Rain, Steel, and Thunder

… But being perfect is easy, once you get the hang of it. Carrying on after you fail? That’s the hard part.

This is a story about the first time Peridot fused. Well, this is a story about a lot of things happening to Peridot for the first time, but it's mostly about the fusion thing.
Things got messy afterwards. They - that is, Peridot and Lapis' fusion, which is sort of "they", right? - ran to Pearl for help, and Pearl found she might actually be the one who needs helping, and then everything kind of spiralled from there, but that's not important. Peridot and Lapis fused, and that's a good thing.
It is a good thing, right?

Notes:

This fic takes place across various points in the series.
This chapter begins around the middle of Season 4. And canon compliant at that! These two really were busy off screen.

Chapter 1: The Barn

Chapter Text

Lapis lay in her hammock, looking for things to think about.

She'd been told from the start that if she wanted to sleep she simply had to lay back somewhere comfortable, close her eyes, and think about nothing. Or some people thought about everything. And a few people had very specific things they thought about every night and went to the grave never telling anyone. But Steven seemed sheepish when she asked about that. And everything is a lot. So she took the only option she had and tried to think about nothing - or, she had been doing that, for about thirty minutes.

She was interrupted consistently by a high and twangy voice. It was tempered a little in tone by experience and a need to impress. Like some scraggly shut-in who'd been taken for a ride by the much more popular kids and was beginning to learn there was more to life than arguing about children's cartoons on internet forums.

Peridot's voice wasn't the issue though. Lapis had gotten used to it, even if it sounded a lot more annoying in the absence of the cute, round face speaking with it. It'd begun to make her feel... relaxed. Not that it helped with sleeping, oh absolutely not. But Peridot occasionally bursting out into some very excited ramble about her TV shows or whatever pieces of metal she was making into a robot - With her mind, Lapis. With her mind! - put her at ease even if it wiped away any progress she'd made on sleeping. The part that really bothered her was that Peridot had stopped some ten minutes ago.

That was it. There'd be no sleep tonight. Lapis sat up, her hammock rocking beneath her just as it'd finally gotten settled around her body, and she kicked her legs over the side, nearly tumbling out as she shook off that groggy feeling of near-sleep unfamiliar to Gems. Her foot crossed a beam of bright white moonlight - owing to the large hole blown in the ceiling by Peridot some days earlier that they hadn't gotten around to fixing yet. The air felt clear and wet.

The ground didn't "rush" beneath her, like she'd heard a few times when someone asked how it felt to fly, or when Steven was on her back and looking down. She always felt like the ground moved out of her way at a steady, polite pace, and like it was putting its foot in front of its other foot, it landmark-in-front-of-other-landmark walked Lapis where she wanted to be. As she swung around the silo and towards the outskirts of the farmland, the Earth brought her to the bright round spot of cool green on the hills overlooking the ocean. They'd had their disagreements, but Lapis couldn't deny that the Earth was an excellent guide.

Peridot heard her before she saw her - Lapis' water wings lashing against the air made a sound like hurricane wind against the tide - but by the time she'd turned Lapis had hit the ground, her wings shrinking away into nothing. She almost lost footing under the force of her landing - it was muddy! And the grass soaked her feet. But that wasn't nearly as bad as what she saw in front of her.

The triangular tip of Peridot's head drooped as a palm-thick droplet of water beaded at it, finally snapping off and splattering between her feet. A thin stream was still dripping down her chin line and across her shoulders. Her boots were splattered with mud and clumps of soaked grass. Somehow both sides of her knees had been dirtied. Her hands were upturned and visibly still dripping cupped bits of rain. All that was left of a downpour that had all drained out between her fingers. Lapis' eyes locked with Peridot's. She was smiling. Not that usual wide, occasionally manic smile she wore whenever she was showing off something new or trying to sell a joke she hoped people other than herself would find funny. It was a weighty and subdued smile that hardly bared her teeth as if they were shy to come out.

Lapis knew it when she saw it, mostly because she so rarely did; Peridot was happy. Truly happy.

"It was raining, Lapis." Peridot said in something that - for her - was tantamount to a whisper.

"... I can tell." Nodding, Lapis looked at the heavy black clouds hanging on the horizon and quickly slipping past it. "And you went out in it."

"I always do! It's just been really dry lately. So I've never gone out." Peridot balled her fists excitedly in front of her chest, stomping out of the boot-shaped hole she was slowly sinking into and shaking off water. "I love rain! It's one of the best things Earth has!"

Lapis stood straight again and crooked a brow down at Peridot, who was feeling very big despite barely being waist height. "And it doesn't bother you." It was ostensibly a question but was certainly a statement. Lapis was to questions as a knife is to a block of stone: if she didn't make them blunt, she tended to make them break.

Peridot suddenly felt her height. Or lack thereof. "Ooh. I um. I get if you don't... like that. Considering-" Ever since an incident involving a pool, Peridot had been very hesitant to pigeonhole Lapis as 'the water Gem'

The corners of Lapis' mouth pushed into her cheeks. "I'm not afraid of getting a little wet." Her tone brightened a little. "But I guess I don't love it as much as you do."

Peridot pressed her fingers together. "Well. In this case I may have been exposed to... a little bit more than the expected amount of rainfall." She defiantly pointed her finger to the sky. "But the cloud pouring down was travelling at an incredible velocity and would only be covering this cross section of land for a short time."

"And yet. You're wet."

Peridot's voice moved to her throat as it always did when she was exasperated. Lapis thought it made her sound a little like a frog being strangled.

"And you wanna dry off now?"

"Yessssss." The sopping wet, pyramid-haired frog said. "There's towels in the barn."

The blue skin of her sole had already been dyed an ugly shade of brown by just landing on the ground. Pressing it deeper and further back into the mud, Lapis decided she'd want as many towels for her feet and ankles as possible, and that meant she wanted to share as little as possible. Much less with someone who'd had the contents of the local water table dumped on her head. Lapis closed her eyes. The straps around her shoulders began to lift. They crackled with controlled, ambient power, and the energy in the air began to lick at the tips of her hair and make waves through her roots. She bowed her leg and flexed her fingers, all in one motion, baring her palm to the wind as it cut through it.

By the time she'd had the sense to widen her eyes, Peridot's body was wracked with shivers, legs spreading and elbows curling as she felt a great wave of being hit her. Like all of her (nonexistent) pores had opened and closed one after the next in a wave of microscopic motion. It took a little bit longer for her to realize she was totally dry. From the massive mop of her now straight hair to the rivulets curving down her cheeks. From the stains and spatters on her chest to the smallest nooks of her underarms. Between her fingers and under her visor. Not so much as a drop. Her mouth agape and eyes bouncing around the environment for direction, she settled on where she usually did when she was lost - Lapis. Lapis let out a breath like she'd just finished a stressful phone call and toyed with a whirling ball of water about the size of a model globe. She'd even put a few dirty water landmarks on it.

"What's... that?" Peridot asked, gormlessly.

"The water that you were soaked in about fifteen seconds ago." Lapis responded, thoughtlessly. She turned her palm and the water fell like a stone, splashing into the mud and sending globs of mud to restrain their ankles. "And there it goes." Her eyes narrowed. But she couldn't hide her smile. "Let's clean up - you have metal and I have water. I wonder if... any Gem can do mud?"

"Ah. Well! Mud is a mix of-"

"Towel isn't a gemstone, but it'll do. Let's go."

As she twisted around, Lapis' gem shone under the dim, off-blue ambient light of "very very early morning" or "very very late night", depending on who you asked. Peridot took a few steps after her before catching herself. Lapis noticed right away - Peridot did very little without punctuating it with a grunt, cry, and/or growl. Lapis turned to see, Peridot had taken off down the bumpy cliff shore and towards the low, rocky edges battered by the waves. Now what did she want her to see?

Expecting to see a triangular head peeking out from behind some pile of collected human tech, Lapis' face fell as she saw Peridot on her knees, firmly grasping the ridge. Lapis stopped by her, feeling the small rush of a sprint she hadn't realized she'd burst into, and held her head beside Peridot's. Her eyes traced Peri's, roaming to the foamy waves down below. To off-brown refuse she first mistook for moss. To the still shining green metal just beneath the rust. Lapis' lips parted but the words didn't come out.

"I want to make sure I'm right." Peridot said in a tone usually reserved for grouching; a tone she'd used less and less the longer she spent on Earth. "Could you..."

Lapis wordlessly turned over her palms and dug her fingers through the air. Balanced on a rushing spout of foam, the rustic green things below rose to them, stopping abruptly, carefully hovered right at the edge of the cliffs. Peridot snatched a football-sized piece as if she were reaching for a branch she worried would snap. It was tubular, with slight concave parts around its top giving it faces but not edges, up until it abruptly stopped and morphed into a perfectly flat, perfectly smooth gray. At first Lapis thought it'd been cut to pieces. But no cut could've been so clean, nor left such an industrial texture in what looked to be a fine, distinctly nonhuman alloy. Homeworld tech. And as Peridot picked them out one by one, it became obvious they were all part of one whole.

"I saw these!" Lapis' mind went to her brief time spent on Homeworld after she was first healed. Her mind went to lasers. To energy blasts that could knock over human buildings. To great ship-mounted beams that could leave craters like meteorites. And whatever these were, she saw these in the thousands in her brief time spent in Homeworld skies. "Are they dangerous?"

"They can be." Peridot said, uncharacteristically short and somber. "But that's not what they're for. They're called... limb enhancers."

The raised water crashed back down. A quiet gasp visibly rattling her body, Peridot searched among the pile of freshly beached limbs and picked up - what was now obviously - a forearm piece. A single finger was missing, but schematics burned permanently into Peridot's memory reminded her that standard arm enhancements were rated for use with as few as three and as many as eighteen fingers per hand. She traced her small, weak hand around the firm rubbery rim where her arm slotted in. She felt a compulsion to slide her wrist in. 'Just to see if it still worked', she told herself.

"You're an Era I gem. These were introduced... later. During the war." She held the arm in her lap, rolling it from one knee to another as if trying to see how much of its weight had rotted away. "Kindergartens operated with no restrictions; Gems were allowed to grow as much as required. Every Lapis could lift oceans. Every Peridot could bend metal."

"You can do that." Lapis added, as brightly as her moody voice was able.

"With my powers. They could do it with their bare hands " She squeezed the metal tightly, pinching her fingers across the metal until they slid off uselessly. A quartz would have left a mark. An Era 1 Peridot would have. Her eyes briefly drifted up to the massive statue carved into the hills on the horizon, and the small wooden cabin it cradled. "Even Pearls were strong enough for war - why wouldn't they be? They were made to be useful. There wasn't any reason to be..."

What was the word she had on her tongue? Utilitarian? Efficient? ...Unfair?

Raising her knees to her chest, Lapis' sat down in the rocky outcrop. She suppressed a smile; and she thought she managed to get back to the barn with only one of them being covered in mud. "Those are yours. Aren't they?"

"They were . I lost them... when I was captured by the Crystal Gems." It wasn't long ago at all - not even to a human, much less to a Gem, whom saw a typical human lifespan in the same way humans might see pet fish. But it seemed so far away from now. Come her first Thanksgiving, she'd stopped thinking about them entirely, her then-new powers over metal feeling as natural as the large, sleek limbs in her hands once had. "When I formed, the first thing I ever saw." She paused, swallowing deeply. "The first thing I ever saw... was an Era 1 Peridot. She was big. She had oversized hands with long, thin... touchstumps, she called them. She looked at me and ordered me to get my enhancers fitted. I had them my whole life. They made me look like her."

Lapis remembered Amethyst. They didn't talk much. They were very different, and unlike Peridot, they were different in the places that didn't matter, while being much too similar in the places that did. But she'd met many Amethyst s during the War - Era 1 Amethysts, she now knew to call them - and knew better than to comment on Amethyst's... differences. Up until now, she'd known better than to comment on Peridot's as well.

"And then you were trapped in a bathroom." Lapis commented, trying to drag Peridot back from hundreds of years ago and closer to now.

"I didn't have my powers then. I felt weak. I was... scared."

Her powers. Peridot let her knees drop into the mud and the large metal cylinder roll out onto the stone and grass, seeming to roll up the hill, off the side, and right into the air. It spun slowly before them, soon joined by the rest of the parts, one of the feet conspicuously absent. Peridot twirled her fingers lazily as she lifted them with her mind - she'd gotten past the point of needing to move her limbs for all but the heaviest of metals. But she wanted to be especially careful with these.

"I still do feel weak. I still am scared."

Lapis stirred. Immediately her eyes were wide and her back was straight, hair splitting at its ends in the way a Gem's light body does when its shaken. "What do you mean?" She blurted out, all pretense of her cool, reserved self dropped in a way she usually reserved for words like "Homeworld" and "Diamond."

"You! I mean. You." Peridot snapped back, eyes flickering to the spinning limbs as one nearly dropped from its orbit. "You're so... strong."

"What? I'm not..." Lapis crossed her fist over her chest. She'd never thought of herself as strong - all that built up power she'd had when she first released from the mirror was spent in her misguided attempt to escape, and a typical Lapis was no more a warrior than a pickaxe was a weapon. Perhaps useful in a fight, but flawed, and clearly not made for them. Peridot knew that. It had been her job as a Kindergartener to know that.

"Yes! You are ." Peridot half yelled, apparently offended she could think anything else. "You're a water Gem - on a water planet! You can smash holes in the hulls of Human ships, throw...throw primitive Earth vehicles. You can fly!"

Peridot fell of kilter as she spoke those last words - Lapis' hair frayed, stance froze. She'd said something wrong - something Lapis had heard before and didn't want to hear again. But Lapis was determined not to shrink away or snap back. She was past that point now - just as much as she was past people coveting her power and trying to win her to their side, or else, trying to shatter her for them.

"I can do a lot of damage, but so can most of the Crystal Gems." She hesitated, wondering if she was ready to add 'any of the other Crystal Gems.' She pushed forward. "And they don't need to be by the ocean to do it. If I'm anywhere else, all I can do is... fly away."

"The Crystal Gems. They have each other. At their sides. All the time. You only have me. If... if something did happen. If someone came here right now." She choked for a moment. Now wasn't the time to cry; in none of the times she'd practiced this conversation to the junk behind the barn did she cry. She shouldn't cry just because it's something as small as... actually being real. "I wouldn't be able to... keep you safe."

"You mean like Jasper did?"

A very cold kind of wind - wet and penetrating, like it iced the inside of the skin rather than the outside - blew between the two. Peridot crooked her head up as her body shrunk away from it, highlighting the bulge in her throat as she swallowed. She very deliberately brought her hands and locked their straight fingers together, the rest of her body paralyzed. Jasper was not a topic either of them liked to discuss - Peridot had been one of the few who'd seen her become corrupted, and though they were commander and subordinate at the best of times, she was still mortified that they'd once been associated. Did Lapis care? Did she see her as some well-intentioned accomplice who was only a few different twists of fate from staying on Jasper's side? Did she see some weak, traitorous minion who couldn't do harm even if she wanted to? Did she even put her and Jasper together in the same thoughts?

The clouds above had thickened. It was going to rain again. It was going to be bad.

"Not just her. She's in... a bubble now." Her back straightened. "But yes. Like Jasper." There wasn't a right answer to the question, but there were wrong ones, and that was probably one.

Lapis' hair blew in the wind. A spec of water splattered across her fringe. She did not flinch. "How many times have you thought about this?"

Standing up, Peridot approached the now still set of limb enhancers, pulling one down towards her foot like one would a boot. "Oh. Well. Every night. Since you came back from your boat trip and-"

"Six months?" Lapis replied, her tone stone-dead and her eyes half lidded. She took a deep breath that made Peridot want to unspeak every word she'd said and go back to the moment where she was about to be picked up and flown back to the barn.

"I don't need to be saved. When Jasper came, I fought her off. I chose to. You're right. I am strong." Lapis struck her fist through the air, chin raised and chest thrust out, the hem of her dress beginning to blow in the swelling winds. Her voice raised over it.

"Stronger than any of the Crystal Gems, and Jasper, and you. I don't need anybody to be strong for me. I don't need to be protected. I don't even know if I need anybody anymore - not any of the Crystal Gems, not Jasper. Not you."

Peridot nearly threw herself onto the ground as Lapis approached, instead dropping one of the limbs she'd taken and letting the rest clatter to the ground with it, her powers completely disappating as Lapis thrust a single hand onto her shoulder. Lapis looked at her with a tilted head and a slight, raised brow - the sort of thing that meant the world from Lapis.

"That's what I need. What I want-" She began, pushing back her hips and bending over to better meet Peridot's eyes. "-Is for you to be around. And the Crystal Gems." 'And not Jasper', but she was proud that she decided that so long ago she didn't have to say. Not even to herself. "Phew. Don't be strong for me. I don't know. Be you. I guess it's worked so far, right?"

"Worked so far." Peridot echoed, looking up at Lapis with sparkling eyes. "Yeah. Oh - please don't let go of me." Lapis was taken aback by the bluntness of it, but Peridot quickly followed up. "I mean. I'm currently-" Lapis realized Peridot had apparently grown about fifteen inches or so. She was balancing - one foot dangling uselessly in the air - on one foot which had been slotted into one of her leg enhancers. "The other foot is... still being stored in the Barn."

Lapis smiled, furrowing her brow and standing back to her full height. "I told you you didn't need them."

"I don't need them. But I, uh, want them. Eheh." Peridot smiled, the edges of her mouth curling. Lapis sold the line better. She outstretched one arm. As if it'd been patiently waiting, one of her arm enhancers flew to her side, sliding up the length of her forearm. She squeezed her floating fingers experimentally. "I was... worried. For a while. That I thought I may need them." She waved one of her hands, not daring to wave the other lest the added weight make herself smack her head. "But what do I need these for when I have you!"

"Hey. Don't get too comfortable. I might just - oowooh"

Lapis began, but was sent practically tripping over herself as Peridot took her by the hand. Peridot blushed; she'd forgotten just how strong these made her feel. But. It wasn't the real thing. Not real strength. Even as she effortlessly caught Lapis' body in the still-floating arm, sliding her remaining free hand into it like she was fitting her hand in a glove, she knew she could get the same results with any piece of metal she had lying around in the barn. She'd been practicing flying with trash can lids and sheet metal; her limb enhancers could never do that. The more she thought, the less useful they seemed. And they came at a cost. It... felt silly to think about. But she couldn't feel Lapis' warmth.

Even as Lapis stood back up and dusted herself off, the first hints of rain beginning to beat on her dress, Peridot held Lapis' hand between her floating fingers. It was so strange to be so nearly eye-level with her. So odd to hold her hand and not feel like she was grabbing at the wrist of an oversized, willowy statue. Did she... like this? Lapis was eager to head back - though she could apparently dry anyone, any time, she wasn't so eager to play with her powers, and would sooner just beat the rain. But Peridot? Peridot wanted to experiment. Just a little.

Lapis was stopped in her tracks as the bulky volume of Peridot's metal arms wrapped around her shoulders, crossing together around her dark blue top and taking both of her hands in theirs. She hardly had time for a questioning noise to escape her before she was suddenly unwound like a top, swept off her feet for the second time and left to spin on one shaky foot. She told Peridot to stop many times, but it was hard to take seriously through the giggling. Peridot in turn cried about it was futile! and how she'd use her incredible new power! to crush the Crystal Gems and reclaim her foot; once and for all!

Peridot swore she'd learned these moves from somewhere; she'd hardly been to many dances. Was it one of Steven's tapes? No. Camp Pining Hearts’ bizarre prom episode was one of the most poorly regarded. Was it a human dance? Wasn't she taught it once? Suddenly, the thoughts scattered. The mud beneath Lapis' single foot finally gave, and suddenly, a playful spin quickly turned into a real fall. Peridot held on tight. She didn't know if she ever wanted to let go. Lapis' body stopped, feet finding purchase in the mud as she finally spilled out to the full length of her arm. Last time Peridot did this she let go. She let go and stumbled off and didn't know what to do with herself. She was scared. Scared of what? When was it? Why? What should she do now? What was the answer?

"Oh, hold on - I've got you!"

Peridot did what felt right. She grabbed Lapis by the waist, pulled her close, and held on tight.

Beach City News is slow. For one thing, its local newspaper died out some ten years ago, and not entirely because of the internet. Secondly, because though many strange things do indeed happen, the residents have never known normalcy, and have a quiet agreement with the local alien population of approximately five and a half that they keep it underground if possible. Thirdly, the town's small enough that it's relegated to the seventh page of a county newspaper, snuggled between stock market reports and ads for vitality supplements. But very quickly did the word spread - even to such heights as the third page of the county newspaper - that in the very very early morning, or very very late night, at the docks on the edge of Beach City, many sailors both local and incoming reported light coming from the ridges on the town outskirts. This light came as a massive shaft, splitting the forming rain clouds and expanding at its base like a sphere. It persisted for only a few moments, but seemed to bathe everything within miles. The colors were green and blue, initially separated into criss-crossing helixes. Just as the light began to fade, the two began to blend, and the hue seemed to fuse together.

No source was identified, and the news was soon forgotten, replaced by reports of thunder, lightning, and heavy rain storms.

Chapter 2: The Crash Site

Notes:

Imagine accidentally opening a shipfic with an entirely action focused chapter.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

As she looked away from the storm, a hot rush of steam wafted against Amethyst's cheek. She took a sip of hot cocoa - which, the way she made it, was more akin to a hot blend of everything in the fridge - and before she'd even had time to glance back, the room turned pale white as a crack of lightning rocked the sky.

Cheek flattened against the glass as if hoping to see the lightning lazing around in the air, she slid down the pane in frustration. Missed it again. It came to her mind to look over her shoulder and up to Steven's bed - Pearl had been very carefully making it for the past several minutes, ensuring not a spec of the rain still remained on his sheets. Oh the way she'd looked when she dashed out of the temple door to grab the washing. On the statue's arm, her quick feet met their greatest opponent since Garnet's future vision - a wayward star-print shirt smacking her in the face, drenching her with muddy water and almost knocking her down.

"Y'know, the sheets aren' hidin' any water, 'P. You don't have to keep foldin' um like you're gonna find something." Amethyst reasoned, in the way one might try and reason with a cat who was - yet again - knocking things off the table. Nothing was going to change, but telling her off felt right.
"I have a process." Pearl assured, like the same cat batting its tail before leaping away. "Steven will be home tonight and I want everything to be clean before it... gets dirty again." She sounded wistful, her mood sharp as ever but noticeably warmer now that she wasn't snatching wayward underwear at sixty feet above beach level. "You just keep watching. You don't want to miss it again, do you?"

The house shook more violently than ever. It didn't feel like lightning. The wooden foundations rattled like a small earthquake was gripping Beach City. This storm was getting worse; silently, Pearl hoped Steven would be able to make it come the evening. Hoped that the weather didn't do its work on some of the very fragile wire-based electrical infrastructure humans for some reason constructed of rubber and dead trees, leaving the roads to close and Steven to stay another night with Connie. But there was only so worth in worrying.

"Did you catch that one?" Pearl asked as she made the final fold in Steven's thirteenth set of star T's.

Amethyst didn't respond. That was worth worrying about. Pearl flapped the shirt against the bed sheets and began down the stairs; that wasn't lightning, she thought. Amethyst's eyes were glued to the beach, one hand pressed to the window. Pearl slid to a stop beside her only to see the rising cloud of sandy dust that'd been kicked high into the air, whipped across the beach by wind and beaten into the earth by rain. What had once been a layer of muddy sand was now a shining, petite impact crater. As if a meteor the width of a beach ball had smashed into the earth and skidded from the edge of the tide to the cusp of the boardwalk, carving a trench big enough to trip into. Something glittered in the very center of the trail - glassed sand.

Pearl was wrong. Lightning had struck. And it had brought something with it.

By the time the door had blown shut behind them, Amethyst had barrelled down the steps and onto the loam of the beach, Pearl vaulting the fence and landing only a few steps behind. In the frantic rush neither of them had even thought to prepare - though without knowing what was ahead they hardly could - and Amethyst was already pressing her fingers to her Gem. She prepared to draw her weapon the moment she crested the rocks and saw something - anything - rising from the crater.

"Where's Garnet?" Amethyst quickly thought, having half a mind to send Pearl doubling back to grab her from the burning room.
"Out on a mission." Pearl responded, leaping above the rocky outcropping and getting a better vantage point over the beach.
"Ah! We still do those?" Amethyst balked. "Guess we'll handle it ourselves. Think we need to check our damage?" She asked, more on Steven's behalf than her own will.

Pearl shook her head down from her perch. No one was awake at this hour - and certainly they weren't out in this weather - and that made things much easier. She'd hate to deliver the news that Homeworld had sent a pod of Pyrope and it'd caused a local political meltdown after the local politician was melted down. And this was Homeworld's doing, no doubt in her mind. Jasper had been bubbled weeks before, and she'd begun to suspect leaving all those Rubies floating in space drew too much attention.

"What do you think it is this time? Another squad?" Amethyst asked, looking over her shoulder as Pearl dropped down beside her, spear clutched in both hands.
"I don't... No. No. It's too small. The ruby ship was massive." Pearl responded, inching towards the smoldering trench as it began to fill with sea water. "This trench is barely larger than us."
"Two on one, huh?" Amethyst chuckled softly. Pearl tried to hide her expression. She knew there were things out there far more troublesome than just a Jasper, no matter how exceptional a Jasper she was, and knew she'd much rather face another half a dozen Rubies than either. If Homeworld thought it was only necessary to send one of whatever Gem they faced, their number advantage might have been their only one.

"Oi'hwee... Ow."

Pearl made a high choking noise and Amethyst hunched her shoulders as something groaned inside the pit. The trails of dust rising out finally faded, replaced by the thick mist of icy rain meeting sizzling heat. A figure rose from the spiralling lumps of sand that crusted the edge of the crater, her back straight and body lurching forward as if she'd just risen from a tomb. Her neck stretched far from her body, slender hands rubbing at her nape, highlighting just how long and willowy her limbs were. Or at least they seemed to be; billowing drapes of rayon wrapped her biceps, brittly folding over one another towards a deeply plunging collar. It glistened in the faint light, the rain seeming to bounce off it like the canopy of an umbrella. In the glow, her skin was celadon, the typical spotless, impossibly perfect texture - or lack of texture - characteristic of Gems marked by dots of harsher greens or deeper blues. A massive, rigid block of diamond-shaped hair was stuffed into a mortarboard so oversized it was closer to a witch's hat.

"You know what we're up against, 'P?" Amethyst whispered quietly, making Pearl pry her eyes from the figure for the first time out of raw surprise; Amethyst was not the kind to ask for strategy, let alone for help. It was so strange.
"Well... no." She said bluntly, unable to dress up the fact in a way that looked less flat-footed. "This is new... that is, ah, we should be careful."
"Amethyeest. Syou are Amethyeest, right?"

The figure in the pit spoke with a voice airy, strong, and measured, as if it was holding back a torrent of energy in its throat, ready to burst out if she allowed herself to speak a moment too long. The words made the ends of Amethyst's hair fray - to every Gem she didn't know, she'd been The Amethyst, An Amethyst, or less kind words. She stretched her whip between her wrists, its elastic texture stretching with satisfying tension, and lashed it against the ground.

"The one and only." Amethyst snapped back, staring daggers at the figure's slanted, narrow eyes that seemed to hide behind her high cheeks. The figure's chin was upturned and sharp, giving her whole face a mysterious, exotic flair if, indeed, any Gem could be described as more exotic than any other. But more than that; she looked like she thought she was superior. And if her plan was to set Amethyst off, it worked.

Her whip cut a clean, several inch mark into the sand as its body struck it, audible crack breaking through the sound of falling rain as its tip raced to the figure's wrist. The weapon dug into her skin, crashing her raised arm into the beach, her other arm coming to snap the length. Her eyes only flickered to the ground for a moment, but that was more than enough time for Amethyst to have a second weapon drawn and ready, and just enough for the mysterious gem to look up and see the three spiked balls mid-whip crack plunging towards her face. The air rushed in the inches between their glistening tips and her blue-green skin; they'd stopped.

Amethyst tugged fruitlessly at the grip of her whip, loudly and obviously confused as it stayed defiantly in place. Never one to learn from a good mistake, Amethyst dropped the whip and left it to disintegrate outside of her grip. She only needed one, moving both hands to wrap it around her arms and nodding knowingly to Pearl. The figure's eyes narrowed, lurching over on one shoulder and spreading her fingers apart. To their command, the spiked balls about her forearm untangled and lifted away, only to fly right back at their owner. Whatever plans Pearl and her had silently agreed on fell apart as - with a single powerful yank - Amethyst lurched off the ground and forward towards the enemy. The binding she'd intended to keep her grip steady acted like a self-made strait jacket with the weights forming a neat little bow behind her back - It was an excellent knot, Pearl briefly thought, before scolding herself.

The figure stood up. That was very worrying for multiple reasons; most obviously, she had been sitting the entire "fight", and was somehow, already winning. More immediately concerning to Amethyst was that - as she flew towards her - her height suddenly doubled and the idea of tackling her to the ground seemed much less practical. She was gigantic. Her dress stretched all the way to her feet and then some, a shade of blue so rich and dark it almost looked black, folding and wrinkling in the wind. Well. Here went nothing. Just as she finally got within reach of the massive Gem, Amethyst's whip suddenly vanished into a mess of purple stars, limbs suddenly free as she flew towards her opponent. Now that got her; whatever force she was moving Amethyst around with suddenly vanished, and with her arms struck out at her sides beckoning forth a weapon that was no longer real, she was helpless.

There was Amethyst, looking very proud of herself. Then suddenly confused. Surprised. She almost had time to move onto panicked, but the two gigantic extra arms that lurched out of the pooling ocean water at their feet and directly into her stomach made her move directly into nauseated. The two hands held her by the waist as their master's slammed down upon her shoulders, sending her down into the earth as Pearl chased behind. The Gem bared down on her, the car-sized weight of her body pinning them down and bringing into focus the triangular, green Gem glistening on her forehead. Amethyst didn't even know they had Gems this big - she must've been as big as Opal! And... wait.

"Amethyst-" The Gem began, her eyes widening to a size neither of them even knew they could before shrinking back down to thin, menacing slits. A band of glass held in a thin white frame sat over her eyebrows and shifted as her extremely animated face moved from expression to expression.
"Amethyst!" Pearl cut her off, weighing the odds of attacking from a distance and risk hurting Amethyst, or getting up close and leaving her in the clutches of whatever monster she was facing.
"Hey! Uh. Wait a second!" Amethyst called back, struggling to bury her head in the gap between her shoulder and neck. If she could just.... see over her back.

Pearl had made her decision. Leaping high into the air, in usual pirouetting, graceful fashion, she bore her Spear carefully between her hands and prepared to land right between the Gem's shoulder blades. She'd spin about, thrust her spear into her nape, and that'd be it. She'd stop right on her back and... her... back... wait. In the very slow way someone does when they've done something very, very terrible that will be having an effect on them very, very shortly, Pearl noticed a faint blue glint on the Gem's dress. Was that...

Pearl crashed into the beach, quickly rising to her feet and brushing clumpy, rain-soaked sand from her cheek. Amethyst was standing - she was able to ascertain, once the world had come into focus and decided to stay still - before the Gem, brushing her arm and looking flushed.

"Soooo? How's it feel?" Amethyst asked. Pearl was able to make that much out, but had no such luck with the response.
"Yeah. I've heard that before - don't worry, you know? It's normal."
"Amethyst!" Pearl finally called as she ran towards the two, her spear having bounced from her grasp earlier but her hands burning, ready to draw another at a moment's notice.
She didn't get a response. The Gem Amethyst was talking to did. "I've done this before... Lapidot? Aw, that's a money name! But kinda doesn't work for Gems. Someone should use that though." Amethyst scratched at her cheek. "... Oh! You're a Fusion! You're like, formed knowing this stuff. You feelin' anything yet? A name?"

Pearl - defeated, in mind if not yet in body - slowed to a stop beside the two, feeling more than a little awkward as the long-legged giantess of a Gem beside her sat with her feet tucked under her thighs and fingers politely weaved before her chest. It was far from the first time a long friendship had started from the edge of her spear - Garnet had practically been born on it - but the fact she didn't even recognize this one made it feel worse somehow. As Amethyst turned to Pearl - her arm outstretched as if she was introducing a close friend - her expression seemed almost giddy. Like she'd learned a dirty secret that ruined someone's immaculate image. Slowly as she got a better view of the Gem, Pearl began to worry the Garnet comparison was all too accurate.

"Oh. Hello, Pearl - I apollo-jice for scee confushun." She pressed one of her hands to her throat. And another one. Though she only had the typical number of arms which each had one hand in the typical place, an entire second hand sprouted from the wrist, as if she was formed purpose-built for shadow puppets or to quickly flip through the pages of a book. "Ah. I mean. I'm sorry - I need help." She said frankly, seeming to get the hang of her subtle French voice as if she was used to speaking with another.

"This is... Vesuvianite !" Amethyst said, slapping Vesuvianite's knee in her best attempt to mimic pulling her into a hug by the shoulder.
Pearl stared very intently at the ground. "So this would be Lapis and..."
"Péridot." Vesuvianite added brightly. She unwound her hands from her body and the subtlest bit of lightning seemed to crackle between their tips. "Sorry for the storm - I'm, ah, ztill getting acquainted with... myself. I déd not mean to make it so severe - I can't turn it oof."

Garnet was going to be very excited.

Notes:

It's said Vesuvianite is a gem of inspiration and renewal. It's a gemstone of energy and excitement, opening new and exciting paths forward and allowing those empowered by it to face new experiences with aplomb. At the same time, it's used to fight negative thoughts and vicious cycles, allowing people who've been hurt to let their guard down and try to escape their comfort zone.

Chapter 3: The Beach

Summary:

Vesuvianite gets stuck in a door frame. Hijinks ensue.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Though no sane person would be out in this weather - and as was stress tested on a weekly basis, Beach City residents were generally sane - anyone who came to the Beach that morning would be met with a very strange pattern of feet. A set that was large and round, almost fat, to the left a set that was slender and dainty but far too big, and to the right a set that were perfectly normal but seemed to constantly break into looping in on itself hysterically.

"Doesn't matter how long you go in a circle, 'P. You won't get out." Amethyst was met with a dismissive stare.

The rain had not yet cleared up - if anything it seemed to have grown even heavier - and water was practically pooling between Pearl's crossed arms. Amethyst sat cross-legged beside her, comfortable and very damp on the rocky outcropping near the house. But of course neither of them had their eyes on one another. The only suggestion they got of the other was the sound of their voices; faint muttering from Pearl, and excited giggling, whooping, cheering from Amethyst. Their eyes were on Vesuvianite.

Vesuvianite was rising to the rain like a lizard on a tanning rock. Arms crossed behind her back and form straight, her dark blue dress glistened in the light but didn't seem to soak. The rain simply touched her and politely bounced away; it must've liked her.

"So. Like. What's... up with that outfit?"

Maybe that seemed strange to a human; of all the things Amethyst could've asked what amounted to an all new life about, fashion? But to a Gem, their entire form was more comparable to an ostentatious tattoo than a genetic body plan ("defects" not withstanding). And ostentatious Vesuvianite was; fully formed with clothes, a unified color scheme, and hardly any mismatched spots. Pearl remembered how long it took for Opal to form clothing, her bare form causing much confusion to the primitive Human civilizations watching her arrow penetrate through the heart of mountain-sized beasts. That had started a few religions.

"I believe it's what humans wear when they reach maturity." Pearl - not Vesuvianite - answered as she pressed the side of her finger to her lip. "Some sort of ritual involving tossing hats."
"Mature? Think she's a little more than 'mature', 'P!" Amethyst excitedly hopped off her rock, running over to Vesuvianite and practically climbing onto her folded legs. Even sitting down, Vesuvianite's shoulders were about eye-height with Amethyst. "You've gotten so huge! I mean. Yeah, all fusions sorta do that, but like, Peridot! Bet she'll be psyched to say she wuz' lookin' down at me."
"Oh. Hoowellll." Vesuvianite sheepishly responded, a faint, yellow blush crossing over her. Blush, yes, but she didn't even think of shrinking away. She smiled proudly as words she never remembered saying but absolutely remembered knowing crossed her mind.

"How do you feel?"
"Big."

Pearl eyed her subtly. She certainly did like to smile. And to scowl. And to purse, and to gasp, let her eyes wander and wonder and express every little thing, wrinkling and furrowing and flowing. As fluently as Amethyst shaped her body, Vesuvianite seemed to shape her expression, and almost took as much pleasure in doing it. Pearl added that to the short but rapidly expanding list of things she knew about this new being - keeping notes in a slightly dehumanizing way that would've raised eyebrows were she to speak them aloud. Pearl had always taken the most analytical and dare she say critical angle of Fusion; Amethyst fused in the same way she did everything in life*, Garnet was far too involved to take an outside perspective, Steven was coming along well but much too inexperienced, and if he became anything like his Mother, he'd see it as just another game to play. With her. Sometimes. She shook her head.

* Going with the flow until the flow washed her onto shore and left her beached

"I suppose you came here for Garnet's help?" Pearl finally asked. "Well. She's not here. And I'm not sure when she'll be back."
"Oh. No." Vesuvianite responded with enough pause to say the thought hadn't even crossed her mind. "I came here for Amethyst. And Steven." Vesuvianite let the words hang in the air. "Oh. And you're going to be hyelpful too, I'm sure of eet, Pearl." She added in a way that took Pearl back to many a frustrating exchange had over the drill late into its development.
"Aha. Yes. Well!" She clapped her hands together and moved swiftly on. "I suppose we can add 'Sardonic' to the list of things we know about you, Vesuvianite! Now let's continue expanding it, shall we?"
"Uh. Pearl?" Amethyst began, having bored of circling around Vesuvianite and instead settling into a wet pile beside her. "Sardonic is you and Garnet. This is Lapis and Peridot."

Pearl seemed to want to murder Amethyst.

"As I was saying." She continued. "As neither Steven nor Garnet is here at the moment - and who knows when they'll be back - we ought to find something to do in the meantime." She knitted her fingers together and broke eye contact. "I will admit, I have never... ah. Guided. A new fusion before. That's no reason we can't make progress ourselves. I-I mean, who needs Garnet, right? We've all fused."
"Wait here?" Amethyst groaned just in time to be audible before her face planted into her crossed arms. "And we haven't all fused until just now!"
"Well. I've fused many times - many many times." She seemed rather proud. "You fuse often. And Lapis has... ahm. Hm." Pearl shrunk a little.

Vesuvianite felt a twang in her heart she'd never felt before. Indeed, fusions had the full library of thoughts and emotions of their composite parts - sans a few very well guarded, very deeply nested secrets usually only found in the wisest of Sapphires and the most well-indoctrinated of Pearls. But to have a library was not to have read every book within it, and any new fusion was always in a race to keep up with the maelstrom of simply being. Not being fused. Simply being at all. Vesuvianite had first known surprise. Then she'd known confusion. Embarrassment. Excitement. The feeling of weightlessness as clouds break against your body (A feeling she'd known in minutes which most beings did not know in their lifetimes). She'd learned panic as her wings disintegrated. She'd learned pain, and - once she'd climbed out of the crater - she'd learned to fight. But this emotion Vesuvianite felt now wasn't contained within the basic set of sensations she knew to look for. This emotion was deeper. Stronger. Smarter. More cunning and malicious, the sign of an educated creature that could feel more than "Hunt, Kill, Hide, Run, Beg"

The image of something green and blue swirled in Vesuvianite's mind. A hue not unlike her own - richer, darker, greener - forming a great twister on the ocean. The image of something gigantic, beastly, and hunched emerged from the water, the sea spout spiraling onto its back and forming arms, wings, hands, eyes. A great bush of hair the color of cotton and the texture of broken glass waived wildly on the beast's scalp. It reached out to Vesuvianite. It was going to take something from her. Horrible hands she couldn't help but call... beautiful. There was simply no other term for it. They reached down and plucked at something tiny, slender, and weak, and all at once snatched it into the air and in one great gnashing motion crunched its torso between its sharp teeth. It was Vesuvianite; they'd taken Vesuvianite from Vesuvianite. Crushed it. Nothing left but the beast and what remained of the body of Vesuvianite. no. Vesuvianite was herself. She couldn't be taken; then what had been? Peridot taken from Home? No. Amethyst taken from Peridot? Closer. Steven taken from Peridot? Closer. Closer...

We're Malachite now.

"-Eridot as well. You're right. Oh! That tide is getting dangerous." Pearl commented, eager to change the subject. The tide had practically rolled up the hill upon which the house was built. Vesuvianite hid her hands behind her and hoped no one noticed the water immediately recede.
"I'm waterproof." Vesuvianite's eyes - both sets, one so slim and round that Amethyst had initially mistook them for off-color penciled in eyebrows - hung half-lidded. "You are not. We'll go inside."

"Oh no." Pearl scowled. She flipped the lightswitch rapidly under her fingers. "Don't tell me. The storm must've damaged the human's electrical grid!"
"Maybe it's just the bulbs. We've had 'em in for years." Amethyst wandered past towards the fridge door, peeking in. Greg didn't trust her with a box of lightbulbs enough to let her screw them in. "... Nope. Lights out in here too."
"Oh! Steven's ice cream bars."
"Cookie Cat?" Amethyst echoed. "Didn't they stop making those? We like, stole, all of them?"
"Only a truck's worth and I paid." Pearl clarified, stomping past Amethyst with a defiantly raised finger. "Steven's been saving one for his eighteenth birthday; it's a very important tradition to humans! He'll be miserable if it melts." Pearl went to the fridge, looking under it as if hoping to find some switch that'd magically flip the whole grid back on.

Amethyst sat on the counter and kicked her feet, her eyes having long since adjusted to the dark. The human concept of "visibility" was a bit alien to beings constructed of light, their whole body soaking in it like a solar panel soaks in sun. She thought carefully; the idea of Steven saving something for years only to have it melt made her feel guilty about every time she'd snuck a Cookie Cat from his stash and hoped he wouldn't notice.

Amethyst was interrupted by a subtle bang at the front of the house, like something large and smooth pressing itself against it. "... Yo. Vesuvianite?" She called. "You can come in."

Everything above Vesuvianite's shoulders had managed their way in - including the hair and mortarboard that made up about half the size of her head - but the bulk of her torso was a tight fit. Evidently few parts of her were used to being too tall or wide to fit somewhere. That was fine - she'd make her way in eventually. What wasn't was that every time she slammed her hips into the frame the entire house rocked and the thin wooden frame threatened to rip out and follow her in. This was something Amethyst knew would happen from experience.

"Vesuvianite!" Pearl called, in the way you might call to a child to stop climbing up a tree. "You might have to shapeshift in!"
Vesuvianite paused, her many eyes all falling to Pearl, before looking to her hands as she once again began trying to fit through. Amethyst's lips parted but she wasn't immediately sure what to say. Would Peridot be okay with it if she...?
"N-No! Shapeshift. Do you understand? I know it can be hard, I- Ooh. Oh no the plaster!" Pearl sputtered as she felt Amethyst's hand on her shoulder. Amethyst looked at her thoughtfully, and immediately, she knew to be quiet. "What's wrong?"
"You were gonna find out somehow." She said in a half-whisper as her eyes roamed from Pearl to Vesuvianite. "Peridot... can't shapeshift. Like. At all. I guess her fusions can't either."
Pearl stood silently for a while. "Is she simply-" She started, not knowing where she was going to end. Inexperienced? Unskilled? Afraid?
"It's because she's 'Era 2' or something. She just can't."

It was obvious Peridot wouldn't like that being shared. Even to her closest friends - the friends she'd saved the world with - she had to be cornered in order to admit it. Who was to say how long that would've lasted if that really was all she could do - if she really was useless without her screens? Pearl's eyes moved to the ground for a moment, her stance straight and stiff, usually a sign she was about to admit something she was afraid to even acknowledge; "We've always been fighting Gems", "I just wanted to share a few more victories with you", "I'm just a Pearl."

"Vesuvianite." Pearl said as gently as she could. The fusion looked up at her as she stood before the door, bottom set of eyes wide, squishing the top set thin. "The easiest way to get you in here would be to have you split apart, and then fuse again." The thought made Vesuvianite's eyes drop, hair gaining a bit of the spindly, wet quality Lapis' always had. Pearl gingerly rested her hand on the dark folds covering her shoulder. "But I know you don't want to. I've got an idea that'll let you stay together. But you'll need to stand in the rain for a little while, alright?"
Wordlessly, Vesuvianite nodded and slid out the door.

Pearl was met with a cross-legged Amethyst, resting her weight on her hands as she let her head drop. Their eyes met as if daring her to show whatever this genius idea she had was. She moved forward wordlessly, carefully shifting a stool that had been slightly out of place. Swiping the dust from its top, she decided she quite liked this stool, and instead chose the one beside it. This one had an irritating pattern in its wood finish Steven always insisted looked like her; she thought it looked like a dead bird, and wouldn't be sad over what was about to happen to it.

Vesuvianite sat diligently, head tilted back and eyes wandering to the rain. She almost missed it when the window was smashed open from the inside. The glass was left to slide across the log floor for a moment before yet another pane was taken out, and another, this time having a stool not just smashed into but tossed through it at enough speed it smashed to bits against the railing. Hysterical giggling distinctive of Amethyst came from inside, but she'd never laugh that hard at something she did. Instead, Pearl's head peeked out, carefully clearing away shards from the remainder of the frame.

"Get in." She said harshly with a tone that reminded some parts deep inside of Vesuvianite that yes, indeed, this was the same Pearl who'd caused such a stir on Homeworld all those millennia ago. "Oh. And mind the shards; I'll clean those in a moment."

Notes:

The work continues, at break neck - err, break window pace!
In truth, I don't believe I've ever written so much so quickly - these chapters are all being created as you're reading them, and I'm typically a witch who stays reclusive in the chicken-legged study for a few months between bursts of writing. I suppose this story's charmed me.

Chapter 4: Steven's Room

Summary:

Vesuvianite tries to fit into Pearl and Amethyst's apparently incredibly powerful dynamic, figuring out the limits of her powers in the process.

Chapter Text

The water banged inside of the pipes, rushing through with such force that it threatened to leave a permanent dent in the waterworks. Up through sharp angles and winding, bending PVC tubes, the water finally found light. Exploding out of the tap, not a drop of it touched the basin, though it came mere inches from it. Instead it rushed into the air, splitting into helixes as it crossed through the house, reuniting into one mighty stream just as it dove to the ground.

"Amethyst that's disgusting." Pearl commented with no real energy. It was true. But it wasn't novel.
"Waw? Is wuta waysh wa'ah. Go'ah may a wig wesh-" Amethyst - laying on the table, arms behind her head - finally sputtered as the water outpaced even her skill in swallowing large volumes of miscellaneous junk.

The convenient purple waste disposal no longer there to catch it, the water rushed to the floor, swerving to the side before it could leave a mess enough to rival the glass outside. The rush of water drew inward as its 'head' looped about in the air.

"If I had water powers-" Amethyst began, splaying her body out as if she'd just finished a good meal, "I'd do this, like, every day. Lapis doesn't let me - it's not okay when it's me but when it's toilets it’s fine?"
"Toilets are cleaner." Vesuvianite twirled her hand and sent the winding tap water back to the basin, gurgling down into the pipes and thinning out until all that was left was a persistent drip. "I guess we'll just have to make up for lost time."

For lost time

Vesuvianite kept the thought in her mind a while - they were precious things, she believed. Partially because some people seemed to go most of their lives without having one, but mostly because she'd had so few in her incredibly short life that every one was at least a little new. She had another thought, and this one was very new; she was talking to Amethyst like a friend. The first being she'd talked to beyond some clearly confused birds, in the process shattering their belief that Long Limbed Apes from The Down Below would stay there. And yet Amethyst was so familiar. She had quite a history with Amethyst; she'd laughed with Amethyst, she'd confided with her, and been wrapped up in her whip at least three times. She'd offended her, apologized to her, saved her, reassured her. But they'd never met. Vesuvianite realized she was looking very fondly on Amethyst, and moved past the table to Pearl.

Pearl sat hunched painfully far forward on the couch. She was clutching a book in the cranny of her arm, so thick and well-worn it may have been used to kill a man at some point. She'd been reading - or, hastily flipping through - it for several minutes. She'd drawn it out of her Gem just after her little destructive display, and apparently still bathing in the afterglow of Pearl's very occasional flights of fancy, Amethyst hadn't badgered her about it yet. Feeling the eyes on her, Pearl lifted the pages to show the cover. It was off-brown, carved into hardbound leather so ancient it likely belonged to an extinct species, and read 'Fusion 101' in Gem Glyph.

"Garnet and I first drafted this millennia ago for Gems learning to fuse during the War." She recalled with obvious fondness.
"What's the 101 mean?" Amethyst rolled her head on her shoulders
"Human shorthand." Vesuvianite began as Pearl eagerly flipped through the pages. "Organizes things into sections. You know, the first part of the first section is 101. The second is 102, the third is 103." Her eyes rolled up and a subtle, manic smile - the kind reserved for the mad few who actually enjoy teaching - spread over her. "Then they go to the next one, and it's 201, 202..."
Pearl - in her rush - had missed Vesuvianite entirely. "Oh? We named it that because it was written a hundred and one years after the rebellion began. There were later revisions; the second is 102, the third is 103... but we lost those eons ago."

Vesuvianite seemed to want to murder Pearl.

"Ah! Here it is. 'Famous First Words; Crash Course for Fresh Fusions.' This section was penned by Garnet."

The book was tugged into her lap as one of Vesuvianite's large hands grabbed it by the spine, the other one at its wrist tracing across the page in search of diction. Pearl and Vesuvianite locked eyes for a moment - the latter holding a very Lapis-esque, frank expression - before she read it out herself.

"Just keep doing things." She announciated. The rest of the page was blank. "You said this section was Garnet?"

Pearl mouthed the words back to herself but didn't seem to understand them. Snatching the book once again, she buried her head close to the pages, turning them rapidly towards the next section. She found it - 'Oh Lonesome Me; Dealing with Forced Defusion' - and immediately turned back. Once reaching the header of the previous section, she turned two pages, then as many back, then ahead four pages, back two. A part of Vesuvianite familiar with arcane Gem Tech realized the tome was one of those trick volumes that had to be read through both forwards and back in the right order before you could get to certain pages - as popular with enterprising rebels as it was illegal. She realized this may have been one of those you had to read upside down at some point in the process. And then she realized Pearl was being hysterical, and that this was a completely ordinary book.

"Garnet!" She called out, but quickly looked around, very glad Garnet hadn't suddenly revealed herself to have been standing by a wall in the way she often did. "Agh. Why must she keep everything in her head."
The sentence seemed to activate Amethyst, who rose from the table with lungs full of air only for it to be knocked out as Vesuvianite swept by. "Oh, please. You keep everything in your head, including that book." She added matter-of-factly. Amethyst gawked at her.
"You beat me to it!" She trilled. "You're a riot, VeeVee! Who knew Peri and Lapis could be so much fun together."

So much fun. Together. Vesuvianite didn't smile but inside, she felt something warm and tender bubble up. She thought of all the times Vesuvianite and- ah. Peridot and Lapis had spent together. She had to remind herself that all those memories were not her. When she looked back, she saw herself - tall, cerulean skinned and fully dressed - crash landing on Earth, or sitting on an impossibly tall pillar of water, or meeting herself on the barn and being infuriated that she - SHE - had to share the space with herself. She imagined this is what it must've felt like for a human to look back on their younger selves. So, so different from you, but it wasn't long ago that it was you. It's still you now. Just with a fresh pair of eyes.

The clearest moments were the times they both shared - the times spent together. At the front of the barn, legs kicked up over the doors of the car they'd smashed into it and looking over the human landscape. Peridot always tried to appreciate the Earth; the loose bits of metal hanging from fences, the roil of the grass as the wind rushed from the sea to the land, the off-white dew only visible when the sun hit it right. The types of subtle chaos most Humans didn't appreciate, in the same way a Gem wouldn't appreciate their immortality, or their powers, or - Vesuvianite added with some hesitance - their fusion. Lapis certainly didn't see that chaos the same way.

She spent her time - Vesuvianite now knew - scouring for movement. Activity. Living things. The crows leaping around a wayward piece of human trash and picking at it as if expecting it to jump at them. The way the tree's leaves struggled to stay attached as the branches they clung to like parasites were battered in a storm. Bugs flying about only to take the bait and dive into some sticky, dripping dollop of honey and suffocate. She'd even seen two rats fighting over a cut of rotted meat once, what she believed had been their child at one point. Life Garbage, she'd come to call it. All the imperfections, all the failures, all the struggles. She told Peridot about them whenever she'd ask. Peridot seemed to think it was funny - or, think that Lapis thought it was, and tried to understand.

"Are you... okay, with sharing this information?" Vesuvianite's voice whispered. Incredibly bizarre and unsettling to hear your own voice speak words you never did. The voice wasn't sure what was being shared. In the way all thoughts did - for the few Gems endowed with the ability to read them - it all appeared as dreamlike black-and-white still images, gibberish thoughts scrawled across them like red pen ink on a polaroid, the shapes of eyes and fingers printed over. But some thoughts were meant to stay just thoughts.
"Uh. Yeah."

"VeeVee is one of your better names." Pearl said, clerically, as she closed the book in her lap. Vesuvianite spun around in a motion so panicked it almost stirred them from bantering. "I suppose using her full name all the time would be a bit impractical."
"So." Amethyst drawled, crossing her hands behind the massive plume of her hair. "I guess we just do things."
"What does that mean?" Pearl responded sharply - it wasn't a question. "Should we just take her somewhere to try her powers? Surely we could guess at them. But, then, every fusion gains something new-" She repeated a phrase she'd only half spoken some time in the past. "- And while I have a few guesses, we can't be sure."

From the human purview, it might be best for a fresh fusion to sit down and try to talk about herself in long, drawn out dialogs that makes for very dry back-and-forth. Of course, the human purview had to fight for a place in a Gem's mind, and was often thrown out the doors beaten blue with its hat in its hands. Vesuvianite was curious about herself - beyond curious - but it was hard to so carefully analyze every little piece of what made you you, and so comparatively easy to wander a ways from the table and towards the sound of a repetitive little dripping noise. Pearl and Amethyst had begun to war over the book and failed to notice.

"Heya! Someone drew a weird looking hand in this one. It's only got three fingers! And one of 'ems super long..."
"Oh, that's - that's not..."

After a nasty clicking sound as of metal tearing away from metal, Vesuvianite had finally managed to make the little twisty-thing that controlled this human water contraption - a "Faucet" - spin all the way around. Yet no matter how many times she spun it around, it didn't stop the tiny amount of water that occasionally dripped out - musn't have been a very good contraption, she reasoned. She began to wonder if there were kinds of faucets that had to be twisted both forward and back in the right order before you could get certain liquids - she always wondered where humans got that off-white creamy substance they put in their cereals. Steven said it came from cows, but flying over many fields made Lapis doubtful; cows weren't smart enough to sell things, and bull markets were apparently even worse.

"You didn' even tell me half of this stuff, 'P!"
"I've tried, but you never let me!"
"Cos you never told me there were pictures!"

Vesuvianite had skipped over the oven - a memory of 'scalding liquid falling from the sky' piqued the curious part of her mind and she decided to save it for later. She searched through the dark of the fridge, all twenty of her digits worked to slide trays out and pop open sealed tubs as if searching for something. Plastic wrappers snapped between her dextrous fingers as she slid their insides out like hot metal between forceps, carefully weighing rolls of chocolate and caramel. Garbage, she decided, as she carelessly let it go. But that strange meaty broth she let slosh around in her grip could be interesting - back in it went. In this way most of the contents of the fridge went one after another, from the bottom shelf to the top, until she finally reached the freezer.

From her limited understanding of human food, she knew that melting psuedoliquid in a bag was generally one of the few things they wouldn't eat. Vesuvianite recognized the distorted face stretching across the slowly bloating wrapper. Peridot had been told about this Cookie Cat by Steven every now and then. When he was explaining what a store was, he brought them up, whistfully. When he first encouraged her to try food, he brought a bar to break between them - she threw it up in want of a stomach, but he told her it was okay. She didn't think it was. A twang of many emotions hit her all at once, and from the mess, another new feeling bubbled up inside of Vesuvianite; resolve. She stood up, turned the tassel of her mortarboard, and grabbed the side of the fridge.

"Heeyyy, Sugilite's in here!"
"Corundum. That's Corundum - notice the small symbol beneath the base of the illustration? A Ruby and an Amethyst." Pearl flipped the page "Here's Sugilite"
"Hey, wait. I thought you said this book was like, a hundred years after you started the rebellion? I wasn't around then. And that barely even looks like her!"
"Oh, Amethyst. Not every Sugilite is the same. There might even be other Garnets out there."
Amethyst sat uncharacteristically quiet for a while. "... You think there's other Vesuv-"

Thunk.

A high buzzing sound rang out through the house, humming through its wooden walls as if it was about to splinter them. Finally, it grounded itself in the deep metal supports of the cabin, and the room was very quiet, and very dark. Dark - of course - with the exception of a single little yellow light in the back of the fridge. Vesuvianite stumbled backwards and levied her weight against the counter top. Her hands twitched limply at her side and her head lolled with them. Amethyst moved to speak.

"It's not done yet." Vesuvianite looked expectantly to the roof.

The lamp swinging above lit up, going from a dim, faded orange to a rapidly more and more blinding white, as if the energy was rushing through the door and kept getting jammed until some enterprising electron kicked some shins and crawled under. The floodgates open, it was easily brighter than it'd ever been, and in the low light of a stormy night, it stood out like a lighthouse. It should have at least. Pearl realized a little after Amethyst - who was now pressed against where the windows had once been - that outside had suddenly become very bright and very orange. Then yellow. To a rapidly more and more blinding white.

Amethyst gaped and let out a shrieking cackle. "The whole city's lit up!"
Clutching her hand to her chest, Pearl peered out from the frame and only spared a moment to look at Vesuvianite. She'd found a comfortable groove in the wall to slump against; the city, on the other hand, was wide awake. Every light from the lamp posts to the houses to the little back room in the corner store that hadn't been touched since its dial-up computer became outmoded. With light came noise and lots of it; dogs barking, children complaining, adults walking out in confused dazes, even a misfiring car alarm from the single adopter of electric vehicles in Beach City (It was good for his re-election campaign.)

The light could be traced in great waves of whiter-and-whiter light, starting at the weak but rapidly growing light between the valley entombing the city gates towards the searing light of the boardwalk pop-up shops. Beach City was a sunny town that woke late and slept even earlier, and to say that in those brief few moments it expended more electricity than it had the last week, would be what the news would do in a few days. It probably wasn't true.

Clink.

The lightbulb above them exploded.

"Oh no." Pearl commented, wisely.

If you braved the rain, and took a stroll upon the suddenly very well lit boardwalk, one by one - starting with those little pop-up shops and flowing like a wave of sudden purple blackness through the town - you could hear tiny pops and clinks. The sounds of the shattered glass of all the bulbs in whatever unfortunate building was closest by falling to the ground. Then came the scent of searing copper and smoldering glass of bulbs experiencing many years more wear than they ought. And then came lots of very loud, very angry voices. And then Vesuvianite nearly crushed Amethyst beneath her as she weakly fell beside her and looked out at what all the ruckus was. Pearl looked to the two of them, but only Amethyst looked back.

Oh no indeed.

Chapter 5: The Bathroom

Summary:

Pearl and Amethyst talk about Vesuvianite potentially being a threat to humanity.
Vesuvianite catches up on some reading.
A very pleasant night.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

They shut the door tightly behind them. Amethyst took a wide stance beside Pearl and looked up to her expectantly; Pearl looked at Amethyst in the same way, and neither were happy with what they saw. Pearl knitted her fingers together unevenly and began to pace in very tight circles.

"So what are we gonna do about her?" Amethyst asked flatly, with significantly less hysteria than Pearl replied with.
"What do you mean 'what are we going to do about her?' She's not some rabid animal. I mean. I mean." She didn't elaborate.
Amethyst vaulted the toilet and kicked her legs out. "Then what's got you so worried? Be real with me. You've been acting weird since she landed, 'P."
Pearl pointed sharply to the ceiling and its completely dead light. "That! That this unknown, unpredictable fusion has just knocked out the human's entire power grid."
"You weren't worried when your unknown and unpredictable robot junk knocked out the human's entire power grid."
"Oh, come on." Pearl, unable to articulate how it was different when she did it, didn't bother. "It was different."

Pearl looked cautiously to the wall as she heard something big and heavy move about the house. Gem ears were sensitive, but it was one of the few areas where they were truly outclassed by many species of earth animal, and Pearl could only hope they weren't heard. After all, one part of Vesuvianite was experienced in listening through bathroom walls. Amethyst moved to speak but was cut off - this just kept happening.

"Be quiet. She might be listening." Pearl gestured with her open palm.
"And so what if she is? You've been ready to talk all night, and now it's a big deal?" Amethyst crossed her arms along the rim of the sink and rested her chin in them. "What's wrong, dude?"
"L-like I said, she might be-"
Amethyst blew her fringe away from her eye. "The real problem." Her eyes had gained a sharpness. A killer sharpness, usually reserved for when she was about to do something she'd regret, or when someone else had done that to her. It was a rare look; Amethyst didn't regret much, and most people who did bad things to Amethyst weren't given a chance to do it more than once. "You've been acting like a nutcase all night. All I'm saying is, you weren't like this when I formed Smoky." Pearl tilted her head up and looked away; Amethyst knew from many centuries of experience that meant Pearl was on the edge and racing to invent an excuse that'd get her to safer ground. Excuses wouldn't cut it.

"Pearl. Come on." She drawled, somewhere between sympathetic and annoyed. "What's wrong? We're like, past the point you think you can't even tell me, right? I thought we were."
"Don't..." 'Guilt me', she began, but mentally grappled the victimized part of herself and shoved it deep back down. "It's Lapis."

Vesuvianite had just about recovered, though some new wobbly feeling said she'd best stay sitting down for a while. What a rush that'd been! It wasn't pleasant, but her whole body was flush with that post-workout acidic burn that felt totally foreign to a creature that had no muscles to workout with. She'd taken a moment - and only a moment - to bask in it, and by the time she was in the couch, she'd already moved on. She'd gone too far that time, but how could she make it work next? Four clever eyes scanned the room even as her body sunk into the couch. She needed a closed system, she'd learned, and a small control object that could be easily measured in her hands. She needed more testing, more practicing, more study on the ways her powers moved through the wires and filled the batteries. Needed information on how far she could go before those wires snapped and their batteries melted into boiling acid.

Of course, her body was lagging behind even if her mind was racing ahead, and so the latter decided to take a chance to stop and let the former catch up. There are only so many ways to think about the things one will do without actually doing them, and the picture in her mind of getting that perfect sizzle in hard working electronics would have to stay in her head. It'd have to fight for room too; "rest" was a bit of a foreign concept to Vesuvianite, like how it might be to a bouncing photon, and she was always lusting for information. It was all details.

Vesuvianite just didn't know how anyone could miss the fine, wonderful details in the world; they must've been stupid. It was the only answer that made sense, otherwise, how could they not see it? All the little imperfections and random, out-of-place elements in everything. All the flaws. Weak points. Like accupuncture, she wanted to stick needles in them, watch them bend, squirm, sever. Maybe if she cut the right bits, they'd grow back stronger. Sharp teeth peeked from between her lips as they spread into a subtle smile.

Vesuvianite heard the odd sound of running water.

Pearl twisted the tap firmly and kept her voice hushed until the water was roaring. Finally able to confidently raise her voice to more than a whisper, she pushed her case.

"It's okay to at least consider the risks."
"But this isn't Lapis. Not everything's a Sugilite thing. That was like, one time." Amethyst contended, to little effect in the face of centuries of fresh fusions doing exactly what Sugilite did before that one time. "They've been here how long and now it's a problem?"
"Peridot's here on Earth because she made the choice to be. Lapis got abandoned here; I'm surprised she hasn't just flown away."
"'Duh. It's 'cos she doesn't have any other place to go." Amethyst ran her fingers through her fringe and beat her brow. "She's a criminal - a-just like us."
"And what if she decided she didn't like this place? Whenever Lapis has a choice, she always chooses to be..." Pearl twisted her hands in frustration as the word hissed from her mouth. "Destructive."
Amethyst dug her fist into her cheek. "She hasn't yet. Probably isn't gonna now."
Pearl crooked a finger to her, and she gained this terrible glint in her eye she got when she caught someone on the edge of her spear when physically or verbally fencing, the former usually reserved for Garnet and the latter for Amethyst. "But as you said, this isn't Lapis."

Amethyst pouted impishly and let her eyes roll across the sink. Amethyst didn't know much about Lapis - they couldn't hold a conversation if their Gems depended on it. Peridot was cagey talking about anything Lapis wouldn't want shared, though that cage was made of wood and the bars were wide enough to slip through if you pulled your stomach in. But what little she knew said almost everything Lapis did she was forced to, and what wasn't was revenge for one of the times it was. With... one exception.

Vesuvianite ran her hand across the page and - checking briefly to see that it was in fact no trick book - read on. It was in the Era I Beta script, archaic shorthand resigned to propaganda in Quartz barracks. The refined, carefully carved, and actually serrifed glyphs of the Era were reserved for the eyes of the upper class Gems, the priveleged and powerful. It was considered much too beautiful to be appreciated - much less understood - by some mud spattered, camp dwelling soldiers. Lapis was upper class (though not powerful and certainly not priveleged), and Peridot was made long after the script was retired, but they'd both gotten used to reading Beta script while scrounging Earth.

"This handwriting is awful." Vesuvianite noted.

Most of the information was useless now. Millennia old advice for fusing in the heat of battle, how to face gem weaponry so archaic their names didn't translate well, who to seek out for advice, all annotated by little sketches. The portraits of the staff were cleaner, obviously studied from the genuine article in the luxury of a rebellion camp rather than from a trench in the middle of battle. All of the listed gems must've been shattered or worse by now - except for one. Garnet looked much different split down the middle, and the ancient watercolors painted her garish pink and neon blue rather than powerful purple. Vesuvianite looked at her own body, noticing the polkadot patterns where darker, bluer skin transitioned to lighter greens. She wondered if it'd fade some day.

"If we're together a lot. Or someone hits us hard enough." Lapis said, her voice surfacing out of Vesuvianite's inner monologue like a model from water, her mental hair wet and messy.
Peridot - the water now shallow enough she was forced to poke out - thought for a moment. "... Is that going to happen?"
"They're gonna try."
"No. I-I mean, I'm sure they are, but that's not what I was previously referring to. I meant... us... staying together... for a long time?"

Vesuvianite looked at the wall very hard. And then turned the page.

"Section 5: The Types of Fusion
The below section is reference material. Please see Section 5B for "How to Identify a Fusion's Type" and Section 5C for "Best Practices for Instructing Fusions by Type"
• Type 1: Combat Fusion
This is the most common kind of fusion; it's the type you've probably seen on the training grounds or in the battlefield..."

"That's not me. Next." Vesuvianite's fingers drummed over a bullet pointed list of 'signs they're this kind of fusion', none of which fit. Giving each other a lingering stare, the water in Vesuvianite's mind slowly swallowed Peridot and Lapis back up.

"But she ain't that way with Peridot." Amethyst had moved from leaning against to mounting the sink, now levying her weight against the full width of the wooden cabinet it was fixed into - much to its protest.
Pearl threw her hands up. "They despised one another at first. Surely Steven told you."
"And then they didn't! Lapis ain't gonna stop hating someone if she doesn't feel like it; Peridot made her feel like it. And Peridot's in there. Somewhere." She gestured to the wall, as if expecting Pearl to see Vesuvianite through it. "I'm tryna say... maybe she's like... chill? It's not like every time she breaks stuff she means it. My fusions destroy things like, all the time."

Amethyst rolled her head around on her shoulders before suddenly shooting up as if realizing something terrible.

"By accident! The Sugilite thing was like, one time!"

A glint in Pearl's eyes faded, and one could swear they heard the faint sound of a rapier being sheathed. "... Faster than me." She quietly added, a subtle smile managing to crack across her face, though its middle was weighed down by worry. "It's incredible. I've never seen Lapis open up so readily to anyone; well, anyone other than Steven. I mean, fusion?"
"Hey, Steven is Steven. Maybe he'll even end up fusing with her some day" Amethyst dug her hands behind her head and into her mane. "'Magine that."
Pearl was obviously trying to imagine anything else. "... Amethyst." She said, her voice trailing up as her head tilted. "Are they - you don't - they're not..."
"Not...?" Amethyst twirled her hand expectantly.
"You dont think she's - Vesuvianite, I mean. You don't think she's a..."

"Type 4: Love Fusion.
This is a very special type of fusion that can only be found between two Gems that care about one another very much. This might have been the very first type of fusion with another Gem type you ever had. If you and one specific Gem you've fused with spend lots of time with one another, you might begin to fuse this way."

The corners of Vesuvianite's lips - seperated in a permanent, unpleasant grimace as she forced herself to read more - finally managed to close. This book was written in a horrendous casual style that made her feel like like some mud-trudging Quartz being talked down to by an overly friendly manager. Maybe one could see it as not being talked down to, but being leveled with, but to whoever that one was, Vesuvianite saw it another way. The right way. Who were they to argue? They had at least two fewer eyes. But no matter how poor its style was, she couldn't deny it was rich on data. This might've been the single book in existence that had this information; it'd hardly be allowed on Homeworld servers, and she doubted rebels had good book keeping.

"What are the signs she's a Love fusion?
• Your fusion didn't require a dance, or happened after a failed dance.
• Your fusion lets you talk in her head a lot, but she talks to other people in her own voice.
• You're not experienced with fusing with other gems before, but suddenly, you just did.
• You don't have trouble staying together, even when you disagree; it feels like you can argue and still stay in one piece.
• You've wanted to fuse with that Gem for a long time, but until now, you haven't."

Silently, Vesuvianite's fingers tapped along each bulleted line, mentally checking off each point. Yes, that dance was quite an embarrassment. The space above her eyes drew together. Yes, they did quite like to chatter around in there. They knitted together tighter. And they certainly weren't good at fusing. She was on the fence for a moment, and then part of her objected that they really didn't argue that much. She immediately checked off number four. Her finger hovered over number five, and then, noticed something beneath.

"The best way to tell if you're a love fusion isn't with hard rules. If you're a love fusion, you'll find out. Don't assume; talk with your other half. Get open. Get honest.**
**(ROSE: This is great! Love this! Don't change.)"

The tap water was beginning to cause an awful fog, and had she been in a better mind, Pearl would've fussed about the heat bill. They were on a magical meter, but they still had a budget.

Amethyst balked. "This is stupid! Look at us, locked up in a room gossiping like a bunch of... bunch of..." The obscenity died in her mouth. "There's an all new Gem out there and we're out here talking like she's a monster. I hate to say it, but," Her tone changed to a half-hearted mock Pearl, "What would Garnet think?"
"Well. Garnet's not here," Pearl used that phrase whenever she got the opportunity, which wasn't often, and was usually code for 'I don't care what she thinks; she's not always right'
"Fine. What would Steven think?" There was an obvious other person she could mention. But she refused.
Pearl hung her head. A rapier clattered to the floor, knocked from its wielder's grip. She didn't have a code to respond with for that - and Amethyst was taking it easy on her. "Fine. What do you think?"
Amethyst lit up. Somewhere far off, one could swear they heard the faint sound of a whip being cracked. "So. Hear me out, right?"

Vesuvianite flattened her palms against her chest. There were more than a few new emotions hitting her all at once now, some stronger versions of old ones, and some, some she felt like she'd been feeling in force for many months and had only now suddenly been struck with. Playing along her rayon folds, Vesuvianite's hands slid down her body and finally onto the pages, fiddling with the spine between her many digits. Her head fell back and she looked to the ceiling, lips pursed, drawing in a breath that never left.

Talk with your other half. Of course, that wasn't advice for Vesuvianite; it was something she had to pass along to the other two. Peridot and Lapis - she was now beginning to realize - were no more two different, disconnected parts than a human's heart and brain were. Ooh. That was a good metaphor. She noted it down to repeat to someone else later so that they could marvel at it. How could they not? A bit of her familiar with human symbolism thought that those were actually very seperate; it was a small and uneducated part that was easy to ignore until it just got embarrassed and stopped talking. Now - she noticed - the boards in the ceiling she'd been idly counting had grown inky and black, and the couch cushions had vanished from under her.

It was a swirling, inky void beneath her body. The air beneath her bubbled up with oily wetness beaten down by a cool, nighttime breeze. A breeze like fresh, salty beach air, out of place in the infinite darkness that stretched in every direction. This was a ship graveyard, not a ship dock. The world around her was prickly and present, as if she were navigating an invisible maze and had stopped just a few inches from a wall, and she almost lifted her hand to feel for it. Only almost, because as she tried to tug her arm forward, she felt it held back by something silky and thin, like a clothesline wrapped around her wrist. The faint shape of a blue hand drew back just as quickly as it'd come, only leaving the sensation of a touch along her knuckles.

