Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Ugh! This is impossible!” huffed Lapis to no one in particular. “The courts aren’t listening. How I’m I supposed to do my job when the legal system is stopping?” Lapis turned the radio on her desk up a few clicks. She continued to shuffle aimlessly through the scattered piles of paper spread all over the desk, some slipping onto the floor. She looked at the numbers like she had a million times, she knew what they meant, but what could she do? Wineries across Austria have been producing more wine than physically possible. Something was going on and good or bad it was her problem. Jesus, she thought and turned up the jazz music even louder as she plopped her head down onto her desk with a muted thud . 

Lapis had been hitting her head against her desk for weeks now. There were no leads, no cracks, no missed steps, no falts, nothing. These wineries can’t keep this up forever, she would tell herself, they have to give at some point, they’re bound to leave a trace. Despite this, Lapis had been sitting at her desk pulling her hair out, blasting 88.9 Jazz radio for over a month. The routine was to get up, go to work, get nowhere, and go home to her cat who only looked at her disappointed.

“I know Pumpkin! Believe me, I’m disappointed at me too.” Truth is Pumpkin was just waiting to be fed. Once Lapis did just that he happily chirped and got to it, crunching away. “I tell you what bud, once I find a lead I’ll buy you some tuna, I know you like it.” Pumpkin did like tuna, Pumpkin liked any food that was in his food bowl actually if it was in his sliver little bowl, it was close enough at least. Lapis gave a soft smile looking down at Pumpkin, she kneeled down and gave him a kiss on the head. Even if work was bad she still had her goofy little guy.

The next morning she was singing a much different tune as sitting at a desk getting nowhere gets old pretty fast. Lapis turned off her alarm and groaned. She slung her legs lazily to the side of the bed. Pumpkin also got up and yawned dramatically while stretching out his body. The two go through their morning routine and Lapis was off. The drive to work was calmer than usual, she only had to honk her horn twice. She got up to her office and turned on her radio. The morning ticked by slowly as she waited for the wineries to have one misstep. Looking through the newest and ever so thrilling business expenses that just got filed. Unfortunately, everything checked out. When Lapis looked at the clock, it wasn’t what she wanted to see. The nine-to-five workday is such a scam, though Lapis. She opted to get up and walk around a bit by making some coffee.

Halfway through her coffee a man dressed in business casual attire comes up to her, he’s holding a long glass bottle “Are you, Ms.Lazuli?”

“Um, yes? Is there something I can help you with?” she says genuinely confused. Lapis’s mind fills with questions,  who is this man, I’ve never seen him before, did we finally hire a new wine inspector? Her mental tangent was cut off by his answer.

“Yes, I am Mr.Tucker and I am with the agricultural department, I have been sent here to inform you about a man that came by to the AGES building unannounced earlier today and dropped this bottle off.” he stops to clear his throat, “The man said that this is the chemical that is being used to produce the impossible amounts of wine.” Lapis’s eyes go wide and her eyebrows shoot up under her bangs. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” This is a lot, this is crazy, this is too much information at once, she thought, waving her hands out in front of her. She then gathered herself, “Who is this man? Do we have an identity?”

“I’m afraid not, he walked in and out with saying as much as I’ve told you.”

“Well, what is the chemical? How do we know he’s telling the truth?” The bottle is handed to her and she inspects the liquid carefully. It’s a pale yellow liquid with a consistency not unlike water. 

“We don’t know and we don’t know, unfortunately. The department is sending a chemist over to test it later this evening, hopefully, we’ll have the results in the next few days. And this is the only lead we have so far so we’ll just have to wait for the lab results to come in and go from there I’m afraid.” Mr.Tucker furrows his brow in a rather serious manner.

“Well, you’ll let me know the second the results are in right? Do you need my contact information? Or anything else at all?” Lapis responded quickly. 

“We already have your contact Ms.Lazuli, and if you would like you could stop by the agricultural department and talk with the chemist yourself if you have any questions for them.”

“That would be wonderful, do you think you could jot down the address for me? I’ll swing by after work today.” Mr.Tucker drew a crude little map on a scratch piece of paper along with the address. 

