Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Lapis: You Are (Pissed)

She was endless. She was movement, jealousy, alive, carrying a thousands words clenched behind her teeth and forgotten memories withering in her grasp.

Everything turns to powder in her hands.

The world is dark and quiet, she flows with the South Pacific current, and time trickles by like a slow leak that slowly fills a basin. She was somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, as she had been for a very long time.

The sun is high in the east and the surfaces calm and undisturbed when the first warning signs blare in her head like bellowing of a cargo ship horn.

Lapis flinches, ripples oscillate around her as mini whirlpools, an uncomfortable sensation settles in her gut. Her eyes begin to flutter open, the discomfort intensifies, like a rock stuck in her throat that she couldn't swallow.

Someone had entered her domain.

“Ack!” A voice, a human voice, resonates and Lapis's awareness is forcefully tugged in that direction.

She is filling the waters of her cave, blinking open her eyes fully for the first time in what felt like decades.

A human girl. A short haired clown-fish with some sort of artificial leg and a bad look on her face. She appears to have fallen on one of Lapis's jagged rocks, meant to keep land creatures out, duh, and was now examining something she held in her hand.

Lapis narrows her eyes, the human rubs her back and then blinks rapidly at Lapis's pool of water. She points a mechanism in her hand at Lapis and it sends off a series of beeps, she tilts her head.

Lapis sinks deeper into the water, dipping her head lower, though she doubts the human can see her.

“What?” The women appears be confused and starts walking closer to the edge of the pool, the thing in her hand sings.

She must be truly stupid, or at least senseless, since she didn’t notice the miasma of warning Lapis set around this place.

She follows her machine to the edge of the pool. Lapis clenches her fist and then jerks her chin upward, a wave rises and throws the girl off her feet.

She’s swept backward, splutters, curses and looks at her clothes in disgust. Good. She then gets back up to her feet, examining her devices and making her way back out of your cave.

Lapis's eyes follow her and she glares as the human retreats.

Lapis kicks her way up to the rocks. It had been years, but she remembers how, Lapis sheds her skin. It was like peeling back a hundred layers of sediment in a storm, she squirms her way onto land.

She takes her first dusty wheezing gasp of air. It hurt, sharp and blue like a gulp of ice water or stab in the chest.

She lays on the floor of her domain, holding her sides with her new hands, new legs shaking, head light and ears popping. She flaps your liquid wings and works her new found ‘muscles.’

She's cold, she's hot, she's pissed off. When Lapis can manage any part of herself again she staggers after the yellow and green clownfish. Trespassing wrought payback.

———

Peridot: You Don’t do Bigfoot

“Peridot!” One of the ‘gems’ of a personality she was working for calls to her. Peridot wrings out her shoes one last time and follows the woman's voice.

Pearl was examining some leaves on a flat full bush when Peridot approaches. “There you are,” Pearl says in your direction.

“Some of your tech got…fell in…There’s water in some of the gadgets.” She articulates flatly as she made her way over a sand dune.

“Then dry it out.” Peridot jumps as a deep British voice addresses her from behind.

“I mean, of course, that’s what you pay me for.” She scoffs and tries to back away from the taller women who towered over Peridot. Garnet definitely made her nervous.

“Wait, what happened?” Pearl jogged up to them, abandoning her leaf inspection.

“Here, look.” She shoves the electromagnetic detection device in Pearl's face, “It started going crazy and then a wave hit me.”

“You let a wave hit you?” Another woman, Amethyst, adds dryly.

“These readings though…” Pearl wrenches it from your hands and her eyes flicker over the last data it recorded.

Peridot sniffs, letting them hover over her work as she slouches off in the other direction. She’d let them tinker with whatever it was they were looking for.

“Ahhhaahhh.” Peridot freezes, turning around to find a very pale, very stressed looking man running right towards her.

Peridot glances around and then pivots from side to side to see if something was chasing him, or at least she can try and evade his direct stampede.

“You!” He shouts shrilly.

“I’m only the technician.” Peridot puts your hands up defensively, “You, and who are you?”

“The documentarian.” He asserts, holding up a B-rated camera in his hands. “For when we find the aliens…Or ghosts.”

“Whatever. Any issues you have, just talk to those guys.” Peridot points back to her employers, scientists who were paying her to work their tech. Half a PhD in computing and she was still getting crap gigs.

“Ah!” He screams again, Peridot jumps.

“What’s your problem?”

“Wait, Peridot.” Pearl reproaches her, the other women following in her wake. “Where were you when you got these electromagnetic field readings?”

Peridot shifts around uncomfortably, moving her weight from one leg to another, she clears her throat, “The caves.”

Pearl gives her a stern look, Garnet frowns and Ronaldo, the name printed on his shirt, screams again. "Aaah!"

“Stop screaming!” Peridot orders.

“You’re not supposed to go down there!” He asserts fitfully.

“Yeah, dude, Peri, that place should at least give you the creeps.” Amethyst shivers as her eyes dart in the direction of the cave lagoons.

“Peridot, we were specifically told by the guide to not disturb the caves, they’re a pristine natural landmark.” Garnet adds with a verbal finger wag.

“You all hired me to use technology to track electromagnetic waves, that’s what I did. They were all leading down there, but don’t worry, I got very wet, and very much won’t go back.”

“DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT’S DOWN THERE?”

She narrows her eyes and grits her teeth at Ronadlo, “I said I won’t go back.”

“Ronaldo.” Garnet says in a warning tone.

“SELKIES!!” He shrieks as he gets down on his knees and shakes his hands in the air.

Alright, that’s enough for her. “I’m going to go…shower.”

She walks away before he launches into any spiels about bigfoot or something.

Peridot wonders back to the state of the art lab located on the island Azul Rocha, grumpy, waterlogged and wondering how long exactly two more weeks was going to be.

The first thing she notices when she steps in the shower is the water tastes like salt. She smells brine in the air and has the disconcerting feeling she's being watched. She tries to ignore it.

————-

Lapis: The Behavioral Habits of Clownfish

Lapis found out right away, as expected, that she couldn’t see her. At least, when Lapis didn't want to be seen.

This is how she ended being able to watch her clownfish pour herself a glass of water in the middle of her kitchen while Lapis stands right in front of her.

Her clown fish put the glass to her mouth, Lapis winks at the water, Peridot takes a deep sip of it. Her eyes fly open, “Salt!” She chokes violently, splutters and pours the water on the ground. Lapis laughs, the clown fishes silly face contorts and Lapis laughs even harder. “Who’s there?” She barks.

Oops, Lapis backs up, her clown fish may or may not be growing to hear her though.

Lapis makes the lights flicker. The clown fishes eyes go wide and her mouth opens in a silent gasp. She grabs a coat and runs out of the room. Lapis follows.

Lapis had spent the last two and half days slowly building up her revenge on the poor girl. Lapis had come to the conclusion: she was a fool. But a clever fool.

Worth the effort that’s for sure.

Lapis put small crabs in her bed, water in her ears and made everything she ate taste like whale blubber.

Each and every reaction from her was priceless.

The clownfish strolled to the doorway and yanks out her shoes from the closet. Lapis blinks at the footwear and fills them with sand.

She shoves her foot into one of them and her hair stands on end, “oh my, shit.” She says eloquently.

This was fun.

She kicks her shoes aside, showering sand across the carpet and runs outside, pulling her hoodie up over her face.

“I’m okay,” the girl repeats to herself, “I’m fine, totally great.” She puts her hands in her pockets and speed walks to one of her neighbor's doors. She knocks five times in rapid succession.

A tall dark woman answers the door in her sleepwear, the Beta fish.

“Ms. Farid.” She says in a controlled tone, “It’s 6 O'clock in the morning.”

“I think I need to get back to Berkeley.” Lapis's clown fish replies in one quick breath.

“The plane will come in one week. I think you can wait.”

“No, you don’t see, I think I’m losing it…under the stress.” Her eye twitched, Lapis snaps her fingers, the sound of gull blitzes through the air, she predictably jumps, “Ah! Did you hear that?”

“Right…” The Beta says slowly, “if you’re worried about the money, we’re already writing the water damage off as 'accidental' and charged to the school.” She seems to be trying to reassure her.

“There aren’t any gulls here. Or wildlife. But me, I’m here, I really shouldn’t be here.” She laughs haphazardly, “Just need to get home.”

Lapis smirks. Oh she could follow her there.

“Why don’t you come in,” the pretty beta fish sounds concerned and steps aside for Lapis's clown fish.

“You’re being haunted, aren't you?” Even Lapis is a little startled when a sharp voice carries down the hallway. He’s especially loud, alerting the small pale angelfish to the events, she pokes her head out.

“Ronaldo, I thought I told you we won’t be needing any documentation of our work.” The angelfish asserts firmly as she opens her door, her pink hair curled around her face.

“Oh no, I’m making a new film now.” He says lowly as he cradles some sort of recording machine in his hands. “I call it Supernatural Haunting by Water Witch Bringing on the End of the World, ner, ner, ner.” He plays a non-existent musical instrument in midair.

End of the world? Even Lapis perks an eyebrow up at that.

“Ronaldo. Peridot and I were having an important conversation,”

“Water witch?” Her clown fish, Peridot, repeats.

“Water witch, ner, ner, ner.” He plays the instrument again. Lapis scowls, she doesn't like where this is going.

“Peridot, don’t listen to him.” The angelfish asserts.

“So, wait, what’s up, the techie is losing it?” The purple Lionfish sticks her head out too.

“Not, no, not losing it,” Lapis smirks and a trickle of water drips down Peridot's spine. She goes completely stiff and wild-eyed, “Alright, about this witch.” She marches right up to the man and Lapis regrets her timing.

“Peridot, don’t listen to him.” The angel fish asserts, Lapis silently nods her head in agreement.

He chuckles lowly, “If you’ll just, step into my ocean spirit-proof office.” He opens up one of the side doors.

“That’s a closet.” The lion fish states blankly.

Peridot ignores her intelligent friends and follows the silly man into the closet.

Lapis rolls her eyes and moves to follow. She tries to walk through the door, it’s solid, she pushes against it, she scowls and try to dematerialize and fly through the wall.

She can’t. She goes at it from another direction, turn into water, or hell try to just listen in on the door.

None of works.

Her eyes go wide. He wasn’t as off as she assumed.

Lapis taps her foot and waits angrily in the hall for her clownfish.

———

Peridot: You Have Had It

Peridot nods along to what Ronaldo was saying, it made absolutely no sense, but it was this or accept she had absolutely lost her mind.

She spends an hour in that damn closet before emerging, shifty eyed and waiting for the next assault from ‘the ocean.’

“I know you’re there.” She whispers. There is no response, but she can still feel the constant pair of eyes fall on her attentively. She hunches her shoulders.

She goes back to her room, the other women throw questions at her about what's going on but she shrugs them off and closes the door.

Something crazy was going on, that’s what.

Peridot retreats back to her room in search of a sturdy bag. She walks in the door and immediately feel the sensation of jelly between her toes. Moon jellyfish.

She shivers and looks around rapidly, she swears she hears that tinkling laugh again.

“Erg!” Peridot goes through every bag she owns for the strongest one.

She spends the rest of the day trying to ignore the weird little things of the ocean cropping up in her everyday life.

At 30 minutes to midnight she makes her way to the beach closest to the caves, her phone rings, “Hello?”

“Triangle, triangle, tango, meet me at alpha square one.” Ronaldo's hurried voice whispers at her.

“I’m almost there kid, don’t get your paranoia in a twist.”

She trots down the beach and into a small circle with a bonfire in the center.

Ronaldo is in some sort of monk suit with a cape and star trek badge, he was stoking the bonfire. She can’t believe this is her life. As in real life.

“The cursed has arrived!” He moans in a spooky voice, Peridot rolls her eyes.

“I’m only trying this out once.” She bristles and grits her teeth.

“Awe, but what if it doesn’t work the first time?” He simpers.

“Just get on with it. One try.”

“Alright, alright, get behind the rocks.”

“And no theatrics!”

“Whatever do you mean?” He swoops his cape around and grins. Peridot looks off into space and wishes for a plane to just drop in and hit her.

He hands her a book, one she skimmed earlier that day, she goes to crouch behind the rocks as Ronaldo sets up some sort of the ritual.

She's fidgeting incessantly by the time he has some sort of weird voodoo circle set up, shrunken heads and everything, she has no idea how to tell him how messed up this is.

“Ooooh, spirits of the other world,” he begins slowly, “show your self and stuff!”

Peridot groans.

“Shh,” he hushes her, “I call upon the otherworldly ghost-spirit-alien that’s behest this young lady.”

“That’s me.” Peridot contributes sarcastically,

“We offer you this,” He throws one of the heads into the fire, “a witch’s head! And this,” he throws in a ukulele, “The devil’s instrument!” Nothing happens.

Peridot considers sneaking off.

He throws in an amalgamation of different objects, each time calling the creature to rear their ugly head.

“And this, a, uh, stick I found on the ground!” He throws a piece of driftwood in. “Show yourself!”

“Oh alright, let’s give it up, this isn’t going to work.” She calls to him to stop this whole fiasco, maybe with a tenth of their dignity in tact.

“She’s here though,” he whines,

“Maybe,” Peridot glances around, “but she’s too much of a wimp to show herself.” She grins, feeling as if she knows her antagonist.

“Alright, but, just one more thing.”

“It’s not going to work.” She crosses her arms. He takes out a small box.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use this, but here’s some sea salt based off of the Lord of the Ring movies.”

“What?”

“Take this sacrifice!” He chucks his possession into the bonfire. She somehow becomes even more dumbfounded.

They pause, Peridot sighs and turns her back on the ridiculous display.

“No one is coming, I’ll just accept I’ve got ocean-based dementia and-”

“You called?” Peridot inhales sharply, a light voice interrupts her, a voice of rivers that rush to the open sea and the moment the waves break upon a beach.

Her eyes go wide. She turns slowly, very slowly.

“Y-you,” she stutters, the figure is blue, and small and in the form of a really cute girl. Short curls lick her cheeks and eyes like the moon stare Peridot down.

She surprisingly wears a flouncy sundress and hovers off the ground on expansive wings made of liquid.

“You called.” She repeats, Peridot breaks out of her stupor.

“Arg!” Peridot picks up the nearest rock and chucks it at her, “Do you know how annoying my last few days have been??”

She dodges the rock easily, “You trespassed upon my heartland.” She replies lightly. “You your wrought my wrath.”

“And who are you?”

“Shush,” Ronaldo inserts himself, “Let me talk to her! You’ll only get cursed more, like double cursed.”

“Right.” Peridot leans back on a boulder, “What should we at least call you?” She directs to the water spirit.

“Lapis. Lapis Lazuli.”

Peridot arches an eyebrow, “Like the rock?”

“Like the God.” Peridot shivers with the sensation of cold water sprinkling down her spine. Lapis Lazuli.

———–

None of their chants or offerings did anything for Lapis. She just sort of wanted to mess with them, but this time in person.

It helped that she’d called Lapis a wimp.

“Water witch!” The male idiot calls to her, “What do you wish of us?”

She focuses her eyes on him, “Repentance.” She tries to make herself as big and scary as possible. Mortals needed to know.

“Why?” He asks astutely.

“No one is allowed to come to my domain. And live.”

“Fair enough.” He says thoughtfully as he looks at you, “but why would a minor water spirit angel like yourself live all the way out here? And if you could just direct your answer to the lens right there.” He points to a camera behind a rock.

“I’m not a minor water angel!” Lapis barks angrily.

“Into the camera now.” He points at it again.

With a flick of her wrist she sends a gush of water to crash over the recording device.

“Uh!” He cries, “my dad bought me this.”

“I am Lapis Lazuli,” She repeats, “The life blood of this miserable planet.” She raises herself further off the ground, unfurling the extent of her wings, “I am ceaseless, the center, the breaker, the builder, I am Lapis Lazuli, and you should know when to bow-”

“I found it!” Her neck snaps into the direction of her clownfish. “Haha!” Peridot laughs like a mad woman, Lapis feels a sudden burden weigh her down.

A strain on her back, a tingling sensation crawls over every inch of her skin, her head feels heavy and she floats to the ground, feeling herself become more and more tangible.

“OH, NO WAY, it worked? I didn’t know she’d actually have one of those!” The boy dances from foot to foot.

“What do you mean, you sent me on the stupid clodding mission.”

Lapis looks up through her leaking eyes, she gasps for breath.

“My skin.” She holds Lapis's slick grey seal skin in her hands.

“That’s right buddy, who’s got the power now?” She taunts before Lapis's head becomes as heavy as a stone and is dragged to the earth by her own weight.

The world comes spinning in around Lapis, the color sucked out of the scenery, and her powers diminished. Human.

————

They drag the still, lifeless, Lapis Lazuli, back to the lab. Peridot sees off a very excited, babbling, Ronaldo and then waits out the night. Waiting. Watching, keeping tabs on her every movement in a little notebook.

She had a Goddess on her hands.

It’s two in the afternoon when she groans and Peridot dashes from her online game to the 'goddesses' side.

“You tied me up.” Is the first thing she says.

“You said you were the breaker, lifeblood and blah, blah. Powerful.”

Her eyes are wide, “I’m human.” She whispers in stark realization.

“Really?” Peridot jots that down in her notebook.

“Where is my skin?” She gives Peridot a look like acid mixed with death threats.

“I’ve hidden it.” She asserts smugly, “just as the book says to.” Peridot points to the fairytale book she'd been referencing.

Lapis clenches her jaw, “Give it back.”

Peridot shakes her head, “no deal. You’re MY servant now. And you’re going to have to-”

“Wife.”

“Make up for all the weird salt water, and as our servant-

“Wife.”

“Help with our study.” She finishes briskly, “Wait, what?”

“Didn’t you finish the book?” She snaps.

“I mean, I skimmed the important parts, woman come onto to land to play and then put their skin back on to go to sea, blah, blah, capture their seal skin.”

“And they’ll marry you and bear you lots of children.”

“Bear you lots of…” Peridot can feel the blood drain from her face.

“Now, at least untie me. Wifey.” She smirks up at her. Smartass.

“A surly sea Goddess.” Peridot deadpans.

“And don’t think of cheating on me. Then the deals broken. Actually, please cheat on me.”

“And then what? Or if I give you the skin back?” Maybe washing her hands of the whole ordeal was for the best. She was more of a sci-fi girl than a mythology one anyway.

She shrugs and narrows her eyes at her, “Why don’t you find out?”

Peridot taps her chin and thinks critically, “You’ll drown me, won’t you?”

“Maybe.” She looks way slyly, “Probably. ” Peridot groans. “I am the ocean.”

They both stare at each other, breathing, quite. “Could I have something to drink?” She asks.

Peridot hesitates, trying to read Lapis's face, she swallows dryly, Peridot decides she is genuinely thirsty.

Peridot gets up from the couch, “Hey mom,” Peridot mutters to yourself, “you know how you wanted me to get married by the time I’m 28? Well, guess what, she’s an older women, large, curvy, you’ve probably heard of her, it’s the ocean.”

She hears a stifled laugh from the other room, she smiles in Lapis's direction in surprise.

She brings back a glass of cold water, unties her, and watch as she throws back the entire glass.

When she’s done, she meets Peridot's eyes and they regard each other heavily. It was weird, like holding your breath or waiting for the train to come in to the station as it rains.

“Now what?” She asks.

Peridot shrugs, “Get to know each other... What’s the bottom of the ocean like?”

She gives Peridot the ghost of a smile, “Clownfish, I hope you have some better clothes than these for me.” She looks down at her loose shirt and jeans,

“Clownfish?”

“Or at least better maternity wear.”

Peridot definitely goes red in the face, “We’re not getting pregnant!” She asserts shrilly.

Lapis chuckles, Peridot realize she’s messing with, still.

“Even without powers…” Peridot mutters to herself.

“Now,” Lapis chirps, “what’s this about your home?” 

Chapter Text

Lapis stares down at a large cup of brown liquid in a styrofoam cup. She dumps another creamer in it and stirs with the little liquid manipulation powers she had left.

“Will you stop that.” Peridot hisses at her and Lapis turns slowly to face the smaller woman. The plane engine hums underneath them with the low murmur of people's voices in the air. The wide expanse of the pacific ocean peaks out from a tiny window behind Peridot.

“What?” Lapis pours another creamer in and watches it fork off into branches of chalky white. She sighs and swirls it into a pale brown.

“You can’t just,” Peridot makes several gestures. “You know.”

“What?” Lapis blinks innocently and tries to sip her drink again. She frowns from the bitter aftertaste but doesn’t spit it out onto the chair in front of her like the first time.

“Be magic.” Peridot says with her palms to the ceiling.

Lapis sticks her tongue out and fluffs her blue hair, “I’ll be magic wherever I want to be, you only own me in the technical sense wifey.”

That phrase got the attention of the lady in front of them, who turns her bobbed blonde head around and glances at them.

Peridot grabs onto her wrist, “I don’t own you,” Peridot mouths quietly, “We’re just in a...very particular situation.”

Lapis snort-laughs, “The sooner you get me pregnant, or vice versa the sooner I can leave.” The person in front of them was outright staring now.

Peridot groaned and ran her fingers through her hair, “The stories didn’t say it was like that.”

Lapis shakes her head, messing with Peridot she decided was the new pastime, Peridot after all didn’t know which parts of what Lapis said were true. “Okay. But who are you gonna believe a human book or the real thing?”

Peridot grumbles and crosses her arms across her chest. “Please? Can’t we just have a pleasant nine hour flight away from that godforsaken island.”

Lapis leans her chin on her hand and stares, “You mean my home, clownfish?”

Peridot sighs deeply, “What’s this about a pregnancy and you leaving?”

Lapis chuckles and then leans over to wink, “You can find out latter.”

Peridot scoots farther away and wrinkles her nose, a red rose color spreading across her cheeks. “Drink your coffee.”

Lapis takes another sip of the human concoction. She spits it out onto the chair in front of her.

Peridot groans and wipes it up, the lady in front of them had her mouth slightly open, Peridot just waves at her.

“I don’t like the,” Lapis makes a gesture to her throat, “swallowing sensation.”

“You lived in seawater.”

“I was seawater.”

Peridot didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, she instead reclines in her chair and they both look blankly ahead as the hours tick by. Peridot was really taking her home with her.

-------------------

Peridot had to do a lot of finagling to get another ticket for the United Airlines trip back to Berkeley. Where did this extra girl come from? What do you mean you found her? Why is she glaring? Questions like that.

She had managed to scrounge up the rest of their grant money and eek out enough for another ticket for a Lapis Lazuli, the ex-Goddess who was now bound to her.

What they did from there was up in the air. Peridot’s main priority was not getting murdered by an angry water spirit. That would ruin a lot of her plans. And her second priority was to find a very fine pillow to scream into.

Peridot looked out the window and let the time slip by, she tried to read her new novel on the prospect of possible alien life on Titus, but she couldn’t keep her head straight.

Lapis drank her coffee, was horrified at having to ‘pee’ and then eventually fell asleep next to her sitting stiffly upright. Peridot glanced over at her, her face was young and unnerving in its relaxed state, like she was just another girl, Indonesian perhaps, with bright hair and heavy-lidded eyes. A sweet nose that was somewhat crooked and teeth that were unusually straight.

Her mouth itself was a question mark, it hung open slightly and she mumbled under her breath in something otherworldly.

Peridot takes a deep breath and looks away.

She closed her eyes the stress of the last few days catches up to her, she dozes in a breathless sleep that was more wakeful than anything. Dreams speed past her like a movie screen as she chased her prosthetic leg across an Olympic sized pool- she woke up annoyed. The overhead speakers above them announce their arrival and she cracks her back loudly.

She looks out the window and frowns, it was night and the Oakland International airport lit up in a long runway with a rather ugly looking building beside it.

“Alright. I’m hungry now.” Peridot turned and Lapis was stretching and looking around again with interest.

“You’re not going to like the effects of that one either.” Peridot jokes and Lapis just shrugs.

“Okay?” She seems confused, Peridot just shakes her head and promises to get her something.

The plane begins to shake and descend. Peridot holds onto the chair arms until her knuckles bleach, the airplane trembling beneath them, Lapis beams a frighteningly bright smile at the turbulence.

They skid to a stop and Peridot takes a deep breath.

“Passengers may now exit the plane. Please take all of your belongings and be careful when opening the overhead compartments, contents may have shifted during flight. The whether is 72 degrees out and the time is 1:07 am. Welcome to Oakland and have a nice stay!”

Peridot huffs a sigh of relief and drags Lapis off the plane, luckily they didn’t have very many carry-ons and were quick.

Lapis’s eyes go wide as they enter the fray of the busy boarding area, filled with suits and families and metallic walkways that never stopped, she looked speechless. Peridot turns on her phone.

She's immediately bombarded by text messages.

The first one was a group message between Pearl, Amethyst, her and Garnet for field research purposes. Amethyst had named the chat ‘Better Than Bill Nye and Twice as Fly,’ which had been widely disputed in the group chat.

Better Than Bill Nye and Twice as Fly

Purple People Eater : yo P-dot Pearl still wants to know where you got that chick. Like thats a deserted island you cant just *find* people

Peridot rolls her eyes.

Female Mr. Clean: Amethyst, did you change our names in here again? Change it back! Garnet, how do we change it back?

Garnet: I don’t mind it

Female Mr. Clean: ? I dont understand

                           *don’t

Garnet: Amethyst is right, Peridot we have some more questions for you.

Purple People Eater: like what and how and why dont hot chiks appear out of nowhere for me like wat :/

Female Mr. Clean : Ms. Rodriguez, there are so many things wrong with that sentence.

This conversation went on for quite awhile and got sidetracked by Pearl’s perhaps infected knee and what they should have for dinner that night. It ends with Amethyst sending at least 20 gifs of old 2000s memes.

Peridot stops walking mid-way to baggage claim and responds to them.

Techie-Tyke: aren’t you all adult scientists? Long cat is ten years old.

Purple People Eater: there you are!

Techie-Tyke: I agree with Pearl (begrudgingly) we should have different names, perhaps Saving-Your-Ass-by-Using-Basic-Machinery ?

[Techie-Tyke’s name has been changed to Huuuuge Neeeeeeerd]

Peridot growls and continues to tip-tap on her phone while Lapis stares at her and looks ready to start tripping people in the middle of the hall.

Garnet: Peridot, you have to answer our questions.

Female Mr. Clean: Where did that girl come from? An anthropologist should really be her first contact if she was actually living on that island.

Purple People Eater: yeh, you’ll just ruin her or whatev

Peridot frowns and puts her phone away, she decides not to respond to that. She takes Lapis’s wrist, who was close to wandering off, and finds her own overly-stuffed backpack on the conveyor belt.

Ronaldo had also messaged her 20 times but it was all nonsense and more articles on cryptids, water people and scottish myths. She saves those for later.

“Come on.” Peridot huffs, “We have a long drive back.”

Lapis sighs, “What about food?” She complains. “I am a human body now, I’d like to keep myself alive until I found my skin. And drown you.”

“And drown me.” Peridot repeats without inflection.

She buys her her first hamburger.

----------------

Lapis had no idea that human food was supposed to taste like this, or at least, she had forgotten.

“Peridot, this isn’t meat.” She says as she took her second bite of it as Peridot revved her small car. “It’s worse. And yet better... I want ten more. Whatever you humans did to it is genius and I want to personally thank you for this ungodly creation.”

Peridot shakes her head and promises to get her another McDonald's sometime, “You can start dying alongside the rest of us.”

“Thank God.”

Peridot makes a left turn and then flips on wordless techno music that Lapis makes faces at. The trip was 60 minutes.

“What kind of place is this again?” Lapis asks as she licks her fingers clean.

Peridot floors her small car up a particularly large hill and sticks her tongue out as she concentrates on the gas peddle. “It’s an old place my dead aunt gave to me in her will since I was her favorite niece. It was a big deal at the time, the place is nice enough.” Peridot assures her.

Lapis nods and doesn’t particularly know what to think of that. Her last time on land had been a century ago and she lived on a small shack on the coast of an Irish fishing village.

Her eyes stretch over the stormy motorways, the concrete and brick and glimmering lights that shun across the landscape like trapped fireflies. The humans had been busy.

Peridot pulls up to a squat light blue house, smaller than every other building in the neighborhood and crammed between two six story brick complexes.

“My family’s called it ‘The Barn’ for as long as we’ve had it.” Peridot announces. “Because, well, you’ll see.”

Peridot opens the door for her and Lapis looks up at the two story chipped-paint building. It had a small yard with drooping grass that still remained a vibrant green.

Peridot lugged her heavy bag inside, Lapis approaches slowly, feeling every inch of the gate before she opens it and her heart beats faster. This was it.

The house had a scratched wooden floor and the feel of spaciousness, aged, and sparsely decorated. A fireplace and rectangular TV were positioned across from a floral, faded couch and a plain tiled kitchen was situated beyond that.

Peridot turns on the light and walks in. “Hi, Percy.” Peridot says fondly to the stairs. Lapis blinks and watches a beige cat jump down and meow seven times in a row.

“You own animals.” She observes, tilting her head in interest.

“Yeah,” Peridot smiles up at her as she pets her excited cat, they almost look alike in their upturned feline grins. “My family. Home sweet home.”

The cat meows in her direction and Lapis takes a couple deep breaths, home sweet home. 

Chapter Text

It’s early morning when she walks outside the next day, the sun is just a mere suggestion on the horizon, wisps of glinting yellow on the landscape. Dew clings to the blades of grass and her bare feet spreads across the damp earth. It had been a very long time since she stood on the solid ground. 

Lapis takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes, absorbing the scent of smog and human tang, she was familiar with it, but it was close enough to lick off her lips at that point.

She hums to herself and starts on a meandering walk, testing the solid concrete against her weight and scuffing her heels across the tar road. The buildings are narrow and reaching upward here, contrast to Peridot’s fat house that Lapis felt was aged and mellowing the twilight of the cityscape.

Lapis stands in the middle of a dark path and stares at the clouds above quietly. A machine comes twisting around the corner and irks to stop in front of her. Lapis blinks.

“Hey lady!” A voice growls at her, “Get off the road!”

The first car of the day was honking at her, she makes a face.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asks again.

Lapis flips her hair back, she tries to remember the gesture Peridot gave unfit drivers on their ride yesterday. She just shrugs, “I have business everywhere.” She huffs, “I’m a God.”

The man rolls his eyes, “Sure. So am I. Thor in the flesh. Now get your crazy ass off to the sidewalk.”

It was a war of attrition at that point, Lapis puts her hands on her hips and waits, he eventually drives around her, still yelling and grumbling.

“I’m gonna smite you the next time I see you lady.” Is the last thing he pings in her direction, not without sarcasm.

Lapis rolls her eyes, “Not if I smite you first! Watch it.” She assures, and it was an empty threat but made her feel a little better.

Lapis stretches and walks herself down the hills and through the roads that never ceased to keep winding like streams, she feels herself searching for something flowing, wet, a river had to be here somewhere.

Of course, soon she hears the lick of her own name, “Lapis!” It was more like a memory than a corporeal sound, but nonetheless, Lapis was getting too far away. Her knees were knocking together as they grew weak and her head clouded in dizziness like a swampland of confusion. She was getting too far away from her skin.

“Lapis!” Her clownfish was searching for her. Lapis frowns but turns on her heels, reclimbing the hills, retracing her steps, and dodging some cars who don’t even bother to stop.

She sighs before the stout chipped gate of the house, touching the spikes on it before crossing the lawn and climbing her way to onto the porch.

“Oh my God,” Peridot was scrambling around within, “I lost her, my first fish wife and she’s gone. It’s like my uncle all over again. Except it is nonsense.”

Lapis pushes open the door, “What’s nonsense?” She asks as she rubs her gritty feet on the floor mat.

Peridot puts a hand over her heart, “There you are. I thought you...” Peridot seemed to flinch. “Well you’re back, ugh. Don’t do that again.”

Lapis looked up at the ceiling, “I can’t go that far anyway.”

Peridot hummed and nodded, “Okay, well, um.” She grabs her wrist tentatively, “Breakfast is in the kitchen, I have cereal and eggs and uh, tuna. If that’s what you’re into.”

“Do you have hamburgers?”

“I don’t.” Peridot says blankly.

Lapis dramatically puts her hand on her forehead, “I suppose I’ll make do. Before I die.”

“Oh my God.” Peridot grumbles, “You are so...Anyway, I have a meeting with my PhD advisor today so I’ll be out, I left some house rules on the table, read them when you will. And uh,” she pats her on the back awkwardly, “sleep? Watch TV? Don’t like, bother the neighbors.”

Lapis scowls, “I already committed to smiting one of them, so I make no promises.”

Peridot groans, “Smite someone, of course she’s going to smite someone.” Lapis chuckled a little to herself and watched Peridot run around as she got ready.

