Chapter Text
Pearl was entirely invested in their third awful apocalypse movie selection when Amethyst slipped in through the front door. Garnet turned to face her from her spot on the couch as she entered. Amethyst’s dark eyes had lingered on Pearl with an unreadable expression before turning upon Garnet with a quirked eyebrow.
“Uh...hey...guys. What's up?”
“Ame! Come sit with us. We’re watching 2012 ,” Garnet said distractedly.
“It's making me wish we had died in 2012,” Pearl muttered, drawing a chuckle from Garnet and confused eyes from Amethyst.
“...Yeah? I guess I can chill here for a bit. Surprised to see you here, Pearl,” Amethyst said.
“Really? Why?”
“I thought you two were, like… done.”
Her words drew an awkward and tense silence from the two women whose eyes were firmly on the screen, but seemed not to be watching a thing.
Garnet broke the silence first, “We’re still friends. We’re mature enough to be that much.”
Amethyst cocked a thick eyebrow in blatant disbelief, but if Garnet saw it, she ignored it.
Anxious to escape the sudden and unspoken fog of tension creeping up her arms, Pearl made a show of looking at her phone and being shocked by the time, “Crap, I need to get to bed soon. I have my physics exam tomorrow morning.”
Garnet looked up with an expression of disappointment, but also guilt.
“Why didn't you say anything? I could've helped you study while you were here. I know you can never feel too prepared. I also wouldn't have kept you up this late.”
Pearl waved off her words with warmth flooding her cheeks in response to being on the receiving end of Garnet’s care once again.
“No! No, don't worry about it. I wanted to spend some time with you.”
Amethyst looked between the both of them incredulously. It was an expression that said she could not believe how far back up each other’s asses they had already gotten in such a short reunion time. Pearl actively avoided her gaze.
“Let me walk you back to your dorm,” Garnet said, already moving to stand up.
“Stop it! Absolutely not with a sprained ankle you aren't,” Pearl said, voice sharper than she had intended with worry.
A scoff this time, from Garnet, made Pearl’s eyebrows arch upward in a challenge.
“You're keeping that ankle elevated and iced, and not putting unnecessary strain on it— that includes walking almost fifteen minutes to get to my dorm.”
Pearl stood up and stretched her arms high above her head, bones making all sorts of cracks as she did so, and drawing a sleepy yawn from her lips.
“I don't want you walking by yourself,” Garnet protested before seeming to alight with an idea, “Ame, can you walk with her please?”
“ Excuse me ?” Amethyst asked, thick brows drawn angrily over her nose. Pearl shrunk back from the aggression in her gaze.
“Please? I’ll quickpay you ten if you do this for me.” Garnet bribed her, and held eye contact with her best friend from the other side of the couch until Amethyst finally caved and snatched up her jacket off the back of the couch after getting to her feet.
“Let's go, Pearl.”
The way that Amethyst relented with a heavy sigh made Pearl shrink further into herself as she slipped her shoes back on. She hesitated by the door that Amethyst had just swung open as an inexplicable urge to lean over the back of the couch and press a kiss to the top of Garnet’s head took her off guard.
“Pearl, come on!” Amethyst’s voice was muted a bit from the other side of the wall, and Pearl realized that she was already halfway down the hallway and to the elevator.
“I’ll text you? Remember what I said about your ankle, I don’t want you to interfere with the healing-”
“ Pearl . I’ll be fine,” Garnet laughed amusedly, “Go before Amethyst walks down without you.”
With a jerky nod, Pearl turned to exit and close the door behind her, feeling her stomach twist into knots at the inevitable choices between a cold shoulder or a firm talking to from Garnet’s closest friend.
Amethyst was waiting impatiently with a grinding jaw and pursed lips by the elevator doors, the down button glowing a dim orange that meant the elevator car was on its way. Pearl elected not to say anything, hopefully dragging their mutual silence out all the way until they reached her dorm. If she was able to choose between the icy silence and Amethyst’s cutting words, she would absolutely prefer the former.
They made it exactly twelve steps out of the front door of the lobby when Amethyst sighed again in a way that at least forewarned Pearl of the verbal lashing she had been anticipating since Amethyst walked in on her and Garnet’s movie marathon.
“What’s your angle with her?”
The question sent a shock of anger down Pearl’s veins, “Are you serious?”
Amethyst kept her eyes straight ahead, expression unreadable as she continued walking briskly toward Pearl’s dorm and waited for a serious answer.
“You’re honestly suggesting that I would ever manipulate Garnet? Who do you think I am?” Pearl ignored the tugging in the back of her mind that said maybe overcompensating for her previous mistakes to maybe allow for Garnet to give her a second chance, on her own terms of course, was just slightly manipulative. If she squinted.
“The same girl that broke her fucking heart, maybe? Or did you forget that part?” Amethyst’s voice was scathing, and Pearl’s steps stuttered in response before stopping entirely.
“If you have something you want to say, just say it already.”
“Okay,” Amethyst rounded on her, and even though she was significantly shorter, Pearl took half a step backward in fear, “I think you’ve fucked G over enough times for one semester. So, I’m warning you to keep your distance before I make you.”
