Who: Billy Kaplan & Blossom What: Shopping and chatting When: End of January [backdated] Where: random shopping mall Rating: Low Status: Complete
Shopping was typically one of those ‘only if I have to’ things for Blossom -unless it was for organisational stationary, in which case sign her right up! But she did need the odd thing here and there, and there was a friends birthday coming up, and Blossom figured it was time.
Thankfully she managed to talk Billy into shopping with her, otherwise she’d have stopped minutes into starting. This way it felt more like just having time to casually hang out, while being semi-productive at the same time. Progress.
The department store was laid out very sensibly, each room had its own area, and it was just a matter of following the path and they’d work through it. Ideal for Blossom to work up to conversation points. “I’m debating getting summer bedding, y’know, so that my room can look bright and fun for spring.” Something she used to do all the time at home.
“But then I stop and think ‘what if I blow that up too!’ and it’s like, should I spend the money?”
Billy wasn’t a huge fan of shopping either, but being out of the apartment for a reason that wasn’t “class” was always good, and he liked spending time with Blossom. She was grounding, like Grizz, in her own way. He found it easy to be around her, like Wanda too but without the weird dream stuff.
He blinked back into the conversation where he’d briefly drifted off, distracted by thoughts of his Dreams and what had recently happened in them and how he was getting increasingly annoyed at his dreams for being almost everything he wanted in reality.
“Huh? Oh- bedding. I mean, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get it. You’re not blowing as much stuff up now, right? You’ve got a better handle on your powers? Or at least, you’re getting there?”
There was a moment where Blossom was aware that Billy had drifted, she didn’t mind. It wasn’t like they were having a deep and meaningful conversation after all. “Not as much, no. It’s mostly just if a new one crops up.” She’d had a mild incident with her door where she thought her strength was coming through, but it hadn’t fully manifested in reality just yet.
“I really hope I don’t turn out to have fire starting powers.” That would probably be hell on her insurance.
Opting to take the soft pink and cream sheets with the little pattern, Blossom situated the pack in her cart, before turning curious eye to Billy. “So, how’s Grizz?” She took a stab in the dark at where Billy’s attention might be wandering -asking about their friend was probably better than asking if he could do more stuff while they were out in public.
“Man, fire-starting powers would be dangerous in an apartment filled with flammable things.” Billy agreed. His own were seemingly dangerous, but he had pretty good control over them now. The ones that had manifested, at least. “But it’s worth the risk for new stuff?”
He cleared his throat when Blossom’s attention turned to him and he glanced at her, cheeks flushing a little as he let his brain officially wander in that direction. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, then lifted his other hand to link his hands there and look up at the ceiling.
“Uh- he- uh- he’s good?” He cleared his throat again, ignoring the way his voice hitched a bit. “He- uh- yeah- we- we’re- he’s good.”
Something had happened between them and he wasn’t sure what that meant. And they hadn’t really talked about it since because Billy was a coward and it was his turn to make a move, he supposed. Since Grizz had made the first one and then they’d been interrupted by pizza and phone calls and classes and- and stuff.
Fire was bad in the best of senses, and Blossom didn’t need that added to things at all, but all she could really do was cross her fingers and hope for the best. “I mean, I do like new stuff.” She had to wonder about risks a little bit more though.
Blossom did not ignore these things, Billy’s posture and tone changed entirely and that made her give him a side eye of curiosity. She had a feeling that there was something there. Probably a bit more than just basic attraction from Billy, because Blossom thought Grizz was attractive but it wasn’t like she was getting all stuttery and high pitched.
“You know that you can’t fool girls when you do that, right? We practically can tell when there’s something going on.” Which really, Blossom would cheer for! Billy clearly liked Grizz, Grizz seemed to like Billy. Sometimes Blossom just wanted to smoosh them together! “What’s going on?”
Billy wrinkled his nose. “Really? That’s true?” He looked surprised and then rubbed the back of his neck. “I- something happened and I’m not sure how to process it.”
He cleared his throat and looped his arm through Blossom’s as they kept walking through the store. “Can I- If I tell you something do you promise not to explode?” Because he could see a glint in her eye, like she already knew what he was going to say and he had no idea how girls did that.
Nodding, even though it only worked on people they knew, Blossom figured Billy could just ignore that Blossom only knew because he was so preoccupied right then. “Well, is it a bad something or a good something? That might help the processing.”
She wasn’t sure if this was a dream thing or not. Billy was pretty open with his friends about his powers, and with Blossom having powers too, it was like they could just tell each other these things, so she didn’t think it was that. “I promise, no exploding.” She only really exploded things when she was surprised suddenly, she didn’t see that being a problem.
Billy chewed his lip again and, after leaving Blossom to hang for almost a minute, he blurted out, “Grizz kissed me. And I kissed him back. But then the pizza guy arrived and the moment was broken and we haven’t talked about it.”