“Okay,” she grabbed a briefcase and backpack, “red one or plaid one?” She held up two bow ties.

Lapis wrinkled her nose, “I care about that as much as dolphin cares to mate with a sea urchin.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t.”

“Okay. Red one it is.” Peridot fixates a little bow to her front and nods at the mirror in the hallway, “Professor Testaburger always forgets like half of my name, and I’ve known her for 8 years, gotta stand out.”

“Good luck.” Lapis says as she picks at her nails. “Break yourself.”

“Break a leg.” Peridot corrects and slips on a pair of brown scuffed shoes.

“Break all of yourself.” Lapis says back.

Peridot sagged at the edges and opened the door, “I’m going to deal with this later.”

Lapis gave her a bored thumbs up and waits for her to leave, Peridot runs out the door and the rumble of her car starts up in the driveway as she backs up.

-----------

Peridot’s phone buzzed on the way over to campus, she glances at her two messages, one still from the group message, and one from her cousin who just almost shared her name.

CousinPerry:  your mom wants to know why you haven’t called her in a week...she literally contacted me to ask. Get on it.

The other message was similarly concerning.

Purple people eater: anyway we’re coming back to the mainland in a few days so dotty-p we’ll expect like an update (and could you fix my mac? keeps doing that thing where it asked me if I want to motorboat a hot russian lady in my area)

The flightless bird formerly known as Pearl: Amethyst I told you to just install adblock,

Purple people eater: I did! It still wants me to import lovin from another motherland

Peridot turns off her phone.

She makes the ten minute drive in seven and parks in the faculty parking lot, she was technically only a TA but only a select few gave her shit about the parking arrangement.

She runs the rest way up the steps of the engineering building, sweating through one of nicer shirts. Opal Testaburger was a fairly well-dressed woman who oversaw the engineering department with a steady hand, but a scatter-brained mentality.

Peridot was in constant struggle to impress the department and get her PhD down after five and half years on her graduate studies. With mostly a hunk of junk to show for it.

She slides down the slick hallways and readjusts the strap of her bag as she runs through the corridors.

“Miss Farid.” A stern voice interrupts Peridot’s scurried footsteps, making her internally scream and turn around with stiff-backed reluctance.

A woman dressed in a sharp yellow suit and heels as high as the Eiffel tower glowered down at her. The Dean of students also had her office two doors down.

“Uh, Hello, Ms. Diamond.” She cringes.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” Peridot shakes her head.

“To my adviser.” She stumbles over her words with a hot grit to it, she had very much admired the dean until her last and most recent year.

She looked coolly down at her, “I hear you cut your field work short.”

Peridot nods and doesn’t meet her eye, “Unforeseen…family emergency. The project was a bust anyway, no significant conclusions to be found.” She adds quickly.

Ms. Diamond tuts, “Emergency? That’s… unfortunate. Your mother?” Her tone suggested anything but condolences toward her.

Peridot scratches the back of her neck, and then feels a stab of insolence in her. “No. Wife.”

Ms. Diamonds eyes go wide, “Wife?” For once she sounded marginally stunned, Peridot puffs her chest out.

“Yes, wife.” Peridot says evenly, feeling somewhat vindicated at defying the judgmental woman’s expectations. “She got in an accident...a skin thing.”

“Well,” Ms. Diamond sniffs, “If she's feeling better later in the year we would love to see her at the visiting Engineers conference.” Ms. Diamond gives a curving, weighted smile. “We are looking forward to your presentation there Ms. Farid, oh excuse me, Mrs. Farid.” Ms. Diamond glowing eyes stick on her naked ring finger and Peridot turns around quickly.  

"Of course." She says begrudgingly and tries to leave, "Excuse me." They say brief goodbyes and Peridot finds herself cursing under her breath.

Peridot wants to sink into a hole and maybe join some mole people in the planet's core. They had wanted her to present her findings at a conference for ages. And now here she was, with nothing to present and married to a fairy tale fish.

She waves at her weakly and turns to practically break her ankle getting to Professor Testaburger’s pastel and succulent decorated room.

Peridot nearly screams when she walks in the door, she opens her briefcase. “Check my calculations.”

Ms. Testaburger was watering her plants in slim dress and sequenced shawl. “Perilot! So good to see you.” She sings and Peridot hunches over.

She shows her her new designs for her PhD thesis and pretends to be 'Perilot.'

------------------

Lapis turned on the TV. She turned it back off. She tried to balance on top of the couch and then throws a pillow across the room a couple times to see what she could knock over (a lamp, a vase and a coat rack). Percy jumps on her lap and she pets him absently, happy for the creature's company.

She opens a couple books warily, beginning in on ‘The Theory of Everything’ dropping it and having her interest slightly held by a well worn ‘The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.’

She eats at least two cans of tuna and checks the driveway a few minutes to make sure she was really gone.

“You don’t want to see this.” She whispers to the cat who rubs up against her leg, she finds the nice bathroom and locks him in it.

Lapis exhales and finds a knife.

She goes upstairs. Tries on a few of Peridot’s old shirts, colored by a slightly orange smell and a slight musk. She settles on some shorts that say ‘I believe’ across the butt and a t-shirt with two holes and a blurry picture of dolphin inviting someone to come to Florida.

She starts ripping apart her suitcase.

Seam by seam she tore out the zippers from their holders, carefully massacred the pockets and even took out the wheels. Finding nothing, she turns her knife on the pillows, and tearing the mattress up at the head and to the toe and digging her hands into the innards.

She threw all of her clothes on the ground and went through any packages, cases, boxes.

She dropped a safe from the roof and watched it bust open its contents like a gutted trout, with nothing but a stack of paper dollar bills, a document that said 'PRIVATE CALCULATIONS DON’T TOUCH’ and a couple of pictures with damp edges and unfamiliar faces in them.

Lapis ignores them, gathering up the contents in a sack and dumping them back on the mutilated bed.

She hums and takes apart the drawers, wrecks the kitchen- with pots and pans on the floor, and starts to pull out her hair when the couch is nothing but a foam infested nothing.

She starts to growl, “Okay Peridot, we’re getting serious.”

On her journey’s she found an ax in the crawlspace and immediately takes it out and faces the closet, “Narnia,” she huffs, “Here I come.”

Lapis uses all of her force to crack open the first hole in the wall, tearing out insulation and splitting the wood of the closet bit by bit to dig deeper, find something goddammit.

She digs her way through the walls of the house.

“Lapis?” Peridot’s voice carries up the stairs, Lapis pauses.

“Yes?” She calls sweetly down the stairs.

Peridot doesn’t respond for a moment. “What have you done?”

“Home remodeling.” She says with equal honey and slings the ax over her shoulder and makes her way downstairs. She smiles.

“Ah!” Peridot jumps at the sight of the weapon and holds her heart. “Jesus, fuck. This is...” Her mouth hangs open at Lapis’s handiwork.

“Uh-huh.” Lapis leans on the railing, narrowing her eyes in the process.

Peridot collapses on the ravished sofa, she puts a hand through her short hair. “What have you done."

"What's it look like?"

Peridot hung her head, "I want a refund.”

Lapis gives a small smile, “One skin, and I give you free scuba lessons without the oxygen tank in return.” She holds out her hand.

She puts her hand through the stuffing of a pillow. “Not even a honeymoon period, not even a moment.” She lays back down and sighs heavily, she eventually has Lapis put the ax away and tells her she's not going find her skin this way- and she'll burn it if this was going to be a thing.

Lapis lies on the floor and informs her, "It was mostly for fun." Which was not wholly true, but a bitter taste in her mouth tells her her new life might be just something she has to get used to.

Chapter Text

They made one deal: Peridot wouldn't throw her out on the street if Lapis helped fix the house- ie what she broke. This was in response to Lapis's promise that if Peridot threw her out she'd go to the police and accuse her of such charges as 'being ugly' and 'not showering enough.' Peridot almost threw her out again.

In the end, Peridot calmed herself with logic and conceded once more, she was stuck with her.

Peridot grumbled to herself as she applied plaster liberally to her wall. “And she wanted to find the back of my closet she says, wanted to find 'Narnia,' and as if I’d keep it in the house or in the walls! God.”

“I can hear you!” Lapis calls from the other side of the room as she collected things into a laundry basket.

“You’re an idiot!” Peridot calls back with a terse smile, “There. Hear that.”

Lapis rolled her eyes right back at her, “I think you should have your study in this corner.” She frowns. “With photos and a pen collection and more plants, do you not have more plants?”

“They all die.” She concedes as she smooths out the plaster with a trowel, covering the places Lapis had violently taken an ax to.

“Alright, I could have guessed that.” Lapis sniped and then collects Peridot’s clothes and carries them out of the room. 

She was apparently interested in remodeling in a real way- she had already fashioned herself a breakfast nook out of an old card table and lawn chair, decorating with a floral print and a plant from outside. It was surprisingly tasteful, and Peridot couldn’t even look at her.

Peridot didn’t know when she accepted her life was going to be a cesspool of terrible, maybe the moment she burst out of the womb. Maybe when she entered a forbidden cave. That was probably it.

“I am also an idiot who had to enter the cave, go in like an excited white dad into a haunted house. Well, thanks.” She says to the heavens, “I’m a believer now.”

“I’m thinking waterside blue for the coloring!” Lapis yells up to her from the downstairs and Peridot sighs. Lapis was planning on repainting the walls.

“Lemme get the bed out of the room, then you can go to town.” They had agreed to patch up the house, Lapis mostly conceding to help when she realized she had to live there. And that she got to change the color schemes.

“Do you want to help me?” She asks as she pushed the bed onto its side and tried to drag it out, some of it’s stuffing falling out along the way.

“I guess.” Lapis squeezed past her up the stairs and took the entire side of the bed into her arms, lifting the whole weight up in one go.

Peridot’s eyes go wide, “You’re strong.”

Lapis winks, “Don’t forget it.” She flexed, “I have some capabilities left.” Peridot scrambles out of the way and watches Lapis lift the whole thing down after her like a professional weight lifter. She keeps that fact tucked away in the back of her head.

She places the remains of the mattress in the living room and Peridot sighs at it. She had dug out her aunt’s old sewing kit and looked at in despair.

“I’m going to burn your skin.” She promises as she kicks the thing and foam bounces out.

Lapis fluffed her blue hair, “No you won’t.” She glanced at her and then back at the ground, “And also...please don’t.” Peridot blinks at her as she hunched over, somehow smaller, Peridot almost reached out to pat her arm. She stops herself.

“Well,” she sighs, “maybe I won’t.”

“Those things take like ten years to regrow.” Lapis says with a pout, “Which is too long since I obviously don’t have a future here as a detective." She sighs, "Can’t even track down my own skin.”

Peridot blinks at her, “Maybe you could consider human bulldozer? Or house demolition?”

Lapis pushes on her shoulder roughly, “Haha. Funny humans. You were the one who forgot my dowry, these things happen.”

Peridot chuckles, “Well you could have said something if that’s what this is about. I could have got you...a stick or a fish or something.”

Lapis snorts and shakes her head, “I’m spoiled.” She turns around and reaches for a pile of Peridot’s clothes to tug one over her head. “I’m gonna go paint.”

“Uh, don’t wreck anything.”

“Sure, sure.” Lapis starts climbing the stairs and then pauses, she turns and looks on the cusp of saying something, then closes her mouth and retreats the rest of the way up.

Peridot ponders if she should leave Lapis alone to figure out how to paint an entire room, but she figures she’ll figure it out. She was a magical God or something after all.

Peridot gets out her sewing kit and puts as much foam back in the mattress as she could, then aligns the cuts in the fabric back together.

She takes a deep breath and gets out the threads. It takes her at least ten minutes to thread the damn thing, pricking herself a couple times and wondering how she even got into grad school.

She inserts the needle messily and starts to make her first stitches with a couple grunts and having to redo the first incisions a few times as she went.

“Ow!” She sucks on her index finger after stabbing it and puts the other hand in her to yank at the blonde strands in frustration.

“Oh damn, that’s awful.” Peridot jumps as Lapis seemed to have crept up behind her.

“What?” She tries to hide her work on the mattress, Lapis bends down next to her.

“So you’re a disappointment too, huh?”

Peridot’s mouth falls open, “I am a mechanical engineer.”

Lapis laughs, “I’m kidding.” She grabs her hand, “but this is a mess, that’s like 5 stitches. It’s been an hour and a half.”

Peridot doesn’t say anything and looks away. “My mom wasn’t huge on, you know, this kind of thing.”

Lapis shakes her head and takes Peridot’s hand firmly in her own, “You need to weave, closer together, smaller, and have some patience with the thing.”

Lapis hovers behind her, a heat radiating off her chest that licked at Peridot’s back. She gulps and tries not to keep glancing at the streak of blue paint across Lapis’s nose. It was cute.

Lapis held Peridot’s hand in her own and had her make incremental stitches across the bed fabric. Guiding her fingers and keeping them at a steady pace.

“S-so how do you know how to do this?” Her voice wavers and she prays that she’s not blushing- very hard at least.

She can feel Lapis shift behind her as she keeps her hand moving. “This isn’t my first time on land you know. I was a fisherman's wife in an Irish village, what, like a hundred years ago I guess. I had to know how to do useful things like weave and sew and try not to starve.”

Peridot glances back at her and her dark eyes, she nods. “That makes sense actually.” Lapis hums and Peridot lets herself get lost in the movement. Then she stabs herself and Lapis lets out a hitched laugh as Peridot licks at the cut.

“Were you as mean to your last person as well?” Peridot gripes.

Lapis lowers her gaze, her eyelids fluttering downwards, “Maybe.” She smiles, it’s almost sad. “I was there for a lot longer than I intended. That was for sure.”

That’s all she says and Peridot lets it hang in the air. They finish suturing the gashed skin of the mattress back together.

“Well, thanks.” Peridot says begrudgingly while scratching her neck, “I mean you are the one who ruined it in the first place, but hey, a new skill set.”

“You’re welcome.” Lapis returns curtly, she gathers another demolished pillow in her lap and started patching it up quicker than Peridot thought possible.

She tries not to get lost in staring at her, her nimble fingers guiding the silver needle in and out like a professional. Peridot tears herself away and eventually makes it back upstairs to take in the paint job in her room. It was messy and quick and blue, blue, blue.

-------------------

Lapis had an underwear dilemma. First of all, there were too many sizes in little packages she wasn’t allowed to open- how was she supposed to try them on if they made her gnaw through the packaging to get at them?

She blinks, “Okay, but do I need to wear these?”

Peridot was glancing around with nervous eyes as she chewed on her lower lip. “Yes. You need to wear underwear and a bra, and like clothing.” Peridot kept glancing at her skirt, and Lapis smirked.

“Okay, but think of this. I am not a leopard print or polka dot person.” She points to the silly patterns on the garments.

“Come on Lazuli. That 17-year-old target employee is staring at us.” She bundled their fourteen items up in her arms and glanced a red-shirted youth. “They’ll think something is,” she wrinkles her nose, “up.”

“Like what?” She feels the fabric of a very long-underwear made of beige spandex.

“I don’t know, maybe that we’ve been at this same spot for ten minutes and, you’re not even wearing underwear, ohmygod, no underwear.” Peridot was red in the face and speaking to herself it seemed; Lapis snickers.

“Is that even a big deal though?” She lifts her skirt mildly and Peridot tugs it back down.

“You were in like 18th century Ireland, you know about this, they didn’t just around naked.”

“I mean, they didn't.” She says with a nudge and a wink.

Peridot takes a deep breath in through her teeth, she grabs her shoulders along with the leopard print package of underwear and pushes them towards a back room.

She shoved her into a changing room and told her to try everything on, including a handful of pants and skirts and plain shirts.

“These are super boring,” Lapis complains as she looks at them.

“Sew your own clothing then.” Peridot grumbles from the outside.

Lapis sighs and goes through the process, trying on one drab piece of clothing after the next. She starts to get bored. “Okay, but they definitely did have these in my day. Do I just...but my arms in?” She fumbles with the straps and wires and clasp of the ‘bra.’

“It’s not that hard.”

“Okay, it’s on!” Lapis adjusts it across her chest.

“Congratulations.”

“But not...all the way in the back.”

“There’s a clasp, just put it in the little metal teeth.” Peridot says in a bored tone, Lapis struggles with the back of the contraption feebly.

“Peridot.” Lapis says seriously. “Come clasp me.”

“What? No.”

“Do you not care for your SPOUSE?” She says very loudly so no doubt someone would hear, “Clasp me, clasp me, clasp me.” She chants and can hear a thunk on the door.

Peridot crawls under the little space and doesn’t look at her. “Shhh. Okay." She puts her hands up. "But I am going to become a nun after this.”

Lapis turns around, “Why?” Peridot was looking anywhere else but at her, red in the face. “To cleanse those sinner thoughts of yours?” Lapis hip checks her and Peridot stumbles back and looks at the ground.

“No!” Peridot squeaks and clasps the bra in the back quickly with practiced fingers. “Not at all.”

Lapis turns around and tries to get a better look at the garment, “I’m teasing you.” She puts a shirt on and tries to look at the fit. “I know there are no thoughts in there.” She pokes her head playfully and Peridot finally looks at her.

“Try on some pants water girl.”

“Okay…but,” Lapis shrugs, “this ‘bra’ or whatever doesn’t fit.” She goes to pluck it off, Peridot squawks again. “Help me with the next one.”

“I am gonna die.” Peridot mumbles about her mother or something, or Jesus’s mom and Lapis saves her by at least pushing her out while she switched them.

They had five shirts to try on and six jeans, only one fit and it somehow didn’t have pockets. They had lost pockets. So much for historical progress.

------------------

The night stood on the horizon like an elderly gentleman come to call and Peridot stares out the window and watched the shadows grow.

She couldn’t quite believe she introduced someone to underwear today. It was like something out of a sitcom about cavemen and it was Peridot’s real life.

She should write a memoir that no one would believe, or maybe just a caveman sitcom. She hums and mulls over her screenplay options.

Lapis was finishing up fixing the couch and Peridot fed Percy as he wound around her legs with a little mew.

She pets him absently and then made her way into the living room, turning on the TV and starting to look through her DVD’s on the shelf.

“What are you doing?” Lapis asks slowly as she finishes knotting a thin piece of string.

“Introducing you to human culture.”

Lapis makes a small noise behind her, “I was on your laptop for an hour, I know what a meme is.”

She laughs to herself. “Actual culture.” She pops a disc into her early 2000s clunky DVD player.

“So?” Lapis looked with interest over her shoulder.

“I’m going to go make popcorn.” She says with a small smile, “You, go sit down.” She takes her shoulders gently and pushes her back onto the couch.

Lapis just tilts her head, “Okay.”

“I think you’ll like this one.” She skips the commercials to start the film. “It’s fitting.” The Little Mermaid begins to play, and Peridot smiles back over her shoulder at her, Lapis just blinks and hugs a pillow to her chest.

Peridot stands in one place and gets lost in the beginning of the film and a nostalgic feeling for the colors and music, Lapis clears her throat to indicate that she’s hungry.

Peridot catches Lapis’s shimmering blue eyes and then pulls herself away to the kitchen.

She struggles with the plastic on the popcorn she got for some boy scouts and then puts it in the microwave, watching it as closely as possible, she was terrible at not burning popcorn.

“Look at this stuff,

Isn’t it neat? ”

A familiar song drifts in from the other room.

“Oh! Pause it, pause it, this is my favorite part.” Peridot calls quickly, dancing up and down as she waited for the popcorn to stop popping like mini-fireworks.

She gets no reply, “Laaapis.” She whines, but the song keeps playing.

“Wouldn't you think I'm the girl

The girl who has everything? ”

She pours the popcorn into a bowl with a few spilling out onto the tile floor and then rushes back into the TV room. Peridot stops in place when she sees Lapis curled up onto herself on the couch.

Her eyes were wet and big fat tears were rolling down her cheeks, she hiccuped softly and wiped her eyes on the pillow.

Peridot looked at her slack-faced, emotions. She wasn’t great with emotions.

“Up where they walk

Up where they run

Up where they stay all day in the sun

Wanderin' free ”

Lapis buried her face and her puffy red eyes spilled over into more tears, Peridot crept over on light toes.

“Lapis?” She asks quietly, trying to probe the situation. She doesn’t respond, Peridot positions herself next to her on the couch. "Hey...it's okay." 

“Doesn’t she know? Doesn’t she know what’s on the land?” Lapis starts to cry harder, deep, rattling sobs that shook her body.

Peridot reached over and pet her hair, like her mother might.

“She wants to be free. But she doesn’t know anything about humans, or men, or land.” Lapis spits and Peridot tries to wipe her tears away with the sleeve of her sweater. Lapis just sits there and runs like a faucet while Peridot desperately tries to absorb it with her thumb and white sweater.

“We can turn it off.” Peridot whispered when Lapis’s breath steadied, Peridot went to stand up.

Lapis gripped onto Peridot’s waist, she shook her head violently. “No.” She heaved. “Stay.”

Peridot sat back down, staying with her while she finished wiping at her eyes.

Lapis leaned into Peridot, “Besides, I want to see if this redhead gets her hubris.” Peridot gives a sad sigh and leans back into her.

"It's a Disney movie." She points out gently.

"So?"

Peridot sighs, "You'll see."

“Out of the sea

Wish I could be

Part of your wooorld."

Lapis hiccuped and appeared angry, Peridot just sat by her dumbly, fastidiously.

Chapter Text

Lapis woke up to a crack of noise that split the air like an ax against rock, her pulse speeding up like a blaring siren. A steady rain beats against the roof.

She blinked open her eyes, rubbing them wearily and glancing out the rustic-style window, a flash of pure white illuminates the whole room in a brilliant moment of day, Lapis lurches out of bed with her shoulders hunched.

The rain beat against the window pane and she tentatively touch's the surface, it’s cool and vibrates under her fingertips.

Lapis flinches, another boom of thunder sends her jumping and wrapping her arms around herself. She hears a drum beat like a grim festival in her chest and wanders out of the guest room.

She stumbles her way up the stairs on numb legs and gently pushes open Peridot’s bedroom door. She startles at another lightning strike and she slips into the room, a thunder clap almost sending her under the nearby desk.

Instead, she forces herself to stand perfectly still and glance at Peridot. Lapis gnaws on her bottom lip and examines Peridot's sleeping form. Her eyes were somehow glued shut during the storm and her chest was neatly rising and falling in a mindless rhythm.

Lapis exhales and crosses the room, bending down to look at her face, peaceful as the day is young. Her blonde hair was still somehow swept up into a vertical angle and the dent on her forehead was almost charming in the dark.

Lapis snorts at the string of drool leaving her open mouth.

“Sloppy,” She almost pokes her to wake her up. Tell her she was being a good samaritan who wanted to stop Peridot from drowning in her own spit. She shakes her head and glances at Peridot’s narrow chest, still rising and falling like a peaceful tide.

She sighs and stands back up, a flash of light once more fills the room like a freeze frame and Lapis’s breath catches in her throat.

She hears a distant high-pitched call, a scrambled, desperate sound that could have almost been a dream against the deafening rainfall.

Lapis strides to the window and leans towards it, eyes wide as she tried to listen.

“Brrr-eeeeeh.” The slap of noise that was an unmistakable braying, distressed and echoing in her chest cavity could be heard. It wasn’t a normal call.

Lapis acts quickly, quietly ruffling through Peridot’s clothes and ripping out a rain jacket hanging in her closet, she slips it over her head and considers a pair of galoshes that would not doubt be too small.

She decides to go barefoot and then pulls her hood up and makes one last visit to the side of Peridot’s bed. She watches her oblivious expression and remembers the moment she tried to wipe Lapis’s face dry the other night.

“I’ll be back.” She whispers and hurries down the stairs and out the door.

The streets were flooded. The sidewalks overflowing and water licking against her ankles like a cold, biting brush. Lapis doesn’t mind, but she tries to keep her rain jacket tight around her frame. Her human body was frail.

She mindlessly traverses the streets, following the rumbling call in her mind as it dragged her further and further into the night.

It takes her an hour or more, her body soaked to the bone and hair clinging to the sides of her face, she spots a swelling river and runs towards it.

--------------------

Peridot is surprisingly rested when she stretches awake the next morning.

“Awe,” she cracks her back and shuffles over to the window in slippers. She lifts the windowpane up and smells a very crisp, wet scent that was fresh and warm in the low light. She smiles. “Lapis!” She calls, “We should take a walk today. I can show you the farmers market.”

She slips on a Berkeley sweater to insulate from the morning chill and starts descending the stairs in twos, “Lapis! Okay, it has a lot of dirty hippies, but! They have these apples that taste like sunshine, and this one shop that sells dark, dark chocolate. You’ll like it.

She excitedly looks around and blinks her way across the room.

Clrrrck

Peridot pauses as she hears a scuffling sound against the tile in her kitchen. A little harsh noise that makes her stop and wrinkle her brow.

“Hey...” She walks towards it.

“Nrrrr,” Peridot’s eyebrows nearly reach her hairline. That was an alive something making that noise.

She grabs her coat rack in between her hands and slides up next to the door, eyeing the wood and apprehension rising in her gut, another gravely noise comes from within.

“Okay,” She breathes, “Time to, you know, Peridot. Anti-up.” She hums the Adventure Time theme to calm her nerves and then squeezes her eyes shut and leaps into the room.

“Aaaaaah!” She runs in brandishing her weapon and swinging it every which way.

“Nrrrrheiie.” Peridot pops open her eyes and finds a large mammal pawing at her kitchen floor. A horse.

“Ahahaaaa!” She throws her hands in the air and stumbles backward until her back meets the countertop. “Ahahaaa…” Her mouth hangs open.

It was a greenish hue with what looked like seaweed plastered to its body and a bent head. It eyed her with large black inky eyes that seemed to sink into its cheekbones and highlight a fringe of deep shadows.

Peridot can feel herself slightly shaking but drawn to the horse like a teen punk to a cemetery, she reaches out- but manages to catch her hand and turn around and run out of the room.

“Lapis!” She gasps, when she gets no response she fumbles to get her phone out and text Ronaldo.

Me (8:19): THERE’S A HORSE IN MY KITCHEN.

She looks left and then right, going to Lapis’s door and knocking at it in seven fast raps, “I have a few questions!” She calls through the wood in a high-pitched tremble.

“Yes?” Peridot jumps when she hears an even voice behind her. She turned around to find Lapis coming out of the bathroom, drying her hair.

Peridot clears her throat, “So I went to go make breakfast this morning.” She says slowly and Lapis hums and doesn’t quite meet her eye.

“Riveting.”

“And I think there might be some confusion on the limits of our agreement in this situation.” She tries to be diplomatic.

“Are you talking about the-”

“I’m talking about the equine in my house, yes.”

Lapis snorts and continues to pat dry her hair, “How do you know it was me?”

“Unless Percy recently engaged in interspecies friendships like some sort of damn children’s book, have reason to believe the seaweed horse is yours.” She stands stiffly upright and points at her cat.

Lapis nods, “So, okay, I support Percy’s romance, barriers like species should never stop someone.”

Peridot groans and pinches the bridge of her nose, “Just...explain?”

Lapis takes her by the wrist and escorts her to the dining room table, they sit down. They stare at each other steadily from across the table, beats of silence passing between them.

“How have you feel about adoption?” Lapis begins slowly and Peridot hits her forehead with the palm of her hand.

“I’m not adopting some sort of demon sea creature! Its eyes are like coals.” She shudders.

“How dare you speak about our son like that.” Lapis wags her finger and tuts at her. “He has feelings, evil feelings that may want to drown you, but still.”

Peridot’s mouth falls open, she feels her phone buzz from her pajama pocket, she gets it out to avoid having to respond to that.

Purple people eater: you lead one wild life P-dexter

Leaderdad: ride it.

Squawk-awk: if you ever need to talk….I hear counseling is available.

Triangle-whiner: WRONG MESSAGE

Purple people eater: ?? was horse code for something;; was this supposed to be to your dealer

Squawk-awk: IS IT DRUGS??

Triangle-whiner: t;sajfadfkjads’f

Leaderdad: wild. I’m rising my eyebrow ever so slightly rn

Triangle-whiner: pretend this didn;t happen

She finishes up her group message and returns to texting Ronaldo, who she informed again about her horse dilemma. A green, seaweed horse.

Lapis keeps glancing at her, “He needed help.” She asserts and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

“Excuse me?” Peridot looks up again.

“He needed help. He was calling to me, I have like, a duty.”

Peridot blinks and stares at her, “A duty?”

“To other creatures. Like me. There was some of trash problem when the storm hit and he was struggling in it.” She spoke evenly, all the teasing and attitude suddenly tempered.

“Oh.” Peridot twists her mouth up, “you walked all the way to the river?”

Lapis shrugs, “It was the middle of the night, I can’t believe you slept through that storm, woof.”

Peridot gives a light smile, “and to think, you were so busy.”

“Saving the weak!” Lapis proclaimed and flexed her arms.

Peridot chuckles, “I’m sure.” Their eyes meet with sudden force and Peridot’s heart ever so slightly pitter-patters like a car engine speeding up.

Her phone buzzes.

Ronaldo: KEEEEEEELPIIIEEE

The cursed: why would you make my name this?

Ronaldo: don’t ride the Kelpie. I’m coming right over... Also, where do you live?

The cursed: DON’T COME OVER.

Peridot puts her phone away again, grumbling under her breath. “Kelpie, selkies, what’s next? Pelkie? Velkie?”

Lapis blinks, “anyway, our son is strong and big, and will probably mess with any robbers that come by.”

Peridot thunks her head on the wooden table. “Your friends are weird.”

Lapis puts her head on the table across from hers, watching Peridot with interest. “You’re not that weird. Or at least, that’s what I’ll say when you let us keep him. He needs a safe place to stay until his leg recovers.”

Peridot sighs heavily and wonders how she’s going to make breakfast.

Chapter Text

Lapis sneezed into her elbow and whimpered, “I want to die.”

Peridot handed her a tissue, “that’s what you get for running out into the rain at 3 in the morning. You get sick.”

“I hate this meat puppet,” Lapis groans and blows her nose violently again.

“Yeah, well, you put a horse in my kitchen. Karma.” Peridot grumbled back at her as they huddled on the couch, making breakfast had become an uncomfortable ordeal.

Especially after she read up on kelpies. It apparently wanted to drown her. But who didn’t at the this point it seemed?

Lapis felt her throat and growled. “This is awful. Let’s watch the foolish mermaid movie again. And stop before the wedding but after the boat is destroyed.”

“Lapis.” Peridot says carefully, “You. Cry. Every. Single. Time.”

Lapis sniffles, “So?”

Peridot sighs and puts another blanket around her shoulders, “If that’s your thing then okay.” She stands up and scans her DVD’s. “I can go to the farmers market, and you can make a kleenex fort while watching The Little Mermaid for the fifth time.”

Lapis nods, “Farmer's market? Market. For food?” She seemed interested in her watery blue eyes, red from illness.

Peridot hums and reaches for her coat, “Food, yes. We’re sort of out of it. And staring at seven different types of organic avocados is my favorite hobby.”

“Really?” Lapis quirked an eyebrow up.

“No.”

Lapis rolled her eyes, “You’re weird.”

Peridot nodded and put up her hood. “Granted. But also the bread winner in this situation. To buy said bread.”

Lapis sat up straighter on the couch and unsteadily got to her feet. “I’ll come.”

Peridot took a step towards her to stabilize her, “You told me it felt like you were swallowing knives a second ago.” She points out candidly.

Lapis shrugs and wobbles closer to her, “I’m hungry too.” She points to her stomach, “Our cupboards are empty oh breadwinner, and I could use a walk.”

Peridot glances out the window at the weak sunlight, “I suppose it’s not that cold out…” Peridot gives in and coaxes Lapis into a pair of boots and bundles her up tightly in a scarf and hat. Lapis picks up an entire kleenex box and looks ready to go.

They head out and Lapis blows her nose as they start walking down the street, reiterating her wish to fly into the literal sun and burn up her sinuses.

“Seriously.” She sniffles, “we take for granted every breath of air you take when your sinuses aren’t forming a gang and coordinating espionage.” Peridot adjusts Lapis’s scarf to cover her throat more.

“You’ll get over it.” She contends briefly.

“Unless the black death is still a thing, tell me you still have the black death.” Lapis says with her hands in her pockets.

Peridot elbows her, “Sure. The latest in vogue for human viruses, literal plague.” Lapis chuckles and elbows her back.

“That’s what I thought.”

Lapis continues to dwell on her illness and Peridot guides them down the winding streets, “This is how human bodies work.” Peridot points out as they see the farmer’s market in view.

Lapis sticks out her tongue, “Weak and unwieldy.”

Peridot smiles, “And squishy, don’t forget that.” She says sarcastically.

Lapis takes her quick hands and pinches Peridot's side, “Oh I know.”