Pearl felt the buzzing in her limbs that she could only associate with the rush of adrenaline that came with being cornered, “Choosing to hang out with me or not to is entirely up to Garnet. If you have a problem with that, talk to her about it, but until she specifically tells me to leave her alone, I’m not going anywhere.” Her words left her mouth with breathless certainty, and her fingers trembled at her sides with how good and terrifying it felt to say them.
“I think I can make my way back fine from here, thank you,” Pearl murmured after taking a shaky breath. She turned on her heel and walked briskly in the direction of her dorm before Amethyst could get a word past her shock-parted lips.
///
“Absolutely not.”
“ Bismuth !” Garnet’s voice climbed up several unusual octaves, drawing the attention of several trainers milling about the room they were all in, across the hallway from the gym.
She had been trying to convince her coach for several minutes to let her at least participate in the day’s practice, but Bismuth was not budging. For some reason, during all of Garnet’s plotting of how she would fake being uninjured all the way through their huge match against Diamond State, she had miscalculated Amethyst’s ability to keep her mouth shut about the true nature of Garnet’s bodily health.
“I don’t wanna hear it, Garnet! You are under my protection as long as you play for me, and on top of that, I personally would never allow any of you to risk exacerbating an injury for the sake of competing!”
The trainers, grad students probably just trying to get their experience in the field, were dutifully pretending not to eavesdrop on the revered Coach Bismuth ripping into her star player. For their part, they at least were making themselves look busy putting away foam rollers and spraying down their equipment.
Bismuth knelt down in front of where Garnet was slumped in a cushioned leather seat with her injured ankle propped up on one identical to it right beside to her. A sigh melted her expression into one of maternal sympathy. She placed a large hand on Garnet’s knee and drummed her fingers there as she contemplated what to say.
“I know you’re upset, but you have to believe that this is for your own protection. Do you know how much I’d kill to unleash you on those snooty upper crusts? To see their faces the first time you block their right side, or get a kill straight down the line?” Bismuth sighed wistfully and patted Garnet’s knee, “When we played them at the beginning of the season, do you remember how arrogant they were while they beat us in three like it was nothing? I’m pretty sure their back row didn’t even break a sweat with the number of blocks their front row got on us.”
Garnet nodded quietly at the memory.
“Think about how hard we’ve been working since then, how much more of a fight we can put up now. The team can do that, Garnet. We can still win- you just have to have faith in them to play for you. And besides,” Bismuth tilted her head closer, “One game isn’t worth an entire playing career. Doesn’t matter who it’s against. Okay? We need you to support your teammates right now, not play hero by trying to fight your way to a permanent limp.”
Garnet released a heavy sigh eventually and rested her head back against the wall behind her. Mismatched eyes stared directly into the beaming lights in the ceiling until she couldn’t take it anymore, and she blinked rapidly through the splotches of red clouding her vision.
“Alright. I’ll back off.”
Bismuth’s smile took over half her face as she clamped Garnet on the shoulder in a firm grasp and stood up from her spot on the floor, “I know you will, kid. Go get some rest.”
“You don’t want me to sit in on the practice?” Garnet’s voice, despite her agreement, was laced with disappointment.
“I could see those bags under your eyes from across the gym- they’d be too distracting. Go sleep. And stop staying up so damn late, Payton. If the pain is that bad, take an Ibuprofen.”
Garnet knew the usage of her last name meant business, so she did not object to the command as Bismuth turned and meandered out of the training room and toward the gym where the rest of Garnet’s teammates had surely finished warming up.
On her way back to her dorm, limping in a boot that the trainers had practically wrestled onto her foot before she could make her escape, Garnet considered that the reason she had been up so late for so many nights was because she kept tossing and turning trying to figure out her feelings for Pearl. She had gone from being so angry and upset to feeling unsettlingly off balance whenever she was around. The doting over her injury did little to help the little jumps that her stomach still did around her ex-girlfriend, and honestly she would love to get a solid night’s sleep if only she could make sense of the mess in her own mind.
“Can I carry that for you?” Pearl’s voice chimed from directly next to Garnet, causing the taller woman to jump and stumble a bit on the bulky boot reaching up from her toes to her calf.
Pearl’s thin, yet unsurprisingly toned, arms were steadying her in seconds, and Garnet looked down into endlessly blue eyes and felt her mouth open and close several times while she wracked her brain for a response.
“Carry what?” Was her brilliant question, and Pearl eyed her as if Garnet were the one who had just sidled up out of nowhere and scared the shit out of her.
“Your bookbag? Shouldn’t you be at practice, anyway?” Pearl asked, letting Garnet go and extending her hand for the deep maroon bag slung around Garnet’s shoulders.
Garnet slid it off and handed it to Pearl with a grateful smile, “Bismuth sent me home. I think Ame snitched about how bad my ankle really is because she isn’t letting me practice. She also thinks I’ve not been getting enough rest, hence my walk of shame back to my dorm.”