"Don't do that. Stay where you are," the feeling simply said, for - to a fusion - feelings are as informative as thoughts and much more coherent. Vesuvianite looked at her conjoined palms indignantly. She was in no position to ask for more; she'd only known how to spread her wings because of a little blue hand passing her touch-notes, only known how to explain her state because of a shoulder tap from Peridot, only known Amethyst because of a pitter-patter of fingers up her spine when they first locked eyes. She was in no position to ask for more.
"But I might," She said, coldly, over her shoulder.

Somewhere out in that inky black darkness, there was Lapis, hanging just behind, ready to reach out and pass Vesuvianite her thoughts as she drifted along. Beside her - stumbling, less confidently, less precisely, but far more eagerly - was Peridot. They'd both slipped further back in there where Vesuvianite couldn't - wouldn't - follow, and through very faint reflected light on some scrap metal tore from a floundered ship, she saw the sharp eyes of Lapis.

"Lapis?" She called, voice reverberating like she was in a deep pool of melting amber. "Do you... I mean. You don't have to answer. Come back?"
"I," She began. "I've... seen this before."

You've what?

Lapis' eyes shrunk and her body stiffened as a noise echoed through the seas. Somewhere, distantly, there was a sound like a search party. Many voices, some young and spunky, others kind and worried, their tone blurring together into a buzz of neighborly chatter as lanterns lit up the edge of the sea. The shape of something massive on the horizon vanished like a shadow in the light and soon after it followed every last wave of blackness surrounding them.

Vesuvianite dropped the book on the table and sat up straight, looking embarrassed. Amethyst was talking back and forth with Pearl, though as soon as they felt four eyes on them, Pearl took a practiced position while Amethyst bounded forward.

"Hey! VeeVee! So, we've figured somethin' out. Uh. We come at a bad time?"
Vesuvianite rose to her full height and knitted her hands behind her back. "No. I believe you've come at just the right time. Now, what's this about figuring things out? How unexpected!"
The corners of Amethyst's lips pressed deep into her cheeks. "Yeah. We wanna let you 'spread your wings', eh? So we needed somewhere you could be yourself n' have lots to play around with without having to worry about like... blowing up the power grid. So, ahem," She flipped her fringe down and bowed slightly, crossing her arm across her chest and pointing towards the temple proper. "This way, madame?"

Behind them, the temple door glowed a bright, brilliant purple the hue of which is typically reserved for expensive jellies and promotional advertisements for candies that look much more disappointing in real life. It split, then broke, with thick gooey strings of mucus and fat breaking between them until the image behind formed into Amethyst's room. Pearl looked at it with faint enthusiasm, then to Vesuvianite, and back a few times.

"Well, let's go. Oh, Amethyst," Pearl instinctively reached to her nose. "Before we go in there. You did clear out the-?"
"Flushed it. It's some plumber's problem now."
"Oh, that poor human." Pearl stopped, looking expectantly and with a faint, encouraging expression to Vesuvianite. "Coming? ... Oh! Don't worry about fitting through; the temple always accomedates."
Vesuvianite had already swept past her in a few long strides. With some difficulty she managed to squeeze through the temple door - it seemed to smush to fit. An encouraging tug from Amethyst beyond finally sent her tumbling in. Pearl looked over the room, to the windows, the storm outside, and - before she could set her eyes on the book - a purple hand reached out and tugged her in. The doors slammed shut behind them, and gently, the page lay open.

"... But just as they get the best of the best, Love fusions experience the worst of the worst. A Love Fusion will be free and flighty, and her personality will sometimes amplify the worst aspects of her parts. Hallucinations are common; always have a third to keep her grounded."

Notes:

I was intending to post this on saturday, about three days from now, to keep with my (attempted) two week schedule. But since it was originally supposed to be only half as long and contain the entire contents of NEXT chapter, I'll post it a little early. Normally I'd cut away a lot of this to keep the pacing, but some very kind readers have made it clear that they just devour all the little things I might trim away. Takes a weight off my shoulders, even if it makes revising old chapters quite the pain!
You'll notice some new tags. Those will make sense in a chapter or so.

Chapter 6: Amethyst's Room, Part I

Summary:

Vesuvianite thinks about God.
Amethyst and Pearl play a game.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Home sweet home!"

Amethyst's room was filled with Junk. Not any particular junk - though that certainly did exist, as a glance could easily pick out dumped cutlery, bowls, bags, kitchen sinks - but the platonic ideal of completely unidentifiable piles of Junk, as if some God had ran out of time to add all the detail and had hastily scribbled something to fill the space. Pearl flinched at the whole display, not least because she felt the deep instinct that it was a bad idea to muddle God's schedule. Vesuvianite weighed the pros and cons carefully.

"Do you think Gods hold grudges?" Vesuvianite said, apparently (as far as the other two were concerned) apropos of nothing.
"Uh." Amethyst brushed her fringe over her face to hide her side-eye.
"Gods don't exist." Pearl said, simply. "But according to humans, they do hold grudges, but every human town has a wooden box you can sit in that will make Gods forget all about them." She brushed the very air of Amethyst's room from her wrist, watching more replace it, much to her dismay. "Not the sort of things I'd choose to worship."
"Preeettty sure that's not how that works. There's like, hoops you got to jump through, you can't just go to a church and it'll all go away." Amethyst said. She knew humans well enough to know they'd never make it that easy on themselves.
Vesuvianite seemed to have made her decision. "Amethyst is obviously wrong. Humans jump through hoops in a circus. Not a church."

Amethyst and Pearl exchanged a glance and decided to stop talking.

Vesuvianite - so much bigger than the other two, with legs about as long as their bodies were tall - had to slow to let the other two keep up. Amethyst swayed beside her, blustering frequently about various Junk, regarding each as a friend and relaying some very interesting history. Enraptured in stories of one containing a long last masterpiece from some human painter (The Vente?) and creating a pile so big, not even she could recycle it (But did that mean she wasn't truly ecomnipotent?), Vesuvianite almost fell face first into a puddle.

Pearl stepped cautiously beside her, hands at her chest and carefully studying the glistening water now soaking Vesuvianite's bare feet. Amethyst traced her finger through the puddle as she kneeled beside it - it was a puddle for Vesuvianite, which meant it was about the width of a road. Her finger glistened sparkling blue and white and she turned deviously to Pearl. Pearl met her gaze easily - shoulders she hadn't known she'd raised resting at the sight - but made an awful expression as she saw the little Pearl that was now Amethyst's index finger. It did a little dance along her phalanges before bowing, the last of the glistening liquid dripping off its hair as it morphed back into a nail.

"What is this?" Vesuvianite looked expectantly to Amethyst as she bowed to her knees. "This is your... chamber, isn't it? You should know."
"Don't look at me. This is aaa~ll Pearl." Amethyst shrugged.
Vesuvianite turned to Pearl with a bewildered look on her hyper-expressive face. "... This is your chamber? Really? I expected... better."
Both of them took offense to that, but only one of them had the mind to hide it, and fortunately Vesuvianite's extra eyes weren't on the back of her head. Pearl cleared her throat. "What Amethyst is saying is that this water has trickled down from my chamber. This isn't my room."

Vesuvianite looked up. For the first time since she'd first entered Amethyst's room, she turned away from the endless information littering the floor and to the bright white-blue shafts of light flooding from a hole in the sky. Something like wonder flew across Vesuvianite's eyes.

"You can't see it from here-" Pearl continued, shutting her eyes and reciting her words carefully. Proudly. "But there's-"
"Pillars of water pouring down from above, spreading out across the rock walls and into erosion channels. Eventually, it all gathers down here." Vesuvianite stood up again, clutching a wet stone.
Pearl looked dumbstruck. "... Yes. But surely you couldn't have... I mean." Pearl filed a mental note in her Vesuvianite folder; 'Present Vision?' (There was a little Garnet head sketched next to it)
"Look." Vesuvianite crooked a finger to the sky. "There's mist. Clouds. Otherwise the light would come down in shafts. It comes down scattered. That's why there's no cast shadows."

Somewhere far above - enough of a fall to kill a human and crack a gem should they land wrong - there were spouts of thick water crashing against rocky outcroppings. As the soft marble of Pearl's room transitioned into the coarse, quarry-like surroundings of Amethyst's, the water cascaded into springs. When a particularly heavy surge of water struck the rock, dust and cool air spread through the otherwise humid space. As hot and cold are to do, they fought, and you could see the fallout in the air as thick plumes of mist. Not easily (hot and cold had some tact); the light from Pearl's chambers spilled across the fog, bouncing through the atomic structure like a laser off a mirror, spreading wide and giving it a glow like the sun on a foggy morning. It was heavenly. And it was very hard to look at.

"... Very observant." Pearl said. She went back and forth, but decided not to take that note out just yet.
"You could've observed the same, correct?" Vesuvianite said, voice like a ruler being firmly slapped against her open palm.

Vesuvianite looked at Pearl, her eyes regarding her the same way a set of scales would. Her thick hair cast a shadow over her hair, the only one in the room. Pearl swallowed. There was a light wet noise (plip splip splash) and Vesuvianite turned away, tracing four expanding ripples in the water back to Amethyst. She was holding a handful of small, flat stones and fixing one between her thumb.

"Pew." She shut one of her eyes as she 'fired the bullet', the stone bouncing three times before finally sinking. "My record's six, but I don't think this pool's big enough."
"What are you doing?" Vesuvianite asked, knowing to grab a stone of her own.
"Skipping stones. It's a human thing. Basically" She threw another. Two bounces. "You pick a stone and try to make it bounce across the water as many times as you can."
Vesuvianite ran her thumbs across her stone. "... Why?"
"It's fun. Don't need another reason. You want more than one; you're not gonna do it on your first couple tries."

Vesuvianite narrowed her eyes and - mirroring Amethyst's grip best she could with two hands on each wrist - flicked her stone into the pool. It sank with a deep plop.

"Hey, told you you're not gonna do it on your first try. We got all the stones in the world 'round here. Just pick up a few more. Pearl, get over here, you join in too. Pew (Two), Pew (Three)!"
"Ah, this." Pearl said, a little hysterically. "We've tried it before."
"Pearl. You join too." Amethyst repeated through gritted teeth. Pearl was by her side in a moment, quickly picking up a few rocks but not giving the slightest attention to which. They both nodded.
Vesuvianite was much too focused on her skipping to notice. "Um. Pew." She spoke in perhaps the most deadpan way in her few hours of life. "Pew."
"(One)!" Amethyst echoed victoriously. "You got (One)! You're a natural."
"Do you know how they skip?" Vesuvianite tried again, this time twisting her hand at an odd angle.
"Um... I think they just don't wanna get wet." Amethyst looked to Pearl hopefully.
"Ahm. It's the surface tension of the water; if they're moving fast enough, they don't break the water, and they continue on their path through the air."
"There's my rocket scientist. Hey, VeeVee, here." Amethyst smiled encouragingly, shoving a dozen rocks into Vesuvianite's hands and patting her on the back. Vesuvianite quickly got absorbed in skipping them (Two) (None) (One) (One) (Three!) and it was obvious she was going to be busy for a while.

Shuffling away from Vesuvianite and towards the hunched, cross-armed figure of Pearl as she gently traced her fingers through the edge of the water, Amethyst touched Pearl's back. Her slender figure shot up and turned wearily, a hesitant expression on her face. Amethyst wouldn't stand for that.

"C'mon Pearl. Look at her. It's gonna be fine."
"I'm not scared of her. I'm just..."
"She's rude, inconsiderate, arrogant..." Amethyst searched her lexicon for words she'd heard used to describe herself. "... Brash. Abrupt. Big-headed."
"I can deal with that. I've done it before." Pearl smiled softly. "But she acts like she's... she's... better than me! And you!" She wanted to raise her voice, but kept it hushed, looking over Amethyst to Vesuvianite before she was forced back down after a firm tap on her cheek.
"But you don't think she is, right?" Amethyst's brows knitted together.
"... Maybe." Pearl admitted, knowing she'd get an earful for it. But she didn't want to lie to Amethyst, partially because Amethyst was beginning to get very good at seeing through them. She was beginning to get very good at a lot of things.
"Maybe?" Amethyst also had the mind to keep her voice down, but her idea of voice down was much, much different than Pearl's. "Maybe?" She hissed again. "C'mon. You've known her for like, an hour. Sure, she's super smart, there's Peri in there; but you're as smart as Peri is! We had a big competition and everything!"
"She won that competition."
"By breaking the rules! And, then, we broke them back! And you broke her face!"
Pearl flushed a soft teal. "I suppose I did. Yes."
"Aww, P'..." Amethyst rolled her head on her shoulder. "Don't start blushing. You smashed a window today! Our window! You're on a roll."

Amethyst clapped her closed fist into her open palm. Holding Pearl gently by the wrist, Amethyst shoveled a handful of the flattest, smallest stones she could find into Pearl's grip. She didn't know why or how - Pearl did - but she knew the flatter and smaller the rock, the better it skipped, and she wasn't above petty cheating to prove a point.

"You know fusions can be pretty wild. She's just showing off 'cos she's new! C'mon. Let's let you do some showing off."
Pearl rolled her eyes. Her shoulders seemed much looser than they had been when she sat down. "Alright. Here we go..."

Fixing the flat edge of the stone between her thumb and the side of her finger, Pearl looked carefully at the shimmering water. It wasn't like she hadn't done much more precise things - balancing on tumbling towers at the top of mountains, sliding under swung axes in chaotic battlefields, snatching falling gems over pools of bubbling magma - at risk of much more severe consequences - dying, dying, dying - but the nerves never really left. Amethyst had her eyes on her and so - she assumed, she didn't dare take her eyes of the lake - did this new, imperious fusion. She'd never seen a Vesuvianite before. During the rebellion she'd met all sorts of fusions, sometimes multiple versions of the same made of different rebels, but there'd never been a Lapis and a Peridot together before. Lapises were rare at the best of times, and Peridots usually ended up with Bismuths, Pearls, or Rubies, if, indeed, they ended up with anyone at all.

Pearl had six stones in her hand. She tossed one, careful to keep the flattest face of it flush with the water because she understood basic laws of fluid dynamics - Amethyst didn't - and knew a wide surface area would help it skip. It sunk with a weak plop and Pearl deflated.

"Come on!" Amethyst encouraged. "You can't always get it. You gotta sorta get the... flow. Pew. (None) See? Happens to me too."
"Do you have to make the noise?" Pearl lowered her head and flicked another stone. She suddenly perked up as she heard it (plip splip splash) and finally sink into the water on the third skip. Pearl had four stones in her hand.
"Heeeyyy, three!" Amethyst smiled, the lids of her eyes suddenly feeling very heavy. "I wanna make that noise. Why? Izzit gonna ruin your focus?"
"No. I.. think it's the opposite, actually." “Her voice drew up in her throat knowingly - what exactly it knew was a mystery - and gained a playful tail that kept it bubbling in her mouth for a while. "Keep going." She flicked two more. Neither of them bounced. Two stones left.

Pearl was not good at skipping stones. Despite having much more understanding of it than Amethyst, understanding only meant so much when you were chucking rocks like primitive humans. She tossed another pebble. Just like those humans, she had to trust the vibes-based advice of her betters to really do well. Pearl was terrible at reading "vibes", but between good banter and Amethyst being practically glued to her waist, it was very hard to focus on that. She tossed another.

"I don't know." Pearl said, after a long while. Her body so slumped and loose it was practically falling over, only held up by the strong, stout form of Amethyst at her side. "I don't want to think I think she's better. I suppose I'll just say she's just intimidating."
"You think I wouldn't be a little intimidated of Opal if I first saw 'er?" Amethyst said, brushing her hair away so that she could better look up at Pearl's weary, smiling face.
"No, I don't think you would be."
"But I'm a bad example. Just like you always say!" She hummed. "Listen Pearl. You just get to know her some - she's gunna be weird. All Gems are fusion'r'not. Get to know her, you'll get used to the weird. She might be around for a long time."
"Oh... well." Pearl hung on the words for a while. "... I don't know if I want that."
Amethyst rolled her eyes. "Not about what you want, 'P." She elbowed Pearl softly. "But I won't tell Garnet you said that."

Pearl tossed another stone.

Pearl was not good at skipping stones, but what Pearl was good at - as most Pearls are - is memory and numbers. Had she been in any state of mind other than the kinds brought on by Amethyst pressing deep into her side, she'd have realized she'd just tossed her seventh stone out of six. With the deft movements of a thief (because she was one), Amethyst slipped another few stones into Pearl's hand, and kept trying to coach her. Pearl'd notice she never seemed to run out of "ammo" eventually, but Amethyst hoped that time would come after she beat her three-skip record. They didn't get far in the many minutes they spent. Neither of them minded. In this thick, humid haze they'd managed to settle into, all that mattered was the next thing the other was going to say (They didn't remember) and whether you were going to beat your record (They never did).

What probably should've mattered was the fact that the space beside them was empty, and had been since a little after Pearl sat down.

Vesuvianite was gone.

Notes:

So over the last few weeks, I've been doing some planning. I started this fic just intending it to be the first couple chapters of what it is now, but decided to expand it, and expand it, and finally, I sat down and finished the whole skeleton for the story. Start to finish! I won't be adding the appropriate tags til' we get there, but I assure you, they'll be getting big. So what's that mean?
The Week of the Peacock! Peacocks are known for showing off, and so am I. What's important is that over the coming seven days, I'm going to be releasing multiple chapters, all in one week. I've had them prepared in bits for a while. This is to make up for my sluggish pacing; it means so much to me to know my writing has apparently done lots to really intrigue some commenters.

Chapter 7: Amethyst's Room, Part II

Summary:

Amethyst and Pearl search for Vesuvianite and find a bug.
Vesuvianite eats an apple.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Lapis threw herself above the water, hair soaked into thin strands that clung to her shoulders as she finally surmounted the rocks and fell onto her back. Her chest heaved and her head rolled on the stony ground, staring up at the blackness above looking for something to focus on. She didn't find it; it found her.

"Lapis!"

Peridot fell heavily onto the stone behind her, fall broken only by her now oil-slicked hands and whole body dripping. Weakly she pulled her body up, eyes not so much as giving herself a once over and instead immediately falling on Lapis, searching her body for any damage and almost rolling into Peridot's head as she found none. Peridot's breath rattled her body and she dropped her hips to the ground, supporting herself entirely on her open palms with her head lolling on her shoulders. The tide rushed against the tiny rock outcropping they'd managed to steady themselves on and Peridot practically jumped to her feet as the water splashed her toes. Seeing the wave recede, her body remembered she was too tired to stand, and she went tumbling back to the ground. Lapis turned her head and watched her slump to the ground, hand twitching weakly as she went to stop her fall. She didn't.

Lapis had fought a fusion before. It's all she'd known fusion as, fighting, and it was something she never, ever wanted to feel again. It wasn't like other forms of pain; it wasn't like having something hit you across the face or pin you to the ground or wrap its hands around your wings and snap them. It was like the feeling of your stomach lining giving way and the acid inside burning through your intestines, the liquid to spatter on the floor between your legs, only for both to heal and begin again. Gems had no organs, but it was the closest to anything Lapis could approximate, and every waking moment Lapis had to pull herself up and continue to fight, knowing that if she just lay down, it'd at least get easier. But she couldn't. She wouldn't. It was horrendous.

"This is... incredible! I-I-" Lapis began, every syllable weighed down by labored breaths. She sat up and crossed her arms over her knees, looking to Peridot at her side and almost going to touch her before Peridot finally pulled her body up with her arms, legs apparently too much work at the moment.
"Y...yeah. Oh. Is it always like this?" Peridot's back went beam straight. "I-I mean. Not that last time was..."
"No." Lapis said simply. "It... doesn't matter. This is new! I don't... I... can't. Is it always like this for you? Being you!?"

She crossed her hands over her chest. The waves were getting particularly forceful now, rising and spinning about their outcrop and threatening to shear the thing away from the rest of the rock. The air was hot and humid, not the salty, wet sort of ocean sea that Lapis was used to. It burned inside of her like alcohol in a human's veins. Excitement that wasn't all her own rushed up from her core into the tips of her fingers, the heft of her chest, the whites of her eyes, and all of the weight of her body came down on top of her like she'd only just now begun to feel it. It felt good. Weight is momentum; weight is speed. And oh, she was living fast.

Peridot didn't feel the speed at all. She just felt heavy. Beside Lapis by her feet, heaving and looking much like Lapis had been a few moments before. The water felt so chilly as it sprayed on her hot face, like frosted glass across a bruise. Just as Lapis worried the water'd finally wash them back out into the full, swirling black tide, it receded. Peridot lifted herself, hair brushing against Lapis' leg as she - hesitantly - laid a single hand on her ankle to pull herself up. Peridot stared at her own upturned palms; all this and she was still afraid to touch her? Lapis didn't seem to mind. In fact, she didn't even regard Peridot. The wildness she'd felt had abated, her eyelids heavier and hair firmer on her scalp, looking more like the same Lapis that'd first landed in front of the barn. She was looking at the horizon, where the endless black tides dropped off into an infinite void. Something somehow darker hung on it like a cloud, just as airy and many times as large. It was always there. But only Lapis dared to look her in the eyes.

"Come on. I..." Peridot started again. "Come on! Let's go again. All together!" Looking down, Lapis saw the same, wild-eyed energy on Peridot's face that she'd been filled with. She might've had time to notice the subtle flaws in the mask if not for the fact she was gripped by the wrist and pulled towards the highest edge of the rock. The water tickled her feet as it rose and began to swallow the rock whole.
"... Yeah. Togethah!" Lapis didn't have time to speak the words as Peridot tossed herself over the edge and brought Lapis - first resisting, then stumbling, then finally leaping - into the water with her. It splashed like a boulder had fallen from the sky and crashed into it, and immediately, its inky viscocity pulled them down, spread them apart, diluted them out.

Vesuvianite thrust her head back, her hair - conspicuously wet - lashing against her nape before settling back into its diamond shape. Her eyes opened wide and the bright light streaming across her body glistened golden-white, cerulean skin leaving cobalt reflections on the crystal ground. She whistled out a breath so hot it looked steamy in the thick air of Amethyst's room. Her body arched forward and all four of her hands stretched through the air, a low chuckle rattling her body.
"I'm going to make you feel some new emotions. It can't be too hard; I've been doing it all my life."

Pearl had impaled many creatures - both living and Gem - in her many thousands of years on Earth, some very large, powerful, and (in their minds) much more important than she was. Even her near-perfect memory had lost track of the many hundreds of Gems that had ended up on the end of her spear. But she hadn't lost count of the teddy bears; as of a few moments ago, she had only ever managed to defeat two. Fearsome opponents indeed.

"Amethyst!" Pearl yelled, dispelling her spear and jumping away from the falling, defeated stuffed animal before it touched her foot and got Amethyst's Room on her.
Amethyst was upside down and slowly spinning to a stop, a garbage can lid under her back. The massive tower of Junk she'd almost toppled onto Pearl's head scattered about Amethyst, leaving her with many fresh bruises. "Ahh. I thought I saw her and had to take a shortcut. Whatever it was it had her hair!"
"Well it wasn't her." Pearl passed Amethyst by coldly, idly shooing away a few cartons of milk older than the cow that produced it. "Come on. Get up. We need to find her before she goes somewhere she shouldn't. There's lots of sensitive things in the temple." She nipped the bridge of her nose. "I knew it was a terrible idea to bring her in here."

Amethyst stewed in the garbage pile. Her hair - heavier than before - sloughed over her eye and she blinked away some loose dust. She had no intention of regretting letting Vesuvianite in - they'd gotten more out of her in a few seconds by a pond than they'd probably get with Pearl bringing out more books. She'd threatened to. but Pearl was... she had to force the thought up. Pearl was... right. Amethyst began to stand up and started to pull the mess from her body.

Pearl was always smart (Amethyst tossed a pile of noodles that'd been clinging like seaweed to her shoulder) but up until recently, she hadn't often been right. And she'd become kinder too; Steven did that to people. And that only (Slid a cardboard box she'd punched a hole into off her wrist) made it worse! Pearl was just being so curt because this was not the first but the fourth time that Amethyst had claimed to see something and it wasn't there. The first time had been an honest mistake but (Ran her fingers through her hair like a rake and freed some packing foam) the second was suspicious, and the third was a pattern.

"I swear I saw something." Amethyst continued, shaking her body like a wet dog and following behind Pearl. "Y'gotta believe me. I'm not stupid."
"Amethyst..." She sighed, softly. "I don't think you're stupid, but-" Something caught her eye, and she stopped, looking with a deep grimace to a nook in between the Junk. "... But. I believe you. You did see something, and it did look like it had her hair."

After very carefully navigating the gap so as not to touch... to touch as little of Amethyst's mess as possible, Pearl yanked something round and orange from the depths and held it above her head at arm's length. It was a plant pot - cracked from however many years of being buried under rubble - with a long, thick, defiant plant growing out of it, its spines aiming downwards as if wishing to stab Amethyst for having left it. At its middle it had shrunken and its tip had become a bulbous, unnatural diamond shape.

"It's not Vesuvianite, it's a... weird cactus?" Amethyst despaired. She had fought two cacti and had lost to both. Fearsome opponents indeed.
"We should split up." Pearl said, carefully placing the cactus back without breaking eye contact. "It's not as if having both of us together will help us see any better in all of... this."
"But how am I gonna tell you I found her?" Amethyst tried to hide the smile crawling across her face. She didn't do a good job of it, but then, neither did Pearl.
"Oh. Alright. Amethyst. When you find Vesuvianite I want you to..." She very carefully announciated her next words. "Yell. As loudly. As you can."
There was a pause.
"FREEDOM!" That was not as loudly as she could, but it was up there. "P', I love you!"

Amethyst took off. The particular direction didn't matter. Pearl took the opposite path, immediately assured she'd know when Vesuvianite was found by the fact she could hear Amethyst's whooping no matter how far they seemed to go. Amethysts room was far bigger than it looked - she mostly confined herself to the middle of it and only bothered with the winding outer reaches when she was looking for something particular - but even so, there were only so many places a twelve foot tall bright green-blue Gem could hide. However, there were many places something significantly smaller could.

Clinking against itself with a subtle sound like a dripping tap, a figure pulled its head free from the long-dead soil beside the cactus. One might've called it a doll - it was about the right size - but though dolls were often alien and made from garbage, they resembled humans. No, it was more like a doll had finally reached the end of a long and fulfilling life tormenting human children and upon its death surrounded by friends and family, an insect suddenly burst from its chest and scurried off to torment doll children. Revenge really is a game with no winners. It crawled with spider-like posture on its long, flat limbs made from emery boards and match sticks. It had a thorax like a phasmid, long and slender, entirely made up of the straightest parts of metal and wood it could find. No adhesive or bands kept it together. It seemed just fine keeping itself in one piece, occasionally breaking off a limb or something resembling a diamond-haired head to stick somewhere more advantageous. It stuck.

Slowly scaling the cardboard boxes and crunched pieces of paper that made up the base of the pile, the junk creature hit the floor, rising unsteadily onto two legs made of entwined strips of wood. In the nook between its outstretched plastic arms and its roiling abdomen, it carried a single lightbulb, which it guarded like a mother guards a child as it scurried out of sight.

Vesuvianite bit down on her finger. The corners of her lips drew out and her whole mouth spread into a wide, passionate smile, parting to let her hot breath escape. It glimmered in the hot pink air, her whole form cast in black darks and violet lights wherever the light above bounced off the crystals below. She dropped to her knees and crawled over the round circumference of the big metal Thing she was straddling. It swung from side to side, its rickety construction filled with holes and suspended by wires that threatened to tear at any moment, but it held. It was beginning to shape up wonderfully; still needed more work, and a lot more pieces.

"Ooh. I think.. oh." She didn't so much speak the words as let them drip from her mouth. "If I juuustt..."

She shoved her hand into one of the gaps between its cast iron skeleton, some pieces of model globe she'd stretched over it breaking under her and falling into the pool far beneath. Vesuvianite yanked her hands back out and found a set of wires that briefly made her eyes widen, only to settle down as she remembered they didn't do anything. She struck her thumb across the tassel on her mortarboard and thoughtfully looked to the cables in her grip. They could just hang out. Vesuvianite's eye was caught by some glistening piece of golden metal that'd fallen from the top of one of one of the Junk piles surrounding her little hideout - a studio, she'd called it, a studio! - and she moved to grab it. Then she went to find a proper place for it. Then she noticed she could fix it between one of the loose bars that until now just ended abruptly, and ooh, if she did that, she could finally get a perch for that hood ornament she'd found.

Were one to have arrived a few moments later, they wouldn't have been able to tell Vesuvianite had ever even been thinking about any of those things. The wires lay dead as they'd always been, the metal was shoved... somewhere, and the hood ornament sat affixed in its place on the Thing as though it'd always been there. Vesuvianite had long since moved onto something else, having been inspired by something else, which was inspired by something else, leading all the way back to - well. It started back when a blue-haired Gem couldn't sleep, but that was too far back. Let's say it all lead back to the wires. Her train of thought made perfect sense if written out. But to do that, one would have to write faster than Vesuvianite thought, and there'd been many physicists over the centuries who'd given excellent proofs as to why no object could move faster than light.

Faster than light, Vesuvianite repeated it in her head. That was so silly. She was supersonic at best...

Pearl prodded her spread at a pile of trash, dreading she'd roll it over and find a horde of bugs clinging to it. There was probably an ecosystem under there on some microscopic scale, but nothing large enough she could see it, and so - with very careful steps - she slipped between the wall and the mess and ducked deeper into the cave. Beyond, there was a rocky precipice that overlooked the entirety of Amethyst's room. Towers upon towers of human garbage, long discarded furniture, food, clothes, toys, their tips touching the domed stone ceiling and their bases reaching all the way to its edges. Her lip curled a little at the sight. If Steven were here, he'd think it was "cool," "awesome," and - if he'd spent enought time with Connie that day - "something right out of a book." Pearl just thought it was something right out of Amethyst, and, she supposed, that was enough. But she wished she didn't have to look at it.

"Pearl!" A voice yelled, briefly arousing her attention before she realized - no, no one had been found. That was not even close to how loud Amethyst could yell. "Down heeeerrrre! I found something."

Pearl was by her side in a moment, landing on many stacked mattresses which she was quick to escape from. Amethyst was sitting on a rock and halfway through a bowl of fruit, which she'd stolen from the kitchen the afternoon before along with most of the perishables in the fridge*. Pearl was prepared to chew her out for taking a break to eat, but there was a smart determination in her expression, like an animal that'd caught a scent and was a few turned corners from finding the source.

* Steven was out and she'd thought Pearl wouldn't notice; Garnet had reminded them to go shopping for fresh things six hours before they'd been taken.

"I've eaten a banana, and... three apples, aaannnd, a few oranges. A kiwi too. And there's nothing left." Amethyst seemed proud of herself.
Pearl looked at her wordlessly.
"... Come on, P'. I know you have like, a mental... memory, of everything you buy. You're smart like that. A banana, three apples..."
What Pearl was good at - as most Pearls are - is memory and numbers. "Wait. I bought six apples, and Steven only brought one in the lunch he took to Connie's. There's two missing."
Amethyst pointed a finger at her. "Ayye! Knew I could count on you. Just needed to be sure." Amethyst hopped to her feet and almost took off again, but skidded to a stop.
Pearl had already started after her. "But wait, how did you know that?" Somewhere along her sentence, Pearl noticed the terribly smug expression Amethyst was making as she reached into her shirt. "... Oh, Amethyst. What are you doing?"

In the way an older brother pulls something sticky and terrible out of his pocket to send his sister running off crying, Amethyst lifted an animal high into the air. It seemed like an animal anyway; as it squirmed in her hand, it began to resemble an abstract art piece, then a wind chime, then a chime made of garbage, and it was back to abstract art again. More worringly, Amethyst wasn't wiggling it on her own. It was doing that to itself. The best way Pearl could describe it was like a doll - it was about the right size - but though dolls were often-

"It's like a stick bug! Made of sticks!" Amethyst smiled wide enough her cheeks forced her eyes closed.
"What is that?" Pearl balked. "It's like a human art project started moving! It's disturbing!"
"I dunno, but I know what's it's got. C'moonnn little guy..."

Amethyst ran her finger along the thing's wooden underside like she was trying to tame a dog. In the way dogs occasionally did, it responded by regurgitating something up from deep inside of it. Its exoskeleton folded out into loose bits of swirling refuse and out of its open stomach fell an apple.

Pearl's fingers spread out over her chin. "Was it... no, not eating it. Hiding it?"

It took the apple back gracefully - its back nearly exploding with the force Amethyst shoved it back in with - and was allowed to drop to the ground. What had once been useless looking limbs suddenly revealed themselves to be many dextrous legs and it scurried off. Small size doesn't lend well to speed, but with a determination that'd be called "plucky" if it were cuter, the strange junk bug was faster than most small animals. Unfortunately for it, it was not faster than Amethyst, who was something like a very large animal, nor Pearl, who was holding Amethyst's proverbial leash and being by the wrist dragged through her favorite park.

"Where are we going?" Pearl said, in the most commanding way she could while being pulled at an uncomfortable faster-than-walk pace by someone two-thirds her height.
"After it. Duh."
"Where's it going?"
"Vesuvianite! Also duh."
"What? You think this is her doing, somehow? She can't do this, I- I've never known of anything like this. Except..." Pearl briefly flashed back to the many times Amethyst splattered her in goo. "Well. It's not like she could eat it anyway, even if she did put together this... thing. She's not like you; she can't shapeshift a stomach."
"Doesn't make sense to me either. But Vesuvianite goes missing and suddenly these things start showing up? Gotta be related."
"Well, I suppose but - wait. Things? There's more than one?" Pearl's eyes widened and she checked to make sure there was nothing unfortunate crawling up her back.
"Told ya." Amethyst looked slyly out of the side of her eye. "I told ya I saw something."
Pearl turned her head up and looked quickly from Amethyst (not quite at her eyes) to the diamond-haired head shape of the strange bug thing. She shrunk into her blush. It was entirely possible this creature was walking in a totally random direction, or to a nest it'd made, or to a very very large nest many thousands of them had made, and that Pearl would come running out of the temple screaming bloody murder with splinters in her hair. But she didn't have any better ideas.

"I'm sorry. For not believing you."

Amethyst squeezed her hand and ran a little faster.

Notes:

I'm realizing this is becoming a very Pearlthyst heavy fic and I'm not sure how to feel about that.
I promise this entire fic won't take place in Amethyst's Hell Dungeon.

Chapter 8: Amethyst's Room, Part III

Chapter Text

The dust plumed high into the air as Vesuvianite crashed into the ground, trailed by cans and trash bags. The dip in the middle of the Junk pile was about a foot deeper now, Vesuvianite's most recent slide down doing funny things to all the long-dead electric toothbrushes and razors and microwaves inside. Especially if you were the kind to find exploding funny. She pulled herself up onto her knees and smiled wetly; she rubbed away something red and thin as it trailed down her chin. She'd long since decided - in her own defintion of long, which was about the same as a gnat's - that she liked her hands wet. It meant she'd been busy.

Kissing the back of her thumb and sucking the juice between her lips, she crooked her fingers towards a shadow in the corner. Emerging from the shadow like a curious dog, a two-legged creature made of pencils and dust covers shambled towards her, dilligently clutching a half-eaten apple in its hollow torso. Vesuvianite's hand was about as big as it was, and as she pulled the apple from its trembling full-body grip, she pet it across its head (origami folded into a diamond, of course). It was a careless motion from a giant creature to a terribly frail, barely alive one, and it nearly sent the thing tumbling as it nursed its fresh dog ears.

Vesuvianite fit the apple carefully between her teeth, making sure the unbitten off-pink side was facing her reflection in the pool beneath. Her jaws closed with the force of a vice, teeth slicing the thing in two with the humanity of a guillotine. And then in four. Six. Eight. The fruit was diced - not mulched - in her mouth in moments, thick, red juice leaking across her lips as some biological reflex told her to swallow. Her hair lashed through the air as she threw it back, eyes wide looking down at her dripping mouth and soaked-through hair in the water below. She spat the useless skin and bruised, diced slices onto the ground, cupping her cheeks and pressing them into her eyes.

"I'm so pretty..."

The absurdity of it hit her all at once and she rolled weakly onto her back, chest heaving as she broke into fits of giggles. She was so pretty. Her hands roamed across her body, occasionally forcing a sharp, dry breath whenever she realized she was that tall or was that slender or really was formed with such a beautiful outfit. Vesuvianite avoided the word perfect. There was too much complexity in the world for anything to be perfect; improvements could always be made if you were willing to take things apart. But she liked the shape of the word and let it hang dangerously close to leaving her mouth for a while.

But she wasn't just beautiful. The thought came to her like a lightning bolt and she lifted her arms as if they'd been hoisted by invisible strings, whipping one of her wrists to the side as the other twisted its fingers. Far above the pool she lay by, a thin metal pipe rolled off a stony precipice and fell through the air, stopping suddenly as one of her fingers twitched. She was in control here. Things moved because she wanted them to. Things stopped when she didn't. The world was full of complexity - but in her's, it was that simple. She flicked the air and the pipe rammed through the panelled carapace of the Thing she'd been piecing together, perfectly slotting into a gap only as wide as it was. Some important wires pressed together, some hooks finally caught, and Vesuvianite's fingers kneaded together.

"Bang."

An invisible electrical pulse shot through the air and tingled through the best parts of Vesuvianite's nonexistent skeleton. Air whistled softly out of her as the gigantic ball of scrap and lights above finally lit up, bathing her body in shafts of purple-gold light. This would make the show look fantastic. Her special guests were going to show up soon. Her whole body bubbled with excitement.

She wasn't just beautiful. She was powerful.

All of the excitement had drained from Pearl's body - what little there was to be had in briskly pursuing an esoteric art piece - and her mind had started to wander. They were a few layers deep into the winding caverns of the furthest reaches, and as far away as that sounded, most of it had been right-hand turns. The walls were getting uncomfortable tight for a party of two or a party of two-in-one, and Pearl was beginning to doubt Amethyst's logic. But there were still a few more pressing concerns on her mind; chiefly, Amethyst had used logic.

"It's... unusually perceptive of you. The apples, I mean." Pearl folded her arms behind her.
"Hard not to notice, P'. Look at the little guy, he can barely fit it in 'im." She reached down and prodded the bug around where the apple most severely bulged its back. It picked up its pace.
"No, no. Well, yes. But I mean the fact they were missing at all."
Amethyst didn't turn around, instead digging her hands into her hair behind her head and walking at a faster gait. "Ain' nobody takin' my food without me knowin'. You're gonna tell me what's 'right' anyway, may as well make somethin' out of it."

Pearl narrowed her eyes and followed closer. They passed through the Winding Bends, into the Shrine to Stolen Street Signs, under The Hole, stepped - one of the two more carefully than the other - through the Museum of Old Human Food, and around the Cavern Shaped Like a Klein Bottle Amethyst Had Custom Built Once She Learned What One Was. It was out the bottom of the klein bottle (which also lead to its top) where Pearl finally spoke her mind.

"You've been acting strangely today."
Amethyst hid behind her fringe. "What do you mean?"
"When Vesuvianite first... landed. You actually asked me who she was." Pearl tried to surpress it, but her curiosity was quickly raising her voice as it shifted to pride. "We even had a plan."
"And look how that turned out." She hurried quickly on. "Good thing she's on our side, am I right?"
Pearl stood right beside Amethyst on the tips of her toes, and looked directly down on her head as they passed. Amethyst was dodging questions; she was something like a large animal, and that meant cornering her was a bad idea. "I liked it. And it's not because it made you more like me. It's because you showed me a new side of you." Pearl rolled forward on the tips of her feet, expectantly.

Amethyst took a few more rooms before she finally gave in.

"It's not like you haven't been weird today either. Breaking that window n'all... Maybe we're both just being weird!" Amethyst bargained. Pearl didn't buy.
"Alright. Listen, I was curious. I wasn't asking just so I could. I'm sorta... always curious. You think I don't wonder sometimes?" Amethyst shoved her hands in suddenly extant pockets. She wasn't explaining this well, and Pearl's eyes made her feel like a fish behind glass. "... Wonder about homeworld. And other gems. Like, every gem I've ever met that isn't you or Garnet or- or Rose, I've met in the last couple years. But you've always known them. You've got a good memory for that stuff, I keep telling you. You remember all the gems you met."

They were coming to a clearing now, and if they hadn't known better - Pearl didn't - they'd have thought they'd went in one big circle. Amethyst absentmindedly pressed her finger down on the strange creature's foot and took a seat on the most comfortable rock around. She'd done some good thinking on that rock.

"You think when I saw Lapis or Peridot, I wasn't thinking-" She lifted her arms up and deepened her voice. "'I really wanna talk to this strange, mysterious gem who I've never heard of before but all the others seem to know just fine.'"
"I didn't know them. I just... knew their caste." She looked encouragingly to Amethyst. "You can't judge a gem by their caste. Well. Not much." That was a careful qualification.
Amethyst raised her hand and allowed a slight smile. "I'm over it, P'. Don't have to try and make me feel better. Yeah, yeah, gems don't have to be what homeworld wants them to be, just like Rose was saying for a million years. But I was thinking, what does homeworld want them to be? Who are these guys?" She sat for a while. The bug thing made a solid escape effort all the while. "... Well. I wasn't thinking that. Mostly 'cos every time I meet a new gem they uh, they kinda wanna kill me, or Steven, or you, or wanna try and end the world. Sometimes all of them at once... heh... you can thank Rose for that."

The both of them forgot about Vesuvianite for a while. Amethyst forgot she didn't like being in silence for more than five minutes at a time (her tongue tended to push at the roof of her mouth trying to get out). Pearl forgot she didn't like being in Amethyst's horrendous den for more than five minutes at a time (her internal clock was much like her; usually very accurate but given to bouts of extreme exaggeration, and it was currently reasoning they'd been inside Amethyst's room for seventeen years). Amethyst smiled at nothing as she picked up the longest, sharpest thing she could find and used it to dig shapes into the dirt.

"Rose thought..." Pearl finally began. She'd begun many sentences like that. "That all gems were born with certain traits. But that they could go any direction they wanted. And that some gems were born to go very strange - ah, well, she called them wonderful - directions."
"... And?" She'd drawn a flower of no particular species in the gravel. It looked terrible.
"I think she'd be really proud of your curious side. Wanting to know more about other gems and the way they live."
She added a stem, held her breath, and decided to say something she immediately braced to regret. "I don't really care if Rose would be proud of me or not anymore."

Pearl looked sharply at Amethyst through her brows. She seemed to be formulating something to say, some cohesive thoughts to pull out that'd get across the very, very complex things she wanted to. Amethyst didn't look like she did when she was in trouble. She looked like she did when she was hiding in the back of somewhere tight trying to look small so that everyone would just leave her alone. Whatever Pearl came up with was much too long to communicate with dry eyes, and so she compressed it.

"That's okay."

Within a few minutes they were both up on their feet and ready to track, prepared to take a different tact should this whole 'follow strange abstract art pieces' plan go nowhere. Pearl was relieved - if not a little moritifed in new ways - that they hadn't gone in a big circle. They'd just taken the most circuitous route possible to where they were headed. She distracted herself by appreciating Amethyst's surprisingly excellent mental mapping of her chamber. She really DID have a system. If only Amethyst could project it from her gem; then Pearl wouldnt have to rely on her directions. Of course, all of this planning rather went to waste when Amethyst suddenly stopped atop her rock, crooked her neck round a corner, and blurted out loudly.

"Is that a disco ball?"

Amethyst ran ahead, rocks under her feet loosing and nearly sending her flat on her face were she not quick enough to go into a feral four-legged dash. This was her room, after all, and she knew it better than anyone. That was why when it came to scaling the steep, almost vertical pathway leading up to one of the most elevated and disused pools in her room, Amethyst found every foothold and was at the top in record time. And that was why it was so worrying when she - front half bathed in purple-pink light - stopped at the precipice and looked. Just looked. Her eyes stretched around the room as if she'd found a vault of diamonds (not that she'd have any use for them), and a wide smile began to creep over her face.

Pearl - who adapted to Amethyst's room like a fish to boiling magma - stopped as she looked up at Amethyst high above. They looked at each other, Amethyst taking a wide legged stance as she moved to cup her hands around her mouth. Oh. Oh no.

"I FFFFFFFOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNDD HER"

That. That was as loud as she could.

Chapter 9: Vesuvianite's Room

Chapter Text

"We should say something." Pearl began.
"Yeah, we should." Amethyst ended.
They did not speak.

As previously elaborated on, Pearl had an internal clock that was like a reflection of herself, though it currently smelled much better because - though it too had been dragged through Amethyst's room - reflections always smelled like freshly cut glass. While both had been briefly hysterical after however long spent crawling around looking for Vesuvianite (Amethyst's room did that to you), finding her had calmed her nerves and straightened her senses. Pearl had a good idea of how long they'd been down there; the answer was entirely too little for anyone to do nearly as much as Vesuvianite had done.

From the ceiling hung a massive, golden orb with a skeleton of rebar and a skin suit of pinchbeck. It was covered in tears - most from its patchwork nature and some from a fist being rammed into it - and from the gaps spilled out beams of royal purple light. Beneath it Vesuvianite playfully kicked her legs in her regalia so that the rayon fishtailed around in the pool. Her elbow was to the water, hand pressing into her cheek as she looked invitingly to the two of them. Her skin seemed a shade of violet-green in the glow. It reminded Amethyst of the nights she'd spent in human establishments she'd been told she wasn't allowed to tell Steven about.

Oh, and Vesuvianite was walking on water.

"Amethyst don't run to her it's deep and going to-ohough..." The words wilted as they left Pearl's mouth.

Amethyst's hair beat behind her as gracefully as a mermaid's tail. Her body spiralled beneath it as gracefully as a stone. She floundered in the impossibly deep water and looked up to the rainbow of club-esque light stretching down to her, mind immediately going to trying to jump up behind Vesuvianite and pull her down with. Served her right for disappearing like that. As she squinted up to the water's surface, she realized Vesuvianite had somehow disappeared yet again. Right. Pull her down three times as deep next time. Plans for later. Plans for now? Well, if there was a tunnel that lead behind Pearl anywhere around here...

"Dark in hyere, iseen'teet?"
Amethyst's mind had been read. "Totally. It's just like what VeeVee was saying, uh, I think. Light bouncing and refracting and whatever. Just a lot wetter."
She turned very slowly.

Pearl sat on one knee at the sandy loam edge of the pool, peering expectantly at the water but occasionally letting her eyes roam to the outskirts of the walled, semicircular little cubby no bigger than Steven's Room. It was on a high raised tower of rock that reminded her more of a damp crystal cove than a garbage heap; she expected to see sailor's skeletons littering it sooner than human's trash. It was the closest thing to a luxury suite Amethyst had, and the view was excellent if you were the kind to buy VIP rooms overlooking junkyards. Pearl heard a low bubbling, then a low rumbling, and turned on her heel as fast as she could.

The massive pillar of water burst up from the center of the pool as if an invisible boulder had crashed into it. The sound echoed through Amethyst's room like a grown man cannonballing from a high divine board, bouncing around the room incessantly until it found something soft and well-worn to be absorbed into. Across the Room, diamond-shaped heads of all sizes peaked out from Junk and rustled their cobbled bodies like so many pots and pans. When the water finally leveled without rebounding into another, weaker pillar (it took a few tries), Amethyst hung suspended by both arms, her head smushed into her neck and nose inches from a piece of disco-ball rebar. Vesuvianite held her by the wrists as she sat atop it, all together looking like a gargoyle self portrait commissioned by an (admittedly incredibly influential) professor. Pearl was dripping wet with her knees to her chest and her hands over her head.

"My plessyah."
"Funny." Amethyst said, wriggling weakly in Vesuvianite's four-handed grip.

Shrinking away from the spike she'd nearly been impaled on, Amethyst swung her body back and forth until she could hoist her feet up onto the ball. Only now did Vesuvianite think to help her up, doing so by shuffling back towards the very top of the sphere and letting Amethyst just scale along like a mountain climber ziplining up a summit. Mountain climbers - Amethyst noted - were not soaked head to toe, nor being led on top of something they weren't wholly convinced wouldn't crash down to the bottom again at any moment.

"That was close. Couldn't have been more careful?" Amethyst beat a brow once she got her arms back to herself and the freedom to shake them dry.
"I suppose I could. But I didn't need to be." Vesuvianite shrugged, steadying the swaying ball and sweeping by.
"Can't argue with that." She could. But she didn't need to. "You're fast underwater! Didn't even see you move."
Vesuvianite looked to Amethyst - top set of eyes as thin as always and bottom set pushed upward by her smug, blue-green dotted cheeks - as she slid down the side. "Not just the water."

Pearl heard her almost before she saw her - Vesuvianite's water wings lashing against the air made a sound like... well. The important part was that Vesuvianite's water wings were different than other, more function-first kinds Vesuvianite regarded with a raised chin; they seemed to glitter. Not glitter like a clean stream under a summer's day, more akin to the glitter of tiny shards of gold and silver in that same stream, flowing away from a scuttled caravan. The kind where, somewhere up the stream's length, two highwaymen fought for their cut of the spoils with daggers in hand. She hit the ground on all fours and pressed her face close to Pearl who resisted the urge to curl back into a wet ball, instead standing defiantly - uncomfortably - with a strained smile on her face. They looked expectantly at one another for... well. It felt like minutes.

"Oh. Fast in the air! Ah. Yes." Pearl gingerly crooked a finger in front of her chest.
Vesuvianite's brows beat, as if that wasn't the answer she was looking for - needed more gravitas? - but didn't think pushing would help any. "Yes."

The moment was (thankfully) broken when Pearl felt something rickety bump her ankle. She stepped back as the apple-stuffed bug... thing (they really hadn't come up with a name?) crawled in her place. She frantically rubbed at her foot and crept away, as if trying to wipe invisible mud from her leg. Vesuvianite immediately brightened, hair whipping behind her and bouncing on her head once she'd settled on her knees. Her hand turned expectantly upward and guided it up onto her palm by its matchstick core. It was cute in the way a close-up of a tarantula is cute.

"Ah, yes." Pearl straightened. Her composure was only shaken when she heard a loud splash and looked to see Amethyst had slipped off and not quite made the leap - either that or she'd decided she wanted another go at trying to sneak up on a gem that could control water, in the water. "Care to explain what... that... is, exactly?"
"Meep-morp." Vesuvianite responded matter-of-factly. "And, more importantly - spit. Spit."

The 'meep-morp' shuddered as its abdomen heaved, finally peeling open and dropping the apple it had ventured so far to get right into Vesuvianite's hands. Its mission apparently complete, it closed its now significantly less barrel-shaped chest and rolled over, stick-like legs twitching softly as it 'panted.' It was all too mechanical to be quite lifelike; more like someone knew what life was and was trying to do an imitation of it in a school pantomime, with about the same budget. Pearl raised her brow to Amethyst (she'd dried off)

"Does this... mean anything to you?" Pearl asked
"What, you mean like-" Amethyst raked her fingers through her hair, looking curiously to a long forgotten, soggy figurine she found in there before flicking it away. "- In a universal sense or?" She turned her head to the thing on the ground and walked over to it like it was an injured animal. "Aw, hey. What's wrong with it?"
"Losing the spark, I suppose. It will make a full recovery, in all likelyhood." Vesuvianite was again matter-of-fact, though the way the Meep-Morp was twitching on the ground made it seem like more of a matter-of-second-opinion. "More importantly-"

Vesuvianite chomped down on the better half of the whole apple, dicing the thing between her razor-like teeth in a few messy, wet guillotine drops that kept all the hard bits in and let the juice flow down her cheeks. Her tongue flitted out to lick up the parts that nested beneath her lip, letting the rest form into thick rivulets before her throat before eventually spattering on her dress. Her mouth formed into a wide, heavy smile as her eyes went half-lidded.

Pearl stared at something far off and Amethyst tried not to stare in general. It was all a little graphic.

"... I mean, what is this thing not how is that thing." Amethyst knelt down beside 'that thing' and stroked its side gently. The corner of her mouth curled up. "But I guess that's good to know... wait. Meep-Morp?" Amethyst slapped her hand across her face as if it all made sense. It really didn't, but it was a start. By the time she'd peeled her palm from her head, Pearl bobbed anxiously at her side.
"So?" She whistled through her teeth.
Amethyst pressed the back of her hand against her cheek. "It's what Peri and Lapis call art, P. Didn't ever get it to move though. 'Les you count flushing."
"Oh. Do you think Peridot... I mean, ah, Vesuvianite, do you think she added something mechanical? She already powered a city."
Vesuvianite swept off. Amethyst tapped the thing's literal stick-thin limbs as it struggled to its feet and follow after its... master? "I know you can do some crazy stuff with a pile of junk, but I don't think you're fitting anything mechanical in that."
"Well." Pearl being logically rebuffed by Amethyst didn't sit right with her. "Yes, but, with some time I could... ah..."

The words trailed off as a bundle of metal wire rolled by like a tumbleweed. Suddenly, the threads of silver formed together as one into the vaguest impression of a limb, pushing off the ground and steering it to bounce towards Vesuvianite. A soda can (half of it's side having long since been torn open from the inside, the implications of which neither of them wanted to consider) bounced behind it, sometimes spinning as if it were about to stop but always finding somewhere to roll down and keep on going. Falling from some of the Junk wedged in the ceiling, a block of wood that'd long since been sheared off something it was a vital part of hit the ground and began to slide. Something hollow bumped Pearl's foot. Something heavy slipped under Amethyst's legs.

They both stood up as one woman. The scene expands, the two becoming a pair of faceless barely-figures as more moving junk flowed in from every angle. All centered - Pearl was first to point out - right on Vesuvianite.

"Alright. You win." Pearl admitted, looking to Amethyst.
"I suspect you'll want to know more?" Vesuvianite walked over the edge of the pool and across the water, rippling around her feet but not daring to drop her, like a fabrege egg in the hands of a serf who'd prefer to keep his head attached. She smiled so widely her lower eyes threatened to sink under her cheeks.
"I suspect-" Amethyst echoed playfully. Having decided scraps of metal weren't a credible threat, she dropped to her knees and began to turn one unfortunate metal sheet over in her hand. It bit down on her like a suddenly angered cat, and hopped away as she sucked the side of her finger. "I suspect you want us to ask (Ow). You really like keepin' people guessin', huh VeeVee?"
Vesuvianite didn't answer. "It's a bell curve. When you're completely ignorant, everything's interesting, as is when you're only slightly ignorant. When you're just mostly ignorant things seem boring." Vesuvianite slowed as all the junk swirling around her began to collate into... something. "I can't make people learn everything there is, so it's best to teach nothing. More interesting"
Pearl rolled her eyes. "But you're not ignorant, right?"
"Only slightly." Vesuvianite added. She would've went on, but something small bumped her leg. She realized Amethyst's gaze was tracing through the water towards her ankle.

The insect-like Meep-Morp had found the strength to move forward, though, it didn't seem to have much strength to do more. Its wooden board legs paddled uselessly on the surface of the water, their bouyancy being the only thing holding them up. It wiggled its head pathetically. Amethyst smiled sadly as Vesuvianite knelt down besides the thing and held its flagging diamond-shaped cranium in her palm. She looked thoughtfully at it.

"Ah, your uniqueness will make a good addition to mine."

Vesuvianite tore out its guts and it sunk like a sack of meat.

Amethyst gaped and Pearl tried very hard to keep her expression polite.

"As I was saying-" Vesuvianite began, clutching bending metal and crushed wooden sticks in her hand. "I'm ignorant. I know now. Lapis and Peridot, they'd spend so long watching the animals, I couldn't understand why they weren't getting closer. Studying them closely. Picking them apart. When we understand something-" She grunted slightly, triumphantly curling her fingers as she raised her hand. "We can put them back together - better! Earth can set you free. If you make it."

Two pillars of water rose at her sides - rose, not spouted, as this water seemed far more polite and formal than the riff-raff flood that'd hosed Amethyst. If she wasn't still muttering nothing to herself - "She... just... but it came all this way!" - Amethyst would have noticed. Thick chunks of metal rose from the depths, along with some less identifiable parts of what had probably been a very hard working car. Like so many rats scurrying into a hole, the miscellaneia crossed into the rising stream and shot up towards the foamy tops, stopping suddenly as if sliding into an invisible peg. The sound of rushing water drowned out the heavy clinks and pangs of coppers and bronze fighting for space.

Vesuvianite shoved her hand in to the flow and opened her palm. The insides of her meep-morp shot up to their proper place, the rest of its body forgotten somewhere far down in the pool below.

"I call them kitsch robonoids." She gestured to the stick-figure like meep-morps gathering around, the ball of lights above her casting shadows heavily on her expression. It was the kind that - without malice - was fed grapes while putting people to guillotines. "As I remember, you destroyed most of the real thing. I replaced them. They were advanced, but so... basic." Vesuvianite twisted her wrists. "Designed by some commitee appointed by some... Diamond."

Amethyst perked up as something dragged over her thigh. One of the more humanoid robonoids - clearly more advanced, the size of a small child, almost recognizable as anything but abstract - presented an astonishingly clean water bottle to her. Its stick thin digits held it with great confidence, slung over its shoulder like a heavy log.

"I... hey, little guy." Amethyst said, taking the bottled water from her hand. Were she in a better mood she'd have started on eating the plastic, but for now, she just unscrewed the cap.
"The one you saw-" Vesuvianite continued, absentmindedly flicking one of the robonoids from her shoulder. "Was some of my earliest work. It's showing its age; I was so much less skilled then."
"Perhaps you're... showing your experience." Pearl added, hesitantly, as she shooed away a robonoid insisting on handing her a bag of birdseed. "Though. Again. How did you do this?"
Vesuvianite smiled. "Watch."

Something seemed off about her wide green eyes; they seemed to capture the weird light differently. And they wouldn't let it go. She rolled her head on her shoulders and steeled herself, smiling from ear to ear like a razor cut. Her finger tips crackled with lightning, the air gained a weight like it was desperately trying to find a safe place to watch from, and Vesuvianite plunged her arms into the water spouts.

There comes a part in every advanced civilization where they... well. Each civilization has a term for it. Almost all have been forgotten, as for a civilization to reach that point, they must also survive a few centuries with everyone having nuclear weapons, and that luck has to run out eventually. "Kardashev" doesn't translate well into Gem glyph. Regardless, there comes a point on every planet where they learn what energy really is and start making good use of it, usually around when its population starts leaving home and meeting its neighbors. That's all well and good for them, but until then, every civilization has to get by on water. A river flows into a house, past a wheel, the wheel spins. A very big river flows into a dam, past a very big wheel, the wheel spins. Thousands of atoms bounce at incredible speed between two specially designed rods, the water gets very hot, the water makes steam, the steam goes past a wheel - the wheel spins. It's really all just spinning wheels. It's a little embarrassing; maybe it's why aliens don't visit often.

But for now, it's all we have. And in that moment, however briefly, Vesuvianite had it in her palms.

"Water is energy. Energy is the Spark of Life!" Vesuvianite spun around.

The water grew dark, and then it grew arms. Something lurched out from inside of it. The stream split around the contours of its body: spindly barely-digits, a half-formed chin, something that resembled a scalp made of finely layered scrap. All at once, like a crack in a block of marble suddenly splitting in two and revealing the sculpture beneath, the water splashed into itself, leaving behind a humanoid shape Pearl and Amethyst recognized simultaneously. They'd seen themselves before, after all.

Vesuvianite spun around and gripped one of the water simulacrums by the wrist, briefly admiring the finer details filled out by floating metal. Throwing her head forward, she tossed Amethyst's water reflection ("Me-p-morp" flashed in her mind) in a blur of deep blue and off-bronze. It splashed into an unrecognizable mass as it hit the ground, her shape rising out of it limb by limb. Pearl's landed more gracefully, her foot simply sliding into her thigh before reforming perfectly en pointe, a fact that was lost on neither of them. Pearl was as critical of other people's style as she was precise in her own, and though Amethyst hadn't done ballet in a long time*, she'd spent most of her existence with Pearl. Vesuvianite wasn't just mimicking form. She was mimicking - perhaps, granting - function.

* The last time was a few years ago when Steven had taken an interest in it and Amethyst tagged along on a visit to a potential tutor. On quiet nights, she could still hear the screams.

"Jealous?" Amethyst bumped their shoulders. "Hey! Veevee, this is just like that one time with Lapis." Amethyst held back the urge to take a stick and prod her copy, or else, tie it up and sit on it. Revenge was a game with no winners.
"Lapis does tricks for goldfish. This. This is art." Vesuvianite looked up, wild-eyed, from her own reflection in the pool as she shaped it in her hands. The two gems on dry land exchanged a glance as they looked their copies over. The pale white orb eyes, the shambling posture, and the perfectly smooth forms broken up by harsh metal jammed into them, they were certainly 'art.'
Amethyst tapped her chin. "... Hey. Wait. You do know the real word!"
"Hah! Look at that." Vesuvianite ignored her. "Lapis stealing my thunder." Her guillotine-teeth peeked out between her lips. "Hark. I've got my own."

The water didn't run with electricity when Vesuvianite plunged her hands in. The electricity ran with it instead, quickly, as if worried its owner would try to take it back. An arched back made of loose engine parts and glittering water lurched out beside Vesuvianite, quickly taking a slim, tall form easy to mistake as Pearl. It hung on the shape for a while before it found the few changes it was looking for. In the way a shadow in a dark room suddenly becomes a gaunt face or a skeletal monster or a killer's silhouette without changing at all, it became Lapis. So small they hadn't even seen it emerging, on Vesuvianite's opposite side was now a Peridot. An Amethyst was grabbing at her feet, another Pearl having waded to the shore. What looked like a boxy hairdue tried to emerge from the steady water, but it lost its shape as if it couldn't quite remember the details, coming out as another Amethyst.

Within a few moments Pearl and Amethyst (the ones made of light which, in a way, made them less real) found themselves back-to-back surrounded by half a dozen copies of each on either side. They bowed obediently towards their creator; Amethyst laughed at herselves while Pearl curled her lips at hers. Vesuvianite had collapsed into her divan and was being served hand-on-foot by her Peridot, Lapis offering her a tipped jug of water which seemed entirely superfluous.

"Awesome." Amethyst nudged Pearl to participate. "You've figured out your powers, dude! It took me - err. I mean, my fusions, like, ages to figure out how to work 'emselves."
"I'm a quick learner... mh. No. It's not hard if you pay attention; most people simply don't."
Pearl was still mildly offended. "Yes, yes. Very impressive."
Amethyst rolled her eyes, then slowly, she smiled. "... Hey, P'. Remember that time with Opal, when we... y'know. She was figuring out how to use her bow and-" Amethyst made a string-pulling gesture, then imitated something heavy falling, and then, clapped her hands together. Pearl's mask finally broke and she returned the look. That poor eagle! And that poor human philosopher. And that poor rock.
"See? There y'are. New fusions are crazy like that. Guess we should get a look at these things up close; last time they were tryna' stab you." Amethyst pushed her and Pearl crept forward.
She gingerly inspected her copies. They were astonishingly accurate. Minus the rebar. "I suppose I can appreciate it; nice these aren't attempting to kill us for a change."
Vesuvianite shrugged. "Oh, they are."

Pearl's eyes widened as she looked over her shoulder. She had the time to raise her elbow to chest height before the water Pearl behind her thrust its spear towards her gem and its tip splattered into shards like it was spewing from a burst pipe.

Amethyst snapped her head towards them and gawked.

Pearl considered the fact she wasn't shattered, thought for a while, then swatted the flimsy water spear away from her head. It had all the force of water from a showerhead.

"I 'got' you, didn't I?" Vesuvianite smiled wryly into her fist.
"Yes, very clever." Pearl wiped her gem down. "You said something was dangerous and it wasn't."
"Oh, it's dangerous." Vesuvianite twirled her finger and the copy that had nearly took Pearl's head off stabbed the ground, leaving a very real spear mark in the gravel. "I just chose for it not to be."
Amethyst didn't appreciate the proof, but was too busy holding Pearl very closely by the hips to retort. "Not. Cool."
"I suppose-" Pearl smiled softly down at her and pulled a napkin from her gem, drying it with the indignance of a noble who had to take her white gloves off and touch a dying peasant. "Lapis always was good with controlling that sort of thing. When she wanted to."
"Oh. That was all me." Vesuvianite stood and let her dress bat water-Peridot across the face as she passed. "Lapis is skilled-" She approached the shore, heavier and heavier waves in the water as she drew closer to actually walking in it. "- But I'm better."
"You got real confident all of a sudden, you know that?" Amethyst blew her hair from her face.
"Oh, I've learned from the best." She struck her finger along her chin. "I see her in my reflection every day."

Amethyst took a step forward and an idea briefly flashed across Vesuvianite's mind (We'll get back to it). She still wasn't used to that, but she was getting there; she'd done a lot of thinking in however many minutes or hours she'd been alone. More thinking, she believed, than many people did in their lives. Many thoughts were beginning to become familiar, many feelings she was beginning to adjust to, in the way one adjusts to a wonderful floral smell after a few hours and it just makes being anywhere else smell worse. In her case, it was being anyone else that was the problem. It didn't have to be if she didn't want it to be, she thought.

But there were still some novel ideas. The one in her mind now was one of them; someone was angry at her. She wasn't sure what to think about that, so she elected not to.

A slender hand settled on Amethyst's shoulder and she looked up. Pearl tilted her head forwards thoughtfully with an expression Vesuvianite didn't have the experience to read.

"Whatever. You just got her by surprise." Amethyst crossed her arms and bowled her head to Pearl's clones. They clutched their spears proudly. "Wanna see the best? Watch her in a real fight."
"Oh, Amethyst." Pearl bubbled, the mood suddenly lightened. Amethyst didn't dare make eye contact, but limited experience or otherwise, her expression was very readable.
"I mean. Best at what you do."
"Yes, and if she wants to see the best at what she does, she should spend time with you. Right?" Pearl spoke out of the corner of her mouth. It was her way of saying something the proper side of her wouldn't appreciate; apparently it was in her left ear and mostly deaf.
"Huh?" The confusion came over Amethyst's face before the soft blush. "What's she do?"
"Play with garbage." Pearl reached for her Gem and spun her spear in front of her, clapping it decisively on her palm. "She's going to be cleaning up what's left in a moment; you wouldn't bother with that."
Amethyst glowed. "Waaiit wait wait. You're gonna FIGHT them? I wasn't serious!"
"And? I was."

In the manner a guardsmen who'd grown used to sitting with his boots kicked up and brim tipped down in front of the gates, one of the aqua-Pearls sluggishly drew to attention. Their movements were unsure and jerky, but - Amethyst knew from watching them nearly decapitate Pearl - they were smooth in motion. They weren't animate enough to call living, but certainly something living (as Gems went) was controlling them, sometimes more directly than others. Vesuvianite snapped her fingers and the art-and-craft copies of her composite parts fell away. She needed to focus for this one. No, she reminded herself. She didn't need to. But she wanted to.

"Oh I LOVE this side of you!" Amethyst shrieked.
"What can I say? I've got my own, personal, terrible influence." Pearl widened her stance and raised her chest, curling one arm in the small of her back while the other held her spear out almost tauntingly. It was... unknightly. Certainly not sportsmanlike. And very personal.

The aqua-Pearls didn't care for sportsmanship, as evidenced by the fact the one closest to Pearl immediately formed its weapon and thrust towards her chest. It was fast. Very fast. The real thing could've caught Amethyst on paper and a bad day. Pearl was not Amethyst, and this was reality, not paper, though the thing Pearl tore from the inside of its chest was. There might've been some cardboard in there, Pearl mused, as she observed the now thoroughly soaked tip of her spear. The aqua-Pearl behind her sloughed over itself like a wobbling jug, emotionless psuedo-face turned towards the gaping gap in its chest where metal had once been. Its legs finally gave and it collapsed.

Of course, it'd already revealed this trick. Its feet slid out of its thighs and formed perfectly en pointe, yes, yes, it's all been done before. Maybe Vesuvianite was more ignorant than she thought; mostly ignorant, even, if she was so quick to rely on the same move twice. Its whole body swung around as a roiling crescent of water, spear tearing the air asunder where Pearl... had been. Pearl fell elegantly behind her copy and - like a noblewoman picking at a new, decidedly unladylike cut of steak on her plate - began to tear bits out and see what she liked. It took until the copy's sheet metal waist wrap and flattened-bottle hair were plucked out for it to finally turn and face Pearl. It brought its spear up one final time only for Pearl to bat it away with a flick of her elbow, a minor detour for her spearhead on its way towards its opponent's eye.

The aqua-Pearl stared in something like surprise, looked up at the ceiling, and then splashed to the ground as a pool of thin water and damp garbage. It's all it ever had been.

Pearl allowed herself a smug look, but had to cover it along with her ears. Amethyst had been cheering her on every second of the way, however few of those it had taken, and the whoops were getting defeaning.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought my style was too strict." Pearl clicked her heels together and regarded Amethyst with a raised chin, though, looked right past her towards Vesuvianite.
Vesuvianite chewed the inside of her cheek and threaded her fingers together. She had more Pearls yet.

Chapter 10: Heaven

Summary:

This space deliberately left blank.

Notes:

Here it is. The Big Chapter 10. I've been waiting to write this since chapter 2!
I have two things to apologize for. Firstly, this is a MASSIVE chapter! At time of writing, this chapter makes up about one fifth of this entire fic. Realistically, it should be split in half, but I never found a good cutoff. I try to keep my chapters to about 3-4K words but always overshoot.
Secondly, I have not updated this fic in five weeks! That's more like my old pace from The Before Times, and it won't do. I try to keep to a one chapter every two week pace, but I failed here. Part of that is just because of the immense length of this chapter, but another is that I've been working on other fics - this is my first time juggling multiple!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The gravel beneath its feet turned dark, and then it turned over. It had time to get runny before the entire watery leg above it collapsed, having been sliced along the pseudo ankle and thigh with everything between splashing down. Its head clung on valiently to the spare hair brush that was its spinal column, but ultimately, melted like wet paint on a wall. From the other end of the raised platform, leaning over the edge like a cat on a windowsill, Amethyst hollered.

"Clean!" Amethyst slapped her bicep.
"It certainly isn't." Pearl added, smile faltering as she prodded at what had been her opponent.

Behind her, another aqua-pearl hobbled, missing a good chunk of its leg from the back end of one of Pearl's complicated spear strokes. That same stroke had ended inside the skull of one of the others, sending it toppling over and reducing their numbers to five. In this way - swiftly, efficiently, elegantly - all of them had been dispatched, leaving this one-legged simulacrum the last one half-standing. Two lighter spots on her smooth, liquid face, that in the right light could be mistaken for eyes, drew up in its head as it grasped its spar and thrust it forward towards Pearl's back.

Pearl closed her eyes and leaned forward. All of its force thrown into the thrust, the legless pearl tripped forward and then easily slid onto the tip of Pearl's spear. Pearl dispelled her weapon and what she'd caught on the end of it - which was in such a formless state it couldn't be described as anything anymore - splashed to the ground. Pearl grabbed her skirt and dusted it with her hand.

"Honestly. No appreciation for disciplined form..." She said loudly, as the proper positions for attempted murder were one of the few things she was ready to lecture even guests in. If, indeed, Vesuvianite was a guest; they were beginning to feel more like intruders on her little world than the other way around, even if her little world was made from the best looking part of Amethyst's. "How'd I do?"
"They couldn't touch you once." Amethyst shook an empty can.
Between the two - significantly closer to the shore now - Vesuvianite wiped her hand over the tally she was keeping in the sand. She looked up from between her loose locks of green-blue hair with the kind of look that typically preceded murder. "You already knew that."
"Well." Pearl swept by, between the standing-by reflections of Amethyst, and towards the real thing. Her voice hummed in her throat. "It never hurt to check."

Vesuvianite knitted her fingers and sat up cross-legged on the water. Her dress - long and black and somehow dry - waved in the water like the fins of fish, the folds above the surface blowing under nonexistent wind, feathered at their edges as if they were crackling with power waiting to be unlocked. Waiting to be unlocked was, perhaps, a good description for Vesuvianite in general. The problem was she was beginning to realize that, and had taken to herself with a bobby pin. Some new and exciting behavior was emerging inside of her, something that, up until now, had been an important part of her personality but was never fully allowed out. It was called petulance.

"They struck you a few times. In a real battle, you wouldn't have won."
"Ah, yes." Pearl allowed herself a little haught. "But in a real battle, Pearls won't grow limbs or fold in on themselves - unless there's something I've been missing all these years." She eyed Amethyst in the way a mother eyes their teenage son after making a crude joke. Amethyst glowed. "It's not a real fight; it's a competition."
Amethyst hollered "And you won!"
"Well. That doesn't really matter..." Pearl turned up her nose. Why yes, she did win.