Peridot swats her hand away, “Bad touch! Muffin tops are off limits.” Lapis chuckles and let's go.

"Squishy humans." She grins widely and Peridot can't quite look at her as she readjusts her top.  “So what’s all this?” They make their way to the first booths as Lapis speaks up.

Peridot shows her the first produce, “here, we have the gluten free kiwi’s and then we have free-range bread made out of buckwheat.”

Lapis scratched her chin, “What?”

“I don’t entirely get it either.” She takes her practical reusable bags and makes a beeline for the milk, “Come on.”

She gets in line and studies to the sky for any signs of rain, which was surprisingly common this week.

Lapis seemed to be sniffing the people next to her, and Peridot nudges her to her side. “Sniffing people isn’t polite.”

“Neither is stealing them.” She crosses her arms across her chest, Peridot rolls her eyes.

“You’d think ancient god’s would be less sassy.” She grumbles to herself, Lapis just smiles at her innocently, “Or childish.” Lapis sticks her tongue out at her.

“This looks good.” She says as she looks at the milk, “I used to make this stuff too! Back in the village.”

“Huh,” Peridot watches her closely as she thinks, “Well, I’m technically not even supposed to drink diary.” Lapis sneezes and Peridot is forced to buy that bottle in particular. She puts it in her bag and pays the man, “But I do need some cereal lubricant...And screw biology , lactose intolerance is BS.”

Lapis raises an eyebrow up at her, “I’ve only watch .2% of human culture, but I’m pretty sure ‘cereal lubricant’ is something no one should ever say.”

“Cereal lubricant.” Peridot says back, Lapis sniffles and makes a face at her.

“No.”

“Lube for my cheerios.” Lapis tugs at her ear.

“I’ll cut you off. Drink all this milk myself in one go. Feed it to Bathad, get Percy in on it. A whole milk-anti-lubricant committee.” Lapis fluffed her hair and Peridot decided she might have a fever.

“Alright, committee member, I’ll leave my cereal in this moisture mixture...Cow water.”

“Uuugh.” Lapis tries to grab at her, but Peridot dodges and starts to run down the street, laughing and weaving in and out of the people.

“Come here, gremlin, we’re gonna have a dictionary discussion.” She grabs at Peridot’s collar and she almost wiggles out of her sweater.

“Oh,” she pauses in teasing Lapis when she spots one of the small booths, “Here, here, you have to try this.” She has Lapis let go of her as they join a long line.

“What next? Lubricant for your SINS?”

Peridot chuckles, “You’ll like it, you’ll see...It’s better than unprocessed ice cream.”  Lapis flicks her in the ear, Peridot rubs at it. “Also, I am still in awe in named the horse Bathad.”

“That’s his name...Or else we’d be calling him Lord Dark Water, Trampler of Man and Thunder Hooves of the Riverbank, he said we could call him that too.” Lapis picked at a scab on her hand.

Peridot furrowed her brow, “Edgy.”

“I know. He’s a little dramatic.” Lapis discusses with her the diet of their new family member was: raw meat.

“Of course, of course.” Lapis sneezes as Peridot takes in her next new journey in weirdness. “Raw meat.” She repeats wearily.

They make it to the front of the line and Lapis seems to stare at the chunks of deep chocolate wrapped in aluminum.

Peridot unwraps them and Lapis watches her carefully. “Here. They make it from scratch.”

Lapis tentatively leans forward towards her hand, Peridot has a little bubble of interest in her chest. She shakes the dark chocolate at her and Lapis takes a small bite, like a stray rabbit she’s feeding out of the palm of her hand.

Peridot takes a bite of the deep, rich taste of the thick bar herself when Lapis’s face lights up. “Oh!” She says slowly with a bright smile and Peridot nods excitedly.

“Exactly!” She crows, feeling vindicated.

Lapis coughs into her hand and straightens up, “I mean, it’s no hamburger, but it’s decent.”

“You mean...not the McDonald’s you had on the first day?” Peridot asks with her mouth hanging open.

“Yeah!” Lapis says happily and Peridot turns away from her.

“Nevermind. You have not palette. No expensive food for you.”

Lapis laughs with a nice lilt to it and follows after her to the end of the Farmer’s market as they continue to shop.

They take their time picking up peaches and raspberries and various eggplants. Lapis claims to be able to listen to the juices in the food and tell which ones are the freshest.

Peridot leans in as she holds an apple up to her ear, “What’s it say?”

Lapis puts the produce closer to her ear to listen, “It says….oooh~ you’re a dork and hair is dumb.”

“Ugh,” Peridot puts the fruit in her basket after paying.

“Can’t believe you fell for that.” Lapis takes a bite of the apple.

“Excuse me for having my suspension of disbelief a little rusty...It’s sort of been broken in the last two weeks.”

“Oh, I could suspend your sense of disbelief for you.” She winks at her, Peridot tilts her head.

“What?”

Lapis looks left and then right, “Oh, uh.” She shakes her head, “What am I d...Nevermind.” She was a littler red.

Peridot looks at her closely with narrowed eyes and then shrugs and heads the other direction.

Lapis follows her around as she finishes the chocolate and they gather up the rest of the food and apparent raw meat for a magic horse, then head back home.

They make it back up the steep hill and Lapis kicks a stone forward every step or so.

“Hey,” Lapis says gently, “You do this every week?”

Peridot shrugs, “Sometimes I just order pizza...For a couple nights.”

“Hmm,” Lapis looks up at the sky, “I could try pizza. I could help Bathad.”

Peridot keeps her mouth shut, letting Lapis stew on something, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Lapis helps her cook eggplant parmesan and Peridot tries to make sense of the day they had. Bathad whinnies at her as she studies Lapis’s profile for too long, and Peridot tells him to can it.

She helps Lapis drink more tea and puts her into bed. “Get better.”

Lapis doesn’t reply and turns over in bed that night. “Stupid humans, sponges for disease…” She murmured and Peridot turned off the light and took deep breaths. She takes several breaths and pulled at her blonde hair.

“Don’t think about it.” She instructs herself and puts a teabag out for Lapis in the morning and goes to sleep.

Chapter Text

Lapis and Peridot sat in the kitchen, the afternoon sun streamed through the little lacy window and the dishwasher hummed in the corner as they both faced the east wall. Water pooled on the floor across from them and a damp horse stood in the middle of it with its sooty black eyes on Peridot.

Lapis perched on a stool and watched Peridot watch Bathad- their kelpie horse- watching them. He pawed at the tiled floor and Peridot almost gave a fully-body flinch, they contemplated each other.

Bathad's wet seaweed mane clung to his thin frame, all bones and right angles and his dark fur sticking off of his slippery body. Lapis was determined to help him get back to health, but first the whole ‘I want to drown your housemate’ issue was on the table.

“So,” Peridot cleared her throat and then her green eyes darted back to Lapis, she cleared her throat again, “Do, hmm,” She stroked her chin. “Do these things always, uh, live...somewhere?”

Lapis tilted her head and blinked, “They live places, yes... As things typically do.” She said flatly.

Peridot frowned, “They live in our rivers. Death horses.”

Lapis hummed, “Some of them have moved into cities for the convenience and novelty of it all I think.”

Peridot wrinkled her brow and focused on Bathad again, “It’s a giant green-ish horse.” She narrowed her eyes, “You’d think I would have seen this before.”

Lapis rolled her eyes and let out a long breath, “It’s not exactly like that…” She tilted her head, “I guess I should have told you what you were getting into before.”

Peridot’s eyebrows rose, she seemed to unconsciously lean toward Lapis, “What?”

Bathad snorts in the corner and Lapis pauses to get up and go to the fridge for some of the raw meat. Peridot could wait a second longer.

Peridot’s eyes followed her, “Lapis, really, what?”

Lapis gave a half-smile over her shoulder, it was almost a dark twitch of her lips as her eyes focused. She went back to the counter to rip open the package with a knife. Peridot owned a cutting board with Crying Breakfast food on it, she said she got it from a friend, and the juices of the meat pour over the colorful shapes.

Lapis wipes her hands on the nearby towel- decorated with a little Turkey face and a ‘Home is Where the Heart is!’ logo. Right. Peridot said that one was from her mom.

The silence stretches on, she kneads the raw beef meat in her hands, shaping it and feeling the gritty texture against her fingertips. Peridot looked like she was ready to kick her, Lapis took a deep breath.

“Remember when I bugged you back at the island?”

Peridot’s face scrunched up in distaste, “How could I forget? You put moon jellyfish in my shoes.”

Lapis gives a sharp laugh, “A classic.”

“Alright, so you messed with me, the magic world is just chalked full with jackasses.”

Lapis shook her head, “Not the point. I was invisible. I did show myself, but that’s only ‘cause I wanted to. Most of my kind has the same rules.”

Peridot’s shoulders rose and Lapis could see the gears and data churning in Peridot’s head, her face tense as she seemed to process that.

“Alright. Okay. Magic is still real and hides from us like the Illuminati. And like, I dunno, does stuff to people.”

“Little stuff.” Lapis looks back at their horse, “Sometimes murder.”

Peridot puts a long put-upon sigh.

“And since, I like, captured you I’m in on this now too?” She asked her with a resigned sigh to her voice.

“Sort of,” Lapis walks languidly over to Bathad, she puts her palm out flat with the chunk of meat on top. “And don’t complain, you got yourself into this buddy.”

“I literally just walked somewhere.” Peridot pouted as she crossed her arms across her chest. Lapis can feel her frowning as Bathad took his velvety snout and picked up the meat in between his yellowish teeth and tore into it. Lapis’s hand gets wet with his spit and she wrinkles her nose as Peridot talks.

“He should stop looking at me.” Peridot mumbled to herself as the kitchen-horse and the girl exchanged hard eye contact.

Lapis shrugs, “He just needs to regain his strength. Besides, humans did this to him and now a human can help nurse him back to health.”

“I’m pretty sure he’d eat me if I tried to feed him.”

Lapis snorted with a small laugh, “True. But also not true, you’re under my protection.”

Lapis hears Peridot make a curious noise from behind her as Lapis feeds Bathad another piece of shredded beef, he whinnies lowly.

Lapis glances over her shoulder and Peridot’s eyes were strangely large. “Under your protection…?”

“Eh,” Lapis wipes her hands on her skirt and walks back to the ‘safe’ zone of the kitchen where Bathad wasn’t dripping on the floor. “Okay. Sort of, again.”

“Explain.” Peridot was leaning toward her again, Bathad paws at the ground.

“You stole my skin. My skin is a magical item and now belongs to you, technically your magical now too. Item. Yours. Part of our world ~ As our friend Ariel would say.”

Peridot made a face and tapped on her knee, “Everything comes back down to the skin.” She mumbled and seemed to be thinking.

“Pfft,” Lapis started to wash her hands more thoroughly, “What would you think would happen wifey? Ain’t no freebees in my world.”

Peridot looked up to the ceiling, “From all those myths I’ve read, sounds like it. Everything with your consequences and hubris and paganism.”

Lapis smiled and gave her a small pat, “Now you’re getting it.”

Peridot hung her head and looked ready to get up, “I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to this…”

Lapis shrugged, “You could always give my skin back…”

Peridot stuck her lip out, “Remember hubris and consequences and paganism? I’d rather not get drowned.”

“Fair enough.” Lapis got up and started in on the living room, “I’m going to go watch the Cooks vs Cons. I think I’m figuring out which ones the cons are...The frumpy ones.”

Peridot shook her head, “If you must.” She stretched and got up too, “Will your horse be okay?”

Lapis turned around, “Probably,” She turned to him and looked him in the eye, he flicks his tail and Lapis nods, she feels a little wave of anxiety off of him but nothing too much. “Yeah. He’s good, we could take him for a walk in a bit though- he’s saying he’s a bit on edge.”

Peridot goes toward the stairs, “Pass. Even if he’s invisible to the rest of everyone. I’m going to go work on my thesis.”

Lapis rolled her eyes and plopped herself down on the couch, Peridot was always going to her room to write where she would turn her music all the way up and Lapis heard a lot of cursing from upstairs.

Lapis feels another wave of anxiety off Bathad but she sends a feeling of ease back at him, she just fed him, she tells him to can it.

She turns on the TV and zones out. She doesn’t guess any of the cooks right.

The day slips into twilight and her eyes start to glaze over as she feels herself tugged into an almost-nap.

She’s drooling on one of the throw pillows as she dozes when the first whinny vibrates through the air.

Lapis startles awake with a sudden jerk and almost topples off the couch.

Bathad makes another startled noise and Lapis hears the distant sound: a pulsing drumbeat framed by hooves and horns and a steady beat.

Her eyes go wide and can feel her breath catch in her throat, she rolls onto the floor and starts to crawl to the window.

Fuck.

The drums are violent and ugly and send a sure fire shiver down her spine, she didn’t have to guess what this was, and she didn’t have to feel the bile rising in her throat to know it wasn’t good.

She crawls across the floor and goes to the window, first she closes the blinds and steels herself to peek up above the sill.

“Lapis!” She hears a shrill call and Peridot was on the stairs gaping at her, “Do you hear that?!”

“Shut up!” Lapis gestures for her to get down.

Peridot’s face crumbles into a scowl, she opens her mouth but is interrupted by a clear and silver wolf-hound howl that raises the goose-bumps on her skin like chicken flesh. The howl mixes with the drums beating louder and louder with the pounding of hooves and Bathad nervously whinnying in the background.

She could see Peridot was scared now too, her eyes huge and hands close to her body, “What is that?”

“Get down here!” Lapis was ready to tackle her and drag her down into a closet to hide.

“No really-”

“It’s trouble. These things always come with trouble.” She crawls over on her hands and knees and yanks on Peridot’s jeans, Peridot seems to get the message and practically falls to her knees as they drag themselves back to the window.

Lapis holds onto Peridot’s wrist so she doesn’t go anywhere. And maybe to stop her own hand from shaking like a leaf in a wind storm.

Peridot was breathing hard but she seemed to know to be quiet as the thumping hooves and drums and sounds mix together. A second thin unmistakable howl forces Lapis to close her eyes.

She probably should have known this would happen. Consequences. Hubris. Paganism.

She finally takes a steadying breath and creeps up to look out the window, she had to know. The figures weren’t close yet, shimmering smudges on the horizon in faint whites and silvers.

Lapis ducks back down and she grabs Peridot, clutching the small girl to her.

“Be quiet and don’t move,” She hisses, “They’ll probably pass us by since they won’t have my exact scent.”

“Lapis,” Peridot says weakly and Lapis can see the face of regret and confusion as plain as day. Their breaths mingle together as they cower and huddle below the frame and wait.

The seconds tick by like drugged flies, buzzing and slow and ugly. The sound vibrates through her bones and she clenches her teeth so hard it hurts.

They cower for what felt like forever with stiff joints and closed eyes as the thundering sound of hooves and drums galloped past them, long, far too long.

But it passes. It passes all the same and Lapis doesn’t have to die some pathetic death as a mortal.

They stay huddled together on the floor long after the noise had passed.

Finally, Peridot takes one long shuddering breath, “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt in your philosophy.” She was mumbling to herself as her eyes drifted back and forth with an unfocused melancholy.

Lapis nods and gives her wrist a final squeeze, “Yeah, um. This may not be a walk in the park.”

“An army?” Peridot asks breathlessly with her eyes lifted.

Lapis looks away, her mouth becoming a hard line, Bathad makes small worried sounds from the kitchen. Lapis back toward the window, “The Hunt.”

Chapter Text

Peridot steadied her own breathing, counting down from ten and concentrating on the blunt pain radiating from her wrist. Lapis was still holding on to her.

The sound had faded, dulled like a dream, a nightmare, and Peridot found her legs cramping, complaining under her weight and crammed against the wall.

Peridot took another deep breath, slowly lifting her head and gently moving Lapis’s shoulder out of the way so she could peer out the window.

It was an empty road. The last rays of the sunshine had been squeezed from the sky and a starless blue-gray night hung over them. Mrs. Lin walked her pomeranian-husky mix across the street and its little pink tongue lolled out of its head as it trotted down the street. There was no sign that a demonic thundering had stormed through their neighborhood moments ago.

Peridot even heard crickets. 

“I think they’re gone.” She finally says in a hushed whisper somewhere between a gentle rasp and coarse bark.

Lapis’s head was still bowed down, eyes hidden, and Peridot didn’t know how to tell her that her fingers were still digging bruises into her skin.

“Lapis,” She says evenly, trying to keep the waver out of her voice. “Hey…”

Lapis turns her bright blue eyes up like tiny moons and there’s a hardness there she didn’t expect, Lapis unfurls her long limbs and finally stands up.

She glances out the window like it had personally stabbed her mother.

Peridot clears her throat and Lapis’s face curls into a decided frown, “Lapis.” She repeats, “What was that?”

She watches Lapis’s head turn like a slowly spinning planet, “Like I said,” Lapis finally let her wrist go, “The Wild Hunt.”

Peridot lifts her eyebrow, “You want me to google that or...?” Her voice had a bit of an edge to it but at least Lapis’s shoulders relaxed slightly.

“They aren’t good.” Her voice croaked.

Peridot laughs, but it’s more of a tinkling knife-sharp sound than anything. “The bloodcurdling howls, bad? Nooo.”

Lapis poked her roughly in the shoulder, “Stop being a smart ass, we could have died.”

That made Peridot bite down on her lip. “Talk to me.”

Lapis shook her head and took a deep breath, “I’m going to go check on Bathad. You wait here.”

Peridot rose an eyebrow but let her go, Lapis went to go pet her demonic horse on the nose and whisper ocean noises at it or something. Peridot gets on her hands and knees and dragged Percy out from under the couch herself.

“Come on, loverboy,” She takes him in her arms, “I promise it’s not as bad as it seems.” He meows unhappily and she kisses him inbetween the ears. “Probably. It’s gone now.” She buried her nose in his warm orange fur, he struggles some more.

Peridot was trying to smooth down his fluffed-up fur, “Ssshhh,” She soothed when she heard a throat clearing from the front of the room.

Peridot jumped and turned toward where Lapis who was standing in the living room entranceway. Peridot opened her mouth, sucked in a breath of air, and then closed it. She waited for Lapis to speak.

Lapis trailed her hand across the faded yellow wallpaper and made her a way over in a lazy line toward her until she stood before Peridot with a very straight back.

“We should nail the windows shut.”

Peridot’s eyebrows skyrocket, “Come again?”

“I’ll get the tool box, it will be like remodeling. Another one.” Lapis seemed ready to bolt but Peridot thrust her hand out and caught Lapis by the hand.

“What’s going on.” It wasn’t some much a question as a plea, her eyes searched Lapis’s quietly, “Are we in danger? Would, uh, the cops help?”

Lapis snorted, “Your human police?” Lapis gave a startled laugh, “Against the ghost riders? Oh my God, can you imagine?”

She was at least laughing. Peridot sighs as she holds more tightly to her arm.

“My cat is a fluffy mess, you look like someone’s died, and I swear I almost just wet myself listening to some sort horse-dog-storm. Tell me what’s going on.”

Lapis slowly sank into the seat next to her, “Peridot,” She says slowly, “We need to bolt the windows shut. The Wild Hunt…” Lapis frowned, “Do you know, like, legends?”

“Uh, I mean, I can put it together. Hunting. Wild. Probably pretty bad.” Lapis rolled her eyes and leaned over, reaching into Peridot’s jean pocket. “Whoa there!” Peridot squirms as Lapis’s little hand slips into her pants pocket and plucks her phone out.

Peridot scowled and Lapis’s face looked a little too impish after her face heated up, Peridot hunched over moodily and Lapis typed something into her phone.

“Ghosts. Hunters on a never-ending ride through the countryside, and I guess cities now, in pursuit of prey, sinners, or those that have wronged them when they were living.” Peridot gulped and Lapis’s eyes stayed trained on the phone. “They don’t rest. Eat. Sleep. They are in a purgatory of pursuit. And won’t stop.”

“Until they get their game?” Peridot offered as Lapis pauses.

Lapis shakes her head, “They won’t stop.”

Peridot makes a face and looks around, “Alright, okay. And you’re about to tell me that they are after you.” She says in a high pitched tone and Lapis raises one fine eyebrow.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Peridot exhales, “So, they just come around sometimes.”

Lapis shakes her head and her mouth becomes a hard line, “They are after you.”

“Eep,” Peridot squeaks as she remembers the low-rumbling howls and hooves on the pavement like thunderclaps. “What did I do?” Percy hissed as she held on too tight to him and jumped out of her lap, “Wait, nevermind. It’s the skin. I took the skin.”

Lapis nods ever so slightly, “I’m just a gangly mortal now. You’re the one with the magical item.”

Peridot holds her head and sighs, “Anything else?”

Lapis’s eyes darted around and then back to her, “Uh, it may or may not be personal.”

Peridot threw her hands in the air, “You pissed off an entire army at some point?!” A gallon of frustration pours out.

Lapis makes a face, “Hunt.” She corrects and cringes, “And not all of them. It’s complicated.”

Peridot sighs, “As in?”

“As in, none of your business,” Lapis said with a pout and Peridot rakes her own hand through her hair, tugging roughly on her loose bangs.

“So what do we do?”

Lapis got back up again, “Bolt all the windows shut bro. And the vents and your chimney.”

Peridot blinked and then touched her eyebrow nervously, flattening down the bits of hair there, “Great. Perfect. Magic hunt, after me, total lockdown.”

Lapis goes to their closet hallway and hauls out the tool box, she takes out a hammer. “It could be worse.”

Peridot lifts her head up, “How?”

Lapis gives a wink, “They could have found us the first time.”

Peridot groans and lies back down on the couch, Lapis comes over and leans over her body, “And at least you have me human.”

Peridot scowled and was about to retort that all her problems led back to Lapis anyway (and by extension also herself), but she felt Lapis’s hand slide down. It was tentative, shaky in its movement, Lapis overlays their fingers. The ex-Goddess squeezes her hand.

Peridot closed her mouth and they stay like that for a very long uncertain moment, a question mark.

They start hammering the windows shut.

Chapter Text

Peridot

Contrary to popular-introvert belief there was a limit to how long someone could stay in their own house. Consistent with popular belief- living with a horse in a locked-down cul de sac house was just as bad as it sounded.

Luckily, the undead horse in her kitchen did eat but didn’t relieve itself on her floor, they would have so many problems if that was the case. No, perhaps the meat just fueled its creepy horse-soul or something, however, it did smell like wet death as the windows remained bolted shut. It turned out cutting off fresh air for a week and a half with two people, a cat, and a supernatural equine came with its problems.

Peridot glared at the door as the email on her phone lit up, she looked back up into angry blue eyes. “It’ll only be for a little bit.” She tried not to sound petulant, she tried not to breathe in through her nose.

Lapis stood in front of the front door with her hands on her hips, “You can’t go out there.”

Peridot groaned and rolled her head back, staring up at the ceiling, “They haven’t even been back. Maybe they found something else to do.”

“Unlikely.”

Peridot kicked her feet back in forth, “Didn’t you make evil eye charms? I feel like those are pretty sinister,” She glances to the home-made pile of woven charms, “I would stay away if I saw one of those.”

Lapis rolled her eyes, “They are made of popsicle sticks and yarn. Not exactly full-proof.”

Peridot blinks and leans forward, trying to right herself on the sinking couch cushions, “Don’t tell me I ate my entire stash of popsicles for nothing.” She almost jokes.

Lapis gave a half-smile, “As your wife-roommate, I would still appreciate if you didn’t lead the hordes of the damned to our door after they are finished with you and follow your scent back.”

Peridot’s shoulders slumped down, “Glad to hear you have so much concern for my safety.”

Lapis walked over and stood in front of her, “ And it is a nasty way to go for a mortal.” She sighed and looked away, almost appearing flustered.

Peridot lays back down and folds her hands over her stomach, she glances back over to her phone, “The winter quarter is almost here.” She frowns, “I really have to meet with Dr. Sugilite, for you know, my job.” She’d been making excuses and skyping with the professors all week, but Dr. Sugilite was a bit of a luddite about communication devices.

Peridot had just got the email telling her she was TAing for professor S. for intro to physics, and she would definitely need to show up in person for that.

Lapis narrowed her eyes at her and Peridot turns to the blue-eyed charms.

“Your evil charms will have to do,” She reaches for the table, “She wants to meet with me today or tomorrow, and I’ve already worked a night or two on my syllabus, I’ll have to go over it with her.”

Lapis made a face that indicated she didn’t understand half of that, “I don’t think you fully understand what’s going on here. Your school or your life.”

Peridot raised an eyebrow and reached for her phone, “Well then…”

Lapis blew air out her nose, they appeared equally matched in stubbornness. Peridot began her email, trying to decide between ‘Dear Dr. Sugilite’ or ‘Hello Ma’am.’

Lapis collapsed on top of her, “Hey!” Peridot jumped and Lapis bounced her weight up and down. “Knock it off!” Peridot squirmed.

Her face was heating up as Lapis pushed her heft of her weight down on Peridot’s lap. Then she pushed the meat of her hand down on Peridot’s cheek and squished her face into the couch cushions.

“MMmph,” She mumbles into the fabric, Lapis tosses her phone across the room, Peridot flails around under her. “Mumph!”

She could Lapis watching her, “Ever heard of ‘for your own good’?”

“Yemph!” Peridot kicks her feet back and forth and Lapis puts her practically in a headlock before letting her up again.

“Foul, foul!” Peridot gasped, “That is...totally against our roommate agreement.”

“Oh please.” Lapis sat on her lap with Peridot’s neck in the crook of her arm and Peridot wiggled.

She scowls up at her and growls, “Don’t think I can’t get out of this. You’re the size of a bean bag chair.”

Lapis rose both eyebrows and gave a half grin, “Bigger than you.”

Peridot hunched her shoulders and tried to shift their weight off the couch and into the loving arms of freedom.

Lapis held them back, keep Peridot decidedly glued to the sagging foam beneath them. She managed to turn the TV on, “No, okay, I know you don’t like this game, but cook or con?” The Food Network flashed on and Peridot grumbled about how Lapis didn’t even like food.

Peridot resigns for a moment and tugs on Lapis's shirt, “Can’t we at least watch Camp Pining Hearts?”

Lapis’s eyes lit up, “I mean, if you agree to stay indoors. For our own good.”

Peridot glanced at her darkly, “Until what?”

Lapis stuck her jaw out stubbornly, “Until we have a chance.” Peridot tried to cover her face with her hands and grumble but Lapis was still holding her in place. Lapis shakes Peridot's shoulder, “Come on. We can watch season three.”

Peridot sighs and rests her head down.

“You love season three.” Lapis contends and she did love season three.

Lapisletss her go but stays close enough to spring at any second. Peridot tries to tell her about her shipping chart and it’s almost enough of a distraction.

-----------

Lapis

Lapis was going to kick Peridot's ass, that the was the title of her first novel and probably her second.

They had ended up falling asleep on the couch, Peridot’s head on her shoulder and a soft snore coming out of her arched cat-mouth. It was enough for Lapis to doze off.

She had woken up alone on the couch at 11pm the next day. A pillow stuffed under her chin where Peridot had been and a sure fire emptiness in the house.

Lapis jumped to her feet like there were spikes on the ground and a chill ran through her gut. She ran into every room, “Peridot! Peridot!” She darted back and forth, “I swear to God, if you are gone…” She was gone.

Her shoes, the nice running ones, were missing and her carrier bag was absent as well. Lapis breaths in threw her nose and counts to ten.

“Of course, of course,” She angrily walks to the door and fits herself with her own lace-ups and tied her own short hair back, “Mortals have no sense of self-preservation.”

Lapis ran out the door and down the street, she only had a faint pull toward the holder-of-her-skin, but she hoped it was enough.

She met a few dead-ends before she remembered Peridot mentioning meeting her mentor downtown, she stops a stranger on the street, walking directly into his path and spreading her arms out wide, “Do you know where the Tower Cafe is?” He was a young man with rolled up pants and a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses.

He raises his eyebrows and his eyes dart past her, Lapis spreads her stance out further and gives him a firm look. He gets out his phone. “Just a few blocks down lady, take a right and then another right.”

“Thanks,” She quickly races past him and down the steep hill.

She feeling a little better about her chances when she makes it to the first turn- and pounding of hooves and bay of dogs like earth-shaking cheers from an underworld party fill the air behind her, distant but there. She grits her teeth and goes faster.

She goes careening down the hill, arms pumping and lungs telling her to maybe calm down a little bit? She takes her second right and almost runs headlong into Peridot.

Peridot was running in her direction and they jump when they find each other, “Lapis!” She gasps and latches onto Lapis’s elbow, “Do you hear that?”

Lapis yanks on her ear roughly, “Of course I do.” She hisses and grabs onto her shoulders, “We have to hurry."

“We have to get back.” Peridot breathed heavily.

Lapis shakes her head, “They are coming from that direction.” She says slowly, pointing behind her, “We have to run the other way.”

Peridot’s mouth was hanging open, “Dr. Sugilite is going to kill me when I miss this meeting.”

Lapis almost smacked her in the head, “Really?" She says in disbelief and Peridot just chews on her lower lip. 

"This is...bad."

The bay of a dog cracked like a whip through the air, a howl as dreadful as violent wind. Lapis pushes them in the opposite direction, "Now is a fine time to run."

Peridot sprints with her down the sunny lanes of Berkeley and down as far as they can go, Lapis feels a chill down her spine when a distinct panting trails them.

Peridot grabs onto her wrist and yanks them into a nearby dank alley. “Come on, if they are like other dogs we can confuse their sense of smell.”

She drags them to the dumpster and they try to pry the lid open and jump in, the sound of nails on pavement stands out from the busy sound of cars and talking people. There wasn’t enough time to get the lid open.

“This will have to do,” Peridot breathlessly pushes them behind the dumpster in hopes that was enough.

The sound of sniffing of a wet nose enters the alley.

----------

Peridot

Peridot was cowering in broad daylight behind a dumpster with a hand of a pretty girl clamped to her shoulder. Real life was never so surreal.  

The drag of claws on cement was like the soundtrack to a horror movie, a Hitchcock one maybe, Peridot holds her breath and shakes against the front of the metal dumpster and back of the brick of the wall.

This was it.

The dog circles the area, obviously a little lost, and then, before she can count her blessings or pray to her grandma the sniffing stops.

Peridot peeks out from behind the trash bin and sees just the side of its face, dark and unearthly it had the features of a normal Doberman Pinscher: pointed erect ears and an unyielding jawline, only its eyes were fiery coal pits and Peridot swore she saw smoke wafting out of its nostrils.

She shivers, its stance is completely still, watchful, it finally turns it’s large head in one fluid motion and Peridot can feel the burn of its eyes.

It tosses its head back and lets out a harrowing howl.

Peridot remains immobile, something stuck and frozen in her joints, it felt like this was happening to someone else- someone more prone to risks instead of screens and fairytales instead of spaceships.

“Run!” Peridot watches Lapis leverage herself against the back wall and pumps her legs into the side of the dumpster, it hurtles on its little-wheeled legs toward the hound.

Peridot forgot how strong she was.

The dog yelped and Peridot saw it tossed into the other wall, that got Peridot’s rigid legs to stand, she leaps toward the other end of the alley with Lapis beside her.

“Go, go, go,” They scramble up the side of a fence and hear answering howls to their dog in the distance.

Peridot shook as she reached the top of the fence, her voice a high-pitched gasp, “They’ve found us.”

Lapis snags her dress on the top of the chain link but they manage to get on the other side and run as fast as they can down the winding alley and out into the sun-soaked streets again.

The sound of hooves is hot behind them and Lapis is pulling her along, Peridot’s not sure if she’s run this much in her life. A drum like a red, red pulse starts up.

“Don’t look back,” Lapis whispers and jerks them into the middle of the road, cars honk and Peridot keeps running, a blur of noise and need. Peridot's lungs yell in large yellow letters at her and her muscles burn.

They turn into a market street, crowded with people and busy shoppers, Peridot falls onto Lapis, “I need, one moment.” She pants, “The people should slow them down anyway.”

Lapis shook her head earnestly, “They are ghosts, they’ll just-”

An arrow the length of a small cat whizzes past Peridot's shoulder and lodges itself in the sign post next to Peridot, Peridot gapes at it, deadly and unreal it had brushed her naked skin. Her head snaps in the direction of the shot and she makes the mistake of looking back. A dark cloud blotted the street behind them.

A dark cloud blotted the street behind them, a swarm of movement and confusion.

Dogs stood in the front with smoking nostrils and misty bodies, horses like empty nights charge behind them, she can hear chain rattling now alongside the drum and can barely make out the faces out of the hunters. Gaunt and obscured, they are dressed in rags and dented armor. The one at the very front is massive and a long length of pale hair trails, Peridot has the sense that she looking at them, looking at them very, very closely.

Peridot rips her eyes away, refusing to take it all in and overwhelm herself, “Moments over.” She squeaks and the adrenaline forces her burning lungs to keep working, she grabs Lapis's hand and they run.