“Hope to see you soon Ms.Lazuli, pleasure talking to you.” Mr.Tucker says, walking away with a courteous smile. Lapis watches him round the corner and disappear. She slams back the rest of her coffee and excitedly walks back to her office. Lapis is filled with new energy while resuming looking through the business expenditures of varying wineries for the remainder of her shift. 

-    -    -    -    - 

After a reasonable drive, she sees a big brick government building and pulls into the parking lot, Lapis parks her 1970 Ford Maverick and heads in the glass doors. Lapis is greeted by the warm smile of the receptionist. “Hi I’m Lapis Lazuli and I’m a wine inspector under AGES, Mr.Tucker wanted me to talk to a chemist he said would be here,” she said as she dug through her bag looking for her work bag.

“Mr.Tucker… ah, I’ll give him a ring.” The receptionist said looking back and forth from the computer to the phone, dialing. “Hello Mr.Tuck, there is a wine inspector from AGES who wanted to meet with you regarding a chemist? Is that right?” Lapis stood awkwardly for a short time before being sent up to the third floor.  

After some confused wandering she found the chemistry lab. Walking in Lapis was surprised that it was so white, not as white as in the movie but still more white than the average room. Mr.Tucker greeted Lapis, “I’m glad you were able to find us. Now,” he gestures to the woman beside him, “This is Ms.Greene, she is the chemist I was talking about. Now, I do have to go but feel free to ask any questions you have, I’m sure she’ll be happy to answer them” 

Lapis looks at the chemist, who looks like she would not in fact be happy to answer anyone's questions especially hers. As Mr.Tucker leaves the room grows noticeably more heavy as Ms.Greene turns away from Lapis and back to her work. To Lapis chemistry was just pouring stuff into things and then adding powder to the stuff and things, maybe heating up or mixing it, or also not heating it up or mixing it. If Lapis was anything in her high school career it was a bad chem student. 

She watched the chemist's work and was amused by the sassy aura she gave off, she knew that this Ms.Greene character wanted her to leave her alone to do her work and leave the questions for later or never. The problem was Lapis was naturally curious so not asking questions wasn’t in the budget especially when this is the first interesting thing to happen to her in weeks. “So,” Lapis said rather confidently, testing the water off if the chemist would tolerate her. 

Ms.Greene paused her work for a moment, “So.” she responded quite matter of factly. Her back still facing the wine inspector. 

Lapis smiled, “So, how long do you think this is going to take? Like ballpark time.”

The chemist sighed in frustration, “Come back tomorrow.” she said shortly, then returned to her work. Not satisfied, Lapis push further, “As in it will be done tomorrow or you’ll know how long it will take by tomorrow? Also, do you have any ideas of what the chemical could be, I assume Mr.Tucker told you about the situation right?” 

“Yes, I know the situation. Now, if you could come back tomorrow that would be appreciated.” Ignoring this push back Lapis went on. 

“Well, do you have any ideas of what it could be?” The chemist finally turned around, looking at Lapis in disbelief that she wasn’t picking up on the fact she didn’t want her there. 

“Look I just got here.” she then holds up a little paper strip with a purple smear on it, “All I know so far is it’s not acidic, now, please just come back tomorrow.” her tone was one of someone who was tired and fed up. Lapis resolved that she would listen, as exciting as this all was she’ll wait “Alright well here's my business card, I’ll be off then.” she sighed. The chemist sighed too, but more of a sigh of relief. Lapis produced a rather underwhelming business card from her jacket and handed it over. It was taken with a polite nod. She looked it over and looked to be debating something, before also handing over her own card. 

“This is more for future reference, I have a feeling there’s gonna be more to this situation. Anyway, see you tomorrow, we can do questions then.” her tone was a lot more calm, bordering on apologetic, maybe she was feeling a little bad for being so curt. It made Lapis smile a little.

“Tomorrow.” she nodded. As she was walking out she took the time to look over her card. Peridot Greene, it read. That's an odd name, she thought, though she considered her name to be a little odd as well after a little thought. It just kinda stuck with her on the drive home, Peridot. She thought, Peridot? She doesn’t look like a Peridot, she looks like a Claire or an Alice, not Peridot. For the first time in a while, she went to bed with something else on her mind besides wine production. 