He wasn’t looking at Blossom, in fact, he was just looking right ahead, cheeks still slightly flushed. The air around them was a little heavy, static electricity hanging in the air.
Blossom tried, she really did. She tried to contain the squeal she let loose, but it was just too much. Her hands automatically smacked over her face right afterwards. She needed to keep her shit together.
“Billy,” she really wanted to grab him, shake his shoulders. This was the stuff that they should be in her apartment talking about with smoothies and treats or something. “What was it like? Was it a quick kiss? Like a ‘oops we kissed’ or was it like a meaningful, ‘yeah, we kissed’?” Blossom was sure the kicker on this was ‘we haven’t talked since’. And that was a problem.
But knowing Billy like she’d come to know him, he wasn’t really a ‘take the bull by the horns’ kind of person. “Did you like it?”
Billy flinched a little at the squeal that Blossom let out and then laughed uneasily as she looked up at him, her eyes alight with excitement. The static around them heightened, a nearby lightbulb sparking and going dark. Thankfully, no one noticed other than the two of them.
"It- he- we were talking and then he leaned up and kissed me and I-" he wet his lower lip, unable to stop the way his lips curled upwards into a small smile in response to the memory of the kiss.
He swallowed. "Yeah, I- I really liked it."
Blossom’s grin was probably telling, she was lucky her powers didn’t make her like glow or something, because she’d be thrumming otherwise. “Aw,” okay, so she wasn’t too surprised that it wasn’t something big and drastic that made Billy and Grizz kiss finally, but still, “that’s so cute.”
Although it did bring up why they hadn’t continued doing it for goodness sake.
“So, you and him haven’t like talked about how you’d like to maybe keep kissing?”
Billy was a little surprised at Blossom's... well, lack of it. Had he really been that obvious? He cleared his throat, ignoring the way he felt his cheeks flushing with colour and rubbed his hand through his hair.
"Uh- no, we haven't- it's been... difficult to get time where we're both in at the same time, y'know? Like, he's started up with football at college and I've had so many papers to do, y'know? So we haven't had much of a chance to-" he waved his other hand. "-talk."
Blossom did understand being so busy it was hard to get a second to do anything but school work, and there was probably a small degree of avoiding each other going on too, if Blossom was reading the situation a little better.
“That does make it harder, but like, I mean if you two wanna kiss some more, you might need to make some time to talk about it, right?” There wasn’t really any kind of way around having a conversation, “I mean, it’ll be a little uncomfortable but… wouldn’t you rather be able to make out like all the time?”
“I just don’t even know how to start,” Billy groaned, putting his head in his hands. “Sorry our make out session got interrupted and then we’ve both been super busy and now it’s just awkward but I really want you to put your face on my face again?”
He let out an unhappy sound and huffed out a breath, “Only I could screw something like this up. What if he only kissed me ‘cause he was really upset and I was there and- y’know.”
“I mean, you could just… work it in?” Blossom would’ve told Billy to just kiss Grizz again and see how it turned out, but she knew enough to know that wouldn’t work for Billy at all. He’d over think all of it. “Like, order a pizza again, and then once it’s arrived, just drop a mention ‘oh hey, remember last time we had pizza, wasn’t that wild’ and see where it goes?”
It was a little interesting that Blossom was the one giving relationship advice, given the only person she’d gotten close to a relationship with decided to go home and didn’t bother even trying to stay in touch with her.
“I really don’t think that Grizz would kiss you just because he was upset, he really doesn’t seem like that kind of person.” No, Grizz wasn’t the sort to play with Billy’s feelings at all. Blossom reached out to rub at his shoulder, giving it a light squeeze, “You know that saying? Making mountains out of molehills?”
Billy leaned into Blossom’s touch and just nodded, looking thoughtful. “Yeah, maybe,” he said quietly, “I- yeah, I can do that. Just… do it. Bring it up.” He chewed his lower lip, “How hard can it be?”
He chuckled, “My mom says that. ‘Billy, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill’. I’m pretty good at overthinking and making problems for myself.”
Letting out a soft laugh, Billy tipped his head. “Enough about my woes, though. Wanna grab something to eat? We’re not done yet, right? So we need to go grab fuel.”
It was usually super endearing on Billy, his little worry wart thing, but not when he really worked himself up to the point of severe worry. And hopefully, when he did talk to Grizz, it would help solve part of this problem.
“If you need talking it out, you can call me before you bring it up with him, okay?” Blossom was perfectly happy to cheer Billy on, especially if it got him to make the second move. She was sure Billy and Grizz could be an adorable couple.
“Nowhere near finished, so we should definitely get some food.” She was just glad that Billy was okay dealing with her shopping so much.