Lapis weaves in and out of the crowd and takes them downhill, “Where are we going?” Peridot yells above the noise and keeps her feet underneath her.

Lapis glances at her, “The river.”

Peridot’s eyes go wide, “Why? Can you…?”

Lapis shakes her head, “I can’t fight them,” Her face lifts, “But I still have friends.”

Peridot follows her barreling down the road, pursued, heart in her throat and a murky river in sight. Another whizzes past her head and they make it to the edge of the water, Lapis has them jump.

Chapter Text

Lapis was really, really hoping this would work

Both on a personal level and also a personal level to live and maybe not die.

She held her breath for as long as she could, Peridot clinging to her arm and both struggling to stay under. She wasn’t used to having her lungs burn and the water work against her, but her options were very limited.

The drums and bay of dogs are muffled by the depths and Lapis screws her eyes shut. If the demon dogs were still like normal ones the water would disturb their tracking. If not, Lapis was preparing herself for a hard strike through the chest of an unfriendly arrow.

She grows light headed and her body yells at her- the burn in her lungs growing to feverpitch as all her muscles began to tense.

The dogs and drums and hooves, it’s all she can concentrate on.

Drums, dogs, hooves, echoes. Her brain starts screaming for oxygen and her whole chest feels like it’s collapsing.

Lapis starts bobbing toward the air in desperation, her survival instinct stronger than her reasoning. Her head breaks the surface and she gasps for air, treading water and feeling a flood of relief, the pure surge of oxygen bringing on a sort of manic joy.

Luckily, the drums, the hooves, and the dogs are not waiting for them at the top, the bedlam had eased.

She smiles, despite the gross water clinging to her body and mouth tasting like brine and a little blood, “It worked.” She says in delight, she turns to Peridot, “It worked.”

Peridot was gasping still and looked worse for wear with her spiky hair sculpted to her forehead and eyes still as wide as saucers, “I almost died.”

Lapis shook her shoulders, “We are eating hamburgers tonight!”

Peridot seems to have enough energy to groan, “That’s not what I want to hear,” Peridot’s little eyes dart around, “I can still hear them.”

Lapis blows air out her nose, “Let’s focus on the positives.”

“They’re the dead.” Peridot says bluntly, appearing to try and take it all in. “Dead people, walking- uh, riding.” She gulps, “I’m the comic relief in a zombie movie.”

"Pfft," Lapis was still grinning despite herself and turns away from her, “You’re not that funny.” She gestures forward, “Come on. Time to swim.”

Peridot frowned and opened her mouth, but Lapis was already moving with the current down the dirty river.

“Where?” Peridot finally asks after her.

Lapis looks behind her, “They’ll track us down the second we get out of this water, and unless you want to move into the lake bottom, we should get moving.”

“Great.” Peridot says flatly, “I’m going to live in my local river. Bring the TV.”

Lapis rolls her eyes, “You’re in a bad mood for someone who just escaped death.”

Peridot sighs and starts swimming after her, “What’s the plan then? You mentioned ‘friends’.”

Lapis nods with a large smile, “I’m looking.” She reached out the last of her sense, the ones she used to feel-out Peridot, they were amplified in the water.

She sends out a distress call through her body, trying to radiate authority and some urgency. Peridot is quiet, letting her concentrate as Lapis furrows her brow and reaches out, further, further, into something ancient. On the third wave she feels a tug back.

She opens her eyes, “We need to find a tree by the water.”

Peridot raises her eyebrows but nods ever so slightly, “I’m going to need a shock blanket after this. And maybe a written alibi statement signed by a lawyer for Dr. Sugilite.” She was grumbling to herself and Lapis was breast stroking languidly in front of her.

Peridot doggy paddles after her and they survey the banks quickly, a heaviness of fear still clings to them and Lapis tries to keep her mind blank, in the moment.

Peridot remains an arms length away from her, and her little face has the distinct look of a grave.

Lapis’s keeps her attention forward, scanning, searching. She lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding when she spots a thick oak with its roots reaching for the water despite the solid stone encasing the river.

She takes a deep breath and makes her way toward it, she reaches out of the water and touches the tree lightly and closes her eyes, ‘we’re here.’

A flash of wild lashing hair and needle sharp nails passes in front of her eyes and she grabs Peridot’s arm, “Come on, let's get out.”

Peridot stays in place, “Didn’t you just say The Hunt will find us if we get out right now?”

Lapis shrugs, “We’ll have a little more time. They like to frighten the living hell out of their prey before they descend- as you’ve seen.” Peridot sighs and Lapis tries to reason with her, “Trust me, you don’t want to be in here when she comes up.”

Peridot seems to think for a moment and then reluctantly scrambles up the concrete bank and next to the tree with little tufts of grass struggling to grow around it out of the sidewalk.

Lapis follows her and they take deep breaths, she breaths in through her nose and sticks her hand in the water, “Come out.”

It takes a moment, they watch the blank dark water- the surface an unbroken brown and their nerves tangible. There is barely a ripple, a light blonde head sticks out of the water, just her eyes showing with harsh irises and pinprick pupils.

She tilts her head up without removing the lower part of her face from the water, “You called?”

-----------

Peridot

There was a water creature in front of her. Of course there was.

Peridot leaned against the thick tree so her muscles didn't give out on her, she looks out at the apparition with a steadiness, Peridot's ability to be awed at that point was as dull as a 1969 copper penny.

She appeared to be a young woman with straw-colored hair with red undertones and slightly tinted skin- puffy green framed by flesh so pale you could see the blue veins underneath. Her eyes were unnervingly dark and the pupils were just dots.

Lapis knelt down in front of her, “I am Lapis Lazuli.”

The little bit of her face showing nods, her eyes look her up and down, “You are human.” She says pointedly, Peridot notes her lilting Russian accent. She snorts, “A selkie-queen without her skin.”

Peridot heard Lapis give something that was almost a growl, she watches her square her shoulders as she draws herself up, “I am Lapis Lazuli,” She declares lowly, “Nothing else matters.”

Her shoulders shrug and she lifts herself further out of the water, her face was pretty in the way paintings are pretty: a small nose and full lips with rounded cheeks. Still too pale and swollen, a little distorted image of beauty.

“Yes, yes.” She hums in the thick accent, “I felt you. And you have trouble.”

Lapis nods with a frown, “The wild hunt.”

The lady blows air out of her nose and then turns around, “I wish you luck then.”

Lapis reaches out, steel in her voice, “I know you can help us.”

She darts her eyes toward them over her shoulder, “I do not seek to anger the sleepless butchers, besides,” She frowns, “times have changed little water seal. These cities aren’t your kingdom.”

Lapis’s nostrils flare and Peridot can feel a miasma of anger broadcasting off her, “And when I get my skin back? What then?” She narrows her eyes, “You think I’ll forget this?”

The figure tilts her head and swims to the shore's edge, she looks between them. “I do have things...I want.” She says carefully.

Lapis exhales and Peridot sits down next to the water, “We’ll do it. If it’s reasonable.”

She frowns and rises out of the water, she wore a thin white night dress that clung to her body like a second skin.

“There was a trash spill into here.” She gestures around, “Plastic bags. Soda cans.” Her voice builds in indignation, “Wires, peels, tissues. Humans have no concern for anyone.”

Lapis gave a half-smile, “I’ve seen.” Peridot glances at her and Lapis clears her throat, “I saved a kelpie from that spill a little while ago.”

The water-lady’s eyebrows rise and her lips turn up in a smile. “Very good.” She rises and Peridot can see all of her: the clinging ghostly dress and layer of shiny green over her skin. “I would like to, hmm,” She seemed to search for a word, “Clean water. A place to be.”

Peridot stood up straight as she processed that, “No, no way.” She folded her arms, “We already have a horse.” She turned to Lapis and whispered in her ear, “We’re not adopting any creepy water babes.”

Lapis shook her head, “First of all, she’s a Rusalka.”

“What?”

Lapis pushed on her shoulder, “Russian water spirit. And...Do you have a better idea?” She points to the sound of hunters in the distance. “We’ve got priorities here.”

Peridot sighs and glances back at the misty figure and her shoulders sink, Peridot draws closer, “What’s your name?”

The rusalka's eyes expand in surprise, “I haven’t been asked that in a long time.”

Peridot kneels down toward her, “I can just call you Jess or Waterlady2 or something…”

“No, no,” She places her hands on the concrete and Peridot leans back, “I was called Ulyana.” She replies slowly and her long veiny fingers press down against the ground and lift her body onto the land, it seemed strangely unnatural.

Peridot’s head twitches as the howl of a Doberman sounds in the distance. They must have caught their scent now.

Lapis grabs Ulyana’s elbow and drags her fully toward them, “Quickly, we have to get home quickly.”

“This will only work for a short while,” She says seriously, “It may not be...complete.”

Lapis nods hurriedly and Peridot prepares herself to climb the tree just in case. Dogs couldn’t climb, right?”

“Yes, yes,” Lapis’s puts Ulyana’s head in her hands, “We have a great need and I promise it will be a good deal.”

Lapis sticks her hand out and Ulyana gives a wide grin, revealing her puffy pale cheeks to stretch too far and teeth to be too sharp. “I want the best water in the house.”

They shake.

Peridot reaches for Lapis, “Lapis.” She says urgently and Lapis gestures to Ulyana, “Lay it on us.”

The rusalka turns to Peridot, looking a little too pleased with herself and Peridot’s apprehension. “Hold still little one.” She grabs Peridot’s shoulders and pulls her forward.

Peridot flinches, Ulyana drags her forward. She spits in her face.

“Ugh!” Peridot reels backward and feels the large globule run down her forehead and down her cheeks. “Ack!” Her shoulders rise and Lapis laughs herself silly off to the side.

She stops laughing when Ulyanna spits in her face next.

“Oh my God,” Peridot says and chuckles to herself a little, “Oh my God.” The spit smells like dirty swamp and Peridot tries very hard not to breath through her nose or wipe it off.

“There,” Ulyana says happily, “You are marked. They will only smell rusalka now.”

Lapis gives a brief cheer and Peridot has it in her to give a sigh of relief. It was a good thing Lapis had friends.

“Now,” Ulyana puts her hands on her hips, “I hope you have a bathtub.”

Chapter Text

Peridot

Peridot ran home with the force of a track star mixed with a terribly sober James Bond: running from one hiding spot to the next in the hopes the magic spit would hide her. Or the bush she was ducking behind would work.

Her senses were as jacked up as ‘kale’-kids trying soda for the first time after a vegan diet. She was ready to cut through steel plates with pure force of her nerves.

Luckily, Lapis guided them carefully home and Ulyana, their new friend, hummed a jaunty tune as they crossed Evan’s street and reached her house, coming gracefully, thankfully, lovingly, into view.

Peridot sprinted home and yanked open the door with the force of cosmic energies pulling black hole’s apart. Lapis toppled in after her and Ulyana made a soft sound as she pushed her way through the door and over them. She ooh’s happily at the inside of the house.

Peridot crawled out from under the two and jumped to her feet. She swung around and dead-bolted the door shut, her hands shaking as she twisted every lock on her door shut. She clenched her teeth and breathed in through her nose, Peridot turned around and quickly collapsed on her stairs. Her legs uselessly sprawled out in front of her and hands running through her sweaty hair like nervous dancing spiders.

She panted, “I never want to do that again.”

“Good,” She heard Lapis say from the living room, “Because I never want to move again.” She could hear Lapis flopping down on the couch, “I hope we all learned something today… Important things about listening to your pseudo-wife.”

Peridot watched Ulyana gape at her cat, “I learned that my mother was right,” Peridot said gloomily as she felt her pulse in her throat, “I should stay indoors, outdoors is for other kids who want to get infections… Or chased by ghosts apparently.” She buried her face in her hands.

Lapis grinned at her crookedly from above the arm of the sofa, “Now I’m your mother? That’s a change in contract.”

Peridot rolled her eyes and stood up on wobbling feet, her brain tried to catch up to all the recent events. “We have to have a group meeting. Now.” She said firmly and looked around at her housemates. Ulyana almost dropping the antique globe she was holding as she turned it over and over in her hands.

“Your place is not bad,” She says thickly, “I will enjoy the many,” She glanced around, “Sights.”

Peridot sighs and gestured for her to sit down, “Sit, sit, Lapis, get your horse, he can hear this too.”

Lapis raised an eyebrow at her but got up with minimal complaining and lead Bathad into the doorway.

Peridot leaned down and gathered Percy onto her lap, he complained loudly and she hugged him to her chest. Peridot made eye contact with every creature in the room, “We are not in a great situation.” She said forcefully, “For one thing, none of you really belong here. And also we have some magical death squad following us.”

Ulyana put her finger in the air, “Correction, no? They are after you . We are all just taking a break.”

Peridot furrowed her brow at her, “A break?”

Ulyana shrugged and then looked between Bathad and Lapis, “The river is very dirty. The humans are many,” Ulyana notably scowls at Lapis, “And things are not how they used to be.”

Peridot frowns and scratches Percy between the ears to stop him his annoyed mewing, “So what are we going to do?” She asks plainly, “It was just confirmed that I can’t go outside.”

Bathad snorts and looks ready to turn his gaunt face and leave, Lapis turns to him, “Bathad says he doesn’t care.”

Peridot sat up straight and screwed her face up,“I’m your landlady!”

Ulyana hummed something tuneless and upbeat, “Very good then. I am going to go take a bath. You have hot water, yes? I would like that.”

Peridot gave a small sigh, “We have hot water. For now.” She makes eye contact with Lapis, “Until I have to become a camgirl to pay the bills.”

Lapis smiles at her cheekily, “That an underwear thing? I’m sure alien boxers pay a lot of bills.”

Peridot rolls her eyes and looks away, “I’m kidding. But we need to do something. ” She looks toward all of them searchingly as her own mind tries to grope for answers where there were none.

Ulyana shrugs and turns away airily, “You will figure it out,” She grins with her dark eyes glinting in the last of the light, “It sounds like you have to.”

Bathad paws the ground and seems to agree, he backs up and Peridot’s mouth hung open, “That’s not an answer.”

Lapis was the only one who stayed, looking at her curiously from across the room, “I’ll go make some contacts. I should still have more allies.” Lapis gave a hard look at Ulyana’s retreating back, “ If they listen to me.”

Ulyana said something back that Peridot couldn’t quite catch, but made Lapis clench her fists and seem to turn to leave as well.

“Lapis,” Peridot after her, “We…” She searches for the words.

Lapis just nods at her, “We made it out at the very least,” She smiles, it’s too tight. “Look on the bright side.”

Peridot nods and looks away, “We made it this time.”

She let’s her new ‘friends’ drift away like dandelion fluff and Peridot’s mind races between memories of running and arrows and woman materializing in the water. She massages her brow and looks at the ceiling glumly, she guessed her cousin always did tell her to try new things.

Lapis

Lapis slept like she never had before, she didn’t really remember when she went to bed: sometime past 11 after she had checked on Ulyana and put some towels around the bathtub.

She sunk immediately down into the thick floral comforter (Peridot’s aunt had apparently really like botanic designs) when she could and buried her face in the three decorative pillows. She had never been more grateful to wrap herself in a heavy nest of bed linens and close her eyes.

Her feet hurt, her head ached and the darkness of pulling the sheets over her head was a relief. She distracted her mind with thoughts of The Iron Chef and drifted off.

Despite her exertion and adrenaline like a flu shot pumped into her veins the day before, Lapis slept restlessly. Dark shadows and a face like a grinning striped tiger chased her through the night. Always grinning, always wild and always in pursuit.

Lapis ran and ran and ran, perhaps that was just her constant state now, a baby cried out behind her and she covered her ears and curled up in the dark of a some unknown place in her mind's eye. She woke up with a start and a streak of sour light caught across her face from the window.

She looked around jerkily and then exhaled in the morning light, her legs were tangled in the sheets and her heart a little fast. She lies on her back and stares up at the ceiling for a very long time. It had a long crack in it and Lapis let herself wonder about tomorrow, and the next day, and the horse in their kitchen and the Rusalka she promised to protect.

She sighs and lets her eyes droop down again.

She’s dozing in the bright light when she hears a soft knock on the door, a polite thing that hesitated between each rap. Lapis blinked and propped herself up on one elbow.

“Come in.” She says lightly and rubs the sleep out of her left eye.

She hears someone clear their throat and opening the door, Peridot stood in the doorway with her wide green eyes like glowing orbs in her head and a heavy tray balanced in her hands. Lapis glanced down at it, it was a white tray with a plate filled with eggs, meat, and charred toast. There was two mugs and glass of juice off to the side and Peridot carried it carefully in her arms.

Lapis’s eyebrows raise, “Whoa,” She sat up straight in bed, “Is that, uh, for me?”

Peridot nodded slowly, she opens her mouth very deliberately, “Can I come in?” She seemed unsure of herself.

“Um, I am starving, you can more than come in.” She gestures, “You can live here, damn.”

Peridot gave a wry smile and started walking over to the bed, “I already do live here,” She complains, “Though it feels like it might as well be a commune at this point.”

Lapis chuckled, “Think of it as a good deed for a lifetime.”

“And it’s not even a tax write off.” Peridot shook her head with a snort and stood stiffly off to the side of the bed, “Though I suppose I got this house for free myself anyway…”

She hummed to herself and Lapis looked decidedly down at the food.

“Really for me?” She points down as Peridot was just standing there.

She jerks her head down, “Oh, yeah.” Peridot props up some little legs and places the breakfast table just above Lapis’s lap, Lapis rubbed her hands together giddily. Not every day she got food brought to her.

She goes to start cutting up the breakfast steak with the plastic knife, “So,” She stuffs it in her mouth, “This some sort of bribe or our we going to elope a second time, with less fires and stealing and your weird friend?” She chews and swallows the huge bite with some difficulty, “And this time with more breakfast meat.”

Peridot shifted from side to side and gives a half-smile, “Well...I wanted to talk to you if that’s alright.”

Lapis raises her eyebrows and decides to scoot over, she drags the tray off to the side and pats the spot next to her on the bed, “Come into my office.”

Peridot glances around, uncharacteristically restrained, she glances from Lapis’s face back up to the window and then pushes the heavy comforter aside and sat next to her in the bed.

“What’s up, teacup?” She asks nonchalantly as she stuffs more food into her mouth.

Peridot pulled at her fingers individually, each joint popping before she looked decidedly up into Lapis’s face, “I brought you a cup of tea and coffee...I wasn’t sure which one you liked better.”

Lapis made a face a glanced down at the two liquids next to each other, “Okay?” She starts cutting up more steak, “I guess I’ll drink both and then awkwardly have to pee while Ulyana stares at me from the bath.”

Peridot gives a low chuckle, “She’s not leaving that tub is she?”

Lapis shook her head, “Not a chance now,” She took another bite, “What’s this about? Love? Murder? You have a murder I need to do?” Peridot gives a heavy sigh and Lapis cocks her head to the side. “Uh, murder-love?”

Peridot pulls the blankets up, “First of all, I guess it wanted to,” Peridot looked to be squaring her shoulders, “Thank you. For running after me yesterday.” She took a deep breath, “I’m not actually sure what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up.”

Lapis blinked a couple times, and then blinked a couple more, she swallowed painfully and dabbed at the side of her mouth, “I mean...thanks then.” She says shortly and watches Peridot’s expression, “And probably a lot of impaling and getting to know some dogs too well.”

"I'm sure." Peridot scratched her wrist and the tendon in her jaw tensed, “And…Also.”

Lapis watched her and sipped some of the orange juice, “And?” Peridot sighs like she’s a Victorian lady in a love triangle, Lapis chews, “I mean, this is pretty nice. I’ll save your ass as often as I need to now.”

Peridot looked at her flatly, “Now?”

She nods, “Now.”

“Well…” Peridot seemed to be readying herself, “You might not need to.” Lapis stopped what she was doing and turned, Peridot raised herself up,“I want to give you back your skin.”

Lapis straightens her back and puts down her fork, “Really?”

Peridot nodded mutely and knitting her brow together, “On some conditions.”

Lapis sank down a little, “We already have some conditions. Your death. Some kids. Maybe a lil’ bit of pay-back somewhere along the way.”

Peridot shook her head and reached forward, she straightened the napkin on the tray, “I mean, I’ll give your skin back as soon as possible.” She looked up and met Lapis’s eyes,

“But once my house is secured and these...people? And horse. Are taken care of. I want to give it back to you.”

Lapis pursed her lips and looked around, “This all becoming too much for you, love?”

Peridot gave a half-smile and leaned forward, “You have no idea.”

Lapis nodded curtly and touched her upper lip, “I guess… That’s good. Yeah, that’s good. I’m surprised actually,” She gives a hiccup of a laugh, “this is great.”

Peridot gathered herself up in bed, “It’s a deal then.”

Lapis looked down and then took a too-hot sip of tea, burning the roof of her mouth. She didn’t even twitch, “You know…” She starts slowly, “We’re vengeful creatures, us, me. Reputations and all that.” She said it darkly, she’s not sure she wants to say it.

Peridot was staring down at her lap and then back up, she gives a brief smile, “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You still have to stop an evil ghost army from tracking my every move, and find a place for our new friends who don’t seem keen on leaving.” She tilted her head at Lapis, “And then you can…” Peridot eyed her up and down, “But I don’t think you will.”

Lapis scowled, “Bold move. I am a storm you know. A God. An icon. I wouldn’t be so cocky.”

Peridot shook her head and stared down, “I made you breakfast.”

Lapis let out a surprised laugh and covered her mouth, “Tactical.” She looked at her and found she was smiling, at least a little. “You take chances then.”

Peridot leaned down on an elbow and lifted her chin, “Tell me if you want the deal.”

Lapis took a bite of her toast and chewed slowly, she picked up the tray and leaned over Peridot to put the food on the ground. Lapis sits up next to her and curls her legs underneath herself, “Of course. I’ll take the deal.”

Peridot nods shortly and puts her hand out, Lapis looked at it apprehensively, it was a uniquely human move. She reached out anyway and they shook. She watches Peridot’s bangs fall softly over her forehead and her strange confidence in her movements.

“That’s not really how we do things.” Lapis says slowly as they let go.

Peridot sighs and her shoulders fall, “I’m not giving you any of my kidneys or first born children if that’s what you’re implying.”

Lapis laughs and leans forward, “Think a little harder.” She tilts Peridot’s chin up so that she has to look her in the eye and their faces hover in front of each other. Lapis wets her lips and doesn’t know what she’s waiting for. She couldn’t imagine hesitating like this in the past.

“Let’s make it a real deal. A seal.” She whispers gravely, forwardly.

Peridot raises her eyebrows and Lapis watches her eyes dart down to Lapis’s mouth, she parts her lips, Peridot nods ever so slightly back at her.

Lapis haltingly moves forward, watching Peridot’s eyes expand and her own breathing increase. She presses their mouths together. It’s warm and sweet, Peridot tastes like sharp toothpaste and lemon chapstick. Lapis angles her head to the side, experimentally moving her lips against hers, Peridot leans into it and makes a soft noise. Lapis cradles the back of Peridot’s head and deepens the kiss, tasting the heat inside her mouth and little sounds from her throat.

It’s soft in the way sunbeams are soft and tentative as a piece of glass about to break. Lapis doesn’t let go for a very long moment.

Peridot pulls away and Lapis opens her eyes gradually, she wasn’t sure she knew she closed them.

Peridot’s mouth falls open, Lapis almost leans forward again. “It’s a deal.” She croaked and Lapis nodded by instinct.

“Deal…” She settled her hands on her lap and looked away, she reached up and touched her bottom lip unconsciously and traced the warmth there, "The seal is complete."

Chapter Text

Peridot

Peridot had a lot of thinking to do. Mainly about skins and girls and if she would ever have a normal life again.

Her resolve to do this going forward was strong, but there were exogenous factors. Like possible revenge-seeking. Or the fact she was running out of shampoo.

Peridot stood in the steady stream of hot water, tilting her chin up into the barrage and closing her eyes- letting the raindrops run down her face and scrub her pores clean.

She gives a long and forlorn sigh. She looks down, her fingertips were terribly pruney from the steady downpour and the very, very long shower.

She had scrubbed herself over twice now with her half-bar of soap and even flushed out her bellybutton and tried the whole ‘exfoliating’ thing with the gel her cousin gave her. Peridot banged the bottom of her shampoo bottle until she wrung out the last drops and spent five minutes massaging it into her scalp and rinsing her short hair again and again.

Before all this, she never ran out of shampoo. She never ran out of cat food or coffee grounds or things to watch on the internet. But here she was, hitting the end of her shampoo bottle.

Peridot eventually feels the hot water grow cool and uncomfortable, she forces herself to shut it off.

It had been a lot of work kicking Ulyana out of the tub but she pulled the whole ‘I own the place!’ card and bugged the Rusalka into moving.

She proceeded to take the longest shower of her life and feel like a feeble kitten when she finally steps back out into the dry air again. She wraps her largest fluffy towel around herself and dries her hair quickly before staring into the mirror. She must have spent a good ten minutes just looking at her face: drooping eyes, sharp chin, and a usually more excited expression. But she was working on it.

She pats her hair down again and finally opens the door and warm steam wafts out. She stretches and makes her way into the living room, still peeling some skin off her wrist as she walked.

Peridot grumbled and kept her eyes down, only looking up when she hears whispering.

Lapis and Ulyana had their heads bent together and were talking lowly to one another. Peridot caught snippets of it.

“I haven’t been there in ages,” Lapis was saying hotly with some color in her cheeks, Ulyana shakes her head and sticks her lip out.

“Of course you haven’t,” She snipes and Lapis balls up her fists.

“What does that mean?” Lapis was scowling.

“It just means that this the only place they won’t be looking,” Ulyana says tightly and Peridot steps forward now with interest.

“What’s the only place they won’t be looking?” She blinks at the two of them.

Lapis leans away from Ulyana and threads her fingers through her hair, pushing her bangs back tiredly, “No where Peridot.”

Ulyana frowns and flips her long white-blonde hair over her shoulder, “You want to find a permanent solution, correct?”

Peridot’s eyebrows rise and she steps forward, “Yes, of course,” Peridot dances from foot to foot, “I haven’t had anything new to tweet about in days being cooped up in here.” She tries to quip.

Lapis huffs and crosses her arms across her chest, “We shouldn’t have to do this." She turns to her, "I thought you knew about this city.”

Ulyana makes a face at her and sits up straight, “I do! But witches move around a lot, and you would know that if you were around your own kind,” Lapis looks up and seems to share an icy staring contest.

Peridot fidgets and pulls on the joints in her fingers, “You guys going to explain this?” She finally ventures flatly as they hold a silent power-struggle.

Ulyana snaps her neck up first, “You can travel by the unseen plane.” She gives an airy smile, “You’ll be able to recognize a witch's door then and The Hunt won’t be looking for you there.”

Peridot cocks her head to the side, “Won’t be looking for us there?” Her eyes go wide, “Why haven’t we been there the whole time!”

Lapis fixes her with a steady look, “Won’t be looking, not can’t , they live in the unseen plane like all the rest of us... They just won’t think we’re stupid enough to wander in there.”

Peridot hums, “Where is it exactly?”

Ulyana claps her hands together, “It’s where we hide when we’re not in the human plane,” She shakes her head and looks sideways, “Unless of course, you are a water seal.” She says pointedly and Lapis throws her hands above her head and falls back on the couch.

“I don’t like it there, plus neither of us belongs there right now anyway.” She wrinkled her nose, “We’re already in danger, we don’t need to put ourselves in more danger.”

“An unseen plain," She taps her chin, "and it somehow has more danger?” Peridot asks curiously as she considers an entire plane she couldn’t see and the implications of parallel universes.

Lapis nods and gives Ulyana a hard look, “It’s also the place where things live that are too large to cross over. The dangerous type.” She says grimly and Peridot furrows her brow.

“Oh, they aren’t that dangerous,” Ulyana says lightly, “You can just be quick.” She grins and Lapis gives a hefty groan. Ulyana raises an eyebrow, “Well, do you have any other suggestions? Because my spit can only carry you in broad daylight so far.”

Lapis opens her mouth and then closes it, she taps her fingers on her leg and seems to think, her eyes darting away.

A steely silence settles and Peridot examines them, she lifts her chin, “I think,” She nods, “I think we should go.”

Lapis pinches the bridge of her nose, “Aren’t you sick of running and cowering? ”

“I am,” Peridot says firmly, “But we’re already in danger,” She leans toward Lapis with a side-ways smile, “What’s a little more going to hurt?”

Lapis is suddenly flashing her a low smile too, hooded eyes in tow, “Well, that’s certainly a backbone you’ve grown.”

Peridot puts her hands on her hips, “Grown? I’ll have you know I’ve walked into creepy caves just for science several times.”

Lapis laughs and Peridot feels an uncomfortable tug in her gut, as if she wasn’t damning herself enough already as it was.

Ulyana sniffs and rocks herself to her feet, “I’ll get the door ready then!” She says cheerily and Peridot eyes them.

“Today?”

Lapis stretches and gets up as well, “You doing anything else today sweetheart?”

Peridot looks away at her choice of words, she shrugs, “Point taken.” She jogs toward the stairs, “I’ll go get dressed.”

“And Peridot,” She feels Lapis grab her shoulder before she ascends, Lapis holds her in place, her mouth became a straight line, “Bring a weapon.”

She lifts her chin and nods.

-------------------

Peridot put on her thickest pair of jeans: the ones that didn’t tear even after she fell down that hill when her mom forced her to go hiking that one day.

She put on her one flannel long-sleeved shirt since Lapis told her the place was ‘nippy’ and the pair of hiking boots her mom bought her also for said outing (she wanted to give her more hobbies).

Peridot took deep breaths, putting a pack of snacks and waters in an across-the-shoulder duffel bag and gearing up to put her contacts in. She hated her contacts.

Finally, she went to unlock her bottom drawer of her wardrobe: where she had stored the ax now.

Peridot’s nerves frayed at the ends and picked up the weapon with shaking hands, her aunt had kept this in case of fires. She secures it around her waist.

She gives herself a once-over: she wished she was tall enough to be Laura Croft but with the ax and the boots she was a little impressed with maybe growing into the whole ‘badass nerd’ thing.

She nods at herself and then walks out of her room to take the stairs two at a time.

“No, no, you only need to be loosely connected- if I open the door it should just let you in,” Ulyana was explaining with her hands.

Lapis let her shoulders drop as she faced her, she was wearing a pair of jean shorts and long jacket that reached her thighs, a kitchen knife was tucked into her belt. “Yeah,” She mumbles, “I guess.”

Ulyana winks at her, a very hot-and-cold young woman it seems, “It's easy to get in really. How else do you think I drag men into my domain?” She grins and spits on her hand to rub it into the doorframe, “I open the way.”

Peridot skipped down the stairs to stand in front of them and felt a jittery surge through her veins, she looks at Lapis, “Okay. Mysterious secret world. Monsters. Witch.” She meets her eyes, “I’m up for it.”

Lapis gave her a small smile, something almost shy about it and takes her hand, Peridot’s mouth falls open and then Lapis squeezes.

“You better be.” She says gruffly the next moment, she turns to Ulyana, “Open the way Ulyana.”

Ulyana hops on her tiptoes and smooths something out, to Peridot’s amazement something shifts in the air like crinkling paper or warping the sky with uneven clouds. Her eyes go wide, Ulyana touches the doorknob and Peridot feels the temperature drop like a cold front.

Ulyana gives them a radiant smile, something of Rusalka shining through, she yanks the door open and croons, “There you go my landlady.”

Peridot holds her breath and stands in awe of the empty street, gray and strange and still. Lapis pushes on her shoulder and she’s forced to walk forward.

The unseen plane.

------------

Lapis

Lapis has to nudge Peridot through the door, she expected some resistance from the air or the ground trying to suction their feet off, but Ulyana leads the way and it lets them in easily.

“Oh my God,” Peridot looked around with saucer-sized green eyes and her jaw hanging open. “Wow.”

Lapis held her shoulder and pushed her on, “We have to hurry.”

“It’s bleak,” She says and observes the world around them: the landscape looks just like the human one but it is overlaid with a thick grayness, like they caught in an intangible fog. The blacks were more black, all the colors almost drained, and the air had a clammy chill. Lapis never liked the unseen plane.

Ulyana waves at them, “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She blows them a kiss.

Peridot waves back weakly and shakes her head, “She’s a weird one.”

Lapis starts them off at a brisk pace, “She’s a Rusalka. They are known for morbidity and flirtation.”

Peridot strained to keep up with her and seemed to catch her eye, “Yeah?” Peridot seemed curious, always curious. “I didn’t even notice.”

Lapis chuckles, “I didn’t peg you as the type to catch onto the flirting anyway.” Peridot’s mouth becomes a little dot and they sharing a look like mixed cement: heavy and churning. She looks away quickly, but Peridot was laughing.