The water rocked gently as Vesuvianite fell onto her back. She pressed the tips of her fingers together and stared very hard at the ceiling. It's not a real fight; it's a competition, is it? The thought settled in Vesuvianite's head, and like a planet forming a depression in gravity, the thoughts nearby began to orbit it. Vesuvianite's thoughts spent most of their time with one another, and rarely moved out of her head; it was very hard for her to get out of her own head, and she certainly didn't want to go into anyone else's. She couldn't imagine anything more boring. She opened her eyes and sat up.

"A competition we'll make it."

The board fell off its stand again, Amethyst catching it just after it fell on its face. She narrowed her brows as she looked it over, making sure the tally marks were still legible after dragging over the damp spot (that was* Aqua-thyst #3) on the ground. The room was filled with the sound of furious working - not the sound of hammers or the scratch of pens, but the much louder sound of nothing. Little noises - noises of dragging metal, of rushing water, of crackling lightning and under-the-breath cursing when something went wrong - didn't so much break this kind of silence so much as outline it, like light outlines a harsh shadow. It was such a pregnant, suffocating nothing that Pearl's ears rang and she felt the urge to clap her hands around her head. She clutched her spear tightly in her hands.

* Had been.

"Are you almost-" She began.
On the water, standing over a pile of assorted materials stacked together in a way that surely made sense to someone, Vesuvianite looked over her shoulders. She wore the sort of grin usually reserved for mad kings and toymakers. The two are twins, you see. "Done."

Vesuvianite stepped away from the clutter and drew her arms up, her flowing silk dress casting her as one gigantic shadow before the spiraling light that sprung from her creations. The water climbed up the scattered materials, and with the near-imperceptible kind of motion that moves the sun across the sky, it became legs, arms, heads, eyes, weapons. The fresh batch of water clones shambled onto land; despite having been born muddy, their master didn't take well to dirt, and much preferred walking on water. Miracles completed the image, she thought.

In the distance, Amethyst and Pearl were whispering. Rather, Pearl had pasted herself by Amethyst and kept looking down to her face, which was wearing an expression just as incredulous as Pearl's but significantly more resigned. Their conversation went on for a while; their clones (four for Pearl, three for Amethyst, a gesture that absolutely wasn't missed) had plenty of time to walk about, get used to their new legs, and use them to completely encircle the two real gems. They drew their weapons and a small horde of ant-like creatures carried the scoreboard on their backs, drowning as they walked into the pool but holding it up just long enough for Vesuvianite to lazily grab. She looked with narrow eyes at the six-zero score.

"- And for how long?" Pearl crooked a finger before her chest, pleading quietly with Amethyst to at least compromise.
"Long as it takes." Amethyst shrugged.

The Amethyst clones were first to draw their whips, initially coming out as wild, spout-like tassels of foam before they formed into something resembling a weapon. They jittered and shook, bouncing of their own accord as the rushing water desperately tried to travel its natural path. Vesuvianite snapped her fingers, one of the aqua-thysts cracked its whip against the ground, and with a sound like thunder over a flood, the fight in the water died.

"But she could want a hundred rounds of this!" Pearl - not so much as glancing at the forces around her - continued.
"She won't." Amethyst beat her brow. " She said first to ten points."
"And she could decide to add more! We hardly have bargaining chips here; I'd like to handle this all well, but we can't keep playing these pointless games with her."
"Think about it. Lapis doesn't care about this stuff, but Peridot totally does, and she likes winning too much to change some rules; she won't just make stuff up just to say she won, 'cos then it doesn't mean anything. That's part's gotta be in there" Amethyst saw the cogs turning in Pearl's head.
"... Was the opponent part of 'the rules' for our little robot competition? She certainly broke that."
"Well, it won't happen this time. Soft spears like before. So you don't even need to worry. Just. Uh. Don't get hit if you wanna stay dry. You're good at that."

The pearls drew their spears next. They did it with grace and refinement, as if they'd drawn them hundreds of times before and were confident they'd draw them hundreds of times again. It was just one part of their general change in demeanor; these were not the same aqua-pearls now spattering the floor. They were different, in more ways than just that one had a spare carburetor jammed between her shoulder blades or another's leg was formed primarily around a stilt. They held themselves with competence - no. Confidence.

"You got anything better to do?" Amethyst ran her hands through her hair.
Pearl looked up at the ceiling. "... I suppose not. What's the time?"

The tip of one of the aqua-thyst's whips lashed against the ground, bouncing violently across the ground before swooping through the air towards Pearl. It snapped in two right before hitting Pearl's side. Its wielder's grip went slack, it idly feeling around the space its head had been before slumping over. The real Amethyst considered her copy's floating, watery head, still in one piece wrapped up in the heavy ends of her weapon, right before it melted away.

"Right for taking the head off?" Pearl commented, parrying a spear thrust and pressing her back to her partner's.
"Still in a bad mood." Amethyst shrugged.

The other aqua-thyst broke into a sprint encircling the two, weaving in and out from between shambling masses of fencing water. The aqua-pearls - having both a numbers and positional advantage - slowly realized it was all they had as they were gradually picked off, limb by limb and impaled-piece-of-scrap by impaled-piece-of-scrap. One of them had its entire lower half taken out from under it in a single, piercing thrust from Pearl that broke something critical to it all holding together. Even as it fell, it reached out a hand and gripped the mud, the whole severed torso sinking into it before lunging upwards for a last attack.

The surprise, perhaps, would've been enough, if a heavy metal ball at the end of a whip hadn't suddenly smashed it to loose droplets like a popped water balloon. Pearl nodded formally before catching a watery copy of the same weapon on the tip of her spear, stopping it mere inches from Amethyst's back and yanking her copy out from the crowd. They both swatted at the rapidly thinning crowd and made themselves some space in which they could bear down on the lone aqua-thyst without interruption, silently agreeing to take different halves of its body. Diagonal halves, stretching from the shoulders to the hips, which was a very impressive bit of wordless communication.

Far away, Vesuvianite's fingers twitched. She sat silently, occasionally moving her head to the side with force as if it'd make her liquid puppets hit harder or pulling back from deft attacks like they were inches from her face and not some expendable clone. It wasn't out of empathy; she didn't feel the movements of her creations any more than a chess player felt the taking of a piece. She was certainly aware and none-too-pleased, but it was cool, strategic, impersonal, as if it could all simply be started again at the end. And - of course - it was. The triumphant whooping and quiet congratulations had hardly begun by the time Vesuvianite added the tally mark.

"Ah. Well." Pearl went to sheath her spear as she stepped cautiously around the puddles, stopping only when she caught a meaningful glance from Vesuvianite and was reminded of the 'game rules.' "But really. Amethyst; what is the time?"
"Like, very, very late night? Probably?"
"Very very late night or very very early morning?"
Amethyst smirked. Pearl stopped asking questions.

Two - Zero. Vesuvianite turned the board to them briefly before standing up.

"Yes, yes. Well done. Now, again."

It was implied earlier that Vesuvianite was to her creations as a chess master is to their pawn. This isn't really accurate. A chess player cares about when one of their pieces is taken, because they have strategic interest in keeping them alive, and the wherewithal to measure just how much they've really lost. Vesuvianite had no such concern. Each time Pearl pierced one of them through a vital part or Amethyst tore off a limb, Vesuvianite would tilt her head up with interest. Her fingers would twitch, and suddenly, the melting barely-thing that had once been a decently formidable fighter lurched back into shape, gripping the gem by whatever they could grab and go in for the proverbial kill. It almost got them. With time, the strategy grew stale, but then, it grew clever.

Vesuvianite was not like a chess master, because a chess master does not see their pieces being taken as a chance to turn the pawn inside out and bend its organs into funny shapes.

Vesuvianite looked between the twisting bodies of Amethyst and Pearl. On the very outskirts of the platform, nearly dripping down to the garbage sea below, a puddle of jetsam lurched from the ground into an aqua-pearl. The carburetor that made up the left side of her head had been torn out, but Vesuvianite had merely taken the opportunity to have it step back. With a cold gaze on the still fighting and rapidly winning pair, it reverently twisted its wrist into a long, thin spike that couldn't be called a spear. It was by all official measurements worthy of being a javelin. Like an action figure slowly being bent out of its proper pose and into a new one, it jerked its arm above its head, raised its head, and thrust the projectile at speeds enough to kick up damp gravel and loose phone book pages.

It was easy to picture. Something would distract Pearl - Vesuvianite had made sure of that - and the javelin would fly clean through the air, breaking apart at its back as only the heavy tip stayed solid. It was the only part that mattered. She might have enough time to look to the side and widen her eyes as she saw it, but certainly not enough to move away, beyond, perhaps, raising her arms and leaving herself even more open. It was a simple trick, but simple tricks tended to work on simple people, Vesuvianite thought, and she reckoned she'd be getting by on tricks like this for most of her existence. Not because she didn't have better; she'd just never need it.

The javelin whistled audibly, wetly, through the air. From the perspective of its tip - now solid as cut steel and about as sharp - the scenery was a blur of off-browns and dark blues, occasionally bathed in weird light from the bizarre art piece hanging above. In front of it there were rocks, then kicked up clouds of dust, then just beside it went glistening, liquid scalps, and right before it was the pale, solid face of Pearl. As solid as hard light could be, bearing down on some poor now armless thing. At such great speed, everything seemed to move in slow motion, and one could clearly see the movement of her eye as it swiveled to face the oncoming projectile. Her Gem brain had received the image, but had yet to receive the signal to move back or scream.

Amethyst grabbed Pearl by the shoulders and yanked her back. The trailing droplets splashed her face as it flew by and missed her by inches. She hardly had the time to gasp before her eyes followed its path and watched it heading straight towards Vesuvianite. There was a heavy clunk like an anchor slamming into ocean sand never to be lifted again. The battle suddenly stopped as all the gems - both water and light - watched.

The aqua-thyst rolled onto her side and clutched weakly at her stomach as the javelin pierced clear through it, raising herself up on rapidly melting limbs. The javelin began to drip, and then began to pour, as it lost all solidity and turned into nothingness along with what might be described as its host. Amethyst - the real one - blinked.

"Uh. You okay VeeVee?
Vesuvianite surprised - as she usually did - by her face not being a mask of some mix of horror and bewilderment. Instead, she wore the expression of someone writing off the prices for broken furniture around their several million dollar estate. "Mh? Oh, of course."
Amethyst didn't need to be concerned, so she moved on to being angry. "Wait! That thing could'a hit us!"
"But it didn't."
"Aww, 'it didn't' - But it could'a!"
"I would've made it amorphous before it struck you. It's only solid because I want it to be." Vesuvianite rolled onto her stomach over the pool and crossed her arms under her chin. "You're not afraid of getting wet, are you?"
Amethyst scowled, but stopped when Pearl stretched out a hand. "Now, now. If you really would've done that -" Her voice sung with the indignance of a hundred connected dots. "Then it wouldn't have hit your little... thing!"
Vesuvianite pressed her hand into her cheek. "It moved faster than I did." Her upper eyes shrunk away in the facial expression equivalent of a shrug. She was very good at it. "By the time I'd even realized it was coming towards me, it had already jumped in the way."
Perhaps Pearl would've responded, had Amethyst not slipped under her arm like an enterprising streaker slips past a stadium barrier. "But you control this..." She tugged the cheek of a nearby copy of herself. It wobbled as well as the real thing would have. "Me!"
"Sometimes." She twirled her hand. "They all carry little parts of me in them; base desires, animal-like, they are. They only do what I'd accept them doing, because they are me, but they have their own wills." She spun the tip of her finger above the tid and a little Lapis emerged, holding a Peridot at arm's length as they spun in perfect pirouette. "And their will is to protect me. Even if they die. They become part of me again."

She flicked her wrist and they were gone. Vesuvianite stared at the water where they'd been. She looked up at the two gems with a pout.

"We'll begin again. Now."

A spear pierced Amethyst's hair, wetting it as it clashed with Pearl's hasty parry. She pulled the length of her weapon along the other and wrestled it back, beginning an intense flat-footed duel where she quickly gained the advantage. Amethyst gave a look that was the closest thing to "No fair!" She could manage with just facial muscle, and their little battle started again, the pair now wary of any sudden lethal projectiles.

Pull the view back, watch the figures ducking deftly about, hear the faint sounds of light-steel on pure water, and it would seem like nothing had changed.

"Four to Zero. Begin."

Vesuvianite announced with the matter-of-fact tone of a judge. She clapped her hands and Pearl took off like lightning. Amethyst sat on her makeshift junk couch (if there was anyone in the world that was better at moving garbage around than Vesuvianite, it was her) at the edge of the platform and watched her work. She - after much scrabbling - had managed to recuse herself from the competition and change the rules to a mere one-on-three. Amethyst appreciated a good scrap - it was in her cut - but it was a novel mix of disturbing, irritating, and boring to 'kill' faint simulacrums of both yourself and someone you knew, over and over again, for many rounds. It was especially bad because Pearl was to scrapping what a law textbook was to the kinds of magazines a middle aged man keeps under his bed and hidden from his wife.

Vesuvianite had successfully managed to disprove the homeworld truism; she hadn't just taken an amethyst out of the fight, she had taken the fight out of an amethyst. Even the customary hollering seemed a little superfluous now. It had been however many rounds and Pearl had yet to be touched even once, the largest mark on her a large stain on her socks owing to an aqua-pearl having a particularly hard landing that would have snapped the necks of any creature not made out of liquid. At the time, it didn't have a neck (it was somewhere on the end of Pearl's weapon), so the point was rather moot. Amethyst furrowed her brows and looked to Vesuvianite, who hadn't lost interest whatsoever. In fact, she seemed to be focusing even harder now.

"You're not gonna win, Vee." Amethyst sighed.
Vesuvianite moved her fingers oddly.
"You're not gonna win." She repeated, Vesuvianite's eyes finally moving to her as if returning from somewhere entirely different.
"I will." She said matter-of-factly and almost turned back to the fight before she noticed Amethyst getting up.
"Coming from a gem playing five down?" She blew her fringe from her face, more for effect than anything. It didn't work well; it was quite damp now. "Sure."

A few dozen feet away, a clump of unrecognizable alloy was swatted out of the head of an aqua-pearl like a tennis ball on the netting of a racket. In the same sweep, Pearl severed the length of an oncoming water spear at its base and left it briefly formless, flagging harmlessly as a blob of pure pressure. Its wielder didn't have time to form whatever part of its body it was contorting into a spear before it found Pearl's own thrust through its chest. The thing lurched for a few moments more and reached for Pearl as she heard an awful whistling noise.

"It looks that way. You're not seeing the potential." Vesuvianite rolled her cheek on her palm. "I've learned most people only see what is. That must be miserable."

She knew another kind of gem might have been trapped then and there - but I, she briefly reminded herself, am a pearl. She bent backwards into an acrobatic position that suddenly caught Amethyst's eyes as intensely as the fight had caught Vesuvianite's, for different reasons. The clone reaching for her was bisected by a flying javelin in a brilliant shower of reflected light. Brushing down her freshly damp vest, she turned en pointe to her last opponent.

"I only agreed to the change in rules because your style is..." Vesuvianite chewed the word as much as she spoke it. "Unrefined. I'll have to tackle that some day; Earth is unrefined, for now. But I've started orderly and will work my way out."

Now one-on-one, the two pearls clashed. Handle aimed against handle, spear clashed against spear, the fight was swift and elegant, as all fights with lethal weapons are. Rarely do the kinds of prolonged, shallow-slash-across-the-cheek engagements that pad out a good movie really happen - certainly no one throws their weapons to finish an opponent unless they're very stupid and soon to be very dead. In a battle of lethal weapons, blows are briefly exchanged, someone finally makes a move, and their opponent either steps aside and lops their head off or loses their own. But there was something especially troubling on the periphery of Pearl's mind about this engagement; it was going long. Parry, parry, thrust, it was just like she'd trained Connie, and herself some several thousand years ago. She was no longer fighting a horde of many things; she was fighting combatant-against-single-combatant.

"Work your way out to what?" Amethyst, ignoring the implication, inquired.
"Everything, I suppose."

Pearl was winning against a single combatant, of course - its thrusts seemed to lag behind its wisdom and the occasional impulsive move crept in which left its neck open to the usual fate. It swayed for a moment. It slashed wildly at the air where Pearl had been. It tumbled like a felled tree. It melted like ink. It was done.

"Everything?" Amethyst crossed her arms, permitting a smirk to cross her face. That highlighted her mood rather than hid it; Amethyst smirked for the same reason dogs walk away when you ask 'what's in your mouth?' "You got a plan, orrr, you just gonna wing it for a couple hundred years and hope it works out?"
"You're seeing it." Vesuvianite said vaguely, clapping her hands and adding another tally mark on Pearl's side of the board.

"Six to Zero. Begin."

Vesuvianite - deeply engrossed in confusing Amethyst, as she was to do - declared the score a little late. The three fresh aqua-pearls were the most eclectic yet; tinfoil wrapped around copper for spines, crushed plastic cups and cardboard boxes for cores, and spare cable wires which made for all together too many digits on each hand. Obviously they were beginning to run out of good material, but as time went on Pearl built up the frankly absurd skill of slaying copies of herself made from tupperware, and she theorized that what they were made of only affected how easy it was to rip them apart.

"I don't know what you think you're gonna do." Amethyst lifted her knee, now sitting by but a comfortable distance from Vesuvianite. "But you're not gonna learn everything in here. I've tried."
"That's surprising." Vesuvianite said, vaguely enough to sound insulting but not quite definite enough for a polite gem to take offense to. Amethyst was not a polite gem. "But I'll learn what I need to."

A sound like a metal pipe slamming against a cavern wall deep in the ocean rang out. The aqua-pearl - vibrating from the sensation - tried to yank her spear from the earth after her errant swing, met with a swift two handed cleave to the side of its head. It was sheared in two and stumbled around headlessly. Pearl pivoted to its teammate, and pushed it towards the edge with a fierce offense that removed any chance for it to use its weapon offensively. Unless, of course, it wanted to fight missing some vitals.

The corners of Amethyst's lips dug into her cheeks. "You gonna clarify or should we just sit and be quiet instead?"
"I'm learning to make useful things out of garbage." Vesuvianite lifted her upper body off the water. "Earth has lots of it."
"What? You gonna throw pearl at all your problems? That also doesn't work. I've tried."

Rocks kicked off the edge of the platform and skipped over the sheer face, landing with a sound too muted to hear at the bottom. The aqua-pearl seemed to notice her heel was over the edge for a moment before her eyes turned back to Pearl; turning away from her was a life-or-death gamble, one this copy of her should've lost. Should have, Pearl believed, and yet her thrust was deftly parried and only found the outer film of its watery skin just by its neck. Pearl was briefly stunned, but thousands of years of practice won through, and her body automatically went to follow up. Of course, Pearl had been fighting three copies, and the third finally dropped behind her from the stalactite above.

"Pearl's not particularly important." Vesuvianite shrugged. "... But it seems to be working for me."

Two opponents at once Pearl could deal with. Up until now she'd been regularly dealing with three and - for a time - six. But there was a problem with these opponents; they were skilled. Just as before, these two she was facing were combatants, not fodder to be quickly dealt with, and keeping time with both was difficult even for her. She girded her spear against her body and rebounded a slash at her stomach, ducking her head beneath its length and blocking another swing aimed for her nape. She unfurled the spear's length and with a single motion bisected the aqua-pearl before her, leaving it to topple backwards into the darkness. She prepared to spin around as she had so many times before, but stopped when something cold, wet, and familiar splashed her back.

Amethyst stared widely. Vesuvianite smiled a smile that had too many teeth.

"Six to One." She triumphantly added her first tallymark.

Pearl looked over her shoulder at her back - unharmed but clearly marked - and received the tiniest hint of a nod from her opponent before it melted to water, drew away from her as a moving puddle, and dove into the pool. It reformed anew with two half-built copies at its side, the garbage encircling the platform seeming to skitter towards the two and snap to their body like they were magnetized.

"Yes. It's working for me."

It had been Seven to Two. Now it was Eight to Five.

Pearl struggled with a mixture of hysterical frustration, legitimate astonishment, and a sprinkle of hurt pride as she fought the three aqua-Pearls surrounding her. While once she could chop them down practically every other swing, she was struggling to even penetrate a single one of their defenses now without leaving herself open to a round-losing counter, and that was when they weren't all bearing down on her at once. She'd been forced on the defensive, in the way a retreating army splitting into hundreds of individual deserters was "on the defensive", and simply standing her ground had become a battle. When it was one-on-one it wasn't so mismatched - they weren't as skilled as thousands of years had forced her to be - but it rarely was any more.

She could beat a weaker her. She could not beat three of them.

Amethyst watched with something like dawning horror. She'd offered to join back in, but she'd already been made the exception by being left out, and Vesuvianite wouldn't allow her to be an exception to her own exception. "You uh... really do know how to throw junk around, huh? I'm gonna be out of a job soon... ah..."
That wasn't very funny to her, but it seemed to quite entertain Vesuvianite. "I suppose so. It's not really what I was aiming to master, but it's a step."
Amethyst crooked a finger. "Hey. You said you wanted to make useful things out of garbage. These could be uh. Pretty useful."

Pearl - finally - caught one of them flat footed. She jumped to the side with such force dust kicked up about her feet, which whipped around the path of her spear once it cleaved through the leg of the off-balance opponent. She went to strike for its styrofoam heart, only for it to reach out its weaponless hand and grab Pearl's spear by its tip. It sheared through its watery limb and destroyed it entirely, but lost all of its energy in the process. It had sacrificed its own arm just to gain an advantage.

Pearl resisted the instinct to be stunned, instead ducking and avoiding a swing as the other two bore down on her. She jumped back and spun her weapon about her waist, looking her opponents up and down.

"Oh, is that really what you think I mean?" Vesuvianite asked, her eyes flashing something Amethyst couldn't recognize. "I don't mean refuse. Every civilized planet... err. Earth. Yes. Well, every planet with a pulse has a refuse heap. Earth is just messy about it."
Amethyst wore an expression that - had Vesuvianite had the knowledge to recognize and the heart to care - would have told her to think carefully about her next words. "What do you mean."

Another clash, this time fighting off the other two with a series of quick but very weak thrusts that would surely have been nothing to a heavier opponent. They were forced back, just for a moment, and their injured teammate left exposed. The one-legged thing looked at her as she dove for its heart, only to be swiftly countered by a motion with all of its weight behind it. Pearl's eyes widened; it was like it had always fought this way. She was forced to disengage and the three formed up again, the one-armed, one legged aqua-pearl defiantly at the front with weapon in hand. Like a knight, some voice in Pearl's mind told her. Her mouth drew into a thin line; they could learn so quickly.

Of course, they were a part of Vesuvianite. It was her that was learning. It always had been.

"This place is a trash pile." She let the words sit. "Oh. No. Not your room, not your room. It is, but I mean the world; it's full of life garbage. All the imperfections, all the failures, all the struggles. Leaves blown off branches and doomed to starve - no fault of their own. Bugs being caught in spider webs just for the promise of food. Herds eating the weak one's guts while they're still alive."

The sound of fighting got very quiet. Amethyst's ears seemed to be ringing as she approached.

"All this... life. All this " She drew her face closer to her knees darkly. "But... I can still make something useful out of it yet." She suddenly smiled. "There's so much potential! It's wonderful. But it has to be put together. Guided by the right hands. As it is, it's all such a useless mess; you just don't know better because you've always been here, and you can't leave. Ask anyone who's been anywhere else. Those places are better."
A shadow cast harshly over Amethyst's eyes. "Like Homeworld colonies?"
Vesuvianite seemed to consider things carefully. "Oh, no, no. They're too wasteful. The diamonds-" she almost spat the words. "They'd sooner wipe life out than tear it open and make something out of its insides."
"Rose thought everything on this world was sacred."
"Yes, yes, Rose Quartz was this and that. Ah, but to paraphrase-" Her smile arched, stretching across her face and as if it was making way for many rows of teeth. The single row that was there could pull the weight of a half dozen. "- I don't care if Rose would be proud of me."
Amethyst stared. It was a very rare moment of her being truly lost for words. Nothing seemed venomous enough. "How did you know about that."
"I can hear through these things, you know?"

Vesuvianite yanked a peridot clone up from the water, cradling its head on her shoulder. She idly felt along its forehead with the inquisitive precision of a doctor looking for a good spot to trepan. Her finger broke the water surface and touched the grimy metal parts that made up its skull, lightning crackling like neuron pulses where she touched.

"Like I said. They're extensions of myself. From my gems, through my fingers, into them, a little part of me."
"How much did you hear?"
Vesuvianite let the head in her hands slough into scrap and water. "Oh? Everything."

Had Amethyst been a little younger, had she not gone through the whirlwind of experience she had ever since Peridot and Lapis first touched Earth, she would've drawn her whip right there. Instead, she managed to just grab a handful of Vesuvianite's collar.

"That was private."
"Ooh." Vesuvianite grinned from ear to ear, her eyes narrowed to slits. "Scary. But you've done nothing but pry on me. And I can't even hear a conversation?"
Amethyst's eye twitched. "Did you have a problem with that?"
"Of course not; when I feel like being watched, I let you watch. When I feel like disappearing, I disappear. And I felt like listening, so I listened."
"You just think you can do anything you want, don't you?"
Vesuvianite tugged her collar firmly in Amethyst's grasp. It didn't budge. "Isn't that what gods do?"

Amethyst's room was very much shut off from the rest of the world. The only sounds inside were usually the soft tinkling of broken parts finally coming loose, the muted rush of waterfalls high above, and - occasionally - the bubble of magma below. There was no way for the outside world to come in in the same way there was no way for a story book to comment on the reader's surroundings; two different worlds, and one followed much different rules, with many more sharp pointy things. Despite that, an inexplicable gust of chilly wind seemed to whistle through the chamber, localized between the two of them.

"God?" Amethyst crooked her eyebrow in something like total disbelief.
"I make life." Vesuvianite spiraled a few figurines out of the water for effect. The trick didn't seem to please Amethyst anymore. "I tell it what to do. I make the world how I want it to be." She pattered her fingers along her chin. "And I don't hold grudges. I've been told that's important."
Amethyst's grip fixed very pointedly on the neck of her regalia. "You're serious."

Pearl sighed with relief as she was met not with a sudden unified attack from all three of them bearing down on her at once, but just two instead, the third shrinking to the back. Meanwhile, the third aqua-pearl looked not at its quarrel but at its creator. The impossible wind blew about its face.

They felt one another's breaths on their faces. The air was still and the faint sounds of fighting in the distance didn't seem to penetrate it, as if it was a third party to an ugly spat and was hesitant to make a noise lest it get its share of the abuse. Amethyst noticed a glint in Vesuvianite's eyes that she believed hadn't been there before; she was wrong. It had been there, always, hiding where her eyelids met, under the glare of diffused light and beneath light rods.

Vesuvianite felt her upper half yanked forward and the novel sensation of discomfort rushed over her. She hadn't felt it since... ooh. Since her wrist had been pinned to a beach, a memory said, once she'd dredged it up from the corner in her mind reserved for the beginning of her existence.

She'd become so much more important since then.

"You know. You're hurting me." Vesuvianite said, with not a hint of a whimper in her voice.
"Shut up." Amethyst responded with a searing hot kind of coldness.

Amethyst found that glint again, though it had seemingly hidden from her gaze as if wanting to keep itself unknown. Just for a while. It was confident now, out in the open, forming into brilliant rings around Vesuvianite's iris like the light spectrum stretched for a thousand years. It was hate. Not the shouting, burning kind of hate, nor the quiet, icy kind that drives people to sit in chairs in dark rooms and Make Plans. This was the kind that made people follow the thing they hated, examine it, measure it, learn about it, empathize with it. It was the kind that did all this driven by the thought that it would one day tie its obsession down and straddle it and reach for sharp implements and remove its organs in the ways that would keep it alive and conscious longest

This world is full of garbage. But I can still make something useful out of it yet.

Her hands were covered gently but firmly by all four of Vesuvianite's.
Amethyst swallowed sharply and violently pulled away. Her eyes had a rare glint of their own - fear. "I-"

There was a sound like a cut of meat wrapped in silk being ripped down the middle. It was a subtle, wet, puncturing noise, but it somehow seemed louder than anything short of a scream. Pearl lost hold of her spear, leaving herself totally open, and the clones moved in. They froze - they did not merely stop - and contorted their formless heads to look at the shore.

Amethyst's fingers grasped at the air in front of her chest. Vesuvianite's head bowed back as far as it could do, the tip of the spear mere inches from her face as it pierced through Amethyst's torso and right out from... Vesuvianite's eyes grinded slowly in her head like stone over stone. Did it pierce her g-

A sharp, searing sensation immediately blunted by a complete, pounding absence of anything. That was what struck Vesuvianite as she was sent spinning, body flying backwards onto its stomach as she shrieked in a voice like thunder crushed underfoot. She twitched weakly as her arms crossed over one another, body raising as her vision cleared. The world was sideways and the corner of it was green and purple and hurt to look at. She was filled with some foreign feeling she'd only ever felt very briefly and in very small amounts. She'd only felt the most vestigial forms of it in full, and it was so long ago, still confined to the corners.

"Amethyst!" Pearl said shrilly to herself as she landed, her knuckles somehow turning even paler as she knelt over and clutched something.
"Amethyst?" Vesuvianite echoed as her vision began to return in full, head wobbling ever so slightly on her shoulders. She felt the throbbing, pounding nothingness still, dabbing her hand against its source at her cheek. She looked at the water below her; it was perfectly still, and the side of her face had unmistakably darkened.

The clones were still frozen, but Pearl still drew upwards defensively, clutching Amethyst's gemstone against her breast. It was merely nicked - typically as fatal for a gem as a full shattering, but no, she could hold on. They had the fountain. They'd have Steven. But it didn't matter. Pearl knew that angle, as she'd heart stoppingly seen it pierced a few times before. Had that spear been just a bit higher, or angled differently, it would've pierced clear through her gemstone. In an instant, there had been created so many worlds where the tiniest details were changed, and Amethyst was a pile of shards in the trembling hands of that world's Pearl. Pearl - our Pearl, the lucky one - felt something hot and red welling up inside of her, and it was currently burning in her bruised knuckle, bits of it still left across Vesuvianite's face.

"I knew it could come to this." Pearl said with a voice that was not righteous or heroic, but shaking and unstable. She was speaking softly only because there were no words sharp enough.
"She hit us! She... she hit me!" Vesuvianite - she thought she was Vesuvianite - said to herself as she keeled over and frantically felt her face. It was slight. But it was there. This was-
Vesuvianite carefully examined her reflection. Her cheek had unmistakably darkened. Her perfect, god-like cheek. This was-

"PAIN! PAIN!"

She threw her head back and screamed, reeling at the new sensation. Her voice made the walls tremble; it was like thunder being commanded by a spoiled child emperor. "This is pain! I don't like this new feeling! I don't like this!" She repeated madly as her hair turned loose and wet, melting across her face as so many pounds of seaweed. She looked up from beyond her fringe at a slowly advancing Pearl. She couldn't walk on water. She didn't need to.
"But it's acceptable when you do it, is it? You can cause as much pain as you like. You're more important. Is that right?" Pearl did not reach for her gem. There was something much too important in her hands right now to die in anger. If Vesuvianite wanted a fight, she could take some time and make a stronger pearl than Pearl ever was, and fight that.
"We didn't- I mean. I didn't - It was me but, I-"

Vesuvianite lost concentration and fell through the water.

Somewhere far away, Peridot was holding fervently to a rock. The seas were as oily and thick as their color had suggested now, her body resisting the urge to snap in two and leave her top half stuck clinging to the land. Lapis' nails made an awful noise as they dug into the stone. Lapis hacked up something thick and goopy, as if a snail had crawled down her throat and just laid its eggs. Her insides churned at the distinct feeling something was reaching in. Peridot's insides, meanwhile, had simply fallen out of the bottom. She felt like there was an acid melting through her, and all of her parts grew back once the process was done, so it could start over again. They stared at one another.

"We hurt her!"
"We didn't mean to!"
"Yes, you did."
"She was hurting us! They did it on their own"

Neither of them knew who was saying what. Neither wanted to think it was the other. Neither wanted to think it was them. They were terrified it could be both.

A voice echoed through the endless ocean. "They only do what I'd accept them doing, because they are me."

Vesuvianite felt a little tingle in her hand, before suddenly - as if finding a vein - the feeling of sharp, severe recollection shot up her arm and seemed to singe it. She shook the feeling from her body along with the flashing images of dark green from her hand. She followed Lapis' eyes. They weren't on her. Not on Peridot. On something in the distance. Something large, fluffy around its edges in the way a crushed bird's feather is and somehow hiding in the edge of the world. The waves of murky water under Vesuvianite matched her legs as they washed over them - they shifted, then they shook, and then, they trembled. That massive Thing began to pull itself from the tide and rise to a towering, horizon-drowning set of shoulders with a head covered in a wild mop of wicked hair. Like billiard balls rolling into razor cuts, four malicious eyes focused on them. Malachite wanted to be entertained. See how this new fusion performed.

Do you like hurting people? That's why you made me.

They did it because they have a will to. They did it because they were being hurt; they only do things we're okay with, so we must have been okay with hurting Amethyst. What else is okay? The weather's good. There should be a chiasmus here; here a nonrepetitive metabole ought. People say I'm great and I wish I could believe them. Back off, she's with me. I just feel trapped. You're going to see it someday, just trust me. The weather's good. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine. Amethyst is fine.

Amethyst is fine
Garnet said.

Pearl collapsed weakly into her arms, clutching the chipped gemstone in her hand. They rocked back and forth gently on the warp pad.

"Steven will be here soon." Garnet reassured. "And we can take her to the fountain. If you're ready."

These things Pearl already knew. Sniffling, softly, Pearl took a deep breath and stepped away from Garnet's strong grasp. It was a miraculous display of Pearl's skill in hiding emotions that she was able to calmly walk by Garnet and settle the gemstone carefully down on the table, atop the softest pillow they had. It was a miraculous display because Garnet - for just a moment - relaxed, and foolishly allowed Pearl to slip out of arm's reach. The moment she had the distance, she took off in a down headed sprint and rushed out the front door, Garnet going to rush after her as she yelled to the faint blue dot on the stormy horizon.

"Yes! Run away! Run away! Just like you always do, you pathetic-" The rest of Pearl's curses couldn't leave her mouth, partially through the tears, partially owing to Garnet wrestling her back through the door and slamming it behind them.

Lapis flapped her wings and did not cry as she broke the cloud layer.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Amethyst's room, beside a small pool surrounded by dead insect-like things made of garbage, Peridot lay on her back and stared wordlessly at the ceiling.

Notes:

I’d like to formally congratulate one of my commenters, who saw this exact twist coming several chapters ago.

Chapter 11: The Silo

Summary:

And they lived happily ever after to the end of their days.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The beach was dark, wet, and silent, save for the steady downpour which would have suffocated any ambient sounds had anything been alive enough to make them. Not a ray of light could peak through the cloud ceiling, any faint gap far off on the horizon revealing only shades of blue so dingy it seemed darker than night. Night was clear. Night was quiet and clean. Night was for thoughtfully looking out windows or walking through quiet streets buzzing with illicit life. This combination of rain, fog, and time, was all that could create the nameless hour - neither very very late night nor very very early morning - where things were well and truly dead. It was the atmospheric equivalent of trudging through ankle deep mud towards a place you had no desire to go.

The only light seemingly for miles - certainly the only one on the boardwalk - was the shaft stretching from the screen door of a small house held in the arms of a gigantic statue. It could hardly come from the windows anymore - that was her fault. Peridot stopped for a moment as she crested a bank on the beach, just high enough she could see her practically formless shadow, and she looked over her shoulder. She saw a large, bulky figure behind the door, so far away that her shape flickered like a candle's light. Peridot's fingers twitched as the wind blew coldly on her neck. For a moment, she went to reach out. Another shape - tall, spindly, straight and unwavering - stepped in front of the door and blocked all light cast over the beach. By the time it had stepped away, the dune was empty, save for a few deep footprints in its damp sand.

In the deep shadow of the bank, Peridot stopped as her foot dragged through something heavy. She looked towards the sea and saw a trail of round, wet sand, once more resillient but turned slushy and formless by the ebb of the tide. As bumps of ruined somethings trailed away from the waves and towards Peridot, they gained definition, less water rushing across them, more time for them to stand. The thing Peridot had kicked had been a perfectly intact sand castle. It wasn't anymore, of course - that was her fault. Sand castles were something kids and happy couples made, dedicating so much of their limited energy and especially limited time to something that was unimportant, something that would be washed away come the next morning. It wouldn't even leave a ruin. It wouldn't last. Then, what would?

Peridot walked forward. She had nothing else to do.

In time, she was at the edge of the beach, where raw rock finally jutted up from the sand and grew heavy with grass. Peridot's head bounced slightly from shoulder to shoulder as she climbed up the endlessly vertical fields, arms hanging limply at her side and only rising when she occasionally had to hop a barrier. She didn't feel like using the roads. She just had to take the most direct route, whether it be through thistle or brush or mud or any of the other horribly inhospitable things earth had put in her way. Coming across a tall fence, she dug her nails into its post as she struggled to get her leg over it. She looked up to the sky and her mind absently sent a thought to the rest of her to flap her wings and take off. She lost her balance and fell face-first over the edge fence. Rolling onto her back and looking back up at the sky, rain soaked her face, and her arms gave up.

There was a throbbing, itchy sensation on the side of her head. Her eyes swivelled to her side and watched as a bug - it had hundreds of legs and many body parts and should've been fascinating to her and she knew that - crawled across her hair. Her body lurched upwards and she lifted her mud-soaked legs to her chest, snatching the insect from her head and holding it in her hand. This creature did not know it was going to die. It's deep instincts told it what death was - it knew to cower to hide from birds, and eat to ward off starvation, and to hold tightly to leaves when the wind blew hard. It did not know that even should it do everything right, it would one day grow old, and weak, and would finally land on a log some day, and that log would be no different than any other it had been on, except that on that log, it would die.

Peridot noticed a stain on her side and noted with no readable emotion that when she had fallen, she had crushed another one of the things beneath her. Most bugs - of course - would not grow old. They would be eaten, crushed, absentminedly blown away, and it wouldn't be particularly important. Life was no guarantee of importance, no matter how unique each life was, and no matter how that life spent itself. This would be the only chance this thing in her hands had; there would be no second chances or ability to look from the outside and think "how could I do it next time." There was nothing for it beyond the narrow slice this useless little thing could experience. Peridot put the bug down, thoughtlessly rubbed mud from her legs, and looked at Beach City for a while.

Peridot walked forward. She had nothing else to do.

There were no lights shining on her. Everything from the boardwalk's many house lights to the street lamps were dead for want of electricity - that was her fault. There was an absence of mist as there was no heat that could mix into cold, instead only a terribly open horizon of rain and nothing in particular, and the barn. She had crested enough hills she could finally see it now, and her fingers twitched once again. This time, as she crossed between two fencerows, she did reach out, looking towards the silo that stood out against the flat land like a beacon. She could see the tiniest blue dot of color on the grey horizon. Her feet - so far out of her view - suddenly slid forward and she was sent tumbling into a muddy, rain-filled trench. She landed on her stomach and pulled herself up onto hands and knees, her expression again unreadable. She cleaned off a stain from her face, and noticed another now-decapitated bug beneath where her head had hit the ground.

Peridot crossed her hands over the back of her hair, dug her forehead into the slushing soil, and began to cry.

A thorn finally fell loose from the trench of minor cuts and bruises she'd gotten along her arm. Peridot had long since overcome the urge to scratch at it, instead just shambling over the hill and finally finding flat ground beneath her feet. She carelessly stepped on the many pipes snaking through the farm, swatting her sunflowers aside weakly as they too tried to take a swipe at her. She fell forward from the crowd and looked up, scanning the skies wordlessly for something, finally settling on the grain silo at the very back of the farm. Her legs ached and felt heavy with water and mud. She couldn't find any will to run, but she found the strength to walk.

The silo towered above her as she reached its base. She pressed her shoulder to it and resisted the urge to slide down into the mud below, her eyelids heavy and covered in specs of grime. She looked upwards with an expression that was too lifeless to be defiance, reached out, and grabbed a rung of the ladder. She put her feet on the bottom set and began to climb. Her head occasionally slumped and fell against the body of the silo, her arms occasionally refusing to release their grip over the rust worn bars that scaled up the tower, the wind beating hard at her side. Peridot climbed upward. She had nothing else to do.

The rounded cap finally slipped beneath her view as Peridot placed both her hands on the topmost rung, daring to lift one off, shake off the filthy slurry on her palms, and grip the metal. Her boots landed heavily on the strong but ultimately hollow silo top, and she didn't for a moment fear that it would give out on her. She'd come too far for that. She was much too tired to be afraid. Lapis folded her knees to her chest on the opposite side, the wind so high up howling so loudly Peridot didn't bother to quietly call her name, her lacking the strength to call it loudly. Lapis hid her face in the shadow of her hair and had long since crossed her arms intending never to unfold them again. The rain was horizontal against Peridot's face as she stepped around the silo, the mud and grease accumulated over her boots almost instantly turning slick and runny. It was a few more steps. And then she could... and then she could... she could...

Peridot did not know. And then, Peridot slipped.

The world did not pass in terrible slow motion as her feet left the silo and she went tumbling off the side. Instead, it passed like the moments after being rudely awoken from sleep while desperately trying to fall back into it. They passed in harsh, barely-connected snapshots, where she vaguely remembered remembering the time between when she was looking down at the top of the silo beneath her and when she was looking up at it a dozen feet away. Peridot's brilliant mind counted the number of rungs she'd passed unconsciously as she fell; three, seven, twelve, eighteen, twenty seven, thirty seven, thirty seven, thirty two, tweny four, twelve, and she was above them all again.

Peridot only realized the massive force that had shocked her body once it had long since passed, her entire side aching as Lapis swooped away from and then back towards the silo. As Peridot looked up at her while she hung in her arms, Lapis' wings seemed to scare the rain away with their great beats. Peridot was only able to see thin rivulets of water running down Lapis' shoulders, her neck, her cheeks. It was just a moment, but the feeling of weightlessness as Lapis carried her was amplified once she was settled down, looking up to Lapis' stoic, emotionless face before all the weight Peridot's body had been saddled with came back in force and made her legs give out.

Peridot steadied herself cautiously on the silo top, and by the time she was sure she wouldn't fall again, Lapis' head was back between her knees. Some part of Peridot - perhaps a very big part - wanted her to say something. Anything. Above all else. For whatever reason, she didn't in that moment. And as time passed, that part got smaller, and weaker, and then it disappeared.

Together, Lapis and Peridot watched the skies. It's not known for how long; no one besides these two would ever know about this little moment, and while they were in it, time was far from the forefront of their minds. The passage of time was only marked when Lapis felt Peridot grab her gently by the shoulder and point a finger towards the sky. They realized - brought back to reality by what they saw - that the rain had long since stopped and the storm that'd swallowed the night was beginning to fade.

Peridot's finger blurred before her eyes as the clouds parted. Starting at a small house held in the arms of a gigantic statue, then across a boardwalk with no working lights, then across a series of fields that really weren't so big or muddy after all, through a field of sunflowers, and finally, across a certain grain silo, the sun shone very, very brightly.

FIN
AND THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER
THE END

But it wasn't the end. It would have been simple for it to just end there, with this experience tucked quietly away in the part of the mind that didn't ask too many questions, but while that part tends to have a big influence on people, the world doesn't care much for what it thinks. Indeed, this night would begin a series of events for Peridot that - quietly, out of sight, across the next many months of her life - would bring her places she'd never thought to go, have her doing things she'd never think to do, and develop her into a person she never thought she'd be. These quiet moments Steven wouldn't see, for while he was the bridge between humanity and Peridot, these events had little to do with humanity, and much to do with a certain group of very-much-not-human women who lived on a small house in the arms of a-

Well. You get the idea.

Notes:

Shorter chapter this time; this was all written in one night, as it's very much the kind of chapter that flows strongly from emotion and not from careful thought. It's nice to do that every now and then.
It's at this critical junction of the fic - things are going to change a little bit from here - that I'd like to really thank everyone who comments, gives kudos, or in any other way enjoys this fic. Really. It's not a token thing. I'd love to give some clever dialogue about how much it means to me, but it can't be expressed in wit, at least not at this hour. Thank you.

Chapter 12: Beach City, Which is Not Much of a City at All

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The sun hung high in the middle of the sky and the clouds were cleared and the rain was gone and light poured over Beach City and the fields around it and the hills far off and on and on forever and it was beautiful.

There was a small corner store half-way up a ways towards the more map-worthy towns and cities. It was perhaps once a shoe shiner's, or a sawdust-filled general store, or somewhere that serviced pieces of technology now so obsolete most people under the age of thirty don't know how to rewind them. Time passed, as it does, and it became a place that did a little bit of everything, and none of it particularly well. It was built precisely in nowhere particular, just in the right spot between places between places to perpetually make just enough to get by, the economic equivalent of Philippe Petit. This would all be changing today, but the clerk at the front counter didn't know that. At the moment, he was looking with mounting suspicion at a shifty girl that had been scrounging through the store for just about everything.

The girl - short, with a bizarre hair cut and a build that could be politely called slender and truthfully called box-like - seemed to like mumbling. Spikey mumbles, the kind born from hours working out a program-crashing bug that would later on seem very obvious, and the kind that didn't invite 'can I help you's.' The clerk had considered getting up and asking her to buy something or leave - or to turn out her pockets in hopes of finding many subtly swiped items - but any time he made a move, she seemed to toss aside whatever she was distracted by and promise this time she'd just get what she needed. This time - the fourth time - she'd finally been happy with her small bag full of electronics and wooden parts and envelopes and... a hoodie and heels. High heels sharp enough to tear out a heart through a ribcage. Well. It wasn't any of his business once it was all paid for. She walked purposefully to the counter.

There was quite a lot in there and - he decided after a cursory check - none of it seemed like it could be combined into much of anything. He figured whoever would buy all this had to be either a genius, or had no idea what she was doing. The clerk looked up from the haul, then down to the buyer, then back, then down to the counter.

"Eh. Fifty fifty odds..."
"What?" She said in a high, nasally voice that was astonishingly pleasant when it wasn't saying much at once.
"Forget about it. That'll be a sixty... no, seventy and... uh?" He paused as the girl put something heavy down on the counter.
"That should cover it. Thank you." She tugged at her bag and almost turned, stopping with mild interest at the alarmed voice behind her.
"If this is a joke, it's not funny." He said, eyeing the stone out of the corner of his eyes. It glistened yellow beneath the lights and it became obvious what he'd mistaken as some painted rock was a very real hunk of twisting, spiralling metal. It was covered with bits of loose stone as if it had just been freshly pulled out of the earth. "What is this?"
"Is that not sufficient?" She narrowed her eyes, looking him up and down before reaching into the satchel she'd brought and pulling out another stone. It was big enough to fill her small palm and probably could've concussed someone if it hit them hard enough, which made it all the more impressive when she casually tossed it and it flawlessly, slowly arced into place beside the first one. "That will cover it. More than cover it, but I really can't barter right now."
"Girl-" He was half way around the counter now, ready to grab wrists if he had to and wondering whether he had enough of a weight advantage he wouldn't have to resort to The Broom. "This isn't a jewllery shop. You can't just give me random s-"

He wobbled, almost falling against a nearby wall as a battery rolled out from under his foot. The thought came to mind - watching the battery join several more and roll along the floor with a sound like an army of marbles - that he should get the floorboards replaced after all these years. Once the shelf above him tilted forward and a packet of lightbulbs fell forward, he figured he might have the displays refitted too. When an auger gracefully moved through the air after wiggling out of the gap it fell through years ago, he remembered that he really hadn't gotten his eyes checked in a long time. When a mirror flew by his head and spun weightlessly through the air in a swarm of other equipment, floating out of every drawer, cupboard, and container, he considered how he should really catch up with his old college friend who'd been good at exorcisms.

Before him, another piece of ore floated by to join the other two, the only thing floating into the store as half of its contents floated out behind the girl. She gave him one last frazzled look as she picked up her pace towards the door.

"I'm sorry, I really don't have time to argue, but I've already paid you enough for all of this, I'm certain." The corner of her lip bent as she looked over the floating mass behind her, deciding with some hesitance that it was enough before flinging the door open. "I'm sure there's some Era I Human or Agate or whatever it is your species use to appraise the value of gems around if you require confirmation."

The little bell by the door rang - it seemed to stick for a moment, but it rang- as she passed it by, all the things she'd taken flowing after her like so many bees flying out of a hutch.

"Oh." She stopped, turning around and fiddling through her bag, exchanging one last look with the clerk. "And Wow! Thanks."

The door closed and she was gone.

The clock quietly ticked. For want of existential threats to scream about or regular, boring things to begrudge, at least for now, the clerk sat at his counter and thought. He spun the ore in circles with the tip of his finger and realized it was Gold.

He couldn’t tell from looking at it. He didn't know anything about ores or gemstones or valuable metals beyond a ring he'd once considered buying his childhood sweetheart, but the narrative of the world made sure that never quite worked out, and right now, he knew that same narrative was putting three blocks of raw gold ore in front of him. It couldn't be anything else.

What he didn't know was that when Peridot had ripped the metal from the earth the earlier day in preparation for her shopping trip, she hadn't taken an alloy. She hadn't called some mixed metal fused together however long ago. No. That's actually harder; it's one thing to control a single kind of metal, with all its unique properties, but it's another to control a half dozen all blending together in varying amounts.

What was now spinning on the clerk's desk was three fistfuls of pure Gold. As close to 24 Karat as Earth could provide.

While he was staring, a customer had walked in, and for the past five minutes had been sort of ambulating around while pretending not to need help. The force of polite society could only hold him back so long, and finally, he turned to the clerk and realized they were both seeing one another for the first time.

"Ah. I bought a couple of... square mirrors? From here a few days ago? Do you know-"
"We're out of them." The clerk said. "Someone bought them all."
There was a pause. "What do you mean-"
"And we're closed."
The customer balked. "Closed? It's 10 AM! You don't close for-"
"Not for the day. For good, I think."
"You think?" He repeated, incredulously, beginning to think he wouldn't be getting his mirrors.
The clerk's palm dropped from his cheek and played over one of the chunks of gold as he looked lazily up. "I think, yeah. It's early, but I'm gonna go buy some drinks. Hate to put you out like this so, I guess, I can get something for you on the way too."
The customer's expression had shifted from anger and confusion to an entertained disbelief, like he was being pitched a story that had gone past unbelievable and right into entertaining, "Sure you can foot it? I like my wine."
"I think I can afford it."

Beach City was not a place you went to so much as one you ended up in. The views were stunning, the local color... colorful, and the amenities modern give or take a decade, but it was not a hot tourism spot. Perhaps its mix of centuries of no historical significance and completely inexplicable phenomena had left a mark on it. It had formed a sort of aura that pushed earthly things out - and, into the empty space, let unearthly things in. All this to say that when someone new appeared, no matter how innocuous, people took notice, hoped they paid well, and tried not to stare. Usually it was just tourists who'd noticed the town on a map and decided to make a detour on their way out of state. Sometimes it was very rich people taking a break from other, equally or occasionally even more deep-pocketed people, to hang with the peasantry. And sometimes, just sometimes, it was a criminal, a thief, an undesirable type who blew into Beach City like a fox through the roof of a henhouse.

On this particular day, a hooded figure had entered town, small and shifty. Anyone who had the initiative to bother it quickly learned it was spiky sort, moving with determination across the board walk with only a few, choice words to anyone who passed it by. People learned, eventually, and the smarter ones just held their belongings close as the figure passed through.

It would have continued right on through the town and off to wherever it was walking had it not - at the last alley before the long stretch of buildings that finally led up and out of the town - paused. The figure straightened at the sound of voices, pressed its back to a wall, and shuffled along just far enough that it could peek to look at the car wash on the opposite end.

It wasn't open today and wouldn't be for the whole week. An influx of business came in the previous night as the whole town, as one unified people, came to last-minute wash off anything undesirable and potentially hard to explain, giving the place a near-record daily patronage approaching the double digits. All had come to give their well-wishes, and there wasn't a soul who passed by on the street who saw the owner and didn't give him at least a well-meaning lift of their hand above their wheel. Some part of this good will - maybe a large part of it - came from the fact the owner had stopped charging for business some months ago and just kept doing it for pleasure. Depending on who you asked, he'd won the lottery or gotten a big inheritance or other, less plausible explanations involving burgers and rockstardom.

"Hey, uh-" Greg began, sighing as he climbed out of the back of his truck, it rocking with the weight of five weeks' worth of camping supplies. "You remembered the extra sleeping bags? I mean, the extra extra sleeping bags."

Someone inside the wash said something not entirely audible.

"Yeah, I know." Greg responded, rubbing the baldness of his inexplicably unsunburned head. "But Pearl'd kill me. She's been... really protective lately."

Free washes or not, there were a few (mostly jealous) people who were pleased to see Greg go, if only for a week. None were pleased to see his son go with him. Through trial and error - usually error - Steven had charmed or otherwise placated everyone in Beach City, his incredible ability to talk people to his side spreading through the town slowly, over years, like an infection. The kind of infection that was actually beneficial to the species and had become a deeply rooted piece of its evolutionary survival plan; a piece maybe humanity had been lacking. Perhaps it's true that there is no such thing as bad people, just bad actions, and that deep down everyone can be sculpted to the lighter side of things. If that's true, then the world could use a few more Stevens; perhaps three million would do.

None were pleased to see Steven go. But that didn't mean the figure didn't want to see him gone. It would rather prefer Steven didn't see any of what would happen soon, just as he'd been absent for everything that led up to it. He probably knew. He definitely knew. But hearing it second hand would be better than... the alternative; Steven had seen enough horrible things in his life already, hearing them would, at least, be novel. Hearing that you - the helper, the healer, the golden boy - were away for some slumber party while so much happens at home, while some unknown, unseen gem crashes from the sky like a comet. That the same gem disappears into the depths of your family's home, waiting - luring - those who are closesest to you, those who need you and - oh. Luring. That was a horrendous thought to have. That it wasn't an accident. That it was planned, premeditated.

“Yo, Peri. What's with the hoodie?"

The figure - who was very obviously Peridot - felt a weight on its shoulder and jumped like a cat dumped in water. Her pyramid shaped hair wobbled as it sprung free, lagging behind her face as it swivelled to meet Amethyst. She made an impossible-to-transcribe sound.

"You getting into the 'wearing clothes' thing?" Her smile sunk into her round, big-cheeked face as raised her arms behind her head, everything past her elbows disappearing somewhere into her hair. She did her best disinterested eye-roll. "Tried that for a couple decades. Wasn't my style, buuut, that was like, forever ago. Maybe we could try it together."

There was a moment of ambient silence as Peridot looked at Amethyst. Really just looked at her, making sure she was real and true and there and wouldn’t disappear if she let her eyelids drift closed for a moment too long.

"I... um." Her view dropped to her collar. "Was... yes! I was trying on a new look. I believe it suits me well?"
Amethyst nodded silently for a while, considering the merits of the 'pasty girl who's left her bedroom for the first time in two weeks trying to look like she has street cred' look. "Peridot you look like a total geek."
"I know." Peridot confessed, in the tone of someone who's opinions had suddenly aligned to perfectly match the person they were talking to. "I don't... really understand human fashion. But I want to. And.. um... Amethyst?"

Peridot raised one leg, resisting the urge to shrink away as Amethyst spun around her with a finger struck across her chin and brows beat in exaggerated thought. Peridot nearly tripped when Amethyst stuck her face by the small of her back, neither of them used to the feeling of something other than a skin-tight light-skin around her body. It took a few full rotations until Amethyst was finally happy, snapping her fingers and shrugging in the way bedside manner precluded doctors from doing when they knew their patient was truly hopeless. In the time, Peridot took stock of Amethyst's change of outfit - or, rather, lacktherof. She hadn't changed one bit since before... before... since before.

"You got a long way to go. Tell you what; you and me go shopping for clothes sometime. I'm sure there's uh... something that fits you, man."
Peridot sighed and dropped her shoulders, allowing some part of herself to relax.
Amethyst sighed. "So what are you really wearing this stuff for?"
Like a piece of string being yanked between two trucks, that part - whatever it was - became taut again. "I-"
Amethyst slapped her hand over Peridot's shoulder. "Don't lie. You like, can't lie, Peri. I've seen you try and it never works."
Peridot groped awkwardly for a lie that would work, or at least, embarrass her in some other way, but she didn't find anything before she heard the sound of a door decisively slamming shut and a yell from its concerned owner.
"You're sneaking around like a weirdo. You wanna go see Steven or something?"
"No!" That was not a lie. It was, perhaps, one of the single most true things Peridot had ever said, and that surprised her immensely. "I don't! I don't... I don't want..." Her voice trickled off, gaining a unique intonation known only by her and strangled frogs. "Steven to know about me being here."
"You don't want Steven to know about why you haven’t been around for a week, is what you mean.” The shadows of the alley seemed to suddenly congregate beneath Amethyst's hairline and spread across her face.

Peridot crooked a finger uselessly in the air, the tension of the situation - that desire to sort of run away to nowhere and crawl into a small place that didn't exist and unsay everything - disappeared. Just for a moment. "Uh. He doesn't?"

"What? You think I was gonna tell him?"
"Well, I thought... why wouldn't you? Surely you'd want him to know."
Amethyst cocked a brow. "Yeah, I want him to know two of his best friends fused and almost shattered me." Peridot suddenly found eye contact very difficult. "I didn't tell him a thing.”
"... Did Pearl?"
"No!" Amethyst's grip on her shoulder tightened and she pulled her closer, green face turning a shade of turqouise. "Duh! Of course we didn't tell him. None of us did. She uh... she gave me a talk about it. Garnet too, probably. She really doesn't wanna worry him."

Peridot swallowed deeply, the barely-extant bile having no stomach to disappear into and simply melting back into the light ecosystem of her form. She could feel the heat of Amethyst's body beside her, the sudden yank into her underarm slowly turning into something more permanent, something more heartfelt, something that didn't bend her neck so much. It took a while under the low thrum of surrounding things moving and living and being, three things Peridot wasn't entirely sure she was doing in that moment, but she eventually noticed she was breathing. Heavily.

Amethyst noticed too.

"Peri..." She began, brushing a fleece worth of white hair from her face. "Listen. It's okay, okay?"
"Okay." Peridot paused. "... um. Okay?"
"The whole thing. I'm not mad." Amethyst lifted her arm fully and let the squirming thing Peridot had become under it free, standing face to face before one another. "Look." She snapped her shoulder strap. "I'm standin' here now, I'm talking with you now, I made sure not to even change looks. I think I might've gotten some things wrong, but, hey. It's like nothing happened, right? It doesn't matter. So why get so bummed about it?"

Of all the Crystal Gems, Amethyst had the steadiest relationship with Peridot, partially because the latter had at no point considered the former a crime against nature. Perhaps just a misdemeanor. But of all the Crystal Gems, Amethyst had the weakest ability to make Peridot feel the ways she was thinking were wrong. Garnet could confuse her, Pearl could chastise her, Steven could stand there while she broke herself trying to move him. But Amethyst listened.

"But it did happen. And it does matter." Peridot said to the ground.
"Why?"
"I almost shattered you!" She said, louder than she'd intended, and doubled over herself to make sure no one at the car wash had heard.
"Yeah?" Amethyst shrugged. "I almost shatter me all the time. Join the club."
Peridot swiveled back to meet her gaze, mouth opening and closing uselessly as she tried to find words to announciate how Amethyst was wrong and it all had to mean something. She didn't find quite what she wanted. "You... don't... care?"
"Oh, I care alright. If you almost shattered me, I'd be draggin' you into a back alley for a whole different reason." She slipped her arms out of her hair, passing Peridot head as it followed her like an owl's "- But you didn't, did'ya? Vesuvianite did."
Peridot spun around, digging her hand into her hair and staring wild-eyed as Amethyst walked away. "But I'm Vesuvianite! I mean, I think. I remember. I-I'm at least a part of her!"
Amethyst exhaled through her nose. "Nah. You're not. Lapis ain't either; Vesuvianite is part of herself and that's all you can say."

Hot, summer dust kicked up behind Amethyst's feet as she spun around. The cloud just barely escaped the cast shadow of the building before it blew away into nothing. Amethyst seemed to be thinking. It was an out of place look on her; she wasn't stupid, Peridot knew, but she had the kind of intelligence that could put her on autopilot through a typical day. She knew all the places she wanted to go, things to do and how to do them well, the most comfortable rocks to sleep on. Yanking back control from that intelligence disturbed her features, like hooftracks through a field of poppies, and she was obviously eager to go back to doing anything else.

Anything else came back for her first. Greg - with a hoarse voice like he'd lost several pounds in as many minutes - yelled for Amethyst, who didn't immediately call back, bouncing on her heels for a moment. She smiled.

"I can't help you with this stuff, Peridot." She said, sounding like she cared a lot about how much she sounded like she didn't care. "But you're gonna be fine. Have fun with her; she knows this stuff."

Peridot stumbled slightly, which was impressive to do from a standstill. Questions about how Amethyst knew and for how long died in her throat as Amethyst reached into the shade and yanked her out, Peridot once again buried in the warmth and plushness and uncomfortable angles that came with touching Amethyst. But it was different. She was allowed to stand, and then, allowed to look, and she realized as the pressure smothered her sides that she'd been pulled into a hug against Amethyst's gem. The turqouise returned, and it wouldn't leave for a long, long time.

It was hard not to slump over and sit bonelessly once Amethyst finally let go, Peridot resorting instead to just drifting in the wind as Amethyst took off. She waved to Greg and the little cream and pink blob that was slipping out of the heat and into the van, turning to face Peridot one last time as she hopped away.

"We're gonna be out of town for the week! Camping... uh, at least some of that. But hey, if Vesuvianite's ever in town again? Send her my way!" She clapped her fist into her open palm. "I gotta give her a welcome package..."
Peridot gaped.
"You know. Cos. She 'joined the club'? ... Ah, it's been too long, it doesn't work!" She turned. "Greg, I call shotgun! I got something to workshop with ya!"

The doors slammed, the engine roared - sputtered - sort of, stumbled, to life - and then it started down the road. Within a moment, Amethyst was down the street, then across the hills, then behind the horizon, and out of Peridot's life for a while. Now she slumped over.

This hoodie could probably go, she thought.

The sun had moved from it's position right above the town, taking a break from beating down its the near-summer heat and heading West to bother the other half of humanity. The very edges of the horizon were beginning to turn a shade of pink, orange highlighting the clouds as they stretched like rolled dough across the sky. It fell over the cliff face, the boardwalk, the town proper, the street out of it, for miles and miles onward until the light grew scattered and the hills grew tall. But for now, the pink-yellow light cast particularly on a hole. It was a large hole, made long ago by a mix of teenagers, fake IDs, alcohol, and the last wishes of a car. It was a hole in the side of a stone cube on the outskirts of town. It had once been its meeting hall, during a time when there were things to meet about that didn't start and end with 'the aliens did it,' and now served as a makeshift dance hall and amateur wrestling venue on good days.

Right now, it had more people in it than it typically did - about one and a half - but you'd be forgiven for not noticing. This not-quite-one-person was standing in total silence, back straight and arms tucked behind her, looking out across the reflecting of the sun as it lazily approached the horizon. She'd been holding this position for some half hour, knowing for a fact that she would have nowhere else worth being and nothing else worth doing, and that in twelve seconds a seagull would drop a man's pilfered ice cream from its mouth into the ocean and it would look beautiful.

The door creaked open - not for effect, it hadn't been oiled in decades - and a figure stepped in, slinging its - her, it quickly became apparent - hoodie over her head and onto the floor. She was wondering if she'd ever pick it up again. The not-quite-one-person on the other end of the hall didn't turn immediately, the silence in the ruined room growing thick as the seconds passed. Peridot took a step forward. She took a half step back. She thought to close the door. There was another creaking noise. She wondered if she should say anything.

The ice cream hit the water with a satisfying splash. Garnet turned around and approached the middle of the room with a characteristically unreadable expression, sitting on a large stone that had fallen from the ceiling last year. Peridot relished the opportunity not to say anything, at least, until Garnet flipped an envelope between her fingers.

"Cursive." She observed. "Very fancy."
"Yes." Peridot responded, in what was ostensibly an answer but sounded more like a question.
"You could have asked me in person." Garnet shrugged. "Sending letters is pretty impersonal."
"I wanted it to be impersonal! I mean. I didn't want to convey... I didn't want to seem over eager."
"You'd created a location, date, and time." Garnet began, thumbing out a folded piece of paper from inside the envelope and letting all six of its faces spill out. "And a weekly schedule. With preparations for holidays."
Peridot knitted her fingers together. "Christmas is an extremely important human celebration. I wouldn't want to take your time away from-"
"And Easter. Next year. And Valentine's Day."
"I-"
"And Halloween. Of next year."

Neither of them said anything, and Peridot considered how long the walk back was. Garnet stood up, and outstretched a hand.

"Fusion's a good costume, if you want to use it for that." Garnet said. "But if you wanted lessons, you really should have just asked. Now let's get started."

Notes:

Ah! I'm six days late! And I haven't replied to any of the wonderful comments I've got!
It's been a weird two weeks. But Garnet's here, and now I can finally make use out of all these Garnet tags.
And yes, this is the same hall used in Alone Together and a few other episodes - did this place ever get a name?

Chapter 13: The Old Dance Hall on the Outskirts of Town

Chapter Text

Starting is the hardest part.

Once you've started something, it gets easier. You have direction, you have footholds, you have things to work from. You have old things to rebuild and new things to build off of them. But when you start? The blank page cows the pen. Naive sorts think otherwise - well, it would be nice to call them naive, because naivete is something that's expected to be overcome, outgrown, become a negative but ultimately charming trait of the past you. It's not the right word for these people. These are people who don't create. People who don't use their hands, their minds, the things that set them apart from creatures evolved to dig for worms in the dirt and nash dead birds between their teeth. People who go about their lives awake with as much thought as others do when groggily woken from sleeping, dizzy and off-balance and with an intense urge to suddenly lose their form and drop onto the floor in just their gemstone; or the human equivalent of that, whatever it is.

She assumed that was how that felt, anyway. She'd never done it.

These people think that one simply thinks about doing something and it is done, that those around them who make things operate on a whole different level. That being able to “do” it is just a matter of wanting to, that other people came into the world with the ability and that they were carved without it. They don't think they can learn, and so, they're right. Think is too charitable. They don't really think, these people, they don't really act. In the limited, infinitesimal time they have on their Earth, they go about their little affairs, the weight of spending your only time, of living your only life, of being, the great immensity of that, all sliding off of them like rain from a leaf. These people - well. They're not really "people" so much as-

Peridot inhaled, looking fiercely down at her hand. Those were bad thoughts. Those were not the type of thoughts she had, she reminded herself. Not all of them, anyway. Not anymore.

She looked up and found herself leaning with her forearm to her head against a tall wooden beam. Strips of metal stretched down its length, cutting thin red marks into her skin. She wondered, as she shook her arm, how long she'd been thinking this time. Those looked pretty deep, but, then, she was pretty soft. It was probably just a minute or two she'd zoned out - she'd been working all night. It would... probably be best to turn in soon. She couldn't stay focused nor productive forever, and it'd be best to find some rest before the... before... the... sun... rose.

Peridot squinted into the gleam of light well past the horizon.

She dropped her hammer beside her and fell backwards. The ground was hard and cracked beneath her, a symptom of many days of relentless sunlight, as if the sky had thrown up all its rain that one night and promised it would never go partying again. It would have been wetter - the ground, not the sky, which was still sober, at least until it got a call from its mates and decided a few drinks couldn't hurt - if Peridot hadn't chosen somewhere so out of the way. Legally speaking, it was on the edges of the property. Practically speaking, it was as close to the cliff by the side as possible without having the wood come out the other side when she stuck it in the ground.

She wanted to make sure it was well hidden. Just in case...

The wood. Yes. Peridot looked at the four pillars around her, metal bars stretching down their faces and deep into the ground, arranged in a neat square about fifteen square feet. Long strips of flooring criss-crossed between each, occasionally broken up by gaps where a few blocks of timber had yet to be laid. She'd measured it to the millimeter, which by her usual Homeworld construction project standards wasn't accurate at all, but she'd gotten very good at stretching Earth tools to their limits and eyeballing the rest. It had been a good day's work. They'd make an excellent base for the future, if not for the fact one was sinking.

Peridot sighed. It had been a good day's work.

She swatted tall grass away as she stepped into them, beginning the trek home through foliage that was an inconvenience to most and a test of endurance to Peridot. These little inconveniences had driven her crazy once, when she was new to the world and not used to life growing every way and everywhere it could. Mostly because she'd come from places that didn't allow life any ways or any wheres. But now? When a flag leaf slapped her cheek, leaving her with a sore spot that felt like she'd been lashed by a silk whip, she almost smiled. Once she'd given it a bout of the typical threats, of course.

It was funny. After all she'd been through; she'd found her humanity, she'd betrayed the only home she ever had, but still couldn't cross a field of corn without it being an odyssey. She had metal powers now. She'd saved some uncountable numbers of lives here and there. There was so much she could do. She'd fused!

She'd fused.

Oh. She'd fused.

Well. There was still a lot she couldn't do.

She finally broke free of the vegetation and briefly patted herself down, the morning sun shining down on her and her many cuts. In the distance, she could see the barn. Inside it, swinging in a pale hammock, there was a flicker of color.

Let's go back a bit.

"What would you do if your composite Gem parts decided to defuse permanently?"
"They won't."

Garnet flipped through a book. Well. Book's a bit generous; book implies something that can be read from start-to-finish, something that has depth, something that's thicker than a person's fingernail is wide. The thing Peridot had handed her was much more like an instructional booklet, perhaps a pamphlet, and it was almost entirely images. Two silhouetted humans in various poses, all sort of... it didn't come naturally to describe, not to a Gem. Whatever they were, they certainly weren't dance moves, despite Peridot's insistence.

"Is the dancing necessary?"
"Yes."

As for Peridot, she'd had many false starts. Many moments where she'd suddenly stop, look up, then continue the thought and go back to the hunchback slouch typical for geniuses and mad women. Occasionally she'd mumble, even full words that sounded like they'd mature into sentences, but inevitably rotted on the vine. Garnet crossed her arms, sitting patiently on top of a small stage that had surely held many DJs and much teenager vomit.

"Is there a maximum range at which your composite parts can stray before it causes impairment to you?"
"Doesn't matter. They won't find it."

Peridot's eyes flickered every now and then to try and meet Garnet's, trying to see beneath that visor and the expertly crafted mask of disinterest. She suspected it was a mask, anyway. It was through distant observation she knew people expressed things she didn't always understand, but it was through first-hand experience she knew that people struggled to express nothing at all. There were no people who simply felt nothing. Anyone who acted that way - she suspected - felt entirely too much.

"... Is the dancing really necessary?"
"Peridot."

Finally, Peridot threaded her fingers together and turned.

"I have many questions. But for now; why aren't you..." She closed her eyes. "... Scared?"
"Don't have much to be scared of."
Peridot balked. "Defusing?"
"Doesn't happen much."
"Fine. Forced defusing."
"Happens even less."
"But it happens!" She pointed an accusing finger. "I've seen it happen. Doesn't the potential at least worry you?"
Garnet shrugged, lifting one knee onto the stage. "Being destabilized could happen to you too. Not just a fusion thing."
"That's not- nagh!"

Peridot dragged her fingers through her hair, it snapping back into place - messier and tattier, but still about in place - as she slid her hand out over her forehead. She stepped towards the hole in the wall; the sun had been swallowed by the horizon, leaving behind just a halo of pale blue sky and off-white sea stretching toward it. They'd fade soon, too. Peridot heard shuffling behind her, turning to see Garnet reaching out and striking some sort of small stick against a box. Its tip caught light, and she hovered it over a sort of... basin, made of what she assumed to be the same thing humans made their walls from. The room was gradually filled with warm orange light, and with it, shadowy Things.

They'd been tucked away when Peridot first came. Out of focus in the rush of preparation, the room seeming to be nothing but stone and Garnet, but now Peridot could see a pile of nothing important by the stage. Dark sheets, sheets of paper, tables and chairs, notebooks she swore she'd seen Steven writing in, and every now and then, another one of these... basins.

"Humans call them candles." Garnet answered a question that hadn't been asked, blowing out the stick. "Match."
"Primitive illumination fixtures?" Peridot tilted her head. "Humans have already discovered electrical lighting and use it extensively."
"They have." Garnet slung her legs over the edge of the stage again.
Peridot was rapidly realizing - remembering, rather - that trying to talk to Garnet was more like trying to write a law. "And yet you're not using it? This building is connected to the human's electrical grid."
"It helps the mood."

