didn’t gain the Freshman 15 because I was running back and forth across campus so much. I made a point to be more vigilant about where my classes were, so I wasn’t constantly running late! Though, I’ll be the first to admit I go late sometimes because I’m busy grabbing a coffee or something.” She wore a sheepish grin at the end of that explanation, then lifted her iced tea to sip from the straw.
Being late wasn’t always the worst thing, Blossom understood that pretty well. She wasn’t always on time for her own classes, although she did make the effort so that she didn’t miss things. But sometimes you just needed to stop for some drinks to keep you going through the day. “I totally think you need to make sure you’re caffeinated and hydrated over on time though.” It was sort of true.
Was there a way to sway this conversation towards…. “But then my sister says I rely far too much on coffee.” Not entirely true, but sometimes she did get the roll of an eye for how many she had during the day.
Anna nodded, grinning. Caffeine and hydration were absolutely important. Anna was running on sugar, caffeine and adrenaline lately. When a girl took as many classes as she did, what other options did she have?
“My sister says the same thing!” Anna said, excitedly, turning toward her new friend with a bright, excited expression. Something they had in common! Yay! “I tell her not to worry, but she does. My roommates, too. They dumped all my Red Bull once. It was so sad.”
“Oh, that’s such a shame. I can’t drink Red Bull, it’s gives me heartburn,” the first time that happened Blossom had freaked out at her dad about having a heart attack. It was strange, she didn’t know what it was other than a lot of pain and discomfort in her chest! “I stick to regular caffeine now and just hope they don’t try to cut me off.” Which had happened once or twice, especially during SATs.
Anna gasped. “I would be heartbroken! Forget about the heartburn, my heart would be broken!” She grinned brightly at that. Hey, she’d done a funny! “Yeeeah. It’s rough when they do. But hey, I promise I’ll never cut you off! Not like Stefan and Caroline.” And her ex at the time, but Anna didn’t want to mention him. Too many bad memories there.
Blossom managed a small laugh, tucking some of her wild hair behind her ear while sipping on her drink, “Oh, Stefan? My sister’s dating a boy called Stefan.” Aaaaand that was smooth, right? That could be labelled as a subtle nudge towards ‘tell me more about this Red Bull destroying person you know’, right?
Blossom would be a terrible spy. Just terrible. “How funny is that.”
It wasn’t exactly smooth, but Anna wasn’t exactly sharp about that kind of thing. She just brightened. “Wait, is your sister Bubbles?” She asked. “That’s Stefan’s girlfriend’s name. They’re super cute together!” Anna sipped from her drink, trying not to gulp it down too fast. She had to make it last until at least after class.
“What a small world this is, right? That you and I happen to meet and we have a connection like this one?” Anna grinned.
That just made Blossom feel terrible again. Because she knew that she had sort of staged things, and she felt like she was lying, and Anna was such a nice person. Blossom would just need to be super contrite and make it up to her later or something. “It’s so weird.” God, let her lie better than she usually did. The interest in her drink seemed to at least help a little. “So what’s your roommate like? You know, other than throwing out perfectly good energy drinks.” That wasn’t too suspicious, right?
“Stefan’s a great guy,” Anna said, giving the other a warm smile. She absent-mindedly lifted her hand to fluff up her hair, covering the spot on her neck. It was faded, pale, but a constant reminder of what had happened when Stefan lost control. “I mean, he’s had his dark moments, for sure. But haven’t we all?” Um, except for Anna. She didn’t have a moment of darkness in her backstory.
“He seems a bit happier now that he’s working at the Garage than when he was working at Disneyland. And… well, maybe that has to do with Bubbles, too. They seem really happy.”
Blossom couldn’t think of a ‘dark’ moment she’d had, no. She was trying to think if Bubbles’ ever had one. She wouldn’t even say that Buttercup had them and Buttercup beat people up as a career choice. But she wouldn’t mention that, not at all really.
Definitely the same Stefan then. “Between Red Bull ruining and not liking Disney, I’m not sure if I could say that’s healthy.” Who didn’t like Disneyland? Probably grown men trying to build careers, but okay then. “Bubbles sorta brings that out in people, yeah.” Bubbles could probably uplift anyone.
Now they had their drinks, Anna was pretty distracted by the deliciousness, but the conversation was good, too. Though, Anna would have to get going fairly soon--she had to get to her next class. She grinned over her straw. “You don’t know Stefan. He’s a really good guy. Really. But yeah, he’s better with Bubbles around.” She sipped. “I like it when she spends the night!”
Blossom wasn’t going to talk about that particular trait, thanks very much. Bubbles might be the same age as her, but she was still Blossom’s little sister and talking about her spending the night with her boyfriend wasn’t on the list of things Blossom wanted to do really.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll get to know him.” Probably, if she stopped snooping it would go better. “Well, I have to get off that way to class.” Technically, Blossom had been going the entirely wrong way, but whatever, “So I guess… I’ll see you around?”
“Oh, yeah, me, too.” It was just about time for Anna to get to her next class. And now that she was sugar’d and caffeine’d up, she was ready to go. “Yeah, definitely!” Anna grinned brightly. She gave her new friend a bright smile, and then turned to head off to class.