Pearl matched her slowed strides easily, and shouldered the extra bookbag along with her own smaller one. “You haven’t been sleeping?” Her voice was concerned, and that little detail made some part in Garnet’s chest twinge with something too reminiscent of hope.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Of course it is! You already have crazy hours between practices, weight training, classes and games. It’s a wonder you find the time to breathe,” Pearl lamented for her.
“This was almost your life, though,” Garnet said.
Pearl scoffed, “Yeah, back before I tore my ACL and they were offering me upward of sixty thousand dollars a year to play for them…” She trailed off for a beat, “I suppose when they were offering to pay me that much to run myself into the ground, I had a hard time seeing clearly, too.”
“I can see just fine!”
“Mhm, right. Despite your perfect eyes,” Pearl stuttered a bit at how it came out as they were making direct eye contact, “erm, I’d like to offer to get you inside and comfortable so you can catch up on your rest.”
Garnet must have been quiet for too long, because Pearl hastily followed her offer up with, “It’s entirely up to you, of course! I just realize how important rest is to a college student in general, let alone a student athlete, and I really can’t stand the thought of you damaging your body any further-”
“Pearl, breathe,” Garnet smiled around a throaty chuckle, “I’ll let you take care of me.”
And those words were really the only ones Pearl needed to hear before she switched into complete “Doting Girlfriend” mode.
Garnet was half asleep by the time Pearl was finally done with her. Garnet’s brand of relaxation had included a scalding hot shower, which Pearl helped maneuver her ankle in and out of with only a handful of blushing cheeks and awkward laughing, three expertly made grilled cheeses, and the tucked in warmth of her bed beneath her fluffiest comforter.
Pearl was moving to close the blinds, bathing the room in mostly darkness, when Garnet murmured something unintelligible from where she had buried herself within her own pillows.
“Hm?” Pearl hummed, stepping closer to the bed.
“Don’t leave,” Garnet said, her voice nothing but a sleepy murmur.
The heat suffusing in Pearl’s cheeks reminded her that she was only Garnet’s friend . Nothing more. She lost that title a while ago, whether she decided to play the role of a doting girlfriend for her injured ex or not.
“I’ll just be in the living room-”
She was cut off by Garnet’s warm hand snaking out from beneath the covers and gripping Pearl’s wrist in her mostly limp grasp. There was no way that she was anything more than partially conscious with a grip that flimsy.
“C’mere.”
A sigh, “Garnet, I have a feeling you’re going to regret this later.”
“I’m sleepy, Pearl, not drunk,” and right there was where Garnet had sounded more lucid than she had since Pearl had so soothingly and lovingly tucked her in.
“Well, actually, being sleep deprived has a similar effect on lowering one’s inhibitions- oh!” Garnet wasted no more time, yanking Pearl onto the poor full mattress with more force than either had anticipated.
“This was what you wanted, isn’t it?” Garnet’s voice was barely anything but a warm breath on the shell of Pearl’s ear. She shivered hard enough for Garnet to notice, if the quirked eyebrow up at her heated face was any indication.
“I- uhm, I would never-” Pearl grasped for words, but none were forthcoming except for the ones that would drag her into even more dangerous territory, like:
Your eyes are stunning.
Of course this was what I wanted- I always wanted you.
and Can we try again?
But she would be damned if she let any of that escape past her lips, and instead settled for stuttering like the helpless teenager she was.
“It’s okay, Pearl. It’s okay to want to be here with me in this moment. If I wanted you gone, I would have kicked you out by now,” Garnet placated her.
“No, you wouldn’t have. You’re too nice.”
“No such thing as too nice. And you’re right. I would have just had you wait in the living room until I woke up and could walk you back to your dorm,” Garnet shifted until her arms were firmly around Pearl’s waist, and she was lying atop the comforter and between Garnet’s legs. It took everything in Pearl to keep her upper body from collapsing down onto Garnet’s and melting fully into the embrace. Her elbows sunk the mattress down a bit on either side of Garnet’s chest, and there was a part of her that knew as soon as she let go, she would never get back up.
“You know I wouldn’t let you walk me.”
Garnet’s laugh was a puff of breath on Pearl’s long neck. She shivered again.
“I would have gotten Ame to do it, then.”
And just like that, Pearl remembered the stern talk that Amethyst had with her outside of Garnet’s dorm building. The threats she had gotten still stung, but ultimately nothing could have kept her away from this moment right now.
“Garnet what are we doing?” Pearl’s voice was full of exasperation and sleepiness and distress, but Garnet’s full lips were already on the delicate curve of her jaw with comforting words.
“Shh… We don’t have to be doing anything. Just be here with me, please?”
And Pearl can’t say no to those eyes, not when they’re fluttering with sleep and looking at her like the safest place in the world is right beneath Pearl’s body. And so she lets herself lie entirely on top of Garnet and curl her hands up until they grip at the strong, yet so very soft skin of Garnet’s shoulders. Her head finds its place in the crook of Garnet’s neck, and the kiss that she places right above her collarbone drives a contented sigh right from between her favorite full lips.
It’s just nap.
And it’s the most simple and domestic thing that she had ever experienced in her short love life, but it is also enough to remind her that this is something she has to keep fighting for. Garnet is someone she will always keep fighting for.