A pebble skipped down the open wound in the building, landing by Peridot's foot. "Pew", her mind thought, for no reason at all. She considered what direction and with how much force to kick it.

"You want more from these questions, but you’re not willing to ask.” Garnet said, her voice suddenly much louder in Peridot's ear.
Peridot wanted to call her out for doing something wrong. Being impolite or breaking etiquette or any of the other myriad things she worried about doing every time she interacted with people. Consulting her encyclopedic (and rigid) knowledge of social laws, she found a few. And she thought of ways to best chew Garnet out for them. And then she looked down. And then she nodded. "Defusing. Is it like... being shattered?"
"Wouldn't know. Never been shattered. Don't plan to be." She didn't quite shrug. "But defusing isn't scary. It's like a fusion is..." She seemed to think, but not nearly for long enough for it to be natural. "Once you form a fusion, it's there, maybe forever, inside you. Maybe it always has been, just waiting to get out. It's like how a human sleeps. They can't think well. They dream. But they're still there."
Peridot held on tight to the wall and the innards of what had once been a brick. "Wouldn't know. Never been. Don't plan to be... um. Sleeping, that is."
Garnet tilted her head, tone gone consoling. "You could try.”

In a moment, Garnet was by the stage again. Long legs can afford you that sort of brevity of description. She searched through the furniture, eventually producing some brown, four-legged box on small wheels. Like a human table, but far fatter and older. Peridot had seen it before even if she'd never quite caught the name, and she knew exactly what it meant. The last of the light was dying now. Even as it struggled to reach past the horizon and find a foothold on the refraction of the ocean. The candles caught the side of Peridot's face as she rolled her head on her shoulders.

"I’ve seen what it does to people."

The early morning wind blew through the barn like a tourist into a gift shop. That was to say, it blasted into the back wall, spread weakly through the space, decided there really wasn't much of value in there, and turned back. Just as it was out the door, it clipped its molar mass on a new gale rushing in, and the cycle began again. Gales make for horrible house guests, and with every one in and out, the sprawl inside the building rocked. Spare parts, loose wrenches, tables and chairs, pots and pans* and a single hammock.

* Recreational ones, not for eating with but for banging, building on, and occasionally fighting with

Something else blew into the room - metaphorically this time - in the form of Peridot brushing herself down. The sting of maize lashes were familiar by now, though there was a novel and indescribable pressure on her mind after too much metallurgy. It was a tugging sensation on the insides of her body, like there was a shepherd's cane to her neck and she was being urged off the stage of standing upright. She felt the urge to call out and announce herself, from the same place where the urge to sigh after collapsing into a chair came from, but she was able to stop herself just before-

"Hey! Lap-" Peridot clapped her hands over her mouth. She stared silently, eyes thinning to pinpricks as the wind battered her back. The hammock above her rocked, but didn't stir, and Peridot started up the stairs.

The last thing she wanted to do was wake Her.

It was already a small miracle whenever Lapis could get to sleep. The hammock probably didn't help, but it was the warmest, most comfortable thing she could lay in while still having easy access to all of her limbs. Peridot had multiple times before brought up getting her a proper bed like Steven slept in. Apparently, the idea of having something big and heavy bearing down on her, wrapping around her legs and constricting her wrists, did horrible things to Lapis' temperament. She rarely said no. She just kind of... looked. Off, somewhere else, in a way that made Peridot want to make herself very small.

Even in her hammock, sleep didn't come to Lapis' easily. It took many hours and many rotations of atmosphere for her to drift off to wherever the mind went when it was unconscious. There was a sort of process to it. First, things needed to be as close to silent as the rural environments would allow. Somewhere along the way there needed to be consistent, personable noise; voices saying nothing, hammers far away, machines in the fields, reminding her life was still there at a safe distance. Then there ought to be silence again. Then, after approximately forty five minutes, there should be gentle noise. Birds chirping, wind whistling, water spraying - oh, she had to be careful with water. Nothing too oceanic.

She wasn't really sure about the last part. No noise again? Should she go back to her duties of feeding nearby birds into conspiratorial silence, turning off all the farm equipment, curling up with her tools somewhere, and waiting to be able to use them again? Or was this another gentle noise affair... maybe there was a new third sound she needed to bring about? She hadn't learned yet, and oh, had she tried. It took hours of effort every time, and should she fail, Lapis might kick up her feet, flap her wings, and not sleep there again for the day. This - of course - left Peridot to pick up the pieces and try to find where it all went wrong.

And there were many things that could go wrong.

Sometimes it was things out of her hands. Birds being spooked and flying off. A sudden, unexpected storm and a crack of thunder in the times when complete silence was needed. Sometimes, Peridot would mess up the steps or misjudge one cycle for another. However it would go, Lapis would wake up, look at Peridot in a way that made her feel she'd pushed through the entirety of Lapis' patience, and they wouldn't talk for a while.

Peridot reached the top of the stairs.

Hanging from the ceiling, a small but potentially fatal distance from the hayloft that meant much less if you had wings, was a hammock. The wind outside gently rocked it, highlighting the deep depressions in it as something inside tossed. It was as if a marble statue had been dropped onto a sheet of paper. Peridot peeked over the precipice, gripping strongly to the edge of the loft in a way that said she'd once made the mistake of gripping weakly.

The statue was moving. She'd been cast with an unfortunate expression; knitted brows, wrinkled nose, teeth biting into lips. Occasionally, her head would shudder, turn, and her whole body would lag behind her as she tried to find some comfortable way to lay for the next hundred years. Peridot slumped. She found herself wanting to find Lapis' sculptor and take to them with a wrench until they agreed to resculpt her face the way it was meant to be. The way Peridot thought it was meant to be.

Happy would be nice.

There was a gust of wind that nearly tossed Peridot off the edge.

"!" Peridot said, falling back and smothering a shriek in her throat. She dared to peek, saw Lapis still asleep, and took off down the stairs. Of course Lapis wasn't sleeping well; the wind outside had almost ripped Pumpkin off his feet just the night before.

How could she have been so careless? With a little effort and a lot of scraping against her shoulder blades, Peridot finally shut the doors behind her, sinking to the floor and scratching over her shoulder. Splinters can't stick in gems for the same reasons water can't stay in sieves - just on a molecular level - but the phantom feeling was there. Staying around fully corporeal beings could teach you bad habits. Peridot looked up.

They could teach you some good ones, too.

Peridot rushed back up the stairs - as much as one can rush while trying to make less and less noise with every step - and dropped to her knees at Lapis' side. She peered over the canvas less cautiously now, half expecting to see the hammock totally empty, Lapis having spread her wings and taken off through the still-not-fixed hole in the ceiling. Lapis was still there, and still asleep, and her bedding wasn't rocking with the wind anymore, and that all filled Peridot with hard-to-articulate emotions. It felt like hot chocolate in her heart.

She couldn't drink hot chocolate, and she didn't have a heart, and Lapis' expression hadn't changed a bit. It might've gotten worse.

Peridot looked down for a long time.

"Wait! I-" Peridot began.
"Don't need it." Garnet finished.

Lifting her arm, Garnet stared into the black sky over the ocean. Her outstretched palm hovered over the stars, found the right one, and balled up her other hand. Beneath her, Peridot clung to her legs, caught between trying to paw Garnet's fist open and pinning her leg to the ground with all her weight, like a lizard trying to stop a semi truck. Garnet threw her arm forward and tossed Peridot's "book" far over the cliffside and into the ocean.

By the time she walked away from the hole, Peridot had sloughed off her leg into an irritated pile. "You didn't have to throw it away."
"You can't learn how to do this from a book. It'll only hurt your progress." Garnet said, settling her arms at her sides.
Peridot dug through her hair. "But you wrote a book on how to do this!"
"Thousands of years ago. I haven't written one since; I know better."
"Oh-" Peridot stood, tilting her head in her best attempt at searing sarcasm. Best attempt. "- Well why not throw that one too? Clearly we have no need to keep things stored for later use; we should just throw them all into the ocean!"

It's the most rigid things that shake the most when things aren't as they should be - when a ship runs aground, its not the sand that shakes, but the steel. Peridot could be described as rigid; as a matter of fact, Peridot could be described as stiff as a board. Garnet could be described as stiff as an industrial metal girder. And so it was that, when Garnet stopped just before the stage, and her body came to a thoughtful stop like a pillar beside an altar, Peridot could only wonder what snag Garnet had hit. What thought had gummed up that finely tuned machine for just a moment, before it started turning again and pulverized the notion like chaff beneath a tank tread.

Peridot could only wonder how much trouble she was in for that.

"I have reasons for keeping mine." Garnet said, vaguely, but continued. "But I threw yours because I didn't want Steven seeing it."
"I wasn't going to show it to him! I have no desire to fuse with him; I wasn't even aware he was capable of it until that incident with Jasper. We'd have no use for such material." Peridot said, demonstrating that a boy his age probably knew more about that book than she did.
"He finds things." Garnet grabbed something square and dark from the pile and settled it on the wheeled box-thing. "You don't have a use for it."
"But Lapis does! Lapis has expressed pronounced interest in that book's artistic content." She raised a finger. "It's one of her favorites."
"Oh." Somehow, Peridot knew the three eyes under that visor all blinked at once. "Good for her."

There was a scratching sound, and then there was a creaking like the door of a haunted house if it were made of solid steel, and then there was Music. Ah. This was a 'record player' - Peridot had seen one before. She'd rather never see one again. It was a slow, simple tune, and ambiguously old; it could've been made twenty years ago just as easily as it could've been made seventy years ago. The beat was easy-to-follow even for someone who's idea of an instrument was a power drill and had about the musical sense of the same. And worst of all, it was familiar.

"Nnooo..." Peridot began.
"Yes." Garnet finished.

The floor was almost at her back once Peridot caught her bearings, shrinking away from Garnet's outstretched hand like a wet cat. She looked up from its single-fingered glove to Garnet's visor, then back a few times, hoping she'd just be pulled up and given a list of chores rather than made to stay for What Came Next. Finally, Garnet's lips curled in a reassuring, astonishingly real way she'd spent many years integrating into her body language. It was a second language, so it probably wouldn't ever come naturally, but she did try.

"We don't have to if you don't want to." She said.
"Ohmystarsgood." Peridot shrunk.
"- But you won't learn if you don't. And you're coming back tomorrow. And we're doing it then."
Peridot pointed a finger and looked generally betrayed. "Then what's the point of giving me the choice?!"
"Because I gave it to you last time."
"But you said we could attempt this whenever I wished back then! Now you're changing the rules!"
Garnet knelt down. She slung her wrists over her knees and leaned forward, in a way that cut her height in thirds while somehow making her seem much bigger than she was standing up. "Because back then you weren't ready. Now, I know you are."

Peridot swallowed, tilting her head towards her chest and gaining a sudden interest in the floor. She dug her finger through the dust and atmospheric chalk. She dabbed it between her thumbs. She resisted the urge to rub it off somewhere that'd leave a more permanent mark. She kicked her feet together in a way she immediately regretted out of instinctual knowledge that's how children did it. She felt eyes on her. Lots of them. She looked up and took Garnet by her hand.

"If you want to learn to fuse-" Garnet pulled her up. "- And you do want to learn. You came here -" She pulled Peridot close. "You need to practice. I know you and I think very differently. But thinking is only one part of this. You need to do."
Peridot breathed, her breath warm on Garnet's chest. "... Do we... I mean. Last time. We almost- and then we stopped."
"We'll fuse if we want to." Garnet ran her arm up Peridot's hip, guiding it as the two stepped away but not apart. "This is the most personal choice a Gem can make; it makes you very vulnerable. You don't do it by mistake. You fuse if you choose to."
Peridot's fingers shook slightly beneath Garnet's. "But I did fuse by accident! She slipped!" She felt the sudden urge to clap her hands to her mouth like she'd shared something very private. "I didn't mean to! We just, I spun her around, and some sort of-"
"You felt like you needed to hold her, and you did it, and you weren't yourself anymore. Right?"
Peridot blushed. Garnet smiled.
"That's how it happens. Because deep down, you already knew The Answer. Before you'd even decided to reach out, you'd decided that if it came to it, you'd put yourself in her hands."
Peridot looked down and made a noise. "I'm... not very good at this. Please tell me what that means?"
"That Lapis made the same decision with you."

Garnet let go, Peridot's returning weight almost sending her to the floor a second time. To be held by Garnet was to briefly forget a part of you - sometimes, every part of you - weighed anything at all. She managed to keep her balance, and as she flattened her feet, she remembered there wasn't anything wrapped around them. She'd forgotten her limb enhancers - the ones that hadn't rolled back into the sea once their owner winked out of existence for a night, anyway. Would it be too late to run back and...

There was a familiar clang of cans.

"... You remembered." Peridot looked up with shimmering light in her eyes.
"Always do. After all; the dancing is necessary."

The wind was gone, but the twitching wasn't.

The worst part - in Peridot's mind was - the twitching. She could deal with - try to deal with the lip biting, the tossing, the turning, the occasional ways Lapis would wrap her arms around herself as if she was being attacked. That was normal with Lapis when she wasn't in the state to brave the world like a wild-eyed bride in a bloodstained dress. But the pained twitch of her eyes was something she only did in her sleep. Peridot had heard that sleep was the mind's way of ordering itself. That to dream was to iterate through every thought and put them in their proper place, like creating a glossary for a book by flipping through its pages.

If that were true, Lapis must've had many dark chapters.

But there was nothing she could do. For reasons she couldn't imagine, Lapis enjoyed sleeping, and she almost always woke up in a better mood. It was good for her. When it was good. Because it was 'almost always', wasn't it? There were those rare times - times Peridot tried to forget lest she have to worry and plan for it every time Lapis slept - that Lapis woke up worse than she'd gone to bed. That she sat up in her hammock like a corpse out of the grave, looked down at the ground like she wanted it to turn to dust and blow away, and made Peridot go very far away very quickly. Peridot made sure she had little places to run and hide and not test Lapis' mood. It wasn't always an option.

Lapis' eyes twitched again and she flashed clenched teeth.

What was she thinking about? Peridot had heard - secondhand, as she didn't dare to reveal she knew let alone to ask - about Lapis' past. As someone who's most horrendous experience was being displaced a few hundred light years, it made Peridot's life seem idyllic, light, and simple. Maybe it could've been if she were a different person. But there was no person equipped for all of Lapis' life, besides, perhaps, someone who had already lived it, and someone who'd gone mad. Maybe her thoughts were trying to pull her down to the place where She was, and turn her from the former into the latter.

That place was still there. Peridot knew it for sure now. She didn't know if it made it worse that Lapis could know too. Once you form a fusion, it's there, maybe forever, inside you. They dream. But they're still there. Malachite was still there.

Malachite, the one with green skin and white hair and horrible teeth. She was gigantic, many-eyed and many-handed, with legs that couldn't be separated from arms and a body like a sandbar and eyes that peeked out of their sockets like fingertips out of open wounds. Peridot breathed sharply, only realizing how tightly she'd been gripping the edge of the loft once the wood cut in, the razor sharp image fading from her mind as she rubbed her fingers.

And then she realized she'd never seen Malachite. And that she never would, or at least, she should hope she never would. She didn't know what Malachite looked like.

But there was something deep down inside of her who did. Someone. Passing thoughts up that weren’t all Peridot’s own, whispering answers in her ear, finishing her sentences in ways she didn’t always want them to end. She dreamt. But Vesuvianite was still there.

Maybe forever.

The record had been flipped to its B-Side, and after an atmospheric interlude, it was beginning to pick up frenetic pace. The echoey, rich rebound deeply within the studio in which it was recorded, subtle strings and piano hits seeming to sink into the ambience. It brought to mind images of a bog under moonlit, feet leaping from rock to rock, arms locked in arms, and wild hair lashing behind them.

Garnet straightened her form, swaying backwards and intertwining a hand with Peridot to center her pirouette. Peridot's small body spun in place, her outstretched leg lagging behind her body like the hem of a dress around a ballerina. Just as it seemed her partner's balance might falter, Garnet swept forward like a suddenly animate shadow and took Peridot by the hip, lifting her with ease into the air as the small, green form in her grasp curved into a dynamic arrow. Arms flung behind her, head tilted back as if lost in the moment, Peridot clung to her partner as she took many long, gradually spinning steps, the turn of each growing shorter and quicker until the two were practically in a spinning embrace.

Nimble hands clapped over Garnet's shoulder as she stretched her arms out. One struck into the air like a poet holding an invisible skull, the other cradling Peridot's waist. The air grew warm between them, filled with life and movement, not just hot or active but alive. A gloriously balanced energy found only in systems built from parts hairs-widths from colliding. Peridot heaved herself up along Garnet's body, sliding along her biceps and up into her grasp, preparing to fall back and taken fully into her embrace. Peridot's foot came down too heavily on Garnet's chest. Garnet winced. Solid shoulders dropped just slightly. Peridot's fingers dug in, then slipped off.

Peridot hit the ground with the sound of a falling Christmas tree. Was it the hair? Probably.

"Ouch." Garnet said, only somewhat performatively, as she brushed her chest.
"That didn't hurt you!" Peridot said, very performatively, as she nursed pain that was admittedly worse. "You've received far more substantial damage in the past."
"When I was expecting them."
"I told you this would happen." As she went to stand, Peridot dug her fingers through her hair, pain of untangling many photoknots occasionally straining her syllables.
"So did I." Garnet adjusted her visor. "And told you how to avoid it."
"Well, I'm sorry for my apparent imperfections."

In the time between their first dance and whatever number this was - she'd been keeping count, but had took a few too many body blows - Peridot's voice had returned to the heady half-growl she'd used all the time once. As if a twangy voice decided to wear a cat's hiss like a bodysuit. She expected to get a response; over the course of this session, she'd first given up on expecting anything specific from Garnet, then she'd given up on expecting anything polite, but she hadn't yet given up on expecting any thing. The silence continued. Slowly, her head turned. Garnet was swapping the record over again.

She had fallen. Again. And again. And again. And she had heard so many records and so much Earth music, and the entire concept of music was beginning to make her think of missing steps or trying entire new routines to learn when the old ones seemed truly hopeless, and she was very tired.

"Oh, that stupid device!"
"It's important." Garnet said, being neither specific nor polite. "Now let's start over. You still need to-"
"Start over. Start over!" Peridot approached with a wide stance and wider arms. "Always starting over, from this step, or, that step."
"That's how you improve."
"But I'm not improving! Every time we get closer to actually doing it, I fail at a step I'd previously thought I'd mastered! It's a ceaseless cycle of futile practice, again, and- we've been doing this for how long?!"

Peridot looked out the hole in the wall, memories of standing there hours before seeming so distant. And indeed, it had been hours ago - the sky was noticeably lighter now, the black transitioning to a barely-blue. She'd arrived before the sun had even fully set! Peridot searched for something to say. She didn't find something all encompassing and sharp enough. Then searched for something to throw. She didn't find something big and light enough. Finally, she just pounded the ground angrily, bringing her fingers to her forehead and scratching the space where her hair met her head.

Garnet's lips pursed.

"I know you're frustrated."
"I'm aware you do!" Peridot snapped back in a way that reminded Garnet of long conversations between bathroom doors. "You know lots of things. You are, apparently, the expert on myself, on everyone around you, and on fusion." She rested her elbows by her side, raising one finger accusatorily. "I've trusted you; you said this was the most intimate thing a gem could do. So answer me; why do we need to do all... this?!"
"You came to me for advice on fusion dancing."
"I came to you for advice on fusion, as given your status, you're obviously the crystal gem with the most expertise." And, Peridot didn't add, the only one she wanted to have this conversation with. "Yet you've avoided almost every single question I've had relating to it, and you've caught me in this ridiculous dance routine!"
Garnet let out a tiny, barely audible breath, which was apparently a sigh. "You'll understand it better by doing than by being told. Doesn't matter by who."
Peridot chewed the edge of her lip and stood up, pacing around the room and keeping a daring stare on Garnet, as if inviting her to give her a good answer and shut her up.

The heat in the room was entirely different from the dynamic, drafty heat that had filled it as the two neared a complete dance. Different even from the frantic, messy static energy of them scuffling around trying to work out something new, Peridot inevitably failing many times despite Garnet having quite a good idea of just about everything, even things she'd obviously never tried. The temperature filling it now was rising, dry, and red, like worn eyes searching through darkness.

"When you do split apart, are the two parts you split into the same, and do they unite again? Can the two Garnets change while they're apart? Which one is real?" Peridot's tone ought to have been curious, even excited, but it was underlined with bitterness. As if, if these questions weren't answered, Garnet would disappear when the world caught up and realized she didn't make sense.
"I'm not playing your games, Peridot." Garnet said, levelly. "I expected better."
"Expected! That reminds me; if Ruby were to believe something, but be totally incorrect, while Sapphire knew the truth, what would you know? What if Ruby didn't like what she learned?" Peridot continued. "What if Sapphire didn't want her to know?"
"I won't teach you if you let yourself get like this. We're taking a break."
"Ah! Break! Now, when your two parts do split up - they have to eventually, I know you're not perfect - then how long can you stay apart? Do you degrade? Do you need some time to be yourself again? What about other gems you've fused with - when was the last time you fused with Amethyst? Pearl? You said they're still down there somewhere; how do they feel about being separated for so long?"
"Peridot." Garnet whistled through her teeth.
"What about gems that can't fuse anymore? You were part of the rebellion." Peridot lifted a finger to the air and shut her eyes as if pushing a decisive point. "Lots of gems you've onced fused with shattered. Did their fusions d- Ah!"

Like an oak tree being hit by a wrecking ball.

"Yes."

That was the closest summation to the sound the record player made when its leg finally snapped under Garnet's grip. Peridot immediately shrunk, coming back to reality and then working to make herself take up as little space in it as possible. Garnet stood forward, her lips curled in an awful expression of anger - it would've been fine if it was Amethyst, even if it was Pearl or Lapis. But this was an expression saved for very special occasions, held back through centuries, so that it wouldn't lose its edge or ability to cow.

"Yes. There's your answer. When a fusion's other half is shattered, the fusion is, across everyone. She's gone forever. Even other fusions with the same kinds of gem won't bring her back; they're different Gems." A few splinters oozed from her clenched fist like slurry from brickwork. "Yes, Peridot. I lost many friends in the rebellion, and then I lost more, because their fusions died with them. And you're happy, I suppose."
"No!" Peridot said, mindlessly. "I'm sorry!"
"You're sorry." Garnet pulled down her visor, lunging forward to take a step but stopping as all three of her eyes settled on the half-hunched form of Peridot in front of her. "... You're sorry."
"I. Um. I didn't want to upset you." She tried to stop her body from holding a ready-to-flee stance. "I didn't think I could. Not really. You always seem so infallible; the only way to move you seems to be to... attack you being a fusion. But I didn't."
"But you didn't." Garnet echoed, her voice returning to merely disturbingly strained. Strain and Garnet seemed to run off of one another like water from oil. "You attacked my friends. You attacked the dead. Because you just wanted to know."
Peridot looked down and swallowed deeply. "I've been thinking about it. A lot."
"Elaborate on that."

The light had risen higher across the sky now. The sun was, perhaps, just another half hour from rising. But the birds decided not to wake just yet. They wanted to listen.

"Being shattered. Fusion. Y-you know. I just wanted to know if. If I was ever gone. If Lapis would have... I mean. If Vesuvianite would still be there inside her. She's a part of Lapis. But there's a part of me in there too, so, it's in Lapis too. And it always will be there.” Peridot bit her lip. “On further inspection, however, m-maybe it's a bad part of her. So, it might be a good thing Vesuvianite doesn't stick around. She hurts people."

Garnet stood. Garnet sighed. Garnet reclined against the stage, put her visor back on, and rubbed beneath it.

"That's worrying, Peridot." She said, matter of factly, and left no room for elaboration. "And you've never told Lapis." It wasn't a question. Garnet was back to stoic observation.
"No…" Peridot didn’t want to continue, but being in dead silence with Garnet was worse. “When something’s important, I think… sometimes only you can handle it. You know that.”
Garnet straightened. "Peridot. What do you mean by that?"

That didn't sound right, coming from her.

Peridot cautiously approached the side of the stage, gaining some courage when she remembered that Garnet was much stronger, tougher, and faster than she was - if Garnet was still angry at Peridot over anything, being a few feet away didn't really mean much.
"You've never told anyone. About the shatterings bothering you, I mean.” She raised a hand defensively. “Or, you haven't told many people! It's rude to make assumptions - in fact, you may have told many many people, over a long period of time, and maybe it didn't affect you, and-"
"Peridot." Garnet started, causing Peridot to stop. "How did you know?"
"... Well. When you were explaining fusion to me, you were speaking... in a manner similar to the text in your book. I believed it was a speech you'd delivered to many different gems over the years, and you were roughly reconstructing it from mental notes."

Garnet turned her head. The sun was far off from cresting the horizon still, but she could see that it would be a lovely, slightly windy morning. She could also see that when she would put her arm on Peridot's shoulder, she'd jump and make an impossible to transcribe noise. And then, they'd talk, though as with most things relating to people at any point in history - let alone history that hadn't happened yet - the exact words weren't clear nor important. Garnet was going to ask her to come again tomorrow.

Peridot would nod.

The sun was high above the barn now. The morning light streamed in through the cracks in every wall and ceiling board, proliferating through the room even past its shut doors. Various gaping holes turned what ought to have been a dimly lit room into what may as well have been an open-topped one. The wind cracked against the walls still, cooler air finding its way in through the many nooks and crannies of the barn, but so small and weak that it couldn't so much as rustle the mess it passed through. And it did pass through much. High above, on the hayloft, there was a perfectly still hammock. Neither the gusts of wind nor the sound of storms nor even the rocking from its inhabitants disturbed it anymore. It was tranquil.

In a few hours, somewhere very far away from the barn, Steven and Amethyst would watch the sunset. Much closer, but still far in a relative sort of way, Peridot would finish her trek to the outskirts of town and begin another fusion session with Garnet. Even closer still, a distance that really wasn't so long at all, in a small house held in the arms of a gigantic statue, Pearl would turn around and be met face-to-face with Lapis. And all three of these things would cause some real trouble in the coming week.

But all that was away and ahead. Inside, right in that place, right in that moment, Lapis lay limp, her eyes gentle and still and her lips softly pouted in what one had to hope was blissful dreamlessness. Her body was still and her arms settled by her side. Beside her, still holding on just a bit too tightly to the edge of the floor, Peridot thought about taking her hand back. No, she decided. A few more minutes. She went back to gently brushing Lapis' hair

Chapter 14: Camp Pining Hearts (Interlude)

Summary:

Lapis enjoys one of the last episodes of Camp Pining Hearts.
Pearl chops carrots.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was very very late at night on a Monday - technically very very early on a Tuesday.

Pearl stood at the top of the street, watching the sheen of the oil and the grime and all the other things that made up the natural acne of urban life. Her form stood stark, thin, and dark against the blinding night light of the city, something always shining on her back no matter where she seemed to move. A street lamp, a car's headlights, a blaring advertisement hanging from the side of a building. Oh, the buildings. They were nothing like Beach City - which was really more of a town. This was a real city, with towering apartment complexes, offices, dense hives built as much to support economy as humanity. And there were people.

There were always people - there were perhaps, in any given building here, more humans than Steven had met in his entire life - but these people were organized. Well. They were activated. They all shared a goal, this massive throng of humanity which had leaked out of the corners of the city and to where they stood now. Beneath the blackness of the sky, dozens of people all crowded around, all trying to pack into one building. It was a club; a newer, artsier one that fancied itself tapped into the fashion and music scene. It had been the womb of many flash-in-the-pan celebrities in its few short years of operation.

There were young boys in hoodies. There were young women in much less. There were bouncers. There were criminals, surely, and worse than that, there were talent agents.

Almost drowned out completely by the light pollution, Pearl's well trained eyes could still see, just barely on the horizon, the first promises of daylight. The first reassurance that yes, despite all, the sun would rise tomorrow, as it always did. The sun would actually be rising that same day, technically, in about an hour. And Steven would be back at Beach City in about four.

Pearl drew her eyebrows in resolutely, and looked beside her. They exchanged a nod. They had to get in. Now.

"Not too rough." Pearl warned, not fully feeling her words. "They're only human."
There was a sound of cracking knuckles.

The two stepped forward, towards the crowd, towards the throng, towards the club. And then some very interesting things happened. But not just yet.

Three days ago. It was a Friday - it'd be very worrying if it wasn't, considering.

Steven had left that morning, and Lapis wasn't taking it especially well. He'd left without telling her. He'd left without even telling Peridot, who only knew due to a chance meeting under circumstances she didn't fully understand. But he'd left without telling her. Her. Lapis, who was as deeply entwined with Steven as any of them were. Lapis, who loved Steven as much as any of them did. Lapis, who saw Steven as one of the few - one of the only - good things in this world. Lapis, who... was watching TV.

Being upset only does so much, and minus some extra hours in her hammock, Lapis had been mostly her usual self. Peridot had even said so, as the only person on Earth who'd comment on how incredibly normal you're being today. After a little strop which came quickly and went even quicker, Lapis had woken up with astonishingly well-groomed hair, and the usual perpetual tension in her torso, the kind that screamed at her to spread her wings and fly away at a moment's notice, had faded. She hadn't had quite that good a sleep in quite some time. She was indulging today; she had to take good moods as they came, and they came rare and skittish, ready to run off if something went wrong. She had to crystalize these memories when she had the chance.

That's it. Stack better than average upon better than average, and hope all the slathering of little comforts combined into something good. When she'd described this idea to Steven - not now, of course. He was gone, he was gone and he hadn't told her, he had taken off and somehow, kind innocent Steven, who was always there, hadn't told her... no. No no. Starting again.

When she'd described her way of making good memories, a long time ago, with Steven, he'd called it the everything breakfast approach to happiness. Which was apparently a reference to some human tradition she didn't fully understand but made her want to retch.

This time around, she was treating herself with a limited resource; Camp Pining Hearts. As much time as she'd spent around humans - occasionally even tolerating it - and as much as the series had taught her about their habits*, she just didn't get them sometimes. Why would they ever end a series like this? There were so many unresolved threads! Pierre had hardly even developed her ("dubiously canonical", whatever that meant) relationship with Percy, the camper's home lives were only briefly shown after being referenced for four seasons, and there were still so many camper pairings that hadn't even had a single challenge to call their own.

* Mostly centering around gathering pointless badges, communicating in complex signals that must be understood under threat of ostracization, and, of course, crying

There Lapis sat, halfway through the first of the three part finale, to the final season, of the only show she'd ever loved. Peridot had seen it already once she'd discovered it a few months ago - discovered was the word. It had always been in Steven's vast collection, because it had ended years ago, long before Peridot's feet first touched the earth. That's why it was on 'VHS', which was apparently very primitive, though to a gem, saying a DVD is advanced technology compared to a VHS tape is like saying a sharpened stick is advanced weaponry compared to a rock.

She was deliberately putting off watching the last few episodes for the right time. A long time ago - or so it seemed - Peridot had tried to convince Lapis to watch them all with her. She'd failed. Well, she'd realized she'd failed, after some very choice words Lapis wasn't sure she regretted. Lapis thought that might have been what finally pushed her to start doing it; you know, the crying. Peridot had put the other two parts away somewhere and never picked them up again.

So the series ended on a rushed note. No matter how up-in-arms about it - by her perpetually lazy, moody standards - Lapis was, it had bothered Peridot far more. This show had been her window into the human mind. It helped her understand a bit about how they operated. It gave her something to study when real people weren’t receptive to being monitored from bushes. But windows go both ways. And unlike Lapis, Peridot didn’t latch hers. What was on the human's side had reached through the frame and moved some furniture around in Peridot’s mind. Into places that made her want to meet others, into places that made her want to talk, that all together made her appreciate this spinning ball of mud and death and bars and cages and-

"Lapis!" Peridot called from the barn floor.
"Yeah?" Lapis called back, leaning over her knees and wondering whether she should pause the VHS. Peridot's antsy stance - with one foot tapping as her whole body prepared to break into a sprint - told her she shouldn't bother.
"I'm going out now! I'll be back in a few hours!"
"Yeah." Lapis said, having been walked through this then-imaginary conversation many times since she'd awoken that afternoon, in typical fashion.
"Bye!" Peridot ran off, the soft patter of her feet on the grass fading until it was hidden beneath the wind.
"... Yeah."

In the absence of Steven and Amethyst to do the things she did with them (Things she told Lapis about, in detail every time she got back to the Barn), Peridot was apparently taking up exploring the countryside. Peridot - a gem who rarely ever left past dark unless there was a sudden storm - had by her own account slipped out all of last night and well into the morning, off to who-knows-where, came back with some new bruises, and was doing it again.

She'd explained this all very anxiously to Lapis, as if Homeworld's finest were going to come into the barn and snatch her without the protection of The Great and Lovable Peridot. Or - Lapis thought, as she settled back against the wall - as if Lapis was going to be the one coming for Peridot. As if Lapis was going to be upset, and going to search through Peridot for traces of a lie and bring down Hell should she find any.

She didn't like to think about that. She focused on Camp Pining Hearts. It was one of the quiet moments; these were always the best, at least to Lapis. They were part of what made the show such a cult classic. The writer’s being unafraid to get quiet, get serious, and - more often than not - get quite preachy as the characters suddenly lost their speaking traits and became arbiters of wisdom. It was charming, in its own way. Pure.

She was approaching the end of the first part now, where the intrepid and worn down (after the events of season four) Pierre climbed a hill overlooking the camp. There was a silent, sweeping shot of the scene, filled with the ambient hum of life so perpetual on Earth. Lapis took a moment to pick out all the places; the Rapids, the Mound, the Tents, the Flagpole, the Reeds, the Old House We Don't Go To. Some of these places were regular locations, some of them just in a few episodes, but they weren't going to be seen again. They were leaving the camp now, after what happened to The Counsellor, and part two would be a road trip into the rarely seen world outside the camp.

Lapis wondered when she'd see a place she loved for the last time. Maybe she'd go away, and when she came back, it would be gone. Maybe she'd go away and never come back. Maybe the whole world would stay, but she'd disappear. She wouldn't get to see the world once she was gone.

"Percy." An older, more worldly voice said, stirring Lapis from her thoughts.
"Angela." Pierre replied, a rock tumbling down across the hill as he turned around to meet the old counsellor. His personal coach, once.
"It's time to go." She crooked a thumb, without the usual enthusiasm she put in her trademark gesture, as Peridot would call it. "C'mon. They're going to catch up soon if we don't."
Percy looked back again, taking in a deep breath of high mountain air. "It's not fair." He said, after a long time. "I didn't have enough time here."
"You had years." Paulette said, simply, as always.
"Not enough. It's just... I'm not ready. I want to be here forever."
"Forever's a long time." Angela said, expression changing but not in any particular way. Just... acknowledging.
"Not... forever." He said, lips pulling back. "Just longer. It used to be so much better. I just wish I could go back."
"Always seems like it was." Angela gripped her coat and slipped it down her shoulder, tossing it to the space between the two. "But back then, you felt the way you do now. You're in the past now too; some day you're going to be in the future." She turned around and walked - not off, just forward, knowing he'd follow. "You better be ready to meet it."
Percy almost fell onto his chest as he ducked forward and grabbed the coat, rushing after her and towards the very edge of the grounds. "What should I do?"
Angela didn't turn. "Live. It's all you can do."

The two stepped between the invisible ring made by gaps in signage, out of the Camp, and into the World. The shot zoomed out and as they slowly left to the right of the wide shot, the tape abruptly cut to black, ready for the next part to be seamlessly slid in. The black light and occasional bouts of white fuzz illuminated the empty space where Lapis had once been.

Outside, beneath the light of the barely-setting sun, Lapis stood with her stance wide and arms tucked behind her back. She tilted her head to the sky and watched the clouds seemingly retreat from her gaze, drifting with urgency towards the edge of town. There was a shift in the air.

A gathering of power. A rush of millions, billions of microscopic water droplets all moving together. The hair-raising buzz of the background noise of the air - the chaotic, random consequence of being close enough to a star to melt without being close enough to boil - all suddenly being unified with one purpose. Like brain cells through the air, arcs of water reached out from Lapis' back, searching for thicker pools of gathered liquid to latch on to. They suddenly grew full and plump, like a layer of muscle suddenly manifesting over bone, growing strong and bulbous. Finally, the watery mass burst into ernest being, flapping with a sound like an underwater thunderstorm and throwing Lapis into the air, a blurry blue spot where the human eye just couldn't keep up.

As if Lapis was going to be upset, and going to search through Peridot for traces of a lie and bring down Hell should she find any.

She didn't like to think about that. But it was true.

Pearl lay a carrot across the table, nimble - and thickly gloved - fingers aligning it perfectly with the cutting board. She teased the tip of the knife over its width and then brought the blade down, shuffling it just a hair along to bring the blade down again. Within a moment she had had twenty four - she counted - neatly sliced pieces of carrot, which she tipped into the kitchen bin.

She heard a wrapping at the door, and in the automatic way one behaves when their thoughts are interrupted, did the first thing that seemed natural. Then she put the knife back after seeing what she did with it.

Outside the door, Pearl's voice sounded muffled but still completely audible, as is the privelege of people who talk over others on a regular basis. "If you're having problems with your electronics-" her voice got louder as she approached "- It's not our fault this time. Honestly! That wasn't even really us. as a matter of fact, if you want to complain to anyone-"

There was a mumble Pearl would go the rest of time content none but herself heard, but once she was done with that, her voice was practically right behind the door.

"- This may not mean anything to you, but go complain to someone named L-"

Pearl opened the door and her eyes went wide.

"Llllllaaaaaa-" She continued on for a while. "Ahem. Lapis! What a... pleasant... surprise?"

"What are you doing with Peridot."

As it goes: it was ostensibly a question but was certainly a statement. Lapis was to questions as a knife is to a block of stone: if she didn't make them blunt, she tended to make them break.

Notes:

Hey now, isn't this weird?
Intermission microchapter, because I realized it might be better to have this here for pacing reasons. Updates are still normally on a two week basis, but the upcoming chapters are proving to be some of the most challenging writing, both structure and content wise, I have ever attempted. It's exciting!

Chapter 15: The Old Dance Hall on the Outskirts of Town, Part II

Summary:

Peridot networks
Lapis and Pearl talk.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Apropos of nothing, a stone tumbled down the side of the building, skipping over rocks before disappearing into the grass. These things happen when quiet places are about to have something quite important happen in them.

Peridot opened the door, expecting to find Garnet sitting on the stage, or standing in a corner, or waiting behind the door as if she'd been there for longer than the door itself and found opening it on her rude. Peridot didn't find that. Peridot didn't find much of anything that she hadn't seen yesterday - the problem was those things had Changed.

The table and chairs had moved. The 'record player' was still in its place, but the black disc that produced rudimentary audio was gone. A few of the floral-print notebooks were open, gem glyph written in unreadable shorthand. Peridot flipped through the pages, and noticed the quality of the hand dropping off a cliff, shifting from a strong but swift style to an inconsistent blend of overly stiff and basically illegible. The strange wax basins were still there, but they were lit. And there was - Peridot noted, with a 'why, what big teeth you have' sort of curiosity - a large bulge in the tarp. And then the tarp jumped at her.

Peridot's shriek was cut off as she hit the floor, having made a clean arc in the air back, off the stage, and onto her back. She sputtered, gathering her barings and looking at what was on top of her. Once she did, she shrieked again, this time, much louder.

"Finally!" The gem on top of her said, brushing her square hair back and letting the red over her left eye glimmer in the dusk light. "I've caught you! Perdiot, leader of the Earth Mission!"
Period had slipped into that state where she resembled a strangled frog again. "Ruby!" She croaked.
"And now - I'll drag you all the way back to Homeworld. And have you... uh. Court martialed! And... thrown in a..." Ruby seemed to think for a moment, very unusually. "... Dungeon? Do they... do that?"
"Stop that."

The gem over Ruby's eye lagged behind her head as it snapped up, looking around for the source of the voice. The source found her, placing its gloved hand on her shoulder and giving a very serious look visible even beneath bangs. Sapphire reached out towards Ruby's face, the latter accidentally fighting herself off of Peridot by trying to shrink away. The 'gem' over her eyes was ripped out, Sapphire holding what was now very obviously a sheet of laminated red paper in her hands.

"It was part of the gag." Ruby said defensively.
"I told you it wouldn't go over well." Sapphire replied as levelly as ever, not allowing an I-told-you-so tone to creep into her voice; it was implied.
"It could've!" She rolled her head on her shoulders. "I'eno, there was a world where it did..."
Sapphire locked her hands together and looked to Peridot, who felt like she was being weighed. "Not this one."

Peridot - who had subconsciously been crawling out from beneath the two since the moment she was able - rolled onto her elbows and stood up. She looked between the two and checked for the gems on their palms. Really, she'd already figured it out.

"So you would be... Garnet's composite gems, then." Peridot gestured powerlessly.
Sapphire covered Ruby's mouth.
"Yes. And you would be Vesuvianite's 'composite gem', correct?" Sapphire asked
"Well. in a sense-" She started, automatically. "But while I have fused into Vesuvianite once before, I'm also my own individual gem." Peridot blinked quite quickly, realizing her mistake. "Not - Not to say that you're-"
"Sapphy! Now you're the one bullying her!" Ruby pulled herself free, resisting a laugh.
Sapphire looked nonplussed. "It was part of 'The Gag'"
Ruby could no longer resist much of anything.

Peridot almost felt left out of the dynamic of Sapphire and Ruby, which wasn't especially fair, since she was definitely involved in it. Just in the way embarrassing things one did as a child are 'involved' in the dynamic of one's parents and one's significant other.

"Wait a moment - you two are apart!" She pointed an accusatory finger. "From my understanding, Garnet only defuses under extreme circumstances."
"We can split up whenever we want." Ruby said, putting her hands on her hips. "We just don't usually want to!"
Peridot squinted. "And you... wanted, to?"
"No!" Ruby responded quickly, apparently offended
"Then why did you want to defuse!?" Peridot cried
"We didn't!"
"Evidently you did!"
"Based on what evident*?"
"You're here!"
"I am?" Ruby ran a hand over where her heart would be and looked down. "Oh. I am. That's uh... not something I'm used to."

*Sic

The two realized they'd gotten close. Very close. Almost chest-to-chest close. They looked one another up and down awkwardly, Peridot fighting back all the commands being sent from her gem to her form telling it to blush. If she could shapeshift once in her life, in any minute way, please let it be now. Metal clicked softly somewhere else in the room and the two broke apart. Peridot let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding.

"Garnet, and Ruby, and I-" Sapphire spoke softly, settling the needle over a freshly fitted record. "- Thought that you would be more prepared for fusion if you met us."
Peridot blinked. "... How?"
Sapphire blinked, presumably. "You've become friends with Garnet. You have an understanding of her, and so, you will see which parts of us influence her." The record crackled. "And from that, how you may influence your fusions in the future."
"And this way we can't... drop you." Ruby added, lifting her palm so it was flat to her forehead. "Same height."
Sapphire covered her mouth with a gloved hand. "... Yes. That's also beneficial."

Peridot raised a hand weakly in realization. The record crackled to life, playing not the same slow, almost dreamlike beat from the day before, but something much more lively. Something jazzy, with a very excited bassist.

"You're going to... dance with me?" Her right eye twitched.
"Yes. We are." They both said.

The world around Peridot seemed to darken, losing its hue and blurring its edges as if it was all suddenly on the edge of her vision. She stood stock still, one hand balled into a weak fist, as she stared straight ahead. She thought maybe she’d made a mistake. That sneaking off, hiding this from everyone, learning to dance and to fuse in secret with some gems she hardly knew, it was all a bad call. She thought about dancing with gems she'd basically only just met. She thought about dancing with a single, very tall gem she'd known but very rarely saw. She thought about dancing with anyone, at all, really. The surrealness hit her all at once. The idea that maybe this wasn't right. She thought about dancing with Lapis.

Ruby - mid-sentence with Sapphire about something that wasn't important - almost tumbled onto her back. She felt her hand pulled from her side and spun. Peridot was holding it firmly with a look of manic determination.

"Yes. You are."

The last of the day's sunlight shone through the window. Everything down to the mesh netting was back in place, presumably due to some local glass repairmen being told that the aliens needed something replaced before the human boy they'd abducted came back, or else they'd be Very Angry. That's the sort of thing that gets priority service.

Pearl kept her back to the island, busying her hands with straightening jars of sugar and organizing the contents of cabinets. It eased the mind, she found, to do a healthy amount of pointless busywork. It kept her in the here and now, kept her focused on what was under her fingers, let her subconscious silently its contents undisturbed by the chaos of the conscious, and made ignoring Lapis easier.

She'd already been catered to, taking an odd interest in one of Steven's apple juice cartons despite thinking food was disgusting. She hadn't touched it. She'd just... observed it. She muttered, sometimes. Something about teeth.

Lapis leaned forward on her stool inquisitively. "Does Steven know you broke his window?"

Pearl nearly dropped a tub of hot chocolate.

"Excuse me?"
"You did."
"I know that-" Pearl said, pressing everything she was grabbing into her chest and letting it spill out over the counter top. "- But. No." She tilted her chin up. "No. He does not know. And he won't. Because no one's going to tell him."
Lapis rested her cheek on her palm. "I could tell him."
Pearl didn't take the bait. "Yes, well, I know you won't. You would have already."
"He hasn't been around."
"Because you don't want him to be around. You've been locked in that barn for days." Pearl went back to filling cabinets, shaking something by her ear and putting it into the toss pile when she heard nothing.
From behind her, Pearl heard fingers tapping very quickly on wood. "I do want him around. But go ahead. Tell me more about what I think."
"Lapis, wanting something doesn't make it happen. You have to help it. You have to-" She gripped her nose, stared at the ceiling, and sighed.

For the first time since she'd walked in, Pearl actually looked at Lapis. It was like a carpet of clouds over the sunset outside, that look. It was hiding something big, but let sharp, thin rays of something red leak through.

"Now." She clapped her hands together brightly. "Is there anything I can get you before you go?"
"Peridot." Lapis said simply, staring down at her lap.
Pearl's customer service smile didn't falter. "No Peridot. I don't know why you'd think I know where she's going; she's your responsibility."
"Is she?"

As if hearing Pearl for the first time, Lapis' head snapped up. She blinked, and then lifted something long and dark from her lap. Pearl tilted her head at it for a while, before remembering quite a few human Christmases ago, when they'd been reluctantly shopping for Steven's father. Lapis flicked her finger across the tablet's screen.

"What's this?" Lapis asked, with a tone most often heard in wives holding shotguns about to turn themselves into widows.

On the screen, there was a message in a little green bubble on the right side of what was apparently a chat log. Pearl had very little experience with phones, beyond the few weeks where she went through Steven's phone to see what this 'Connie' was up to, but it was hard to mistake Peridot's messages. She typed in all caps, for one.

"OKAY. I'LL DO IT.
I'LL COME TOMORROW.
WHERE DO I GO."

"that building i told you about. can't miss it."

"THIS."
There was a reply to an earier message.

"you missed it."

Another reply.

"yeah."

Garnet typed in lower case, for another.

Not used to digital things that didn't belong to an interstellar empire, Pearl was only stirred from the virtual conversation when Lapis flipped the screen around. She noticed how Lapis cradled it with some disdain in the pit of her elbow before putting it back in her lap. So she was willing to go through other people's private messages, Pearl noted, mentally assigning Lapis points in areas one really isn't meant to be proud of.

"Don't look at me like that. She never locks it."
"Maybe she trusts you." Pearl's smile curled. "Not to go invading her privacy."
"Don't." She said. Pearl's eyes narrowed, but she stepped back, and didn't.

Pearl rested her hand on the edge of the island and looked up, chewing the inside of her lip in her best attempt to look casual. Lapis narrowed her eyes beneath her. Peridot and Garnet, sneaking away together, without telling any of them. Peridot she could understand; just looking down, she could see why Peridot wouldn't tell Lapis anything. Privacy came at a premium. The only way to get ahead of her was to run ahead and hope by the time she caught up, it wouldn't matter. But it seemed Lapis was very quick.

But Garnet? Garnet was private, but not dishonest; if she had a reason to meet someone, Pearl would know. She'd hoped she would know, anyway. What could the two be doing that required keeping things... not quite secret. But not open. What could Peridot possibly have an interest in with her...

There, as the sun set on the two, Pearl thought back to a rainy night the week before. She thought back to Vesuvianite. She looked past Lapis, and to the bathroom, where her and Amethyst had talked about what Vesuvianite was. She thought further back to the barn, and how Garnet had made sure to get her hands on a record player one night for reasons Pearl never learned. And then she thought even further back. To a slender girl, in bright pink leg warmers, leaning against a wall as she watched a man take something very important away from her.

It wasn't really Pearl's business. But it was Lapis'. And Lapis had this amazing ability to make her business everyone else's, whether they liked it or not. Of course Garnet might do something like this, not considering the dangers.

Lapis slammed her hand on the table and Pearl nearly lept away. On the other end of the counter, she felt the small of her back rub against the edge of the sink. Looking over her shoulder, she saw a broken tap they had yet to fix. Her eyes swivelled back to Lapis.

"I didn't know about this." She said, more quickly than she meant to.
Lapis had her eyes closed, one hand absently scratching her cheek so roughly she might've drawn blood had she had any. "Right."
"Lapis, I really didn't. I-" Pearl sighed, crossing her arms. This was so much more... complicated all of a sudden. ”Maybe it doesn’t mean anything”

”Doesn’t mean anything?”

”It’s just been one night of this, right? It could be Peridot just… you know. Experimenting?” Pearl resisted the urge to slap her head at her horrible choice of words.

Lapis stared as if she’d been told something so out of date it bordered in offensive. “Peridot never ‘experiments’ - if she’s done it once, she’ll do it over and over and over and-“

"Alright! Alright. What do you want me to do about it?"

There was this terrible, staccato tapping on the table. It conveyed the image of someone thinking very hard. Very vivid thoughts. They had sharp things in them. If she didn't catch herself then Pearl might've started pacing; she had guests. She had to at least pretend she didn't have a vested interest now. She had to pretend not to consider whatever was suggested, and once that was done, consider whether she'd consider it.

"Nothing." Lapis sat up.
"What?" Pearl crooked a brow unconsciously. She didn't know how to consider that.
"That'd be an 'invasion of privacy', right?" Lapis stood up and swept her hand over the counter.
The edges of Pearl's mouth curled. "Well..."
A cloud moved in just the right way, and the right half of Lapis' face was suddenly cast in deep shadow. "But it's acceptable when you do it, is it?"
Pearl's eyes narrowed. She didn't speak.
"Even if I wanted to-" Lapis began, some hard to place tone in her voice. "I can't. Peridot just knows it's me; she's got a system for it, or something. I had to wait until she'd gone to even come here."

Pearl didn't doubt that. Lapis moved away from the kitchen, towards the window showing the warm summer night-to-be as the sun was finally swallowed beneath the horizon. Her lip twitched slightly at the last rays of the sun. Peridot was out there somewhere. And she wouldn't be back until that sun rose, in all likelyhood.

"You're going to do nothing. I'm just going to go. Away." She struck her arms out through the air. "We never talked. We don't like one another."
Pearl - not catching on immediately - nodded. She'd later play it off as knowing the whole time.
"It'd be wrong to... spy." Lapis didn't turn. Her back cast completely in dark hues as the pinks and oranges of the sky enveloped the room. It was the kind of atmosphere complete by someone lighting their first cigarette of the day, but neither of them had the organs for that. “Peridot doesn’t have a system for you, though. And even if you did get caught, doing something wrong, you could make up an excuse. You do things with Garnet all the time, right? You just came to get her, that’s all. It’d be believable.”
"It would be… wrong, that is." Pearl buried her head in her shoulder and watched carefully from a distance. She was tapping the counter, she noticed.
"I try to be... I know you don't think I believe it. But you were right, earlier." Lapis began. "Peridot is my responsibility. The barn. Here. Earth." She surpressed a groan. "Why does it matter where I am, if I'm with her?”

There was an audible, sharp breath as Pearl leaned against the sink, feeling like her torso had grown a dozen times more brittle just hearing those words. They were the type of words that started wars and led people down very dark paths; she knew from first hand experience.

"Why are you telling me this, Lapis."
Lapis shrugged. It was a very honest shrug. "Had to tell somebody. Guess I... don't care about you enough to be afraid of you sharing. You wouldn't."
Pearl blew an invisible strand of hair from her face. "Bold."
"It's a good window. I guess I never appreciated it." Lapis said, tracing her hands along the glass. "I might tell Steven about how the last one got broken. Everything about it."
"You wouldn't."

Lapis turned, shut her eyes, and smiled. She left for the door. Pearl made the mistake of allowing her shoulders to drop, however briefly. It was almost over. Almost.

"Oh. Lapis." Pearl managed, the way she turned making her wish almost immediately she'd just kept her mouth shut. "Do you know where... you know. Where they're going? When they do these little meets?"

Of course she didn’t. If she did, she’d have went there and raised hell herself. Lapis was not the kind to-

Lapis opened the door, the warm wind of the not-quite-night hitting her across the face. "The big gray building near the cliffs. You won't need to know anyway; you're doing nothing, right?"
Pearl, at a loss for words and having caught on by now, nodded grimly. "Nothing."
"Sure. Tell me how that goes; but if you do anything, make sure it’s stopping them from doing something they’ll regret.”

The door slammed. There was a pause, and then, a sound like a hurricane drowning. It came in a few strong, powerful beats, and Lapis was gone. Pearl - glowing in the dying light of the sun - dragged her fingers over her forehead and wondered. She sighed and got to cleaning up the very last of her set of house chores, putting aside the rest for tomorrow, or - she had this horrible feeling - whenever she'd be allowed to. That would not be tonight. Tonight?

She was going to do lots of nothing tonight.

Notes:

Wooh, two chapters in as many weeks, breaking my usual schedule. But one was an interlude chapter and this one is noticably (probably for the better) short. Very fun writing a chapter hinging on text messages when you spent the first two decades of your life without a phone.
The reason for this isn't just my own love for arbitrary schedules, but also because this week I'm about to close a very big chapter of my life. The first chapter, by some metrics. Unfortunately no, I haven't found a husband who'll whisk me away to a suburban house surrounded by picket fences. But I felt it was symbolically important to have something finished for this week, rather than leaving it eternally as "on the week I graduated, I didn't manage to get that chapter out on time."
That’d be the type of thing I’d be thinking about in a nursing home in sixty years. But I did it. Next chapter on the 15th, then back to normal.
To life, and to youth!

Chapter 16: Good Old-Fashioned Lover Girl

Summary:

Ruby and Sapphire give Peridot a once-over, and listen to some great music.
Pearl gets kicked.

Notes:

This is officially the chapter where things go off the rails. I have decided plow full force into this story, and the breaks are broken. If you’re still here - enjoy the ride!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

A poem.

Pearl hated the strange busy places. Pearl hated the strange noisy spaces. She hated the hustle, she hated the bustle. Why, Pearl even hated the strange people's faces.

Pearl hated the starts. Pearl hated the stops. She hated the people. She hated the cops.
Pearl hated the sounds. Pearl hated the sights. She hated the darkness. She hated the lights.

And should you tell Pearl, "Beach City's small, it's no bad spot,"
You'll not convince her.
No, you'll not.

So yes. All together it wasn't an especially pleasant experience, rushing through Beach City at night. Not because it was dangerous; there was something dangerous thing in Beach City, and her name was Pearl. The problem was she had to hold herself back from proving it to anyone who got in her way. In the end, the tiny vestiges of night life allowed to exist in such a small town, plus the traffic from the few cars settling in for the night*, probably stole just a few minutes worth of time from her. But it felt so much longer.

* Which Pearl noted were bizarrely and horrifically dirty

Pearl leapt between two fences and into an alley, away from an old couple looking at her strangely from a window. She slipped out the back, over one of the many trenches pockmarking the cliff's edge side of Beach City, where the sand had long been consumed by rock and the rock was being consumed by the sea. She could see the gray building on the horizon now. She put her head down, and took off.

There was feeling in Pearl now that if she didn't get to Them, and watch very carefully, and pull something useful from whatever it was she saw, there'd be trouble. She was sure Garnet knew what she was doing - that is, Garnet knew what Garnet was doing. Pearl was hopeful Garnet didn't know what she was doing, because that'd tear this whole plan apart. Her sight could only see things she expected to happen. It was all... predictions. Just very very educated guessing. It was easy to guess something terrible was going to happen in that, exact spot, and that you should grab Steven from it now, or that Amethyst was going to say something very stupid and that you should cover her mouth. But you can't predict the movement of a piece if you don't know it's on the board.

That was why she couldn't foresee Peridot's arrival. That was why she couldn't predict Vesuvianite! That was why she couldn't see... Pearl. Going behind her back. Using her blind spot for her own means. Rebuilding the...

Oh, she felt her nonexistent stomach drop. That was a bad thought; but then - that time, it was for selfish reasons. This time it was to help. It was to make sure Lapis was well informed on what was going on. Lapis would get the information one way or another, and should she - say - shake down Peridot for it, it'd almost definitely come out sounding... wrong. One might think that doesn't matter; Lapis could find out however, and she'd just have to deal with the fact her... whatever Peridot was, was traping off with Garnet to do... whatever they were doing.

One might think that doesn't matter. And it'd be true, so long as one has lived a long, fulfilling life, written their will, and ideally settled down in a dry, landlocked state. But otherwise, yes, Lapis should get the information the right way; a little softening here and there, some fluff, just a few half-truthes. Pearl thought about how things went when she was caught out and had to make her own secrets sound noble. She thought about how capable she was of just explaining it all away.

Oh. Oh dear.

A lot had been learned that night. Some of the more mechanical aspects of dancing, yes, but much more important than that was the subtle, instinctual things you can only learn because you've tried. And failed. A lot. What might've taken days of training under a different tutor was hammered into Peridot in a matter of hours. This was because while being taught by their fusion was akin to being lowered into a warm pool, being taught by Ruby and Sapphire was akin to being lit on fire and thrown into The Northwest Passage. It was a sink or swim sort of situation.

Also, it was easier dancing with someone if they weren't twice your height. This was news to Peridot, who - from her limited experience - had gotten used to meeting her partner eye-to-navel.

Her hands were clasped with Ruby's, the latter's so much boxier it felt like she was holding a block of meat. They stared face to face, chins in varying degrees of being buried in their neck as they resisted the urge to look away. Peridot broke first; she stared at her feet as one stepped forward, coming down where Ruby's had been a moment before. She reached her arm out and bent Ruby back, one pair of hands raised into the air while the other arched out beneath Ruby's body. Their heads hovering a few inches above one another in their best poker faces.

"You've gotten pretty good," Ruby began, blushing, which was impressive with her complexion
Peridot's back straightened, "Yes. I... suppose I have. Thank you... are you... nervous?"
"What?" Ruby - despite her appearance - looked along her body and Peridot's, searching for something to be nervous about
"She gets like that."

Sapphire - who was sitting on the stage with her legs crossed politely beneath her - added with unusual fondness. It didn't suit her right; it was like bright red lipstick and high heels on a corpse. She clutched a record in her hands and sat waiting for something Peridot didn't care to guess at.

"No matter how many times we do it, she's always the blushing bride."
"I get excited!" Ruby smiled, almost clapping her hand to her forehead before realizing it was part of a delicate equilibrium that was just barely keeping the two upright. Peridot blinked down at her, "... I guess we've never talked much."
"Nnnot once."
Ruby squeaked, "I get this a lot, actually."
Peridot blinked, "You do?"
"I don't meet a lot of people! It's always Garnet. Which isn't meeting them. It is! But, it isn't. You... know what I mean?"
Peridot blinked again, "No," and again, "So does it... bother you?"
The corners of her lip curled in thought, "... I don't think so?"
"Um. That's... good."

Peridot - who wasn't the best at communicating at the best of times, let alone when her tongue seemed to be angry at her - carried on. She stepped back, bringing her arms together and suddenly pulling on Ruby's, giving her leverage she was meant to use to heave herself up and into Peridot's arms and they'd do a big spin in what humans called a 'Bridal Carry' and then she'd set her down and the set would be done and it'd be great. Leverage Ruby was meant to use, but didn't, instead stumbing forward and spearing Peridot in the stomach.

The only thing stopping them from becoming a big pile of limbs and color again was Sapphire, who caught Ruby over her shoulder as Peridot stumbled back. After she'd guided Ruby back onto both feet and a straight back, she stepped between her and Peridot, hands crossed expectantly. If she didn't know better - and the previous afternoon she hadn't - Peridot would've thought it rude. She would've seen it as overprotective and hurtful, like Sapphire felt she had to put a barrier between herself and Ruby and take her 'off her hands' the moment anything went wrong. But in a short time, Peridot had learned both (a) this was Sapphire's way of tackling the world, and she meant little by it, and (b) You needed Sapphire to take Ruby out of your hands every now and then, or else they'd end up ashy.

"Don't be worried, that's bound to happen sometimes," Sapphire assured, "Ruby occasionally needs to rest to clear her head."
"Ah," Ruby rolled her eyes, lifting herself onto the stage and kicking her feet, clutching something in her hands, "I could've gotten it. I just wanted to take a break; didn't wanna tire Peridot out."
Sapphire looked over her shoulder. Sapphire stared at Ruby. Sapphire looked forward again.
"She could try now, but she'd make a similar mistake, over, and over. She gets stuck thinking in certain ways," Her shoulders moved slightly, in what might've been a shrug,
"Um, yes," Peridot nodded, "It's not that uncommon, I've noticed."
"Then you've noticed that sometimes," Her voice moved noticably to the corner of her mouth, "she feels a certain way and all reason can't change her mind, and that the only thing you can do is wait for her to see."

Peridot's eyes flickered quickly between the two, and she worried this was all some elaborate lover's spat being covered up by helping her.

"You don't listen sometimes too, Sapphy," Ruby crossed her arms and looked off to the sea.
"You're right."

One moment, Sapphire was there, standing in front of Peridot. And then she was gone. Just gone. Ruby cried something incomprehensible as Peridot tuned it out. She craned her neck forward, hand automatically reaching out to swat at the empty air where Sapphire had been. She turned her head, and saw where she was. Ruby was pasted against the stage floor, apparently trying to phase through it as Sapphire leaned close. The former's eyes were bulging out of her head, lips pursed like she was staring at a land mine she'd just stepped on.

"You're right. And I'm sorry about that."

Sapphire kissed her on the cheek, and then she wasn't gone anymore.

"Or," Peridot's head spun between the two other gems, "She's gone, again, from where she was, which was a place where she was after she was gone, so, she wasn't gone."
Meanwhile, Ruby was a brighter shade of red than anything found in nature, and Sapphire was smiling slightly, "I'm sorry. I'm cruel."
"Was that cruel?"
"It wasn't nice."

Sapphire turned over a gloved hand and reached out to Peridot.

"Shall we begin?

Peridot bit her lip; she knew how this would go, not from future vision, but from experience.

When Peridot took Sapphire's offer, she was almost immediately taken to her toes. Sapphire stepped back, wrapping the length of Peridot's arm in her bicep like she was catching it in a lasso, not so much holding her by the hand as by the wrist. In a moment Peridot's eyes were to the ceiling, almost on her side as Sapphire spun away. No wonder she needed such a tight grip. Another spin, a sudden stop, and Peridot's arm was cracked like a whip, setting her back straight in an amazing display of biological trick rope. Sapphire's back pushed into her chest and she stared, buried in bright white hair.

There was a lull as they both took a moment to breathe. One of them was having a much rougher time of it; the other could feel it in her scalp.

"You're going to almost trip yourself in three steps. Try to stay within the square."
"Should I," Peridot began, eyes still rolling in her head, "Should I make an effort to memorize these moves?"
"Fusion isn't a matter of moves," Her grip on Peridot's hand softened as Sapphire moved them "It's about getting in tune with your partner. The moves are irrelevant. If you don't dance, you may still be able to fuse, but if you can't dance, you will never be able to fuse."
Peridot stared blankly, "That's the first piece of technical advice I've been given since we began."
"It's exactly why you haven't been given technical advice."
Ruby leaned forward on her stage, the thing in her hands shining darkly, "Yeah. You don't learn to dance by being told. You just... dance!"

Peridot felt like a child being talked down to. Which was impressive, as that was something she'd never been. Any time information was withheld from her - any time the raw data and step-by-step process was left vague - she had to fight the urge to think someone was hiding something. That they really did know, but were just too incompetent to spit it out in a clear, concise, preferably peer-reviewed fashion. But this time that urge was dead. Fusion was something far away, something scary, hard to imagine herself ever doing - but above all? It was something that - when she'd taken Lapis in her arms and spun her around and held her close - felt right. That's all she did. What felt right.

You just... dance.

"Ruby," Peridot began, swallowing, "is that a record?"
"Did you do something impressive?"
"In your hands."
She looked down in her lap, almost surprised she was holding anything, "Oh. Uh, yeah. We got it from... over there," She crooked a thumb towards the pile
"The old one was wearing out," Sapphire added.
"Play it."

"Ooh, Love
Ooh, Love-er Boy
What You Doing Tonight?
(Ooh, Hey Boy!)"

They nodded to one another. It was a grounding sort of sound when the record settled on top of the platter. Like a rocking chair, or a grave being dug up and pilfered. The record crackled to life with the wear of decades. And then decades began to sing.

"Ooh, Let Me Feel Your Heartbeat (Grow faster, faster!)"

Sapphire began. She lifted a leg and spun around, hand clasped in Peridot's above her head keeping her centered, hair firmly over her eye in the perfect way it always was. Upper crust privelege. Her smile curled pleasantly as if she knew just what to do, or at least was enjoying Peridot's attempts to figure it out. Maybe she was playing the thoughts over again in her head; the images of Peridot's future, filled with many missed steps and trips into the mud. How she'd end up in the mud from the dance floor, only tomorrow knew.

"Can You Feel my Love Heat? Come on and Sit On My Hot-Seat of Love"

But then Peridot began. And Sapphire's smile faltered.

"And Tell Me How Do You Feel, Right After All?"

It started with one hand on her waist, and then they were off. Sapphire tried and failed to stay on one foot, forced on to two by a forward thrust on Peridot's part. Peridot crossed her left foot over her right, her right over her left, and over again, onward, forward, into Sapphire's square. Beneath her bangs, Sapphire's eye flickered up and down; she had to take the initiative back. Wrapping her elbow around Peridot's waistbound arm, she thrust their weight together, preparing to catch Peridot when she fell. Peridot's back bent. Then it arched. And then with one spin on the balls of her feet, Sapphire's dress was sent with her hair into a glorious, spinning arc. Glowing in the night light, her pale white locks fishtailed behind her.

Sapphire's eye flashed beneath her bangs, and for the first and last time, Peridot met it. It was - in a word - ecstatic.

And then Sapphire came down in her arms again, spent just a moment longer than usual finding her footing, and they were off again. Dancing is not competitive - fusion is not competitive. It's a simple matter of getting in tune with your partner. It was just that Sapphire's tune was very competitive; the kind of tune that, if played on a piano, would crescendo by dropping the piano on its rival's' head.

"I'd Like For You and I to Go Romancing
Say the Word, Your Wish is My Command"

Loose brickwork tumbled down from the wall as Peridot slid against it, collapsing in a pile with a fine view of the cliff. She picked one of the stones from the ground and turned it in her fingers, trying to steady her mind as her chest rose and fell. She didn't need to breathe, of course, but it was an urge all living things had. You didn't need lungs for it - humans that had them removed just didn't have a chance to tell vis a vis impending doom.

She tossed the rock into the grass that'd long since overgrown the side of the building, hearing it rustle and clatter before finding dirt. There was a squeak and Peridot frowned; she must've hit a mouse. Something scuttled into the flowers and into the dark of the night which - Peridot noted with surprise - was receding. Had it really been that long? There were probably only a few hours before morning proper; in the after-midnight-light, she could almost see the gold of the dandelions and the red of the... the...

"What is the name of these plants?" Peridot lifted her knees and turned to the stage
"It's just-" Ruby shrugged her shoulders towards Sapphire "-Don't you think we're a bit too hard? I mean, I, um."
As one gem - in a metaphorical sense, for once - the two turned to look at Peridot.
"That's a rose."
Peridot nodded and - as if it she were asking an expert a very routine question - went on. "How do they taste?"

Sapphire's lips parted as if to speak, mouthed a few words that didn't quite come out, and she turned expectantly to Ruby. Ruby shrunk away and raised her hands, tilting her head into her shoulders.

"Amethyst has tried these before." Sapphire whispered
"Of course!" Ruby hissed back. "But we never asked! Um, Peridot-" She reached out weakly "- They're not for eating. I mean. You could. But."
"No, I couldn't." Peridot continued in a tone she reserved for explaining technical information to someone she thought was quite stupid. "But Lapis has gained an interest in tasting things. Particularly red Earth vegetation she calls 'apples.'"
"Well, don't! Eat those! Leaves, I mean. They don't taste like apples."
Peridot gripped the stem of one thoughtfully. These were Percy's preferred flower - one he'd employ whenever he engaged with a potential partner, often to bizarrely disastrous results. "What are they for?"
"They're a common symbol of the bond between two humans."
"They represent passion!" Ruby added brightly. "If you give them to someone, it means you're really serious... but. They don't eat them."

Peridot nodded and went back to her quiet contemplation. Ruby turned to Sapphire and gave a noncommital shrug - it looked odd on her. Contrary to popular belief, the antonym of noncommital is not commital; it's a middleman word, like "lukewarm" is to hot and cold. Ruby was the antonym of noncommital.

"Apples? Weird. But I guess Lapis' got to try eating it eventually..."
"Even we did once." Sapphire nodded. "It was a maple leaf."
"Oh yeah. We did. How'd it taste?"
"The texture could aptly be described as leafy."
They smiled at one another.

Peridot reached out to one of the stems, clutching it between her fingers thoughtfully. Just as she was about to pluck it free, she felt a nearly weightless sensation press down on her fingers. She squinted into the darkness, and saw a bright red bug with black spots dotting its round back. A ladybug or so she'd been told; she had yet to see a manbug.

"Right." Peridot lifted her finger close to her chest and blinked at it as the creature occasionally opened its wings but never flew off. "Vesuvianite's been urging me to eat apples too. I'm led to understand she enjoys the taste. I don't have the stomach for it."

There was a long silence which felt more than a little wrong. It took a few seconds for her to look up and see the two gems looking at her from the stage, both (presumably) wide-eyed.

"Vesuvianite's been 'urging' you?" Sapphire was the first to speak.
"Yes." She lifted her chin. "I've been having thoughts, or words, or whatever the correct term is for how you communicate while formed into Garnet."
"That's not-" Sapphire started so quickly the words didn't sound fully formed once they'd left her mouth. She looked back to Ruby who knitted her brows together and approached Peridot slowly.
"Hey, Peridot." Ruby began cautiously. "You mean like, the experience changed you. Like being Vesuvianite's made you more open?"
The side of her mouth curled. "No. It's not a voice in my head - that's likely bad. But it's an... impulse. You know. A desire, a want, an..." She spun her hand as she searched for the proper subtext, bound to a language that was not designed with the things she had felt in mind. Shaking her head, she carried on, "It's hard to explain. But you know." She tapped her foot "You know! You've experienced it as well, of course."

Ruby's mouth opened and closed a few times, and suddenly Sapphire's gloved hand was over her shoulder.

"Of course." She said, pulling Ruby along by the bicep. "We can talk to you about it if you have any questions."
"... Not right now." She said, and Sapphire's impeccable stoicism failed, allowing just a little sigh of relief through. "I mean. It's no different than Garnet having memories of her fusions. This is to be expected for any fusion, surely."
"Surely." Sapphire nodded

The ladybug on Peridot's finger nearly took off as Sapphire swept by, only kept in place by Peridot's instinctual urge to keep it still. Keep it safe. She went into the grass with Ruby in her arm, not looking over her shoulder as she muttered a few things that - by design - Peridot didn't quite catch. Ruby nodded.

"Alright Peridot; we've got time for another lesson, I think!" Ruby said as they stepped into the darkness, earning a sharp look.
"But-" Sapphire continued "-We'll need a moment to prepare. Leave us."
"I understand." She shrugged "I'll be here."

Seemingly before the words could even leave her mouth, the two were gone, disappearing into the dark amongst the - to them - waist high foliage. Peridot didn't pay them much mind. Part of it was the exhaustion wracking her body. As if coming down from a caffeine high, the weight and wear of ceaseless practice finally hit her. The fire that'd driven her forward was waning, waiting for some new line of thought to rekindle it before it was snuffed out for the day. Maybe for a while after that. But another part - a much bigger part - just didn't find the thoughts interesting in the face of the little bug still on her finger.