Chapter Text

The following day of work was irrelevant in Lapis’s mind, what was important was what would come after. Once she knew what to look for she could really start digging into the investigation, it would allow a clear goal, connect the chemical to the wineries, and use that as proof to obtain a warrant. After hopping into her car she speeds off to the AGES building. Checking in with the receptionist went smoother and she didn’t get lost this time on the way up the lab. She finds Peridot standing in the lab working exactly like she was yesterday, incredibly focused. The chemist looked like she was in her own world and the only thing that mattered was the various glass beakers in front of her. And despite the intense nature of her work she looked relaxed like it was no work at all to determine what to do next, she shifted from one thing to another like she was working on an assembly line. 

Lapis found this calming to watch, she even found herself smiling a bit at how different it was from how her work got done, it wasn’t disorganized and frantic, it was neat and exact. At this point, she’d been lingering in the doorway for a bit too long, so she fully walked into the room and greeted Peridot. “It’s tomorrow.” she said warmly before hopping up onto an unused table and dangling her legs as she continued, “So, what have you unearthed about this chemical, is it actually a likely additive or is it just some dyed water?” 

Peridot smiled a bit at this but returned to being serious rather quickly, “Well it’s definitely not just water, though there is some water in it. It’s a mix of various chemicals actually, right now I’m working on separating them out to identify the main chemical.” 

“There's more than one chemical?”

“Well, yes. But more accurately, it’s a main chemical with a bunch of additives to it. One of the additives besides water was sugar.” 

“Huh,” Lapis said furrowing her eyebrows and thinking. “Interesting.” Now it was Peridot's turn to be mildly confused. 

“Why interesting? Isn’t it expected to find sugar in sweet wine?”

“Well, yes and no. Sweet wine of course has natural sugars but this bottle of chemicals was said to be added to the wine, meaning the sugar found is added sugar. Which isn’t unheard of, it’s almost expected in cheaper wines.” Lapis paused briefly, “It just kinda got me thinking.” She went back to thinking, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow in thought. “I could be wrong but, it just makes me think of the possibility that the chemical being added could be to mask other additives, like sugar or water so they could market their cheap wine as higher quality and charge more.” 

“Huh,” said Peridot, turning around to face Lapis crossing her arms. “That is a solid line of logic.” Peridot nodded, took off her gloves, and got new ones before getting back to work. 

Lapis left a while after, saying she has her contact information if she has results and to send them her way. On the way driving home, Lapis stopped by the store to pick up some dinner. She kept it simple with soup and bread. As she looked at the soup section she debated trying something new before deciding to be boring and got beef soup. Her mind drifted back to Peridot and what soup she would like, probably beef as well. She thought about what she said yesterday about this situation lasting a while and how they’ll most likely be working together. Lapis wanted them to get along. And she wanted to make a good impression, not someone who was impatient and rude like she probably come off yesterday. 

The idea crossed her mind of getting dinner for her, I mean she was already here after all. She debated if that would be weird having met just yesterday. She tried not to think about it too much as she filled another paper bowl with soup. She picked up some bread and got it sliced before paying and getting back in her car. 

She drove back to the AGES building and headed back up, she questioned if food was even allowed in a lab, probably a safety hazard of some kind. Well, she thought, a little late to back out now. Lapis quietly peeked her head in and thankfully Peridot was still there, but she was starting to have second thoughts about this not being weird. She brought a knuckle up to the door frame and gave it a knock, in response to this Peridot turned around, and after processing it was Lapis she raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. 

“Hey, I was at the store buying some dinner and thought it could be nice to pick you up something. It’s just beef soup and bread, hope that works.” Peridot still has yet to say anything and it was starting to worry Lapis a bit. So Lapis just set the soup down on a table away from all the chemicals. She also reached into the bag and grabbed a plastic spoon and a napkin, two pieces of bread were then set on the napkin. 

It was clear as day Peridot had no clue what to think of this and it was making things rather awkward, not the outcome she was aiming to get out of this situation. In an attempt to make the air less tense, Lapis decided to ask how things were going. “So, is separating the additives going well?” 

“Hm? Oh, yeah things are going as intended, it’s just a bit of a process.” 

“In what way?” Lapis asked out of genuine curiosity. 

