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She’s shaking.
She can feel it; it’s not exactly painful, but the tremble of her hands and the thunk of her head hitting the wall send jolts of a strange sick feeling through her, and she digs her fingers harder into her arms.
She hates remembering.
It’s always so awful, all stinging eyes and gasping breaths, with her legs pulled close to her chest and her skirt gripped tight in her fists as she rocks backwards and forwards, trying desperately to make it go away, to make it quiet, to make it stop.
The scream echoes in her mind, and Pink Pearl lets out a broken sob, burying her face into her knees.
It had been so painful.
Noise echoing through the air as glass shatters under Pink Diamond’s fists, screams of rage bouncing off of the walls and floor and ceiling and coming to rest in Pink Pearl’s head, tearing through her with a chilling feeling. The room somehow so warm and so cold, somehow so familiar and so new and terrifying.
She remembered how it had felt.
More glass raining onto the floor.
Pink Diamond’s shoe, kicking angrily at a wall.
Another scream. Another scream.
Another
scream.
And suddenly.
Everything was frozen and everything was spinning and she could see everything perfectly and she couldn’t see anything at all and then it all went
b̷̟͓͔̝̗͆̔͗̀l̶̩̓̑͊̈́͆͗̓̔̊̓ầ̴̟̙͈̗c̵̹̰͕̥̋̽̕k̵̢̛̜̙̺͍̘̈̌͆̚͘
Quiet.
Nothing.
Nothing.
And then everything, a cacophony of noise tearing through her mind and her body and her gem, ripping through her as her hair falls down onto her shoulders and her skirt tangles around her legs, and a shooting pain spreads across her knees as she drops to the ground, fingers gripping her head so tightly that she’s worried she’ll break, eyes scrunched closed so hard that stars appear under her eyelids. The sensation of falling washes over her all at once and she’s screaming, grasping out, reaching out for anything, anything to hold onto before she falls and hits the ground and shatters—
She opens her eyes.
She’s on the beach.
She’s on the beach, her gem is whole, her feet are buried in the sand, she’s on the beach and she’s okay.
Is she, though?
She still isn’t sure.
The crash of the waves is terrifying, too loud and too sudden, but the gentle sound of the sea brushing against the shore is comforting in a way that the rest of the water is not, so she tunes out the loud sounds and focuses on the quiet, a hand reaching up to trace the cracks on her face.
She keeps doing that, she finds.
Tracing the cracks, drawing the pain, running a hand along her past. She doesn’t know why, because it doesn’t really help. It doesn’t make things worse either though, so she supposes it’s not a harmful habit, and her hand slides across to her hair, pulling a strand of it out of its perfect bun, winding it around her finger.
Her eyes focus on the colour.
Pink, a little purple in the moonlight.
Thinking of herself as Pink Pearl seems strange- a little off. somehow. She wasn’t pink for a very long time.
Volleyball.
Laughter overtakes her suddenly, mixed in with the sobs that still rack through her body, and she pulls at her hair a little as the emotions run through her, swirling over her chest and hands and arms and travelling down to sit in her stomach, a heavy feeling that she doesn’t know how to get rid of. She doesn’t need to, she supposes. That’s the beauty and the ugliness of Earth. Feeling.
A part of her misses Homeworld. Perfect and pristine and Pearl, Pink Pearl, made for a purpose that she carried out without hesitation.
And a part of her is glad she’s not there, not held in place with her arms up and her eyes wide and a smile plastered on her face and a voice that isn’t hers leaving her lips.
She remembers the word leaving her lips.
Starlight.
It brings a sickness to her stomach, swirling around her gem and rising up in her throat. She throws her head back, blinking back tears and memories, and almost chokes at the sight of the sky, bright and dark and endless and dotted with more stars than she can count.
It hurts, it hurts to see, to think about, to feel, and she pulls her hair over her face to cover the sight, screwing her eyes shut as tightly as she can. She just focuses on the sea, on the wind, on the sand slipping into her shoes, on the strands of her hair wrapped around her fingers, pulling hard enough to start to bring tears to her eyes.
It’s too much, it’s too much, it’s too much, and she’s so sick of it. She’s sick of the memories, of the love that breaks and twists inside of her, she’s sick of everything reminding her of the things that she’s been through; of how she can’t even look at the stars without wanting to tear herself apart until there’s nothing left, nothing left, nothing left to feel.
She doesn’t want to feel.
Or maybe she does.
She really hasn’t decided yet.
“Hey, Volleyball.”
It’s soft, and she doesn’t look up at first. She knows who it is, she feels the sand shift as Pearl sits down beside her, she sees the glint of Pearl’s gemstone from the corner of her eye. There’s no need to look up. She doesn’t want to, and she’s sure that Pearl will understand. That’s what they do; sit in quiet understanding, hands clasped and words unsaid.
She likes the contact. They both do, so Pink Pearl reaches her hand out a little, sliding it through the sand to link her fingers through Pearl’s. It’s so simple, so little, and she shakes her hair from her face when Pearl kisses her cheek gently, both of them sending sad smiles in each other’s direction.
“Are you okay?” And the words hanging in the air: I know you’re not.
“Do you want to talk about it?” It’s okay if you don’t.
“Is it about... her?” You are not alone.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to ask so many questions. Do you want us to be quiet?”
It’s still hard to talk, Pink Pearl’s throat closing up around the words, so she just squeezes Pearl’s hand lightly in the way that Steven taught her; one short squeeze for yes, and Pearl nods.
“Okay. Tell me if you change your mind.”
And then it’s quiet, aside from the crashing of the waves and Pearl’s quiet noises of contentment as she rests her head down on Pink Pearl’s shoulder, linking their ankles together and smiling softly. She almost looks like she wants to say something, to take Pink Pearl’s face in her hands and kiss her gently and run fingers over her skin and tell her it’s okay, you’ll be okay, it’s okay.
But she doesn’t.
And Pink Pearl’s grateful for that, because it isn’t okay. Not even now. Not really. It might not ever be. She hates that, she hates it, and it makes her shake with anger, with fear, with the unfairness of it all; but there’s a certain calmness to it as well.
The calmness of stopping tearing yourself apart, but not quite piecing yourself back together.
The calmness of nothing being wrong, but nothing being right.
It’s empty but so full, quiet but so loud, exhausting but so nothing.
Except, something. Just a little bit of love, and Pink Pearl leans into it, leans into Pearl’s soft touches, letting each point of contact fill her with warmth.
She knows it’s not okay.
How did you stop hurting?
Please tell me. Please make it stop. Please tell me how to make it all go numb.
I didn’t.
You can’t stop this, this burning pain, this destruction inside of you.
Pink Pearl smiles as Pearl kisses her cheek again, soft and light and so safe, lips tracing over her face.
But you don’t need to.
You are not alone.