Pearl was not having a good time.

Firstly, she was covered up to her wrists in dirt and her thighs in mud, which to her was usually cause for screaming. Secondly, her dirt-covered hands were clapped over her mouth, holding back that scream as she lay in the grass. Thirdly, that grass rustling was preventing her from rubbing this irritating bump forming on the back of her head, earned from a carelessly tossed rock. Fourthly - and this probably should've been first - she was bent over on her hands and knees not a few feet from Ruby and Sapphire, the former having good ears and the latter excellent Eye.

She couldn't let herself be seen. Otherwise, she'd have a lot of explaining to do, and while Ruby, Sapphire - well, while Garnet might accept her trust once again being betrayed so long as she spun it right, Peridot? Peridot didn't see the danger. Peridot didn't know who or what she was dealing with, with either Lapis, or Pearl. She'd handle all of this, Pearl promised herself. No one had to know a thing.

"She's hearing things." Ruby hissed through her teeth
"Not literally." Sapphire reached out weakly with a gloved hand.
"Getting thoughts that aren't her own! Vesuvianite's in there!"
"Fusions change everyone. It's been some time since we've taught anyone; it's possible we've... lost perspective on how transformative it can be."
"Even when we taught all the gems how to fuse, how many had the fusion stay inside of them like this?"

At any given time? No more than could be counted on one hand. Pearl remembered exactly how many - as was her nature - and the clarical part of her mind was screaming at her to pipe up. Still. Just a handful of people ever fused like that. Those were always the gems to watch out for. They were the ones called to sit and have their portraits done for the book. It wasn't any inconvenience for them, of course - those were the ones that were always together.

"There was Soapstone, and Corundum, Crazy Lace..." Sapphire looked dourly to the grass
"And Garnet." Ruby gripped her shoulder. "Us."
Sapphire tilted her head. "Are you worried?"
"Uh. Maybe? I don't know. It's got to mean something, right?"
“Is there anything all of those gems have in common?"

The two of them turned, Ruby throwing her hands up beside her head and looking befuddled. That was good; Pearl knew from experience Ruby was most confused - 'befuddled' - right in the moments before she understood something. That sounded like as good a time as any to begin her grand escape. On her elbows, crossing one forearm over the other, Pearl crawled out from the grass. She hid her movements beneath the rustle of winds and buzz of bugs, brushing bluebells from her face and rose petals from parts of her body they couldn't have possibly gotten into. The irony wasn't lost on her, but she didn't appreciate it.

Ruby might've noticed it all if she hadn't been so incredulous. "Are you really doing puzzles with me? Now?"
"I'm not trying to puzzle you."
"You don't need to try - I just, ah." Ruby gnashed her teeth. "It's important, right? What's going on right now? This matters?"
Sapphire crossed her arms. "In a way, everything matters."
"Oh my stars you are impossible."

Just as she reached the edge of the candle light glowing from the dance hall, Pearl's arm crushed a bramble. The boxy shape of Peridot by the wall perked up, and Pearl's breath hitched. Peridot's eyes squinted into the darkness. Just as she went to stand, a mouse scrambled out from the brush. Peridot only had the mind to reach for it long after it'd disappeared again. She sighed and set her head against the wall. Never in her life had Pearl been happier that Earth was so busy.

Pearl could still - when the whispering failed to be quiet - make out the conversation behind her.

"I don't want to say anything I'm not sure about." Sapphire had a rare, raw tone in her voice very few could bring out. Most who could were dead. "I'm just trying to understand it myself, okay?"
“But if you’re saying that she’s like us, then-“ There was the sound that was probably Ruby's foot kicking something that was probably too hard for it. "I know you are, just- alright. Okay - let's... down..."

The sentence faded into the night. Pearl sighed quietly - very quietly. If only her arguments could be that civil. She crawled further towards the light where it was actively threatening to bathe her. She realized as she nearly slid face-first into the dirt that - when she left - she'd been expecting something rather less awkward. Creeping behind walls and hanging over ceilings, or else finding somewhere nice and far away to eavesdrop* from. Glamorous wasn't the word for what she'd been imagining, but "cleanly" might do it.

* She was past the point of guilt on this and had convinced herself to feel bad about it later.

Oh well. She knew it'd be very important to hear every word said - so that she could best spin it to Lapis - and that meant getting very close and apparently up to her arms in foliage. She needed to find somewhere a little further away for now. She inhaled, and crawled on.

It'd be easy to crush it.

That was an odd thought to have, Peridot realized. All she'd have to do is quickly put her finger over it and it'd be dead. It took more effort to keep it still and comfortable on her hand than to kill it and be done or, even, just to let it go. It was like how humans dedicated hours of their days and thousands in their human currencies to keeping a pet. It was like how she spent hours of her days to keeping a farm. She'd been thinking these sorts of odd thoughts a lot recently; maybe it wasn't all her doing the thinking.

"Hi. Little... thing." She said, overtaken by a sudden urge to speak with something that would hear her, but not understand her.

The ladybug flittered its wings and flew the length of Peridot's thumb, landing on its tip and padding around weightlessly.

"Wings. You can go wherever you like." Peridot dared to lean forward as she pulled her legs closer. "I guess you can't go far. Your body doesn't have the capacity for long distance travel. But... you don't have to be anywhere. You're not... social."

She rolled onto her shoulder, holding her thumb before her face and seeing the shape of the sea behind it. She blinked, and looked past the fluttering bug, over the ocean and towards the horizon. She looked to the very faint bright whites and blues of a distant city. Nothing like Beach City; looking to the town, there was nothing but dark buildings and people sleeping, sans a few teenagers who'd regret it in the morning.

"Earth creatures like you don't really have any favorite places. You don't know them by name or identification number. If you want to go somewhere, you just go."

Her cheek smushed against the wall and she slowly dragged down it, the discomfort feeling far away somehow. "Do you ever get lost?" The bug didn't respond, and Peridot sighed. "Do you ever wanna... go somewhere you used to be, even though the new place you're in is so much better? And you know that?"

Something passed by in the candle light - a long, dark shape that, were Peridot more focused, she would've noticed. But she didn't. Instead, her eyes turned up to the skies. The stars stared back at her. She blinked.

Just as her eyes shut, Peridot felt the slightest bend in the air. The smallest shifting of weight, the tiniest pressure being lifted off of her. By the time she opened her eyes, the ladybug was well outside the hole and lifting through the air. Peridot scrambled to her feet and chased after it. It drifted over the grass before zipping high, carried on ocean wind so faint it was imperceptible. Her feet broke through lines of brush, slapping wetly and coldly against her ankles as she turned the corner and reached out. There was no reason for it all - she had no hope of catching it without killing it, and it certainly wouldn't land on her again. But in that small, dark red dot above her, there was lightness. There was a place she wanted to be.

Peridot hit something squishy with her foot and she went tumbling forward. She coughed as she hit the ground, the wind knocked from nonexistent lungs and her head dangling over something. As her vision cleared, she realized she was holding tight to bare stone, and beneath her - far, far down - were crashing waves. Water. The mist in the air licked her skin, and she was back on the ground. Back on Earth.

She held her hair in her hands, and whispered to herself, in a voice no one else should've heard. "I want to fly again."

She looked to her left as she stood up, seeing two brightly colored figures talking, up to their thighs in nature. They were stepping closer now, Ruby and Sapphire both at the tail end of a conversation Peridot had been just out of earshot from. Perhaps she should've felt cheated that they didn't trust her to hear, but she knew - oh, did she know - that there were certain things best kept between two people The thought actually came with a quiet warmth in her chest; they trusted her not to listen. And trust is a valuable currency - not easy to get, and once its spent, you rarely get it back.

All this to say - she'd come a long way since the harness and collar.

Ruby looked around in the kind of daze you get in when you're considering if things will ever be the same again. Suddenly all the butterflies and trees seem important.

”We should be proud.”
Sapphire nodded. “Absolutely. It shouldn’t have caught us so off guard; this was a… natural course”
“Yeah. I mean, we always sort of thought this was gonna happen, right? Or, at least there was a chance?”
”It’s not a future I saw.”
”You can’t see these sorts of things; we didn’t see Stevonnie. Fusions too unpredictable”
”People are too unpredictable. I suppose-" Sapphire nodded "- we may just have to be ready for a new, permanent addition to the team."
“We’ve been getting a lot of those, huh?” Ruby smiled whistfully and took Sapphire’s hand.

Peridot decided it'd best not to break that trust because of wanting wings - seemed hard to explain - and ran into the building before the two could notice. She went right to kicking her legs on the stage and fiddling with the nearby, archaic human Things for a few minutes, before the two stepped in. Well. The one-and-a-half.

"Yo." Garnet said, almost bumping her head on the exposed wall.
"Oh, watch out. Those walls are... sharp?" Rough? Coarse? They aren't good."
"Don't worry. I just need to get used to being as tall as I always am."
"Does it really take that long to get used to?"
"No. But being defused does; I've spent more time apart tonight than I have in a long time."

Peridot looked wearily out of the corner of her eye. Immediately, her mind was filled with complex routines and hard-to-manage positions, performed both with and without obtuse metal things strapped to her feet. She was back on Earth alright. But she wasn't going to be fusing with Rubies or Sapphires any time soon; she needed the practice with taller-

"You're free to go." Garnet said, sitting where Peridot had been and looking over the sea.

Peridot blinked.

Garnet crossed her arms. "Go on. You're running out of moonlight."
"But. I thought we had one more lesson? We haven't practiced square dancing, or worked on being lifted - I still kick you sometimes, and-"
Garnet lifted a hand. "Your next lesson is to dance with Lapis. Do it as practice, or do it for real, you know what's right for you."
She rose halfway off the stage, slipping, falling, then raising herself immediately onto her arms "Does that mean... I mean. Am I ready?"
"I've taught you all I know."

That was a lie - she had a few hundred more books worth of information to dump on her - but it sounded better than the truth. Certainly better for one's confidence. And, above all, Garnet knew Peridot needed as much of that as she could get tonight. There was a glint in her eye, Garnet noticed. It was as if she were almost about to turn around. Almost about to run to the door and out to the barn. But she hesitated. Peridot looked down and turned her palms up, staring at them with pupils that ever so slightly shook with an imaginary heartbeat.

"What if I hurt someone again? What if, Vesuvianite does, I mean."
"You don't want her to."
"N-No! Of course not."
Garnet waved her hand. "Then she won't."
"But I didn't want to before, and I - she - we still did!"
"You're stronger now than you were then."

Peridot opened her mouth to speak, but the words died as quickly as they came. She flickered her eyes from her hands, to Garnet, to the sea, to the sky and the glittering, gorgeous stars. And to the very faint trickles of sunlight peeking over the horizon. Lapis would be either away or asleep soon -if she wasn't already, oh, please be awake - and she didn't know what it'd take to get the fire burning inside her now relit. The second time wouldn't be as exciting - it wouldn't be as scary or as exhilerating. You could only do something for the first time once, and she wanted to do it with Lapis. So badly. So, so very badly, more badly than she'd realized.

She wanted to fly again.

So it was a bit of a surprise - to both of them - when Peridot took off not in the direction of the door, but towards the hole and straight past Garnet. She slid to a stop and bent over, quickly searching through the flowers before finding one that looked just right. It was large, it was beautiful, it was in full bloom, and - most importantly for her purposes - it had a thick stem. She plucked the finest rose from the bush and turned around, only stopping once she saw Garnet pondering her.

"Um... thank you. For all of this."
Garnet smiled. "Just make us proud."
Peridot would've just turned and carried on, but she did have the mind to stop for one last question. "Us? Ruby and Sapphire, or-"
"Them. And me. And everyone else. Whatever happens; we'll accept it."

Peridot stood there silently for a moment. And then, almost tripping over Garnet's legs, made a mad dash towards the side of the stage. She picked up two tin cans by the handle and - realizing she absolutely didn't have the time to just lift them with her mind - clenched her rose between her teeth. Garnet - who was far more aware of human culture than Peridot was - covered her mouth with her hand as she imagined what Lapis would see once Peridot got home. Peridot bolted out the door, slamming it behind her and disappearing into the night.

Somewhere among a field of sunflowers, Pearl emerged, covered in as few scratches and hard-to-explain cuts as she could manage while trekking through a farm. She clutched her stomach, still recovering from a nasty kick to the stomach Peridot had given her that - in turn - sent Peridot nearly flying into the ocean. Maybe it was just bad luck. Maybe this was all a bad idea. While she wasn't any more superstitious than her world required her to be, maybe the universe was doing its best to tell her to put more faith in Lapis, to have more trust in Garnet, to do anything but what she was doing now.

There was a beating of wings, and those thoughts vanished as Pearl looked up.

"I've... um. I'll explain what happened."
"You won't explain it - you'll tell me what you saw."

The cans clattered behind her as she ran, her small body struggling to jump from one uneven rock to the other as she took the quickest path home. Through many not-strictly-legal-to-pass-through fields, front yards, and up quite a lot of hills, Peridot sang to herself, rose clenched tightly between her teeth.

"Just Take Me Back to Your's, That Will be Fine.

Come on and Get It."

Notes:

Oof! One day late.
There, my legally mandated musical reference per long running fanfic. I think incorporating them can take people out of the story more than draw them in, but again, if I don't include this the shipolice will knock down my door.
This was a battle to get just right, and it still will probably be one I subtly edit for a while for phrasing (and probably a torrent of typoes) but for now, the deed is done. Expect next chapter to be shorter and sweeter; you're going to be seeing someone very important, someone I've been eager to write since, oh, about half a dozen chapters ago.
Shoutouts to the numerous fics from eight years ago that are literally the only users of various Peridot and (Garnet, Ruby, or Sapphire) tags other than this fic; made tagging so much easier.

Chapter 17: Do It At The Disco

Summary:

Lying has consequences. So does telling the truth.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Gems have no blood. This should be obvious. When they're cut, nothing but microbial lightstuff escapes. When they're pushed to their limits, their skin does not flush a shade of vigorous pink. And when their fingers wrap tightly around the edge of a table, the digits hidden beneath don't turn a shade paler. This was excellent, because if the color of Pearl's fingers got any paler, they'd have to come up with a new name for the color of her skin. Alabaster-plus? Bleach Pro? She pressed her knees together as nonchalantly as her disposition - which was, in a word, chalant - allowed.

"And you heard these 'voices' too, when you first started?"
"Not voices. It's not an outside force; it's a desire. Fusions are a desire - sometimes they speak." Garnet shook her head. "Peridot - she doesn't need it. But she wants it."
"I've never heard- err, felt these voices."
"It has to go both ways. Fusions-" Garnet turned over her palms, revealing her gem. "-are a conversation."
Pearl didn't appreciate the implication. "That's a lot to take in..." She nodded. "And now?"
"We wait. Like I said, Peridot's on her way."

From beside her on the couch, Garnet tilted her head towards the window. Over the beach. Across the fields. Towards the tiny brown-red shape that was the barn. It was impossible to read an expression beneath the visor - and she suspected there wouldn't be much to read - but Pearl was positive Garnet knew just when it was going to happen. The moment when in all that wet grass and churned mud, the little green alien running through the streets with a rose between her teeth was going to find the much bigger, much bluer alien, and then, well - that was the question.

Future vision couldn't predict things like this. Perhaps it could tell her when, but it couldn't tell her what. Garnet had made sure there was no mistaking that. When she'd come home to see Pearl* waiting anxiously for her, she sat her down and told her everything. Pearl displayed just the right level of understanding to make it clear she'd assumed it all, without having actually seen any of it, and mixed in a few squawking balks for good measure. Pearl was very good at pretending she hadn't seen something she wasn't meant to; she had a few thousand years of experience.

* Who was looking frankly haggard and strangely dusted with the natural mist that collected around crops. However, Pearl often looked as if she'd just woken up hungover in a crop circle, so it didn't take much explaining to get around.

The problem was, they'd gotten to the point where the story got most intense - when the intrepid heroine had undergone her training, took her noble thorned blade, and went to go slay the sea monster - and then the story stopped. Because it was still being told. Pearl wasn't sure how to play that off.

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you earlier." Garnet said levelly, as if she'd been expecting to apologize long before she'd done the deed. "But Peridot wanted to keep it a secret. She was worried" Her lip twitched. "And a little embarrassed."
"I'm really glad you told me." Pearl knitted her fingers together. "You didn't need to."
"It was the right thing to do."
Pearl swallowed. Right. Yes. Honesty - it was just so important. "And why are you telling me now?"
"Because you deserve to know." Garnet swept her hand over the table. "And because it might be hard to keep quiet anymore. But you knowing is good."
"Oh. Well." Pearl looked away, making a home for her chin into the nook of her shoulder. "I suppose even you have to gossip every now and then - this must all be very exciting-"
"Because it's going to get very loud soon. No matter how this goes, it won't go quietly."

The couch squeaked as Pearl stood up. It wasn't so much due to her shifting weight* as the sudden absence of it; most things didn't seem to realize Pearl was on them until she stepped off, upon which they suddenly came to life like a dozing soldier being elbowed in the side. If only the world were that way. The world seemed intimately aware that Pearl was on it, and one complex thread at a time, was trying to toss her off. She pressed her hand to the window and circled the faint trails of not-quite-yellow on the horizon.

* There wasn't much to shift

"You know-" Pearl began with a smile that could best be described as taut. "- The humans are throwing a party? I saw a poster. It's a good thing you stopped using that old place. I mean, imagine trying to tutor Peridot while they're... ah..." Her words died as she she felt three eyes burn into her back.
"You're worried." Garnet said.
Pearl sighed. "Yes. That's one way to describe it. If it goes well... then we'll have..." She grimaced. "And if it doesn't..."
"We'll have a lot to fill Amethyst and Steven in on when they get back, either way. It's not worth speculating." Garnet began, suddenly just above Pearl's ear. She didn't jump. She was used to it
"I want to be prepared, Garnet. No matter what happens." Pearl gripped her own shoulders. "I don't want anyone to get hurt again. Last time... she almost..."
"I know, Pearl. But she didn't. She'll be okay."
"I just don't think they're necessarily..." She twirled her hand, trying to find the words that'd penetrate Garnet's armor of enthusiasm. "... Good for one another. They're both a little... unstable. And they both have their insecurities."
"We all do." Garnet didn't quite shrug, but the message was sent all the same.

But we don't, Pearl wanted to say. But we don't all have insecurities, and we don't all have points of instability, and we don't all have things that we need to improve and traits we have to fight not to overindulge - you don't, Garnet. Not everyone is so perfect and some people just don't always work - fusions are a conversation? Some conversations can be very one-sided. That's what she wanted to tell her, wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream at her face in some way that was both pleading and convincing and not pathetic or angry. She'd tried her fair share of the latter two and they never worked on Garnet. Garnet was safe behind a wall of herself, protected from the world, and she so much wanted to see someone else like her.

Pearl didn't say any of that. But to some degree, it must've shown through her facade, because Garnet gently put her hand on her shoulder.

"If you're not willing to try it for Vesuvianite-" She leaned over. "- Try for Peridot. She wants this. And I know you know that."
Pearl swallowed deeply, trying to hide the ways her eyes drew together. "And... how, do you know that?"
"I think you two are more similar than you give her credit for. You share a lot of traits. You even have a similar history. And right now, she's more like you than ever. Lapis is..."

She didn't know. Oh, thank the stars she didn't know.

But what was that supposed to mean? The words didn't leave her mouth in time.

"Nevermind." Garnet said. She couldn't be sure, but Pearl swore she saw Garnet's eyebrows knit together.

Pearl looked her up and down. Slowly, she turned, and gazed towards the horizon.

There were people who could see reason. People who were less blindly optimistic, or, in Pearl's mind, less selfish. Just as Garnet was protected from the world by her own skin, there were people who'd had it flayed from them, leaving them having to carefully manage the world around them, lest it touch any of the sensitive nerves now exposed. That was why Pearl told Lapis what she did.

It wasn't quite a lie.

Her dress shifted and rolled a stone just large enough not to be dust. It crashed down the wood shake, over the edge of the barn, and - for want of a gutter - into the bushes far below. A gust of wind blew through her hair and down from the roof, turning the fields of maize into a waving gold-and-green flag, representing - she supposed - Earth. That would probably need tending to soon - the corn, that was. Earth needed lots more work done than the farm, but she had quite enough chores on her own.

Lapis thought she might be doing them alone for a while. Maybe forever.

But look. There. The wind waned and the corn waxed, but a small patch still rustled. A patch - Lapis realized with rising agitation - that was moving with an unsteady gait. The gait of - say - someone dashing while trying not to be swept off their feet by a rebellious length of maize. Lapis crept onto all fours and crept over the roof's edge, face a mask of disbelief, as Peridot tumbled into the open. From so high up, from so far away, in the darkness of the not-quite-dawn, she should've been totally indistinguishable. A blob of green-black in a sea of shrubbery, if not a shadow in a sea of shadows. But the not-quite-dawn's light caught her just wrong, and with one side of her body slightly lighter than the other, there Peridot was. Her short, boxy shape carried two things Lapis couldn't place and she was fiddling to fetch something from her mouth, but that wasn't really surprising. The surprise was that she was here at all.

Lapis didn't totally trust Pearl's word. If you work with a liar, you should consider how you're being lied to, and if you work with a sneak, you should consider what they're sneaking by you. But if even half of what Pearl had said was true? Lapis was surprised Peridot even came back at all.

A breeze blew through the farm again. The shape of Peridot bristeled like a bush in a valley, her absurd, diamond-shaped hair lagging behind the rest of her as it shifted. She dropped whatever it was she was holding and held the thing in her mouth between her fingers. She leaned forward and cupped her hands around her face.

She wasn't serious, right?

"HEY LAPIS, ARE YOU OKAY?!"

Natural law dictates that soft, bumpy things absorb sound while hard, smooth things reflect it. It dictates that open spaces diffuse sound while closed spaces amplify it. But Lapis knew better than anyone that Peridot considered natural laws as a suggestion at best and a challenge at worst, in the rare cases she considered them at all. The yell echoed for miles. Lapis wasn't sure what she should yell back.

"I'LL TAKE THAT AS A YES!" She continued, "I'VE GOT SOMETHING TO SHOW YOU! FOLLOW ME! IT'S REALLY GOOD!"

Peridot turned and ran towards the cliffs. She stopped, skidding on one foot in a patch of loose dirt and just barely holding herself upright. She spun around. She picked up her whatever-they-were off the ground. She stuck her whatever-it-was between her teeth. She turned and ran towards the cliffs.

Lapis gripped the side of her head with her hand. She had righteous anger lit inside her just a moment earlier. She was ready to bring it down on that vague shape that had been Peridot, but the vague shape actually became Peridot, and she spoke, and she did Peridot things, and suddenly that fire was snuffed out inside of Lapis. She didn't know if she should be feeling the way she was - or exactly what those feelings were, actually.

But she did know she was smiling.

Peridot crested the hill and nearly slid down, resorting to hopping quickly from foothold to foothold before finding flat ground - finding it a bit too hard. She hadn't heard anything that sounded like a tsunami trapped in bubblewrap, so Lapis hadn't taken off yet. That was good because (a) it took a frankly embarrassing amount of time for her to stagger to the door and (b) she had to get ready. Panting, flustered, and covered in loose bits of corn? It wouldn't do. Her loose understanding of dance etiquette said there was more to it; herbs ground up and slathered over your face, awful spikes attached to your soles, suits and ties, that sort of thing.

She... wouldn't be finding any of that in the shack. What had once been a layer of poorly fitted flooring and four metal beams was now a standing shack, although shack was dubious and standing was temporary. She looked up at it and knew that - even by the ramshackle standards earth had thrust on her - it was rough. She'd built it in only a few days and it showed. The metal rods that made up its four corners still exposed, wrapped in wood, filled in with cork, and filled out with optimism. But it was private, it was roomy, and it was ambient; dancing in the barn just wouldn't do it. There were too many memories there. She wanted - needed - this moment to be perfectly clear in her mind when she looked back on it. In their minds. Even if that meant the place it happened existed just long enough for it to happen, and not a moment longer.

Come on. Just for one night.

She held her back to the door after she slammed it, as if trying to stop the world from getting in. Her mind raced - whether it was trying to catch up to her body or outpace it she didn't know, as both seemed to be operating at top speed at the moment. She resisted the urge to slide down the door. She had things to do. Lapis was going to be here any minute. Any. Minute.

Instantly, big plans - which to anyone else might've seemed overly dramatic and to Peridot seemed quite necessary - shrunk. Peridot folded them over her arm and fit what she could into the what-was-pheasible-to-do-in-sixty-seconds box - it wasn't a very big box. She dashed around the darkness of the room, stopping only to stand on the tips of her toes and fix one of the Things that'd come loose. Ah. She'd never had time to finish the decorations; she'd hoped it'd eventually coalesce into a net of glamorous... something. Something more than tatty tinsel and streamers and other things that put together looked good on her favorite #aesthetic pages. But that was alright. It was going to be just fine.

"You can't learn how to do this from a book. It'll only hurt your progress."

Only by a small gleam of white in the corner did she actually find what she was looking for. She crouched by the wall and gasped, holding them up in her hand as she felt along their side. Hardly had she dropped her buckets by her side than she questioned why she'd brought them; she... wouldn't be needing them anymore. Lapis wasn't that tall, and, besides, dancing with buckets on your feet didn't really fit her (aforementioned loose understanding of) dance etiquette. It was fine with Garnet, but with Lapis... she had higher expectations. She needed better.

A lump seemed to have formed in Peridot's throat. She focused on that for a while as she got everything ready, darting about in the darkness, listening for wingbeats. But it'd be okay. That was how it always was with... fusion. The actual word coming to mind pushed that lump right back up to where her neck met her chin. But yes. With fusion, it was always just okay - the little things didn't matter. You didn't need to talk it out or to do some fancy moves, you just needed to get in tune with your partner and then... it would happen. You just knew. You just danced.

"If you can't dance, you will never be able to fuse."

And Peridot just knew everything was going to be perfect.

A dangling wind spinner fell and sloughed over her face.

Perfect enough.

Please.

Pearl looked up from the table for the first time in... well it felt like... nevermind. She looked up from the table. Her eyes scanned the room, circles visible beneath them.

"Garnet... Garnet? Garnet!"

She jumped up from the couch and ran out the door, looking around frantically. The blue light of the not-morning didn't help her search, and she might've carried on a lot longer if a shadow didn't suddenly shift and reveal itself to be Garnet, leaning against the rocks beneath the stairs. Pearl craned her neck over the fence and exchanged a glance best described as manic.

"What are you doing?"
"Have somewhere to be." Garnet said, uncrossing her arms and walking down the beach. "If I'm not, there'll be trouble here."
"What do you mean? Where!?"
"The place I told you about. I have to meet someone there."
Pearl was about to say something - yell something, as at this point Garnet was a blob of purple the length of Pearl's finger - but Garnet raised a hand. Her voice seemed somehow crystal clear.
"I don't think you should come. Not yet. You'll be important later. All I can tell is that it's a fusion." She fixed her visor, turned around, and was gone.

Pearl stood silently at the edge of the fence. The wind picked up until it was howling in her ear. The thin, slender silhouette of her stood unmoving in the light of the house for a while, and then, put its head in its hands.

Lapis opened the door experimentally, as if expecting once she stepped through to suddenly be somewhere far off in a place she didn't want to be. Her eyes moved deliberately across the room, starting behind the door then gradually, expectantly, into the darkness beyond.

Something rattled above her hair and Lapis' eyes narrowed. Weightlessly, as a willow blows in the wind, Lapis pulled the bauble from the ceiling with a clean snap. If she stood too straight, some of the decorations nearly clipped her hair, and she suspected if she jumped the ceiling would meet her. It wasn't all measured right. The whole shack gave the impression of something built for the tall by the short. Though, it was hidden beneath the other, much keener impression that at any moment a wall would fall out.

How long had Peridot been working on it all behind her back? How many hours had Peridot toiled with this, resisting the urge to come running to her side at her hammock and yelling about her work? How many times had Lapis just barely avoided a rude awakening - and that was always how it went with Peridot. Having her out of the barn was a relief; she'd always have a full sleep, if nothing else. But not for this one, special project, made behind her back, as, apparently, were many of the things Peridot did in her free time. Lapis thought - maybe that urge just didn't come when Peridot did things she didn't want others knowing about. Didn't want her knowing about.

Something was prickling her hands, and as she looked down, she realized she'd snapped the bauble into two sharp pieces in her clenched fist.

This was stupid.

"Peridot." Lapis growled.

But Peridot didn't come out. She must've known she was in trouble - hiding like a scared pet after he'd made a mess of the carpet, or a child after breaking something expensive. It was a sort of pathetic low she didn't expect from Peridot, who she'd known to be - occasionally - brave, and at the very least honest. Maybe not, Lapis thought. Maybe not after all Pearl told me. There was a shifting of weight on the floorboards and a scampering sound. Lapis' snapped towards it, searching through the shadows for a short, square shape but finding nothing. Something rolled out from the darkness. It was a bucket.

Something ran behind her and Lapis spun around, finding only empty space and a door that was suddenly closed. The outside world felt far away - she wasn't sure she liked that. She stepped forward, but her foot caught on a thin, white wire she sure wasn't there when she came in. She threaded it through her fingers - she was being given hints now, fantastic. Was it a game? How hard did she have to yank this chord before she won. She'd never know; just as she was about to try, the room was suddenly bathed in light.

Bathed wasn't the right word - dotted, dappled, painted in loose streaks. As if from a dozen dying spotlights, the walls were covered in beams of color no bigger than Lapis' head. Purples, cyans, ceruleans, greens, blues - all in neon shades that were as artificial as they were electric. Lapis looked to the ceiling and saw what must've been an entire store's worth of square mirrors all haphazardly stitched together. It was imperfect, it was awkward, but it was undeniable; Peridot had built a discoball. She'd... rebuilt it.

"How did you-" Her eyes narrowed. "When did you-"

Lapis didn't have time to finish. Peridot took her by the elbow and stretched her arm out, hand left to grip Peridot's bicep for want of proper protocol. She hardly had time to blink in disbelief before she was pulled forward, on a path to topple over herself if not for Peridot's grip. There was power in those hands - not much, but it belied a kind of sureness she'd only found in... other people. That same power was crawling up her side, and she saw the swell of her hip cradled in Peridot's palm. It was as gentle as if she were holding a butterfly, but as firm as one holds a...

This was ridiculous, Lapis reassured herself. She met Peridot's eyes and expected to find the nervous excitement that came with showing off anything new. She'd say; Look Lapis, I've learned a new trick, and all it took was hiding from you for days on end. Lapis expected to find the shaking, wide-eyed look in Peridot's eyes when she was looking for approval. That - some awful voice helpfully whispered in her ear - is called fear. Lapis didn't find what she was looking for.

"You felt like you needed to hold her, and you did it, and you weren't yourself anymore. Right?"

In those eyes, there was something solid as steel. Nothing had changed - her pupils were as large and green as ever, only the pale glitter of awe gone. But as a shadow in the corner becomes a face, as a cloud becomes a towering whale, both without anything seeming to change, Peridot was suddenly a.determined gem. Determined; not bigger, not stronger, not even more confident. But determined. Lapis noticed she'd wrapped her hands around the one at her waist. She almost tore it away, before she realized that Peridot was reaching down to hold her, and that those determined eyes were almost level with her own.

"You're wearing heels?" Lapis looked up and down quickly, face a mask of disbelief once again. "Is that a rose, I - oowooh"

They nearly bumped chests as Peridot pulled her forward, Lapis making the mistake of lifting a leg to suddenly be herself spun in a dizzying circle. Peridot's fingers snaked between hers, bumping awkwardly on their way in but with such vigor she couldn't imagine pushing them out - she didn't have the time. She couldn't even think about it. Once both feet were on the ground, Lapis was facing the empty blackness of the room, only able to trace the beams of light as they crossed her silvery blue body. There was a hand over her hip. There was hot breath on her gem.

And then she started again.

"Before you'd even decided to reach out, you'd decided that if it came to it, you'd put yourself in her hands."

She - Peridot - not they - Peridot and Lapis - because Lapis had little say in it all. She was locked arm in arm with Peridot facing her one moment, the next she had her weight thrown against her and fell backwards into Peridot's arms. The air whipped against her face as her hair lagged behind her head, the blue dyed shades of vermillion and mint in the disco light. It was imperfect - they both found themselves tripping, landing a bit too hard, trusting too much or too little of their weight to one another. But being perfect is easy, once you get the hang of it. Carrying on after you fail? That’s the hard part.

This isn't right, Lapis thought. I'm bigger. I'm stronger. I can stop this any time I like. So why haven't I? Because you like it, someone that wasn't entirely Lapis thought. You'll never do this yourself. Eedyot.

After what could've been hours, Lapis stopped. The choice wasn't all hers; like remembering stumbling home and collapsing into bed, she'd evidently done it, but she wasn't sure under what will. Both feet were on the ground, her chest rising and falling, arms at her side without another pair to latch onto. Peridot was behind her, the glow of skin just visible in the edge of her vision. Peridot's chin hovered above the pale blue nook of her shoulder and opened her jaw, letting the rose drop out.

Where'd she get moves like this from?

The rose fell into Lapis’ hand, and she instinctively clutched it, thorns crushed in her palm. She couldn't feel it. She was far too busy feeling everything else - her chest felt like it was being emptied out, her head felt like it was being dunked in warm water, her body felt like it did during the most pleasant dreams, the ones free of horrible shapes on the horizon, the ones where she woke with smooth hair.

Suddenly the ceiling was rushing by her eyes. She felt the air - hot, humid, charged - whip against her back as she fell, the signal from her gem to her arms to reach out and catch herself sluggish in the rush of everything else. By the time they'd even had the mind to grab something, she was being held in Peridot's arms, swooped down to look up at her. They grabbed anyway - they found Peridot's cheek.

The rose hit the floor. The pale glitter in Peridot's eyes was back. Gems have no blood. This should be obvious. And yet, both of their faces turned the most curious shade of teal.

There were no windows in that shack, but there were many holes, and the light rushed out of them like so many fireflies. And then the shack exploded.

Pearl tapped rythmically at edge of the kitchen table. It was a maddening habit, one she'd scream at anyone else for indulging, but her mind demanded she do something. Anything. Amethyst and Steven had been gone for days, so there was a lack of hazards to clean away, and with Garnet gone, she hardly had anyone to talk to. Not that it really mattered - she had a lot on her mind and would be able to share precisely none of it to Garnet anyway.

She shouldn't have said what she said. No, it was necessary. No, it was wrong to lie - whatever happens, happens, and if that means her coming together again then... no. What if "what happens" is another catastrophe? What if she hurts someone again? It was so close last time. Inches. Within inches. And it could have happened to her, too. But that thought didn't worry her - she knew for a fact that should worry her. She just couldn't... lose someone. Not again. If she did, she's sure she'd...

Pearl was stirred from her thoughts by a light on the horizon. The sun was rising, yes, but it was only in the most vestigal stages of sunrise, where the light licked the sky before it cracked the horizon. This was much more local, and perhaps more pressingly, it was green and blue. Two huge shafts of green and blue, in fact, separated into criss-crossing helixes.

After just a few minutes of panic - a critical few minutes - she ran out the door. Over the fence, across the beach, past the boardwalk, between the buildings. She was fast - the kind of speed that comes when catching something very expensive before it hits the ground. She leaped over car hoods and ran through muddy patches of dirt, internally (and externally) shrieking at the sight but not caring to slow down. Very few things were more important to Pearl than good hygiene; this was one of those things.

Pearl was incredibly fast. But she wasn't fast enough.

Garnet sat cross-legged on the stage and heard the beating of feet on dirt outside. She beat a brow inquisitively; from all she'd heard, she'd been expecting an entrance through the skylight. There was no skylight in the building, of course, but Garnet suspected this kind of fusion might make her own. When the door opened, it even stayed on its hinges. Now that was surprising. But what was most surprising was the form that stepped in.

"She doesn't trust you" She'd said.
"She's scared. She won't tell you, but I know she is."
"She's with Garnet to learn to fuse because she doesn't want to try with you. She thinks you're fragile after your... experiences."

The words raced through Pearl's head as she hopped another fence, finding at last the path leading up towards the old grey building on the town's edge. She'd danced around those words very carefully. As far as she saw it, using words like 'fragile' while referencing Lapis' experiences' to her face could be likened to looking down the barrel of a gun to see if it was loaded. But none of her words were principally untrue. Peridot evidently didn't trust her - if she did, she'd have been honest, rather than sneaking out in the dead of night. And she did think Lapis was fragile. She treated her like she might snap at any moment, Steven'd even told Pearl about the routines they had to stick to just to let her sleep. And scared? Oh, that she didn't know for sure, but who wouldn't be scared of Lapis?

She'd never tell Garnet any of it, of course. And there may have been some extenuating factors she... left out. But it didn't matter; so long as exactly what was happening now didn't happen. Even if it meant Lapis and Peridot had to fall out. Maybe that'd be better for Peridot, in the end.

Pearl listened for the sounds of wings. She looked to the sky for storm clouds gathering, for lightning striking and revealing a massive, four-handed shape with a dress the color of midnight. She found nothing. That meant she might make it. She wouldn't; Peridot was already there.

"Tell me what happened." Garnet said, voice raised as if her son had come home with fresh bruises and an empty wallet.

Peridot was inconsolable. Tears streamed hot and heavy down her face, and though she was clean of injuries, she might as well have been beaten raw. She stumbled into the room and fell into Garnet's arms, only realizing they were even there when her face didn't meet the concrete. As Garnet went to push her to her feet, she felt Peridot's arms wrap around her torso. The sounds she were making were trying to be words and thoroughly failing.

Pathetic is a cruel word, but really, it was the only word that applied. It was a sort of pathetic that came when months of dedication boiled over, turning into something else before it overflowed. It was the type of pathetic that could only be shared with someone you really trusted - or someone you had no option but to trust.

"I can't go back. I was so close." She managed. "I can't go back, she won't let me, I can't go back, I can't go back, I can't-"
"Peridot, look at me."
Peridot buried her face in Garnet's shoulder.
"Peridot. Look at me. Peridot." Her hand pressed against Peridot's cheek. "Look at me."

Reluctantly, she did, twitching as Garnet's thumb cleaned a stream of tears from the corner of her eye. Her breath hitched as she met Garnet's eyes - perhaps for the first time - as the visor disappeared, her gaze darting between the three of them. Her breath was ragged and acids she didn't entirely know she had were bubbling in her throat.

"Lapis said, I said... 'n now she won't let me go back. Maybe not ever again."
"That's..." Garnet looked down.

Garnet had this amazing ability, Peridot noted through all the mist in her vision, to look both mature and innocent with her visor off. She lived in a world of lightness, and so felt the great weight of things when they came. Her eyes flickered back up and gave Peridot one last look before she pulled her to her chest.

"Let's start with what you actually said to her. That's what matters."
"Nothing! I didn't-" She mewled. "I didn't say anything. I was so close..."
"I thought so. Tell me what she thinks you said."
"Al... alright."

Garnet wrapped her arms around Peridot and listened carefully as she babbled, feeling the raw warmth radiating off her. She'd put her all into tonight, and what had it won her? Garnet couldn't help but let her expression harden into a rare, raw anger. She'd done so well. She'd come so far. She'd done so much. That Peridot who'd landed here a year ago couldn't have ever done what she'd done - not in months, and this Peridot, the one trembling in her arms, had done it all in days. How had Lapis learned? Garnet knew that wasn't fair. She didn't much care at the moment.

"Tell me if you think that's true"
"I don't..." Peridot's voice wobbled. "That's the worst part. I don't know. I don't know. I don't..."
Garnet spoke, with a tone so carefully natural it couldn't have been anything but constructed. "Me neither."

The thought processes of a fusion - thought processes in general - are tough to describe. But in this hyperfocused state, it all went something like this; alright, Peridot. The person you've slaved away to please for months doesn't appreciate you. The only human you've ever known and the only gem you've ever really befriended are dozens of miles away. But you've got me. And you might think I don't need it, but I've got you. Maybe it's not good enough for some people. But it's enough for me.

She tightened her hug - Peridot returned the favor - and she stood up with Peridot in her arms.

Pearl was nearly there. Just a few hours earlier she'd stopped where she was, ducked behind the largest rock, and begun crawling through the grass. Now, she just charged through it, a few dozen feet and closing quickly. No wing beating. No storms. No thunder. The absence of it all was beginning to worry her, actually - something... something wasn't right. From a very limited display, Vesuvianite had made sure that everyone knew she was not one for subtlelty, especially not in her introductions. What if... she's not here?

She was roused from her (very accurate) musings by a sound. It was like the song of a metal bird, or the hum of a hundred electric fairies as they heralded a new fae-queen. It sounded the way butterfly wings looked, and it was getting louder, higher, cleaner. Pearl slowed to a stop just before the building, which was an excellent decision, as just a few seconds later a massive burst of silver light exploded from the hole in the back of the building. It lingered in the air. First it was as formless as it was colorless, and then it began to solidify, or, perhaps, liquidify. It bounced between the two states, before eventually settling on forming into rolls and rolls of silvery cloth, thinner than the edges of obsidian and softer than silk.

"Oh, what now?!" Pearl shrieked, for lack of other things to do.

Her voice was barely audible under the light, somehow, but eventually both died away. There was a moment of complete silence as no gem dared to make a noise and no bug dared to move, shocked into stillness by an ancient instinct that'd saved many of their ancestors. Eventually, the pale - well, paler - face of Pearl peeked past the side of the hole in the wall. She blinked quickly.

"Come on, babe." A voice from inside said, sounding like high-class leather felt. "You've done this before. Part of you has, anyway. One foot over the other, strut your stuff..."

Notes:

Finally! The GarniDot fusion I’ve been denied for so long; I still remember watching Log Date all that time ago. I don’t remember exactly when or exactly where - most memories from the early days are like that - but I remember how it made me feel. You never forget how things make you feel.
Get ready to meet her proper next chapter.

Chapter 18: Fish-Stew Pizza

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Lapis turned her hand over, squinting into the loam as it slipped between her fingers. The corner of her mouth twitched. More clay, maybe? She held the stem of a sunflower and judged its growth carefully. The number of gems who knew more about agriculture than she did could be counted on one hand, and a quiet voice inside of her told her to be proud. Proud in general would be best, but proud in specificity was a good start.

Now, this stem... the thickness. The hue. The way it glinted when it was tilted towards the sun directly overhead. This probably conveyed a lot of information. This particular crop was young, the one in her hands part of only a few rows while the rest of the seedbed budded. If you had the eyes for it - like a fortune teller being able to read a palm and tell you were going to die a violent death - you could probably figure out exactly what this crop needed.

"No idea.*" She shrugged. "More clay sounds good."

* Lapis knew what clay was, which made her more knowledgable than almost every gem by default. This is why you shouldn't trust statisticians.

Casting her eyes to the barn, Lapis tried to remember whether they'd put the different soil bags in their proper place or in yet another ditch. Organization had never been her thing; not that she liked to be messy, but even on days where she could drag herself out of her hammock, the lightness only went so far. Eventually, the weight came back, and no amount of menial work could keep her mind from it. Bags of fertilizer went dumped in ditches, corn poured from rips in burlap. She could only imagine what state the farm would be in if it was tended solely by her - not a farm at all, she imagined.

Ah.

If you saw her from a distance - a crouched silhouette staring thoughtfully at some dirt - you'd be able to see her head snap up, so strong was her reaction to the sound behind her. The silhouette drew up to her full height and spun around, dress billowing under a sudden gust, revealing legs that dared to take a few steps forward. Across from her, a much shorter, stranger shape stood, one with a boxy body and triangular hair.

"Oh." Lapis said. "Hi Peridot."
"Mh? Oh, hello Lapis!" She responded brightly, looking up from her tablet.
"This the patch you wanted me to look at?"
"Yes, this should be the one, now let me just..." She flicked her finger across the screen. "Ah, there we go. Bookmark number thirty seven; I hope humans didn't put a limit on marked books. They have an annoying habit of doing that."
"If you run out, you can delete mine." Lapis absently commented, rather hoping that Peridot would - humans did some very strange things, which she wasn't sure Peridot would enjoy the way she did, and somehow she could feel the Crystal Gems judging her for it.

Peridot went everywhere with that tablet. It was a miracle it didn't get dirty, because its owner certainly did. Lapis gestured to the soil, and Peridot was on her knees in a moment, clutching dustings of dirt between her fingers. At first, Lapis assumed Peridot would be the latex glove and firm wash type, but it wasn’t so - Lapis had assumed the strange little creature she'd been more or less forced to spend time with would be a lot of things. Sometimes, Lapis was even wrong.

"Oh." She grimaced. "This is terrible! How did this happen?" Her tone was distraught, though more the 'I broke my wrench, and also there's a wrench-shaped hole in the wall' distraught Lapis had become familiar with.
Lapis knelt down. "What's wrong?"
"This soil is far too condensed; are we tending a garden, or some kind of human... clay... sculpting... station! While it's true that soil with healthy clay content is useful for growing crops, anything beyond forty-" She stole a glance at her screen "-anything beyond fifty percent is entirely excessive."
"So no more clay?"
"Certainly not."

The ground sloughed off Peridot's boots the moment she stood up, as if the soil respected her expertise, so long as it didn't have to actually listen to it. She clapped her hands together.

"This crop is doomed." She said, in a quick, breathy tone Lapis had come to know as resignation. "We'll have to harvest what seeds we're able to and begin again."

Lapis tilted her head. The topsoil fell through her fingers as she absentmindedly cupped it, rich and soft and thick. It felt like it wouldn't be too bad to lie in. There was an absentminded, sensory pleasantness to it all, to putting pressure on until it gently broke into grey-brown particles. The breeze came again, blowing dust from her dress and a golden petal into her lap. She was glad Peridot was lost in her own little world - a world of man hour calculations and workflow management - because if she were just a bit more attentive, she would've noticed Lapis burning the most curious look into her back.

"Hey." She cooed, earning a jump from Peridot as she felt a single hand on her shoulder. "I think we should keep them."
"They'll be imperfect." Peridot was counting on her fingers. That was never good. "Even if we focus a week's effort entirely on this plot alone, they won't grow with nearly the efficiency desired. In fact, it's possible with our recent freak heats and persistent droughts, that only a fraction of the crop will survive to harvest."
Lapis held the petal in her upturned palm. "But they're pretty."

Peridot looked curiously to Lapis' hand, and then to her face, and only at that moment did she realize the slender form practically bent over her shoulder. She looked very intently at the dirt beneath her boots - maybe she'd suddenly found something good about it.

"They are pretty." She muttered. "But we can do them better. There's still time this season."
"I don't think they need to better."

Lapis stepped into the golden flowers. Like a comb disappearing into hair, Lapis' dress vanished into the sea of gold and green, petals caressing her shoulder blades while their fluted tips tickled her gem. They bristled across her arms as she raised them, letting the wind flow between her fingers, up her biceps, through the straps over her shoulders and into her hair. For just a moment, it felt like the earth was holding her.

This was nice. It was... worth having. Maybe even worth keeping. There were very few things in the world she considered either. Her eyes softened as they settled on Peridot.

"We worked hard on them."
"Obviously not hard enough. This is such blatant mismanagement. It's frankly embarrassing. I can't believe-"
"I was supposed to look after this plot, Peridot."
Peridot's eyes somehow seemed rounder all of a sudden. "Oh. Well, um. Don't feel bad! I usually handle... these things"
Lapis looked away. You mean most things, Lapis thought. You mean everything.
"Here-" Peridot continued "- I'll just start over. You'll get it right next time - I should've helped you more. It's really nothing."

Now about assumptions. One thing Lapis had never assumed Peridot would be was ruthless. Careless? Potentially. Callous? Occasionally. Other much more specific and weaker words? Absolutely, for those who know what the word compunctionless means. But Peridot absolutely was ruthless - to herself and to her creations. If something she made ever displeased, Peridot would sooner crush it underfoot and start over than try to make something from what was left. A little quirk of her give-it-her-all approach to... well, anything and everything.

Sometimes, Lapis wondered what would happen when Peridot had nothing left to give.

"Why do you care so much about how they come out? I don't. It's just a way to pass the time."
"It's not about the final product, Lapis!" She responded as brightly as she was able while mentally assessing water tables. "It's about improving. I should've taken better care of this, but we should see this as an opportunity to do it more efficiently!"

Peridot knelt down, squinting at the soil as if weighing it. She considered all the tools she'd need to turn over the plot, all the work pulling budding plants that were now as good as weeds, and the actual weeds beside them, because they were not picky with their textural classes. If only useful plants could be so kind. A crumpled petal smacked her visor and by the time she'd taken her hand from her nose, she saw Lapis kneeling in front of her. The sunlight glistened on her back like she was a marble statue.

"Then... how about we 'see this as an opportunity' to-" She tilted her head "-I don't know, make it work. It's not the best, but, things aren't always going to be the best, right? We have to improve there too."

She picked up a handful of the loam and turned her hand over, letting it seep through her fingers like sand from a tomb. By the time the last of the silt drained out, Lapis saw something much different in Peridot's wide, clever eyes. She was thinking again. The most entertaining part of Peridot was how transparent she was. She could lie, allegedly, but it was the type of lying that hinged on shoving the truth in a cupboard and hoping no one heard the banging. When she got an idea, you could hear her say it, and if you didn't, you could see her think it.

"I like the way you think, Lapis Lazuli!" She began "Humans have a term known as best-case scenario, but what I've come to understand inhabiting this planet is that case scenarios are often not the best. In fact, they seem extremely rare. Logically-"

Lapis knew Peridot was looking at her now, but she wasn't speaking to her. Not really.

"- We should be preparing for the far more common less-than-ideal circumstances, rather than artificially creating a kindergarten-esque controlled environment in which-"

Peridot barely noticed Lapis had stood up, only standing back once nearly trapped in the folds of her dress. She pushed her visor up along her nose as she felt through the air. Ingenuity was in the hands with her; the more they fidgeted, the more problems were about to be solved, and, occasionally, replaced with more novel ones.

"- It's simple to implement this with one plot. But I'll have to apply this same logic to the other plots, and in the short term-"

Lapis - as Peridot walked down the dirt path and nearly into some corn - watched her with half-lidded eyes.

"- Though over the long term, it'll actually reduce the amount of effort required to tend the farm, while improving my abilities as a 'farmer'-"

And - as she walked towards the barn - followed behind her.

"- I suppose that could work... yes! That could work!"

And - when Peridot took off at a run with a sudden burst of inspiration relating to how exactly she could turn this into a one season job - ran behind her, at a pace only survival instinct and Peridot could really get out of her nowadays.

Maybe just Peridot.

No.
Not again.
Was so close. Very close. Her.
She's such trouble. Always trouble.
Hate her, I think. Think. Think.
Can't think well like this. Can't think at all. Can want. Do want. So much.
Must go now. But you. You.
You know this: one day, they'll again call my name.

It was around five feet from the ground where Lapis woke to the present. She was hit with the keen awareness of exactly what was happening in that moment. Then she was hit with the ground.

She whined a swear - a real one, because the only two people she didn't want to hear that were gone - and rose onto all fours. She looked to her hammock and saw it - still swinging - through the blue sheen of her wings - at least she'd had the subconscious thought to break her fall. She was almost surprised; her subconscious hadn't been very kind to her lately. Not after...

Not after.

She shook the images from her head; some gems say that before you shatter, your life flashes before your eyes. She'd never been sure about that - how did they know? They'd never done it. She thought there was some credence to it now, though, because a very small portion of her life had flashed before her eyes the moment she'd fallen out of bed. And, when you think about it, falling out of bed is like a very small piece of dying. That's just good sense.

Lapis let her head hit the ground before the rest of her body did. In the morning light rushing through the barn door, there she was on her side, eyes staring into the blackness between the floorboards and looking for something uncomfortable. Spiders, maybe. A rat - a very small one that could fit there. Anything to force her to get back up and, from there, back into her hammock. She thought about sleeping right there for a while, but her gem wouldn't abide it - the idea of sleeping with her back to something hard was viscerally uncomfortable. Like sleeping with your eye a few inches from a nail.

There was a skittering, almost phantom sensation along Lapis' arm. She wasn't feeling the movement of something so much as the absence of the air where that something was. She wrestled her cheek from the floor - expression unreadable - and looked down her arm; there was a caterpillar there. Not exactly the shriek-worthy nest she'd hoped would crawl out and give her a really good reason to get up. But it was enough. Besides, some people were terrified of the things - she couldn't imagine why, she thought, as she rose to her feet carefully. It was actually kind of cute. As far as Life Garbage went.

These ate leaves, didn't they?

At a slightly later time, at a slightly distant place, a little bell rang, and there was the clak of heels.

Usually that was a signal to whoever was serving to peek over the counter, see who came in, and set their shoulders accordingly. Fish-Stew Pizza was the best Italian-and-fresh-sea-food-oriented eatery in Beach City because it knew its customers*. The names, faces, and occasionally bizarre preferences of the town were ingrained into its workers like the smell of cardboard. It was rare they'd even open their mouths before their order had been written down**. She tapped the back of her pencil against her lips and looked up.

* And because it was the only one in Beach City, after much bloodshed, but that's neither here nor there.
** People in towns with populations in the double digits don't try new things; this is called survivorship bias.

Jenny nodded politely to the people on the other end of the counter and quickly excused herself. When she shoved her head into the kitchen, it felt like she'd been slapped in the face by hot cheese and greased with sea water. The chefs were out at the moment on one of their many bathroom breaks, and Kiki had been left to mind an oven which was doing a very good job minding itself.

"Hey, does anyone know what Pearl and her friend like? Or am I gonna have to ask?"
"Who?" Kiki asked, looking up from her phone.
"Pearl - you know, one of Steven's-" She stopped, looked at the floor, then back up "-Sisters. Forehead like a fabrege egg?"
"Yeah, I know her. Which friend? Short one with the killer white hair, right?"
"White hair, but she ain't short."
Kiki raised a brow. "Ain't short?"
"Not unless banging her head against the door's short. I'unno how short that makes me."
"Ooh, you mean the magenta one with the box do."
"It's more like she's got a pyramid on her head."
"What? She change her style? Good for her."
Jenny put her hand to her forehead, only partially to wipe away the layer of sweat forming ."I don't think it's her. It's been a while since I met her, but, pretty sure she didn't suddenly start rocking purple and yellow."
Kiki scoffed, slipping her phone in her pocket. "Lemme take a look. Any excuse to get out of here - oh, and Pearl won't want anything. That girl just don't eat."
"Can't be healthy. Look at her!"
"I know, right!? Looks gorgeous, but she ain't gonna last like that."

The two came back to find Pearl frantically tapping on the counter top, obviously resisting the urge to break into pacing or else run out onto the boardwalk and do something unadvised. It occurred to Jenny she probably should've just asked what they wanted to begin with. She nudged Kiki gently. Come on, she thought, you get these people more than I do. Of the two, Kiki certainly knew the gems better, in the way she might know the inner workings of a particle accelerator "better." But she didn't even recognize the woman behind Pearl.

She was stylish. That was the first thing that came to mind looking at her, which was impressive, because she was a lot of other things that would've defined anyone else. She was some eight feet tall without even counting her hair - a monument the shape of an eight-sided dice, the bottom face of which her head peeked out of. Her skin glittered every shade of purple and yellow, a lenticular quality making it whichever color would be best under the light. Not that there was much skin to see; her face was dominated by square-rimmed shades that could kill a man, and around her shoulders, a jacket that would've struggled to fit in most wardrobes.

There was just so much to look at. It somehow felt that there was a lot more wherever she was standing than what one person could contain. To put it simply; she was a walking party. A very expensive one.

The high cheekbones of this mysterious fashionista set as she tilted her head. It would've been magazine-worthy, if not for the fact she tilted her head squarely at Kiki, who realized she'd been staring.

"Hey Pearl!" Kiki chirped. "Who's your friend?" She felt Jenny's eyes burning into her back; 'who's your friend', really?
"Yes, Hi." She leaned over the counter conspiratorially. "Could I use your phone?"
"You still don't got your own? Steven's been saying-"
"Yes! Well, Steven says lots of things, doesn't he? You know him. Now, do I have to buy any of..." Her skin seemed to want to crawl off her face as she considered the menu "... This? Or could I just-"
"Sure girl." Kiki crooked a thumb towards the wall. "Line's not exactly busy. We don't see crowds unless some out-of-towners are prepping to rob the place."
Pearl turned to the phone, stopped, and then turned back. "Does that happen often?"
Kiki crossed her arms. "Not after last time it don't."
"Ah."

Pearl slinked away and left the two sisters alone with The Woman. From beneath the pitch black glass of her shades, they could somehow feel eyes on them - many of them. It wasn't the kind of feeling of being watched that came with laying in bed in the dead of night. It was more like the feeling of being pushed out onto a stage and feeling your instructor's eyes on your back. Which one is worse will depend on who you ask.

"Name’s Bornite, love." She preempted, having read either the future or their expressions. "Peacock, if I like you."
Jenny shook her head and stepped forward, pulling out her notebook more out of habit than thought. "Hey Bornite, lemme just write down your name, now if I could just take-"
The gem placed her hands on the counter and bent down, almost climbing over it. Kiki was the first to realize they were both still shorter than she was. "Let's cross that out; I think it'll be Peacock."

Pearl's fingers dug through her hair like a football through a stained glass window. She paced frantically in the largest circle the building would allow without her having to actually get close to the counter again. There was a quiet sound of chatter - very pointed, back-and-forth chatter made of sentences no more than a few words, which meant Peacock was probably having it her way. Of course she'd inherit that trait from Garnet - perhaps her most irritating one. The corner of her lip curled. Her eyes darted to the phone.

It wasn't immediately obvious to Pearl, who - as a gem - had her concept of the passage of time measured in "number of species gone extinct," but she finally realized how old Fish-Stew Pizza was. What tipped her off was the white plastic phone hung from the wall, almost as long as her forearm with a coiling wire latching it to the hook. She leaned against the wall and threaded the wire through her fingers. She’s worked up the courage to actually follow Peacock's absurd desires to "go meet the locals," all as a pretext to make this one, single call.

And now she was hesitant to even dial Steven's number.

Amethyst had no phone of course - not after the incident. But she could be reliably reached through other people, and some smartly chosen words to Steven could make sure he'd pass the call over to her without him suspecting much was awry. He certainly couldn't find out about all this - finding out about it meant learning about... everything else. And of the long list of things Steven shouldn't know, Pearl was beginning to think that "The two gems you personally saved fused, almost killed Amethyst, and may now never want to see each other again" was nearing the top. "And it's all my fault?" was a little above it.

Now how she was supposed to explain this to Amethyst she wasn't entirely sure. "I made a mistake" would be a decent start. While this situation wasn't strictly dangerous - especially compared to some fresh fusions - she wasn't willing to take any chances. Not again.

Pearl had taught new fusions before of course, back a very long time ago, but she'd never truly gotten it like the rest had. Your personality will probably be like this, you should fuse for this long, by the stars you're not supposed to do that unfuse immediately, that kind of thing. But it was recent events that made her truly believe she wasn't cut out for nurturing new gems. Garnet? She was an unknown quantity. Stevonnie? They'd gotten off on the wrong foot. But Vesuvianite? That was a disaster, and no amount of nights spent wondering how she could've done it better had gotten her anything. Well. Anything pleasant.

Gone. Why did Garnet always have to be gone? She held the team together - she hardly had time to do anything else! And here she goes galavanting off to make some... fusion, for stars knows how long, with a broken Peridot and in the wake of an absolutely furious-

The receiver hummed as she picked it off the hook, pushing the first few buttons of Steven's number. Yes, she'd call Amethyst and ask for an immediate end to her camping trip; Amethyst was good at making excuses. There was a warp pad a few dozen miles away and with it Amethyst could be back as soon as that night. She entered the middle digits. Once Amethyst was back, they'd figure it out together. Yeah. They'd help test Bornite's powers. They'd learn her personality. They'd show her around. Pearl's finger slowed as it neared the end of the code. There they'd be. Just them two. No Garnet. With a new fusion formed from two gems in a very... tenuous mental state.

The spear was just a few inches off from Amethyst's gem. That's all it would've taken.

The thought to slam the phone against the wall and never touch it again only came to Pearl halfway through the dial tone. By the time her hands moved to make good on it, she heard scuffling on the other end. Had he dropped it again? Her jaw hung open and she considered asking for Amethyst. She considered for an awkward few seconds. Her grip on the phone tightened so much that it nearly snapped the thing in half.

"Hi!" She began as brightly as she was able, her eyes roaming the room for something to focus on. "I just- it's... nothing important. I just wanted to call you and say that... well. It sounds silly now. But I'm just reminding you we think you're important." She pressed her shoulder against the wall. "We trust you, even if sometimes it doesn't seem that way, and, sometimes all those things we hid, they were just because we were scared that the truth might be more harmful. I never... I don't think I ever said sorry for that. I love you. We all do."
The sound bristled on the other end.
"Cor, that’s sweet."
Pearl blinked. That wasn't Steven's voice.
"What? I, who- Who are you?! What did you do!?"
"Pearl, babe." - "Pearl, babe!"

Spinning around, Pearl realized the voice was coming both from the receiver and from behind her, and it took longer than she'd like to have admitted to figure it out. Now sitting at a table and threatening to crush a chair, Bornite wiggled a phone in her hand that looked comically small in hands big enough to juggle globes. Kiki was standing beside her and looked expectantly between the two, clearly waiting to continue an apparently riveting conversation. They were sharing a bread basket and everything.

"Is that Steven's phone?"
Bornite's head swivelled, sending a drapery cascade through her collar and all the way down to the folds of her coat. She swallowed, speaking through a mouthful of breadcrumbs. "The one and only."
"You've had it? This entire time!?"
"Chill love - this 'entire time's' been half an hour. Garnet had it." She flourished the phone before stuffing it into her coat. "Don't worry, don't worry. He left it on purpose; Greg wanted the trip to be an opportunity to bond with nature. I've been using it to take pictures of my food. It's very 'in.'"
Pearl rolled her eyes as she approached. "Yes, bond with nature through the window of his van."
Bornite considered her fingernails carefully. "I can see why, like."
"Of course you... you..."

In the way a hunter approaches a bear trap not entirely remembering if he'd yet primed it, Pearl crept towards the table and slid out a seat for herself. She climbed into it without breaking what simulacrum of eye contact she could manage.

"Now, wait, Bornite-"
Peacock smiled slightly.
"Peacock, I mean, yes, yes - did you just eat?"
"Yeah? It's lovely by the way, your chefs-" She turned to Jenny "-do a fantastic job, not that I have a very wide range of reference. Sample size, you know. Not to be confused with a sample's size of course; if you sold these as samples, you'd go out of business and oh my stars I just ate something didn't I?"
Pearl blinked. "Yes. Yes!"
Peacock held her hands over her stomach. "It's kind of weird, I feel like this should be new to me."
"It should! It is!" Pearl cried hysterically, earning a peek from behind the counter by Jenny. "You have... a stomach?"

Peacock sat back in her chair. Through the windows, the mid-day sun beat down on her, causing hints of purple-yellow to refract along the walls like the glow of an aquarium. She tapped her platform heels in search of a rhythm. Kiki - sensing some kind of alien pressure between Pearl and Peacock - stepped back. Peacock stared very meaningfully at the half eaten basket of food and wondered; why didn't it feel new?

Because most of me has eaten before, she thought. Because you can shapeshift. Because from the lowliest soldier to the most respected nobility to the most modern technician, you've experienced a multitude of lives you're only beginning to remember.

She was there, deep down still - a certain other fusion who's caused so much trouble lately. She's always going to be there. She was so obsessed with everything being new. Bornite could see why; all this time, and there's still so much she hasn't done. Yet, right now, she's stuck here. She thought, how does that make me feel?

"Hungry, I guess." She muttered, punctuated with a snap of dough between her teeth. "... Excited. Isn't this what fusion's about? Experiencing new things?"
"Well. I suppose. But it can also be about... doing things you can't do alone." She smiled, hoping her bared teeth could convey 'For example, defusing, and helping me out, Garnet.' in a way her words couldn't. "It's not my area of expertise. If anything, it'd be yours, right? Right?"
Peacock seemed stirred from her thoughts. "Hm? Oh, I guess... new things..." She put her elbow on the table and looked out the window. The sun's light danced on the horizon. She saw a rose blow by. Beneath her shades, her eyes hardened

Kiki nearly jumped as Peacock's chair skidded against the floor. She didn't mean to be impolite, but fact of the square-cube matter was she was applying about two point five times as much pressure to that table as it was meant to handle. It was a miracle it wasn't in splinters. Kiki looked up, and if her voice was brave enough to come out, she'd have screamed. Peacock stood over her with her glasses held in the rarely seen set of arms hidden beneath her coat, holding it out playfully to the side and revealing her yellow-purple face in full. All five of its eyes looked down at her, arranged in an upside-down V.

"You look like a party type." Peacock smiled with just her lips. "Will you be... going to the party tonight? The one at the old dance hall. Nine o'clock tonight?"
Kiki looked her up and down hysterically. "Is this like, a date?"
Peacock blinked, which was a little disturbing to watch in motion. "It's a time."
Pearl's chair skidded as she stood up and she swore she heard someone in the back yelling just out of earshot. The gem croned "Wait, B- Peacock! What are you doing?"
"It's good to know people before you go to a party, right? I know Kiki. Don't lie, you said it yourself, babe; being a fusion's about doing things you can't do alone. No-one wants to be alone at a party."
Pearl was this close to giving up, but was aware of how potentially devastating that could be. "It's a human party - there'll be lots of loud music and... and... drinking and..." Pearl counted on her fingers, searching for what it was exactly humans did at parties.
Peacock turned her palms downwards, fanning herself with her second set. "I can eat. Why couldn't I drink?"
"I don't mean that kind of drinking, I mean-"
"Oh-ho-" Peacock slipped her shades on. "- But I do."

While all this had been going on, Kiki had managed to put a few feet between herself and the two of them, and was slowly creeping towards the side of the counter in hopes of being able to make a clean break. At some point, her father had emerged from the backroom, probably due to all the chair squeaking, and was getting a very quick rundown by a very rundown Jenny.

"Hey, hey." Kiki raised her arms defensively. "I just work here. I mean, do you even have a wardrobe for this stuff? I almost never see you gems change clothes."
Of all the things, that actually did give Peacock pause. She brought a finger to her lip and pouted thoughtfully.
"You do. I could borrow yours - or Jenny's."
"Absolutely not!" Said a new human voice, much more commanding than either of the other two could manage
"That's their father." Pearl whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "We should go. And forget about all this."
"Oh, that's perfect! Here." She snapped up the menu from her table and tossed it in a perfect arc onto the counter top. "Three of everything. I'll just about manage to eat them all."

There was a moment of silence. And then the very rare sound of the supreme patriarch of the Fish-Stew Pizza dynasty laughing. It was really quite uplifting once you got used to it, which unfortunately his daughters hadn't managed yet.

"And I suppose-" He began, still recovering "-you'll pay for all that with the clothes on your back?"

In yet another, perfect arc - guided this time - a solid block of something shiny and yellow hit the counter and threatened to smash it. It wasn't as pure as her components' best work, more of a fancy tin alloy than any self respecting gold, but it would do the job.

"You take gold, right?"
Kiki balked. "Do you people just like, carry this stuff around with you all the time?"
Peacock fixed her shades. "I'm not that good, babe. Unlike... some other people, I don't think I'm a shiny golden god. I just knew that I'd need it today."

Jenny had been entirely silent up until this point, besides whispering the most fast-paced timeline of events she could manage while not having to double back to re-explain things. Finally, with one last toss of the ore from one hand to the other - subjecting Peacock to a rather unfortunate alternate future prediction where she dropped it on her foot and shattered it under the weight - Jenny finally spoke.

"Yo. You can use my wardrobe if you give me another one of these."
"Jenny! Absolutely not!" Her father cried.
"But da-"
"Two! Know your worth!"

Pearl buried her head in her hands.
It was party night. Whether she liked it, or not.

Notes:

Hey! Releasing this chapter a day early because I crammed to finish it. It's been a busy week!
Say hello to Peacock, and, legitimately the first human characters who have appeared in this work for the entire thing.

Chapter 19: The Pizza's Place

Summary:

So, a fashionista with five eyes, a ballerina stressing herself into a coma, and two twin sisters both named Pizza walk into a dressing room.
The goose ducks.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

"Strike a pose!" Kiki called.

Pearl held her elbow in her lap and her chin in her hand, looking out the window mournfully. What she was mourning it was hard to say. Perhaps the death of a simpler time. A time where all they had to deal with were giant monsters and a technologically superior galactic supercivilization. She could fight those - she'd lose, yes, but she could still fight them. She couldn't fight all this. Whatever it was.

Jenny's room would've been very modern twenty years before she was born. The walls were a cool wooden brown, contrasting the warm orange of her carpets and neon pink of her throw pillows. It was a really nice place for the kinds of people who wear black leather and leopard print. Pearl was not quite that kind of person. But at least - Pearl reminded herself - Jenny Pizza of the Pizza family, a clan who made a living selling pizza, did not live in their pizza-focused restauraunt, permeated by the smell of (bizarrely) cardboard. They had a humble home where the two twins shared an anachronism disguised as a bedroom, and also, shared a rather large wardrobe.

There was the obnoxious ticking of a clock.

"Mmm. I don't think it's your color." Jenny mused as she looked Peacock up and down. The latter was dressed in a long suede jacket, which on her looked like a crop top.
"Right you are." Peacock tilted her head, sliding the jacket down her arms and into her other awaiting pair. "This palette's too muddy and - frankly - as much as I appreciate the weird things humans do to animals, I don't think I can wear this."

Behind them on Kiki's bed, Pearl rubbed her temples. While fashion's relationship to Pearl could be compared to water's relationship to someone who'd narrowly avoided drowning, she had to pay attention. Though Peacock was a far more stable fusion than Peridot's previous attempt - whether by Peridot's will or by Garnet's - the coast hadn't been proven clear. Peacock could still be dangerous, and with how explosive Vesuvianite had turned out, the danger could be in subtle ways. At the worst of times Garnet could be called destructive, and at the best of times Peridot could be called precipitate. Not every threat was as obvious as - say - a meteor glassing a beach.

"Hey, it's not real leather." Jenny raised a brow, bringing Pearl back to reality. "You think I can afford that? Besides, didn't you come dressed in a coat? Ninety percent sure that ain't vegan. Or was that just like, part of your body?" Jenny's face froze, then approached dawning horror at the thought there was basically a layer of shed skin tossed somewhere in her room. A layer the length of her leg.
Pearl sighed. "No." She tugged at the ribbon tied around her waist. "It's made of a softer kind of hardened light than the rest of our bodies - easily destroyed and reconstituted. It's like... your hair."
"Not the best comparison - her hair doesn't look easily destroyed." Peacock pursed her lips, considering Jenny's fuzz the way a sculptor would consider Michelangelo's David.
Jenny waved. "Sure hope not! I have to spend like, so long on this every morning."
"It's paying off."

Peacock slipped another jacket from its hangar and spread it in front of her chest, posing with it flattened across her. Whatever she was looking for, the eyes beneath her shades didn't find it, and she put it into the no-go pile. It was getting high.

"Now about earlier-" She said, pouting slightly at the prospect of a long skirt that'd cover about a third of her thighs "- Leather just sets a certain precedent, you know? Not that I'm shy about setting precedents; I'm new, if I don't set precedents now on purpose I'll definitely do it by accident. But you have to choose the good ones, the kind that make a statement. And sure, you want it to be accurate, but you want it to make you look good! I have an image to maintain. At least, I will, and I've heard once you've got one of those people really go digging to find anything that ruins it, at least from what I've seen of human news and, oh, what's that look for?"

The problem with paying attention to Peacock is that she liked to talk. A lot.

Not all the time, mind. She was often quite short, quite steady, and very kind if not always polite. But she had her moments of bursting into long, hard-to-parse rants about everything, which meant they were about nothing. Perhaps something in the chemistry of her fusion wasn't quite right. Some part of Ruby was overpowering all of Sapphire, joining hands with Peridot, and running away together. But that wasn't like a Garnet fusion, and - from a very limited sample size - not like a Peridot one either. No. This seemed to be a quirk entirely unique to her. It gave the impression there was something under the surface, bubbling in the broth of Peacock, which her lid was holding back. Pearl worried what other ingredients were stewing with it.

"What time's the party?" Peacock asked, lip twitching as she tried and failed to button up a fleece around herself. From beneath the shades, she stole a glance at Pearl, as if to say 'beige wool with magenta and gold, can you believe this?'
"Oh, nine." Jenny eased the fleece off her back as they wordlessly agreed it was a bad idea. "It's cool if we show up like half an hour late though. Nobody shows up to a party right when it starts."
"Of course." Peacock rolled her shoulders, flexing each of her twenty fingers as she stepped away. "Can't make a scene if no-one's there to see it."
Jenny raised her brows. "You wanna make a scene?"
The brick-thickness of Peacock's shades fit on the end of her nose perfectly, just far enough to reveal her top row of eyes meeting. "If you've got it, flaunt it. And I'm pretty sure I've got it, babe."