“Well, sometimes you have to add chemicals to a solution to take things out, which is the next step. Now, while you were gone I got rid of the water and sugar by just boiling it off. The remaining chemical solution is basic, and to remove the other additives it needs to be acidic, meaning the molecules need to be negatively charged.” Peridot stops to see Lapis with her eyebrow deeply furrowed, trying to follow along with what she's saying. Peridot trails off, “The more general steps to get to the end goal are adding chemicals to take away chemicals, then boiling and putting things through a cotton filter. After that, I run some tests to see what properties the chemical has and identify with that information.”

Lapis slowly nods, “Okay.” They continue talking about their jobs and trying to fill the gaps in understanding between their two fields. Peridot tries to dumb down chemistry and Lapis gives context by explaining how wine is made from start to finish and the discrepancies between the input being way smaller than the output of wine being produced. 

After running out of things to talk about Lapis ends up falling asleep at a table while their soup gets cold. She woke up a few hours later with a numb arm. Lapis brushed her brown bangs out of her face. Peridot's back was to her and she was lost in her work, going between small glass beakers and jotting results down. Lapis stretches and grabs her soup to go warm it up. Peridot didn’t notice Lapis's absence even though she was gone for quite a time, Lapis was busy getting lost trying to look for a microwave. After 30 minutes of walking around aimlessly, she finds a microwave to heat up her soup. She’s in a small room with a big window, and it’s dark out, she checks her watch which read 11:12 pm, Damn , she thought, it’s later than I thought . The soup was better than she expected but it was probably just because she was so hungry. 

She went to find a bathroom which was a lot easier, when she returned to the office kitchen she was startled by Peridot standing by the microwave, presumably warming up her soup as well. Peridot looked up to see Lapis and their eyes meet, but Peridot gazed shifted to the microwave when it went off. Carefully taking out her soup and giving it a mix. She looked back to Lapis who was now seated and Peridot joined her. “Does diethylene glycol mean anything to you?”

Lapis looked at Peridot with a puzzled look, “No, why?”

“Because that was the chemical in the bottle, diethylene glycol, um, found in stuff like brake fluid and paint stripper,” said Peridot taking a spoonful of soup. Lapis looked at Peridot with an excited facial expression. 

“This is great! This is amazing! Oh, this is wonderful! Now I can go back to combing through expenditure reports but this time I’ll actually have something to look for.” Lapis sits there smiling and Peridot gives Lapis a semi-confused smile back. “Well, not great." Lapis quickly backpedaled. "If it’s true that glycol is being used, that itself isn’t good but we have a lead and that’s good.” 

“Alright,” Peridot said slowly. “You have fun with your expenditure reports.” She dips her bread into the soup and takes a small bite. 

“Oh, it's not fun at all, but in the past month I’ve gotten nowhere so this is groundbreaking.” Peridot nods slowly and just goes back to her soup. “But yes bad, it sounds toxic, break fluid and paint stripper aren’t exactly on the food pyramid.”

“Nope, from my understanding it is bad news for the kidney. Tomorrow I plan to meet with someone in toxicology and I’ll get back to you on the effects on the human body.” 

“Ah, thank you so much.”

“And thank you for dinner.” 

Peridot finished her meal and they walked out together. Lapis to her cream 1970 Ford Maverick and Peridot to her blue 1975 Ford Granada. 

Chapter Text

“Pumpkin! You will not guess what!” Lapis drops her work bag aside and excitedly kneels in front of him, petting the sides of his face. “We have made progress!” Pumpkin looks at her with his normal uninterested look, as he doesn’t understand English. “And do you know what progress means? Tuna! I bought you tuna! Aren’t you so happy!” Pumpkin's face stayed the same, then he meowed and walked away. Lapis was still beaming and pulled out the can of tuna that she got from the gas station. Once Lapis opened it Pumpkin understood what was happening and eagerly jogged over to his food bowl. And once Lapis put the fish in his bowl it only took him a minute to finish it, which slightly concerned Lapis as she didn’t really want to clean up his puke.

Lapis decided to celebrate too, with a glass of French wine. The whole wine situation in Austria has made her turned off to sweet wine even if it used to be her favorite, so Lapis was now a red wine girlie. She poured herself a glass and stood leaning against her counter looking out the window, Lapis was very calm at this moment she felt content to finally be making progress after all this time of getting nowhere. As she sipped her wine she didn’t have anything particular on her mind. That was until she thought of Peridot, she was looking forward to hearing from her with the toxicology report, but mostly she was glad they were getting along. This work situation was stressful enough, so she’s glad that her new sorta co-worker didn’t actively dislike her.

