Chapter 9

“Buttercup! We’re so sorry for what we did! We didn’t know that it would hurt you!” Brute says.

“I know that’s some lame ass excuse but we really are sorry!” Berserk adds.

“Yeah, yeah! So please don’t hate us!” Brat states.

“But it’s ok if you do given what we did!” Brute quickly expresses.

“Yeah! Totally! We love you and we understand that we did something wrong!” Berserk  agrees.

“Exactly! We won’t every force our wants onto you again like that! Even if you never forgive us! We’ll spend our lives making it up to you!” Brat says.

They’ve been acting like this since they stopped torturing the audacious captives.

I’m not exactly giving them the silent treatment right now.

I just honestly don’t know what to say.

Especially when they came back and.. I couldn’t tell you the color of the clothes they were wearing.

The blood was so soaked through that even their underwear was dyed blood read.

I was currently trapped on the couch w/ them on top of me.

We were actually in one of the first cuddle positions they ever used against me.

I didn’t have it in me to push them away.

They looked… not broken.. but beyond devasted.

It was.. weird.

And nerve wracking.

I also didn’t think it was a good idea to push them off given the display of power they had displayed.

Eventually I found my voice again.

“H-hey.. how about we just take a nap?” I suggest.

“A nap..?” Brat echoes.

Her voice was so small it actually hurt to hear.

“Yeah.. it’ll help calm us all down. And might even help us work through the situation.” I say.

“Okay.. but… Can you.. can you hold us?” Berserk asks.

“What!? No way! You don’t have to! We shouldn’t even be on you like this!” Brute exclaims in a panic.

“No… It’s alright.” I say calming her down.

They all relaxed at my words and clung tighter to me.

“Thanks…” Brat says.

Sometime during the tense and awkward moment our breathing slowly melted in a soft hum of a calming lullaby of sorts.

The soft humming from the nearby kitchen appliance slowing vibrating off the walls of my mind as it enters my ears starts to bring me back.

Slowly the feeling of something warm and fuzzy on my hands starts to register.

I was starting to wonder when I put mittens on.

When the vague sound of voices got to me.

As a orange red tinted hue attacked my eyes I started making out the conversation.

“No fair.. you two are hogging the attention.” Brute pouts.

“Hush. You’ll get your turn eventually.” Berserk says.

As I open my eyes I say that I was rubbing Berserk’s and Brat’s heads.

Fuck!

It looks like my habit of comforting the girls, Ken and Poochie is coming back to bite me in the ass again!

I didn’t want to risk having a grumpy Brute so.. I moved my hand off of Brat’s head and onto hers to give her some head rubs.

She was pleased for a good minute till they all froze realizing I was awake.

“Did.. did we wake you?” Brat asks.

“Nah.. I just kinda woke up and saw the situation.” I reassure them.

“Oh, alright then. That’s good.” Berserk says.

“Brat I’m a bit pissed that you were hogging these head rubs for so long.” Brute says.

“How did you get the head rubs the first time?” Berserk asks.

“Oh Buttercup did something when I was annoyed and I sat on her lap to punish her and she just did it. I don’t know why.” Brat explains.

“Buttercup?” Brute says bringing all the attention to me.

“I was.. kinda zoned out a bit. And I’m so used to the girls or Ken coming to me for comfort so I assumed she was one of them in my zoned out state and just did it naturally.” I inform.

“By the way, how come you’re talking and letting us touch you?” Berserk asks.

“Let’s just say given the situation I’m giving you some leeway.” I state.

“You are!?” They all practically cheer.

“Yeah. But you aren’t allowed to bathe w/ me anymore from now on.” I state.

“Aww…” Brat whines.

“Can’t we swap it w/ something else?” Berserk asks.

“No.” I turn down immediately.

I know I should be careful w/ my treatment of them now more than ever.

But I really want my private bath time back.

“Is there a way for us to earn back that shared bath?” Brute asked.

I honestly wasn’t expecting that.

“I guess.. on special occasions or when I deem it necessary I could.. allow it.” I relent.

Which they rejoiced at.

After that we spent the next month just hanging out.

Of course I couldn’t really act the same way I did before.

Which made them sad. But at the same time it pissed them off.

And they took those frustrations out on their captives.

They were also really clingy.

Like extremely clingy.

They wouldn’t leave me alone unless I was in the bathroom or I told them to give me a minute to myself.

And that’s just a bit of the roller coaster they went through.

To be honest I was kinda just in this weird in between phase of processing their behavior and trying not to get overwhelmed.