The fuzzy carpets barely muffled Peacock's heels, something Jenny was extremely happy Peacock came packaged with, because they were not finding size seventeen pumps within the decade. The sound only stopped when she was in front of the window and bathing in the light. The sky was black, dotted with stars peeking from faintly blue clouds. Beneath the moonlight, new colors flashed across Peacock's skin like a holographic trading card. The moonlight. Moonlight.

Peacock spun around, looked at the clock on the wall. It read ten o'clock.

"We're late." She said levelly, though her stance conveyed the idea she was moments away from running to the stairs and vaulting the banister.
"No." Jenny opened her phone. "Girl, don't trust that old thing. I've had it since I was like, four. It's seven o'clock right now."
"And it's only gotten three hours fast?" Pearl commented absently, digging her chin deeper into her palm.
"I actually think it's twenty one hours slow."

Pearl noticed a shift in the air. By the time she'd looked up from the carpet, Peacock had swept by her, now holding the clock curiously in her hand. Her thumb traced along the glass. Now, it could've been Pearl's imagination. It could've been the result of a week's worth of the gem equivalent of sleep deprivation. But she could've sworn the hour hand glided backwards as if it were being hand wound.

Peacock stepped before the bed and along with Jenny, began picking through the clothes deemed acceptable. Pearl walked by them, squinting at the clock as she approached it. She couldn't have been imagining things... no. She wasn't. There the hand was at just a few minutes past seven. Peacock had done something. Pearl wasn't sure what - Pearl wasn't even sure if Peacock was sure. But what really disturbed Pearl was-

"Jenny!" A masculine voice called. "Come help with dinner!"
"Oh, okay dad! I'll be right down!"
"What is it?" Peacock - after some thought - moved a pair of stockings into the no-go pile.
"Saturday, so it's steak night. We got this realll thick sirloin over the week."
Peacock lifted her head. A thought seemed to flitter across the glint of her glasses. "Smells good. Think I'll come with you - if you wouldn't mind."
"Well. I could use the help. C'mon."
"You bet, babe."

The two moved towards the door and Pearl had to stop herself from getting left behind, making a conscious effort to follow by Peacock's shoulder. She eyed her curiously; Peacock had experimented with food the afternoon before, but even Pearl's extremely limited knowledge of digestion told her that it was a big jump from soft bread to thick meats. She hoped there weren't any embarrassing sprints to the bathroom, or that at least there would be a bin nearby for Peacock to duck her head into, if it came to that.

The image made Pearl shiver. Stars. Why would any gem even try food - unlike humans, they had the choice.

And then Pearl noticed the silence. From what had been a banter-filled previous few hours, not always to Pearl's pleasure, the chatter had completely died down, leaving only the sound of bare feet on the carpet as they approached the stairs. Bare feet. Not heels. Peacock was standing stock still in the doorway, lips pursed slightly as she looked to the landing. The fingers of one of her lower arms tapped the doorframe rhythmically.

"Bornite?" Pearl asked.

No answer.

There. Nestled on the carpet at the top of the stairs. It had a pale base with a spiky tip, color obscured by a bundle of something wiry and brown. In the moment, the scene became slow, but just calling it slow-motion didn't do it justice. For the brief few seconds that were stretched out into minutes, everything seemed close, everything seemed like the viewer's eyes were mere inches from every object at every angle. In the way something you're running towards in a dream can be both near and far, the environment was both above and below, flat and slanted, upside-down and downside-up.

Jenny turned to the gems and said something unimportant, putting her hand on the banister. Visible was the mark on her palm from a long-faded cut, the polish on her nails mostly worn off, the chip in the wood from furniture being moved in. Jenny's bare foot came down on the spiky black thing hidden away in the floors. It really wasn't anything - it didn't even break her skin. But it left her with one foot for just a moment, and that was all it took. Jenny gasped. Jenny tripped. Jenny fell. There was an awful cracking noise halfway down. At the bottom, Jenny-

Jenny turned to the gems and said something unimportant, putting her hand on the banister. Time began to move again.

"Be careful!" Peridot yelled, reaching out a hand.

Jenny's bare foot came down on something in the carpet, and she inhaled sharply, leaning against the banister. She looked at her sole as if there'd randomly be broken glass laying around her house, but her better sense took over and she picked up her hair brush.

"Oh, this is my good brush! I lose this all. The. Time."
"If it's the good one, you should take better care of it." Kiki quipped, passing by the stairs on her way to the kitchen.
"I only lose it so much 'cos I use it so much!"
"You don't use it so much 'cos you lose it so much."
"Hey, now-"

They continued back and forth as Jenny moved downstairs, and all was well. Peacock noticed a pale blob on the corner of her vision, and as her foreground came back into focus, she looked at Pearl.

"Everything alright?" She said, tilting her head.
"Oh. Yes. I just wasn't paying attention."

Pearl raised a brow, but ultimately the two carried on down the stairs. Pearl noticed Peacock was being very particular with how Pearl placed her hand on the banister.

"Be... careful..." Peridot repeated, looking down at her hands and seeing they weren't entirely her own.

They had a cloudy quality to them, as if her own body was an inkblot test in which 'Peridot' was just one interpretation. She found herself in a luxurious hut, the kind you'd see on the fronts of brochures for bank-breaking Bahama getaways. Peridot had no idea what one of those was, but the window frame overlooked a glossy white beach, and beaches? Beaches Peridot knew. She'd spent ninety percent of her time on earth with one visible at all times. It was from that familiarity that she was able to tell this one was very, very different, and - had she had the lexicon - much more tropical.

Murumuru trees waved under their weight, occasionally dipping under the water and sending sprays of water into the air when they bobbed back up. Blue and green danced on the horizon, mixing with the perpetual mist encircling the ocean as if was all just God's sauna. Humanoid shapes danced like shadows under torchlight, featureless except for the impression of sharp, golden eyes. It would be picturesque in the day, but the moon was up now, so it had to settle for just being gorgeous.

The whole coast was bathed in a quiet blue, like the night above a city at the latest hours of night when truly no one had any business being out. Not even the muggers; by that point the'd have packed up for lack of business. Peridot's shape stood in the window of a thatch hut like a particularly lopsided spear. Her breath felt warm as it left her - a lazy kind of warmth that made Peridot want to make a big soft pile of the fuzziest thatch she could find and lay down for.. oh. Forever sounded nice. Far away, there were lit fires and cheering crowds - they were both getting closer.

Peridot fell to her knees and turned away from the water to an unlit fire. She'd had quite enough of water recently.

"Future vision?" Peridot said.
"Yes." Garnet said, kneeling beside her. In the messy not-quite-reality of a fusion's gem, Garnet was simultaneously at Peridot's side, holding her in her lap, and nestling into the crook of her neck.
"Is it always like this? Always like... that?"
Garnet shook her head. "Not always. There's bad days. There's good ones. But there's always danger."
Peridot's fingers sunk into her thighs. "How could you possibly deal with this? All the time?" She turned with wide eyes, gnawing at her bottom lip. "You see visions of such awful things happening to every being you see passing by? Happening to you? Happening to the Crystal Gems, to Pearl, to... to Peridot - I mean, to..." She wasn't completely sure - even as apart as she was allowed to be, it wasn't all her right now. "To me?"

Garnet lifted her hand, fingers wilting with hesitation that didn't look right on her, and held Peridot's shoulder. Peridot stared seriously at the floor beneath her. She noticed that Garnet wasn't really "all there" sitting beside her; just as hazy as herself, yes, but there was something else there. She was shifting imperceptibly - as a crack on a wall suddenly becomes a scowling face while still very much being just a crack, Garnet was at once Ruby, Sapphire, and herself. Were she in a different mood, it would've fascinated Peridot, but right now all it did was give her a headache.

"How do you..." Peridot grasped the air "... do it?"
"You do it too."
"No I don't! I mean, not... usually... no."
"You know bad things could happen to anyone, any time. But you still trust they'll be fine - and when you don't think they will be, you help."
Peridot sighed. "But you see it! You... you live it. It felt like we were... I mean, I was... living it."
"You're smarter than I am." Peridot suddenly noticed Garnet had no visor, and her three eyes - sometimes her one eye, sometimes her two eyes - were staring at the stars. "Whatever your imagination can do is worse. It's very keen."
Peridot dragged her face through her hands. "How would you know?"
Garnet smiled and shook her head. "You're not the only one who's seeing things a new way. Remember: Fusion is a conversation."

"Are you alright?" Pearl asked, daring to touch Peacock around her bicep.

It was probably on the borders of the social contract, but Peacock had been spacing out since they'd first come downstairs. She was dragging her shoulder across walls, muttering idly to herself, occasionally sweeping her arm across tables and sending utensils flying. That was a worrying thing for an approaching-ten-foot-tall person to be doing. It was even more worrying when that person was made from two people who could each individually toss cars with little effort, and more over, could each do it in different ways.

"Excuse me." Peacock said, tracing her fingers over her forehead. She shook herself and smiled surely. "Passing headache. It won't get the better of me."
Pearl raised a brow. "Right... well. If it continues, we really should head back to the temple and see if we can do anything about it. All this being out and about, you know, it can't be-"
"Pearl." Peacock said, firmly but not unkindly. "I'm not going back to the temple tonight - I'm going to live a little."
"There's plenty of time to go out." Pearl tried a reassuring smile. "But if there was ever a time not to, it's when you're so... new. You know. We really need to figure out what you're all about - alone." 'And away from people you could hurt,' she thought to herself.
"Plenty of time doesn't matter - you only have one first time, and for my first day, I'm going to make it count." She crooked a thumb towards her chest. "No matter how much time you have, you still have to spend it right; no matter how many days you have, you can only live each one once. Everything from Earth knows this. That's what makes it so electrifying."
Pearl muttered something, pressing her hand to her forehead. "But we aren't from Earth."

For a beat, Peacock's eyes fluttered closed and she sucked in air through her teeth. It only left her when the wave of headache finally passed. She took Pearl by the shoulder with a smile that glinted like a metal sheet under the sun.

"Maybe not. But I care about the things here. Think about it this way, babe: you care about at least one human, and he won't be here forever. Make that time count! Put two hundred percent into it!"

The impossibility of that from a mathematical standpoint infuriated Pearl, and what infuriated her more was that at least one part of Peacock would feel the same way about that.

The Pizza family kitchen had pretended to be old since the day it was built and was only beginning to succeed because it no longer had to pretend. Its cabinets were solid wood with a false oak texture, its once-pallor-walls now beige. Wooden mats with floral patterns were laid out over the kitchen table, knives and forks dutifully set out for plates yet to be. It was a lived in place. Just by looking at it, you could imagine the transparent ghosts of thousands of Jennies and Kikis bustling through the room, each from a different day. Some at eye level, others stumbling around just a few feet off the ground. The Jenny of current day was bent over the table and - in a word - struggling.

"What is it?" Pearl dared, approaching the smell of meat in the same way she'd approach a suspected dead body.
Jenny's expression softened in the way all creators did when asked about their work, no matter how much trouble they're having with it. "Chicken breast, seasoned with paprika, with sausages and a salad. Mixed veggies, too."
"Is everything alright?" Pearl asked, leaning over Jenny's shoulder absentmindedly before recoiling at the smell. Humans buried their food in so much foul-smelling miscellania that she questioned if they actually enjoyed eating.
"It's this - ah - chicken. It's just too tough." Jenny said, peeling her kitchen knife from a very chewed up looking cut of chicken breast. It looked more sawed through than cut, with thin, weedy meat surrounding the cut like strands of hair.

Food problems. Right. Well, that wasn't anything she could help with. Pearl sunk into a chair and cupped her cheek. Alright, now here's the plan, she thought to herself. A pleasant dinner to get out of which you'd come up with an excellent excuse in the next few minutes, then off to this ridiculous party. Meet the people, stay at Peacock's side, make sure she doesn't get into that strange liquid humans serve at these functions, then back to the temple. Then came the hard part - getting Peacock to stay inside while she went out and checked on the other fire, because there were always multiple fires burning and she was the one with the bucket. This fire's name was Lapis - a tempermental flame at the best of times, which had recently been stoked to a great, roaring height, casting Beach City in her shadow.

Stoked, because while Pearl held a bucket in one hand, she'd foolishly grabbed a poker with the other.

In all of this, Pearl had allowed herself to - just for a moment - stare at the mats.

Almost immediately, Pearl heard a high yelp and then a knife being driven deep into something, and immediately regretted a good few life decisions. Of course - why would she think looking away for a second would be fine? Pearl slammed her hands on the table, rushed to her feet, and turned to see Peacock having taken the knife from Jenny's hand and stabbed it into the thick wooden cutting board. The only thing stopping the blade from piercing the table was its bluntness - if Peacock used any more strength, either the wood or the knife would've shattered.

Humming, Peacock pried the blade from the board and tipped her shades towards Jenny. "You're not weak, but this 'chicken's' not tough. Hasn't crossed many roads in its day." She turned her hand over, the blade inside glinting in the warm yellow kitchen light. "It's the knife that's the problem."
Jenny's eyes softened. "We've had that one for a long time, guess it's finally giving out."
Peacock ran her hand along the blunt edge, briefly digging its point into her thumb and failing to draw - well. It wouldn't have drawn blood either way, but it was the principle of the matter. She didn't look up from her hands as she said. "Do you not buy new ones?"

Something like shame flashed across Jenny's face. It wasn't an expression gems were used to seeing, least of all one as young as Peacock, but there was something universal there. Figuring she wouldn't be getting that knife back for a while, Jenny busied herself with pulling out draws and picking out utensils. Pearl - who's eyes had perhaps the greatest quality in the room despite being in tied last place for quantity -noticed most pieces of cutlery were aged.

"We buy new stuff. Sometimes. Only when we really need it, y'know?" Jenny looked over her shoulder and - finding nothing - allowed herself to sigh. "The house's nice, but Dad just doesn't ever wanna let anything go. We've been eating at the same table off the same plates all our lives. I mean, I get why, but..."

You didn't need eyes that were sharp nor plentiful to see the way Jenny's widened, catching where she was going and quickly pulling down a quieter path. She turned on the sink and scrubbed her hands, lest she spread those many diseases humans got from their food if they didn't prepare it the exact right way. Diseases which would cause them to die. Diseases which they got from eating food, which they needed to eat, or else, they would also die. Humans were funny like that.

"Can't blame him. Your mother was an amazing woman." Peacock commented quietly, offering the knife back.
Jenny looked her up and down. "How did you-"
"Garnet knew her - she made it her new-century resolution to meet more humans. Took a few fun run-ins, like. Your mother left you this place." Peacock smiled that might-audibly-shing smile, sliding the cutting board towards Jenny. "I don't believe humans developed memories at the age you were at, but she loved you very much."
"Peacock!" Pearl cried, pointing a very accusatory finger. "That is... just inappropriate. Humans are sensitive about these things! I should think... I should... think..."

The protests stopped when Pearl met Jenny's gaze, which - despite being the only person in the room who couldn't singlehandedly pose a threat to the zipcode - was powerfully withering. Pearl sat on the edge of her seat, not content to shrink back into it but not daring to stand. Jenny looked to Peacock and smiled pensively, her eyes not daring to meet those shades and instead focusing on her heels. There must've been a lot to look at; she seemed quite happy.

"Thanks, Peacock. I... I never really met her. Dad's told me about her, Grangran too, but, I mean, they would say that, right? Means more if it doesn't come from family, you know?"
"... Sometimes, you need someone on the outside of it all to show you how things are. Good or bad." Peacock slid her shades down her nose and winked. "Now give that knife a try, babe."

Jenny's expression went from sadly fond to immediately puzzled, but still, it'd be far from the most surprising thing that'd happened in the last few hours. She brought the knife down hard, expecting the meat to resist, to catch the blade and need to be hacked through layer by layer. This was a mistake. Instead of the fight she'd prepared for, the blade slashed through the chicken's skin, its fat, tendons, what little muscle was left in the cut, and then nearly through the cutting board. Again. Jenny pulled her hand back and had to give a good yank to the handle to bring the knife with her.

The knife was no brighter than it had been before. It hadn't been washed down or cared for - it was as murky from the years as it had always been. But the kitchen light glinted off its edge like it were used to chop bodies apart rather than... well. Chicken breast had no toughness to it, it's different. As was the blade. There was just something indescribably... changed. She squinted and twisted the handle in her palm, moving her thumb over its length. She couldalmost put her finger on it..

"Don't put your finger on it." Peacock cautioned, earning a surprised welcome-back-to-the-real-world gasp from Jenny as she noticed they were suddenly shoulder to shoulder. "It's sharp."
"Yeah, it is..." Jenny looked up. "Hey, yeah, it is! What did you do?"
"I just brought it back to the way it should be - and a little bit more."

Much more carefully this time, Jenny placed the knife over the now divided cut of chicken, pushing the blade into the meat as if it were butter. She didn't so much cut the meat as let the blade sink into it. With a few definite, powerful-but-not-enough-to-leave-another-mark-on-their-only-cutting-board chops, the food could best be called diced. Jenny twisted it in her hand like it were a deadly weapon. Probably because as of a few seconds ago, it was.

"I'll take a look through your cabinets later; see what I can do." Peacock raised Jenny a thumbs-up. Jenny blushed slightly - it seemed girlish on her, but everyone seemed girlish next to someone who was nine feet tall.
"Hey, you're pretty great."
"People say I'm great." The corner of Peacock's smile twitched as Jenny walked away, tending to the many other things humans busied themselves when they ate. Then Peacock whispered to herself. "I wish I could believe them."

Somewhere far away, metal struck flint, and suddenly the fire in front of them was lit. It was orange and warm like a lighter cupped in a palm. Garnet ran her hand down Peridot's shoulderblades and stood up, walking towards the light of the flame. With the not-all-there aura all gems that came with being inside of a fusion, the firelight made Garnet ephemeral, flickering, beautiful. And even harder to look at.

"Peridot." Garnet began, gently but with a firmness that told Peridot she wasn't being consoled, but informed. "When you're a leader, people depend on you. They're empowered by you. You're empowered by them. That means you can't be weak, and you can't just stop - you have a duty to them, and if you do it, they'll give you the strength you need. It's scary, but you can't let it shake you, or else these things you see become real."
Peridot let her hands fall limp in her lap, her mouth shaping around some words that wouldn't come out, until she finally made them. "So it does bother you. I never knew..."
Garnet looked at her feet. "It tries to. But I won't let it."
"But you shouldn't have to try!" Peridot said, scrambling to her feet. Garnet looked up curiously. "I mean. You shouldn't have to handle this all on your own - you say the others gave you strength, but you kept this a secret? From everyone?"
"Not everyone. Not always." Garnet put her hands on her hip. The fire behind her waned under a nonexistent gust. "But then, the person who I trusted it to... she's not here anymore."
"Is this this Rose Quartz again?"
Garnet nodded wordlessly, feeling the creeping, pensive mood that came with that name. The mood was almost immediately washed away when Peridot yelled.
"You too? I don't care!"

Garnet was, briefly, very angry, and that was incredibly unusual. It flashed across her eyes like a spark in a cloud of methane gas. But it was snuffed out just as quickly when she felt Peridot take her by the hands. She'd scraped her knees on the wood of the boardwalk in a hurry to get up.

If the look in Garnet's eyes had momentarily been angry, the look in Peridot's was furious.

There was a thunk as Peacock put her arms on her table, hands massaging her temple and making a mess of her plate. While she recieved looks that varied along the table - Jenny and her grandmother were concerned, Kiki was curious, their father was unhappy, as all of them each often were - Pearl's was the most dire. She flashed a smile to the rest of the table before gently tugging one of Peacock's arms down. At some point they'd all settled down at the table. When and how exactly was a mystery to her - it was all blurry - but she was here now and she... couldn't help but shake the feeling she was doing something wrong.

"Mh? Oh, right." Peacock nodded, tucking her arms away.
"Well?" Pearl urged out of the corner of her mouth.
Peacock's mouth hung open.
Pearl shut her eyes and strained the corners of her mouth into a very aggressive smile. While Pearl cared as much for the opinions of humans as a bird stealing a sandwich out of one's hands, she cared immensely for decorum. "How does it taste? Do you like it?"
"... Oh?" Peacock fixed her hair, realizing its double-sided pyramid shape had gained many doglicks, and looked down at her plate. She'd apparently taken quite a big bite out of a piece of meat, but she couldn't remember the taste. Whatever was on her tongue just tingled like the gastronomic equivalent of television static.

For want of any other option, Peacock shoved her fork through a sausage and took off three quarters of it in a single, clean bite. She was big enough to know that would be easy for her, and not experienced enough to know it would be unnerving for everyone else. It tasted like... it tasted like a part of her was telling her it should taste better. But it was chewy, and soft, and the skin wasn't burned which for some reason populated most of her memories involving sausages, and... really should've tasted better.

"It's great." Peacock smiled, swirling her fork around her plate.

The chatter of the table slowly returned. Peacock felt she'd lost some context, though her understanding of geography was only mildly better than her understanding of politics, both of which were apparently the things humans talked about over food. There was the sense they were all waiting for someone to say something wrong, and that when that wrong thing was said they'd all flex their fight-or-flight instincts. Peacock's heavy eyes fell on one of the cans of empty pasta sitting on the counter. And then another empty can, this time of fish, sitting beside it. And another empty can of something Peacock was unfamiliar with but was apparently one hundred percent Italian.

"Is it a requirement-" Pearl began, having apparently followed Peacock's gaze from under her shades "- For all human cooks to wear those white garment things and be so overweight?"
"I think it's an image thing - image is everything." Peacock stated matter-of-factly. "Humans say you shouldn't trust a thin chef."
Pearl narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
Peacock paused, striking her thumb across her chin. "... Because thin people aren't trustworthy. Big, round shapes - that's reliable."
Pearl mouthed something, then considered her reflection in the toaster.

As this conversation within a conversation came to a close, the much bigger conversation came to a head.

"I just think it's a bit too close-" interjected the father, the name of whom neither gem had caught and were past the socially acceptable asking period for "- to what we had yesterday. You should diversify your palettes."
Jenny rolled her eyes and smiled. "Diversify - we know you were gonna pick out fish tonight. Like you do every other night."
Kiki raised her hands plaintively. "Hey, let's just forget about what we coulda had. I picked the food, it's what we're having."
"So, does the family always have meat, or is this Kiki's... 'treat'?" Pearl tried to smile, and failed.
"I'm mostly vegan, actually." The word earned a dirty look from her father. "But I got my cheat days."
"Vegan?" Peacock beat a brow, vaguely knowing what that was. "I've always been inspired by how humans go against their nature like that."
"Don't get any ideas - not trying to make a statement. Just that when you spend enough of your life around pizza, cheese starts to make you sick."

That set off a powderkeg of stored-up family disagreements, all portrayed with the good-natured but strained tone of someone who really just didn't want to make a big thing out of this. And yet, they were talking about it, so they obviously wanted a very specific size of thing, and would only step back when it got too big for them. In all of the controlled chaos, no-one had noticed Pearl's eyes widen, roaming around the food she hadn't touched on the table and finally to the side of Kiki's face. She mouthed words silently at her with an expression of amazed kinship.

"She understands..."

And, in all this controlled chaos, no one noticed Peacock narrowly avoiding cracking her forehead gem on the corner of the table as she slid off her chair.

Back to that nameless place. There was a breeze beneath Garnet's chin, and the lit fire behind her did nothing to warm her. A chill was creeping across the beach - this was what paradise must've looked like after midnight. Beneath her, Peridot raised a finger, closing the distance in a way that made her seem much, much bigger than she was.

“You? You, you, who’s always so open - you taught me to share what I feel. Everything you’ve said about trust, and you hide this? It’s pathetic!

“It’s more complicated than that.” Garnet tried, in a voice quieter than she’d expected. “Rose was-“

"I don't care about this Rose! You shouldn't either; I know, she was important, and you all loved her, and she was incredible, and all of these things I've heard said. But she's not here! Things can't change, and then you keep pretending like they're the same!"

Peridot struck her arm out as if Garnet might slip away if not physically pinned in place. A habit developed from dealing with certain people who - unlike Garnet - absolutely would leave at the first opportunity rather than face her.

"I tried! For months! Months and months on Earth, I tried to pretend like it would all be the same, but it never was, and it never will be." Her fingers dug into her palms. "So I changed. I did new things, I said things I'd never say, I tried things I-I never thought I'd do. And, I found someone... that is, I mean, some people. And they make it okay. I.. I sometimes keep things from her - from them too. And, look what resulted from that…”

Garnet stared. Peridot lost the spine that had suddenly manifested in her invertibrate light body.

"Um. I'm sorry."
Garnet knelt down and met Peridot at eye level. "Don't be. If I was upset, we wouldn't still be here." Garnet looked up at the false sea, reflecting the false stars, dotting the false sky, inside the false world of the very real Peacock. "You're right. But I still have people who depend on me."
"If they're as strong as you say they are, and-and I think they are, then, they won't need you around always. But I mean. We... no. You. You need you. So you should put her first. Uh, you first."
Garnet chuckled. "Getting hard to speak right, isn't it?"
"Yes. I don't... really understand pronouns very well right now. I think fusion's making you say some things wrong." Peridot blushed. "It's getting cold. I... feel a little dizzy."

The voices, the lights, the held torches and lit fires, all of which had once been so far away, were close now. So close that were Peridot to look down she'd see them. She'd see them in the sky, see them in the earth, see them on the horizon, see them all around. The party had moved in. It was a good feeling. It was a light feeling. And it wasn't exactly helping her headache, but she suspected it'd be over soon.

"Trying to stay apart in a fusion is like that. That's Peacock, trying to pull herself together."
Peridot allowed her mind, for one last time that night, to wonder about trivial things. "Is it Bornite? I don't understand the double name thing..."
Garnet smiled. "If she likes you, call her Peacock. She said as much."
"But does sh- oh!" Peridot hardly had time to speak before Garnet reached out and picked her up.
"I think she likes you. There's a lot to like."

It can't be said Peridot was swept off her feet - at that moment, she didn't have any feet to be swept off of. Her very essence was being scattered, blown like glitter in the wind, melting into the world she found herself in, becoming one with it again. This - all of this - had just been her head poking briefly above the water, shaking her wet hair from drooping over her face before taking a deep breath and diving down. Garnet came with her, of course, and she did so with their fingers entwined.

They blew away in the wind, and were gone. Away from that nameless place, and together, into a place named Peacock Azurite.

Pearl sighed in relief.

Peacock had made quite the stir slipping under the table, but mostly because a close-to-ten-foot-tall person trying to 'slip under' anything was going to be either a performance of dexterity worth its own promotion, or a massive disaster. Peacock had walked the line between the two. On the one hand, she'd expertly lifted all four of her arms and everything above her scalp without a scratch. On the other, she'd put a forty-five degree angle into her hair, and it took a few minutes to correct that.

"Are you alright?" Pearl had said, preparing immediately to usher the obviously migraine impaired Peacock out the door and to the temple the first chance she got.

Gems don't 'get' headaches in the way a human might. Their bodies are simultaneously far too advanced and far too minimalistic for a chemical imbalance or looking at too bright a light for too long a time to stir up their minds. If a gem - especially a fusion - has a problem with their head, it's not just a passing thing, it's not just them being tired, it won't pass on its own, and it's definitely a reason to call in sick. If something was wrong, something was wrong. With a fusion, that something was reliably the composite parts.

It should've been, then, that Pearl felt relief when Peacock settled onto the chair beside her no worse for wear than the moment she'd been formed. That - once her hair was all in order - that Peacock went on without a sign of pain in her mind. That it seemed she was more herself than ever, that she was more engaged than ever, and that she'd gained back an appetite that wasn't ravenous but was absolutely curious. It wasn't that way, because Pearl had lost a good excuse, and now she was going to have to go partying.

"Hey." Kiki announced, standing up with her plate in hand. "I'm done, but if you want more there's plenty."
"Oh, me. More chicken." Jenny lifted up her plate expectantly, and held it for a frankly embarrassing few seconds. "Oh. Uh, more chicken, please?"

Kiki exchanged a nod with her grandmother and ventured to the counter, picking up the knife and taking it to what uncut chicken remained. The bubble of conversation rose up again in her absence, but out of the corner of Jenny's eye, she couldn't help but see it glimmering in Kiki's hand and- oh! No. Jenny pushed her chair out and hurried over as subtly as she coud manage.

"Hey, be careful with that! Really careful." Jenny hissed as she hesitated to grab at the knife. That thing could cut wood if you put it down too hard - it wasn't hard to imagine what would be a small cut for a regular knife ending up as a sliced off finger.
"Girl, this is not a dangerous knife. I think it's older than I am." To prove a point, and because Kiki was very dramatic, she turned her palm over and slashed the knife across her palm.

Horror flashed across Jenny's face for just a moment, and then, confusion. There was nothing. A thin, white line drew across her sister's skin, and almost immediately after the blade was gone, it faded into nothing. It was as if she'd dug her own finger nails across it rather than a blade that just a half hour earlier had eviscerated meat.

"Jeez, I was kind of hoping for a reason to take the day off tomorrow. This is my main hand, all I needed to do was make it look a little bad. This thing can't even cut chicken anymore - you may as well just tear it open with your hands." She eyed the "sharp" end of the knife. "Hey, don't look at me like that, you did this all the time a couple years ago, I get one. Guess I can finally convince Dad to buy a new knife. It's about time - I can't even cut things trying with this."

Back at the table, there was the almost audible sound of Pearl stewing in herself. Partying; The thought boiled in her mind for minutes as she passed all of the food on her plate to the rest of the table. As she was ship-of-theseusing her way to fulfilling the social contract of eating a meal, she thought of the people. She thought of the lights, and the sounds, and the noise, and the crowd, and just how startling all of those could be to a new fusion. Oh, poor Stevonnie.

But Peacock had inherited two shared, terrible traits of her composite parts, those being a drive to do what she thought was right, and a total unwillingness to be convinced she was wrong. And Peacock thought that going partying was right.

Alright, case the scene, Pearl. If things go south, how can you, alone, figure out a way to get someone who's certainly far stronger than you out of a room full of squishy humans and to somewhere safe while they may be undergoing a mental break? She slipped it in through casual conversation. Oh, Jenny, she'd say, how many people do you think will be there? A dozen? Two dozen? Three dozen. Three dozen. Three dozen! Did Beach City even have three dozen people in it? A previous incident had proven to her that the gene pool went to her ankles and no deeper. And who are all these people? What sort of name is Sabina? Alright, focus, one problem at a time. She knew the numbers, now the location; there'd be a table, probably, and it'd have strange pink liquid on it. That was the end of her knowledge about human parties. Now, the first thing would be-

"I'm not going to the party tonight." Peacock casually announced as she crossed her knife and fork over her plate.
"Say what?" Jenny crooned, shoving fresh, poorly cut chicken into the back of her throat to make her voice just a bit clearer.
"Jenny Pizza, manners." Her father scolded. She smiled weakly with meat-filled teeth.
"Yeah. With this headache-" Peacock continued "- It's right rude, me backing out after you doing all this for me. But I won't be at my best if I go tonight. I won't be two hundred percent - you don't want me at anything less than two hundred percent, babe." At the word, she exchanged a shade-shrouded glance with the rest of her family in what she couldn't help but think was a test of wills.
"Hey-" Jenny cut in, noticing the tension. "-That's a shame. You're pretty fun to be around - you're a good kinda weird. We like that. But I guess I got paid for it, so." She seemed to mutter that last part, forgetting how small a table they were sitting around.

Peacock would've shrugged, but she stopped, feeling a gaze burning into her cheek. All of her eyes swiveled in their sockets and came to focus on Pearl, who was giving her a very curious look out the side of her eye. Curious was the word for what impression she was trying to give off with that look. Suspicious was, perhaps, more accurate.

"Nothing worth worrying yourself about." Peacock picked up her fork and pointed it. "There'll always be more parties, right Pearl? But if there was ever a time not to..."
"It's now." Pearl finished, setting her own knife and fork on her plate, though she'd long since pawned off everything on it.
"Food was lovely, by the way, you really killed it."

Peacock playfully poked Jenny's plate with her fork, before suddenly putting it back down,standing up, nearly putting her head through the ceiling, and going to clean up. Pearl followed after her to help, under the justification that six hands are better than four, but all the while, she was stealing glances at the fusion. A headache. That was why she took the night off. A headache that all night she was casually waving away, which seemed to only grow worse and more persistent as time progressed, which suddenly had all its symptoms disappear. Then, just as suddenly, it was too much for her, and she had to call off the one event she'd spent what amounted to her entire life looking forward to.

"Oh!" Jenny cried, causing all heads in the room except one shade-clad one to spin around. Jenny was holding her fork just before her mouth and staring at it in awe. "This is incredible!"
Kiki raised a brow at her. "Same sausages the rest of us are having."
"Just, here, try." Jenny, in an uncharacteristic act of charity, cut off a quarter of her sausage and put it on Kiki's plate. She tried it without much enthusiasm, and then-
"Oh! Oh, wow, sorry, uh." Kiki covered her mouth. "Yeah, that is amazing..." She narrowed her eyes and went silent. There was the sound of steel on steel on crockery.
"Nuh uh. I gave you your cut."
"But I wanna try more! Mine aren't that good."

They clashed forks again, and their grandmother chuckled to herself. Their father sighed, smiling but pulling their forks apart with his knife, a new combatant in the game no one had been prepared for.

"I will not have my adult daughters fighting with knives and forks."

Pearl looked towards the dishes she was scrubbing. There was the sound of something small and meaty dropping onto a plate. There was a sound of something impaling something small and meaty. There were many other sounds that may as well have been tinnitus in Pearl's ears. There was a sound of clashing forks. There was finally, a sound of Pearl sighing, as she looked to her left and saw Peacock heading out the back door.

Notes:

Almost every chapter for the last several chapters, I’ve sworn to myself that this would be the one where I finally take it slow and do a nice, easy slice of life chapter to let the character dynamics breathe without any big events or story moments. Once again, I’ve failed! But I’m coming closer.
Heads Up: Schedule Changes!
First off, this fic will now be upating every other Sunday rather than every other Monday. This has no real impact other than meaning you'll get next chapter one day early. Also, next chapter will be coming next Sunday, not the Sunday after Sunday, because it's an interlude chapter.
Bless.

Chapter 20: Nightfall (Interlude)

Summary:

Peacock works on her social media presence.
Pearl cleans the house.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The beach glowed in the night, dyed a pale white that seemed to radiate from it as if the moon was, in fact, a blazing sun, just caught in the wrong light. The massive cliff face cast a shadow over the ocean, mountainous shape broken only by the shape of the lighthouse on top and eight arms at its front. The statue gave some perspective to the size of the two figures running alongside it, one an ant in comparison while the other was, well, a very overfed ant.

Okay. Good enough.

"Howay then!" Peacock called, echoing across the silent beach as she took the steps three at a time.
"Alright, alright. I'll be right with you." Pearl said, only reaching the bottom of the beach house by the time Peacock's heels announced she'd reached the top.

By the time Pearl herself was to the top, Peacock was shapeshifting through the door, her body having gained a golden-purple glow and a few extra joints on the way through. At least this time they wouldn't need a replacement window every time she came in and out. She lay back across the couch and idly let one leg dangle above her, arms crossed behind her head as she looked to the ceiling. She slid out her - Steven's - phone and began to take pictures again.

"You know, I really appreciate the style of this place. Very cozy."
"Yes, yes." Pearl said, shutting the door behind her with a bit too much force. "I'm happy you think that, but I think it's due for another clean."
Peacock dragged her finger across the underside of the table and rubbed it against her thumb, noting the absence of dust. "Are you sure? It's hardly dirty."
"I have a tendency to clean when I have idle hands. It helps me destress."
"And you've been stressed lately?"
Pearl - who's facade had finally begun to crack from constant pressure - smiled. "Oh, just, incredibly."

Peacock reclined across the couch, sitting up only when she caught a dirty look from Pearl that said 'don't give me an excuse to clean.' Her boots now firmly grounded, she knitted her four hands into two neat bundles in her lap. There was a pregnant moment of silence between the two as the world around them moved. Wind beat gently against the windows. Heads of weedy grass rustled on the beach. Fingers moved over countertops looking for places to be useful. Though moonlight generally keeps quiet, it moved across Steven's empty bed like a cricket in the dead of night.

"They'll be home this time in three days, won't they?"
"Tuesday morning, not Monday evening." Pearl corrected. She hoped it wasn't too auspicious when she held her head in her hand for a minute - she worried it might roll off if she didn't. "But yes. Amethyst and Steven will be back by then. You're excited?"

Peacock crossed her legs and slung one arm over the back of the couch, having to practically dive onto her side to be able to reach down that far. The fact she even fit on the couch at all, however. reminded Pearl just how small Peacock was. You know, all things considered. Fusion size scaled quickly, as evidenced by the fact the building they were in fit neatly in the hands of a life-sized replica of one made from five gems, and yet this three-gem fusion was smaller than anyone Pearl had ever been a part of. Come to think of it, even Vesuvianite was bigger.

Of course, a fusion's size - as with anything about a fusion - was a matter of mind over matter. Mostly because if a fusion minded, she could change her matter. Sardonyx was the way she was because she couldn't imagine fitting herself into any smaller a space than herself. Sugilite was bigger than Sardonyx not because Amethyst was bigger than Pearl. Instead, it was because Sugilite was Sugilite, and could imagine fitting herself anywhere, so long as she tore a big enough hole.

The only explanation Pearl had was that a critical part of Peridot was that she was small, and that she didn’t need to be bigger to still be Peridot. That was the sort of thing she'd learned in her time on Earth. Pearl wondered who taught her. Steven. Probably Steven. No one else was around her enough to make a big impact; the only other explanation would be Lapis, and, well. Lapis! Pearl couldn't imagine Lapis having time to help with Peridot's issues considering how much she sulked over her own.

"Not really."
"Hm?" Pearl's head snapped up. Ah. She'd gotten lost again. "Excuse me?"
"I'm not really excited to see them."
Now that woke Pearl up. "Not really? What do you mean 'not really'?"
"Really. But not."

Peacock unwound one pair of hands and shoved them back into her coat, which had remanifested somewhere along the way.

"It's like you said. They're both going to be here for a long, long time." She shrugged, a gesture which she put too much energy into, as she did with most things. "Don't get me wrong, babe - I'd love to see them, I really would. It's just I know I can always fall back on them when I need to. Sometimes you should do other things - the world is a massive place, and you should throw yourself at it with all of your energy."

By this point, Pearl had crept from behind the counter and towards the table, looking Peacock up and down cautiously.

"'Throw' yourself at it?"
"You know. Get out there. See the sights, live the experiences, meet the people! Make your mark, show your style." She twirled her hand and searched for more slogans. "Isn't that what it's all about? You do something new... and then... you do something even newer! You never stop putting two hundred percent of yourself into things! Not that everyone deserves all that, but for those people you can just turn your heel and head somewhere else. There's always somewhere else. And you don't know if it'll be worth your while until you go there and do it and give it a go, and it doesn't matter how it turns out, because you've done it, and, Pearl, you're clutching that right tight."

Blinking, Pearl looked down at her hands and saw that, indeed, she'd nearly snapped the handle of her featherduster. She mouthed something to herself and only to herself. She took a deep breath and properly formulated her thoughts, trying to meet Peacock's eyes through her shades.

"So you're planning on 'getting out there' even more?" Pearl stated, with mounting dread.
"Yep. I've only been to one house, and I feel like..." She paused, tilting her head back. She smiled widely. "I feel like I've learned a lot about just what I want to do."
"That headache did clear up quickly. It does make one wonder."
"Yes, you got me. I needed an excuse. Suddenly that party just didn't seem so appealing. I've got my eyes set on bigger places."
Pearl bit her lip, hoping beyond hope she'd be granted some rest and wouldn't have to chaperone Peacock around somewhere at eleven O'clock. "Like what? At this time of night? Humans do need to sleep, you know."

The floorboards creaked beneath Peacock's heels as she stood up and looked about the room. She traced her hand along the wall, following one of the beams up to the ceiling, overall giving the air she was considering buying the place. Suddenly, Peacock spun around and grabbed Pearl by the shoulders, who'd made the mistake of thinking she was safe a few feet away. Peacock's extra arms pulled her shades down and revealed her eyes, all staring straight into Pearl's. While some gazes could make people feel dressed down, only Peacock's could make people feel like they were dressed down and then thrust onto a stage, arms crossed over themselves to try and keep their decency.

The grip on her shoulders tightened just a bit, and there was a sudden feeling of cold excitement spreading through them. It was the feeling of sneaking out of the house from nosey parents. It was the feeling of a clandestine meeting with your closest yet most secret friends. It was the feeling of running out the pub's back door, into the smoke-filled city, and towards the next bar.

"Just for tonight, Pearl. Show me around the temple. And I think it does need a good clean, on second brush. Now, what I'm gonna give you is a shot of energy to get through it all. Something to help you stay... two hundred percent."

Jenny Pizza was running as fast as she had ever ran.

She jumped out of bed, nearly slid as the rug wormed between her toes, caught herself with her arms, ran briefly in an awkward bowed-forward way that made her look like a wheelbarrow, and was out the door. She felt it rising up, the feeling moving through her just slowly enough to know how bad it could be, and even in the darkness, she knew just how far away her target was. She needed to get there first or there'd be disaster. She just focused on the steps as they came to her; out the bedroom, close to the wall, past the top of the stairs, scale the banister, leap over the landing, through the door, slide across the tiles, onto your knees, flip the seat up, pull your hair back.

Nearly throw up your guts.

Safe, Jenny Pizza. Safe.

Nothing quite came up, but nothing was rushing to go down either, and for the next few minutes it stayed that way. Hovering on the edge might've actually been worse. Jenny was and always had been an incredibly sickly person, even hailing from a family of cooks so hygenic she was at more risk of hand sanitizer poisoning than anything else, and so she knew illness well. This was no typical bug. It was in her stomach, and far from some bacteria waging war with her immune system, this felt like a macroscopic issue.

"Jenny?" Kiki said, sleepily, as she peeked out from the gap in the door. "You alright?"
"No." Jenny said, swallowing deeply and looking rather pathetic. "Did I wake y'up?"
"Don't worry, don't worry, I'm used to it. You think it's flu again?"
"No." She drawled, shaking her head and resting her chin on her arms. "I think I ate something bad."
"You think so?"

Kiki moved in slowly, daring to kneel down beside her and rub her back. She'd been through this many times before - she knew the process. By her count, it'd be about three quarters of an hour before either of them were getting a wink of sleep.

"Something tastes bad. Like, not the way vomit usually does. Like, something tastes rotten."
"Rotten?" Kiki looked to the tiled floor. "When do you think you... you... oh!"

The bath rattled as Jenny's back tumbled against it, the only place she could go to make room for Jenny in time. Now, Kiki? While the two twins were alike almost every way, those similarities just existed to highlight their vital differences, like spatterings of white paint on a pure black canvas. One of those vital differences was that Kiki never got sick. She was so good at avoiding disease that she was a medical concern for most of their childhood; she never caught those critical illnesses you get once as a child, her doctors fearing they'd all come down on her in a moment of weakness from her immune system.

That day had never come, but with the mess Kiki made of that toilet, it might've been time.

"Aww, Kiki!" Jenny called, half out of concern and half out of disgust, crawling over to her side.

Jenny made the mistake of looking into the bowl. That was what finally tipped her over the edge into adding to the mess. The next quarter hour won't be described out of concern for taste.

Kiki slumped against the bathroom wall and continued to talk to her father, who'd chosen a safe distance beyond the threshold of the door a few minutes earlier.

"Yeah, it was... bleh, definitely something we ate. But, the food was fine. It didn't... it didn't look rotted or anything..."
"Totally." Jenny agreed, daring to put the lid down. "And it's not like Dad got sick."
"Think, you two." Their father began in what to others might've seemed a demanding tone, but to someone who was very used to seeing at least one daughter ill, was just business. "Is there anything you ate and I didn't?"

The two racked their food poisoned brains for anything tangible.

"There were..." Jenny's cheek slid against the bath. "There were those couple of sausages we ate that tasted different."
"The really good ones?" Kiki looked to her sister, who nodded. "But they weren't rotten... I mean. What? You sayin' they went bad in our stomachs?"

Jenny's eyes narrowed. It was true; food didn't naturally go from being pristine to inedible in just a few hours, let alone when it was already being digsted. But then, food didn't naturally go from tasting just good to tasting incredible, and then to rotting away. It didn't only happen to one, specific plate. Just like how a knife doesn't suddenly go from being a little dull to being razor sharp, and then, to completely unusable. Not even if both the plate and the knife were both touched by one, specific person.

In the dreamlike logic of being half-passed out and very ill, something clicked. Jenny was this close to an epiphany. But then she threw up again.

Pearl didn't sleep. While Garnet was a social sleeper and Amethyst frankly had a sleeping problem, Pearl refrained from the stuff as a rule after a few bad experiences. She was a hypnotemperant, a proud noctotaller, even. This was why it was so surprising that - all of a sudden - she felt as though she'd never been awake in her entire life.

She was crouched beneath the table, nimble body snaking around to view its underside and scrutinizing every inch. How had she not seen it before? Her eyes had become sharper - twice as sharp at least - and she could see spots of dirt she'd previous passed up as just part of the texture. Her hands shook slightly as they sprayed, but when she got her eye on one spot, they suddenly turned steadier than they'd ever been while she was wielding a spear. Matters of life or death didn't bring with them the sort of power and focus she had in her now. It was being used to powerfully focus the nozzle of a bottle of disinfectant, yes, but the point stands.

Pearl wondered whether this was what it felt like to have those sugar highs Steven occasionally came down with, and frankly? She couldn't blame him for sneaking so much candy if it felt like this. But no. It was more than just a mix of uppers in her photosynthesystem. This was more of herself flowing through her - like her real self was just a distilled version of what she was now, brewed for a world with light tolerance for Pearl. She was moving with more strength but also using that strength with greater skill. She was looking with not just sharper eyes but more acuity in the way she searched. She was in a better body, with an older mind.

And a little hyperfocused. But she got like that sometimes.

Out from under the table and to the couch cushions, fluffed with attention to every wrinkle from years of abuse. Over to the bathroom with feet so nimble she nearly slid into a wall, stopped by a mind so aware she'd calculated she’d go face first long before she did and put hand up to go swinging through the frame instead. She admittedly missed by a few inches, but the mild pain of a bruised shoulder seemed more distant than usual. Halfway through organizing a medicine cabinet with an exciting new priority system she'd cooked up, she absently pumped her fist and made a giddy squee. Two things she'd have been very embarrassed to do if she was in a mood to even remember there could be people watching.

But if anyone did so happen to be watching, not that she had anyone in mind... well. All Pearl thought was that she'd like to see that someone's cheap kitsch clones try and take her on now. Pearl was not invincible. Not so delusional or high on whatever this feeling was to think so. But she was tough.

"You got it, babe." Peacock commented as Pearl narrated just that thought. "If you think you're an invincible genius or some sort of God, you're probably an idiot and... quite mortal."
"Exactly! Well, I mean, to a point!" Pearl cried, though the way she went on, it didn't seem like she was entirely listening so much as waiting for the next 'yes.'

Ah, yes, Peacock was there too. In all this extremely exciting cleaning, the fusion had been pushed out of the spotlight, and just this once, she wouldn't mind. Pearl's mind was buzzing with the feeling of simply being .It was almost like fusion, almost, but rather than being someone else who was incredible, she was Pearl, and Pearl was incredible. Was this what it was like to be Peacock? No wonder she liked to talk so much.

The kitchen was deep-cleaned, the spaces between the bathroom tiles scrubbed, the specs of dirt from forms of Amethyst long passed gone. Running a cloth over the window Steven slept by, Pearl turned to his bed. What came next seemed so easy it was hard to imagine she regularly spent an hour on it. Thirty minutes later, almost on the dot, Steven's bed was freshly remade and stacked high with his shirts.

"Well!" Pearl announced, to no one in particular, though the shape of Peacock on the stairs nodded. "I'd say I'm about done. Certainly better than going out, don't you think?"
"Cor. I'm convinced." Peacock smile

Pearl's chest heaved as she took in a breath, falling back onto the bed and having the wind forced out of her. It seemed to Peacock a very un-Pearl thing to do. She'd have to remake the bed again, and she'd begrudge every inch of the groove shaped like herself as she did it. But Peacock cast her mind back, to scattered memories, some not just older than herself but nearly as old as her parts. She saw a Pearl that dove back through foliage, smiling knowingly as an axe brushed inches from her chin. She saw Pearl raising a fist at the top of a cliff, some hundred gems behind her hanging on her every words, before she tossed herself off the edge. She saw a Pearl leaping onto someone's shoulder, giggling as she buried her face in long, pink hair.

It wasn't an un-Pearl thing to do. It was the most Pearl thing to do, so much so that the shadow of her alive today could rarely muster something like that. Another part of Peacock - a part that was bathing in these memories, these lived experiences for the first time - knew exactly what it was like to have the you knocked out of you, by someone who... maybe never cared. Peacock felt something fuzzy inside.

Much better than anything her powers could do; her powers could make her work at 'two hundred percent' for a while, sure, but it was nothing real. Reality bending could only do so much that a shot of adrenaline and a pep talk couldn't. You're not profitting in the present, you're just stealing from your future.

It would be a shame she'd be away for a while, Peacock thought, as she looked out Steven's window. Towards the shape of a certain building, in a grassy field, far, far away. She looked to the nearly immobile shape of Pearl, twisting slightly on the bed. Her eyes were drifting shut and a close-lipped smile was refusing to leave her face.

"Take a break, Pearl." Peacock said, ghosting her hand across the side of the sheets.
"Mm. Wha? Yes, I... think I will."
"You've put in all your effort into showing off, now you get to enjoy putting all your effort into resting for next time. That's what it means to throw yourself into it."

Pearl giggled, a little too tired to notice the strange, purple darkness creeping into the edge of her vision. It was foreign, and she'd only experienced it a few times in her long, long existence, but, it didn't feel bad. It felt natural. Her arms felt like lead and she had a sneaking suspicion if she sat up she'd collapse into a heap on the ground, which almost certainly wasn't natural and absolutely wouldn't feel good. So why try? This was easier. If it felt good, and it felt natural, and it was easy, it couldn't be anything bad. That's good sense.

"Feels good... so, mmh." She rolled onto her side, curling her hands into her chest. "I did a good job?"
Peacock placed one heel on the top step, and looked over her shoulder at the curled-up shape of Pearl. "You killed it."
"Thank you..." She muttered, sighing softly as the last conscious breath left her lungs. "... Thank you..."
"I'll be right back."
"Okay... I'll be... here..."

Peacock went to turn the handle, but stopped at the door, just as the moonlight had finally shifted to catch her shades. She took one final look at the beach house, at the now-spotless floors, at the sleeping, content shape of Pearl on Steven's bed, and she was gone.

There could have been so much to dream about. There were horrific, metallic insects, there were watery, red-eyed doppelgangers, there was the clak of heels, there was the beat of wings, there were roses. But there were no dreams in the end. No dreams were good dreams.

Pearl rolled over and heard the sound of her sharp fingers on silk before she fully understood what she was looking for, her subconscious mind already knowing just where she was and what that meant. It took her rolling onto the opposite side and shifting halfway across the bed before she found Steven. When she did - that whole effort being herculean for someone waking from their once-in-a-millennia sleep* - she was sure to wrap her arms tight around him and pull herself close. In that friendly, touchy haze that comes with being very drunk or very tired, Pearl rubbed her face against him, her nose buried between the nook of one limb and the other as she muttered things she wouldn't remember.

* On average. Again, don't trust statisticians.

"I tried to phone you but I couldn't, so, anyway." She murmured. "I love you, I really do, and I'm just, mh - I'm just. I'm just... how can anyone..."

Pearl would be incredibly glad she wouldn't remember those words. She opened her eyes a little, hoping to get a faceful of black, frizzy hair. In a moment, all of her most vital mental functions fired up, in the universal survival instinct that saved caveman when they woke to find a tiger above them. First after proper sense of sight came proper sense of touch, and she realized the torso her arm was wrapped around was far too slender and boney, and also, was actually a set of hips. Looking up, she saw a stomach, then a chest, then the vague impression of a pencil-thin neck, and then

She screamed, somewhat muffled between a set of thighs.

"Thanks for all that." Lapis deadpanned. "Now get your nose out from my legs."

Scrambling backwards, Pearl pressed herself against the corner where the bed met the wall, only to remember too late that the bed was actually a few feet from the wall as she tumbled off. She lay frozen on her back for a few agonizing seconds before she heard Lapis' feet. She tried to be a bit more respectable once she came around. It was pretty pointless; respect was rather out of the question at this point.

"Alright." Lapis held her forehead in her palm, her other hand clutching a tablet to her chest. "Where is she?"

All at once, three things hit Pearl —

• It was a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon.

• She had no idea where Peacock - and therefore Peridot - was.

• The jig was up.

"P-Peridot? Peridot, well, she's, um..."
"Not Peridot." Lapis sighed seriously. "Don't lie to me, Pearl. I've had enough. Tell me where Peacock Azurite is."
Pearl's pupils narrowed to pinpricks. "You know? But, how did you-"
"You deliberately didn't tell me." Lapis growled. "Of course. It's not like it would matter to me, right? No. Were you planning on hiding it for a day? A week? Hold out on me, hide her just out of sight every time I visit because you think I'm that stupid?"
Pearl was crawling over the side of the bed by this point, the warmth of a rare, good sleep having long since left her. "Lapis, wait, I-"
"Can explain? Can try to convince me this was all alright? Why did I even BOTHER coming to you?"

Lapis slammed her hand on the wall as she neared the stairs. There was the sound of a portrait shaking. Lapis just barely managed to stop herself at the top for a moment, teeth bared and hair frayed at its ends. No gem needed sleep, but Lapis? Lapis looked like she did, and had been deprived of it for days.

"Lapis, wait." Pearl said, slightly more convincingly. "I can help. Even if you don't think I care... Garnet's in there, too."

Pearl was very careful to dance around mentioning a certain person's name. Very, very careful. From behind, she could see Lapis' shoulders shake, and then, solidify. Turning around with an expression of noncommital so Lapis it almost seemed natural, she opened the tablet and began to scroll.

When Pearl took the tablet into her hands, her eyes first narrowed, then, widened. She flicked through the feed. Apparently, Peridot had long since made an account on one of these 'social media' websites, and had been posting several times a day, every day, for months. In all caps. Until, suddenly, something changed. Her icon, firstly. As she scrolled to the most recent posts in Peridot's feed, she saw a simple announcement post.

Hey, Babes. I'm New on the Scene, but You Better Get Used to Me, Because You're Going to Be Seeing a Whole Lot More.

- Peacock Azurite ❤️

Below, was a picture of her, with her hand stretched out and modelling her coat. It seemed to have been taken only an hour or so after she was first formed - Pearl could see the hunched over, already exhausted shape of herself just a ways behind her shoulder. She'd looked away for just a moment! A moment! How did she miss this. There were more too. It seems every step of their journey across Beach City was documented, from leaving the old dance hall, to crossing their first street, to sitting down at Fish Stew Pizza and... lots of pictures of food. Pearl tried to hide her cringing.

Scrolling up was more of the same. More of the same. Food, clothes modelling, live posting about whatever they happened to be doing, this girl had a digital footprint bigger than Peridot's. But the most disturbing thing was the last few hours.

8 Hours Ago

A picture of Peacock outside the beach house.

8 Hours Ago

A picture of Peacock leaning against the railing with the statue in the background, cast just right by the light of the moon.

7 Hours Ago

A picture of a parking lot.

7 Hours Ago

A picture of a large, ugly looking vehicle plugged into an electric charging station, Peacock's silhouette cast darkly behind it.

7 Hours Ago

A picture of the same vehicle, but with all the mayoral branding ripped off and the plastic head on top tossed aside.

6 Hours Ago

Finally, a text post that said-

"You can drive human cars, right?" Lapis asked, pulling Pearl back to her unfortunate reality.
"Um. Yes, yes I can. Why?"
"Get up. Come on; we're going after her."
"We are?" Pearl looked down, then up. "Y-Yes, we are. But... well. We'll have to go to Greg's car wash. I'll have to search for the keys. And then-"
"I don't care." Lapis said, extremely clearly, and began down the stairs.
"Lapis-" Pearl half-cried, rushing down the stairs behind her and hesitant to grab her bicep at the door. Ultimately, she decided against it. This might've saved her a limb. "- It's just. Is there something more you need? Why are you not flying after them right now?"
Lapis shrugged. "Why should I tell you? You lie to me all the time."
"I did, I did lie. But I know you wouldn't bring me unless you needed something. And if I don't know what it is, I can't give it to you."

To be frank, Pearl would much rather she be aware of this and have to also split the time with Lapis, than be left to sleep unaware while Lapis tackled it on her own. But Pearl would much rather she have woken up on her own and gathered the evidence herself, and that Lapis be taken out of this equation entirely. She was yet another fire to try and keep at just the right size while another rapidly spiralled out of control.

But, while we're being frank, Pearl was in no position to bargain.

"Pearl. I'm gonna find her." Lapis said, turning around very slowly. "And when I do, I'm gonna bring her home. I don't know... I don't know what I'm going to do inbetween." She leaned forward, nearly pressing her forehead against Pearl's gem. "And I need you to make sure I don't do anything really, really bad. Hold me back, if you have to."

Pearl's pinprick pupils jittered as they followed Lapis out the door, across the wood, and down the stairs, until the blue of her hair disappeared out of sight. She realized she was still clutching Peridot's tablet in her hand, and looking down, spared one last glance at Peacock's final message before rushing out after Lapis.

6 Hours Ago

Road Trip!

- Peacock Azurite ❤️

Notes:

Writing sleepy, dopey Pearl is REALLY fun.
Heads Up: I will be taking another break following this chapter. I will be uploading next chapter on either the 22nd or 29th, depending on how schedules allow. In return for my tardiness, I drew some art of Peacock on my tumblr
Peace.

Chapter 21: The Big City, Part I

Summary:

Pearl commits yet more traffic crimes.
Lapis talks about her experiences with alien probes.
Peacock plays Poker.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Ran away.
Ran away. Ran away, ran away.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
Gone backwards. She's hiding me.
She's hiding me, and the other one, too. All three trouble.

Can't do anything like this. Won't do it on their own.
Need another way.
Old enemy might become a new friend. Not friend. No friends.
Asset.
Sleep now. Need energy. For later.

You.
Give me time.

It was a lovely Sunday afternoon in Beach City, and the town was buzzing.

Most of the residents really couldn't believe it - Theft! In broad moonlight, in the very very early hours or the morning - or very very late hours of night - and of property of a public official, no less. No small theft either; no swiping of wallets or pilfering of gaudy garden ornaments was this. It was a really good bit of larceny. Grand, one might say. Who was to say; the mayor's own car stolen in their sleepy little town? They might even get to the fifth page of the county newspaper with this one.

People went about town in bright moods. There were many hands raised from steering wheels as they passed one another, casual stops in the street to chat, books read that'd spent weeks half open and face down. As a bit of something poisonous makes for a great spice, a bit of something politically criminal makes for a great day; adds texture.

It was also a busy day for various police departments. Beach City didn't have one - it was too small and had a few unique qualities that made it rather impossible to police - but a daisy chain of reports about a stolen vehicle spread through the county. From office to office, then from radio to radio, and eventually, to the ears of two officers. Their names aren't particularly important.

One - a very tall, very thin man who seemed to be made entirely of right angles - slung his elbow over a fence post, "Could ye repeat that?"
The deputy - a short, heavier set man who'd one day be called fat, but for now was just sedentary - traced his finger across the license plate. He nodded along as every letter on it was read out through the radio. "Looks like we've found it."

There's nothing unusual about an abandoned vehicle being stolen - it's in fact more common, as people generally only leave their own vehicle on the side of their road if they're too dead to come back for it. What was unusual was the state of it. For a car that'd been gone for less than a few hours, it had went through years of wear-and-tear, and the smell emanating from under the hood was gagworthy. Inhaling it filled the officers' mouths with the taste of metal.

"Aw! That smell." The deputy said, his wrist over his nostrils
"You go git it. Here's hoping it's just a rakewn making a nest or someit. I'm not going on another treasure hunt."
"Treasure hunt?" The deputy said, standing from his squat and hesitantly approaching the front of the car
"Y'know, hair, teeth, that sorta thing."

Taking a deep breath - and holding it - the deputy heaved the hood open, the whole vehicle wobbling as a cloud of smoke burst from it. Just as there's nothing unusual about an abandoned vehicle being stolen, there's nothing unusual about a beat-up car's engine belching fumes. The problem is this car was electric, and it would elude even the greatest engineers of the day to make an electric vehicle smoke. It was in such disrepair that it disproved academic papers.

"Howar!" The deputy cried. "Oh, that smell - is like I stuck my face in a' exhaust pipe."
"Ah, there's yer problem. Tell y'h'wat, it's one of them electric cars."
"Electric cars smell bad?" He fanned his hand in front of his face as he squinted at the engine. "I figured they'd smell pretty good, what with the... the, you know, the electric. Don't got exhaust pipes."
"Exactly!" He traced his finger over his palm. "Ain't nowhere for the smoke to go, y'see, so it just swirls 'round n' round til you crack it open. Say it's good for the environmen', but they don't tell you you gotta to keep 'em main-tayn-duh, else it all leaks out."
"Oh, yeah! I gets it. You're so smart - how'd you know all this stuff?"
"My daddy was a mechanic." He tugged at his shirt, just beneath his badge. "Woulda wen innew it myself if I didn't get the Calling."

He rested his hand on his hip and felt very cool, then noticed his partner was staring into the hood, and not at him. Beneath his shades, he looked somewhere between surprised and mortified. As a point of comparison; the first person to discover what the human stomach looked like probably had the exact same look on their face.

"Say, I ain' no mechanic, but I think that mayor ain't gonna be happy when he gets this back." He gestured his partner over and tapped the side of the hood anxiously.

The engine was - for lack of a better term - molting. It was somewhere between a roasted marshmallow with its animal byproduct insides oozing out, and Dali's melting clock. They both stared in wide-eyed awe for a moment, their noses blinded by disbelief. The deputy sniffed. Without turning to look at his partner, he spoke.

"Hey." The deputy began.
"Yeah?"
"You think you can fix it?"
Beat.
"Fix - whuh - buddy, you don't need to be a, a, whajamacallit - an engineer, to know this ain't fixable!"
"Oh. A'right then."

The deputy tapped his finger on the side of the hood, slowly nodding his head.

"Hey." The deputy began.
"Yeah?"
"You think the fumes are deadly? Do anythin' to your head?"
Beat.
"Fumes - whuh... prolly not. Why'dya say so?"
"I'm seein' ladies."
"Nothin' unusual 'bout that. 'Least fer me. Can't speak fer you."
"They're blue ladies. Reckon they've been watchin' us for a while."

The deputy crooked a finger. His partner swung his head around to look at the road, and particularly, at the two figures behind the steel barricade. Neither were tall, but they were both so slender that they appeared much bigger by sheer force of proportion, like two scarecrows on poles.

One of them was wearing a long, flowing blue dress, blowing in the wind while her body stayed totally still. It reminded the deputy of them free spirit girls who slept out of abandoned cars and sung pretty songs. She was bent over and resting her elbows on the barricade. The other was standing up straight, wearing a glittery, transparent leotard, like them ballerina girls he'd see sneak out of dances to those abandoned cars sometimes. He never found out why; it came to him this might be his chance to ask.

The deputy's partner, meanwhile, was surprised. He fully expected that the deputy was seeing them, but he was seeing them. And they were indeed both blue. One of them was a pale cyan, but the other was really, really blue. Frankly, distractingly blue. Bluer than a night's sky, bluer than the ocean, it was possible she was bluer than the primary color.

"Hey, you two -" The very blue girl called, her voice cold and steady "- Did you see the person who was driving this?"
The two officers looked at each other, then the deputy called back. "Have you? We're looking for a um, suspect of a... 'grand theft auto'?"
"And destruction'a property."
"And destruction of property."
"I believe we might have, officers!" The other girl interjected, raising a finger. "How long has this vehicle been parked?"
"By our estimate? 'Bout four hours."

The two girls looked at each other, exchanging some words too quiet to hear beneath the wind. The paler one spun her hand around and seemed to push the conversation, the other rolling her eyes before standing up and walking off. She must've felt the eyes on her back as she walked away. Somehow, it was easy to tell she was used to it.

"Thank you officers! You've been helpful, really!" The polite one said, waving her hand before starting off herself.

The two officers blinked for a minute.

"Hey." The deputy began.
"Yeah?"
"You think they were aliens?"
Beat.
"Aliens - whuh - I think y'might've been onto somethin' with that 'fumes affectin' yer head' stuff! C'mon, let's go back to the car n' report this."
"Sorry. I mean, you just never know - I heard some weird stories around here. People talking."
"People do talk, don't they? Now, come on. You don't worry yerself about that stuff. Perfectly rash-oh-nal explination for this stuff. All of it. Like uh, what'chya say, body paint. Kids these days're into all sorts of weird fashion. Lebanon types."
"Yeah. Body paint. You're so smart. Keep me right"
"You keep askin' questions, I'll keep answerin'. Did the same when I was new."

They looked at each other and nodded with mutual respect as they approached the squad car.

"... Hey, hold on a minute. They done never answered!"

A few dozen miles from Beach City, the landscape changed. While the surroundings were still pleasant, the view of endless, roiling fields were replaced by neatly cordoned off ivy growing over ramps of dirt. So near to the city, they couldn't afford so much wasted space. The trees grew denser, reaching up from either side, their canopies meeting together in a web. Between the gaps in that web, the road below was cast in heavy, late afternoon orange, dappled beneath shafts of light. Beautiful in a different way from the farmland. Unfortunately, it's very hard to make a traffic jam look pretty.

In theory, Pearl didn't mind. She thought traffic jams were a neat consequence of the systems humans devised for themselves, and she found some naughty satisfaction in watching all the bad planning catch up with them. Indeed, Pearl was one of the few people who could find traffic relaxing. What she couldn't find relaxing was the feeling of Lapis groping her waist.

She didn't have the keys for Greg's car, nor the time to go digging through the inside of the car wash to try and find them. Pearl'd never known Greg to be orderly, but while she could fault him for leaving important things strewn about storage - family photos, Steven's records, ancient arcane energy cannons - she couldn't fault him much for this. Why would she need his car? She wasn't planning on breaking the law again. Whether someone sitting behind her was, that was a different matter.

Still, in between rapping her fingers on the handlebars, she had to bite back the urge to blame someone. Maybe this was all karma, and the person she should've been blaming was herself. Or maybe she just really, really needed to justify why she'd found herself alone with Lapis saddled up behind her on Sheena's motorcycle.

"I feel like I'm sitting on rocks." Lapis said, with no particular inflection.
"Ah, yes. I'm sorry about that." Pearl laughed awkwardly "These seats have been... worn from use. They're really quite good on your back."

The car in front of them was a disgusting shade of lemon yellow. Pearl tried to focus on that.

"Any word on Peacock?"
"None." Lapis leaned forward, gripping Pearl by the waist as she tucked Peridot's tablet into her hip pouch. She kept pulling it out and finding new stickers stuck to it.
"She couldn't have gone far on foot." Pearl reasoned, hiding the 'this is a ridiculous thing to have to think about' tone that tried to creep into her voice. "She's stopped sending pictures of the scenery; we passed that tree with the heart carved in it twenty minutes ago."
"She found somewhere to stop." Lapis' finger crept into the edge of Pearl's vision, over her shoulder, pointing to a sign. "There's a city in the next ten miles. Obviously she stopped there."
Pearl sighed, tapping her forehead. "More than that. It must be something that keeps her from using phone. She can't resist using it when she gets the chance."
Lapis crossed her arms. "She's stupid for leaving all these hints. She should know we can use them to follow her."
"She didn't expect me to have her account." Pearl dared, hoping to placate Lapis and hoping - far more strongly - that she wouldn't follow up.
"But she should know I do."

That put Pearl in an incredibly tight spot. Steepling her fingers together, she looked down her nose and considered carefully. She could - for once - get out of this situation by doing absolutely nothing. All she'd need to do was wait for Lapis to quiet down or get caught on some other, caustic tangent, and the moment would pass. Lapis just didn't understand the situation she was in. But the thought occurred to Pearl that maybe this would be a chance to make her understand. If she didn't now, it'd be an even bigger problem later.

Ah. Pearl rubbed her temple, lifting one leg and turning to Lapis. She didn't dare to look her in the eyes, for fear of what she might see.

"Peacock... probably thinks you're not coming, Lapis."
"What?" Lapis balked, as if the idea had never crossed her mind. "She's part Peridot."
"I know, but-"
"Then shouldn't she be smarter? If I want Peridot to come back, I have to get to her... 'fusion'." She spat the words.
Pearl grasped through the air for something. Not finding it, she held her hand over her chest. "Peridot doesn't think you want her to come back."

Lapis gripped the seat of the bike.

"What?"

In a room with oaken wood walls and dim lights, a blocky silhouette sat at a table. It's really important it's understood just how wooden and dim this room was. Perhaps it'd paint the image better if you described it as 'smoke filled', but unfortunately indoor smoking was banned decades before. Instead, imagine men with suspicious facial hair bent over pool tables, eyeing one another as they line up the shot, rather than staring at the ball. Imagine people sitting in stalls, the shadows perfectly covering their eyes but leaving exposed the bridges of their nose and their perpetual slight scowls. Imagine a bartender running a rag through the inside of a frosted mug.

Most of the people in the bar weren't actually doing those things. But it gets the idea across. In actuality, many of the people in the bar were bent over the divider between two stalls, eagerly watching a game of cards. The blocky silhouette from earlier looked up from her hand, draping an arm over the back of her seat. The leather of her coat scraping against the maroon fabric was deafening. The light bounced from the cards to her shades and highlighted her perfect poker face.

Perhaps wearing thick, opaque glasses could give one a competitive advantage - hard to read someone's face when you can't see it. Earlier, a man asked her to take them off; in response, she slid them down to the bridge of her nose, looked down at him, and put them back on. He politely sat back down, waved one of the staff over, and asked if he could move tables. No one bothered her about it after that.

Pushing her shades further up on her nose, Peacock shrugged.

"Raise." She said.
"Raise!?" The man across from her said, burying his head in his hands.

As one unit, the three other players settled in, heads lolling against the backs of their seats. They all suddenly felt a lot heavier. One of them - the player who'd been having the worst luck this night and didn't appreciate Peacock's constant, unending string of calls - ducked out, turning her cards over and not-so-graciously stomping off.

"She's going to do it again." The man across from her again spoke, a chatty, older man who gambled out of habit. He was very good at it. It was just a shame he was up against Peacock.

He turned his cards over and raised his palm in surrender, rising from his seat and shouldering through their small audience. And then there was the fourth player. A skinny, pretty young man - three things that were unusual, considering the night's crowd was mostly composed of forty somethings who's lifelong habits were catching up to them in force. He had flush skin that seemed almost purple in the bar light, his eyes cast under the shadow of his swept back fringe. He was probably only the third most skilled poker player at that four-man table, but he came first bluffing experience. Bluffing is a liar's trade, and he was frankly overqualified. He was the type of person who saw lying as its own reward, and was willing to do some stupid things to do it.

This was one of those stupid things.

"You know what? Maybe you do have it." He said, putting his elbow on the table. "But I've made some losses tonight. Think I'll win 'em back."
"You're right confident."
"Trying to get in my head?" He raised a brow. "No one messes with me. Come on."
"You're taking a risk."
"Hey, baby, gambling's always a risk. I like it like that."
Peacock pursed her lips. "Alright."

They both turned their cards up, and the crowd that'd gathered around them gasped like spectators to... well, any sufficiently violent crime, use your imagination. Peacock's hand was nothing special. A three-of-a-kind of sevens, which was lucky in its own way, but not enough to beat the boy's straight. It seemed Peacock had lost.

This was unusual, because in the few hands she'd played, Peacock was a natural at card games. Games of skill with a bit of chance came easily, and games of bluffing with a bit of skill came second nature. She'd analyzed the games in between waiting for hands to be dealt, and had figured out some vagaries. Estimated value, advantage playing, effect of removal, remembering each and every card revealed and what that did to the balance of the expected outcomes. In her mind, entry level things anyone would figure out from first glance. Not really her thing; do whatever you like, but card counting is something she'd never be caught doing. It was something for... other fusions.