Lapis finished her glass of wine and put it beside the sink, she looked at the time and it was 12:36pm, yikes, at least I got the nap in earlier she thought. She walked over to do her nightly routine once she was all done and ready for bed she heard gagging from the living room and walked out to see Pumpkin grooming himself while standing next to a puddle of his vomit.

. . .

Lapis woke up roughly 10 minutes before her alarm to Pumpkin sitting on her chest looking her in the eye, unbliking. “Pumpkin you are so weird,” she mumbled as she turned to her side to go back to sleep till her alarm went off. Pumpkin didn’t want her to go back to sleep though and spent the next few minutes pawing at her, till Lapis pulled him into her arms to cuddle and stop his pawing. Pumpkin meowed, “Shh, not now.” Lapis said groggly. Lapis somehow did manage to fall back asleep in the few minutes she had. Then the alarm went off, and Lapis turned it off but continued to lay in bed, Pumpkin now free from Lapis’s hug continued to paw at her face. “Pumpkin, I need you to stop that.” and put her hand between them. Pumpkin meowed, “Pumpkin I’m awake, there is no need for that kind of language.” He paused, then meowed again, “No, I’m getting up.” Lapis stood up rubbing her eyes.

Lapis went to go feed Pumpkin as she kept almost tripping over him because he was asking to be fed. Once Pumpkin was occupied Lapis was able to go through her morning routine. Once she was done getting ready she scooped up Pumpkin from the couch and held him. “Heyy buddy.” she said smiling, “Time to go.” and kissed him on his forehead before setting him down, where he went back to looking out the window.

Lapis was at the office on time and looking through papers among papers and documents. Lapis had gotten a call at about 10:00am but dissapointly it wasn’t Peridot. In fact, the whole workday went by without the call from her and she was more disappointed than she anticipated. But she was productive work, she spent a few hours organizing all the documents she had which had been a task she’d been putting off for an embarrassing amount of time. But now it was all in her drawer alphabetized by the winery's names and further sorted but the dates of each report. After it all she went home, hopefully, she would get a call from her tomorrow. She kicked off her shoes and fed her little guy.

“Pumpkin, I need her to call me.” Pumpkin just looked at her for a brief second before going back to his food. “Don’t give me that sass right now young man.” Pumpkin walked out of the room to go lay in her laundry bin most likely. “Not helpful,” Lapis mumbled to herself. But just then her phone buzzed, “Hello this is Lapis.” she said maybe a little too eagerly. “This is Peridot, sorry to call you out of your work hours, I can call you later if it’s a bad time.”

“Oh, not at all.” Lapis said, “Did you get to talk with the toxicologist?”

“Yes, and the effects on the human body are not great.”

“That’s not good.”

“Yeah, sorry to call you after work with bad news.” There was an uncomfortable pause before Lapis spoke up. “Well, what are the effects specifically?”

“Well the main effects and the most understood effects are on the heart and kidney, there are also neurological effects but they aren’t as understood. Glycol poisoning happens in three stages, the first happens shortly after ingestion, stage two takes about a day to occur, then the final stage happens up to three days after ingestion.” Peridot paused for any questions but Lapis didn’t have any at the moment so she continued. “The first stage is mostly neurological, slurred speech, convulsions, disorientation, drowsiness, irritation, but the exact reason for these symptoms is a bit unclear. Stage two is where it gets more serious with cardiovascular effects. Patients have experienced irregular heartbeats but more serious effects such as cardiac arrest, circulatory collapse, and death.” There was a heavy pause as the gravity of the chemical was setting in for Lapis, but Peridot continued with stage three. “In stage three is when it reaches the kidney, the effects may be mild and short-lived or it can lead to total renal failure. Which means the kidneys can no longer filter toxins out of the body.”

“That’s so much worse than I was expecting.” Peridot awkwardly sat on the other side of the line while Lapis was processing everything. “Well, we don’t know how much glycol is in the wine, it doesn’t mean its a lethal dose, I mean no amount is a good amount, but you’re working to put a stop to that and you should be proud of that,” Peridot said trying to hopefully provide some type of comfort.

“Thank you Peridot.”