“You got me there.”

Lapis speeds up the pace, trying to break in the walking shoes Peridot got for her when they were first buying ‘underpants’ and ‘bras’ all that time ago. That definitely felt like a lifetime ago.

Lapis kept her eyes glued to the doorframes and entrances of houses.

Peridot follows her gaze, “What are we looking for again?”

Lapis clears her throat and hurries Peridot onward, her skin crawling from just being back in this gray, gray place. “Glowing. Purple, blue, yellow, colors like that. Should be around the outside of houses or fences.”

“And what are they?” Peridot was touching one of the surfaces of a car next to them, “And where are all the people anyway?”

Lapis chuckles, “They can’t travel here. Only us,” She turns around, “And we’re looking for protection spells. We can see magic in this plane and a witches house will be covered in hexes.”

Peridot nods mutely and she sprouts an almost-smile as they walk, “This is kind of cool.”

Lapis rolls her eyes, “I’m glad you’re finally in the adventuring spirit.”

Peridot snorts and grabs onto Lapis’s shirt as they walk around a street lamp, “we’ve been through enough for me to think we can get through this. Might as well enjoy ourselves a little.”

Lapis lowers her head and waits a long moment before nodding, her heart thumping a little harder. She hesitates, considering Peridot's odd smile when she thinks she sees a dark movement in the corner of her eye, Lapis whips her head around but only an empty street is behind them.

She grabs onto the hem of Peridot’s collar and drags her forward, “We have to be quick.” She whispers and doesn’t meet Peridot’s green, green gaze.

They walk in a steady silence, Peridot’ examines the muted colors of Lapis’s world and Lapis checks all the alleys for something, it was very quiet, she always remembers it being so quiet.

It had been a relief all those years ago when she used to shift into this world for just a moment, a reprieve from when she lived on land back then. She closes her eyes to shut out that memory of amber eyes and the sound of ocean waves against cliffs.

Lapis takes a deep breath and concentrates on watching Peridot and making sure she doesn’t investigate too far ahead.

Her nerves eventually unwind as the minutes tick by and the houses remain a cloudless dull color: no magic in sight.

“We should have run into one by now,” Lapis frowns, “Witches like cities. More people to buy their hexes and invite them to weddings.”

“Maybe they just don’t like to cluster here?” Peridot offers as Lapis searches the ground.

She shakes her head, “I don’t like this. The only reason they wouldn’t live in one sect of town is…” Lapis examines the sky and then looks back down, her skin crawls in an unsteady realization. “I don’t like this.” She hones her senses and tries to pick something up with the remnants of her powers.

She closes her eyes and probes the slick buildings and damp earth, down, down, down, something shifts beneath the roadway, Lapis’s eyes fly open, “Get away from the gutters!”

Peridot was one step ahead of her as she stumbles backward from a street drain, “Lapis,” She says with eyes fixed on something dark shifting in the gutter, “Something is here.”

The hairs raise on Lapis’s arm, a long black tentacle inches it’s way out of the drain and starts feeling the dark tar road underneath it. “This is somethings territory.” She whispers as she realizes why no witches lived in this part of town.

Peridot nods and backs up toward her, “Think we should run?”

“I don’t think it knows exactly where we are yet.” Lapis says slowly and Peridot creeps toward her. Lapis watches more inky black feelers emerge and search the road in front of it. It knew something was here.

Lapis feels a shiver climb up her spine, it was powerful. And dark.

“Let’s move. Slowly,” Peridot says through gritted teeth and Lapis instinctively grabs her shoulders as if to anchor herself.

“Okay…” She says with a small voice and curses herself for it. She felt so vulnerable like this. If she had her skin she could just flood this creature or command it to leave.

Peridot walks in front of her and Lapis follows like a lost duck holding her shoulders as they move forward.

More limbs emerge from sewers and street drains, blindly roving over the road and filling the quiet area. Lapis and Peridot creep carefully past the Lord of this domain, her heart pounding in her throat all the while. They picked their way across the ground and she was mildly impressed with Peridot’s agile movements as they eventually had to step over the long dark appendage that snaked across the sidewalk and Peridot delicately helped her over.

Lapis keeps her eyes up and shoulders squared, she searches out with her senses for an exit: where the air was less thick and murky. “There,” She hisses into Peridot’s ear, “That way.”

She turns them to the left and dry swallows when she sees the road that led out, it was teaming with writhing tentacles, crisscrossing the ground as this creature surely knew this was the way out.

Peridot’s hand crept up to be placed on top of Lapis’s hand, holding it firmly for a moment as they stood perfectly still. “We’ll go slow.”

Lapis nods at her and suddenly feels a rush of warmth for not being alone.

She trails her, stepping in Peridot's footprints as they inch their way across the sidewalk, trying to find the few spaces of free ground and keep on their tiptoes.

“We’re almost there,” Peridot reassures, maybe sensing that Lapis was feeling small at that moment, human.

Lapis nods and Peridot flashes her eyes up with a half-smile, she can’t help but smile back.

It’s just a moment, a moment of forward momentum gone wrong, she inhales sharply and their eyes meet as Lapis loses her balance and her heel comes down on the edge of a dark slippery limb. She freezes.

Nothing happens for a moment and Lapis thinks maybe it didn’t notice, maybe it had too many arms to keep track of.

And then she feels the violent tug.

“Lapis!” Peridot shrieks as the tentacle wraps itself around her ankle and yanks, she goes flying backward, banging her chin painfully on the cement as she falls onto her front and the wind is knocked out of her. She gasps for air as she tries to get her senses in tow.

Before she knows it she’s being dragged backward into a writhing mess of black octopus arms, no, Lapis’s eyes go wide and the slimy touch of the creature was communicating with her. This was a city kraken.

“Ahhh!” She finally lets out a chest-rattling cry and scrambles for her knife at her waist.

Her hands slip over it and another arm wraps around her forearm and tears her hand away, “No!” She kicks and struggles as she feels her instincts kick in.

“I don’t think so!” She hears another voice join in and she sees a flash of metal, Peridot was running screaming into the teaming arms, she chops into the air wildly.

Lapis feels the grip on her ankle loosen she pulls it back as Peridot cuts through the soft limbs cleanly and hacks at the flesh of the creature with her axe.

“Yes!” Lapis can’t help but pump her hand in the air and kick her way backward, freed by Peridot’s strange mad slashes.

She goes to grab Peridot and sprint toward the boundary where she knew it’s territory ended, but it still had a grip on her, the sickly hold on her forearm tightened and she is violently jerked to the side. “Ah!”

She manages to pull back, but another arm wraps around her waist and is jerking her forward. She flings herself at the nearest car, holding onto the back blinker as the creature tries to snatch her into the gaping drain.

“Hell no!” She kicks but feels it rake her across a sharp ornament on the car’s side and she feels a burst of scraping pain and something warm spills across her shirt, her eyes go blurry.

“Lapis!” Another wet slashing sound erupts behind her and she is jostled to her feet as the grip loosens. Someone was running to her side, “Oh my god, oh my God.”

Lapis tries to get up but the raking pain in her side makes her stumble, Peridot rushes forward and ducks under Lapis's arm, supporting her. “You’re bleeding!”

Lapis opens her mouth to respond weakly but sees the creature was still moving.

Lapis sees a black arm lunging and she grabs Peridot, ignores the pain and propels them both forward. She doesn’t remember exactly how she careened them onto the next street, a lot of wiggling and kicking and leaping until they fly into the open road and collapse on the open street.

Lapis leaned on Peridot and pulled her into a painful hug, "We made it!"

Lapis cheers and ignores the oozing sharp pain in her side, Peridot holds onto her more tightly.

They were still making it.

Chapter Text

Peridot felt the concrete scrape across her shoulder like a lick from a sandpaper bulldog. Her heart pounds in her ears and she feels a shock of adrenaline coursing through her nerves like a blast of arctic air up her ass.

Peridot was shaking and her shoulder ached from tossing herself onto the next street when Lapis forced them forward out of the creature's arms, Peridot holds her head for a moment, waiting for something. When nothing occurs, no strike, no movement, no rumbling sound, she looks behind her and sees a wall of writhing arms, they remain in the dark of the street corner- as if caught in stasis behind a wall. Peridot blinks.

“HAHA!” She laughs wildly and tossing her ax-hand in the air, still covered in the creatures clear blood. She shakes with a bubbling laugh and feels like she might actually be made of luck or fortune cookies or drunken God's helping her out. "Yes!"

She feels something slump against her back, Peridot turns quickly and finds Lapis chuckling a little as well next to her.

“We made it!” Peridot cheered and pulled her into a tight hug, overjoyed to be there, to be breathing, to be anything at the moment.

Lapis flinches and gives a soft cheer as well, Peridot feels something warm and wet seep over her fingers, she drags the hand back and her eyes become saucers, “Lapis…” She jolts upright as she looks at the blood on her hand, “Lapis!”

Lapis looked blurry-eyed and unfocused, her cheeks flushed with a feverish color and the girl’s right side sloshed in a discharge of blood, Peridot grabs her and then let’s go and then grabs her again.

Peridot split her chapped bottom lip in half by biting it, “Stay with me.” She says into Lapis’s blurry eyes as Peridot tries to make a plan, “Hospital, no, ambulance.” She reaches for the cellphone she realizes she hadn’t brought into fairyland, “Shit.”

Lapis wiped at her brow weakly and then fell forward on one hand, trying to push herself up, “We should go.” She slurs and Peridot grabs her shoulders.

“You should lie down!” She bites her lip again and Lapis for once doesn’t argue with her, Peridot lies her gently on her back on the ground.

Her eyes dart back down to the sticky red blood spreading farther across her sea-blue shirt, like a flower opening. Peridot takes a deep breath and then puts her right hand over her left hand.

“Okay, okay,” She takes another deep breath, “Apply pressure, stop the flow, clean...shit Lapis, do you think octopus arms have bacteria?”

Lapis squints at her and Peridot shakes her head, “Nevermind, okay.” She lowers the palms of her hands gently down on Lapis’s side where the swamp of blood spills through her fingers.

“Ah,” Lapis gives a small cry and Peridot presses down more firmly to staunch the flow, she can feel Lapis’s heartbeat through her inflamed skin and the feeling of a warm thick bath covers her hands.

Lapis cringes and Peridot tries to work through her options: crying for help. Crying for her mom. Crying. she watches the blood seep out onto the sidewalk.

“Fuck,” She curses and presses harder, “I was always bad girl scout." Peridot knits her brow together as she thinks, Lapis wiggles in place under her and Peridot panics.

She feels like she’s going to chew her bottom lip clean off, she looks down at her own red flannel shirt.

“Here, Lapis,” She tries to get the other girls attention, “put your hands here and press down as hard as you can.” She puts Lapis’s hands where hers used to be and has her try to stem the bleeding, Peridot sits back on her heels.

She yanks her own shirt off her head, feeling it rip at the hairs on her neck and then tries to get ahold of it with her trembling hands. Lapis was mumbling.

“What was that?” Peridot asks tensely, her voice an octave too high.

Lapis repeats her mumbling, she lifts her chin and it’s almost a grin, “This bad?”

Peridot gulps and nods mutely, she gets her two ends of her shirt and tears- making a long jagged strip. “Yeah, but, we’ve had worse right?” She asks but she’s not sure if she believes herself.

Peridot opens her mouth to say something else, anything, apologize, but Lapis was muttering again, Peridot leans forward as she tried to tear the cloth as quickly and cleanly as possible, “What?”

Lapis blinks up at her, “Thanks.”

Peridot shakes her head and Lapis shifts in place, “Don’t move!” Peridot squawks and drops her shirt to keep Lapis from sitting up.

“I didn’t know you could,” Lapis was breathing heavily and Peridot put a hand over her mouth. "I mean, yeah."

“Stay awake. Stop your blood flow. I’m going to get you to a hospital.” She promises as she watches Lapis’s soft blue eyelashes flutter shut, “You hear me?!”

“I hear you.”

Lapis lays back on her back on the sidewalk and Peridot works to make mincemeat of her shirt as she sat in the cool Unseen World air in just a tank top.

Lapis chuckles and shakes her head, “I don’t think there are any ambulance routes this way though…” She says softly and Peridot wiped her sweaty palms on her pants.

“Take your shirt off,” She says quickly as she finishes ripping, “Wait, nevermind.” Peridot forces Lapis to lie still as she takes the crusted blue shirt in hand and uses every muscle in her fingers to rip the shirt in two.

She manages to strip the ugly material away from her puffy flushed skin and see the full extent of the damage: a long red angry tear from Lapis’s pectoral to her hip, “Fuck.” Peridot whimpers and Lapis’s eyes were on the sky.

Peridot reaches for her, “Okay, I’m going to support you, keep holding your side Lapis, we’ll just sit up for a bit, k?”

Lapis swivels her head around slowly and Peridot manages to keep her hazed attention, “Peridot,” She breathes as Peridot hugged her around the back and sat her up gently, “I mean it...”

“Mean what?” Peridot asks gently as she tries to figure out where to start with the bandage. “Here, lean forward a bit,” Peridot says works to get the bandage around her, “I’m going to get you fixed up okay?” It was a feverish promise.

Lapis lifts her chin and Peridot’s eyes are dragged to hers, blue, rimmed with a milk white oceans, “I mean it…” Lapis repeats and then leans forward, before Peridot’s brain can put all the pieces together, her lips on hers again, like a bad joke but Peridot is holding her breath and falling in.

This one wasn’t methodically or confusing. Lapis was soft and her lips were raw and Peridot’s bloody lip mixed with her burning touch. Peridot for a moment might have closed her eyes and felt something clench her chest, and then she remembers the blood on the sidewalk.

She pushes back, “Lapis,” She squeaks, and then looks down and then around, “Wait, wait.” She takes her makeshift bandage in hand, averting her eyes downward to start wrapping it around her. "We have to do this." Her thoughts are scrambled eggs in a basin.

“Thank you,” She feels another peck to her cheek, another kiss, “I, I,” Lapis was stumbling, her unfocused eyes boring into her, “I wanted to do that, you know, since….”

“No!” Peridot barks and then keeps moving. “God, no, Lapis.”

Peridot works without looking up, fastening the first strip around her waist and feeling Lapis’s trembling body against hers.

“This is going to sting,” Peridot warns her as she starts to tie tight knots in the soaked material to keep the wound clenched.

Lapis groans and Peridot speeds up her pace up, trying to be as precise as possible and not have her fingers slip over the slick knots.

“You okay? Are you with me?” She keeps whispering into Lapis’s ear as she reaches the top, Lapis shifts on her.

“Heh,” Lapis’s forehead rested on Peridot’s shoulder, making her pause for a moment, “God...I forget how much bodies suck.”

“I’m going to get you out of here,” Peridot says with a tremor in her hand and she goes to tie the final knot in her make-shift bandage.

Lapis shakes her head, “You,” Lapis lifts her head and Peridot can see her looking in her eye, “You're something else."

Peridot doesn’t know what to make of her whole sincerity and hazy gaze, instead, Peridot looks around rapidly for her options: surrounded by gray cars and a gray sky and an empty, empty cityscape.

“How do we get out of here?” Peridot asks trying to deal with one dilemma at a time.

She feels an arm sling around her shoulder and drag her down, Lapis pointed with her chin, “We have to go that way.”

Peridot winds her arm around Lapis to support her, “Okay, yes. Out.”

Lapis’s arm squeezes Peridot’s waist as they stagger to stand up as one and move, “No,” She pants, “I feel it now, it’s faint. But there are protection spells in that direction.” Lapis’s eyes flash up, “The witches.”

Peridot furrows her brow, torn between the trouble in front of her and the prospect of more trouble to come. More magic.

Peridot raises herself up anyway, holding Lapis tightly, “Whatever is going to help fastest.”

Lapis gives a weary smile and Peridot tries to bare most of her weight, helping her stagger forward as more wetness spilled over Peridot’s jeans and hand.

“We’re almost there, we are getting there.” Peridot continually assures her, jostling Lapis and making sure her eyes stay open.

Lapis clutches firmly to her, “I didn’t know you knew how to use that thing.” She says tightly as she looks at the ax at Peridot’s side, but with some old snarky bit of Lapis still underneath.

“One thing at a time Lap,” Peridot says back and rounds the corner to the next block. She narrows her eyes as the grayscale seems strangely familiar in this part of town: high hills and tall tall houses with balconies.

“You saved me.” Lapis says and Peridot can feel Lapis’s eyes on her, “You tore up your shirt.”

You kissed me , Peridot thought to herself but didn’t say it out loud, there was enough drama right now as it was.

“Is it close?” Peridot says instead and Lapis’s eyes were on her like burning suns, but she points ahead.

“The glowing one…” Lapis says weakly, and Peridot turns.

“Oh my God,” Peridot felt her nerves fraying as she recognized the lean little house surrounded by what appeared to be floating glowing yellow stars. They were the only color in the muted air and Peridot could have torn out every single one of her arm hairs. “Of course.” She gripes and holds Lapis more tightly.

“Of course.” Peridot staggered forward despite herself, “Of course it had to be Pearl.”

Lapis snorts and Peridot forces them forward, her skin covered in drying blood and her lips still burning, burning, burning. One thing at a time she reminds herself, even if that one hadn’t been for the sake of any deals.

Chapter Text

Lapis had the murkiest dream of being raked across a car rim and bleeding out across a human sidewalk. And then another dream about the Tarzan movie where Jane married the female gorilla at the end instead of him. The first part seemed more important though.

The first thing she became aware of was a metallic gray taste in her mouth, like pennies left to rot in the soft cushions of her tongue. She swallowed a couple times and felt her limbs coming back to her.

She blinked into a bright light, her head swimming for a moment before she closed her eyes again to block out the overstimulation. She remembered some pain had been swimming within her, something very very urgent. But it was all a fuzzy static feeling now, tingling on her insides like the moment you jump from the warm air into freezing water.

Lapis reaches for her side and ran her fingers across her abdomen, she felt a sprawl of numbness and pinpricks under her skin, her eyes fly open at the deadened sensation. Magic.

Her breath comes out in rapid huffs as she realizes she doesn’t recognize the room, a white little square thing with a single large window, pictures of nondescript horses on the wall, a set of tongue suppressors on the counter. She scrambled back from her white featureless cot she lay on.

Lapis tries to pushes herself up and feels the burst of tingling in her side, she almost falls forward. She forgot how that felt.

“Woah, woah, woah there.” Lapis jerks her head up to see someone sitting on a stool to her right, next to a sink. He had a red t-shirt with a star on the front and a pair of ratty jeans.

Lapis cocks her head to the side, he was easing up to her. He just stood there with his hands out, he couldn’t be more than 13 (fourteen if you were stretching it). Her brow furrows and she backs up, “Where am I?”

The boy's face spreads into a smile, “You are in our infirmary! Or it was.” He blinks happily at her, she blinks simply back. He puts his hand out, “I’m Steven. Steven Universe, I was worried when you weren’t coming to before.”

Lapis glances at his hand and frowns, she wasn’t ever sure what to make of witches who weren’t trying to make deals with her at the very first chance. She sniffs and considers him again, “I’m Lapis Lazuli.” She says shortly, “I’m a water God.” She looks around, “Usually.”

Steven nods and sits back down on his little stool, “Your friend said something like that! But you healed up like a human,” She scowls at him and he shrugs, “happens to the best of us.”

Lapis looks around and then back down to herself, “You healed me?” She feels at her side again and Steven nods.

“Of course,” He gives her a small pat, “It was kinda freaky at first with all the blood and screaming-”

“Was I screaming?” Lapis asks worriedly as she examines the clean pressed white button-up shirt they put on her.

Steven chuckles, “No. Um, your friend was rather…” He taps his chin, “Insistent.”

Lapis snorts, “That sounds like her.” Lapis could see Peridot’s in her mind eye shaking her little fists and going red in the face, she couldn’t imagine her being great in a crisis. Lapis feels her side, then again...She does remember a face hovering over her as her entire side spiked with pain and frantically moving, moving, pulling her close.

“Anyway,” Steven says and studies her with his chin on his hand, “I was a little worried since Pearl is always warning me about going into Calamari Stew’s zone, but you guys made it out!” He says conversationally. “Which is pretty cool.”

Lapis makes a face and puts herself in a full sitting position on the naked cot, bringing her legs up to her chest, “I definitely wouldn’t call us that.”

Steven chuckles a little, “Well, Pearl said that too.”

Lapis gives a small smile and then leans forward, “Who are you?”

“Steven,” He says again, and then looks her over, “I live here. How’s your side feeling?”

Lapis lifts her shirt up slightly to see a smooth sect of unbroken skin, pressed and clean like nothing had ever happened. She nods, “You’re a witch.”

Steven puts his hands up, he hums, “That’s what everyone else calls me.” Lapis quirks an eyebrow up and Steven leans back and seems to be reaching for something. “I almost forgot!”

Lapis looks around, her eyes darting to the window just in case, witches could always be tricky if they wanted to be.

“Ta-da!” Steven presses something toward her face. She blinks a couple times, a red sucker on the end of a white stick hovers in front of her face

“Uh,” She looks at it.

“For getting better,” He says lightly, “I’ve never actually performed such a big healing spell before, and never on a real person.” He winces, “It looked like it really hurt.” He presses the lollipop forward.

Lapis reaches and takes it, “Thanks.” She says as she tilts her head to the side, “That’s actually...that’s really nice.”

Steven looks at her expectantly and Lapis complies to unwrap the sucker, it tastes like cherries.

“Well you should avoid other magic body magic for awhile,” Steven says instructively, “We don’t always know how they’ll react together, and it’s just best to let the magic work through your system on its own.”

Lapis sucks on the little candy and nods, “I think I remember. Back in my home village, we had a witch... he was alright.” That was a very long time ago.

Steven’s mouth made a little ‘o,’ “I forgot! You are magic too,”

“Selkie,” Lapis says with a smile around the lollipop. Technically, the witch she lived near was back before she was selkie, but she figures she wouldn’t point that out. Steven leans forward.

He grins with wide round eyes, “A selkie. Fantastic. I don’t think I’ve met a selkie before.”

Lapis shrugs, "Ocean spirits. You know."

“Can you tell me if my fish are sick?” He asks curiously, “Because Sugar and Baba Yaga keep fighting, and I feel like they would only do that if Tilda Swimton was sick.” Steven leans forward, “They’re sort of in a love triangle.”

Lapis covers her mouth and laughs, lifting her chin, “It depends on if they are freshwater or saltwater.”

“Salt water of course!” He says, affronted, and Lapis laughs with her arms shaking.

“A boy after my own heart.” She gets up and Steven takes her hand, telling her not to move around too much since may be feeling some numbness.

He tells her the sordid love story of his fish and Lapis thinks she might like Steven Universe.

------------------------

Peridot

Peridot was having the kind of day they write about in intros to ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ books. Before the heartwarming part that made your mother cry. And with more unadulterated rage.

Tap-tap-tap-tap

Peridot narrows her eyes at a group of three women that sat before her on the other side of the room, all leaning against their counter and looking disinterested. Peridot’s face scrunched into a deeper scowl.

Tap-tap-tap-tap

The silence stretches between them like a heavy weight after a storm, after Peridot had yelled at them about saving Lapis for a good thirty minutes, after The Realization. Peridot leaned forward in her chair, setting her jaw in place and squaring her shoulders.

Tap-tap-tap-tap

“Could you please stop doing that?” Pearl asks with two fingers on her temple.

Peridot drums her fingers on the table harder, “Doing what?” She asks between clenched teeth and taps of her fingers.

Tap-tap

Amethyst rolled her eyes, “Dude.”

Garnet shook her head, “It’s rather unnecessary.”

“You know what’s unnecessary?” Tap-tap-tap-tap, “Lying to your technician!” She growls and she feels the group might have collectively rolled their eyes at her.

Pearl shook her head, “We were just hiring you to work the instruments Peridot, you would have been much angrier if we told you the truth at the start.”

“Well yeah, ” Peridot said forcefully, “Maybe before I pissed off on ancient God and got married .”

“Congratulations!” Amethyst sings cheekily and Garnet elbows her.

Garnet then paused and walked forward firmly, “We told you not go into the caves.”

“Ugh,” Peridot made a rasping sound and looked at the ceiling, “trust me. I know I shouldn’t have gone into the caves.” She deadpans, “I am aware. I’m pretty sure it’s the 'cause of my death' section of my future obituary.”

Amethyst whistles, "Our grumpy technician, is now the grumpy fatalist technician."

Peridot folds her arms across her chest and gives them a flat look, “You guys aren’t actually scientists are you?”

Pearl frowns deeply and goes a little red, “We are!” She responds stubbornly, “We’re just,” She pauses, “A little more than that as well.”

Peridot studies them, “Then what were you looking for?” She asks curiously this time, “Because I found Lapis, and you are free to her if you can help us.”

“We weren’t looking for Lapis.” Garnet assures steadily and Peridot sighs.

“We were just going to locations with strong magic resonance dude,” Amethysts said as she swayed in place as she perched on the counter, “I guess that chick was a reason for it, one mystery down.”

Peridot could have strangled all three of them and then have Ronaldo film it and call it the next cryptid discovery video.

Peridot got up from where she was sitting and tilts her head to the side, “So you’re witches?”

Garnet glances at the other two, “Not exactly.”

“Then what were you looking for?!” Peridot tore at her hair, “You have to give me something, it’s your fault I ended up cursed and Lapis bleeding and my couch being torn to pieces.”

Pearl tutted at her, “We told you not to go i-”

“The cave yeah yeah,” Peridot’s hands were still raw from scrubbing the blood off of them and she wasn’t sure how much more she can take.

“Rose,” Peridot watches the three women stiffen as Garnet speaks, meeting Peridot’s eyes steadily through her thick dark glasses, “We were looking for Rose Quartz.”

Peridot knits her eyebrows together and mouths the words, ‘Rose Quartz?’ Her mind was working to process the not-witches coworkers she had that also had magic charms all over their house.

Peridot’s flick between them, she opens her mouth again, “Why?”

She watched Pearl tug at her fingers roughly and Amethyst flatten her bangs down, they shifted uncomfortably.

“She disappeared.” Garnet says simply, “We had to do something.”

Peridot balls her fists up, she was ready for less mystery’s- maybe more screaming into people’s stray throw pillows. She hears voices coming from the staircase and Peridot turns toward the side entrance.

“And I’m still figuring out charms at the moment, but if you have some dogs after you maybe try some dog toys? I can get some chewey toys to run around I think.”

Peridot hears a sound that sends a rush of relief streaming through her system, golden, Lapis laughed. “I’d like to see that.”

Peridot runs to the stairs before the other three can stop her, Lapis Lazuli was holding hands with the boy Peridot remembers from before, they were making their way down the steps.

“Lapis!” Peridot cried, feeling her throat tighten up like a straight jacket.

Lapis was smiling, wearing an oversized white clean button up and a loose looking skirt instead of her musty blood-crusted shorts from before. She looked. Peridot exhaled.

Her loose blue curls swayed around her round clean cheeks, the blue strands framing her smiling face. A smile.

Peridot’s shoulders release and she puts her arms out, “Thank God…” She breaths and jogs up the stairs, overwhelmed by the last vision of the girl: chalky gray and gasping, blood, blood, blood.

She ran up the steps to the one below theirs, she wraps her arms around Lapis’s waist and buried her face in her middle. “Thank God!” She breaths in the smooth scent of detergent and a live breathing pulse she feels under Lapis’s skin.

“Peridot!” Lapis says from above her in surprise and Peridot can feel her stepping backward.

“Awwwww,” The boy coos next to her.

“Hug me you undead jerk.” Peridot says into her bellybutton and Lapis buries a hand in Peridot’s short hair.

She laughs and Peridot can hear her sigh, “I almost die once and now you’re sweet.”

Peridot snickers because Lapis is walking and talking and her eyes sting, she steps backward and starts to pick Lapis up, “Hey!”

Peridot twirls her around slowly, unevenly, in the narrow stairway and Lapis wiggles and calls her names as her thin arms carry the strange girl.

“Nooo!” Lapis croons and Peridot hefts her in little circles back down the stairs. “Steven she is cradling me!”

The boy, Steven, followed them down with his phone out, “I think that is acceptable.”

“See? Acceptable Lapis!” Peridot crows back with a laugh and feels the weight of something ugly wriggling in her gut dissipate, Lapis was warm in her arms.

She laughs, “I’m selling you to these witches.”

Peridot shrugs, “They aren’t witches.”

“Ugh,” Lapis says with gurgle.

“I know.” Peridot says back sardonically

“I’m a witch.” Steven chimes in and Peridot put Lapis down.

“Yeah,” She looks him up and down as Lapis straightened her shirt, “Yeah," Peridot breathes again and then meets his eye, "Thank you.” Peridot says and means it in the way her teachers always wanted her to: sincerely.

Chapter Text

Lapis

“What do you mean you won’t help us?!” The question rang through the small house/shop. Lapis watched as Peridot stood with her fists balled up in front of three most likely magical ladies.

Pearl frowned at her and blinked a couple times, “We helped heal your friend over there.” She defends.

Peridot shakes her head and Lapis watches her closely, Peridot takes a step closer to them, “she wouldn’t have been hurt if we didn’t have jump through all these magical hoops.” Peridot sets her jaw, “We need help.”

Garnet observes her through her thick dark glasses, Amethyst shrugs from her perch on the counter, “Dude. We just sell charms,” She pointed to a shelf of smoking vials and little potted plants in neon colors and succulents that seemed to shimmy back and forth. “We can’t up and defend against entire, what was it? Murder ghost army?”

“The Hunt,” Lapis chimes in, side-eying Steven who fidgets next to her. “They are a ghost army, yeah.” Steven looks back at her and frowns.

“Maybe I could-” Steven says as he squeezes her hand.

“No.” Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl say at once, cutting him off. Steven sinks down into flip flops.

Garnet focuses on him, “This is The Hunt. They are an ancient force, older than us. They are expansive, and if we anger them by helping these two, well, we wouldn’t be of any help to anyone after that.” She explains calmly with no sense of urgency.

“You’re witches,” Peridot emphasizes, “Surely someone can do something.”

Pearl looks down at her feet but steps forward, “Rose Quartz was the most powerful witch of her generation,” Peridot perks up, “But she’s gone. We’re all that’s left of her legacy.”

Peridot furrows her brow, “But there are more of you…”

“And me.” Steven says again, “I’m her son.”

Lapis offers him a small smile, “You are very powerful.” She could feel it from his fingertips.

Pearl put her hands on her hips, “You’re only 14 Steven. You haven’t seen anything like The Hunt, they are….”

“Lethal,” Garnet finishes, “And if we didn’t help fend them off them properly, they would come after us. I’ve seen it.” Garnet taps on the side of her glasses.

Steven bites his lip, he glances up at Lapis, “but they’re in danger.” He says weakly and glances up at Lapis. “My mom would, she would do something.”

Garnet just shakes her head, “Rose was smart.”

Lapis takes in a deep breath, “alright, if you won’t help us, at least turn us to some other of you. There must be more witches, a coven.”

“Oh yeah,” Amethyst picks a colorful fan up and blows on it, making the blades swirl lazily around, “The L.A. Witch Council. They have a headquarters, like, a block from here, but good luck getting them to do anything other than scratch their asses, they aren’t into ‘disturbing the natural order of things’ unless you got a potion, a name, or a mean happy hour.”

Lapis looks down at Steven and meets his eye, he lifts his chin and answers softly, “We asked them to help find my mom. But they wouldn’t listen.”

“Do you think they’d stand up to Jasp- The Hunt?”

“After they’re already in the city?” Amethyst snorts, “Not a chance.”

“But she’s one of you!” Peridot gestures toward Lapis forcefully, “We can’t just live in hiding or let ourselves be, uh, destroyed. Don’t you protect your own?”

Lapis looks down at her feet, “They’re aren’t going to help us Peridot.” She says coolly, “They’re witches and we have nothing to offer.”

Peridot’s eyes go wide, Lapis looked up to see Pearl clenches her fists, “We aren’t all witches.” She says flatly and Steven looks between them all.

“There is ways for you to live through this,” Garnet says evenly, “But it won’t be with all of our help.”

Peridot stepped forward with her shoulders squared, “What are you? A psychic?”

“Yes.” Garnet says simply and Lapis reminds herself to watch her. “Something of the sort.”

Lapis sighs as she realizes this group wasn't going to trust them. They weren’t even going to offer them a drink as far as she could tell.

Pearl clears her throat, “I could make a map home that avoids any…troubles. There is a gnome enclave a couple streets from here, but I could guide you past The Sewers of uh,”

“Calamari Joe.” Steven offers.

“Yes. Him, and get you at least home.”

Neither Peridot or Lapis jump to give them a hearty thank you. Amethyst gets a map out from under the counter and Peridot steps up to tell them her address.