No. She was attracted to the social elements. The face-to-face. The ability to look someone straight in the eye and say-

"You almost got me." He whistled, scooping up an armful of crumpled notes
"Thank you. I don't understand this game."
"Eh?"
"I don't understand what the humans stabbing themselves with swords mean. But saying 'raise' so confidently is entertaining." Peacock reached into her coat pocket. "Let me get your winnings."
The boy blinked at her, then popped the collar of his irritating light blue jacket.
"Yeah... right. Oh, don't-" He lifted his hand, the corner of his mouth twitching "- Pull out any piece of metal or junk you've got in your pocket. I've seen you do that. Freaks people out. I'll take the other two pots and you keep yours. I don't need handouts."

Peacock looked from her pocket to the boy, then back to her pocket, then back, then sat down. She was realizing how hard it was to move around human society without gathering attention. People in Beach City were just so much less phased by nine foot tall women. Another thing she was realizing was that she rather liked the attention.

"Hey." She said as the boy passed him. "Where did you get your clothes? They're fabulous."
"Psh. 'Course you wanna know." He said, popping his collar. "Probably out of your price range."
Peacock raised a brow. "I doubt it, babe."

He stopped. 'Your clothes are fabulous' and 'babe', huh? ... Yeah. He'd been looking for an excuse.

"If you're so sure, go see for yourself. Mall a few blocks from here, by Front Street." The boy put his palm on the table. "Y'know, you've got good energy. Only met a couple people like you. I could..."

He shifted his weight onto the table, earning a slightly dirty look from the man tending the bar which he returned with his best standoffish grin. It turned much more - well. Sincere wouldn't be the right word. Perhaps intentional would be more accurate. It was a smile very carefully sculpted to earn just the response he was fishing for.

"Could?" Peacock looked him up and down, finally taking the bait.

"Take you there? You seem new. No one knows this city better than me."
"And who are you?"
He threw his arms out, "You don't know who I am? Oh, I'm an angel."
"I know a self-proclaimed god. Never met a self-proclaimed angel." Peacock rested her cheek in her hand, smiling. "A name would be nice."
"Well..."

Somewhere else in the room, someone coughed, loudly, giving away the rather obvious fact they were skirting the 'no smoking indoors' policy. Everyone did it. But you were supposed to at least pretend.

"That's a nice name. Very... fitting." Peacock stood up with him, both wordlessly gravitating towards the exit. "Peacock. Pleasure."

The smell of car exhaust hit Pearl's nose and she tried not to retch. Steering to the side, she sped up and overtook the car in front of her, which was exactly as ugly in motion as it was in traffic. Bowing her head and squinting her eyes, she reached the end of the constant net of canopy and briefly into the last light of day. Leaves blew past her as the air battered Sheena's bike.

The sun dyed the clouds pink as it slowly slipped out of sight. While nightfall wasn't much of a concern for a gem, it'd be no good for collecting evidence. For as loud as she was, Peacock could be subtle, when she wanted to be, especially under cover of darkness. They could hardly search every house they passed. Peacock didn't seem the kind to go hiding in bushes, but it was very possible she'd taken a route off the beaten path and they'd already driven past her. The more she thought about it, the more hopeless this whole situation seemed.

"That's stupid." Lapis shook her head, sending her hair fish-tailing behind her. It was frayed at its ends, and it'd only been getting worse. "Obviously I want her to come back. We share the barn."
"Well, perhaps, it's obvious to you-" Pearl said, in the careful tones of someone telling an execution-happy monarch why he wasn't getting his feast that night "- but Peridot doesn't see it that way."
Pearl could practically feel Lapis' eyes narrow as she spoke. "What did she say?"
"Well, I never talked to her. Her and Garnet fused right away."
"Wait, what?" Lapis leaned forward, sending Pearl's head diving down towards the handlebars as if they'd give her cover. "You never even talked to her?"
"By the time I got to them, they were fused. It was only a few minutes after you two... split apart."
"So you're useless." Lapis sat back, crossing her arms. "Amazing."

Air whistled between Pearl's teeth. She flexed her fingers and redoubled her grip on the handlebars, throwing her weight forward as she stepped on the gas. The whistle of air in her ears turned into a tumbling rush, specs of dust and torn bits of forest refuse flying by. She suddenly swivelled to the right, sending Lapis nearly toppling off the edge. Pearl's eye twitched as Lapis' hands clapped around her shoulders, and she couldn't help but notice how much of Lapis' nails were in that grip.

They continued like that for a while, rushing forward, blazing past cars and taking turns a bit too closely for comfort. Pearl could feel Lapis' breath on her back before velocity stole it.

"I'm right."
"What?"
"It's just the truth. She doesn't think you're coming."
"What would you know?
"I've known Peridot longer than you have."
"Oh, yeah." She hissed. "You spent a lot of time chasing her around trying to stuff her in your temple. Did you find another mirror?"
"I didn't know you were-!" Pearl swiveled around to yell, stealing a quick glance before setting her eyes back on the road. They narrowly avoided skinning their legs on a passing truck. "It doesn't matter. Maybe you've lived with her, but you obviously haven't thought about her much. Do you even know what she does when you're not around? Do you know how hard she works for you? I've been to places you haven't. I've... I've seen things you haven't."
"Like what." Lapis sneered. It wasn't a question. It was a dare.

Pearl hunched over the handlebars as they sped forward. She took a turn at a frankly dangerous angle, mind only focused on her driving enough to keep them both on the road. The wind was rushing by her ears, and there was a quiet voice whispering inside of her that said she should absolutely stop before something happened. But it was a very quiet voice. And there was a very loud, echoing one in her head, drowning it out.

"Wings. You can go wherever you like."
"Earth creatures like you don't really have any favorite places. You don't know them by name or identification number. If you want to go somewhere, you just go."
"I want to fly again."

"I know how much she cares about you, Lapis."
"I live with her." Lapis snapped.
"Then you shouldn't have to wonder why she doesn't want to come back! You really hurt her, in a way only you can."
Lapis tilted her head up, the corner of her lip twitching as she yelled back over the wind. Her voice shook more than she'd like. "How would you-"
"I know because I've been there. When you care about someone in a certain way, it... it gives them a power over you they can't take. It's only something that can be given. She gave it to you, Lapis, and I'm sick and tired of you- ah!" Pearl raised her head, staring defiantly into the now blurred landscape rushing by. "I know why she ran away. I know why they ran away together. I was such a fool, I should've known. I thought it was so unusual for Garnet; of course she'd care about this."
"Wh- No. No one cares about me like that."
"Don't sulk, you pathetic thing! She ran away because she knows if she sees you again, she'll come running back. Obviously Peridot's smarter than I was"
"I-" Lapis mouthed, "You think..."

Lapis searched for something venomous to spit. Something cutting, some blame to throw at Pearl - there was a lot to blame her for. If it hadn't been for her words, this wouldn't have happened in the first place. If it hadn't been for her rebellion... but it all died in her throat. Because it was pointless in that moment. Lapis was immunized against shame and insults, assured that no, it was all because of someone else. But Lapis couldn't protect herself from herself.

It was her fault. Peridot wouldn't simply choose to come back - she "couldn't help herself," Pearl had said. She had to run away - get as much space from Lapis as she could just to escape. Pearl had framed it like Lapis was some sort of monster Peridot had to run from. She might've been right.

The bike slowed, gradually, to a near stop as it steered towards the side of the road. Pearl stared at Lapis and bit her lip.

You know, she'd hoped she'd find some satisfaction when she finally got the look from Lapis. She often thought about finally bringing her to task about anything and everything. She didn't think it was an odd thing to daydream about winning arguments, to show people how wrong they are, to finally get through to that completely delusional someone. The problem is few people have to deal with actually doing it.

The look on Lapis' face wasn't satisfying. Pearl's fingers twitched, one hand lifting from the handlebars as she slowed to a safe speed. Lapis didn't like to be touched - neither of them did. But just something to ground her - Amethyst would do it.

"... What's that sound?" Lapis said, spine straightening as she stirred
Pearl balked. "What sound?"
"It's like a... I don't know. It's earsplitting."
She cupped her hand to her ear. "Oh, I... think I hear it."
"The noise is getting louder."
"Oh."
Lapis saw light dancing over her shoulder straps and spun around. "I see lights."
Pearl gripped the handlebars. "Oh."
"Is that one of those police cars you passed?"
"Oh..."

Pearl took the time to compose herself. She smoothed her hair, she patted herself down, she took a deep, centering breath. With infinite patience she waited for the police car to slow to a stop just behind them. She had a look of well-composed innocence on her face. Slinging both legs over one side and exchanging a glance with Lapis which communicated quite a lot, she watched the officer slide out of the car, sending its suspension wobbling.

"Is there a... problem, officer?"
"Hey ag'in. Yeah, I do reckon there is." he said, pulling out a notebook and writing hastily. "Do you know how fast you were going?"
"Ah, of course. You see, the thing about that is, ah..."
"Say, you! Blue lady in the perty outfit!"

Lapis and Pearl turned their heads to the car in unison. The deputy was climbing out of the car, gripping the top of it.

"Is it face paint, or was it aliens?"

Pearl mouthed something and Lapis looked completely unperturbed.

"Deputy, not now..." The officer clapped his hand against his forehead.
"Come again?" Pearl said.
"I mean, your skin - you're all blue. So, way I see it, either you put on a ton of face paint, or got experimented on by aliens. Don't laugh! You can be honest. I won't tell no one."
"Deputy! I mean, really, I know yer real passionate bout this stuff, and, frankly... lookin' at em, you might have somethin' right. But you can't just-"

"Aliens."

As one unit, Pearl and the two officers spun to look squarely at Lapis as she spoke in perfect monotone.

"Yeah, aliens. They had these big, drill-shaped ships, a gigantic red tear-drop vessel with a bright yellow eye. Aliens. I even met one."
"Like..." The deputy began his breathing heavily. "... Actual aliens? Full on big headed invader types?"
"Oh yeah." She blinked. "The biggest heads." She leaned over, pulling out the tablet from Pearl's pouch. "I took pictures. Let me show you."
"Yer really not supposed to use eelektronics when you're pulled over like this, lady."
"We weren't pulled over." She didn't look up from the screen. "Pearl parked. You just caught up."
He shook his head and fixed his hat, reaching a hand towards the car "Now, deputy, whad'you think yer doing? Stay in the car. You know proseejurr."
"Well, the lady's tryna show me something gen-yew-ein alien! I gotta see it."
"Now, in that fancypants academy, they might notta taught you this, deputy, but, you can't just go 'round hogchasin' whenever a lady tells to you, no matter how nice a dress she got or how much concrete evidence of transplanetary supercivilizations she's claimin' to have."
"Here, Pearl." Lapis pushed the screen into Pearl's hands and inched her way onto the 'front seat,' pushing Pearl front and center before the standing officer. "Show them."

Pearl sat open mouthed for a moment, before noticing that so did both the officers. In fact, it wasn't a facial expression she'd seen in a long time, since when it was a regular event for her to encounter humans who'd never seen gems before. In the long past days, before gems were - in some way - weaved into every culture in human history. Then Pearl looked at the screen and saw a perfectly clear video of Peridot recording her first reactions to seeing a real cow.

"Um. Yes. So, this is, an... 'alien', actually we're called- they're, called, gems, and... this one is named-"
"They're gun' stealin' the bovines!" The officer screamed. "Flyin' saucers, livestock abdugted, Deputy, this is serious business."
The deputy stumbled out of the car and nearly into a nearby river, jogging towards Pearl to get a better look at the screen. "That's a real, moving big-headed grey alien!"
"More of a green?" Pearl added, feeling she should say something.

”Did it… you know…” The deputy gestured to Lapis. “Probe you?”

”Not yet.” Lapis said, without looking up.

"What do we do about this..."
"Well..." The officer scratched his head. "First, I reckon we should write these two a ticket. That was a dangerous speed they were drivin' at for a real long time. Should probably dock some points from their licence, too."

A licence. Right.

Pearl let out a long, sustained 'ah' noise, nodding slowly as she rewound the video in hopes of a distraction. At the last moment, she turned to Lapis, and froze at what she saw.

The deputy looked him up, then down, then up, then down, then nodded frantically "You're right! First thing's first n' all - you're so smart."

Lapis was looking down at the motorbike's display, trying to figure out what all the meters and numbers meant. Flashing a devious grin that looked so unusual for her and yet, so fitting on her face, Lapis slammed her foot as hard as she could against the pedal.

"Now, say, could you two turn over yer driver's licenses so-"

The two officers turned, and the two were gone.

Or, more specifically, about thirty feet away, their engine loudly rumbling as they sped up and took off. This wouldn't have been a big problem if they were in the car ready to give chase. Of course, they were rather starstruck in the moment, and it took them a good minute to filter into their squad car and start the engine up in earnest. Should've followed proseejurrr.

"That was good." Pearl said, arms wrapped around Lapis' waist. Mostly for fear of being tossed off and into a tree. Mostly.
"Was always the plan." Lapis shrugged, leaning forward with Pearl over her shoulders and speeding ahead
"You know, you're quite the planner when you want to be."
"And you're a good liar." She sighed in something that almost - almost - sounded wistful. "But I knew that already."
Something that had - for the first time in a while - raised inside of Pearl's stomach once again dropped. "Lapis... listen, if this is about-"
"It's a fact. We're both liars. And we both hate a lot of things. And maybe one of those things is each other." Lapis rested her head against the handlebars for just a moment, flickering her view along the endless, straight path ahead of them. "But I think... we're going to have to trust each other a bit more from now on." Lapis's cheek brushed Pearl's shoulder. "'Cos you were right."

There was a long, silent moment as they raced ahead. Pearl signalled and they took a shaky series of left and rights to shake their tail. Multiple almost ended in a wipeout that would've been a very anticlimactic way to finish the grand escape, and would put them both on foot and Sheena some thousand dollars in the hole. But they made it. And they kept driving for a while.

"You know, you're quite civil when you want to be." Pearl mused with a light, genuine smile.
"I just have to make do. Settling here. Living with Peridot. Playing... baseball. It's all I've ever been doing on Earth."
Pearl sighed. "There's more to Earth than just making do. There's things really worth having here. I promise."
Lapis looked over her shoulder. "Are you lying to me again, Pearl?"
"... Well. It's what I've been told; I've been trying to find them myself... for about fourteen years."

There was another quiet moment as the orange leaves blew by, and perhaps it would've stretched on for a lot longer, if not for the sound of a ping in Pearl's lap. The tablet! She'd almost forgotten about it - good thing she was naturally so tense, or else it would have slipped out of her lap. Taking one arm off of Lapis and shakily flicking open the tablet, she saw a new message from Peacock.

"She's... in the city. I can tell you that."
"Where?" Lapis said, a sudden urgency in her voice erasing her almost relaxed tone from earlier. It was nice, while it lasted.
"She's... well, there's quite a lot of images here. There's a man there with her in all of them. She's in the streets." As she tried to scroll up, the breakneck pace of Lapis' driving almost made her drop it multiple times. "Let's slow down." She said softly. "We'll get there. I think we'll have to double back to get back on the main road; no point in rushing now."
"Hey Pearl?"
"Yes, Lapis?"
"I don't know how to drive."
"Lapis..." Pearl said fondly. "... Wait, Lapis! Lapis! Lapis! Uh, take a left! This left! We can slow down and swap! No, that's-"

As the two scrambled in their seats, a relaxing if fast-paced drive suddenly turning almost homicidal, one image stayed open on the screen even as Pearl clutched it between her thighs.

Shopping Trip w/ Kevin! @KevinBurnett

- Peacock Azurite ❤️

Notes:

Hey! It's been a month - and a few days, whoops. That's crazy. But good for this fic; this is a very busy chapter, and I wouldn't have delievered a nearly as well put together product if I tried to deliver it this time two weeks ago. I feel like I've overcome some very specific blocks in the interim, and at the same time, that this was a fight!
I haven't been able to respond to every comment I've got over the break, mostly because I got so many! It was a big shock to me to wake up to them, every time. A very pleasant shock.
October is a very busy time for me, so I can't promise a chapter in two weeks like my usual schedule - taking lots of breaks, how shameless of me - but I promise something before Halloween. That chapter will almost certainly mark the 100,000 word threshold for this fic, which is insane to me as someone who only really started writing fanfic last December. In fact, in about two months, it'll be the one year anniversary. There's plans. Trust me. There's plans.

Chapter 22: The Big City, Part II

Summary:

Yet more crimes are committed.
Pearl and Lapis check into a motel for some quality time together.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Peacock had the vaguest memories of high streets, lent from the long-outdated personal experience of Garnet and the scattered online reading of Peridot. Like most things about humans, the clashing realities mixed together strangely in her mind, dreamlike in how they made perfect sense, up until you thought about them at all. Case in point; she'd been expecting a mall to be a place filled with nothing but modern coffee shops and people hawking tonics for the bubonic plague.

That was not what Peacock found.

Kevin slammed into her back when she stopped, suddenly like a nine foot tall brick wall.

"It's incredible."
"What? You've never been to a mall before? This is nothing, you should see the one I went to upstate last Summer. They sold things from countries I haven't even heard of."

Kevin wasn't blustering. Okay. He was blustering a little. But there was truth to it; he really didn't know what Cuba was.

Oh, and this really wasn't a particularly high-class mall. There was no exotic architecture. There were no angled walls, no strangely bent ceilings, no massive archways of glass stretching across the crowd like a bridge across a river. The sides of the building weren't covered in thousands of windows and hundreds of lights. They were made of solid orange stone and had just about enough lights to see your way around the parking lot at night. It was a building made entirely of right angles with no fluctuation in height or material; it was a handful of cubes the size of houses, which was all it needed to be.

But Peacock didn't see it that way. Though her mind was split on most things human owing to vastly different life experiences from her composites, both halves were dominated by memories of humans mostly as humble, well-meaning village dwellers. To see them build something like this - to see all of the humans around it flowing from place to place, task to task, all with their own vastly complicated lives? To see the stores inside through the glass, lined with products sourced from across the globe, catering to every need? To a mind like Peacock, it was astonishing.

On a technical level, yes, it was impressive. But Peacock was impressed about it like how humans are impressed when a crow can remember their faces or when an octopus does basic addition. It was impressive because though it wasn't Homeworld, it was doing its best to ape - or, rather, homo sapien it. What really struck her was what was on display; fashion. Even just through the windows she could see storefronts filled with it. Jackets, coats, boots. Things made by humans entirely to express themselves, and something they were approximately ten thousand years ahead of compared to Homeworld.

"Hey uh, Peacock?" Kevin said, creeping around her side and looking her up and down. "What's wrong with this chick? She's been standing still for like a minute." He said, out loud.
Peacock raised a finger and pointed from one store to another. "Is all of that for sale?"
"Most of it. It's a mall. You buy things."
"I'm going to go buy something." Peacock said, as coolly as a weather report and as inexorably as an iceberg. "I'll be back."
"Oh, hey! Hey." Kevin said, breaking into a jog to keep at side with someone who's legs were as long as the majority of his body, "Hey, hey, hey. I said I'd show you around."
Peacock tilted her head very slightly forward. "Do you have money?"
"If you behave, I might treat you." Kevin said, again out loud. "I know a great restaurant inside."
"I don't eat." Peacock considered, without slowing her stride. "Much."
Kevin let himself fall behind, stuffing his hands in his pockets as his eyes followed the curve of her spine. "Yeah, I can tell."

Kevin was about to say something more, but suddenly couldn't find the air as he walked into Peacock's outstretched hand. Coughing, he stepped away and flung his arms out.

"Hey, what are you-"
"You stay here a moment." Peacock reached into her coat and pulled out a phone that fit in her hands like a feather. "I need to get a picture."
"You take too many pictures."
"You don't take enough, babe. Now stand over there a bit. I need you... in... focus..."

Her lips pursed, and Kevin couldn't see under her shades - he'd probably have screamed if he saw under there - but her eyes narrowed. She'd missed a few messages, it seemed. Steven had an extremely small but extremely tight social circle, and though she was certain he'd texted every single person in said circle about his camping trip, he'd still gotten a few texts. Many of them were from... Pearl.

Pearl, who was looking for her.

Pearl, who had made a dozen missed calls.

This wasn't right.

The thought came through hot and sharp, piercing into Peacock's mind like a glowing poker. She shouldn't be here, shouldn't be her, should be somewhere else, with someone else. While Peacock was equipped with Garnet's fusion experience, and so all of her new emotions were dulled by having experienced them 'for the first time' many hundreds of times, feeling panic for the first time was never easy. It was all wrong and she'd made many stupid choices. It was the feeling of taking a wrong turn and knowing you were lost. It was the feeling of realizing you'd forgotten your parachute as you stepped off the helicopter. It was the feeling of remembering you'd left a child in a locked car. It was...

It was... not, strictly, her problem.

And then, it passed. The rush of feeling she'd felt from some deep part of her core passed, and was gone, and was hidden, under layers and layers of self. Layers of confidence and comfort and - above all, the feeling that rushed into the hole where the anxiety had been - relief. Relief that she was herself, and was here now, and was free. Free to go where she pleased, when she pleased, without being a pillar for someone or something else. Without feeling like - if she faltered - then that pillar would come crumbling down

After all she'd given? No, after all they'd given? She was due something to herself. Anything. Something as small as a few years away, that'd be a good start. That was no time for a Gem; she could live a human life or two, perhaps become a famous model or musician or fashionista, then go back and meet Steven. It wasn't like he hadn't spent the first decade of his life without the gems, and he could surely spend a fraction of a decade without just a Garnet. The other two were both capable in their own right - they were really coming into their own! There was no better time for them to not have a Garnet, and… well. Peridot would be missed, but again, she’d be back. It wasn’t forever; just a break for a few years, maybe a decade or two. They’d be fine. He'd be fine.

It'd be fine. Peacock needed some me-time, or, she supposed, Garnet and Peridot needed some her-time.

It was a vichyssoise of feelings she'd been hoping to feel for a very long time. As odd a sensation as it was to scratch an itch you've had since before you were made, it was one someone experienced in fusion could almost get used to. Peacock was at least half that, with her other half... well. She was making good progress.

Ah, where was she?

Peacock straightened her back, lowered her shoulders, and casually stepped through the stream of people flooding into and out of the mall. It was show time.

"I'm going to go buy some of those clothes." She said to Kevin, looking over her shoulder at him. "Be right rude to make you pay. You couldn't afford it anyway."

The corner of Kevin's lip curled. He was never one to be outspent, but neither was he the type to throw money at some new girl just because she asked him to; that's the type of thing people far, far uglier than him have to do. His money was to be spent on him. Dad told him so.

"Alright." He said, stuffing one hand in his pocket. "Impress me."
"Go and get me a bag. A big one."

Kevin crooked a brow.

As she passed, people looked up at her, occasionally stopping to turn around and check their eyes. A few even pulled out their phones and began taking pictures. Peacock persisted, being as casual as one can be when they're nearly twice the height of a normal person and have glittering skin. It was funny how people could justify things to themselves. Far less likely than her being some alien - only country hicks would think that - most passersby thought she was just into bizarre fashion. Some body paint, a sprinkle of glitter, some designer shades and a pair of boots that could pay off a mortgage, good genetics, and anyone could look like a poor man's version of Peacock. It was all unlikely to coalesce in one person, let alone a person walking on their high street rather than some high class walkway before a hundred cameras, but more likely than what she actually was. Perhaps they thought she was some celebrity they hadn't heard of, and that Kevin lagging behind her was her frazzled agent or one of many out-of-their-depth boyfriends. Peacock gripped the edges of an ATM, punched a hole clean through it, and took all the money inside.

"Oh yeah. Let's go shopping." She smiled, clutching a fistful of dollars.

The sun was beginning to set in earnest over the city. Nevermind orange skies; the entire world seemed to be bathed in reddish-yellow hues, glinting off of car hoods and across leaves blowing by. The shadows of buildings grew towering, swallowing streets and alleys as the last of the day's sunlight hit them nearly side-on. In one particular alley, there was the low sound of chatter, and the hum of a stalled motorbike.

The excitement of Lapis' earlier stunt had faded, leaving them only with the trouble it caused. They were now wanted criminals, which was a first for Lapis, who was receiving a crash course on what 'the law' was from Pearl. Some of it sounded right - no killing, no stealing, no bothering other people while they were in their own homes minding their own business sleeping in their own hammocks - but the specifics went over her head. It was all a bit arbitrary.

"... And if you have money-" Pearl said slowly "- Then you can afford to buy your way out of it."
"But wait, you said not everyone has money." Lapis responded, in the tone of someone sure you had it wrong.
"You're right." Pearl replied plaintively, trying not to get sidetracked with the concept of an economy. "Everyone has different amounts; there's things humans can do to give more to them - this is called 'earning'. There's also things humans do that take it away from them - 'spending'."
"Why would they do that?" Lapis squinted. "Spending."
"Well, sometimes they spend it on things they want." Pearl tilted her head forward, twirling one hand. "Pleasurable activities using things provided to them by other humans at a cost."
"And they won't give them away for free, because they're theirs."
"Yes. But other times, they spend it on things they need to survive."
"And humans need to eat." Lapis nodded, eyes half-lidded.
"That's correct!" Pearl sighed, pleasantly surprised. "Humans need to eat."

For all their many disagreements, Pearl had to admit, Lapis was receptive to information. Pearl supposed she had to be to be able to stand Peridot, who absorbed information like a sponge absorbs warm water and then dumped said information like a sponge dumping now-cold water uncomfortably onto your face. Pearl had much experience teaching - mostly teaching children as of late, but still, teaching - and Lapis was one of her better students. She had an inherent understanding of the greed of humanity, and the idea that nothing came for free and nothing went unpunished seemed natural to her. What's yours is yours, and if someone else wants to make it their's, they must suffer one way or the other.

Pearl's mood faltered and she knitted her fingers together. Phrased like that? Her understanding was a little concerning.

"So I guess that's why the police were after us. Because we don't have any money." Lapis leaned forward on the bike's handlebars, nodding to herself in understanding.
"What?" Pearl balked. "No. They were coming after us because of the speeding; I explained this earlier. We actually have quite a bit of money.”
"Oh, right." Lapis remembered. It was obvious even then that she didn't understand why humans wouldn't let other humans drive like idiots if they so pleased. "Well, what do humans do if they have no money to pay for a crime?"
"They get locked in a prison for a while. They can't leave for... well, a few months, usually. Sometimes years. Sometimes forever. Time is more important to humans; they don't have unlimited amounts of it." Pearl couldn't really articulate the gravity of that to Lapis, though she surely understood the concept. It was something that took a few thousand years to adjust to.

There was a pause. The wind outside blew through the alley, bristling the edge of Pearl's hair. A chill was carried on it, despite the warm weather, and it made the alley seem even darker and tighter than it was. Lapis lay across the bike, shifting uncomfortably between the two handlebars as she held herself. Pearl lifted a hand and nearly had the mind to say something, before Lapis spoke. Maybe she got the gravity after all.

"That's a waste."
Pearl paused, then tried her best, encouraging smile. It wasn't especially good. "Well, humans are very wasteful."
"Yeah." Lapis said, casting her eyes around the alley. "I noticed."

Life garbage.

Lapis inhaled sharply, eyes widening as she sat bolt upright.

"Are you alright?" Pearl asked, sticking her leg out to stop the whole bike from toppling.
"Yeah." She said, tossing her legs over the side. "Let's go."

Pearl crept to the edge of the alley, her head appearing cautiously around the bricks. No doubt their plates had already been reported, and while a bit of speeding will hardly have your face on a metaphorical wanted poster, they'd certainly... left an impact with how they got away. It didn't help they themselves hardly blended in. A report of them was certainly filed by now. It couldn't have been easy for those officers to explain to their superiors that yes, they were in fact outfoxed by two bright blue women with gemstones lodged in their anatomy, and no, they only inhaled a small amount of engine fumes.

"The coast seems clear." Pearl said, slinking out of the light.
"No new posts from... her." Lapis muttered, staring into the tablet with barely suppressed disdain.

Ah. The inquisitive, thoughtful Lapis was gone. Sitting on the bike now was the spiteful, blase Lapis with a few things she hated, even fewer she liked, and no love for everything in between. Pearl said nothing as she climbed onto the bike, revving it to a start as quietly as one can rev a motorcycle.

She actually understood how someone could live with the Lapis she'd been talking with before. That Lapis was relaxed, intelligent, given to bursts of fancy that could almost seem kind. It made more sense than what Pearl had imagined barn life was like; that Peridot had incredible, as-of-yet-unseen patience saved explicitly and exclusively for one single person. But no. It seemed Peridot's patience was of an entirely different kind; the patience to endure the swings of emotion and hard-headedness of someone who should know better, under the assurance that they'd be back to the person you fell-

Well. The person you learned to care for. However many years or decades and however many partners they went through, you knew they'd be back.

That kind of patience? Stars, could Pearl understand that.

"We might need to hide a few more times before we get there."
"I don't care." Lapis said, wrapping her arms around Pearl's waist. "Just get there."

Lapis obviously couldn't understand.

By the time they reached the high streets, the sky was past sunset and into the lightest blacks of night. Street lights flickered to life, highlighting lone people waiting for buses as Pearl drove by. Lapis craned her head over Pearl's shoulders and searched for glimmers of purple-gold among the alleys. It was a fruitless effort; in a city with thousands of shadowy corners, if Peacock didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be. This Lapis probably knew, but Pearl didn't bother to remind her. Focused as she was, Lapis' demeanor was alert, her disposition was... quiet, and her grip was a bit looser, all three things Pearl could appreciate. Their only hope was to find a trail of evidence on Peacock at the mall, assuming they didn't find her herself.

Now, once they did find her? Well. Pearl had only a few ideas. She suspected Lapis had many, which was even worse.

"I've messaged her, you know."
"Why?"
"I thought she might..." Pearl bobbed her head. "Respond?"
"Did you think you were getting her back with a phone call?"
"I... thought it would help." Pearl said, feeling it was a bad idea to bring it up in the first place.
"Pearl. She abandoned us. You're not getting her back without giving her a good reason."
"Abandoned. That's... well. I'm sure there's some explanation for it. I mean, it's Garnet! She doesn't do these things, and neither does Peridot. We have to be reasonable."

Their artificially hot breath wafted against them as the space where it was became the space were they were, and fractions of a second later, where they had been. Pearl ducked as she took a corner dangerously quickly; they were low on time, and wanted anyway.

"You're not driving very reasonable."
"You can't drive!" Pearl shrieked through the wind.
"Doesn't look like you can either."

Pearl sighed, and drew her eyes up from the road to straight ahead. She could see a clearing where the buildings grew sparse and the roads grew dense. A sure sign they were getting close; humans loved putting congested roads by important things, including other congested roads. They were open now though. It was too late, and the mall was probably nearing closing - hopefully they could catch Peacock on the way out.

But something else was weighing on her mind.

"What did you mean-" She began, quietly "-'Giving her a good reason.'"
Lapis tilted her head up and looked far away. She wasn't looking for Peacock.
"Lapis?"
"How close is the ocean here?"
"Lapis." Pearl hissed seriously. "There's humans here. Don't you dare."
"She's not going to come home unless we force her to."

The engine hummed between her thighs as they took another, particularly sharp turn. A rush of evening air blew past their ears and turned their skin cool. Lapis' grip tightened slightly. Pearl looked over her shoulder.

"We're not-"
"We're here."

Pearl's eyes widened and she spun around, riding down a small stone ramp and turning the bike violently. They slid sideways, a slender stream of dust trailing by their wheels. The smoke expanded into a pale cloud behind them as they rocked to a stop. They'd managed to avoid a collision with a lamp post and the two cars parked behind it. Lapis was first off, standing to face the looming, blocky shape of the mall, so monolithic after all they'd been through to get there. Pearl blinked at the sight of it all.

"That's..." Pearl muttered.
"So this isn't normal, right?" Lapis asked, the dark determination from earlier replaced with idle curiosity.
"No." Pearl shook her head. "Certainly not."

All across the side of the mall, criss-crossing between ballards and hastily assembled safety cones, there were lines of tape. Thin plastic diagonally striped with white and blue. They stretched some ten feet across, pushing any passersby - the few still loitering by the car park - off the curb and into the road. There were three areas cordoned off entirely, all centered around large holes in the wall, surrounded by something gray and shiny. It was hard to tell what from the other end of the lot, but it didn't look decorative.

"'Pol... Police Line. Do... Not Cross.'" Lapis attempted, reading aloud.
"Oh, no." Pearl drawled openly. "Peacock, what did you do?"
"I don't see any chalk outlines."
"Lapis!" Pearl chided. "How do you even -"

Looking around, Pearl realized Lapis was right. Not about the chalk outlines. Well, yes, about them, but about something else too; there wasn't much going on. No lines of police cars, no investigators and forensic teams assembled to figure out how someone could - as far as the humans were concerned - plant so many bombs while going unnoticed. If Peacock had wanted to cause that kind of damage, she could have. Forget about punching holes; she could've knocked walls down if she was anywhere as strong as Garnet's typical fusions. Plus, Peacock was no Sugilite - she was more of a Sunstone, which was troublesome in its own ways, but not an active structural risk to any nearby building.

She wasn't looking to cause an emergency; what Peacock had caused was just run-of-the-mill chaos. She might end up with a newspaper if she was lucky.

"I... suppose you're right; there'd certainly be a bigger fuss if she'd done something... well. If she'd done something."
But what did she do?
The train of thought was killed as Lapis - in the same inflection one would ask 'Is this the friend you've told me so much about?' - asked "Aren't these people after us?"
"The police?" Pearl looked up, then her eyes widened. "Oh, police! We should leave."

The corner of Lapis' lip twitched, and Pearl braced for some terrible argument. Holding her arms, Lapis slung her legs over the bike and mumbled a "Right."

"Ah... 'right'?" Pearl echoed, dumbstruck.
"She's not here. If she was, I'd know - she can't exactly keep a low profile."

Pearl's head snapped up and Lapis lazily looked over her shoulder.

"Hey, ladies!" Called an officer a few dozen feet away. "Mall's closed. This is a private incident and-"
"Yeah." Lapis said, gripping Pearl by the shoulder. "Drive."
"But I want to learn about-"
"Yeah, I bet they'll tell us a lot." Lapis leaned forward until the tips of their noses were practically touching. "She's checking our plates. Drive."
"Ah, right!"

Pearl spun around and wordlessly stepped on the gas, kicking up a cloud of grit and dust behind them. The sound of a roaring engine overtook the sound of shouting police.

A few hours passed. It was in the fullness of night now, down to the flies swarming beneath street lights.

The engine quietly hummed to a stop, Pearl climbing off and settling it against a brick wall. She locked it - for all that was worth - and turned to Lapis walking away.

"Nothing new?" Pearl asked, brows rubbing together with acute concern.
"You think that'll hide it?" Lapis asked in return, tilting her head towards the knee-high grass Pearl was creeping through. Her eyes were half-lidded and arms crossed standoffishly, if, indeed, Lapis could ever be described as anything but standoffish.
"Well, it's the best we can do. I can hardly take it to a garage - I imagine humans check those places."
"Do you know?"
"No." Pearl admitted. "But humans aren't stupid. We have to take the risk - hopefully it won’t get stolen."

Despite all, she thought to herself.

"Uh-huh. Not really my problem.”

”But if we want to get around-“

”If you want to keep following me, it might be yours."
"Bringing me along was your idea" was something Pearl was not the type to say, as she wasn't the type to kick beehives or stand in the middle of a storm drenched in water holding a lightning rod. Instead she said "You didn't answer. Has Peacock posted... anything?"
"No. I'm tired. Let's check in - and your girlfriend won’t mind all the scratches you’re putting in her bike, right?"

Pearl swallowed. Ah. Yes. This was Sheena’s bike - not something that had spontaneously manifested - and she would have to… return it some day. To Sheena. Probably by hand, with an explanation of why it was used as part of several crimes.

Lapis turned the corner, walking into the terrible, artificial lights that seemed to decorate every motel in the state. Pearl huffed once she knew she was out of earshot. Lapis' attitude had been deteriorating for hours by then, ever since she first laid eyes on the shut mall. To call Lapis moody would be... well, accurate, but this was especially bad.

"Wait." Pearl followed after Lapis, raising a finger indignantly. It could've been a trick of the light, but there seemed to be circles under her eyes. "We'll need money. These sorts of places ask for payment up front."
”What a dump."

Lapis was standing in the fluorescent light of the motel lot. They'd ended up in the downtown, downtrodden area of the city, marked by cracked pavement and cheap places for those with the urge to go inside rather than be caught out after dark. That urge is called the self-preservation instinct. To either side of Lapis there was a staircase leading up to a second floor, which Pearl would've preferred to get, because it's harder to hear the Noises. But, frankly, any room would be good, so long as they took cash and didn't ask questions.

Pearl tapped her gem and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply as she reached far back into her mind. A bright white cone of light sprung from it and began to thicken, slowly morphing into a bulbous sphere, then a bumpy cuboid, and all at once, it was a travel bag falling before her. She caught it by the strap and slung it over her back, nodding to Lapis as they approached the reception area.

The 'lobby' was a room that seemed to be trapped in some sort of seventies time bubble, clean wood panelling, leopard print carpets, lava lamps, and all. A short woman with half-moon glasses bent over a computer. It was easily the most modern thing they'd seen in the building. It might've even been released in the eighties, maybe early nineties, and in a pinch could be used to bludgeon someone to death better than any modern laptop.

Pearl approached with a polite smile, though knowing it was neither required nor expected, and after the day she'd had, it was a bit weak. The woman at the counter didn't even try.

"Hello." She said with a voice that seemed to come entirely from her throat. "Overnight room for two?"
Pearl looked over her shoulder at Lapis, who was standing in the open doorway without so much as a shiver. Pearl nodded. "Yes, please."
The woman leaned over her table and squinted into her screen, flipping open a notebook full of barely legible handwriting. "There's one room available for tonight. Leftmost on the second floor."
"Only one?"
She lurched up in her seat. "Only one."

With a prized calm that could make a stone seem expressive, Pearl tapped her fingers on the counter top. She controlled the voice in her mind, directing her thoughts with immense care, constructing a repeating mantra that pounded other thoughts underhoof. It went-

"Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds, Two beds-"

"Two beds." The woman said knowingly.

"OH THANK THE STARS."

"Oh, of course." She said politely. "Now about payment..."

Pearl dropped the strap down her arm, rifling through the contents. She looked up. She looked to the right. She looked to the left. She sighed. She heaved the bag up, opened the zip, and dumped out the contents. Some several hundred bundles of cash rolled to the front like popcorn in a half-empty bucket tipped onto its side. The woman looked at it wordlessly, squinting and slipping a handful of notes from beneath the band. She held them up to the light, fixing her glasses and angling them expertly. She'd obviously done this many, many times before, something Pearl wasn't sure she was supposed to be able to tell.

She took a handful of wads and stuffed them into a shoebox beneath the table. She looked at the offering thoughtfully. Took a few handfuls more. Then another few. Then reached out, stopped, thought, and slipped a single bundle from the bag like one pinches another row of chocolate from the fridge. Pearl pulled the bag back and lifted its significantly lesser weight over her shoulder.

"Enjoy yourselves. Please be mindful of the other residents." The woman sunk back into her seat, though looked up one last time before the two left. "That means keep it quiet - don't enjoy yourselves too much."
"O-of course." Pearl assured, gesturing to Lapis, who slipped away and allowed Pearl to close the doors behind her.
Lapis looked to Pearl as they climbed the stairs. "What was that about?"
Pearl shook her head. "I have no idea."

The room was exactly as luxurious as they'd expected. It was a perfectly functional bedroom, with four walls, two beds, one bathroom that smelled tolerable if you closed the door, and extremely thick blackout blinds. There was even a small TV on a table, seemingly bought a few years before the receptionist's computer. The room was absolutely nothing more.

Pearl hit the bed. The bed hit her back.

"Ah!" She hissed.

'Absolutely nothing more' included - apparently - the softness included with mattresses, pillows, silk, for example. They didn't seem to be made for actually sleeping on, which even by Pearl's basic understanding of human needs, didn't seem right. At least the sheets had been freshly washed. Pearl decided not to interrogate that further.

Lapis climbed into her bed without complaint. Of course she did. They both lay their heads on their pillows and stared up at the ceiling, a wordless, fog-thick silence descending upon the two as they weren't so much freed from the weight of the day as allowed to bathe in it. They both had an immense amount to think about, Pearl was sure, but in the moment it seemed hard to focus on anything at all, besides counting the cracks in the ceiling and trying to read Lapis' expression from the corner of her eye. It was impeccably stoic. Even Pearl on her best days would struggle to match that.

It was quiet.

Quiet.

"Well." Pearl finally said. "I suppose you should... sleep."
"Oh, I'm getting there." Lapis said.
"Yes. I've... heard it can take time."
"Yep."

Pearl had slept a few times. At least two - maybe even three times. But she'd never really learned the ritual behind it.

Huh.

One thing she'd never been told - however - was about this 'circadian rhythm' she'd learned about upon some further research. Apparently, if you slept enough, it became a requirement to sleep a certain amount of hours at a certain time each day, or else you'd suffer grave physical and mental consequences. Cravings for sleep, blurred vision, loss of motor control, shakes, chills, eventual collapse when things got their worst. It all sounded... well, it sounded like an addiction to her, but apparently it was fine and Lapis could stop any time she wanted.

This 'rhythm' was justification enough to pull into a motel for the night - that, and Pearl was rather worried about being the sole drivers on a mostly empty road when they're already wanted. Pearl was left alone with her thoughts. That's where she'd wanted to be since this trip started that morning, but she was beginning to wish she were anywhere else.

Half an hour passed. Light rushed across the room as a car drove by. Pearl's eyes stared - wide and unblinking - at the ceiling.

"... Lapis?" Pearl whispered quietly.
No response.
"... Hello, Lapis?" She repeated, a bit louder.
No response.
"Asleep." Pearl noted, sighing.

With no one to talk to, Pearl began to talk to herself.

Somewhere else.

Somewhere far away, but very close by. Somewhere she hadn't been in a while, but somewhere she'd been spending all of her time.

That's where Lapis was.

An endless, viscous sheet of blackness covered the sky, patches of lightness shifting formlessly across it. Distorted cracks warped the space like a finger pressed against the universe's TV screen. Strange, bulbous shapes bulged and sagged through it, as if the things behind the screen were eager to get out. It all looked like what one sees when they close their eyes and try to focus on the spots of purple-green.

Beneath the sky was the place ships went when it was time to die. A vast, flat plain of ice, as endless as the sky and as richly blue as the sky was inky black. It seemed as if it'd once been a swirling, living ocean, which in a moment, for no particular reason, froze over. A few coarse rocks burst from the sheet, stretching high into the air as the cold crept along its base. For all its size, it was a thin sheet, with small seams forming constantly along its surface as a Thing moved beneath it.

Like a plump chrysalis ready to burst open.

The Thing was looking at her. Lapis knew it.

Despite all this, the air wasn't cold. It wasn't hot, or temperate, or wet, or dry. It was as if the particles in the air didn't dare to move, leaving the space clear, clean, and vacant. It felt like silk on Lapis' skin. A silent gust of wind blew through her hair, sending streaks through it and proving that - despite all - the space did have air. It was just a very cautious air; the breath was holding itself.

At a stomach-dropping angle only seen at the edge of sheer cliffs, she saw the rock stretch downwards. Downwards. Further, further, and on, and on, for miles, into a sheet of endless ice she knew was really within arm's reach. She was dizzy, living through the closest thing to shortness of breath a Gem could, her dress tapering under the silent wind. The air was stolen from her nonexistent lungs and beats skipped in her nonexistent heart. Dazed, she could only look forward, eyes half-lidded and expression sedated. The view seemed to stretch forever, and there, at the very top of forever, stood Lapis.

"You want it again, don't you?"
"To feel the lightning again, to feel the rush, to feel all that?"
"You want to think that way again. Oh, how did those thoughts go?

"This world is beautiful."

"It can be whatever I like."

"It can become my home; I can make it so."

"Perhaps, there's a place here for me."

"Perhaps-" the voice heightened until it was a mocking sing-song. Childish. Taunting. Like it was reading out the embarrassing secrets written on her soul "-it's not so bad, after all?"

The voice laughed, and it echoed forever.

"But you nearly enjoyed it again. Nearly bathed in it. Not because you took it - it was given to you. No, no, you'd never take it. You're too scared."

Lapis spun around, head lagging behind her body and nearly sending her toppling over the edge into forever. It felt like water was sloshing in her skull. Her feet slid out from under her and she nearly screamed, the voice dying halfway up her throat and instead coming out as a guttural, surprised gasp. She rolled over, trying to find purchase in the warped everspace, and just as she was a million billion miles from it before, she was inches from the ice now. Her hands shivered near the edges. It felt... good.

She felt awake. Alive. Thoroughly overpowered. Pushed from her own mind, where she couldn't hurt herself. She could feel her own body as one big, phantom limb, shivering above the ice, aware and hypersensitive. She turned her palm over and stared as it shook before her eyes.

"You're too afraid to use what you have. Take my hand - I'll give you exactly what you need."

The ice cracked. Four, narrow slits formed beneath the surface, and Lapis was reminded of a lifetime beneath the ocean. A lifetime of pressure, and cold, and fighting, and shouting, and chains, and she went to yell, and her mouth was full of ocean water.

Her again?
Coward.

"It just doesn't make any sense."

Lapis awoke to those words. It was the kind of frozen, waking start where your body is both completely paralyzed and hyperalert, eyes already wide open before your vision has even cleared. It was a type of start made to save you from predators in the jungle trying to make an easy meal of sleeping prey.

"What doesn't?" Lapis said, setting her jaw so the way her teeth grinded wasn't so obvious.
"Oh!" Pearl gasped, sitting up quickly and looking at Lapis. "Lapis. You're awake. Um... for.... how... long?"

Finally able to sit up without her body urging her to leap off the bed and through the window, Lapis sat up. She rubbed her forehead, shaking her sweat-slicked hair clean - sweat was a mostly novel feeling for Lapis. She'd narrowly avoided so much mortal peril - and come out worse for wear despite that so many times - that it took a threat far greater than simple death to shake her. Dying is easy. Anyone can do it. Most do. It took something special to put sweat in Lapis' hair.

And she still hadn't answered Pearl. Right. Her whole body going limp as it recovered from the metaphorical adrenaline car crash that was waking up in that state, she turned lazily to Pearl. Her eyes glowed slightly, half-moon nightlights in the darkness. "Long enough."

That was a good answer. It obviously worked on Pearl.

"Right, well." She said sheepishly. "I've... I'm... honestly." She gave up all pretext. "I just want your thoughts. Y-you don't have to give many. Just... maybe we can make it make sense?"

Oh, Pearl, Lapis thought. You really are clueless, aren't you?

"This seems like a you thing."
"But it involves you - it involves Peridot, at least." Lapis subtly perked up at Pearl's name dropping. "And you do know more about her than I do, despite all the uh... bluster, this afternoon."
"Maybe not everything there is. But yeah." Lapis said frankly. "I do know more. Go on."
"I mean, you're agreeing with me it simply doesn't make sense, right?"

Ah, yes. In actuality, Lapis had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. She'd almost fooled herself there. But she was awake now, and the final grains of the just-woken-up dream logic had drained away. She... didn't feel quite like sleeping again, for whatever reason.

"Start from the beginning. It'll... make more sense."

Pearl rested her cheek on her fist. "It doesn't make any sense on the face of it! Yes, fusions can get... carried away every now and then. But only over something they're very passionate about. Peridot running away I can't blame..." Her voice slowly trailed off as she felt Lapis' eyes on her, but she pushed forward, knowing that it was far too late in the sentence to end it there. "... I can understand her thought processes. But Garnet? She's never been like this. It's so... irresponsible for her to run away like this."
"She's the responsible Crystal Gem, right?" Lapis said, as if describing the personality of pets playing in a pen.
"Well." Pearl began, mildly offended. "I wouldn't go that far, but she's always been... the mediating voice. She always let herself and us get carried away too much to be 'the responsible one', but, when we got in over our heads, she was always there to pull us back. The leader is the responsible one. She was always just... well-balanced."
Lapis shrugged. It seemed as though she should be flipping a coin. "She looks like the leader to me."
"No, no, that's... well." The weight of millennia caught up with Pearl. It was the feeling of remembering something as recent, then suddenly realizing that happened close to a decade ago. Only stretched over a lifetime a few thousand times longer. "She's taken the leadership role - she's the acting leader. She has been for as long as Steven's been with us, ever since... Rose..."
"Shattered." Lapis said, with no intonation.
"No." Pearl snapped, faster than she'd have liked.

She looked at Lapis and realized no one had ever filled her in - she'd never even asked, and neither had Peridot. What a thoroughly bizarre idea of history they must have, patched together from half-understood conversations and vague implication. Pearl filed it away in the gigantic folder of things to smooth over with Lapis sometime between now and never.

"I mean... not quite. It's... well. It's all a lot to go into. But she's not around anymore, and Steven is, and Garnet took over to help while we... adjusted."

They'd been 'adjusting' for fourteen years. Ostensibly, that was very little time for a Gem. But it had felt long, even to them. As long as any centuries-spanning conflict or millennia in hiding. Earth - and especially humanity - had a way of making you play catch-up with time.

"So who helped her?"
"What?" Pearl blinked.
"Who helped Garnet? She's been around as long as you and Amethyst, right? She should care about Rose Quartz as much."
"Well." Pearl cleared her throat clerically. "She's never really needed help. Rose's... passing, was difficult for her, but, it was difficult for all of us. She's always picked herself up quickly; she has herself for that. That's enough."
"I guess not."
Pearl mouthed something, then stopped. Her brows knitted together, and then she fell back, seemingly far back, against the headboard. "What do you mean?"
"I mean-" Lapis began with some shortness in her tone, as if spelling out something simple. "- That she wanted to get away from it all? She fuses with someone who wants to run away, she runs away with them. So she must have wanted to. Seems obvious."
"But she would never. She's always so worried about us."
"This must be her finally taking a break from worrying."

In that moment - and Pearl felt absurd for making the connection - Lapis seemed like Amethyst. Really. She was a calmer Amethyst, a more collected Amethyst, an Amethyst who seemed to have a very short list of things she was willing to tolerate and a very long list of things she was forced to, but still. Her simple A-to-B logic and frankly infuriatingly simple way of speaking rang true, like all of Amethyst's streetwise wisdom was distilled, mixed with spite, and shaken. A lot.

"Come on." Lapis started, tired of waiting for Pearl to put it together herself. "It's not like just because she's a fusion, all of her problems are going to go away. I've never talked to her. I don’t know what it's like to be her. but I've fused. It doesn’t just fix all your problems."
Pearl stared at Lapis and quickly propped herself up on one elbow, as if preparing to hop out of bed and sprint out the door. She stared at the sheets. "She had no time to grieve."
"Yeah."
"She's been stepping up this entire time..."
"Because she has to wrangle you idiots."
"No one ever asked...."
"Yeah, you didn't. Must suck to be her."
"Lapis!" Pearl had the mind to admonish her for it, though she obviously wasn't all there, because she should've known by now that admonishing Lapis was like telling off a brick wall.
"I'm not wrong."
"You don't have to..." Pearl muttered, then tried again. "You don't have to be so rude about it."

Head snapping up, Lapis stared forward, then slowly turned her head to Pearl. Pearl tried to hold eye contact but broke first - very few people could stare down Lapis and win. Her gaze fell to the sheets again. She bit her lip and let herself stew in mild embarassment for a while. Yes, perhaps 'you're mean' wasn't the most mature response to all this, but she wasn't sure where to begin.

Garnet had never expressed any problems in the wake of Rose's death - none more than the bare minimum, anyway. Like the rest of them, she spent a few weeks mourning, locked away inside her room and occasionally meeting together in the skeleton of what would become the beach house. She talked about nothing. She shared stories. She even cried when things got really bad. Pearl supposed she thought that was the end of it; the completely stoic Garnet shedding not just one or two tears from beneath her visor, but openly crying. Pearl must've filed it away at the time as a problem solved - stars knew she was in far too much of a state back then to think about it further. But she reopened that issue. Of all the things she thought over the years that she could've, should've, would've done differently, she never thought about this.

Because it was just that, wasn't it? Garnet never expressed any problems, because Garnet hardly ever expressed anything. How deliberately had she done it? How carefully must she have crafted her mask, how precisely must she have measured her attitude, so that as one of the two gems who'd known her since she was made, Pearl would think Garnet was fine when the other gem was gone? That she could just 'figure it all out' inside of herself, that Ruby and Sapphire sitting on her shoulder were enough to make all the problems go away? As if two people talking could just make it all better in a matter of weeks.

Pearl's mind - her wonderfully ordered mind, with millennia of experience neatly stacked, labelled, and filed away like paperwork - searched for times where the mask slipped. Where even once, Garnet might've said she wanted help, might've implied she needed it. She didn't find much. Many assurances that 'they were all a team' and 'needed each other', yes, but Pearl had always taken those as white lies, because 'I don't actually need you two, but get along now' isn't a slogan that promotes teambuilding. She was very unsure in the old memories - the very, very old memories, when her colors were split clean down the middle, as was her mind. She wasn't herself then. Was there even one time in recent memory where it felt like Garnet couldn't take on the world on her own?

Sometimes, I look to you for strength.

Yes.

There was one time.

There was the sound of shifting silk, and Lapis looked out of the corner of her eye to the hunched shape of Pearl. She was dragging her hand across her cheek, tugging the corner of her eye down and letting her jaw hang slack.

"Oh, Garnet." She drawled.

If Lapis had a newspaper, she would've opened it loudly and tutted. Instead, she rolled over and dug the side of her face into her pillow.

"I'm going... I'm going to try and sleep."
"Yes. I think that's... I think that's best. I need to think" Pearl nodded. "Sweet dreams, I suppose."
"... Yeah."

Notes:

THE DEED IS DONE.
As of this chapter, this fic has officially reached one hundred thousand words! Funny thing too, because this week is "sort of" it's one year anniversary. The first chapter was initially written as a standalone in November of last year, but the first few paragraphs were written mid-October. I only really started working on it again late January of this year, though - nine months, a hundred thousand words, not bad.
This chapter was very fun. I feel like the me who was writing this back in January would've struggled a lot more and made a significantly worse product than the me of today. Who's to say what the me of tomorrow will be able to do?
Occasionally I have the slightly odd idea to write a “commentary” of sorts on this fic that would just be me talking through my thought processes and the “behind the scenes” of each chapter in this fic, and if I ever do that, this chapter will have quite the story.

Chapter 23: The Big City, Part III: Puparium

Summary:

Lapis talks to herself.
Pearl watches TV.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

She was there again. Somewhere far away, but very close by.

Lapis' legs shook like a startled gazelle. Her cold, bare feet groped at the rock beneath, searching for patches of bare silvery stone not dusted with ice. She gasped - lungs filled with frozen, dead un-air - and stepped back, finding just enough unfrozen earth to get a foothold. The awful perspective was back; she allowed her head to snap back for just a moment, and the space between her eyes and the endless sheets of ice before her seemed to grow by a factor of a few thousand.

Throwing her arms out, Lapis' looked about her, clenching a fist as if preparing to bring a knife down into the next soft body she saw. The black expanse above swirled as all the fuzzy, purple-green blotches gathered about. The sky rumbled. It wasn't happy with her.

”Come out,” she tried and failed to say.

Lapis repeated the words to herself. Her head lurched forward as she attempted to bring them out, stopping as her throat refused to cave. She went to step forward and nearly tumbled off her rocky perch and into the frozen sea - it was no more than a few feet of space, and there were thousands of miles stuffed inside.

A pebble skipped down the side, made loose by the edge of Lapis' foot as it steadied itself on a dew of brine. "Come out." She finally managed, shocked at how quietly the words left her. She bit her lip and tried again. "Come out!"

That place had no wind - Without air to coolly blow through the darkness, without tide to send it on its way - but Lapis' dress billowed between her legs as if she were in a clifftop storm. Without wind, air, or tide, the sound of something moving sent Lapis' ear twitching. It was something far away. Something heavy. Something getting closer.

Lapis looked over her shoulder. That was a mistake.

There was a great, brittle smashing, like a car through fairy glass. The rock beneath Lapis' feet rocked and her knees buckled. As she swung around, she was sprayed with cupfuls of water and bucketfuls of ice. It carried on for dozens of feet into the air, coming down as the first ever rain in a world with neither clouds nor a sun. The dark silhouette of Lapis wobbled at the base of the spout, a second shape lurched out from the crack in the ice beneath, and Lapis collapsed into it.

Hacking up salt water, Lapis wiped her wrist against her mouth. Eyes half-lidded and heavy, she looked up as a trickle of dark blue made its way down her chin. Her eyes focused and the two endless frozen sheets she saw began to blend, focusing into one coherently impossible image. Rising weakly to her knees, Lapis looked down into the trembling space where the bulge of her legs gave way to the slack of her dress. She saw it there, just beneath her legs; there was a shape in the water.

There wasn't much water for it to be in - just spots no thicker than a wrist, fighting for space in the slush. That great big something there in the water had done it. She hadn't seen it, but she knew. It had punched a massive hole in the surface only to be yanked back beneath again. In its absence, the ice was able to heal or - at least - to scar. And now the thing was looking at her.

Lapis lifted a limp, shaking arm from her lap. Her eyes widened wildly as she pointed into the still water.

"You're trapped." She whispered. "You're trapped here." She hissed between her teeth. "You can't do anything. Somehow you're here. But you can't..."

"Ooh, we're confident." Came a voice like silk across glass. It was beneath the water - coming from the Thing - but it was as clear as if it was spoken into her ear. "But, then, why not? You'd know how to tie a fusion down, wouldn't you?"

Lapis' eyes narrowed, and then, she nearly screamed. She went to move - went to stand, went to back away, went to do anything. Vesuvianite moved first.

Sharp digits burst from the water, sending specks of slush and icy water flying into the air. Time seemed to slow, the endless sleepy vertigo of that place passed, and in that moment, Lapis was extremely aware, extremely awake, and completely paralyzed. She watched as thumb-thick boughs of sleet rushed past her cheek, as sluggish and inexorable as if they were icebergs. She'd managed to leap back a few inches before Vesuvianite's hands caught her.

It was by the side of the head, where the soft smoothness of her blue face hardened around her scalp and solidified at its sides. Prime real estate for grabbing, holding, digging nails into, but still, still, close enough to the front that Vesuvianite's long, twiggy thumbs could press into Lapis' cheeks. That they could trace up the molded shape of her false cheekbones and into the valley where her eyes sloped towards her nose. That those thin, dextrous digits could push, and dig, and tug her eyelid down, until the underside of Lapis' eyes were bare and exposed to the cool un-air in the endless un-place. Lapis' tiny irises twitched like a moth around a lightbulb as they stared downward - not far downward, not down forever, not on for miles and miles as she stood warped at the top of some rock - but downward feet, a matter of a few dozen inches, where the Thing - where Vesuvianite - was.

It was all very real and all very grounded, which felt so disturbing in a place like that - it was like a dream suddenly gaining rigid logic right at the moment your teeth were falling out. Lapis knew Vesuvianite was there, mere inches below the surface, and she was holding her with all four hands. All four paired hands, hands that sprouted from single wrists like twinflowers. Vesuvianite was holding her, and speaking to her, and then, then, it came... it came to Lapis. It came to her quickly, but in her mind, the realization unfurled slowly, as slowly as the sleet had flew by her now-wide eyes moments before.

That was all Vesuvianite was doing.

It was not a rough grip. It was not a painful, uncomfortable clawing at the sides of her scalp. Lapis turned her head slowly to the right, and then experimentally to the left, and Vesuvianite moved with her along the way. She didn't so much as pull her hair. It was gentle. Soft. It felt like all of that power - and there was so, so much power in there - was wrapping around her, clothing her, bathing her, but not entering her. Protecting her. It... it felt like having her hair gently stroked while she slept.

"Let-" She started, quickly and quietly. No. She had to be calm if she wanted this to work. She had to be commanding.

"Let go of me."

"Oh, but I can't do that."

Softly - again, as softly as silk against glass - Vesuvianite's fingers fell down Lapis' features. Across the bulge of her cheeks, down the shape of her jaw, and stopping only momentarily beneath her chin. Vesuvianite appreciated what was in her grasp for a moment, and then, let go. Lapis' head lolled forward as it took on weight she didn't remember it having. She had to fight the call to lean forward and let her head rest in those hands again.

"But you did." Lapis shook her head, shuffling away from the water's edge, her confidence in that mattering thoroughly shaken.

"You're smarter than that. I can't let go of you - I'm you, as you are me. I'm still holding you, even now."

Lapis tried to consider this. She found it... extremely difficult. As a matter of fact, it was extremely difficult to do nearly anything where she was; it was a constant fight, both internally and externally, to stay upright. She found her back stooping and legs shaking, and multiple times - when her mind lapsed from concentration after a particularly deep thought - she had to catch herself from collapsing.

"So... you really are stuck." She finally managed, head wobbling atop her shoulders.

She awaited for Vesuvianite to speak. She never did. From what she remembered of Vesuvianite? That was maybe the most unusual part of all of this so far.

"How are you here? You're... a fusion."

"I've just told you - I'm you, you're me. Oh please, mon Pierre, don't act stupid; if anyone should know how a fusion can linger in the gem, it's you."

The hands - frozen as they were at their elbows, extending out from the endless ice sea like a piece of modern art - twisted, making grand, sweeping gestures far into the endless inky blackness. Lapis wrenched her head up, nearly collapsing under the weight of nausea, and stared into the horizon. She saw... lights. Shapes. Tendrils? No - there were chains. Watery, translucent chains, and something else. Something white. Something... oh, stars, hair. Massive plumes of white hair, arching about the horizon like the black silhouettes of sea weed in a tidal wave.

"This is my world, but she's always trying to make it her home. She has been since long, long before I was made."

For more than one reason, Lapis felt the exotic human urge to throw up. She looked down and tried to focus on something else. Anything else.

"So you're really Vesuvianite." She muttered.

"I wish I was - but then, who doesn't? No. Vesuvianite is Lapis and Peridot - you're just Lapis. And I - I'm just the pieces that are left behind."

"What do you want? Why do you keep... coming to me?"

"It's not about me - at least, not all about me. Nor is it all about you."

Lapis' eye twitched. "Are you being hard to talk to on purpose or is that just how you are?

"Well-" She began, with a cheeky, ghostly air "- you are a part of Vesuvianite."

"Stop talking like that and answer me."

"That's... a good idea. I'm afraid I'm short on time - you feel it too, don't you?"

It. As vague as Vesuvianite had been, Lapis had never understood someone more than when Vesuvianite mentioned it. She was sure it was different for a fusion than for herself - let alone one who spent most of her time here - but it was hard to imagine it being worse. Mostly because - as someone who'd lived a life that had provided many, many horrible experiences - Lapis could only pick a few things worse than it. It was a pulling, sinking sensation. It was a loss of heat that took the will along with the warmth, plucking impulses one-by-one and filling the empty space with a desire to simply give in. Lapis found herself constantly checking to make sure she wasn’t collapsing.

"Don’t give into it, whatever you do. When it happens to me, I at least have you to wake me up again. I had a certain someone else to do it too, but it seems I’ve been abandoned, for now. Of course, you don’t have anyone to wake you - I don’t care to think about what happens if you let it take you. But you’ve decided to come here again. So I’ll tell you what to do. Really, this is why I shouldn't talk to myself; you'll go mad."

Mad. Of course. Lapis looked down at her hand, and saw it shivering. That wasn't new, but it completed the package in her mind. Because not only was her body failing her - not only had one of the only good things in her entire, miserable existence gone and ran away - not only was she being spoken to by the remnants of the thing they had once been together. But her mind was failing her too. Fantastic.

No.

"I won't. I won't let some... some thing live in my head." Lapis - with a renewed strength she wasn't sure she had - balled her fist and dragged it across the stone. "This is the one place I have to myself. This is the only place I'm... I'm safe. I won't let you take it from me."

"Someone already has. Either way, if you really wanted that, you wouldn't be here. Neither would I."

"You say we don't have time, and you keep doing this-"

"Because I'm... ah. I'm not done. We really are running out of time. Sit down and shut up; I'm the smarter one here. You know that."

Lapis surpressed a snarl. "But I'm the only one who has power."

"Oh, is that right?" The water bubbled. "I've been here for longer than you know. I'm will - and will has power. I mean, you didn't seriously think that of all the oceans in all the world, and of all the shores, and of all the pieces of junk metal, those limb enhancers just happened to gravitate towards that shore, on that night, did you? And you thought it was luck..."

Lapis twitched. "What are you?"

“I'm the pieces of Vesuvianite left over - you're here with me now. And..."

The brittle sound of ice grinding against ice filled the endless expanse, and briefly, Lapis thought Vesuvianite might be escaping. But it became obvious - tracing the thin trails of ice creeping up her gradually less-and-less mobile arms as they stuck out of the ocean - that the ice was growing another layer. And then another. And then another.

Vesuvianite was being buried, and Lapis frozen. The shapes on the horizon grew larger.

"And that means - listen to me. That means, that you want to put my pieces together."

"You mean..." Lapis looked up and down the length of Vesuvianite's arms, and swore something was wrong with the sky. "You want me to fuse again? Of course you do! You're our fusion!"

“I don't care if you fuse, you idiot."

Lapis stumbled backwards, blinking.

"I'm the pieces of you that want Vesuvianite back together. But I don't care what you do. Simply... get our Percy back. Or she'll take over. And far worse things will happen to you than will happen to me, if that happens."

Lapis' eyes widened. Finally, as Vesuvianite's disembodied arms wriggled over the ice, frozen to immobility beneath the elbows, Lapis had realized what was wrong with the sky. Put simply; it was getting smaller. The infinite expanse of nothingness was shrinking into a very finite space. She could hear a grinding, as the glacial edges of the tundra mashed against the edges of the world and wore away. What had once been small, dancing shadows a thousand miles away were now gigantic, towering things on the rapidly approaching end of the world. It was hair.

So much had changed when they'd fused - their green skin belonging to neither of them, their eyes fighting for space on a sharp-toothed face, the awful, malformed body that both of them despised. But the hair - she could never change the hair. Something about Jasper even she couldn't corrupt.

This time, Lapis actually did throw up. It was pure salt water. Oh, please, she thought to herself. Anything, anything but Malachite now.

"Her, again? Oh, no, no. No-"

The ice shattered around Vesuvianite's arms, but the shape of her body - which Lapis noted, with mounting horror, she couldn't remember - didn't break free. Instead, there was a massive splash, and Vesuvianite was gone, not so much as a finger poking out from the gaping hole in the stagnant sheet. The world was small now. The end of the world was a few dozen feet away. It had four eyes, like billiard balls rolling into razor cuts.

The world grew smaller, and it finally took Lapis as she collapsed. The side of her head hit the gathering dew, her cheek immediately scaled by a splash of oily water that was in a moment a sheet of ice. Something inside her told her to sit up, to move, to so much as wriggle, but that seemed impossible. The air was so cold and her body so heavy, she couldn't imagine doing anything but laying there a while. Maybe forever. Her eyelid fell heavily over her vision, and it seemed the world was being swallowed by a dark, sideways horizon, before finally, Lapis closed her eyes for good.

As her hearing slowly faded to the same place her vision had gone, Lapis heard the sound of solidifying ice and frantic, scrambling hands beneath the ice. There were no clouds to gently drift snow, which was a shame - Lapis' body laying on its side, gently dappled with snow, would've been picturesque. It could've been in a museum, with a little plaque beneath it reading "Hide and die syndrome."

It was like being in the mirror all over again, and she admitted to herself, in the equivalent of her last few firing synapses, that she almost missed it inside there. There were lots of horrifying things in the outside world. Even worse; there were good things that could be taken from you.

Sorry, Peridot, she thought. You're happy with someone else now though. I might have to sleep this one out for a few... millennia... who knows? Maybe when I reform, it'll all be different, and no one will miss me... wouldn't be the first time...

...

"I know how much she cares about you, Lapis."
"Don't sulk, you pathetic thing!"

"Pearl?"

Lapis' eyes shot open and she rolled onto her back, arms cracking against the stone and sending a jolt of vitality through her frozen body. She sat up and felt a bed of ice break away from her, forming into loose crystals that clung to her body like lace. She looked up at the world and saw it bent at odd angles. It was as if the fabric of the world had been shoved into a bird cage, the bulging texture of the sky fighting for space in a world a thousand times smaller than what it was designed for. She was being watched.

Alright. Let her watch. Watch herself be replaced.

Lapis scrambled to her hands and knees, spinning around and scrambling hand-over-hand across the rock. What had once seemed so close was now an agonizing distance away, not aided by the pounding in her head and the bubbling in her throat, as if another bucket's worth of salt water was about to come up. Her vision blurred, and the world beneath her seemed to shake. She balanced, she stumbled, she fell. She tumbled forward, scraping her arms on the stone as she collapsed into a painful heap.

Her head was buried against her shoulder, and her eyes twitched as she tried to summon the same strength that had gotten her up in the first place. Were she able to bleed, it was certain her stomach would be leaving a dappled trail of red as it rose from the rock. She had to be close, she had to be, she was... her hair. Her hair was wet! It was dripping and heavy and the top of it was lolling behind the rest of her head, dipped in cool, icy water. Never had she been so happy to find her head cold and damp. With the last few drops of her strength, she raised a knee and heaved herself onto it.

Suddenly, Lapis felt nothing but cold, pure clarity - not cold like ice. Cold like steel.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and launched herself into the icy water.

Then, quiet.

Quiet.

There was no one speaking. No shifting of feet, no cracking of ice. There was no wind - as previously mentioned. There was just the nearly imperceptible sound of the edges of reality closing in.

There was a great, brittle smashing, like a car through fairy glass.

Through the water came a pair of hands. Hands that sprouted from single wrists like twinflowers. And around that wrist, there was a small, blue hand, yanking it up out of the ice and towards the sky.

Lapis woke with her eyes shut. She kept them that way for a long time.

Her bed was not especially warm. But that was alright - you know, relativism and all that.

Though it was true that Gems don't biologically need sleep, they can get groggy with the best of them. Lapis had woken with a horrendous headache, hovering in the space between wakefulness and sleep where only a few thoughts can enter your mind, and they certainly can't leave it. She might normally have gone back to sleep, but there was something inside of her now that absolutely wouldn't let her. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong - besides the obvious. With the slow but sure tempo of a castle gate, she opened her eyes.

Lapis met Pearl's eyes as the latter leaned over her, obviously not sure whether she should leap away or stay as still as possible.

"Were you... watching me sleep?"
"Um. No."
Lapis looked at Pearl. Pearl looked at Lapis. Pearl looked at the sheets. Pearl looked at the floor.
"Alright. Just for a while. It's... a habit, and since Steven and Amethyst have both been gone..." Pearl turned her head sideways. "Garnet normally humors me on these things but... well."
Lapis smiled, then rolled over. "Used to it, somehow."
Pearl stuttered. "I - really? Alright then…” Pearl stood up and quickly shuffled away.
Lapis continued to smile to herself, looking down at her chest. "Hey, Pearl?"
"Yes?"
"Are you alright?"
"Um." Pearl froze, looking over her shoulder. She feigned thinking hard. "... Yes. All things considered."
"Pearl. If there's anyone you can say the world sucks to, it's me."
Now this hard thinking, Pearl didn't have to feign. "Alright. I'm... things could be better."
"They suck."
"... Yes, I suppose they do 'suck."

Pearl dared to smile. It was small, but there.

They spent the next few minutes in silence. That is to say, they, personally, were silent; the apartment was not. There was the ambient noises of the world outside, some of which were familiar - rustling leaves, chirping birds, hungry animals - but some that were much more novel - cars, horns, strange words shouted out of windows which made Pearl behave awkwardly. That's not even factoring in the noises surrounding the apartment; people were waking up, it seemed, and some of them were doing it in an awful mood. The morning's small talk - the social equivalent of coffee - was Pearl telling Lapis about all the odd sounds she heard while the latter slept. People did the strangest things to their beds!

The final sound in the gradually rising cacophony of what Lapis was beginning to understand as 'city life' was their TV. It was set to such a low volume Lapis could hardly hear it even in the quietest moments, but Pearl could tell her what they were talking about at a moment's notice. So it was that in the midst of a by-all-accounts rather friendly silence, Pearl's head suddenly snapped up. She grabbed the remote and frantically pressed the well-worn 'volume up' button, with eventual success.

"Lapis. Look at this."

Pearl leaned her head towards the TV. Through all the crunched pixels, Lapis could see a news reporter standing in front of the mall from the day before, speaking in clinical, well-practiced tones. The camera quickly cut away to pan across the side of the building. The police tape was still there, and a few police were loitering around.

"... At six PM last night, the pair entered the building and used the stolen cash to buy luxury clothing and accessories. When some concerned stores refused, the clothes were taken by force. Mall security was unable to safely handle the situation, and the pair escaped. It's not yet known how the pair were able to breach the machines, and local law enforcement has refused to comment."

