Chapter Text
They say her hair is red. They say it burns like the billowing flames of a blazing fire, that it bursts like blood from a fresh wound.
Cheryl wouldn’t know. She’s never seen it.
As a matter of fact, neither can the rest of the Blossoms. Not a single one ever has. Cheryl finds it quite ironic, how the Blossoms' signature feature is something they have never seen.
And never will, her mother always hissed.
Cheryl pretended that the words didn’t sting, even after all this time. Pretended that she, like the rest of her family, remained unbothered by this depressing reality.
She didn’t.
The only thing that stung worse than the words was that, since the beginning of the Blossom’s family history, they were true.
Cheryl had never asked her parents whether they were soulmates. Even a blind man could tell that there was no love lost between them. Clifford and Penelope Blossom had married for purely business-related reasons, just as every Blossom before them had done. As Jason was expected to do. As Cheryl was expected to do.
The townspeople called it the Blossom curse. A local legend started decades ago, likely by teens, or perhaps even the Blossoms themselves. As punishment for centuries of cruel and inhumane deeds, not a single member of the Blossom family would ever find their soulmate, or would ever even have a soulmate.
It was thought of to be a punishment for the worst of the worst, something that only a family as truly evil as the Blossoms would ever have to suffer.
Cheryl agreed. Her family was rotten to the core.
For all of her intellect, her clear sense of logic and reason, Cheryl could not rid herself of the belief that the Blossom curse truly existed. She felt foolish even considering the notion that a curse, something present solely in the fantasy worlds found inside children’s books, could possibly exist, and yet she couldn’t help but believe it. Because why else would no one in her family know how to love? Why else would no one in her family ever felt even a shred of love towards another, for another, with another?
Jason didn’t believe in the curse. He was the only one who didn’t, or perhaps the only one who cared enough to say so. Though he’d never say so in front of his parents, who would be furious at the idea, he’d spent countless nights trying to convince Cheryl of its non-existence, insisting there were soulmates for both of them somewhere out in the world.
“We’re good people, you and I,” he’d always say. “We deserve to feel love, regardless of our ancestors’ mistakes. The universe knows that.”
But, as much as she wished she could, Cheryl had never believed his words. She could feel the heavy weight of the Blossom curse weighing down on her shoulders, a burden she’d been carrying and would be carrying for her entire life.
Why else wouldn’t Cheryl’s soulmate have come to sweep her off her feet and whisking her away from the haunted mansion of Thornhill, into a life of happiness and light and promises and love?
There just wasn’t any other explanation. So Cheryl resigned herself to the fact that the only kind of love she would ever know is brotherly. Love from her brother Jason, the only person on this earth that genuinely cared for her. And Cheryl was grateful for him, for his love, but it could never replicate the fireworks that one feels when kissing their better half. She’d never know that kind of love. Of this she was certain.
Until she wasn’t.
It was early July, and Cheryl was draped leisurely across a lounge chair at the edge of the manor’s pool reading a novel when Jason had come bounding up to her, a smile so wide it threatened to burst and a sparkle in his eyes that Cheryl had never seen in them before.
“Cheryl!” he gasped, coming to a stop in front of her, eyes widening as he took in the sight of her, causing her eyebrow to quirk up in question.
“What is it, dearest brother?” she inquired. He sat next to her, reaching out to catch a strand of Cheryl’s hair, staring at it in awe.
“Jason?” she pressed, setting down the book and pushing her sunglasses onto her head.
“I can see why everyone’s so obsessed with our hair. The color is beautiful.” He gazed at the strand for a second longer before dropping it, eyes meeting Cheryl’s with an expectant look.
She stared back at him uncomprehendingly, brows furrowed in confusion. “The color…” she said, trailing off as the impact of his words hit her full force. “You can… you can see them?”
He nodded excitedly. “All of them.” Cheryl gasps, her hand flying up to cover her mouth dramatically. “Jason...you…” she sputtered, rendered speechless for what must be the first time in her life. He leaned forward, gripping her hands in his. “I can see them.” She nodded, her head beginning to spin as a tidal wave of emotions overwhelmed her.
“Who is it?” she whispered faintly, and Jason’s smile dropped for the first time since arriving.
“It’s… it’s Polly. Polly Cooper. I know you’re not exactly her biggest fan, Cheryl, but I promise you, once you get to really know her you’re gonna love-” his voice cut off as Cheryl’s body collided with his, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m so happy for you,” she whispered as he squeezed her tightly.
“See, what did I tell you? The Blossom curse’s been bullshit all along.” He pulled back and grasped Cheryl’s shoulders, looking at her with pure happiness shining in his eyes. “You know what this means, don’t you? If there’s someone out there for me, there’s someone for you, too.”
Cheryl couldn’t help the tears running down her face, her voice wavering as she asked “You really think so?”
He nodded, not a shred of insincerity in his expression as he pulled her back in for another hug. “I do.”
She buried her face into his shoulder, overcome with emotion as she felt the weight of the curse she’d been carrying her whole life lift off her shoulders. As, for the first time, she allowed herself to feel hope.
But curses are a fickle thing. They can’t be broken or bypassed or hidden from.
Blossoms were never to have soulmates. That was the curse. No anomalies, no exceptions.
Perhaps that’s why Jason’s body had turned up on the banks of Sweetwater River just a week after his kiss with Polly Cooper, with the Blossom ring in his pocket and a bullet hole in his forehead. He’d tried to outrun fate and had made it farther than anyone else in the family who’d even dared to try, but fate had caught up with him in the end. Fate had had the last word. It always did.
And, unfortunately for Toni Topaz, Cheryl Blossom had already inexorably and unbudgingly accepted her fate by the time the Southside Serpents had shown up to Riverdale High.