Lapis and Steven exchange a quiet, “Hey,” Lapis says, “It’s okay,” She elbows him, “I’ve been through worse. I had to eat Irish boiled steak for a hundred years, it’s not like I can’t take a thousand ghosts on.” With my bare hands against one pissed off ex.

Steven let’s go of her hand, “I’ll be back.” He says simply and then offers her a small smile, “I think I could, um, I’ll be back.”

Steven goes up to Garnet and tugs on her sleeve, whispering quickly into her ear with his hand up, Garnet just listened with an expressionless nod.

Lapis looks around and then feels her side again, poking the skin to feeling the numb sensation spreading throughout her center.

She looks at Peridot’s back, seeing the fierce tension in her muscles and set of her brow, arguing heatedly and standing rod-stiff against them. She was a wall of spit-fire.

Lapis watches her lips in fast-motion, thin and pert with a stubborn tilt to them. Lapis inhales sharply as she remembers Peridot’s worried eyes and those same set lips hours before. Lapis’s mouth tingles and she looks back down.

Peridot was tearing at her hair and Steven was throwing his arms in the air, “But my mom would…”

“Your mom would know when things were too dangerous for us.”

“The Witch Council won’t help.”

Garnet goes back to whispering and Peridot grabs the map from Pearl’s hands, “Thanks.” She says tightly, “We’ll keep you update on how alive we are at the end of the week.”

“Sounds good,” Pearl says loosely, “Steven seems to like you.” Peridot just shakes her head and Lapis watches Steven’s back as he argues with Garnet and Amethyst pokes his cheek.

Lapis goes to tug on Peridot’s shirt, “Maybe we should head back before sundown…”

Peridot turns to her, eyes worried, she looks her over, “You’re okay?” Peridot asks, “Like, really okay?” Peridot’s eyes were focused on Lapis’s side where the wound had been.

“Yeah,” Lapis says gently, leaning toward her, “Yeah, Peridot. I’m better now.” She smiles softly, “thank you.”

Peridot gulps, her hands shaking a little bit, “I was worried…I mean,” Her eyes dart up, “Let’s not do that again.” Her voice breaks and Lapis feels a pang in her heart.

Lapis puts her fist up like she seen on TV, “What? Almost dying? I thought that was our thing. The permanent honeymoon period.” Peridot grows a weak smile and fist bumps her all the same.

Pearl clears her throat, “You’re a very cute couple,” Peridot and Lapis make a sharp noise and wave their hands at her, “Or whatever you are.” She says instead, “But we’ll need you to leave. I’m sure The Hunt is still sniffing you out, and our charms are only so strong.”

Peridot’s shoulder’s rise like a cat’s haunches rising, “Well thanks for nothing. I’ll remember this on coworker reviews.”

Amethyst leaned over and slapped her on the back, “Oh come on P-dotti-dactyl. We had some good times, and we even helped you get a gf.”

Peridot grumbled at her darkly and Lapis snickered. She crept up and looked at the map they made. It would take a longer time, but it had several ‘safe’ routes around the city through the unseen realm.

Lapis sighs and threads a hand through her hair, “I guess we’ll just keep looking.” Lapis searches out the locations labeled ‘gnomes,’ ‘nature spirits,’ and ‘bankers.’

Lapis turned to the door, trying to calculate any of them would actually listen to her. Respect her after all that time, she sniffs, goddamn the city.

They point at a red little path and turn to leave.

“Wait!” Steven put his hand out and rushed up to Lapis. Lapis pauses and blinks, Steven wraps his arms around her waist, “Thanks for telling me about my fish. I never even knew that Sugar wanted to be a singer or Baba Yaga had a baby in her youth.”

Lapis hugs him back, “No problem.” She says with a sniff, “I’ve never had someone heal me so fast,” she leans back with her hands on Steven’s shoulders, “You’re something else Steven Universe.”

He looks up at her sadly, “Let’s do this again, I’m sure you’ll make it. And then we could go to the beach or something.”

The room was very quiet, Lapis nods stiffly.

Peridot shuffles up from off to the side, “Yes.” She says clearly, “and thank you very much. I was uh,” Peridot glances to the side, “Concerned. For her.” She ends in a whisper.

Peridot puts her hand out for a handshake, Steven dives around it and hugs her warmly as well, “I would never have been able to help if you didn’t keep her alive!” He seemed to squeeze. “I wish I could help more.”

Pearl comes over to put a hand on her shoulder and wave them off.

No one really wants to help us, Lapis thought, not really. How could they? Not after what I’ve done.

She takes Peridot’s hand and leads her out of the house.

 --------------------

Peridot

Peridot felt like she might burst a blood vessel. Her mind sped with how frustrating not only the magical world was, but also her own work environment. So much for synergy.

She told Pearl that her dissertation was dumb and then left. Amethyst offered her a ‘bro hug’ but Peridot answers her with a ‘I’m a dead man walking.’

Garnet offers them a piece of advice, ‘don’t turn your back.’ And they leave without having moved any closer to their goal. Just one injury in tow and one awkward walk back to get over.

Peridot keeps glancing at Lapis, she remembers a couple hours ago. She remembers Lapis’s blue gaze as her face hovered closer and closer.

Peridot looks fiercely back at the ground. She had just been injured. And delirious. It wasn’t anything.

“Stupid magical creatures,” She grumbles, “Selfish, ugly, cruel, stupid magical creatures.” She fumed as she balled her fists up and scuffed her feet on the gray pavement.

Lapis kept glancing her eyes back, the color still a vivid blue in the gray-scape of the unseen world.

Peridot frowns and crosses her arms, “What?” She asks as Lapis looks at her.

“Is that about us?” She asks and Peridot quirked an eyebrow up.

“What?”

Lapis shrugged and looked up, “You know…”

“Magical creatures aren’t exactly the friendliest of lot.” Peridot says grimly, “You made that clear again and again.”

Lapis hums and then she’s twiddling her thumbs, “Well, hmm,” Lapis looked away, “It’s not, not all bad.”

Peridot watched her, looking Lapis over in her loose white button-up shirt and new blue skirt, “What are you talking about.”

“You saved my life.” Lapis says firmly and their eyes meet, “I could…Well.”

Peridot shrugs, “it’s not a big deal. I wasn’t just going to leave you there.”

Lapis pauses and Peridot is forced to stop their walk, Lapis puts her hands out, “I should show you something.”

Peridot puts her head back, “I was just thinking we go home.” She raises an eyebrow, “It’s been a long day.”

Lapis seemed to take a deep breath in through her nose, “I’ve given you, I suppose, a very one-sided impression,” She frowns. “I’m sorry. For everything. Really.”

Peridot cocks her head to the side, “For my couch?”

Lapis grins and puts her hand out, “Let me show you something.”

Peridot hesitantly takes her hand.

Lapis skips them down the sidewalk, veering off the path from Pearl’s red-dotted line and once more toward the river Peridot was becoming all too familiar with.

Lapis was smiling and her hand warm, “There is more to things than you think.”

“Tell me about,” Peridot grumbles, “That’s been my life story for the last two months.”

Lapis squeezes her hand and Peridot closes her mouth.

They skip down a set of ornate steps and Peridot sees the sluggish water and a set of oak trees along the water side, pleasant for the dry city. A wooden bench sits by the thick canopy, surrounded by the little forest in a grassy section.

Lapis begin whistling, a jaunty tune that carried through the wind, “Come out!” She whistles shrilly and Peridot raises an eyebrow.

“Lapis…” She says warily, “We are still a target you know.”

Lapis pauses and lets her hand go, stepping in behind Peridot, she starts to push her forward, “Come on. We can’t live in fear this whole time, that’s what Jasper wants.”

Jasper. That name again.

Peridot reluctantly lets herself be pushed to the ornate bench, she puts her hands on the wooden back and looks around.

“Lapis, what is this?”

“Ssshh,” Lapis puts her finger up against Peridot’s mouth, “Watch.”

Lapis whistles again, Peridot blows air out of her nose, but this time, to her surprise, it’s answered by a tinkling noise in the exact same light tune.

Peridot’s eyes go wide, Lapis points, “Look, look.” A myriad of lights appear from the water top, little glowing lights arising from the grass and leaves.

Peridot gasps and they start bouncing up and down, singing the same tune as Lapis, singing unlike anything she had heard before. Like shingles in the wind, rain pattering against glass, a fire crackling and more of just the notion of sound rather than the actual thing.

Peridot holds her breath as the lights twinkle and dance loosely as they approach, floating up to them slowly.

“Come on, come on, they have gifts.”

Lapis hurries them toward the wooden bench with cast iron arms and the lights sing the song of something silver and bright.

Peridot sits down and Lapis shakes her shoulder, “I haven’t seen this in ages…”

Peridot watches as little hands and heads with high buns and faces made of sightless dark eyes and feathers, leaves sprouting out of their heads with wings like shredded paper or monarch butterflies.

“Look, she’s a beach fairy, I’ve seen ones like her before.” A sand-colored fairy with wings patterned like sea shells glides up to them first.

Peridot blinks at her. A real fairy.

It bows its head and presents Lapis with something smooth, glowing white, and shaped like a vase, Peridot studies it. A tiny glass vase with a firefly inside.

“Thank you,” Lapis lets the fairy place its gift into her hand.

“What is that?” Peridot asks in awe, her eyes not leaving the colorful little woman with robin’s wings and blood-colored lights. Lanterns in some of their hands.

“Some still recognize creatures like me when they see it.” She says fondly, one of the fairies with grass wings and sharp teeth drops a tiny flower crown on her head.

Peridot leans forward, “You?” She snorts, “Queen of the fairies I see.” She says sarcastically and watches the fairies float around her own head, hesitant to approach it seemed.

“Well, not fairies.” Lapis says absently and Peridot watches her, Lapis turns around, “What? You didn’t think I was a normal selkie, did you?”

Peridot hums, blinking a couple times, “Well, I suppose I wouldn’t want to go just for any selkie here.”

Lapis laughs, her hair being pushed back, “Shush, look. They want to meet you.”

Two little fairies with lithe legs and their chests glowing a peach color approach, they carry an acorn between them. Peridot curiously places her hand out, they land it gently in her hand.

Lapis snorts, “Don’t eat it.”

Peridot blinks and turns back to her, “Or they’ll eat me?”

“Or you’ll spend a couple weeks a year in the fairy world. They like your types, it’s fairy food.” She pushes on her shoulder.

“My type? You mean bad grad students?” She says sardonically.

“Pretty girls to show their queen.” Lapis says as a fairy with hummingbird wings presents her with a paint brush twice her size.

“Pretty, huh?” Peridot says with a cheeky grin and elbows her, Lapis turns back slowly to her.

“Yeah.” Lapis says sincerely, “that’s what I said.”

Peridot swallows painfully.

“Right.” She gulps, “Don’t eat the fairy food.”

Lapis shrugs, “You can drink their wine if you want. But you won’t want to.”

“Why not?” Peridot says stubbornly, “I can party with the best of them if I wanted to.”

Lapis shakes her head, “it’s elf wine. Even the fairy queen bans it, they’re just a punch of punks,” The fairies give a tinkling laugh as she talks to them fondly, “And you won’t want it unless you want to end up naked, drunk off your ass playing pan pipes in the local park.”

Peridot throws her head back, “That’s how I do it anyway!”

Lapis laughs and they look at each other again, the fairies glow between them. Peridot’s heart is suddenly beating much faster, her face glowing from something other than the heat of the little lights glowing around them.

Peridot unthinkingly hovers closer, Lapis jerkily lurches forward to. They pause.

Lapis licks her lips, then looks over Peridot’s shoulder, “Look,” Lapis says with her eyes going wide, “That one wants to tell you something.”

Peridot looks behind her, her heart sinking a little bit. A little red fairy with dark eyes like night and hair a fire swirling around its delicate face. “It’s a blood fairy.” Lapis explains lightly, “They were used by kings to tell them the fate of their countries.”

Peridot cocks her head to the side, the blood fairy gives her an unnerving steady look. Her sharp teeth poking out from her lips in a menacing smile.

“She likes you.”

Peridot nods slowly, letting the creature come closer like a little star into her orbit. She lightly comes down toward her ear.

“Careful…” Lapis warns.

Peridot shivers at the damp heat the fairy emits and its little chattering voice floats like an arctic breeze into her ear. It didn’t speak in words.

Her eyes glaze over; blood, and raising seas, swallowing the world in the end days, meteors. Water rising, darkness, dark as night, arrows flying. Sunrise.

Peridot’s heart beat in a thumping thunder and the fairy tells her about the end of the world and her own last gasping breaths.

She bends her neck down and lets the sweat drip down her neck, “Yes.” She says, as if agreeing to something. “Yes.”

The fairy nods and gives a twinkling laugh, Peridot feels cleaned like a wound.

Lapis snorts, “I can’t believe you let a King’s Fairy tell you it's weird blood stories. They always made kings infertile and queens fall in love with dragons, crazy stuff.”

Peridot grins, “Why?” She jokes, “You don’t want me to fall in love with a dragon?”

Peridot watches Lapis’s cheeks heat up a little, she opens her mouth to answer, but Peridot sees a sudden pink tint to the dark gray air overhead.

“Hmm?” An array of same-color fairies seemed to have been summoned.

Fairies with a pink glow, wings made of tulip petals, and hair of baby’s breath in white crowns of flowers. Their voices carried like bird songs and harps.

“What do you want?” Lapis asks sharply to them.

The little pink ones circle them, their hands clasped and singing a song of robin’s eggs and sunrise. One pushes her forward.

“Hey!” She says as the creature presses on her shoulder, it feels like an electric bug bite through its tiny tiny hand. Peridot scoots toward the center of the bench in irritation.

“Ah,” One of the little fairy’s grabs her pinky. “What?” She asks, it leads her hand forward and Peridot almost watches in horror as a second pink fairy leads Lapis’s hand forward. Their hands come together to rest on top of each other.

Lapis and Peridot stare at each other blankly.

“Uh,” Lapis’s mouth hangs open.

“Right.” Peridot responds and they sit awkwardly as the little pink lights circle them.

To other fairies place ribbons, blades of grass, and a miniature harp made of branches and gold string on their hands and next to them.

Peridot wrinkles her nose, “These ones are a little weird…”

One lands on her shoulder and she feels the same electric bite and a second one hovers close to her.

She is suddenly very very aware of Lapis’s skin against her, of her glowing eyes and round face. The light freckles over her shoulders and button nose that let out every expression she was thinking.

Peridot’s eyes go wide and the fairies voices rise. She sees a vision of little rabbits in a den.

“Oh, knock it off.” Lapis says annoyance, her hand still on top of hers as the fairies’ circle them.

“What type are they?” Peridot asks slowly.

“Nothing,” Lapis says in a hurry, but her cheeks her glowing.

“Nothing fairies?”

The fairy’s sing of springtime and does and elk, Peridot suddenly feels a burning in her gut. A coiling in her center as if something rough was licking her insides. Peridot gasps, she shifts her legs back and forth, and sweat drips down her back.

They sang of snow melting and daisy’s popping out of the earth, Peridot’s chest aches and her head spins, the air is sweet with the scent of peaches and rose water.

Peridot starts panting softly and she sees Lapis’s breath speed up as well, her chest arching, Peridot was feeling it too.

Their voices rise and Peridot gives a small gasp, Lapis’s skin burns against her own. Lapis’s scent was somehow heavy in the air, it twists inside Peridot like a knife and she squirms. Lapis’s eyes bury into her and she turns to liquid in her seat, shaking deep inside and feeling it drip down her back like melted wax.

Lapis’s heaves, Peridot feels like she’s buried deep within her chapped red lips, watching them as they lay slightly open and Peridot whimpers. Lapis’s hot blue eyes wiggle their way to something inside her and Peridot lets out what can only be described as a moan. She arches off the bench seat and her legs turn to jelly.

Lapis’s hands clutch harder to her, their breath mixing and hearts beating in time through their fingertips.

Peridot is ready for the fairy’s to keep singing and let Lapis’s presence sink its teeth into her until her toes curl. Suddenly, she’s being pulled to her feet.

Peridot stumbles forward and Lapis had somehow yank them both upright.

“Alright, enough of them.”

“Huh?” Peridot asks dopily, her mind full of a heady smoke. “Beautiful.”

“Right, right,” Lapis’s face was a glowing red.

“Everything is beautiful.”

 “Let’s walk lover girl.”

“Noooo,” She moans, but Lapis was pushing her forward.

“Walk.”

Peridot’s legs feel like they’re been through a marathon, an ache in her thighs and other places. She tries to turn around and get back, but Lapis’s stays latched to her shoulders and pushes.

“Wanna go back…”

“They won’t do it without me there anyway,” Lapis grumbles and tugs them past the tree line.

Peridot’s head is clearing, but left its place is a new and deep frustration. They hadn’t gotten her anywhere. “Why? Because you’re a queen?”

Lapis rolls her eyes, “Trust me. They need two people for that little trick.”

Peridot blushes and closes her mouth, she shifts her thighs together and tries to walk in a straight line. “Right. Okay.” She takes deep breaths, then glances at Lapis. They were both flushed from head to toe, a flower crown still perched in her mussed up blue locks. Peridot flinches, “Do you want to, uh,” She wrinkles her nose, “Talk about it?”

Lapis shakes her head, “Nothing to talk about.” She says simply with looking her in the eye.

“Yeah,” Peridot says again, looking in a different direction, they weren’t going to discuss the heaving and burning skin between them a moment ago. “Yeah.”

Peridot watches Lapis’s back as they walk back home. That was something else at least.

Chapter Text

1.

Peridot came down very slowly. First her pulse slowed down, then her mouth stopped tasting like rosebuds, then her breathing steadied, and finally her brain short-circuited in a mud pile of ‘oh shit.'

That had happened.

They had crept home in the dead of the unseen zone and slipped into their separate rooms like socially awkward ghosts who wouldn't look at each other in the eye. Peridot didn’t remember if they said good night or not, but she remembered watching Lapis’s chapped mouth and soft eyelashes. Oh Shiiit.

Peridot went to bed early and tried to recount to the ceiling everything she knew about baseball and the recipe for eggplant parmesan. She wiggled her toes and tried to stop thinking.

Her mind wandered back to her 14th birthday and year she had Ms. Bradley as her 7th-grade math teacher. Ms. Bradley wore pencil skirts and gave her A’s on her tests in bright pink pen against pale square pages she insisted would make perfect origami at the end of the semester.

Ms. Bradley had the class sing for her birthday and gave her extra-credit that day for showing up. She had been wearing a tartan pattern green skirt, it came down to just below her knees where smiling dimples indented in her kneecaps and her pale Irish skin was speckled in little freckles.

It rode up a little bit and it had been a very confusing year for Peridot. And kept remembering the year of Ms. Bradley.

She slept in restless bouts and woke up groggy and thinking about being 14 again, she looked at the ceiling for a very long time.

The house was quiet, like an unseen hush had stilled the air.

Peridot spent some time not leaving her room and playing her music far too loudly when she built up the nerve to go downstairs. Feed her cat. Do some laundry.

It was quiet downstairs too. Percy meowed at her softly, like he knew, and the water was running from the downstairs bathroom in a muted tone, even Bathad seemed to be sleeping when she made her way into the kitchen.

“Alright. Okay,” Peridot said mildly and got out the cat food they had delivered the other night (the magic of food delivery app’s was amazing).

“Mmrrr,” Percy said softly and rubbed up against her leg, Peridot shifted her weight from foot to foot. It was quiet.

She started her laundry, the rumbling was deafening, she slid back into her room and avoided thinking. Peridot drifted off into a dreamless sleep until the washing machine mechanical beep shook the house.

“Landlady!” Ulyana called up, it almost sounded sarcastic. “Your machine is yelling.”

Peridot rubs the sleep out of her eyes, “Coming, coming.”

“It’s angry!” Ulyana calls up again.

Peridot rolled her eyes and jogged down the steps toward her wet clothes, she’s grumbling to herself when she makes it to the foot of the stairs. Peridot sees the back of a deep blue band shirt that hung loosely off a pair of slopping shoulders. Peridot slowed down.

Lapis stood with her back to her, scratching her head and looking perplexed. Her hair was messy, standing on end like a college art student after a depression nap, she wore a pair of Peridot’s old ragged shorts, and was positioned in front of the kitchen entrance with her hands on her hips.

She was looking around and Peridot was looking at the back of her stiff knees.

Talk to her.

Peridot went back to her room. She didn’t want to interrupt.

2.

Peridot spent fifty minutes playing solitaire and losing to herself.

It was a confusing year. Her mind crept into the odd corners of itself and Peridot traced the memory of Lapis’s hand, the faint heartbeat against Peridot’s fingertips, her cracked lips. Her side split open in a violent red, and then those confusing soft lips right afterward.

Peridot rolled over and groaned into her pillow.

It felt like it was the first day of April and she was the April Fool.

“Whyyy,” She moaned, thrashing her feet in the air and burying her face. The pillow was too soft and her chest was too tight.

Peridot's phone beeps. She moans once again in mock-pain and looks over to see she had missed a call, Peridot reaches over to her bedside table and glances at it. Peridot heaves a heavy sigh, “Well mom, you always wanted me to get married.” She pretends to talk into the speaker, “Sooo, I did get hitched to the ocean. And now I might actually like her.” She flopped down dramatically on her stomach, “Any suggestions?”

Peridot rolled over in bed a couple more times, feet getting tangled in the comforter before she tossed it across the room and tugged on her hair. She stars at the ceiling again.

Bump bump

She sits up violently in bed, bump. a knock comes at her door and Peridot squeaks involuntarily.

“Uuhhh,” Her mouth falls open.

“Peridot, you’re not gonna believe it.”

Peridot exhaled, she hadn’t heard her last words. “Believe what?”

“Can I come in?” No.

“Sure.”

Peridot watches as Lapis pushed her way into the door and brandished some slip of white paper in the air, “Guess the fuck what.”

Peridot sat on the edge of her bed and she looked her up and down, “We taught Bathad how to winnie the ABC’s.”

Lapis snorts, “You wish….no, it’s actually helpful.”

Peridot cocked an eyebrow up, “What is it?”

Lapis's face split into a large smile, “Well, we might be better at making friends than we originally thought.” Lapis starts to walk over and Peridot walks over.

“Speak for yourself. I’ve made friends with a demon horse, a water lady, a bunch of fairies-”

“I wouldn’t call those friends.”

“-and your mom.” Peridot finishes after sticking out her tongue.

“Oh my God,” Lapis shakes her head but was still smiling, “Come on, scoot over, look at this.”

Peridot awkwardly rocked herself over to the farthest end of the bed like an armadillo about to roll itself into a ball, Lapis raises an eyebrow at her, “Can you see from over there?”

“Yes!” Peridot barks and Lapis raises an eyebrow, she holds up the piece of paper.

“Well, whatever. Look at this,” Peridot blinks and has to learn forward, it’s in neat but looping letters that make her have to squint to read it. She studies the signature.

Her mouth falls open, “Is that from Steven?”

“Yep!” Lapis bounces up and down in place, “He must have slipped it into my pocket when we hugged.” She beamed, “He wants to meet next Saturday! In some field, he drew a little map and everything. We might be saved after all, heck yes.”

Peridot knelt her head down, “Saved, huh?”

Lapis nods enthusiastically, “He’s a really powerful witch Per, even if the others aren’t helping.”

“Hmm,” Peridot thinks, biting the inside of her cheek, “Is that...Is that it?”

“I think,” Lapis nods, “He can probably gather some spell stuff or whatever and cast a protection charm. Then I can find a home for Bathad and Ulyana and ba da bing ba da boom baby, we’re good.”

Peridot looked up to the ceiling and then to the floor, “I...yeah.” She says quickly, “Yeah. Then I can go back to teaching. And you can go back to the ocean.”

Peridot could feel Lapis studying her face and pursed her lips, they both stayed quiet for a long moment, Lapis clears her throat, “Uh-huh," Peridot feels a light punch on the shoulder, “Come on loser. We’re almost there, smile.”

Peridot gives her a watery smile and shrugs, “Smile? Never heard of her." Lapis nudges her with her foot cheekily and Peridot tries to meet her eye with her hesitant grin, "Just one. But you know I'm still recovering."

Lapis snorts as she looks at her face, “Okay, a recovery smile, or maybe the saddest kitten in an orphanage musical, but appreciate the effort,” Peridot snickers and Lapis goes to get up, “But I guess...we’re almost there.”

Peridot holds her tongue and nods, Lapis hesitates, as if waiting for her to say something, Peridot slowly watches her leave.

Peridot sighs when the door closes and she looks at her hands, when would this leave her.

She ignores the last interruption and goes back to her moping. One week then. Then they meet Steven.

3.

Peridot was behind.

She was behind and at least had another few days of being a shut-in to catch up on her own two-year agenda to get her dissertation done.

And her syllabus.

At least Professor Sugilite was surprising sympathetic to her explanation of having ‘sudden onset food poisoning’ and having to miss their last meeting.

She had convinced the professor to email with her, Dr. S hated skype after being broken up with on it, but Peridot managed to complete her TA syllabus in the end. Now she just needed to do brush up on the actual intro to physics reading to know what the hell she was teaching them. Yeah, she had to do that.

There were four days until she had to meet Steven and get back to her regular life, and Peridot was still trying to remain in her room as much as possible, and get back to that normal life. She sat down at eight in the morning that Wednesday and started writing.

She had two more formula’s to test and another schematic to render.

She was going to do all that in theory.

She opens up the program to code the 3-D render of her plan but her eye is caught by the dull blue sky outside. It was a half-hearted blue that held birds in it with delicate hands that didn’t help much.

She tries to type and then just keeps looking. It all be normal soon.

Peridot continues to try to type but doesn’t even get one dimension of her render complete in three hours. Her fingernails were just really interesting, there was a new twitter feud to catch up on, her pens weren’t color coded.

Peridot sits at her desk and types one finger at a time, tip, pause, tap.

Bump bump  “Peridot!”

Peridot jumps, “Yes? Um, I'm working."

“Not too much I hope. I’m coming i-”

“Wait.”

“I’m here to be a delight, don’t worry.”

Lapis opens the door and Peridot eyed her slowly, Lapis had her hands on her hips in the doorway, wearing a light white dress. “Have you eaten today? It’s almost noon.”

Peridot looks around and then twiddled her thumbs, “Haven’t been hungry?” She cringes as she makes it a question.

Lapis raises both eyebrows, “I haven’t seen you leave here in like, two days.”

“We’re not supposed to leave,” Peridot defends as she looks at the wall.

“Not what I meant.”

“And I need to work.” Lapis blows air out of her nose and Peridot eyes, “Do you need things?”

Lapis walks into the room and looks around, “What are you working on?”

Peridot blinks a couple times and considers hiding her half-done model, “My theoretical machine.” Peridot cocks her head, “Anything I can do for you?” She asks again, Lapis wasn't usually this curious.

Lapis draped herself on the back of the chair with a dramatic sigh, “I’m bored P-Cat.”

Peridot’s eyes went a little wider, “You’re what?”

“Bored.”

Peridot knit her eyebrow together, “um, TV? Knit maybe? Lapis, come on, you're an ancient God, find some ants and terrorize them.”

Lapis gives a short smile.

“I can’t leave the house,” Lapis went over and sat on Peridot’s bed, bouncing up and down, “No ants.”

“Well, hum, interesting,” Peridot says woodenly and tugs at her bangs, she fidgets back and forth and watches Lapis roll her eyes.

“I wouldn’t have taken you to the fairies if I knew you’d get weird about it.”

Peridot stuck her chin out, “I’m not being weird! And fairies are…” She trails off, she doesn’t meet Lapis’s eye.

“They just like to mess with people,” Lapis puts her hand out. “Don’t think about it too hard...Does your chair spin?”

Peridot hunched her shoulders over, “I have work to do.”

“What is it?” Lapis looked at her curiously again, perhaps actually curious.

Peridot considers Lapis for a moment, and then looks back to her computer, Lapis waits, Peridot finally gestured toward the code, “It’s a device to desalinate water more efficiently. It will help with droughts and water crisis's if it actually works.”

Lapis’s eyebrows rose, “Help with crisis’s?” She put her chin on her hand, “Wow.”

Peridot crossed her arms across her chest, “Hey! It’s very complicated and, you know, important.”

“No, no, 'wow,' as in I’m impressed,” Lapis leaned forward, “You didn’t strike me as the type.”

Peridot finally met her eye and leaned forward as well, “What type?”

Lapis grinned widely and taps Peridot's knee, “The caring type."

“I care about stuff.” She responds stubbornly Lapis laughs, she reached up and tapped Peridot's nose this time. Lightly. Playfully.

“It looks like it.”

Peridot shook her head and her face flushed slightly, “I mean, I’ll admit, my mom suggested it.” She grumbled and Lapis nodded.

“I like it," Lapis says gently. Peridot shrugs loosely and Lapis looked over the computer and then Peridot, "okay, but, really, does that chair spin?”

“Oh no,” Peridot turned back to her work, “you can sit over there and watch me work, but we aren’t messing with chairs.”

Lapis groaned and flopped down on her back, “I’m bored.”

“I hear cleaning my house is very entertaining,” Peridot says lightly.

Lapis laughs breezily and gives her a finger gun, “what’s your mom like then?”

Peridot frowned and turned around toward her, she knits her brow together as she thinks, “are you really asking?”

Lapis’s blue eyes flash in her direction, “I can care about things too….I’ll desalinate your ass if I have too. Less salt."

Peridot laughs with her mouth covering her mouth, “Okay.”

“Soooo, she stuffy? Bubbly? Somehow a bigger nerd than you?”

“Oh my God.”

“Cuuuute?”

“You’re getting kicked out.”

“This is a friendly friendly conversation.”

Peridot sighs and drums her fingers on her own leg, “She’s concerned.”

Lapis perks up, “Like concerning? Or concerned?” She rolled over and faced her, Lapis's eyes focused Peridot steadily.

Peridot thinks, “Concerned. About things. Lots of things.”

“Like?”

Peridot sighs, “me, the planet, germs, if the dog looks depressed to you or not. My haircut, my career, if I’m eating enough. The world, PTA meetings, more germs, whether or not it looks like she’s getting tuberculosis.”

Lapis grinned and crawled toward the end of the bed, “Sounds nice.” Lapis stroked the Star Wars cover Peridot’s cousin had gotten her.

Peridot shrugs, “I guess. She’s a little paranoid.” Peridot cringes and remembers her mom’s alien phases.

Lapis shakes her head, “That’s not bad. The world is a big place.”

Peridot snorts, “You’re telling me.” She studies Lapis’s face, her eyes blurry and chest rising gently, “Did you...do selkies have families? You know, moms?”

Lapis sat upright in bed and twirled a piece of hair, “Of course.”

Peridot nods slowly and bites her lip, “Yeah, that makes sense. You were some queen or something so I guess you’d have to be born into it. Are they, uh, like you?”

Lapis nods astutely, “Actually,” She says quietly, Peridot leans forward, their noses hovering closer and Lapis wets her lip like she had a secret, “Nessie is my mother.” Peridot rolls her eyes and Lapis laughs at her own joke.

“Ugh,” Peridot thwapps her on the shoulder, “Unproductive.”

She turns back to her computer and can feel Lapis watching her, “I am practicing humor.”

“I’ll contact the Late Show.”

“I’m ready.” Lapis laid her head down, “And bored you know.”

“I have emails to get to. Speaking of moms, she sent me twenty news articles and pictures of our dog.”

“Sounds nice.” Peridot hums back and Lapis made soft sounds, opening and closing her mouth. Peridot gets back to the twitter war she was following and drifts off. She jumps when she hears Lapis clear her voice, “I had a mom too.”

Peridot pauses and her fingers hover over the keyboard, she looks over her shoulder slowly, “Yeah?”

Lapis gave a shallow nod, she was stroking the comforter slowly, “She was...beautiful.”

Peridot looks into Lapis’s face, her tanned pretty skin and round full cheeks, “I can see that.”

Lapis grins slowly, “She was less, huh, ‘concerned’ I guess.” Lapis looked to get up, “But she cared.” Lapis’s eyes dragged down, “She gave me my skin. Her skin.” Lapis frowned and looked ready to curl up into herself, “Ours.”

Peridot tilts her head to the side, “I, yeah, I never thought of that. But that makes sense."

Lapis shrugs and lies on the bed, “That’s how it works. I grew up on land too.”

Peridot rose her eyebrows up, “Was that the last time?"

“First time.” Lapis says breathily, her mouth tugging down into a frown. Peridot doesn't push it.

“Weeeeell,” Peridot lifts herself up, “You know what we have up here?”

“Dummies?”

Peridot makes a face, “Well I was going to say chairs that spin."

Lapis face breaks into another large grin, “now you’re speaking my language.” She skips over, “Show me the miracles of human ingenuity.”