"Ah." Pearl sighed, with grim resignation. "Alright then. That would... explain some things."
"So she stole from a store?"
"Garnet and Amethyst both do just... take things, sometimes. They've been getting better. Through trial-and-error. But they still get carried away sometimes. They don't really understand that you can't just take things because you have the money for them."
"Peridot just pays people in solid gold." Lapis shrugged, having barely a concept of human currency, but still enough to know people didn't usually do that. She saw the flicker of recognition in Pearl's eyes, and smiled.
"She's done this multiple times!?" Pearl shrieked.

"This may be related to two suspected incidents of grand theft auto in Beach City and Ocean Town. The first-"

The camera switched to a picture of the beaten-up electric car they passed on the way here.

"- a van belonging to the mayor of Beach City, found abandoned on the side of the A90 on Sunday. On the same road later that day was the second vehicle presumed stolen - a motorcycle driven by two unidentified women. This vehicle was later reported on the outskirts of the mall, driving away before police could arrive on the scene. No direct connection between the robbery and the two thefts have been made, and despite attempts, police have been unable to contact the owner of the motorcycle."

"Some officials have speculated the three incidents are part of a coordinated criminal operation."

"Well. I suppose the motorcycle’s out - we’ll be recognized." Pearl sighed, steeping her fingers as she sat on the edge of Lapis' bed.
"It worked for us last time, and we were wanted then too.”
Pearl shook her head. "Last time was yesterday - things seem to have changed a lot. Really, how can you sleep? You miss so much."
"You see some things you wouldn't when you're awake."
Pearl looked curiously to Lapis, then stood up. "Well, we should go; I'll go start the bike."
"We're using it?" Lapis said, with all the enthusiasm you might use when saying 'Oh, the meeting's next week?'
"No. I'm going to... dump it somewhere more reputable, and then we'll find some other way around. The police will find it and return it to its rightful owner."
"Your girlfriend?"
"Ah... yes. My girlfriend."

Pearl walked out and quickly shut the door. Through the blinds, Lapis could see her beaked silhouette fiddle with her pockets before rushing down the stairs. Lapis picked up the remote, considered it, turned off the TV, and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. She only stirred when she heard a screech, the rapid clanging of feet on metal, and then watched a beaked silhouette rush to the door.

Pearl's hair was a mess of spikes, her irises pinpricks. "I don't know where it could've gone! I mean, it's hidden, if it was stolen it could've been taken by anyone, and anyone in a city like this, I mean, it could end up scrapped! It could end up abandoned, it could end up sold for parts! It could, oh, she's never getting it back. It's hers and-"
"Stop sulking." Lapis said, seriously. The tone coming from Lapis seemed to snap Pearl out of her mania - or at least the worst of it.
"The bike's - the bike's gone!"
Lapis raised a brow. "Someone stole your girlfriend's bike?"
"She's not my girlfriend! We haven't been girlfriends for weeks! I stole it!"

Notes:

Yes, this chapter is being released ahead of schedule, because the tale grew in the telling. Most of this was written in a mad frenzy and a series of mornings where I woke up with a perfectly clear vision of what to write and only a few minutes to write it before it was lost into the Aether forever.
Meanwhile, this fic hit 5,000 hits! While hits aren’t really a measure of much, that’s still a crazy big number.

Chapter 24: Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy (Interlude)

Summary:

Kevin screws himself twice.

Notes:

And we're back! It's been almost two months since I last updated this fic, partially because of wanting to take a break from this fic and spend my energy elsewhere on more Pearl-related things, partially because of writer's block, and partially because these few chapters have been some of the most difficult to navigate in the entire fic so far, and probably will remain so until the end. Simply put; they're weird, this story is weird, the events in it are weird, the most normal thing about it are the lesbian space rocks.
In truth, I was planning on releasing this about a week from now, but decided it was best here. Why did I consider waiting? Because a very special day is coming up. I'll see what I can do for that, now that I have this here.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Kevin had a tried-and-true routine for waking up in beds that weren't his own with no memory of how he got there. The first step was to check his pockets. Wallet was still there. And mostly full - mostly? Considerations for later. The second step was to reach out and feel for the shape of the person beside him. This time, he found nothing but a perfectly smooth bedspread. This wasn't new to him, but did immediately put him in a bad mood; he always felt shown up whenever he wasn't the one waking up, quietly creeping out of bed, and running for the door. Step three was to crack his eyes open, look at the window, and try to gauge whether he'd be getting his coffee from the breakfast or afternoon menus of whatever cafe happened to be closest.

Step three was when the troubles started, because he could barely see the sun through it.

Rubbing his head and kicking his legs over the edge, Kevin sat on the bed and considered his options. His head wasn't pounding, which was a nice change. His head snapped up, and he hastily pulled up his shirt and checked for scars along his stomach. Nothing along his left side... other side... nope, both kidneys were still there.

Hey. Wait a minute.

Kevin breathed on his open palm, bringing it to his nose. He squinted.

"I don't even smell anything. I was never even- did she drug me or something? How did she even-"

He felt something beneath him and shook his head, snarling as he grabbed a slip of paper that'd been lost in the sheets. He brought it to the window and read it under the gloaming light.

"Running around was fun, but I'm done now. Checked you into a room after you passed out. You have your things, except some money - took it so I could pay for things at the party. This could be a lesson about not inviting strangers into motel rooms. Doesn't have to be if you don't want that though.

Going to find warp pad - won't see me again. If police ask, say you were forced into this. They'll believe it. Humans are trusting like that.

P.S: Phone on table. Out of battery. Please return to Pearl - pale blue woman with long nose. Killer with a broom. Ask about her space ships.

Should find her at approximately midnight south side, 21st Pencil Avenue. Search the rooftops."

"How did she fit so much on this tiny piece of paper?" Kevin marvelled angrily, turning it over in his hands. "it just keeps- is there more?!"

"P.P.S: I'll know if you don't give the phone back. You will regret it. Forever, and ever, and even after that."

Kevin looked up at the ceiling for a while, leaning on his elbow against the window frame. He pressed his knuckles against his forehead and huffed, straightening his back and making a valiant effort to go out the door without screaming obscenities. He mostly succeeded.

"Alright. Here's the plan. Here's the plan. Here's the plan, here's the plan, here's the plan," Kevin chanted as he shut the door behind him, looking anxiously from side to side as if expecting someone to be waiting outside his door to arrest him right then and there. It actually wouldn't be the first time.
"First get the car. Drive to the... party..."

Kevin looked to see his car parked on the other end of the motel lot, alongside... about a half dozen cop cars.

"Oh come on, man."

They were swarming beneath him. Probably a dozen officers in all, some brandishing weapons a bit too freely to be comfortable, while others concealed their anxiety slightly less poorly. Slightly. Kevin cringed and stooped to a crouch by the railings. Moving as quickly as he could without actively sprinting, he pressed his back to each railing as he passed. He kept his eyes focused on the other end, where he could slip into some bushes or - ideally - into the seat of his car and be on the other end of the city before anyone noticed. He wouldn't be caught up in all this - he was innocent!

Wait, yeah, he actually was innocent this time.

The thought hit him like a brick. Sure, you could call him an enabler, but that implies he in any way helped - he could've ducked out at any time and there would still be clothes gone and large holes where ATMs used to be. He couldn't enable Peacock anymore than he could enable a rampaging elephant. It was unfortunate, then, that he was almost definitely implicated by her. Really, who wouldn't recognize his face on a security camera? He was Kevin Burnett. He couldn't exactly play the 'it was a coincidence' card - he wouldn't be caught dead near stores like that. You know. If his allowance permitted. So it could only be that he was there deliberately, as anyone would testify to, and he was only there Kevin was so caught up in these thoughts that he almost missed notice every officer in the lot staring at him.

"Oh, come on." Kevin said, raising his hands and turning around.
"Howdy there." One of the officers called, approaching him with one thumb in his belt. He was built entirely out of right angles.
"Hey..." Kevin sighed, with immense resignation. "Oh God," Kevin thought, "I'm going to be arrested by a hick."
The officer looked him up and down. "Y'aright boy?"
Kevin waved his arms expectedly. "Uh... come on? Do it?"
"What're you ramblin' about? It ain't like I'm gunna shoot ya."
"Yeah?" Kevin said, raising an accusatory brow. "I was expecting to be slammed over a car hood or something."
"Boy, y'do know y'ain't under arrest, now don't you?"
Kevin's bravado melted away, replaced by genuine confusion. "What? So am I not good enough for you or something?"
"Y'haven't done any crime." The officer itched his chin. "That is to claruh-ffffffffff-eye, as far as the matters to which I have been made privy. Under yer perview o'grander proof, you might in fact be a criminal. But y'see, I am empowered by the laws chartered within the borders of these here United States, not the wider rangin', omniscient sorta judiciary thinkin' that fuels them there pro-virr-bee-al iron-fisted empires."
"Oh, makes sense. Nevermind." Kevin nodded, whistling and catching the attention of another officer passing by. "Help."
"Hey." Said the other officer - a shorter, heavier, less experienced looking man with thick shades hiding squinty little eyes - leaned in. "Ah, deputy!" The other officer.
"Were you pontificating again?"
"Hey, so, if I'm not under arrest-" Kevin began.
"Pontificatin', I was." He tipped his hat.
"Did you ask this young man about the suspect?"
"Askin' about the suspect, I was not." He tipped his hat again.
"So I can just go-" Kevin tried.
"You keep on keepin' me right, now."
"Any time. It's my job."
"For now, Deputy. One of these days you'll really move up in the world, but for now-"
"I'm being ignored!" Kevin cried. "You're ignoring me!"
"Igorin' you, I am." He tipped his hat a third time. "Anyway, now, we recieved reports of bee-zarr activity-"
"You might even call it alien."
"Head in the game, deputy, you remember what happened last time - yes, bee-zarr activity around this motel last night. Reports of a certain tall, diamond-haired person of int-errr-est adding grand theft auto to her rap sheet. It's to my understandin' you stayed at this here establishment over night. You wouldn'a happened to have perhaps glanced-"

Over the southern drawl, you might've been able to see the way Kevin's irises slowly drew into tiny, vibrating dots. His always flushed, always tanned skin, typically a few shades from purple in any flattering light, had turned pale. Were there a lens on him at that moment, it would surely be slowly pulling in on his face as a horror chord rose dramatically, overpowering the sound of the world around him. There was no camera, of course, and no cello, so he just seemed to be having a run of the mill existential crisis to any passerby.

Oh my God, his thoughts went. This was really happening, wasn't it? He was being overlooked. He had snuck by - he was a face in the crowd, an unsuspecting bystander, a person on the street ripe for being handed a news microphone and asked 'what do you think about all this?' He had - somehow - been missed in all the camera footage. Perhaps his face was hidden beneath some static, or just a few steps too far away to be considered a potential accomplice, but he'd gotten out. He was a secondary character in a story he'd never wanted to be involved in.

A small smile grew over his face, exposing pearly white teeth.

He was home free.

"Uh, deputy? Is he a'right?"
"Think he's having some kind of epiphany."
"Ain't that some kinda animal?"
"Yes." Kevin said, with perhaps more conviction than he'd ever said anything in his entire life up until that point, besides a few choice four letter words.
"Rightly so. Sub-Saharan Africa, I do reckon."
"What? Forget about it. I don't care."

Kevin blinked, shaking his head. He hadn't brushed his hair this morning - afternoon - evening, and it lagged behind his scalp like so much whipped cream before settling. When it settled, with the wide smile now spreading over his face beneath a set of wild eyes, he seemed like he'd been struck by lightning, and the energy hadn't left him.

"I don't care. I don't care. Yes, I might've seen a chick who looked exactly like that, and I might know exactly where she's going."

The two officers before him looked over their shoulders - one with initiative, and the other just taking the cue. They considered the rest of their squad, still scoping out the motel for a criminal they assumed was extremely well armed and extremely dangerous. Well. At least they were half right.

"A'right. That's some..." The leading officer said, with renewed gravity in his tone and - Kevin snarled - suspicion in his eyes, "... pretty serious piece of information you got there. I'm guessin' you won't be tellin' us how you got it?"
"Not if you want it." Kevin tipped his chin up. "Call it an anonymous tip."
The deputy looked between the two of them cautiously.
"... A'right. Deal. You do know we can't take tips as gospel, o'course."
"O'course." Kevin smiled.

About half an hour later, Kevin slammed his motel door shut. He stuck his hands in his pockets and descended the stairs, hopping quickly from one foot to the other on each step and hitting the ground with a cocky flourish. His head bobbed side-to-side with a rhythm only he could hear - were you to look at him across the street, the first thought that would come to your mind would be "That guy just got away with something."

Kevin fished his phone from his pocket - a slender thing with strands of his hair caught between gaps in its casing- and searched through his contacts for one particular name. His lip twitched as he prepared to make the call, but he shrugged,

"Yo, Kevin! What's up man? I haven't heard from you since like... really really early yesterday morning."
"It was really really late at- ah, forget it. Kyle, hey." He smiled into the phone, then felt the corners of his mouth falter "Are... are you alright?"
"What do you mean, man?"
"I heard there's been some pretty crazy..." He rolled his eyes, sucking his lip in before continuing. "Crazy crime sprees going on lately. That hasn't affected any of you guys, right?"
"Dude, all that stuff on the news? Nah, never us, it's like, probably bigged up by the media anyway to hide the real problems, man. We're not gonna get caught out in some weirdo robbery. That just ain't the sort of flow we bring,the sort of life we live. We're more in control than that."
"Yeah." Kevin almost whispered. "You'd think so."
"Huh?"
"Nothing."
"Uh, yeah. Anyway - dude, I know I called you out for it, but you were totally right about that party."
"What? What party?"

Kevin's eyes widened, then quickly narrowed as his forehead curved inward. Kevin was - much to the chagrin of those around her - actually very attractive, but with that expression, he looked like his eyebrows were an arrow pointing towards his nose, and he was very glad no one was around to see it.

"Did they already start?"
"Woah, cool it. Something up with you, man?"
Kevin's expression softened as he approached his car, feeling for his keys through his jacket. "Forget it. Tell me about me being right, I'm in a good mood."
"I was talking about that party at Beach City - you know, the one in that weird old dance hall? I never got the name, but, like, anyway, total bomb. Beach City's a partywave of freakin' hodads, man. There were literally three hot chicks there the whole night and two of 'em were twins. You totally made the right call skippin' out. You went to that bar you like, right?"
He turned out his coat pockets and found them empty, besides a shred of paper he crunched in his palm. Kevin raised one brow curiously. "Identical twins?"
"I mean, they looked pretty similar to me dude, but I wasn't lookin' so close most of the night. Man, I got totally-"
In the end, his keys were in his pants pocket. "So who was the third girl?"
"Uh. Wasn't exactly someone I know well or anything." Kyle sniffed on the other end of the phone. "She was sorta familiar though. I mean-"
He unlocked the door and threw it open, sliding one arm over the hood and looking towards the long-since-set-sun's light still fighting on the horizon. "Kyle, don't lie to me, you idiot. I always know. I'm the smart one."
"... Alright man. But don't be mad at me, okay? You gotta swear you won't get mad."
"You really are stupid - why would I get mad about some girl being at a party with you. A party I didn't even go to 'cos I knew it'd be a waste of time."
"Just promise, alright bro?"
"Are you- are you five?" Kevin huffed. "Alright, whatever, I promise I won't be mad."
"Sabina."

Kevin nearly slammed his head against the ceiling of his car as he climbed in. Instead, he settled for just tumbling into the drivers seat, kicking his door on the way in and unsettling a cup that'd been sitting in its holder for days. Kevin growled quietly as he worked his head out from between a car seat and a hand break.

"Yo, you alright man?"
"Yeah." Kevin said. "Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? I'm fine."
"... Yeah, okay. So, anyway, it was a disaster, man. I mean, S-Sabina just bounced halfway through. She figured she'd go to the party we were having tonight - oh, right. You coming, man?"

From the other end of the phone, Kyle heard something hit a head rest very hard.

Kevin considered how he should explain why he didn't want to be around a place where there would be an eight foot tall super model of potentially supernatural origin, who might also be two people, who might also be three people. He tried to capture how she was someone who had - in a single night- put herself on a wanted list, robbed him half blind, and taken off with a stolen vehicle. He knew Kyle was a... let's say visual learner, so he tried to convey the imagery of the wrist-mounted flashlights, the flashing blue-and-red sirens, the chatter of radios as a police squad circled the building. He tried to imagine what he'd say if Kyle asked "do you think they'll get her?"

"Nah." Kevin said levelly. "I don't think I'm coming."
"You sure man? It's not gonna be like Beach City, totally - it's gonna be big! And, hey, listen, I know you been through some sour spots with partying lately -" Kyle paused, hoping he'd get away with that, before barelling ahead and hoping if he talked quickly enough, he wouldn't have to hope "- but your flow's been down in the dumps, dude. You can't let one bad chick drain all that Kev-rhisma..."

They wouldn't stand a chance. With how hard-headed some of those shmucks looked? Someone was gonna get hurt, and it probably wasn't Peacock. Kevin had learned that the best way to approach wild women was with finesse. Admittedly, his experience with wild women was mostly with the type that stayed out late and surfed between couches nightly, rather than the type who... ripped infastructure off walls, but the point stood in his mind. A whole platoon couldn't do what one Kevin could. Slather on a bit of that charm to grease the wheels, and just like that, he was tagging along. Yeah, so she sort of... ran away in the end, but that's how it goes sometimes. Hardly the first time. It was fun, and now, the problem was no longer on him. This big, dangerous, reckless, glass-shattering, bank-busting problem.

"Kev, bro? You didn't even yell at me for that. Maybe you really should just take a chill-pill for this one..."

But the problem would be on those officers.
And the problem would be on all the innocent people there, who weren't used to dealing with strange, giant women who may or may not be multiple people.
And it would be on Kyle.
And it would be on...

"I'm not going, and you shouldn't either."
"Uh, you do you, but I'm going."
"No, you're not, you idiot. You don't want to go there. Trust me."
"Hey man, that's totally different than whatever issues you've got going on. You don't have to come if you're not up to it, but, don't tell me what to do."
"You never listen to me. This is why I'm the smart one - just, have some faith, for once?"
"Nah, I do. You just only remember the times I don't. I'm gonna be there and so's everyone else. I'll call you back later when you're in a better mood. It's a total buzzkill when you're like this, man."

Kevin rubbed his temples, then sighed. Was he really doing this?

"Oh... come on."
"I'm going Kev, there's nothing you can do about it. You're acting so f-"
"No, not that. I'm just... thinking about something."
"... Yo, you alright, Kev'?"
"I'm..." He held his head in his hands, running one thumb along his temple. "Yeah. I'm... I'm fine. It's just that uh..."
"You got stood up by a girl today or something, bro? You been acting weird."
"What? No." That was a half-lie. "It's just..."
"... So... you gonna spit it out? Or...?"

Kevin looked up wearily across his dashboard. Taking in a deep breath, he straightened his back and sat up, tapping on the side of his wheel as the thoughts turned slowly but inexorably in his mind. It was like dragging his hand through molasses. But the molasses was on fire.

"... I'm gonna have to do something."
"Oh yeah, man? What?"
"I'm gonna go meet up with two girls."
"Oh, sick, like, at once?"
"Yeah." Kevin squinted into the last light of the now set sun. "At once."
"Dude. Awesome."
"And then I'm gonna bring them to the party."
"What?! You serious?"
"Yeah. I thought I was out, but I'm... back in the game." He choked back the 'Unfortunately.' "I'm heading out there now, actually. Call you back later."
"Oh, yeah, totally. You do that - that's the Kevin I know! Meet you at the party dude. Later!"

Click.

Kevin held the phone to his ear for a long time after the call ended. He rested his head against his seat, put both hands on the steering wheel, and muttered something to himself as he started the engines. No one will ever know what it was, except him. It's better that way. Then, wordlessly, he flicked on the radio and tuned it to no particular channel.

"Ooh, Love
Ooh, Love-er Boy
What You Doing Tonight?
(Ooh, Hey Boy!)"

Kevin slammed his foot down and sped away.

Notes:

A couple chapters ago, there was the first human to show up in this fic, and now, there’s a chapter where no gems show up at all. Massive blow to all space rock collectors in the audience, I know, but I really like torturing this man.

Chapter 25: The Big City, Part IV: Fly High

Summary:

Pearl talks to herselves.
Lapis watches, because she likes it like that.

Notes:

Been a while, huh?
You might be saying "well it's been less than two weeks since last chapter", but last chapter was a short chapter! I expected to get this out on the thirteenth, but it turns out, every single thing ever decided to happen all at once on the thirteenth. Including this fic's one year anniversary, and, so, the one year anniversary of me writing fics in general. I've grown a lot over the course of this fic's creation, and the reception to it has just been outstanding - If I could do it all again... well, I wouldn't. There's no point in being picky with what you made before. It made you who you are today.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

In an ideal world, there would be no police.

This isn't a bold political statement. Well, mostly. Instead, it's more making light of the fact that in a world without crime, there would be no need for police. Similarly, there would be no injuries or illness, so there would be no doctors. There would be no need for law, so there would be no lawyers. Imagine a world without lawyers.

Hold that image for a while - it's healthy to have happy fantasies every now and then.

In a certain city, on a certain day, where the sun had set and the nightlife was beginning to ooze out of the clubs, there was a man. This man - nevermind his name - was really wishing he were living in that ideal world at the moment, where there was no need for lawyers or doctors or police officers. If he were, he would have gotten a different job, and wouldn't be sprinting through an alley chasing a pale-faced, hooded figure in the middle of a Monday night.

The figure spun around, long nose appearing from the shadow of her hood - a pale, flowing length of cloth that wrapped around her entire body and seemed to be weaved from the night sky. She tossed over a pile of trash bags, sending them toppling in a line across the alley's. The officer leaped over them, reaching out and snatching at where she'd been moments before. The figure tightened her hold on her hood and jumped onto a dumpster, footsteps not so much as rattling the metal. The office nearly slammed into the side, instead stumbling around and reaching for her ankles. He narrowly avoided having his wrist crushed beneath a falling metal ladder. Stumbling back and looking up, he saw the figure swinging on the bottom of a fire escape staircase.

Her pale, ghostly cyan face peeked out from her wrappings, rooting him on the spot as he saw her for the first time. She had no eyes.

That single, frozen moment was enough - the figure bent over and gripped the ladder, wrenching it up and away from his hold, even as he scrambled onto the dumpster and tried to reach for it himself.

A few minutes passed. He'd look back on this moment often in the future, whenever he was getting too high-and-mighty and needed to check his ego. He was glad no one passed - they would've seen him jumping on the tips of his toes like a child trying to get to the candy on the top shelf. He almost toppled off the side more times than he'd like to admit.* All the while, the pale cyan figure above him shrunk and eventually disappeared over the roof.

* Read: More than once.

Finally, he admitted defeat, plucking his radio from his belt.

"108, I've lost the suspect. She's climbed onto a roof on a building on 32nd, Ap-"
"130." Cracked a hesitant voice on the other side, "Can you repeat that, 108?"
"The suspect has used a fire escape to climb onto the roof of an... apartment complex."
There was a pause, and then, "Are you sure?"
He raised a brow, "Definitely. I was right behind-" He considered optics "-Was just down the alley when she climbed up. There might be another way down from there, or she might've ran into the building. Could use some-"
"119." Emerged another voice from the radio chatter, "We've spotted the suspect on Coral Street. We're pursuing now."
"What?" He said, dropping all radio ettiquette, "That's miles from here."
"144." Came yet another voice, this one breathy and ragged. "I've lost her - she's-"

As the voices began to overlap, growing faster and more confused as the seconds passed, the officer slowly lowered his radio. Stepping back, he stared at the sky for a while. Right at his hip, the chatter seemed defeaning, but up on the fire escape, where he was a small shape on the ground, it was quiet. Further back, looking down across the streets from the top of the roof, it was inaudible.

Pearl stood before the hooded figure, considering it judgementally before grabbing it by the shoulders. She tossed the scrap of shimmering silk off the edge. If you were an unlucky sort hanging off the edge of the roof, it would smack you in the face, then up close, you could see it divide. Woven light clearly breaking down into simpler, more abstract shapes, then into simply spots of light, then, into nothing, revealing Pearl standing before... herself. Give or take some holographic distortion.

"Holopearl!" Pearl said, fingers interlocked behind her back. "Report."
"DESIGNATED BLOCK SECURED." It cried in a voice that was robotic not because it was emotionless, but rather, because it seemed to be expressing every emotion, all at once.
Pearl leaned forward. "And?"
"THERE WERE HIGH QUANTITIES OF: HUMAN."
"Yes." Pearl sucked her bottom lip through her teeth, trying not to bite down on it. "Yes, human blocks typically have those. Now any sign of... well, anything notable?"
"SEARCHING 'NOTABLE'. RECOVERED: BIRD."
With renewed interest that almost hid her confusion, Pearl's eyes widened. "Oh? And this could be a... lead?"
"INCORRECT. HUMAN PROTOCOL CONCERNING 'BIRD' IS TO: TAG, CAGE, CONSUME, NOT NECESSARILY IN SAID ORDER. LEADS ARE PLACED ON: 'DOG.' 'CAT.' 'CHILD.'"
"Oh, for the love of -"

It was a good thing Pearl caught herself there, because if she didn't, she wasn't sure what she was going to say. She'd been around humans too long; they were beginning to rub off on her. Now intimately aware of the coarseness that had crept into her voice and the twitch assailing her eye, she took a deep breath. Alright, Pearl, she thought to herself. It's been a very long day. Week. Month. Five thousand seven hundred years. But you're alright. All you need to do is wait for Lapis, who'll hopefully have found Peacock, and go talk some sense into the latter - all very peaceful and proper and not potentially endangering the life of a city block. She had the most wise gem and the most intelligent gem in the planet stirring around inside of her; she had to listen to reason.

Hopefully the police would be equally as sensible, or else she'd be in for a lot more running and frankly, for a species with no muscles, her legs were getting incredibly tired.

Pearl took a moment to analyze her train of thought, and noticed a compartment conspicuously absent. Had this been a few days before, she'd have been worrying about how to talk Lapis down, but now, she was seeing her almost like... well. Maybe it was just self-preservation or her strategic mind - she couldn't see Lapis as anything else, because if she did, this was a no-win game - but she couldn't help but think of Lapis almost as a... friend.

She was getting entirely off-track.

She steadied herself before her holopearl and tried again with a measure of etiquette in her voice.

"What was notable about the bird?"
"PEACOCK IS A TYPE OF BIRD. POSSIBLE RELATION?"
Pearl gaped openly, before crossing her fingers over her chin. "I might be losing my touch with these... um. Right, right - that's very good. But any information on Peacock Azurite?"
"RETRIEVING DATA: PEACOCK AZURITE. . . NO DATA RECOVERED."
She threw her arms out by her side. "Bornite!?"
"RETRIEVING DATA: BORNITE. . . NO DATA RECOVERED."
Gripping the bridge of her nose, Pearl muttered. "So you saw nothing."
"INCORRECT. RECOVERED: BIRD."
It took all of Pearl's self-restrainted, trained through millenia of stress-testing, to not scream angrily. Instead, she whispered angrily, "Is this broken?"
"IT WAS A PELICAN."
"Have you tried hitting it?" Lapis said. "Works with the barn TV."

Pearl jumped and spun around just in time to see Lapis touch down. She shambled towards Pearl looking somehow even more ragged, hair fraying like the edges of a tumbleweed and deep circles forming beneath her eyelids. Now, Pearl didn't understand the first thing about what good sleep was, but she could tell that whatever it was, Lapis hadn't had it for a long time. Either that motel pitstop was a total waste of time, or it was the only thing holding Lapis together.

"Ah, Lapis! Glad you remembered the meeting place. Did you find-"
"If I found her, the whole city would know." Lapis said, sinking against a nearby utility box. Her eyes gleamed from within the shade of her hair. "You?"
Pearl sighed. "Nothing. I've even been listening to the radio while I waited, and there's not so much as a news report."
"Besides of there being ten of you running around."
"Yes, besides that, I..." Pearl squinted. Lapis' hand lifted from her lap like a corpse from a bog, gripping a pilfered police radio. "How did you-"
"I took it from one of those idiots chasing us... he wasn't using it anymore." Immediately seeing Pearl's expression, she raised both hands in half-hearted defense. "Hey. I trapped him on a roof. He's fine."
"Ah."

Pearl nodded, sitting with her back to the roof's edge. She looked at the patterns between her feet as if, maybe, if she just stared hard enough, a map to Peacock would form from the flagstone tiling and bird droppings. She sat imagining it longer than she'd like to admit. Pearl's mind had an active imagination when it wasn't distracted by managing endless laundry cycles and family dynamics. Great for making rockets from plywood - not so great when you had none of the usual distractions to keep it in check and far too much swirling around in your head feeding it. Another bad thing about having the kind of imagination that lets you deal in scrap metal rocket science; it tends to be oriented around all the things that could go wrong, and what would happen if they did.

Lapis - seeming like she was ready to sleep right where she was, oddly firm beds or not - managed to stir. Her hair brushed a bright yellow sign reading 'DANGER OF DEATH.'

"Guess that's it." Lapis shrugged, considering whether she should rise to her feet. "Come on. Let's go."
"Hm?" Pearl said, head snapping up. "Go where?"
"We'll find her some other time; this whole chase has been pointless."
"What?" Spinning around, Pearl stared openly.

Shaking her head, Lapis stood up and lumbered out from the shadows. Light glimmered above her nape as water began to gather.

"I'm not going to get Peridot back like this. I'm tired. I want to go home."
"Well, of course, but - you can't just run away!"
"We have no leads, Pearl. Don't-" She raised a hand "- say your copies are going to find anything. They suck. They don't even know what they're looking for."
Pearl balled her hand into a fist before her chest. "You have no faith in anyone but yourself, do you? They're looking for-"
"IT WAS A PELICAN."

The two paused. Clearing her throat, Pearl clapped twice. The holopearl vanish into nothing.

Lapis squinted. "Yeah. Pointless."

As if being pressed between two invisible sheets of cling film, a network of water gathered behind Lapis' back, forming into the skeleton of grand wings. It was already filling out with the beginnings of watery muscle once Pearl followed behind.

"Wait!" Pearl called, thinking quickly. "What about... what about Steven? He's going to be home in..." she turned to the skyline "oh, there's only a few hours left. If he comes home and Garnet is gone, he'll know. About everything."
Lapis didn't respond, tossing her dress out the way of her legs and marching towards the edge.
"I don't want all this to come out, not now."
A passerby beneath looked up, noticing Lapis' head as it peeked over the edge, before he returned to his business. "I'll tell him if I think he should know. That's my responsibility, not yours."
"And you think Peridot shouldn't have a say in it?"
"Since when did you care about Peridot?"
Pearl felt like they were going backwards. She stowed that away in a list of things to take her to task for - some time between now and never, like most things with Lapis. "It's not about Peridot, either way. It's about Steven - this will hurt him if you tell him now. Are you really that selfish you don't think he cares about you two?"
"Don't you dare."
Pearl shrunk back, but still persisted. "It's your responsibility to tell him. It's my responsibility to take care of him."
"Looks more like he takes care of you - he takes care of all of us." Lapis snarled. "Look at what happens every time he's away."
"Lapis, just - we can't let him find out like this. There's still so much I haven't-"

Pearl stuttered, eyes wide as she felt her fingers tugging at her lips. Releasing a shaking breath, she lowered her hands from her mouth and navigated her words cautiously.

"I... I haven't... there's a lot that I can't say yet. Even if I could, I'm so worried what will happen If I ever do - this is just another-"
"Another secret, whatever. I know Steven - he's strong. He doesn't need me to keep secrets."
"Ohoh!" Pearl snapped back, hysterically, "You do? I know Steven too. It's only as if I raised him for a decade before you even knew him."

The air grew cold, and Lapis' wings seemed to grow teeth. She looked over her shoulder with narrow eyes and piercing eyes, chillier than the gathering autumn storm high above.

"Yeah. But I knew him for one day, and helped me then more than you did in five thousand years. Maybe he's stronger than you think."
"Five thousand - I didn't even know you until he did!"
Lapis turned around, not dignifying Pearl with a glance. "You had me in your gem."
"Oh..." Pearl stumbled, burying her eyes in her palm. "That's completely off-topic!"
"It feels pretty on topic to me." She waved. "I was there."
"You're just distracting me with - Lapis! I know that he loves you, and-and that he loves Peridot. Imagine how learning all of this so suddenly would affect him! He's been taking on more and more, and, just - one day, he's going to fall apart."
"I'm really tired, Pearl. One day, he's going to find out. Might as well be today."

Lapis sighed, setting her foot on the very edge tile of the roof. She leaned over her knee and surveyed the landscape with keen eyes, a deeper blue than her wings and many times brighter. She gasped as she noticed her shadow growing long between her feet, bathed in a cyan glow. She looked at the spear Pearl pointed at her - there was no surprise in her eyes, but if you squinted hard enough, there might've been some pride there.

"You're not finding Peacock like this." Lapis said, in a sad, honest tone she'd sharpened to a finer point than anything Pearl'd ever wielded.
"I might." Pearl insisted, despite all. "But without you, I don't know if I ever will. And even if I did..."
"You're not finding her because you're not going to fight me." Lapis turned slowly, defenseless with her hands by her side. "You don't have the guts."

In time with a heavy ripping noise, like a dagger through a canvas, Lapis' eyes wrenched open. Slowly her head turned down, hand running along her leg and into the massive gap between her thighs. What was easily a foot of her dress hung impaled a few inches up Pearl's spear. It shimmered, then divided into little pieces, and blew away into nothing. Pearl's chest heaved as she yanked it from the tile stone. Lapis looked up and Pearl stumbled backwards as their eyes met - Lapis was smiling.

"See? Don't have the guts."

Pearl had suffered in her life. As she pulled up her spear and levelled it again against a significantly more vital area, it seemed to flash through her mind. She had struggled almost every day of her existence, she had given up everything she knew to become everything she was told not to be. She'd lost the most important thing in the world to her, and came close to losing the rest regularly. But suffering builds will - from the greatest warriors to the most haughty nobles, she'd never met someone she couldn't outstare.

Until that day.

Her spear vanished in a burst of light and Lapis' dress reappeared in the same, knitting itself together from suddenly appearing gemstuff.

Lapis turned around and began work on her wings, Pearl's threats only having broken her focus, at best. Pearl watched as what would be the muscles of some gigantic bird slotted into place, wrapped in layer upon layer of suddenly extant moisture, softened into a round, silky smooth mass. Lapis lifted one foot off the edge and prepared to leap.

This was it. Pearl should've seen it sooner or later - it wasn't exhaustion, it wasn't lethargy or just her losing interest, like this was all some whim. It's hard to deeply care about something, not knowing if you're good enough, but it's easy to run away, safe in the certainty you're not. Pearl knew it was something they were both intimately familiar with.

Lapis had lost her hope.

She was halfway into the air by the time Pearl grabbed her by the arm. She spun around, surprise clear on her face, expecting a fight. If the expression on Pearl's face was what she wore in a fight, well, Lapis had to imagine she wasn't so terrifying in action. Her eyes were wide, mouth subtly downturned as if trying to hold something far more significant back.

"Don't go." She said, quietly, but with a defiant certainty that cut through the rooftop wind like the tip of a spear.
Lapis raised a brow. "I'm-"
"Please." Pearl pleaded. "Whatever bad I've done to you, whatever I've said-" She swallowed deeply "-whatever I've thought, I'm sorry. These last few days have shown me a different side of you - don't go."
"What are you saying?" Lapis said, still balancing delicately on the edge and considering taking off right then and there. "You think it's all okay?"
"I'm saying that I need your help."
"You didn't help me when I needed it. Even coming all the way here was about you. I could've come on my own."

And there it was again - Lapis' uncanny ability to split the world into tit-for-tat, this-for-that. As uncharitable a reading as it was, Pearl saw the grain of truth to it.

"If you really believe that-" Pearl fought with Lapis as the latter shook her arm, trying to free herself and leap from the building "- then I'm asking for you to be better than me."

As a harsh gust of wind blew through her dress, Lapis leaned away from the precipice, yanking Pearl up onto the edge with her with one powerful tug. Nearly eye-level, with Lapis' narrow eyes inches from Pearl's wide ones, Lapis waited. She seemed to be expecting something.

"Please. I don't want to be alone here."

Lapis' lips parted. She looked quickly from the ground, to Pearl's chest, to finally, her eyes. Wordlessly, she gripped Pearl's wrist and broke her hold. Their fingers brushed as Lapis let go, and Pearl suddenly found keeping eye contact incredibly difficult.

"How many of your clones are left?"
"Three."
"I'll wait until they all come back." Lapis said, wandering away and sinking down the side of a wall.
"And then you'll leave?"
"Then you'll see that you're wasting your time. I'll fly you home with me."
"... N-no. I can't. I have to keep looking."
Lapis let the words hang in the air, then rested her head on her knees. "Whatever. If you still feel that way when the time comes."

As cool wind blew between them, for the first time, Pearl questioned if she would.

It took about ten minutes until another holopearl appeared. This time, her ghostly pale hands appeared over the edge of the building, heaving the rest of her up as if she were, well, very light. Pearl was excited - she even saw Lapis raise her head from between her legs and watch them with interest. Occasionally, Amethyst would ask Pearl why she didn't use these more often - Pearl was always quick to say she just preferred folding the laundry herself. Like most bold-faced lies, there was some truth to it, but the reality was she'd tried to use holopearls many times over her life. Every few centuries, she'd swear this would be the aeon where she'd figure them out.

Actually trying to extract information from a holopearl reminded her why that never worked out.

"Yes, yes, the birds - the - yes, alright." Pearl moved her hand through the holopearl's chest like she were waving away smoke. It disappeared into a burst of static.
"Nice." Lapis commented, rubbing her cheek against her knee and settling back in.
"Are you 'sleeping' again?" Pearl said, as though it were a foreign concept
"I wish I was."
"That can't be comfortable."
"I've had worse."
Pearl rested her hands on her hips. "That doesn't mean you shouldn't want for better."
Lapis' head slowly rose from her legs. Strands of hair dangled over one half-closed eye. She blinked slowly. "... That's a nice thought."

Lifting her legs, Lapis pressed against the wall and wrapped her arms around her ankles.

"Hey." Lapis asked after a while. "Why'd you steal that bike? You never explained that."
Pearl turned around, surprised. She weaved her fingers together. "Well, you never asked."
"And I'm asking now."
"Ah. It's silly."
Pearl couldn't see them through her hair, but she could feel Lapis' eyes on her.
"A-And personal..."
The stare continued.
"Alright, well. I didn't steal it, per se - she just left it, and, never came back..."
The stare continued.
"... and probably wouldn't want me to drive it. And certainly wouldn't want me to nearly get arrested using it." That last part might've been a lie.
Finally, the stare - well, yes, it continued, but it did so visibly, as Lapis lifted her head and shook her perpetual bedhead from her face. "So what's the secret?"
"I-"
"There's always a secret."

Head bent down and fingers cautiously steepled, Pearl paced back and forth, slowly approaching Lapis with each cycle.

"We broke up a few weeks ago. We had something of a... a disagreement after I... well. She was in no state to drive, but I once taught her how to use warp pads, and... well. I've had her bike tucked away since, hoping she'd come back for it... eventually."
Lapis nodded. "So what did it?"
"What?"
"What caused the big fight?"
"Oh, it's... never that simple." Pearl's eyes darted quickly. "Multiple reasons, really. It'd never been perfect between us - I mean, she was wonderful! Wonderful, of course she was, but, the two of us..."
The. Stare. Continued.
Pearl nipped the bridge of her nose shamefully. "I called her Rose."
"Oh."
"A few times."
"Oh."
"Oh!" Pearl lamented.

Slowly, Lapis pulled her legs closer. Pearl faced away awkwardly.

"That sucks."
"... Yes." Pearl smiled sadly. "You could say it sucks."

The second holopearl was much like the first, excluding the fact she made her entrance by leaping from one roof to the other. It was Lapis who spotted it first as a little cyan dot on the horizon, slowly growing larger with every building it vaulted. Even curled into a ball, Lapis seemed to see everything that went on. It made Pearl wonder how often she was really sleeping, and how often she was simply listening.

Not that any of that changed the outcome. Same awkward conversations, even fewer results. This one had gotten lost in a park somewhere along the way and spent most of its time harassing the ducks.

"... Alright." Pearl sighed, clapping her hands together and stepping away from a few specks of pond water the holopearl was shaking off. "That will be all."

The shimmering form of the holopearl twitched, then split apart, then finally vanished in a puff of static and extruded polygons. Thoroughly exhausted, Pearl collapsed against a wall, sliding down until she found her chin resting on her shins. She was cognisant Lapis was somewhere about ten feet to her right, and maybe a few days ago - maybe a few hours ago - she'd have cared. Now? She just let her eyes roam slowly to the huddled shape of her.

It was worth a shot.

"Lapis?"
"Mh? Yeah?"
"For a while, I've been..." Not a good start. "Would you mind..." No.

This was Lapis, Pearl reminded herself. She needed to put things in her terms.

"... You asked me a question. So can I ask you one?"
Lapis' head sloughed out from between her legs, one hand hanging over the side of her face. "What kind of question?"
"It's... personal."
Her eyes narrowed. "Go on."

Pearl eased her head against the wall. She was really doing this, wasn't she?

"I know why we're here. I know why Peridot's here. Why... did you come to Earth?"
"I... don't know." Lapis admitted with shocking candidness. "The rebellion was young at the time and... it wasn't so bad then. The Crystal Gems, I was told they didn't shatter anyone, and that they were losing the war. So I felt safe."
"Both true, though one of those things changed quickly."

Both of those things nearly changed, but Pearl decided not to say that. She had something rare here, and she couldn't lose it to being callous, as easy as it was to be callous to Lapis. Tit-for-tat was her way, after all. Instead, she pushed forward.

"What assignment were you on?"
"None. Had finished all of mine. I was free to go where I wanted, so I went there; guess I... just wanted to see the end of the world." Lapis shrugged.
Pearl tried not to stare. "You could just do that? I-I mean, I know you could, but, that's..."
"You wouldn't know. Upper crust privelege I guess."
"Hm. Yes. I... I was a bit envious, whenever an upper crust gem would defect. They'd tell stories of travelling wherever they wanted, having private quarters, having cycles off. Imagine that."
"I thought you'd hate that."
"That's just the thing; I think I would. I... we were made to be content with the way we were. No peace, no rest, no respect. We were created that way so we wouldn't become upset."
"Yeah, and that obviously worked out."
"Quite." Pearl tutted, allowing herself to smile for just a moment. "But it worries me, sometimes, how content I was. That part of me... the one that was happy with not being able to go where I wanted and not being able to rest when I wanted - the part of me that loves to clean, and order things, and... and be obedient."
"And you're telling me this why?" Lapis asked bluntly.
Pearl bobbed her head back and forth. "I don't think you'll make anything of it. You're good to talk to. I just think the others..." She trailed off, straightening her back. "I just want to know where the part that was built into me ends, and... myself begins."

Lapis laughed. Were it anyone else, Pearl would've jumped up, wide-eyed and furious. But it was Lapis. She wasn't taking any joy in this - cold comfort, maybe, but joy was no longer a friend of Lapis. One too many times, it had ran away when she needed it most.

"Psh. Wouldn't know." She admitted as she recovered. "When I see a mountain, I get an urge to slice it in two and put a kindergarten in between. So, yeah, that's probably built into me. Can't say about the rest."
Pearl nodded agreeably, then her eyes snapped up as if really understanding what Lapis said, "Wait. Are you being serious?"
"Why do you think I chose to keep the barn in the middle of flatland, nowhere, instead of moving it literally anywhere else. It wouldn't be hard to move. These buildings are driving me *insane.* On the way here I sanded off someone's chimney out of habit."
"Oh, my stars! That's... I never knew. I thought the lapises in the rebellion just did it for fun."
"They did it for the same reason you alphabetize all the stuff in Steven's fridge."
"How did you- When did you even go through-"
"Vesuvianite."
"Oh. Yes."

A moment of silence. Then-

"Hey Pearl. If you're going to worry - worry about what you have."
Pearl mouthed something back, but the words didn't come out.

They settled into silence again. Watching the clouds pass by overhead, occasionally shifting as the stone beneath ther bodies became a bit too rough and they rotated some other part in to bruise. For a moment, Pearl allowed herself to feel lighter. The anxiety crept back in shortly after - they had to find Peacock, and they had to get home before Steven.

But for just that one moment, she had something good to think about.

Whatever peace Pearl had managed to find was about half an hour back now. On a highway. Crushed beneath an eighteen wheeler.

Her typical, thoughtful, mildly infuriating pacing had been replaced with a rapid and shameless march around the rooftop. She'd crossed her arms and halfway bent over, occasionally reaching up to scratch her chin as if that would steady her thoughts. It might've made it worse. Lapis tapped her forearm impatiently and pretended to look away. Finally, she gave in.

"What's wrong?"
"It should be here by now!" Pearl cried, as if the words had been boiling just beneath the surface for minutes and Lapis had lifted the lid. "I know they can be... inconsistent, but they're never late!"
"Maybe it got lost."
"Lost! Lost, yes, yes, lost." Pearl smiled too widely. "Lost, as if it doesn't have faultless recall of every turn made, every building passed, no! No! But it could be lost! And it's running around the streets as the sun is already peeking over the horizon!"
Lapis shook her head. "There's no sun on the horizon."
"There's no sun, alright, there's no sun."
"And it's here."
"And it's here! It's-" Pearl spun around, looking quickly around the edge of the rooftop until finally seeing the holographic silhouette of the final holopearl's head.

It had taken the stairs.

Inexorably and with great force, like a timelapse of the moon, Pearl's mania was replaced by apprehension. When it came to Peacock's whereabouts, Pearl'd had ample time to think of every scenario - as was her nature, she spent most of it on the worst case ones. As was also her nature, Pearl had divised some fairly inventive ones; "reports say she's turned herself in, for fun", "she's bought a ticket on a midnight train and is now literal miles away," "she took a nearby warp pad to stars-know-where."

As she led the holopearl around some ductwork, Lapis' eyes crept open.

...

"... No."

...

"No, that can't be - no. Absolutely everything you saw. Anything at all relevant-"

...

"This can't be happening-"

...

That was Lapis' cue. She unfurled from the cocoon of limbs she'd made for herself over a few hours - if you can get comfortable in a barn, you can get comfortable pretty much anywhere. She rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms above her head - universal gestures of getting up and getting out, not requiring shoulder muscles to loosen, biceps to stretch, or a spine to flex. Lapis was already leaning her shoulder against the wall by the time Pearl came back around.

Obviously the answer Pearl got was worse than anything she could have invented. Lapis was no good with people, but faces she could do - she'd spent lots of time with mirrors. She began to pick apart Pearl's expression; wide-eyed, slightly downturned gaze, a part where her lips met, slight shiver poorly hidden by a straight, stiff stance. Shock... despair... was that a bit of hopelessness she saw?

"It..." Pearl began.
"Didn't find anything." Lapis finished.
Pearl swallowed, knitting her fingers together, looking anywhere but at Lapis.

Lapis looked at her with half-closed eyes, turning around and walking towards the roof's edge once again. She dug her heel onto the very corner of the brickwork and judged the sky. Scanning the sky centered her - suddenly, she wasn't on top of a roof, in a place far from home, alone, but was a million miles away surveying the landscape as one would browse the world news.

Strong winds and a cold night, so already, not great for flying. The skyline was dominated by thick, pale clouds - she'd have to go above. No scenic views as she headed home. Whatever. She just wanted to be home. She noted, as her wings began to gather behind her, that the clouds weren't just thick; they were *heavy.* Heavy and flattened at the base as if slowly falling from the sky. Unmistakably cumulonimbus; hailbringers. She thought back to what Pearl said earlier - she knew a hail cloud on sight, but she'd certainly never been taught about them. It just came naturally to her. She only knew the name because of a particularly snowy night spent in the barn, being serenaded with cloud factoids by...

And she was back on the roof again, just like that.

"Hey, Pearl." She said, impatiently but not unkindly. "Come on."
"Come on?" Pearl echoed, lifting one shaking hand.
"We're going home."
"I can't. No, let's not be unreasonable, there's still-"
"Pearl." Lapis snapped, turning around. "Come on. That was the deal. It's over."
"I know." Pearl practically mewled. "But you can't make me go."
"I'm giving you the choice."

The wind gathered. Lapis turned slowly, dress billowing between her legs, and outstretched her hand. She turned it upwards and opened her palm. Pearl took a single step, eyes flickering between wide-eyed awe and a shameful sort of resistance, archetypal of knowing you should do better and being ashamed that you won't. Dust kicked up around their feet, breaking against their legs and flying away until they shrunk into nothing. As Pearl's hand crept into her own vision - she didn't remember lifting it - they both seemed to be glowing.

It would be so easy, wouldn't it?

Just reach on, hold on tight, and go home.

"I can't go." Pearl finally admitted, hand wilting as she drew it away.

But it was never easy. The both of them knew that.

Lapis' lip twitched and her expression hardened. She went to turn away, wings whipping against the air now not just vestigal gatherings of water, but towering, immense things that dwarfed the body they were attached to

"I can't stay here." She muttered.

As the edges of her vision crystallized and all the world seemed so impossibly clear, Pearl watched Lapis bow her knees and flap her wings, sending dust and junk flying off the edge and plunging to the street below. She took a deep breath and was nearly a blur of motion in the sky. Nearly, if not for-

HONK

Lapis paused, nearly tripping over herself. She'd been exposed to a lot of human traffic in the last few days, and even so, that was easily the single most annoying sound she'd ever heard. She shook her head and solidifed her wings again.

HONK

Pearl looked over her shoulder, one hand still over her chest but the forlorn image totally ruined by a look of genuine confusion on her face instead of - say - pining, longing, despair, hopelessness, etcetera.

HONK
Beneath the sound, there was an unintelligible yelling.

Lapis gave in and exchanged a glance with Pearl.

"I'm... certain it's just traffic."

HONK

"Particularly obnoxious traffic." Pearl shrugged. "You know, if that's the police, you might want to-"

The yelling came again, closer this time, clearer. It was - among a few words Greg had told them never, ever to teach Steven - "Pearl."

"Oh dear." said Pearl.
"I'm here! Don't run away yet, you-"
"He knows your name?" asked Lapis, turning around and letting her wings shrink. "Police?"
"The police don't know my name. I didn't expect them to come here until... well, at least a few more minutes. One called for backup, I beli-"
"Hey, down here - you two! On the roof!"

The two quickly assigned the voice to a man - well, he looked more like a particularly loudly colored dot from where they were standing, but yes, a man - on the streets. He was frantically waving his arms and seemingly jumping, in between bouts of burying his head in his hands, regretting many decisions, and then going back to doing more things he'd regret.

"Us?"
"No the other two bright blue chicks on the roof, who do you think - hey, listen, I can't get up there. You need to get down here!"

Lapis - now leaning over Pearl's shoulder as they both mounted the rooftop edge - exchanged a glance with Pearl. The latter shrugged, then looked down.

"Excuse me!" Pearl called. "Are you with the police that are after us?"
"They're after you too?! Oh, you gotta be- no. No." His voice died out, seeming to mutter to himself down on the street, before coming back in full force. "Just get down here - it's about Peacock."
"It's what?!" The two called in unison, now practically melding into one another's shoulder.
"I know where she is!"

"It's one in the morning!" Came a disgruntled voice from out of one of the windows. "There's a motel down the street - get a room and keep it down!"

Pearl turned to Lapis, her mouth agape. She mouthed some words, then, finally, extended her own hand. "I suppose it wouldn't be too much to ask for a flight down? You know, before you go-"
"Oh." Lapis said, gripping Pearl's hand and pulling her waist into her grip. A devious look had come over her face. "I'm staying."

Lapis grinned.
Pearl blushed.
Kevin groaned.

Notes:

This chapter was really interesting to write - I had to cut a lot of good back-and-forths, including an extended conversation about Greg and fishing - but it all worked out. Maybe I'll do something with those cut conversations. We'll see.

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Jade (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sun 21 Jan 2024 10:58PM UTC

These chapters are all so beautifully written, and the moments between Lapis and Peridot are all so sweet! Keep up the great work!!

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 1 Mon 22 Jan 2024 11:12PM UTC
  
  Thank you!!
  It's one thing to be complimented on characterization. A good character moment usually sticks with the kinds of people who read fanfics, for obvious reasons: they wouldn't go out of their way to read them unless they wanted more of the characters they fell in love with. But to be complimented on prose usually means you've really made an impact on someone with it.
  
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kurona7 on Chapter 1 Sat 27 Jan 2024 05:31AM UTC

Oh my gosh such a gorgeous scene. Aaah the ending! I must find out how they reacted!

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NormieCat (Guest) on Chapter 1 Tue 28 Jan 2025 11:05PM UTC

I have a hard time reading fanfiction because I get second hand embarssement so easily, and when people write characters incorrectly, I have to close down my tablet because the cringe is so bad it gets in my head. This was the exact opposite. This felt not like someone trying to force love on these characters, but a natural coming into it like the show would have them do. I smiled at this a lot. Thanks for writing it.

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 1 Wed 29 Jan 2025 12:54AM UTC
  
  You have no idea how much I appreciate that!
  I'd say the main "theme" of this fic is that love is imperfect. Whether it's an extremely functional - or extremely dysfunctional - relationship, none of it is perfect. The power of love is being able to work through the imperfections. Only something incredibly shallow and fragile breaks with a little force. Love is durable. It endures.
  But, I'll say that when you see a writer writing a character inaccurately to the source, or two characters having a rather stilted romance, just remember it's not out of malice on the part of the writer. It's their pure passion coming through - they just don't have the knowhow to express it just yet. I learned a lot from writing this fic, and those writers who give you second-hand embarassment are just learning too.
  
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TheRatatata on Chapter 2 Sat 11 May 2024 05:39PM UTC

Bro I couldn't find this fanfic but the French accent lapidot fusion stuck with me since I first read it😭
So happy I found it again

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 2 Sat 11 May 2024 11:31PM UTC
  
  Well, glad it stuck with you! I'm not that familiar with other takes on Lapidot fusion, but Vesuvianite all kinda came together. Don't ask about the French accent; it's as inexplicable as Garnet's british or Blue-bird Azurite's cockney, and I also have no explanation for how it found its way into this fic...
  
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TheCrampReturns on Chapter 3 Tue 20 Feb 2024 02:21AM UTC

I really like the characterization here- love the focus on Vesuvianite as being so expressive and lively.

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 3 Thu 29 Feb 2024 02:12AM UTC
  
  Vesuvianite is a really fun character to characterize, because she's made up of two characters who aren't polar opposites, but aren't extremely similar. There's a few things that they both share in spades and a few things they're absolutely diametrically opposed in. If I've gotten an interesting character across so swiftly, then I've done a good job!
  
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KiranInBlue on Chapter 3 Fri 19 Apr 2024 11:47AM UTC

You have such a unique writing style and it's delightful! I especially loved the moment when Peridot caught Lapis and had a split second to decide what to do -- it was so sweet! Thank you so much for sharing!

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Anonymous (Guest) on Chapter 3 Tue 04 Mar 2025 11:21AM UTC

Pretty funny that they could've just led them to a warp pad. This method seems faster tho lmao

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 3 Wed 05 Mar 2025 10:24AM UTC
  
  In case of fusion, break glass.
  
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UndeadToaster on Chapter 4 Sat 20 Jan 2024 09:10AM UTC

This is so well written !!!
Looking forward to the next update :)

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 4 Mon 22 Jan 2024 10:21PM UTC
  
  Thank you! It means a lot to me.
  I'm hoping to make updates a fornitely thing, but realistically, it's gonna be monthly. I'm new to the game!
  
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kurona7 on Chapter 4 Sun 28 Jan 2024 05:33AM UTC

Ahh too much power for the bulbs. Oh gosh Vesuvianite really is just trying things now.

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 4 Sat 03 Feb 2024 04:55AM UTC
  
  People like you remind me that, every little thing I write, someone out there really derives a lot of joy from it in a way I can't appreciate. It's so encouraging
  
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2. 1. kurona7 on Chapter 4 Mon 05 Feb 2024 01:02AM UTC
    
    It's easy to get joy from a wonderful story being shared. I hope you are enjoying yourself!
    
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kurona7 on Chapter 5 Mon 05 Feb 2024 01:04AM UTC

It seems she wants to be in complete control of their counterparts? And oh my gosh, they need to express their feelings to each other already! And the last bit of course had to be foreshadowing aaaaah.

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sevenines on Chapter 5 Wed 14 Feb 2024 04:49AM UTC

just read through all of this and i am in LOVE with your prose. my first impression was ‘wow this is such good writing’ and i could tell you were writing with a clear understanding of canon (the mention of “important thinkers” triggered that for me—not many ppl mention them despite them being established canon—and the comment in the first chapter of them debating on if gems were living is such a fun nod to gems-as-viruses (or at least i interpreted it that way)).
it’s also amazing how detail-oriented your writing is!! you don’t skimp out on the little things. i love how you delve into every little thought and place intention behind each action. the in real-time brief but in word-count long fight btwn vesuvianite, amethyst, and pearl impressed me in how you kept the tension going (obviously the “dangerous gem” was lapis and peridots fusion, but it still felt like a reveal when pearl and amethyst finally realized!) and made it such an enjoyable read (not just amethyst whipped and pearl jumped—things like ‘what are they thinking?’ ‘what about their character drives them to do this?’ ‘how does this connect with their past experiences?’).
in general your writing is just so FUN. the bull market joke made me chuckle, and i absolutely love the continued weapons/fighting metaphor you used in pearl and amethyst’s bathroom convo. and the differences you note between humans and gems!! you make full use of the SU world and its characters making it such a treat to read.
pearl’s fear of vesuvianite is so interesting!! the characterization of lapis as genuinely terrifying is one of my favorites and i can’t wait to see what’s next.

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 5 Thu 15 Feb 2024 01:58AM UTC
  
  In my (limited) experience as a creator of fan content, there's three types of commenters.
  There's people who post abrupt, often incomprehensible comments that don't really give you much. I like to think of these as spotaneous acts of "I want to show people how I feel, but not anyone in particular, and not in a way that they understand."
  There's people who post short comments applauding the work and pointing out a handful of things they enjoyed about it, a lot more formulated than the previous kind. I have to read these as people who want to show their appreciation, but don't have the time or aren't well versed enough in the medium to express it all. It just comes out as all they can give at that moment in time.
  Finally, there's people like you. You're the most dangerous kind. When you read a fic, you're always making mental notes, you're studying yourself and your own reactions to the work just as much as you're studying the work. And when you feel very strong reactions, you pull them apart and try to figure out just what spark this author has to get you that way (and given you're almost universally writers, you're wondering how you can incorporate it yourself). And then, you decide to voraciously devour the work and put all of those notes you took into one, big block expressing your appreciation for the art.
  
  All three of these are really important, in different ways, and without any one of these three the fanfiction medium would be much smaller. I value every single one of them and wish I could give them all a response that let them know that, but, I just assume that they do. But I say you're the most dangerous kind because you threaten to make every author curl up into a ball and shrink into a giddy little singularity, and then the world would be without writers, and would be a much worse place. Every last one of you makes a deep impact on the author, even if neither of you may realize it.
  All this to say, "Wow! Thanks!"
  
  Last Edited Thu 15 Feb 2024 02:02AM UTC
  
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2. 1. sevenines on Chapter 5 Tue 20 Feb 2024 04:31AM UTC
    
    woah! a compliment for a compliment (at least that’s how i see it—i’m honored and enjoyed this reply very very much). i picked apart this work because it was /worth/ picking apart!! one of the (other) first impressions i got when reading was that you were writing with *intention*, as odd as that may sound. every paragraph has a point; i am so used to reading through a story at a breakneck pace and just absorbing the proper ideas that being able to dig into each paragraph and finding something valuable there is a big treat. this fic is so much more than beats of a story: it plays with the gems’ unique dynamics, how a character feels about themself, and how the setting and the characters interact! maybe saying that it’s ‘involved’ is a better way to put it.
    btw—i really enjoyed the new chapter!! i’ve got so much to say about that too but ill save it for another comment. i’m honored that, despite being on the reader-side, i still have the power to invoke emotion across a screen (like what your story does!). i’m not a fic writer, though maybe one day ill use my analysis to finally be one, but for now i write letters of appreciation simply because i like to.
    have a good day :D
    
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UndeadToaster on Chapter 6 Mon 19 Feb 2024 10:46PM UTC

Loving this fic!!!

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sevenines on Chapter 8 Mon 26 Feb 2024 06:54PM UTC

you write pearlmethyst SO well that i cannot complain about its prominence one bit. the later-seasons sweetness yet still-there rivalry is balanced amazingly!! it really speaks to something that you know their dynamic enough to break it. and having amethyst starting to distance herself from rose’s ideals (presumably) because this is post zoo arc but the fact that it is BEFORE the rose = pink diamond reveal is amazing.
i love how you describe such hard-to-pinpoint details with playful metaphors, like this line!!! “Her voice drew up in her throat knowingly - what exactly it knew was a mystery - and gained a playful tail that kept it bubbling in her mouth for a while.” Makes me wish ao3 had a wattpad-esque line-commenting feature so i can note every piece of writing just like this.
if im reading the beginning of the previous chapter right, lapis is starting to dominate the fusion in her excitement, which is SO interesting because in most peridot-lapis fusion fics lapis has anxiety but it’s always unfounded. she typically fears repeating her past toxicity and the fic either ends with an ‘it’s ok we don’t need to fuse’ (which is still valid) or ‘no, it’s different now, you’ll be just fine’. this is such a refreshing angle on it and has ramped up my interest 100000%. PLUS it takes into account what has been revealed in raising the barn (peridot’s self-sacrificial tendencies) yet before it takes place which is A+. it makes me wonder, will it eventually lead to vesuvianite needing to be “taken down”/defeated? are you taking this a different direction? intriguing!! also her having garnet-level egotism is amazing i love it.
after reading this chapter i went back and reread the whole fic. just as good the second time!

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 8 Tue 27 Feb 2024 10:32PM UTC
  
  The problem with you (problem?) is that you have excellent media literacy, and a sort of curiousness that I specifically wrote as the most admirable, likable part of Vesuvianite. I'll just give you some ideas to let stew; I'm sure you'll take to those voraciously. Can't say I've ever been complimented on one single line of prose before. I'm glowing - that particular line just sat in the "I should probably cut this down" category, but never changed. Obviously, you've immortalized it!
  On metaphor; sometimes I think people see writing as the path of least resistance and - if they had the skill/time/resources - they'd pick other art forms to work on. But writing has strengths other mediums don't, and to me its greatest tools are subtext and metaphor. To give everything a sense of place and real-ness with what is (when taken literally) gibberish. From a utilitarian standpoint, it's like how horror movies always keep the creature in the shadows because your mind custom tailors all the details to be the perfect thing to scare you. On a more philosophical level, since humans haven't quite figured out how to share thoughts Peer-to-Peer yet, words are the closest thing we have to encapsulating the real world. You can draw it, but drawings look the same to everyone, while the description of Amethyst's room is exactly as messy as the individual reader thinks it is. You can photograph it, but photos only show what's there, not what isn't, while the human experience is mostly based around things that aren't there.
  A problem with the way most of the fandom interprets Lapis (problem?) is that they either want to see all of her problems wiped away, because they see themselves in Peridot, or want to see Lapis suffer, because they see themselves in Lapis. That's a wonderful thing to express, but it sometimes obfuscates her actual problems. It flattens her a little to wipe away all of Lapis' issues (and there are many; Lapis is a tapestry made up of torn strings), not least because some of what's wrong with her is part of her. A person's greatest weaknesses are always their greatest strengths amplified. To take them away is to take away a part of the character, too.
  And one last thing; aside from someone rereading an entire fic of mine basically being a rite of passage and incredibly flattering, it's good practice, because my writing style is heavily "introduce something out-of-place now and harken back later." Amethyst asked one question in chapter 3 ("Who's that?"), which composed most of the conflict of chapter 9. I opened this saying I'd give you ideas to stew, and I know this in particular absolutely will, because there's been six chapters of out-of-place things since.
  
  Last Edited Tue 27 Feb 2024 10:37PM UTC
  
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angelaenthusiast on Chapter 8 Fri 01 Mar 2024 08:57PM UTC

i LOVE your style of writing, it’s fun and kinda super smart in a way? it’s like the text keeps gaining new quirks and traits every time! and the fic overall is written so well, the characters, their relationships, the story itself… (but i have to admit that english is not my first language so i have to spend much more time on one chapter that i probably should, rereading lines and googling smart words and stuff- which is fascinating somehow and makes me excited)

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 8 Sat 02 Mar 2024 05:40AM UTC
  
  Thank you so much! "Smart" is an egotistical way to refer to your own writing, so I'll not, but by all means, do it for me.
  And yeah, I use English's weirder sides a lot in my writing. Play around with it. Sometimes a little too much. Language is an amazing thing, but I hate it when it gets in the way of people communicating (which is the main thing it was invented to stop). I just wish we lived in a world where everyone could perfectly understand one another; we've got the internet, and you and I would never have even known the other existed if it wasn't for that, so I guess we're one step closer.
  
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TheGlazed_Cheese on Chapter 8 Sun 11 Aug 2024 08:06PM UTC

GAHAAHAHHAHAHAHA THIS IS SO PEAK

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TheCrampReturns on Chapter 10 Tue 16 Apr 2024 05:24AM UTC

Well fuck. Things can never just be simple, can they?

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 10 Tue 16 Apr 2024 07:48PM UTC
  
  You can take simple parts and make something complicated with them, but you can't take complicated parts and make something simple out of them, at least not without a hammer.
  People are mighty complicated - that is to say, people are stupid and bound not to get along!
  
  Last Edited Tue 16 Apr 2024 07:51PM UTC
  
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Lov3li on Chapter 10 Fri 19 Apr 2024 04:15PM UTC

This was so tense and I loved absolutely every second of it! Everything about this, from the writing to the characters to the story was absolutely amazing. This was beautiful author <3

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 10 Sat 20 Apr 2024 10:14PM UTC
  
  I'm really glad to hear that! I'm always a little worried about my character-to-action balance (it tends to get away from me, most things do) and hearing that it adds to the scene rather than distracts from it gives me great peace of mind.
  
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angelaenthusiast on Chapter 10 Sat 27 Apr 2024 10:43PM UTC

I love this work so much it’s hard to contain.

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TheGlazed_Cheese on Chapter 10 Sun 11 Aug 2024 08:35PM UTC

I knew something was wrong. Felt scary but nice. Boy I'm super confused but I'll read anyway.

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sevenines on Chapter 11 Tue 30 Apr 2024 03:28PM UTC

i’ve been thinking about what you said about the mind filling in the blanks like a horror movie but how that extends to time. i felt very much like i was caught in a web between the paragraphs of amethyst’s proofing and vesuvianite’s pain. my brain decided to stop and reread that specific part of the last chapter for however long it wanted to (aka i don’t remember how long it was but it was at least a minute) just going ‘wait, did this really?? yes this IS what’s happening’ with a voice in the back of my head telling me that reading further /would/ probably give me more answers, but a stronger voice knowing that your type of writing is in the details and if i really wanted to catch what you threw, sitting on a couple of paragraphs is necessary.
i absolutely didn’t expect lapis and peridot unfusing on their own (unless you count an emotional takedown as being defeated) and got excited knowing i was in familiar territory when malachite appeared. there are many interpretations of lapis and peridot’s dynamic out there, even down to the little details! it’s understandable considering there’s surprisingly little of them in the show. we get only snapshots, so it’s easy for people to fill everything in on their own; now that they’re separated once again, i’m excited to see how exactly YOU will tackle them (which is a bit disingenuous to say considering they have been together this whole time due to the nature of fusion. for example, if i were to guess, you pulled some aspect of vesuvianite’s god-level ego from the ep ‘the new crystal gems’—they were pretty irreverent of others and only cared about the structure they made up right then and there, which is so very vesuvianite. i could also be completely off base as is the nature of interpreting between two sources).
of course i have to give the transition out of amethyst’s room to the outside world (like from a story to reality, using your words) its flowers!! and i was surprised that it was /pearl/ who shouted at lapis, i even had to take a sec to internally round up all of the characters in the scene to confirm that yes, that rage IS all pearl’s, and that’s pretty powerful.
now onto this chapter, i loved the chance we got to get into peridot’s mind. there’s a definite gap between an immortal gem’s perception of life and a bug’s that you highlighted here, but simultaneously not really because it was part peridot that could’ve shattered amethyst! and how peridot’s journey is littered with reminders of what part-her has done is *chefs kiss*. i do not miss the fact that you deliberately inserted a scene where lapis catches peridot. every choice you make speaks volumes. (like how vesuvianite’s first creations were also bugs.)
other smaller things: i realize i didn’t say anything about chap 11, but it was an amazing one nonetheless so i’ll just highlight a really funny quote i found and remembered while skimming it again: “On quiet nights, she could still hear the screams.” you use amethyst’s comedic potential to its fullest! also, pearl being badass in the last chapter: hell yeah. and garnet!! if i was excited for the arrival of malachite (or at least the notion of her) i am doubly happy for garnet. new characters are fun to throw into the mix from a story-telling standpoint, especially one who is level-headed AND a master of fusion, but i also just really like garnet.

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1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 11 Wed 22 May 2024 01:41AM UTC
  
  I think the greatest compliment any artist can recieve is "Yes, so, I stopped and enjoyed this one part over and over and over again for a while", so, thank you for that. Now, on tackling Lapis and Peridot? Oh, that's a fun one; they're a very real relationship in a few ways, one of those ways apparently being that the perspective character doesn't go poking around in every corner of said relationship and only sees it from the outside. But I haven't been writing them this whole time, because Vesuvianite is not them, in the same way Garnet is very much not Ruby and Sapphire, and purple is very much not red or blue. A fusion is a relationship made manifest, not two people put side-by-side. What Vesuvianite says about Lapidot is up to you, for now.
  Honestly? I'd love to give more insight into this, but (a) feel giving too much input on this chapter and the very end of the previous one would remove some of the magic, death of the author and all that, and (b) I don't think I fully understand it yet. There's purpose here. It'll all unfold.
  As usual, I really appreciate your input! Amethyst is always a chance for grand comedy, and Pearl - being so typecast as weak, but trying - is a great opportunity for moments of defining rebellion. She's been a criminal for five thousand years, after all. And Garnet... oh. Garnet's going to be a handful. In the way a single egg is a handful; not because it's especially large or heavy, but because if mishandled, things crack.
  
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2. 1. sevenines on Chapter 11 Mon 23 Sep 2024 04:37AM UTC
    
    i’m looking at the date i last commented and it’s absolutely diabolical, so i’ll attempt to continue what i was building up (or reread the whole thing trying) as i slowly make my way through what’s been written since!
    i really respect that you’re making vesuvianite distinct from just lapis + peridot. fusion, as a non-human concept in a human society, can only be written as filtered through a human experience. it’s very easy for me to think of fusion as the average of two characters’ attributes and call it a day. in the back of my head is a special place made just to store all the ways people have filtered fusion in their human brains, and how it shows in their writing. from what you’ve said, i feel like what you’ve made of this version of fusion is just something i’ll have to wait and see more of. to reverse engineer this would be to get the password out of a modern hash. maybe down the line i’ll write out what i believe you have plucked out of lapis and peridots dynamic and placed into vesuvianite.
    my biggest regret in leaving this so long is that i let myself get spoiled by a tumblr post. i’ll pretend i do not see..
    
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  2. 1. RunwayQueen on Chapter 11 Wed 25 Sep 2024 03:15AM UTC
      
      You! You're back! It's a pleasure to have you back. I saw you tagging the aforementiioned spoilerific tumblr post (and am also now a follower of you, for all that's worth), and was excited to see whenever you'd pop up and give this a read. There's been a lot that's changed.
      I've always been fascinated by exploring how gems feel about their fusions. It's rarely every touched on in show. From a doylist perspective, it's because there's just not much time to have characters sit around and talk about a dozen other characters who rarely every show up, and from a watsonian perspective, there's no real reason for them to do it since they've presumably spoken their thoughts on their fusions some time in the last 5,000 years and don't need to go repeating themselves.
      I love Sugilite, but much like Jasper and Alexandrite, never find the place for her. They're very filled out in the canon; there's no time gap where they could pheasibly exist to be written about, except for long before the story begins, which isn't often possible. But at least I don't have to pay Nicki Minaj's VA bill just to include her, which the Crewn absolutely did, and is a much stronger deterrent for including Sugilite in anything than mere canon convolution.
      Good news (and a sneak peak) if you liked that beginning section; there's a somewhat similar section coming up in Chapter 21. It's already written, actually. Just waiting to be published come the 29th.
      
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