Work Text:
It's a pleasant enough afternoon, Lapis thinks. Lightly overcast and so wonderfully quiet-- the other Gems are gone on a mission somewhere they don't trust her to go yet, Steven is out doing something or another and she'd considered going along, but she had a nagging suspicion crowds (even by Beach City standards, even by human standards) would lead... nowhere good. But alone is good, with a simple book and nothing but the sound of waves and gulls and--
'Unhand that at once!'
A shrill voice followed by a grumbling half-roar. Lapis groans, pinching the bridge of her nose once she remembers that... no. She's not as alone as she'd thought. Granted, most of the time Lion just slept when he was around, but as for the... other...
Lapis tries to ignore when Peridot bursts into the house, not even bothering to close the door. Tries not to listen to her grumbling though it's hard to not listen when it's the only real noise any more and it's hard to decide what's more impressive-- the sheer vulgarity coming out of the green gem's mouth, or just how archaic it all is.
Come to think of it--
"Disgusting... augh!" Peridot grumbles as she heads to the kitchen sink and Lapis can't really totally ignore her now, since Peridot's directly in her line of sight. She can make out... enough. Peridot's right 'hand' is intact but the left is down to a single digit, the rest curled in the right and covered in-- ugh. Saliva, sand, grass, even a few tufts of down?
Peridot goes silent then as she tries to clean the fingers, clouds of steam rising from the sink. It's several minutes before she's satisfied, and Lapis is surprised to see when Peridot turns, her visor is gone.
So it's not the visor, her eyes really are that sort of blinding lime green and
wide.
She squeaks?
And blushes so hard she's practically glowing when Lapis snickers the first time, and it makes Peridot grow brighter which makes Lapis laugh more and she really has to get ahold of herself before Peridot becomes a beacon bright enough to signal Hom--
Well. That thought killed any desire to laugh.
So Lapis marks her book and leans back with her hands behind her head, setting her feet up on the table as Peridot sits down on the couch where it turns the corner, her gem flashing briefly and the visor reappearing as she holds the detached (even by Peridot standards) fingers up to the bottom of her... arm, the other five fingers flat under them.
They're covered in teeth marks, all nine
ten
of them.
"Do you mind?" Peridot asks, her voice flat and Lapis shrugs by way of reply, but averts her eyes.
Mostly.
She's not staring directly at Peridot but it's not quite her fault the other gem is still in her peripheral vision and that she can see
worried?
Fingers still held to the bottom of the cone that makes up her left arm and they're utterly unresponsive and she can see Peridot's eyes widen and her form tense and the very edge of her weirdly sharp teeth dig into her lower lip. And then the fingers twitch, floating to their standard place and Peridot relaxes.
And tenses again, letting out a panicked noise and
bites
hard it looks like, one-two-three-four and Lapis can see that it hurts her.
She feels uneasy. Something is just a little too familiar.
Peridot glares. Let her glare.
"What was that about?" Lapis asks.
"I needed to make sure they..." Peridot tenses again, eyes darting away. "They function properly after that... creature tried to devour them," she says and her voice has that deadpan tone again.
"By... biting them... more?"
Peridot grunts.
"What's the deal with them anyway?" Lapis asks after a moment, tapping a foot against the table, plap-pap-pap in time to the rain now hitting the window and she hopes Steven's somewhere under cover.
Peridot grunts again, folding her arms as much as she can.
If it were a month ago, Lapis would let it go and find something else to do so they don't fight (again) and wreck something (again), but it's /now/ and they've been civil, been talkative some even if it was discussing how at least Lapis didn't turn everything into a lecture and Peridot didn't turn everything into a meal. So she presses on, "I'm not trying to... joke or anything," she says, sitting up properly now. "Can't you make new ones?"
She regrets.
Because Peridot flushes again, blinding green and her teeth are at her lip again and the word is muffled but it's two letters that don't take much figuring out: "no."
Lapis frowns.
Peridot sighs, less-chewed fingers slipping under her visor to rub her forehead and her eyes are closed as she speaks again. "You really haven't noticed?!" she asks and is that a quake in her voice?
'Noticed what?' Lapis almost asks, but doesn't. Because the way her thoughts rush and pour into one another the connections form immediately: what is a gem's body made of? Light, light with mass, but light.
And Peridot's only partly light because light doesn't clang against warp pads or sink so deep into the sand but metal does and metal would mean false limbs, /physical/ limbs that can be damaged and need repair.
That likely does not exist on Earth.
Rain keeps the silence from being too crushing until Lapis speaks again.
"How does... how did... this?" she asks.
Peridot stares. Lapis is pretty sure she's grinding her teeth, too.
"How does what?" the green gem says, spits, hisses a dozen other adjectives Lapis could assign and none would quite capture the exact tone.
Lapis just holds up her own hand and wiggles her fingers. Words are easy and then they're not and they're usually not when they really, really need to be easy.
Incredibly, Peridot seems to understand.
"Sometimes they need to make an example," she says, staring down at the floor. "Sheer brute force isn't enough to work all the time, they have to humiliate. Show what happens when some Gem gets a little too uppity because she just happens to be assigned to a Diamond, or goes poking around places she's not supposed to even know about and gets her gem chipped for her trouble."
Her fingers clench (or six do, four are slower to respond and don't curl quite so much) and Peridot's shoulders begin to shake.
"So they have to show they can strip you of... of everything. Whatever rank you have. Your memories. Even your form. They let you live, but you're more dependent on keeping in their graces than ever. Because they were kind enough to leave your gem mostly intact and give you means to carry on. Because only they can properly repair you when you lose a leg, or something tries eating your fingers..."
Neither of them have noticed how Lapis has moved closer. Peridot does look up though, when she speaks.
"Do they feel?"
"A little," Peridot sighs, looking down at her left hand. Her fingers respond properly now as she flexes them, pulls up the screen. "Basic sensation, really-- they don't hurt. Much."
And things are silent again as Peridot sorts through logs of the artifacts the Crystal Gems have collected (sometimes it's not so silent as she mutters how really, how have they gone this long without a proper system) and Lapis' thoughts are cascading again, about how nothing really changes, about how even if Peridot wasn't confined, they still trapped her in a way, still reduced her to nothing but a tool to work and obey, or else; and the measures one might take to ensure they're still real and can still feel.