Peridot shakes her head, “Am I going to regret this?”

“Oh honey.”

Lapis winks at her and climbs onto the front of the chair, basically scrambling into her lap, Peridot’s face heats up, “Wait, wait-”

“Don’t be weird Peri,” Lapis laughs, “and hold on.”

Peridot grabs onto the arms of the chair just in time, Lapis put her knees on either side of Peridot’s legs and reached for the wall. "Okay, right, okay," Peridot steadied herself.

Lapis put her palm flat on the plaster and pushed off of it with what looked like her full strength. And Lapis was very strong. “Ah!” Peridot watched as the world spun around in smudges of color.

“Ahahah!” Lapis cackled and Peridot felt her chair shake as she clutched it, “Let’s go!” Lapis pushes off again and they roll around and around. Peridot leans into Lapis who threw her hands up and Peridot starts to laugh as her head went weightless and silly. They spin until she starts to see white.

“I’m gonna puke on you.” She finally says.

“Faster you say?”

“Right on you.”

They make speeding circles until her eyes water in the small office chair she got on sale from Office Depot, they make another rotation before Peridot feels her chair start to wobble.

“Lapis, wait, haha, shit,”

“Here we go!”

Lapis gives another mighty push off the dresser corner, but it was too much for the small chair and Peridot is crying out and laughing as the wheels creak and they topple backward into her pile of unfolded laundry.

“Oof.”

The chair tumbles onto its side and Peridot and Lapis are messily deposited into the lump of laundry.

Peridot sits in stunned dizziness for a moment, trying to see straight again. Finally, she sits up and feels herself for bruises, she tosses a clean sock off of her face, “Oh my God.”

“Ahaha,” Lapis was still laughing and her was flushed from the exertion, Peridot studies her light freckles popping off the red glow.

“Oh my god…” Peridot says to herself.

Lapis wipes her eye, “Human ingenuity!”

Peridot snickers, “That’s really what I should be inventing. More spinny chairs."

Lapis pushes on her shoulder, “Look at you, almost being fun.”

Peridot rolls over in the laundry, “I’ve always been fun. Remember that time I started a fire and captured you? Priceless.”

Lapis laughs and through a shirt at her, “And that time you ran outside into the hands of near death? A riot.”

Peridot picked up a tank top, balled it up, and tossed it into Lapis’s grinning face, “Fighting words.”

Lapis kicked her and picked up a pair of jeans, “I’m gonna stick a sock in your mouth.”

“To think, you didn’t even wear those a month ago.”

Lapis snorted, “That was panties hon.” She winked and Peridot distracted her own blush by throwing a pile of clothes at her.

Lapis cackled and tried to bury her in an old bra and sweatpants.

“You’re ridiculous.” She says as Lapis tries to put her in a headlock.

“You’re mincemeat! Capital meat."

Peridot ducked out of Lapis's arms and ran to her chair, “You’re going down.” She scrambles into the chair and pushes off like a jousting match, tossing socks at Lapis while she laughs.

“God Peridot,” She shakes and kicks the chair away lightly, “ramming with a chair? Divorce material.”

Peridot put her hand out, “Not if we spin one more time.”

Lapis’s eyes light up, “Alimony material.”

Peridot shook her head, “You’re lucky you’re cute.” Lapis pinches her cheek and Peridot squirms as Lapis climbs on top of the chair with her. “Less bored now?” Peridot asks as they prepare to do dumb things in her room.

Lapis was studying her face, eyes darting up and down, “You only get trapped in a house for weeks on end once.”

“Let’s hope so.” Peridot says breathlessly.

Lapis leans forward and grins, “Soon.”

“Soon.” Peridot spins and lets her thoughts leak out her ears for a moment. She closes her eyes and feels the weight of Lapis on her and the stale air streak through her hair.

She laughs and they cling to each other as they go round and round.

Chapter Text

Saturday crept up on Lapis, the slow burn of stove top that was suddenly turned all the way up. It hung over her skin like an itch: tomorrow was Saturday.

Lapis sat in the living room with her feet tucked under her staring out into nothing. She had Peridot’s aunt’s floral comforter wrapped around her shoulders and she couldn’t remember when she left her room. It was a chilled night for this hemisphere, a soggy mist overtaking the city like a curse word at a dinner party, Lapis tried to cover her naked toes.

She shifted from side to side, attempting to situate herself, she wished her head would stop feeling like a murky swamp. She had tossed and turned in bed until she felt like a piqued grogginess, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

She left her room to wander to the TV and turn it on. She didn’t remember how she got to a black and white channel with jagged lightning lines, but all she knew was she now watching nothing.

Kkssshhhhhhh

The TV static droned on in front of her and she looked on out into space.

The house felt a little too big with everyone asleep, a horse in the kitchen and a girl sleeping in their bathtub and everything, Lapis still felt like the walls were larger than her whole life. And it had been a very long life.

She pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders and looks down at her lap, her night shirt pressed against her legs and she wished she had something to tear apart or throw against the wall.

She thunked her head back onto the couch, “Only a couple more hours.” She murmured to herself, “It will be morning, Steven,” she bit her bottom lip savagely, “Over.”

She keeps rearranging the blanket and trying to warm up her toes, a single car passes outside their house, little bright headlights blaring in the silence, Lapis frowns at it. “Only a few more hours.” She rests her head on the armrest, looking blankly at the stairs, “Which would pass a lot more quickly if I could sleep .”

Human bodies were questionable things at best.

Ksssshhhh

She closes her eyes and listens to the TV static, it mixes with Bathad’s deep breathing from the kitchen, and Lapis rubs her face roughly, it felt like it might be a long night.

Lapis was fidgeting with some frayed ends of her shorts when she heard a couple of thumps from above her, she jerks her head up quickly.

She sees a pair of feet on the top most stairs, in a pair of white floppy socks with little smudges over the toes, Lapis blinks, “Peridot?” She calls up.

The feet patter their way down the steps and Lapis rubs her eyes to see Peridot standing in an oversized lime green shirt on the landing. They look at each other for a moment.

“It’s a cold night, huh?” Peridot says lowly and Lapis just nods back, her eyes glazing over.

“I can’t sleep.” Lapis responds blankly and it feels like a stream of rushing water was cascading between them, fast and heavy.

Kksshhhs The TV sings.

Peridot takes the last few steps onto the wood floor and looks around, she tapped her knuckle against the television's screen, “You found my favorite channel.”

Lapis rolled her eyes, “Yeah, it reminded me of you.” Peridot frowned at her and then snorts gently.

“I’m serious.”

Lapis rose an eyebrow, “Maybe I was too.”

Peridot shakes her head and approaches slowly, running a hand through her hair as she does, “Cosmic microwave background noise.”

Lapis wrinkles her nose, “What?”

Peridot slips onto the couch next to her, folding her legs up on the cushions, she points to the TV again, “Cosmic microwave background noise.”

Lapis sighs and lies her head down on the couch top, cracking her neck in the process, “I’m only 60% awake enough for this, you starting a band?”

Peridot gives a little laugh, “No, but I guess that would be a good name honestly.” Lapis smiles gently back at her and her chest tightens. Peridot rested her head next to Lapis’s, “It’s from the big bang.” Lapis hummed back and Peridot watched her languidly.

“Okay,” Lapis says slowly, “The TV show or the time you fell on the bathroom floor?”

“Oh come on.”

“It was very loud for such a small person.”

Peridot shook her head and pointed to the static, her eyes lighting up ever so slightly.

“It’s a story Lapis, a cosmic story right there on the screen.”

Lapis leans forward and props her chin up on her hand, “Okay, I like cosmic stories now and then. Shoot.”

Peridot lifted her chin with a lightning-bug grin, instant and bright, “Well, if you insist." She took a deep breath: "The universe came together to produce the known universe, atoms, electrons, everything. But matter was too dense for the first 370,000 years for light to travel,” Peridot tilted her head to the side and her eyes seemed to glaze over, “And it expanded, the universe becoming larger and larger, and then,” Peridot put her hands together and then burst them apart, “Let there be light.”

Lapis smiled gently, “And now it’s on our TV?”

“Yes!” She sat up straight, “After the epoch of recombination,” Peridot winked and Lapis shook her head, “it sped out. And now it gets caught in our TV signals,” Peridot leaned forward, “It’s the oldest light in the universe.”

Lapis hummed, "Impressive then."

Peridot stuck her little chest out, “I would hope so, yes.”

Lapis gives her a thumbs up, “Alright. Your favorite channel.” Peridot was still smiling,  Lapis studied her face, the sudden softness of her eyes and the thin glow of some sort of universe light over her face, “And that’s it then?”

Peridot turned to her with a growing grin, “That’s science magic girl.”

Lapis leaned forward and pinched her side, “Invent me a blanket that keeps my toes and arms warm all at once, huh? I want to see your science magic.”

Peridot snickers and leans forward, “They already have that. It’s called a snuggie.”

“A what?”

“And,” Peridot looked down, “Socks. For feet, I thought I introduced you to those, some should be in your room.”

Lapis stretched her legs out and wiggled her toes, “The cosmic microwave monsters ate them I think.”

“Hey!” Peridot nudged her with her elbow, “I already had to come to terms with you and your fairyland, I don’t need alien cosmic monsters to think about on top of that.”

Lapis tapped their foreheads together, making Peridot jump, but Lapis held her gaze, Lapis taps her on the nose, “You are the alien.”

Peridot rubs her own nose roughly, “If only.”

“Believe in yourself! Be the alien you want to be.”

Peridot laughs, a full-bodied laugh that made her eyes close, Lapis’s chest glows. Peridot shook her head and leaned on Lapis, tugging at her blanket, “Let me in there.” She says looking at the comforter, “I’m cold too.”

Lapis leans away, pulling the comforter tighter around herself, “Nuh-uh, this is the one I brought."

“It’s my blanket. In my house.” Peridot says, putting her hands on her hips.

“I brought it out here,” Lapis responds cheekily, teasing her, “It’s called forward thinking Peridot.”

“Uh,” Peridot made a little offended noise, “Now I’m just going to have to steal the blanket.”

Lapis laughed as she tore at the fabric, making them rock back and forth, “Villain!” She tries to wiggle away.

Peridot grabbed her around the middle, “We share our blankets in this household!”

“Share it with yourself.” She twisted in the covers and managed to wrap herself tighter in the cloth as Peridot pulled at it. Lapis turned herself completely over and slithered onto the floor, twisting the whole thing around herself.

“Really?” Peridot sniffed as Lapis popped her head down into the cocoon and fully immersed herself in the covers.

“Couch goblins get none.” She says from inside, she is fully encased in the floral wrap now. Peridot sighs from outside.

“Okay, okay, Lapis I’ll suck it up.” Lapis made a humming noise and Peridot poked her, “Come on out.”

“No Lapis here.” She says in a monotone. “Only the blanket worm.” She flops on the ground.

“Pfft,” Peridot laughs, “How are you hundred-year-old ancient being?”

Lapis wriggles on the floor some more before turning over, “Trust me, acting old gets boring fast.”

Peridot kneeled on the ground next to her, “I can tell.”

“And the blanket worm is timeless, Peridot, timeless. ” Peridot laughs again and Lapis stays in place, proud of herself, but also a little immobilized. It was a heavy blanket.

Peridot pokes her with her toe, “Getting hot in there?”

“No.” She says stubbornly, “But…” She twists a little bit, trying to get arm free. “I may bestow on you a corner of the blanket if you help me out.”

Peridot chuckles, Lapis is able to get her head back up, Peridot sat down, “I don’t know…”

Lapis groans, “The blanket worm commands assistance!”

Peridot shakes her head, “The blanket worm brought this on herself.”

“Come ooon,” Lapis nearly whines, “I’ll warm you up and everything if you get this thing off.”

Peridot lets her squirm for a minute longer before conceding with a little smug grin, Lapis groaned but she let her unroll the many layers.

Peridot used her deft fingers to untangle the mess and Lapis heaves a sigh as she stretches out her arms, “Mmm,” She reaches up to the ceiling, “I’m going to try not to do that again.”

Peridot was grabbing the blanket, “What? Like not try to spin around in my office chair and throw socks at me?”

Lapis pushed her gently, “You threw socks at me first.”

She rolls her eyes and gathered the blanket back on the couch, Lapis graciously escorts her into the folds, “And now we will be comfortably toasty with our combined body heat.” Lapis declares and Peridot just wraps it around them more tightly.

“Sure. Nice and ready for Steven and getting this spell stuff over with.”

Lapis doesn’t meet her eye, but shuffles in place, “And well-rested for it too.” She says sarcastically.

Peridot sighs and rests her head on the crook of Lapis’s shoulder, her wild blonde hair tickles Lapis’s chin. Peridot yawns, “How much sleep does spell-casting actually take?”

Lapis moved the blanket to cover Peridot’s right leg, “Luckily,” She leaned her head down, “We won’t be the ones doing it.”

“But it’ll be done.” Peridot mumbled into her collarbone and Lapis’s eyebrows rose into a concerned triangle.

She nods ever so slightly, they huddle closer in the blanket, Lapis looks over to the TV. She reaches out slowly.

Kssshhhshsk

“Cosmic microwave, huh.” Lapis says blankly at the noisy fuzz on the screen.

“Background noise.” Peridot finishes, “Oldest light in the universe.”

Lapis leans backward, “Romantic.” She says flatly.

Peridot tilts her head up, their eyes meet slowly, “The cosmological universe is a romantic place Lapis.”

Lapis wrinkles her nose and laughs, “I've gone stargazing, even I know that."

Peridot shrugs, "Try spending a semester in an observatory."

Lapis pokes at her head fondly, "Aren't you a cute nerd."

"Nerd?" Peridot sniffs, “Yeah, I suppose I’m paying for it.” She says slowly, leaning on Lapis, “Wouldn’t have wondered into sacred water land if I wasn’t following that dumb tech. Apparently, looking for a witch.” Peridot grumbled and Lapis blinks, remembering some Rose witch had been the researcher's real target. Peridot was heaving a sigh.

Lapis leans down, she doesn’t think about it, she presses her lips to Peridot’s temple, gentle and quiet against the night, “It happens.”

Peridot peeks up at her, her eyelashes long against the shadows, “What was that?”

Lapis shrugs and kisses her again between the eyes, “For the alien in my life.”

She can feel Peridot’s chest shake against her, “You’re something else.” Peridot was lifting herself up, her stubborn chin rising and Lapis’s eyes caught on hers. The green feels like acid burning through her insides.

Lapis wets her lips, her brain not processing what she was doing.

Peridot looked at her mouth and they are slow, as slow as a tree sap, with the hesitance of the winter sun rising. The TV static plays like a serenade behind them and another pair of car headlights passes wordlessly on the road outside.

Her breath tickles her cheek and the press against skin was almost tangible.

Her heart thumps in her wrist and time ticks by, their faces draw closer like orbiting planets, too slow, waiting to collide.

Aawwwwooooooooooooo

A splitting cry fills the air and both Lapis and Peridot jerk their heads back, eyes dragged to the window.

Aaa-wwoooooooooooo

Peridot’s mouth hung open, Lapis clenched her fist and grabbed onto Peridot’s shoulders, digging her nails in. Something in her gut drops down to the pit of her stomach and twists, that's not the sound she wants to hear.

“Lapis…” Peridot was still looking around, her head bobbing back and forth. “Is that,”

Lapis grimaces, her face crumpling into a darkness as she grinds her teeth, “They’ve found us.”

Chapter Text

Peridot remembered her senior year biochemistry lab on disease. The teacher hated her, the textbook strained every muscle in her back, the classroom was in a basement of a windowless threat to her body heat.

And she had been late. She had been late the day of the final, she had thought it was at 2:30, not 1:30, it was only by a relative miracle that ended up being on-campus when she checked her calendar. And had a near heart attack.

If she didn’t make it that was 25% of her grade for the final gone, scholarships gone, life, over. She almost made a Freshman piss themselves when she looked at her phone and shrieked, and then ran with the dread heavy in the soles of her feet.

This fear, this one, was worse.

The next year she remembered getting seven phone calls from her mom, two from her cousin, and one from her neighbor. Her mom had gone to the hospital.

She had almost cried out of the sheer anxiety of that sentence (it had just been for a bum knee, but the phone calls themselves were nails over her icicle nerves).

Worse than the night her mom sad her dad was taking a vacation, and worse than the time in second grade that Chelsea Lake said sometimes your head swallowed your eyeballs when you blink.

Something was frozen in her like time and the middle of the night in November, it clenched in her gut and her mouth hung open slightly.

Awwooooooooooo

Eyes as red as smoking pits on a volcano glowed outside, a shaking in her lungs sank into her feet. She heard an audible panting and scraping of claws against cement on her driveway, they weren’t in a hurry.

“We have to get out of here,” Lapis was jumping to her feet, all hints of the previous moment gone, she was tugging on Peridot’s wrist, blue hair twisting around as she swung her head. “Do you have your car keys, scratch that, just get up.”

Peridot numbly leaned forward and swept the curtains fully back, the creature twitched on her lawn like a glitch on a screen. The dog as large as a small horse looked back at her with his gigantic head raising

Awwooooooooo

A second one was padding up her sidewalk now to her door, she didn’t know it was going to do, it’s paws the size of dinner plates spread across the street with heavy unhurried steps.

Peridot watches as Lapis lets go of her wrist and runs to the back, “Bathad!” She calls to the horse, “do you think you can carry us? Come on Peridot!” Lapis’s eyes were wild and unfocused as she gestured to her.

Peridot swallowed thickly, “This is my fault.” She blinked, “I opened the window a crack this morning.” She frowned deeply, “For the air.”

Lapis rolled her eyes, “We all cracked a window now and then Per, I opened it two days ago to let a spider out. Goddamn her.” Lapis curses as she turns around.

Peridot shook her head and looked on unseeingly, it was more than that.

“Move!”

Lapis was still running around, Ulyana had dragged her dripping body out of the bath and was looking at them darkly, “So they’ve arrived.”

Peridot lifted her head slowly and stiffly forced her knees to carry her again, she wobbles to the back door, two furious black heads were lowered and watchful from her backward. Peridot nods.

She hears the next sound of drums like a spine-shaking dream, drums, deep and lumbering through her senses like a stampede. This was happening.

She wanders into the kitchen hall where Bathad was swinging his head around with an unseen weight and the others gathered quietly.

Lapis was sticking a knife into the elastic of her shorts.

“Lapis…” Peridot finally says as she turns, but Lapis wasn’t stopping. Peridot turned to Ulyana who was pat drying her hair, she looks her up and down, “what are you going to do?”

Ulyana’s dark bright eyes swiveled around, “It looks like it’s time for me to leave.” She says simply.

“Shut up Ul!” Lapis had snatched a cat carrier from Peridot’s closet, “Our smell, my smell, is all over you too. You’re on their menu.”

Bathad nickered from the kitchen and pawed on the tiles, “See?” Lapis was still tossing a chair aside, “Bathad wants you to not be a coward too.” Ulyana just shrugs, Lapis turns to Peridot in a hurry, “What are you doing? Help me find Percy. We need to leave now !”

Peridot numbly looked back out the dark window, light itself felt like it was being swallowed up the by the dark dog heads outside and the sound of throbbing drums, “Lapis.” She says softly, as she reached out, she takes a deep breath as her thoughts ran into one another, “You need to get into the crawl space.”

Lapis pauses for a moment, her blue eyes dull and angry, the television static drones in the background, “What are you even talking about?”

Peridot presented her hands emptily but more drums and the sound feet resonate from outside.

sSSSSShHHHHRRing

Peridot jumps and the whole room scatters as a blood-curdling ring of shattering glass fills the room, she covers her eyes on instinct as her living room crackles. Her front window had burst open, throwing shards everywhere (luckily with everyone else in the kitchen), and a thick grim black arrow embedded itself in her living room coffee table.

Peridot’s mouth was fully open now.

Lapis still yanking at her hair and yelling, “Percy! Percy! We aren’t leaving you.”

Peridot swallows heavily and glances Ulyana once more, she was looking at Peridot too, a question. Peridot turns back to the window, a dark cloud was forming far away at the end of her street, something seeping onto her front lawn like a poisonous cloud. She turns her back.

Bum-bum-biddy-dum-bum-bum.

Drums. And dark, and Peridot can feel her own pulse in her throat.

“Lapis!” Peridot calls, rounding the corner and picking her across the minefield of glass on her carpet.

“There you are,” Lapis was heaving Percy out from under her bed, “Get in here.” He hisses she stuffs him into the cat-carrier and Peridot reaches for Lapis’s elbow, resolve stealing in her gut.

“Take Percy up into the crawl space.” She says in a hurry, flinching as a shiver runs up her spine.

Lapis’s eyes fly toward her.

“What? No, Bathad will c-”

“We are surrounded Lapis.” Peridot says flatly, “And whatever this is, it wants you.”

Lapis’s eyes were as large as dinner plates and glowing in the dim light of the low moon outside, “Peridot,” She swallows. “We,” Her mouth gaped, “We can’t hide from this. I’m sorry, you can’t-”

Peridot straightens her back, “I’m not.”

Lapis was clutching the cat carrier, “The car. Or…” Lapis was still looking around, Peridot delicately reached for her cheek, petting it.

“Get in the crawl space, please.”

“So you can meet the end of an arrow by yourself?” Lapis responds bitterly.

They are arguing, Peridot barely able to feels her own limbs as she drags Lapis to her feet, “Please,” She begs again.

Lapis was shaking her head fervently, a cracking of wood splitting and thudding, marching footsteps came at the door. The drums beat, and Peridot can feel the heaviness right outside her house. They had been found.

Peridot pushes on Lapis, “Do this for me!” She shoves her to the upstairs hallway and the wooden ladder to the ceiling.

“I can’t! What are you going to do?” Lapis was still reaching and looking, her face pale as breaking surf against the face of cliffs.

Peridot lifted her chin and pushed her toward the wooden steps, “Face my hubris I guess.” She tries to say it more snarky than dark, but perhaps that wasn’t the time. “Climb Lapis! And Protect my cat goddammit.”

They shove Percy’s cat carrier into the space and Peridot somehow gets Lapis up one step at a time.

“But-”

“Please.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“I have a quick mouth.”

“Peridot!” Lapis was reaching down, “We could hide together.” Lapis reached the top and Peridot kicks the steps aside.

“She doesn’t want me. She wants you.” Peridot meets her eye with a hard look, the door downstairs splinters at claws raking across it’s front. Peridot sets her jaw, “Don’t make a sound.”

“Goddammit Per-”

Peridot yanks the ceiling cover shut and Lapis’s face disappears.

Peridot doesn’t think, she runs, she stuffs her feet in some tennis shoes, puts on her largest jacket to hide her pajama shirt and hears the door splintering again.

She runs downstairs and jumps on top of her coffee table, head raised high and feet planted firmly across the arrow stuck in the wood. She tries to not look outside.

The lawn was completely filled, dark, inkling shapes that shifted in the dimness and dog-wolves that bent their ungodly ears back and growled.

Metal on metal on concrete creeks and the door heaves, “Knock knock.” A voice like amber fires burns and Bathad snorts from the kitchen, Peridot can feel him at her back.

“Come the fuck in!” Peridot roared, she was done with this, she was ready.

The battered and splintered door heaves off its hinges and a large pale hand reaches inside, Peridot holds her breath and tensed.

The Hunt was no longer a faceless mob, a head of wild white hair pushes into her house and Peridot raises her broom.

A wide chest covered in a battered meticulously clean set of armor, something out of a 17th-century dream, appears, the insignia of a tree on its center.

Arms as thick as tree stumps and a sharp unbroken nose, a woman stood in the doorway with a broadsword heavy against her side and the look of a born predator.

“So you're the next little fool who walked into the witch's web.” The silky voice of the soldier said, Peridot’s eyes narrowed and she held her back tall. The women looked Peridot up and down, “I’m Jasper.”

Peridot wrinkled her nose and fixed her mouth into a snarl, “Peridot.” She widens her stance, “I request a parley.”

Jasper looked around the house, “She really doesn’t have very good taste yet.” Jasper tapped on a picture of Peridot with her graduating class, “You think she’d pick up a millionaire or something already.” Jasper, this soldier chuckled and took another grating step into her house, “Or at least a model.”

“Parley,” Peridot said again dryly, trying to raise her voice as firmly as she could.

“You don’t have to keep saying words, you must know, we just want the girl.” Jasper was cat-like and sure in her movements, heavy and tensed with something powerful. Peridot could tell why she was the leader. Though that still left many questions.

“We have a witch.” Peridot said with her broom raised in the air as if it were dangerous, “And he is powerful, more powerful than you. And there are rules.”

Jasper tossed her head back lowly and chuckled, “Rules, rules, I see, such as my Hunt could simply tear you all apart, that’s a rule.”

Peridot ground her teeth and tried to meet Jasper’s angry yellow eyes, “I’m not the guilty one.”

Jasper’s smile tensed, the dog beside her shows his glinting white teeth in the dark, Jasper puts a hand over his maw, “Fair enough.”

Peridot’s shoulder’s relaxed, whoever controlled this Wild Hunt, Peridot could see the law and order in her eyes.

Peridot cleared her throat, “And I am the one with the skin.”

She visibly saw a tendon in the women’s neck pulse, “Oh yes, the famous skin stealing, where she pretends she’s helpless and you’ve incapacitated her. A classic.”

Peridot narrowed her eyes and breathed through her nose, “She isn’t whole, and I’m not yours to hunt.” She breathed in through her nose, “You should leave.”

Jasper visibly rolled her eyes, “That’s your game? That’s it?” Jasper snorts, “Short and stupid. You’d think I’d just leave after tracking you all this time? After waiting all these years for that demon to slither her way back onto land?” Jasper shakes her head.

Curiosity pricks in the back of Peridot’s mind but she holds firm, “We’ll negotiate.” Jasper’s eyes flick up and she stops in place, Peridot had her attention. “I’ve hidden the skin far away. If you give me time I will return it to the water spirit and deliver her to you.”

Saying the words out loud felt like chewing on leather while stabbing her mom. Unpleasant.

Jasper sniffs loudly, her sharp precise nose lifting in the air, “How can I believe any of that?”

Peridot lowered her eyes and stepped forward, “Fine. You don’t have to believe me.”

Jasper’s mouth turned up into a smile that breathed fury from it, “I could tear this house apart.” She lifts her hand, the eyes of the shadows from outside following it, “I could up-end every fiber of you and this place.”

Peridot squares her shoulders and meets her eyes, “And you won’t find the girl you want. She’s human.”

Jasper’s eyes lowered, her mouth turning down into a frown as she obviously thought.

“You want the selkie don’t you?” Peridot pressed, banking on her hunches.

“Shut up.” The women said with her hand out and Peridot felt a breach of hope. The wolf growled by Jasper’s side and Bathad was still at Peridot’s back, hopefully staring the other creature down.

A very long pause stretches between them, luckily, Percy doesn’t meow or anything in the silence.

Jasper turned right back around toward her, “What is it you want?”

Peridot’s shoulders sank and she exhaled, “You to leave. Outside of my street.”

Jasper snorts, “Let me ask, again, what do you want to do for me then?”

Peridot took a deep breath, “Negotiations.”

“To give me the girl?” Jasper asks sharply with her glinting white teeth playing off the low broken lights in Peridot’s house. Jasper raises her sword.

“If the price is right.” Peridot said lowly and Jasper paused for a moment, her mouth tearing into a grin.

“That is a statement I can work with.”

“Give me two weeks,” Peridot said in a hurry, feeling the end of her nerves and the manic hope this would end. The end of Jasper’s sword raises.

“Three days.”

Peridot grits her teeth, “A week.”

Jasper’s amber eyes meet hers with a wild ferocity, “Five days.” She snarls and Peridot refuses to let her knees give out or mind start screaming.

Peridot steels herself and puts her hand out, “Get out of my house.” Jasper takes her hand and they shake.

“I will send you our meeting place in four.”

Jasper’s skin feels clammy and rough as granite across her skin, a sickly pale pallor as the ghost women turns. Peridot is shaking from every fiber of her being.

The shadows shift outside as armor gleams, dark hooves paw the ground, and the gigantic heads of the wolves turn. Jasper gave a flick of her wrist and the shadows and figures and armor and hooves melted into what looked like one long hoard.

A procession of unlit faces and Peridot has to tear her eyes away.

Bathad snorts from the spot beside her and Peridot turns to him, he looks her down steadily, she frowns, “I bought us time.” She whispers as if defending herself.

Bathad holds her in a steady unearthly look.

Peridot gnaws on her bottom lip, “I’m going to protect her.”

He nods, Lapis bangs from above in the crawl space.

She was going to protect her.

Chapter Text

Lapis remembered watching a show that week about firemen. There was smoke and drama and someone was always sleeping with someone else. But after each fire, after each staged rescue the victims got a little blue shock-blankets they wrapped around their nervous shoulders. Lapis felt like she could use a blue shock blanket right at that moment.

She remembered the cramped dark space as she waited for bloodshed or mayhem, her heart in her throat as she balled her fists up. Why was she still running away? Why wasn’t she facing Jasper?

It was hers to deal with.

But Lapis stays in place, the ladder was gone, someone needed to comfort the cat. She waits.

She hears some words carry and rumbling downstairs, Peridot was talking, the world moved like slow syrup and only Lapis’s imagination kept her company.

It was like this might be the end, the world might end. And she had done it for the sake of a couple good pranks and bothering this stranger.

She waits.

Lapis’s nerves could have blown out after that, like electrical sockets after a surge, she heard Peridot exclaim, the house rumbles.

Lapis curls herself into a ball and grits her teeth until they hurt.

Footsteps thump downstairs and she could only imagine Peridot being squished at that point, Lapis buries her face in her hands.

She hears the front door open and close with a bang, her eyes are wide.

Something howls in the distance, one of those enormous demon dogs, thumping and drums and the noise of hooves start up, and then slowly retreat. Lapis is still holding her breath.

“No…” She whispers, a thousand scenarios go through her head.

Light footsteps pad on the landing stairs, someone was coming up, Lapis squeezes her eyes shut and braces.

The footsteps pause down below her, “You guys alright up there?”

Lapis could have gasped at that point, or maybe fainted like a victorian lady on TV.

She squirms toward the entrance again.

“Are you alright?!” She asks hurriedly as she rips the little door open of the suffocating crawl space.

Lapis sticks her head out and she is looking at Peridot’s big green eyes down below, her face was more pale than usual but unharmed, Lapis could have cried. They were somehow still struggling their way through this.

“Probably,” Peridot says weakly.

Lapis nods, “Same.”

“Here,” Peridot positions the ladder to the crawl space back in place and Lapis can just peer down and burning emotions churn in her gut like contrasting colors.

She hands the cat carrier down and Peridot let’s her fluffy upset cat back out and locks him in her bedroom.

“You kept him calm…” Peridot complimented as if she hadn’t just survived a warlord.

Lapis takes the ladder stairs two at a time and it simply feels like she’s falling.

“Peridot!” She gasped and practically leapt forward to pull her into a hug. She wraps her arms around her neck and squishes Peridot’s face to her chest, “Fuck, God.” She says in rasping relief, subtly trying to wipe at her eyes. “Oh my God, how did you...” She hugs so tightly she hopes she doesn’t break. “Dammit, you really must be able to talk kid.”

“Can’t breath,” Peridot stutters as Lapis tries to process the abilities of her little friend in her head.

“You saved us,” Lapis let up a little bit and let Peridot pull away, “How the hell did you save us?”

Peridot steps away and sniffs, but she’s not looking her in the eye. “I gave us some, time.” She says stiffly and Lapis tilts her head to the side.

“Jasper is pissed and blood thirsty and you somehow bought us time? Peridot,” She goes to yank her forward again but Peridot was putting her hands up. “That’s awesome.”

“You ever hear of Faust?” Peridot asked instead.

“Uh,” Lapis blinks, “Is that someone I should know?”

Peridot sighs and looks down at her shoes, “I bought us time, yeah.” She repeats, “But I don’t suspect deals with Mephistopheles ever work out well.” She sighs again.

Lapis frowns slightly, “You wagered something…” Lapis squared her shoulders, “A deal?”

Peridot’s large green eyes look up, finally meeting hers like a silent plea, “We should go meet Steven,” she took a deep breath, “We really need to go meet Steven.”

Lapis gives a jerky nod in return.

She gives Peridot one last awkward pat, feeling like she wanted to consume her in another shaking hug but Peridot was ushering them downstairs.

The sun was rising like an unsuited suitor that mocked their heavy eyelids, Peridot was speaking quickly. “We should bring whatever we can, do you think we need to pay him?”

“No?” Lapis says skeptically, she looks around the living room somberly. There was glass littering the floor like angry confetti, an arrow lodged into the table and a sturdy dark horse standing off to the side.

Bathad meets her eyes and snorts, he wasn’t happy.

