Chapter Text
The silence of the night had its own kind of discomfort when neither of them was asleep.
At least Gem wasn’t, and Pearl could tell.
She knew the sound of Gem sleeping and this wasn't it. Behind her the breathing was too quiet, too controlled.
Pearl kept her eyes closed and said nothing.
Gem shifted. Small adjustments, the mattress moving beneath them. Pearl felt the warmth of Gem behind her at a careful distance she set between them.
Then Gem's arm came around her.
Slowly. Like she knew she shouldn’t be doing it but was anyway.
Pearl moved forward.
Not far. Just enough. The arm followed for a half second then stopped, and Pearl lay in the space she'd made and stared at the wall and felt the absence behind her.
Gem didn't follow.
The breathing continued.
Pearl focused on it without meaning to. Trying to read something in the rhythm. It didn't give her much. Just Gem still holding in whatever she'd decided to keep from her earlier.
The distance sat between them.
She lay in it longer than she meant to.
But then she shifted backward. Just enough that her back met Gem's front. She felt Gem go completely still, and then, after a moment, exhale.
Pearl reached down and found Gem's hand and turned her own palm up.
Gem's fingers closed around hers.
They lay like that. Pearl's eyes open in the dark. Gem's breathing slowly losing its deliberateness behind her, giving way to something more natural. Pearl listened to it change and felt something in her own chest doing the same.
Some minutes passed.
Then light.
The blue-white diffuse of a phone screen bleeding around Gem's shoulder into Pearl's peripheral vision. Sudden in the dark. Pearl didn't move.
A pause.
Gem shifted behind her. The light vanished. A quiet thunk on the nightstand.
Gem's arm tightened.
Pearl felt it before she understood it, something different in the way Gem was holding her. And then the breathing again, uneven and shaky.
Pearl finally turned over.
Gem's face at close range in the dark. Her expression turned slightly away, jaw set, she clearly didn't want to be seen like this.
Pearl looked at her and felt everything replay from earlier. Her own face did something she couldn't fully control.
After a moment she reached for the back of Gem's head. Gently guiding her forward into her shoulder, and holding her there.
Gem gripped her.
Pearl's hand moved slowly through her hair. She stared at the other wall and felt the grip at her back, desperately needing something to hold onto, and kept her hand moving.
Gem's breathing gradually lost its edge. The grip loosening by degrees, not letting go but no longer holding on like that. Pearl kept her hand in her hair and waited until the quiet that settled was a different kind of quiet from the one they'd started with.
When Gem finally pulled back she didn't go far. Just enough to look at Pearl, her face still wet.
Then slowly, she closed most of the distance between their faces and stopped there.
Pearl looked at her.
Then closed the rest.
Gem kissed her like she’d been holding her breath. Pearl felt Gem’s tears against her face before she'd fully registered it and pulled her closer, hand at the back of her head, and Gem's breath broke slightly into it and Pearl held on.
After a while they pulled back.
Pearl looked at her in the dark. Gem's face still a mess.
"Are you okay?"
Gem looked at her.
"No."
Pearl nodded. Pulled her back in.