“Buttercup.” Brute calls out.

“Yeah?” I respond.

“We’re heading out. Apparently some idiots think we’re soft now since we haven’t given them a beating recently.” Brute says.

“What?” I ask.

“What the dumbass meant is that some gangs are allying together thinking something happened to us or something and now they’re trying to fight us. We’re heading out to put them back into their place.” Berserk explains.

“But I really don’t wanna go! I much rather stay here and cuddle you!” Brat whines.

“Stop being such a baby!” Brute yells smacking her upside the head.

“That was.. extreme.” I state.

“Maybe we have gone soft. Brat never would have turned down a chance to beat someone up.” Berserk says.

“Well yeah. I think we’re all hesitating a bit.” Brute agrees.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Brat asks.

“What do you mean?” Berserk asks.

“W/ Buttercup here we don’t need to beat those pests up anymore. We’re way happier staying home and cuddling her than doing anything else.” Brat explains.

“I guess we are.” Brute admits.!

“Simps…” I sigh.

“HEY!” They exclaimed.

“What?” I ask.

“What do you mean ‘What’?!” Brute yells.

“You just called us Simps!” Berserk adds.

“You telling me what you just said didn’t sound like something a simp would say?” I question.

“…” 

“Touché.” Brat relents.

“Whatever. We’re late. Come on lets go and beat the shit out of these bastards then we can come back and finish this talk.” Brute says.

“Fine, but I get first dibs on Buttercup when we get back!” Brat says rushing out.

“What?!” Berserk and Brute exclaimed.

They then rushed after her.

These girls are going to give me grey hairs before I reach 25.

“Buttercup!” A voice calls out and I jumped.

“Gah!?” I exclaimed and whipped my head around and saw.. Bubbles?!

“No time to explain!” Bubbles says and she grabbed me.

Next thing I knew she was yanking me through the window.

Turns out there was a portal there.

Except this one was paler.

No more accurately it was transparent.

“BUTTERCUP!” 

As soon as I was through the portal my family and well everyone grabbed me.

As I struggle to survive this group hug I managed to croak out something.

“H-how did.. you guys make.. the.. portal?” I ask.

“Oh crap we’re crushing her!” Blossom exclaimed.

Immediately they all let me go.

“Thanks…” I say taking a deep breath.

“Also to answer your question the Professor and Ken have been working non-stop and eventually Ken figured out how to make it.” Bubbles explains.

“Why is it transparent?” I asked.

“What do you mean Buttercup?” Ken asks.

“The punk’s portal was never transparent.” I state.

“Really?” The Professor asks.

“Yeah? To be honest if I was paying attention the first time they kidnapped me I would have noticed the portal and avoided it.” I inform.

“I wonder what affected the color?” The Professor says to himself.

“Hey Buttercup.. what’s w/ the hoodie and sweatpants?” Blossom asks.

“Oh…” I trail off and looked away from everyone.

“What happened?” My dad asks.

*Back W/ the punks.*

“Buttercup we’re back!” Brute calls out.

“We brought back Ramen.” Berserk adds.

“Babe?” Brat calls out when they still didn’t get any answer and the girl didn’t come out to see them.

“Is she asleep?” Brute asks.

“We did come back pretty late.” Berserk agrees.

The girls went to bed room and still didn’t find her.

They then started searching the entire place. 

Eventually the only room left was where the prisoners were.

“Hey bastards!” Brute yells bursting through the door.

“What?” The Conqueror asks.

“Where’s Buttercup?” Brat asks.

“How the hell are we supposed to-!” The Oppressor starts.

“Oh? You mean you don’t know?” Killer asks.

“What are you saying Killer?” Ms. Blood asks.

“Where the hell is she?!” Berserk demands moving to be in front of the boy.

“Earlier after you left some shrilled voice girl grabbed Buttercup. Judging by the scream of surprise she let out the girl took her by surprise.” Killer says.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell us this sooner?!” Brute demanded.

“Because you’ve been beating us so much that I was afraid that if I tried to get you to come here by yelling or making noise you’d just beat me and not let me talk.” Killer says w/ a sigh.

“Tch! You’re safe for now.” Brat declares.

“Let’s go!” Brute says already flying out the window.

As the girls searched the city thinking it was one of the thugs that they fought earlier that sent someone to their base to see what was keeping them home and keeping them from terrorizing the people one thought was in their minds.

‘WHICHEVER BASTARDS HAS BUTTERCUP ARE GOING TO PAY!’