“Easy boy…” She steps forward and Bathad was glancing at Peridot with a hard look, he really wasn’t happy. “We survived the night.” Lapis confirms, trying to soothe his dark images.

Ulyana had slipped back into their presence as well, her easy eyes ringed with yellow and looking between them with a knowing apprehension.

“You are a quick thinker,” Ulyana was addressing Peridot who was retying her boots, “though I didn’t think,” Ulyana lifts her chin coolly, “You’d sacrifice that. I underestimated.”

“Stop it.” Peridot snaps, she was looking around, “It’s not a sacrifice.” Peridot grits, “It’s a deal, and all deals…” The other girl breathed, “have backdoors.”

Lapis folds her arms, “What did you do?” She leans forward, “Something stupid?”

Peridot rubs her neck, “Something kind of stupid,” She looks up, “We will really need Steven.” Peridot sighed, “If he can help.”

Ulyana gives a Lapis a look that tells her a lot more than it should. She wished she could keep her underlings in line, she sighs herself, or maybe just safe.

She goes back into her room at Peridot’s insistence and yanks on sturdy jeans, a workout t-shirt and a further sense that they were going back into battle.

Deals with the devil never usually ended well, she should know, Lapis fluffs her hair in the mirror, she was a kind of devil herself.

--------------

They quickly gather supplies and Lapis chokes down an energy bar while they hurry across the crushed glass on the floor to the front door.

“Do we need to go through the unseen zone?” Lapis asks hurriedly as she points to Ulyana.

Peridot shakes her head, “The deal is in place.”

“Ugh,” Lapis folded her arms across her chest, “You really did negotiate.” She wrinkles her nose.

“Be careful little water witch!” Ulyana was still calling out to her, “ask her what it was.” Lapis just glances at the rusalka and the other being had her lips pursed, she follows Peridot out the door.

Ulyana’s words ring through her ears but she follows Peridot into the rising sun and sun soaked sidewalks, it was unusually nice day already. They practically run most of the way, free of dogs or howls or anything else this time.

Lapis looks around as she runs after her, “what did you bet?” She jogs, “Like honestly, I’m just happy we’re alive, but if are playing the dumb hero role…” She threatens, trying to follow and talk at the same time.

Peridot takes a left turn and then blinks back at her, “Trust me, I wish I was playing the dumb hero.” She murmurs and then squares her shoulders, “This way.”

They find a small wooded area that rang with bird songs and smelled all the green growing things in the world. Old.

Lapis studies the twisting trees as they make their way into a wooded park, denser than most and she holds her breath.

Peridot was bouncing from foot to foot and swore at Steven’s map as they wandered deeper into the undergrowth, Lapis points their way to a clearing. He said it was a clearing.

Peridot was still pulling at her hair and looking like someone who was also in need of a shock blanket, Lapis puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” She murmurs, “This will be okay.”

Peridot froze softly and hung her head, she looked up ever so slowly, “I bet you Lapis.” She croaked, “It’s you.” Peridot seems to gulp thickly.

Lapis just squeezes her shoulder, “Good.” Peridot’s face broke into a profound grimace, Lapis looks up, “I’m the one that pissed her off in the first place.” Her eyes glaze over and her shoulders sink, “Humans aren’t the only one with consequences…”

Peridot shook her head fervently, “There’s got to be a workaround!” She grabbed Lapis’s hand, holding it between her warm little iron fingers. “Even Faust was saved.”

Lapis frowns at her a little sadly, “what was the deal?”

Peridot huffs and looks down at her shoelaces, “It doesn’t matter.” She turned away, “We’re not going through with it.”

The soft weather licks at Lapis’s shins, a warm breeze, and Lapis watches the back of Peridot’s neck quietly.

She taps Peridot on the shoulder, waiting for her to turn haltingly around. Lapis puts her hand out, presenting it shyly in the growing light.

Peridot took a very long look at it, as if contemplating her fingertips and the depths of her palm. Finally, Peridot takes her hand and they stand in the clearing with nothing more to say.

Her hand feels warm and slightly shaky in hers, they turn slowly and stand in between the immense trees, looking toward the rising light as they wait for Steven.

Lapis doesn't let go and their shadows grow until there is just a silhouette of them, two small figures holding hands in the clearing as they wait.

Chapter Text

The sun hung low in the air like a thinly cut lemon slice, weak with drained white light and softly warming tendrils, a decent enough day for the California winter.

Peridot’s right hand was shaking slightly but finally feeling less numb and unreal, a set of fingers interlaced with hers and Peridot clamped down on the smooth narrow palm. After the night Peridot had, it was one of her only consolations.

Her temples pound gently and she takes deep breaths, Steven would come, something would be done. Lapis would be safe.

They waited for another few minutes in silence, caught up in their own churning thoughts and watching the pale sun rise. Peridot’s eyes were glazed over when they hear a rustling stirs from the bushes, Peridot tenses and Lapis raises the ax she brought quickly. They should have been less surprised when Steven stumbles out of the brush.

“Woah,” he glances at the sharp weapon poised in Lapis’s hands and Peridot gently grabs Lapis’s elbow.

Peridot exhales wearily at him, “Good to see you.”

Steven glances at the sharp object, “Good to see you too?”

Lapis slowly unfurls and lowers the weapon, “Steven. Sorry,” She smiles weakly, “it’s been a long night.” Her smile stretches loosely in a way that shows the bags under her eyes.

Steven nods at them immediately, some intrinsic comprehension turning in his young mind, “tell me.”

Lapis glances at Peridot, “I don’t fully understand what happened myself,” she looks back to Steven, “but we were invaded last night.”

Steven’s eyes went wide as dinner plates, “they found you.” He whispers and his shoulders fall, he stares ahead for a moment before pulling on his hair, “dang it!” Steven looked personally upset at the prospect.

“She left, gone,” Peridot said quickly, “we made a deal. We have time. We aren’t…” Well, they weren’t dead yet.

Steven was frowning deeply, “I should have scheduled sooner.” He looked down at his stomach as if cursing it, “my mom…” He trails off.

Lapis puts a hand on his shoulder, “Thank you for coming.” She says softly and cringes slightly, “but this isn’t your burden. We even understand if you want out.” Lapis chuckles lowly, “a war machine versus two people isn’t something you have to join.”

Steven looks between them and then fixes Lapis with a steely look, “I’m a war machine too!” He puffs his chest out and Peridot snickers a little, he pouts, “What? It could be true.”

Peridot pushes her lank messy bangs back, “I don’t think war would suit you.” She sets her mouth in a hard line, “but any powers you do have…”

Lapis’s turns to her sternly, “We aren’t having him fight-”

Peridot put her hand up to stop her and then met Steven’s eye, “how much do you know about charms at least? Protection spells?”

Steven seems to chew on something, “Pearl taught me, but they wouldn’t last for long, they’re all temporary.”

Peridot felt like she was grasping at straws and stray arrays of thoughts that faded away like mist as she grasped at them, “time. Maybe, just more time.”

She feels a strong hand come down on her shoulder, squeezing it, Peridot turns to see Lapis grabbing her firmly, “no.” She rasps.

Peridot blinks, “No?”

Lapis takes a deep breath in through her nose, “I didn’t want to do this, but…” She bites her lip and squares her shoulders, “Steven, what do you know about the local witch council?”

Steven raised his eyebrows and a beat passes, “I know of them.” He says slowly and looks down at his feet, “They don’t like me very much I’ve heard.”

Peridot frowned slowly at Lapis, “What are you getting at?”

Lapis glances at Peridot sharply, hand still on her shoulder.

“We can’t just rely on charms forever,” She responds evenly, “We’ll just be hiding and waiting, like cat and mouse. Slightly more protected mice.”

Peridot tilted her head, “So, then?”

Lapis drew herself up to her full height, “What we need is a way to drive them out. Go on the offensive.”

Peridot lifts her chin and studies her face, “I’m listening,” she says lowly.

Lapis turned back to Steven, “Steven, I don’t want to put this one you, but I know they’ll listen, I assume witches can only become so much less conceded over a couple centuries.”

Steven watches her evenly, he nods, “I’m listening too.”

Lapis lets go of Peridot’s shoulder and steps forward, “If we can drive them out.” She announces and Peridot watches the lean curves of her back arch and expand.

Lapis looks between all of them and keeps going.

“If we put up a barrier then The Hunt will be forced to lose us. They’ll have to pick a new target since they can’t be without something to track. That’s their servitude. The endless pursuit.” Lapis stood up straight and faced them, “If you drive them off now we won’t have to live our lives in constant fear of them.”Lapis visibly winces, “They’ll latch onto some other guilty soul.”

Lapis’s hands were balled up into fists and her jaw was set, eyes electric and almost sparkling in the early morning light, Peridot gulps dryly.

She heard Steven take an audible breath, “do you think they could really do all that? The council I mean.”

Lapis put her hands on her hips, “a witches council in a city this size? And you?” She nods, “a Walpurgis Night will be arriving soon too, if they are anything like other Witches Council's I’ve met, they’ll be itching to reassert themselves on their turf when we ask.”

They both look to Steven for his response.

He was setting his jaw, “I want to help.” He says clearly, evenly, “I’m not sure if they’ll listen, but, but I want to do something good with my mom’s power.”

Lapis’s eyes go soft, “Steven,” reached forward, “it’s your choice, no obligation. I don’t want to pressure you, you are honestly the nicest human I’ve met here.”

Peridot clears her throat at that and Lapis just briefly wink at her.

Steven takes a shaking breath, “I want to try, if I can.”

Peridot watches Lapis tap their heads together, “You are the most powerful witch I have ever met,” she squeezes his hand, “They’ll listen to that. And if nothing else,” she grinned, “I have a feeling they’ll listen to you .”

Steven nodded firmly and then, slowly, his professional wide, gleaming smile spread across his face, “and then you can show me water magic!”

Lapis leaned back and put her hands on her hips, “Naturally.” She exhales, “then I can do a lot of things, honestly,” she glances at Peridot, “like buy us more than three bath towels.”

Peridot rolled her eyes, “it was a working system before I owned a horse, a Russian water lady, and…” She gives a soft smile, “another roommate.”

Lapis grins back at that and turns to Steven, “if we’re all in then I think we can start planning before me or Peridot crashes.”

“No crashing,” Peridot stepped forward grimly, “five days. Five days before my parley.”

Lapis groans and widens her stance again, “okay, alright, five days.” Lapis was looking at Peridot closely. “We can do this.”

Steven bounced on the balls of his feet, “We could make matching jackets, like heist jackets or something.”

Peridot watches Lapis furrow her brow, “we’ll talk about it.”

They take out a large piece of paper and couple ideas that only occasionally got off track by jacket design logos (a seal holding a knife was the first suggestion).

-----------------

Peridot felt her temples thumping, a dry gray taste was in her mouth and her head was swimming in something like bad murky syrup. She lay down after Steven needed to go home for lunch and she was starting to feel the effects of being up all night.

She sighs and lets the grass tickle her neck and the bleached blue sky float in her vision, Lapis says goodbye to Steven. Peridot dozes blankly in the sun for a moment and then feels a sharp nudge on her side.

“Hey pointy, get up.” Lapis says bluntly and Peridot rubs her face.

She gives a deep dramatic sniff and reaches her arms in the air, “Carry me.”

She almost hear Lapis rolling her eyes, “you wish honey.”

Peridot chuckles, “I do. Don’t heroes get a piggyback ride? A hero back ride.”

Lapis was chuckling too and bending over her, “I don’t have the energy to be clever with you right now Per. Get up or I’ll have to start being dumb with you instead.” Peridot arches her back, almost attempting to flop to her feet. She flops back down as the energy fades from her limbs.

“Perhaps this clearing would make a nice home, a wooded flat if you will,” she muses out loud. She feels another light kick to her side.

“Or a nice grave,” Lapis quips back darkly and Peridot rolls over feebly, mumbling about a good point and stretching her weary limbs.

“I’m going into early retirement,” she pops her ankle and stands up.

Lapis grabs her wrist as she teeters back and forth, “I’ll join you.”

Peridot raises an eyebrow, “you really are tired. That’s not even a snarky comment.”

“I told you,” Lapis says weakly and Peridot suddenly feels a pair of eyes on her mouth, Lapis walks her slowly backward, “I’ve changed tactics. I’m being dumb with you now.”

Peridot gave a shallow smile, “May I ask why?”

Lapis looked at her face up and down, “no.”

Peridot exhales and studies Lapis's mouth for a very long moment, curving and chapped in the low light. Lapis's eyes fall down and there is something small and vulnerable there, she leans forward and Peridot softly closes her eyes.

They kiss, tasting like something lemon and desperate and maybe falling apart, it feels like it might break her chest and she kisses harder. A leaf lands gently in her hair and Lapis holds her up against the side of the tree as she kisses her.

Chapter Text

So kissing was a thing. It was actually kind of a good thing?

Maybe Lapis could have been doing this all along, threatening to drown her for the last couple months aside.

Her mouth was pressed against hers, soft, hard, real. Lapis’s temple was thumping in her wrist and her exhaustion was replaced by a wave of something flushed and almost trembling. Maybe it was Peridot.

Lapis kissed her harder and her hands slid lower down her collarbone, she nipped at her bottom lip and she slowly let her in, level and bruising. The taste was a little musty after a long night adventure but she didn’t mind, maybe this was the best way, the only way.

Lapis tilts her head and breathes her in, the touch reminds of memories, a distant sea breeze and puffy wisps of clouds above her head as she floated, really floated. And it felt like that.

She only pulls away when she feels her lungs start to burn.

She swallows thickly and pulls back, Peridot’s eyes were wide and both of them panted softly; Lapis searches her face. Her cheeks were flushed and messy-hair even more disheveled, her lips slightly swollen and red. Lapis wets her own lips again.

They stare each other, the high noon sun flickering above and Lapis runs a hand through her hair and starts to giggle, an actual ‘giggle.’

She meets Peridot’s eye and laughs, “So.” She says and puts her hands on her hips. “So!”

Peridot nods as if she understood, she pushed her glasses back on her nose, “And I thought it was all in my head…”

Lapis throws her hands behind her head, “it what?”

Peridot shrugs and pushes a strand of hair of Lapis’s face, “that we would ever do that. That it wasn’t in my head.” Lapis’s mouth falls open, and then she closes it again.

“Oh.”

Peridot leans forward and something earnest overtakes her features. “I have something I need to give you.”

Lapis blinks and then grows a sly smile, she taps her mouth, “I’m hoping it’s another one of those maybe.”

Peridot straightens up against the tree behind her, she sighs, “no, unfortunately. It just needs to be done.”

Lapis blinks a couple times, her thoughts ordering themselves one by one into a set of little marching ducklings, here it was. Lapis reaches her hand down and finds Peridot’s small cracked ones, she weaves their fingers together, “wait.” She breathes softly, she tugs on Peridot’s hand. “Just a little.”

Peridot slowly squeezed her hand back, “it’s time.”

Lapis frowns slightly and pulls her gently, “one last thing.” She gives a strained grin, she could feel it bloom her face like a sad drooping flower opening up. “It’s a human thing.”

Peridot blinks back at her and Lapis walks them slowly back in the direction of the house with their aching limbs and popping joints.

They seemed to unwind like uncrumpling tissues as they walk, Peridot putting her head on Lapis’s shoulder and seeming to yawn every other moment.

“So,” she finally said as her house came into view, “what is this human thing?”

Her yawn seemed contagious and Lapis let out a massive-lion one, “you’ll see.” She says mildly and opens the gate for them to walk through.

Peridot wrapped an arm around Lapis’s waist, “did you know picking up glass in people’s living room is a time honored human tradition? Past down generation to generation, really, quite cultural.”

Lapis pushes Peridot slightly, “sounds a little too human for me, I wouldn’t want to impose for that one.” She gives a cheeky smile and Peridot sticks her tongue out back.

She laughs and they both practically fall through the door, “we’re home!”

Bathad snorts at them from the kitchen and they hear a faint meow from deeper in the house, Lapis yawns again.

“I will actually dislodge that arrow from our table,” she says as she wipes at her eyes, “but maybe in a moment after I drag my corpse to a nap.”

She starts to wobble to her bedroom, ready to lay her body down and let her muscles yell at her until she drifted off into a light coma.

“Wait,” Peridot’s hand was on Lapis’s wrist and she turns away slowly, still rubbing her eyes with her free hand.

Lapis blinks at Peridot, “yeah?”

Peridot’s eyes flicked back and forth, her mouth gaping, “it’s…the night’s been…it’s been a night.”

“Uh-huh.” Lapis scratched her chin.

Peridot struggled and then took a deep breath, Lapis could see her hands still shaking slightly. “Should we really be alone right now?”

Lapis didn’t quite see the logic in that, they just negotiated a ceasefire, but she could see Peridot’s shoulders tensing and her frame vibrating slightly. Lapis can feel her own thoughts threatening to overflow as well. Jasper had gotten in.

She nods slowly and then they make a silent agreement to make their way upstairs together, Lapis barely manages to take her jean shorts off.

There was a bruise on her thigh and she kicks off her shoes to some unknown region of the universe she doubted she was ever going to find again. She climbs into bed, into Peridot’s bed and pulled the covers up until it blocked out the light.

She feels the mattress sink next to her, another figure joining her, Peridot wiggled under the blankets with a contented sigh.

Lapis reaches out and wraps her arms around the other girl’s shoulders and drags her closer, pressing Peridot’s face into her chest and exhaling.

“Gah,” Peridot squawks, “what are you doing?”

Lapis kissed the top of her head, “staying close.”

Peridot seemed to struggle for a moment and then accept her like a uncoiling spring, she rearranges their arms and legs to mesh and Lapis drifted off by the time her head was rightly situated on her chest.

Her mind is blank like an erased chalkboard and despite everything her last thoughts were on her tingling lips and that bubbling feeling in her chest and not the next four days. Her body melded into Peridot’s and her conscious is cushioned into the dark.

---------------

Peridot woke up like a parachute opened: slowly and then all at once. She was falling, warm, John Green was there.

First she felt the radiating warmth across her body, holding her close, the world was soft and plush. She felt two wiry forearms and an uncountable amount of legs wrapped around hers, maybe two, maybe five, they were intertwined like that.

She felt her face against something soft and Peridot’s eyes were open like a shock-dream about your Freshman year math teacher. Lapis was all around her, Peridot considers jumping up and rolling off to some dark corner to think, but Lapis was there, Lapis was soft.

She kisses her collarbone gently and closes her eyes again, this might be what good felt like.

Peridot didn’t completely remember going to bed, but she didn’t remember her last two birthdays either and yet here she was, twenty-six, barely out of her socially awkward phase (it may be a life time membership) and in the arms of a beautiful woman.

It felt like a dream she wasn’t going to try to wake up from yet.

Peridot dozed numbly, her mind wandering to her next winter break semester she was teaching and the presents she was going to buy her mom for Hanukah little second cousin would be turning 13 too and her uncle was almost dead so it may be time to send him two presents.

Peridot drifts in and out of this world until she feels her body complaining, specifically, her bladder. She starts to squirm and turn around, she could only put this off for so long.

Peridot slides her left leg out from Lapis’s boa constrictor arrangement and kisses her shoulder before she got up to leave. She feels the arms tighten around her middle.

“Where are you going?” Lapis slurred without opening her eyes.

Peridot blinks, “I need to pee. I’ll be right back.”

She felt Lapis roll over closer to her and curl around Peridot, pressing her chin to her head and encompassing her, “Stay.”

Peridot started to scowl, “I don’t suppose you want to know what happens when people are denied restrooms.”

She could feel Lapis smiling into her skin, “hold it. That’s true love darlin’.”

Peridot’s face flushes at the word ‘love,’ but Lapis’s tone was far too teasing to be serious. Peridot snorts weakly, “I wouldn’t push it, honestly, I took lessons from my aunt’s chihuahua who revenge peed on everything.” She murmurs and tries to roll over again

“You don’t have the guts.” Lapis murmured and traced a heart into her skin.

Peridot kicked uselessly, “come on.”

Lapis just holds on tighter, “I need your little radiator warmth.”

Peridot shakes her head, “and I need to get out of this bed. Don’t you want me to go that human thing? I won’t be able to go to it if I’m doing laundry.”

Lapis grumbles something and then has them sit up, she lightly pushing herself to a sitting position and rubs her eyes, the cream colored sheet were tossed over them like a little cloth tent.

Peridot props herself up and blinks for a moment, the sheet pulled down and just the two of them in the cotton universe.

“What is this human thing you want to do?” She finally asks, free but still pressed in another way.

Lapis stretched her and then put her hands on Peridot’s shoulders to look her in the eye, “guess.”

Peridot scrunched her nose up, “Nevermind, cute. But not cute enough.” She crawls out of bed to the floor.

“No fun,” Lapis calls after her and she rolls her eyes.

“Want a water or something?” She asks as she finally reaches the bathroom door.

“Just pee already!”

She didn’t have to be told twice.

Once Peridot had finished and brushed her teeth and finally changed her dingy shirt, she lifted the sheets up lightly and pokes her way back into the little cavern, Lapis was still sitting there mutely. Her knees drawn to her chest and she was holding the edges of the blankets down to keep them in the low light.

Peridot grinned, “is it cotton candy? You haven’t tried cotton candy yet.”

Lapis made a face, “I’m not making my last human indulgence eating cotton.”

Peridot rolled her eyes, “okay, well, I’ll get you some later anyway, it’s not what you think.”

Lapis shakes her head, “I should have known you’re not a great guesser.”

“Is it a pony?”

“We have a horse.” Lapis says with a snort and Peridot nods thoughtfully. She finally sighs, “I’ll give you a hint,” she starts to pantomime a flat surface and holding two invisible objects.

Peridot raised an eyebrow, “you want to meet a mime.” Lapis sniffs and takes a drink of an invisible cup, “you want to go to tea time.” Lapis sits up straight and makes a circle motion, “tea time with the Queen.”

Lapis sighs dramatically, “you’re impossible.”

Peridot shrugs, “perhaps, but I don’t plan to leave this bed again for another decade anyway.” She cracks her neck and cringes at the noise it makes.

Lapis’s brow furrowed into a ‘v’ shape, “I guess we’ll have to take our human date in this bed then. It’s almost shame.”

Peridot’s face falls slowly and she feel her heart picking up into a sprint, “I mean…” She could feel the blood draining from her face, “You mean… you’re serious?” She blinks, “you want to go out to dinner with uh, with me?”

Lapis scowled slightly, “so you did get it was a restaurant, you are terrible.”

Peridot was still searching her face and leaning forward, “you want to go on a date.”

Lapis sighs and reaches forward, Peridot almost retracts but then allows for Lapis to weave her hand through Peridot’s hair, pushing it all the way back. Lapis raises her eyebrows, “Or this can be our first day, it depends.” Lapis sits cross-legged and Peridot tilts her head.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve been in that many, though this usually is the end location of the date fyi.”

Lapis gave her a little smile, “why not just condense it all? We’re already here.”

Peridot sits crossed legged as well, “true.” She sets an invisible table, “and this is way less money.”

Lapis snorts, “that’s what a look for in a woman. Won’t spend money and let’s me date her in bed.”

Peridot bounced her eyebrows up and down, “date her in bed, huh? If that’s what the ancient water God spirits are calling it these days.”

Lapis shuffles backward and pretends to pour something, and keep pouring, “easy, we’re at a fine mattress restaurant.”

Peridot rolled her eyes, “what are you pouring?”

Lapis raised both eyebrows, “whiskey.”

Peridot laughs, “and what are we eating?”

“Sauerkraut and texas skillet.” She says dryly and Peridot laughs again.

“I was thinking of something else actually…” She bounces her eyebrows again and Lapis grabs at one of the pillows and throws it at her.

“Eat your kraut and whiskey.” Lapis tutts at her, “we’re in public.”

Peridot exhales deeply and pantomimes eating, “this really isn’t as satisfying as real steak would be.” She grumbles as she remembers she hadn’t eaten yet.

Lapis leans forward in the sheet canopy, “this is our home now, I hope you like mites and laundry detergent smell.”

Peridot crawled toward her, “I hope you like me since that means we’re stuck here.” She put a hand on her forehead, “as is fate.”

She felt Lapis grab her around the waist and yank her into her lap, “didn’t I just ask you out? I’ll have to like you.”

Peridot feels her face heat up like a convection oven set by a drunk housewife, “this date is all out of order.”

Lapis nuzzled her neck, “Then show me a real one.”

Peridot smiles slightly and turns around, her heart pounds in her chest and she pecks Lapis on the mouth- because apparently she could do that now.

“Okay.” She arches back, “I’d like that.”

Lapis smiles too, “good. I already let my guard down and everything for this, no therapist needed for it even.”

Peridot relaxes against her and closes her eyes, “I’ve never had a girlfriend before.”

“Now you do,” she soothes, “a fish-friend.” Lapis says gruffly.

“No.” Peridot pushes away from her.

“Wet-pet.”

Peridot threw her hands in the air, “Much worse.”

“We are already married though.” Lapis says lightly and Peridot wraps her arms around her neck.

“Don’t worry,” Peridot murmurs with another kiss, “I’m divorcing you soon.” She kisses her nose, “And we can do this all over again.”

Lapis rotates them and kisses her down down down into the mattress, lips on hers and pressing against her deeply.

“Okay,” Lapis says between kisses and a soft sigh, “divorce me.” She holds Peridot’s hand, “that’s one of the most romantic things someone’s said to me in a long time.”

They do spend most of the day in bed, but Lapis proclaims ‘date first’ and Peridot has to scramble to dig out her good bowtie.

Chapter Text

“So,” Lapis drummed her fingers on the white chair she perched on, stiff and trying to decipher a menu in front of her with more descriptions than actual food names. She flicks her eyes up and goes to lean on her chin, “tell me about yourself.”

Peridot raises one eyebrow and Lapis glances at her fine red bowtie with a navy jacket and pressed matching pants, something squiggles on her insides but she stays in place.

Peridot gives a half-smile, “we don’t have to actually act like it’s a first date.” Peridot scratches her nose, “our third date was probably running for our lives from a sewer monster soooo.”

Lapis scoffs and the soft violin music played behind her in the honeysuckle yellow room. They had made it to a restaurant with an actual wine menu, with bottles over fifty dollars and everything.

Lapis lifts her chin, “I think we skipped a couple things.” She smiles back next, “And I think you’re supposed to save bandaging up my skewed bloody body for the fifth date.”

Peridot chuckles a little bit, she put her menu down. “Alright,” she tapped her chin, “can I ask you about yourself then if that’s the deal?”

Lapis frowns slightly, “can I make all the good bits up?”

Peridot rolls her eyes, “I’m going to be facing down a ghost army in two days.” She leaned over the table, “I can take your secrets to my grave.”

Lapis reaches forward, she strokes her cheek and something burns in her chest, “secret for secret. I’ll match you.”

Peridot raises her eyebrows, “I’m not sure if my lifestyle,” she coughs, “might live up to yours.”

“Nonsense,” she puts her chin on her hand and meets her eye, “elementary secrets. Secrets of the universe,” she winks, “sexy secrets.”

Peridot looks her up and down, “sexy secrets, huh.” Lapis sits up straight at the look she’s giving her, then Peridot gives a wry smile, “well, if you have to know. Freshly cut paper is my kink.”

Lapis makes a face, “I hope you're joking. Paper cuts suck.”

Peridot kicks her gently under the table, “but the smell? Of fresh paper?” She let out a satisfied sigh, “and they wonder why I’m an academic.”

“Pfft,” Lapis snickers and reaches over, she adjusts Peridot’s glasses. “I don’t think anyone’s wondered why you’re an academic ever.”

Peridot sticks her tongue out, “I could do a lot of other things.” She pulls herself up to her full height. “Filmmaking. Wrestling. Wrestling while I film it.”

Lapis laughs and claps her hands together, “wrestling, alright! We’re getting somewhere.”

They are laughing when the waiter comes up and they order the chef’s special, that had to be the most straightforward way to go.

Lapis keeps her eyes on Peridot’s face, and lets her shoulders relax. “For real though.”

“What?”

Lapis taps her chin and leans close to her, “Like, where were you born?”

Peridot sticks her lip out slightly before nodding, “Phoenix Arizona.”

“And?” Lapis prods her.

She shrugs, “Hot, smelled like rubber, everyone owned a pool, I needed glasses by the time I was two. Won a bunch of science fairs.” She claps her hands, “Life story.”

“Boo,” Lapis throws a pedal from the roses on the table at her, “the paper kink was more interesting.”

Peridot snorts, “and then I came to SoCal around like eleven.”

Lapis shook her head, “alright, okay, why’d you come here? It’s pretty I mean.” She tilts her head and Peridot’s face drags down into something a little dark, Lapis raises her eyebrows.

Peridot looks off into the distance, “I mean,” She clears her throat, “my mom wanted to come live here to be close to her sister when my dad, uh, passed.”

“Oh,” Lapis shifts from side to side, that’s not what she expected. “I’m sorry.”

Peridot shakes her head, “don’t be. They weren’t great for each other. And I had...I didn’t see him much before anyway.”

“Oh.” Lapis’s hands twitch, she wants to reach out toward her. “Your mom,” she smiles softly, “she seems great though.”

Peridot gave a slow smile, “she is.” She looks away, “Pretty great. When she’s not badgering me.”

Lapis shrugs and makes little quotations, “she seems like the ‘concerned’ type.”

“Yes. A lot.” Peridot shook her head, “There was a lot of hovering. Hovering and circling. O couldn’t go out. Couldn’t date. Couldn’t own t-shirts with swear words.” Peridot met Lapis’s eye, “I was so pissed. And shrill about it, ugh.”

Lapis studies her, “and now?”

Peridot tilts her head, “I think, I understand, maybe a little,” her eyes linger on two plates coming out from the kitchen in a waiter's hand. “She was probably worried she messed up with my dad and needed to make sure I was ‘stable,’ whatever that is. But she cared. You can’t say that for a lot of parents, so I think, yeah. Yeah.”

Lapis face breaks into a large smile, “I could meet her one day.”

Peridot reaches across the table, she takes her hand tentatively, slowly, she rubs her thumb up over her fingers as she holds it.  “I’d like that.”

Their food is brought to the table and Peridot also orders one of the wines that come from the $50 menu. Lapis’s head goes a little dizzy from it.

“I could just get us fairy wine,” she murmurs as she looks down at a plate of what appeared to be sizzling lamb chops.

“Isn’t that the part where you end up naked and playing pan flutes in the woods?”

Lapis beams, “exactly. You’re getting it.” They chuckle and start eating, the food is tender and falls off the bone- just as she hoped it might for the price.

It’s only when Peridot looks up again does she pause. Her thoughts slowing as Peridot gives her an intent look. Peridot swallowed purposefully and turned back to her.

“Where were you born?”

Lapis tenses slightly and can feel her jaw lock, she takes a long minute to look back at her. Her nice blue suit jacket and bright red bow tie against the yellow lights of the fine dining restaurant. Her large green eyes focused and open, like doors or blades of grass, Lapis purses her lips for a long moment.

She takes a deep breath and steadies the alarms going off in her head, this isn’t what she came on land to do all those months ago.

“Sogndal,” she says simply, “but…” she pauses and grits her teeth. Peridot waits slowly for her, “my mom was ‘born’ in the Philippines. Of the winds and the waves that came together to kiss.”

Peridot gives her a look, “seriously.”

Lapis kicks her gently, “yes really. Unless you forgot what I was before you hoodwinked me.”

Peridot ducks her head, “right right, sorry.”

Lapis exhales and slides into a softer smile, “it was a decent hoodwink. Good even.” She watches Peridot flush slightly.

“I try…”

“Anyway.” Lapis puts a hand in the air, “She had a tryst with some sailor in the Indian Ocean. I guess, she never got too detailed. After that she followed the currents and ended up near this tiny town off the straits of Norway.” Lapis clenches and unclenches her hands, “she beached to have me and…” She looks the other direction.

Peridot’s eyes were huge and she was studying her, “and?”

Lapis shrugs and tries to play it off with a wavering smile, “you know how the story goes dummy. Some fisherman stole her skin. And then I had a stepdad.” Lapis felt her eyes empty out at the phrase.

Peridot lets a long moment pass as she waits for more, Lapis purses her lips and just looks away. Peridot points at her exposed shoulder, “Did your skin grow in young? Or like, um, in selkie puberty?”

Lapis rolled her eyes, “I grew up like everyone else Peri.”

“Oh.” Her eyes were wide, curious.

“Not that I am like everyone else,” she fluffs her hair and Peridot chuckles.

“Of course.”

Lapis looks down at her food, Peridot waits another minute or so for her to think. She nudged her lamb chops across the plate, she doesn’t look up. “My mom gave me her skin when I was eighteen. She was powerful. None of what happened was supposed to happen, you know? And I dove right into the ocean where the others were.” Peridot was quiet, Lapis flashes her eyes up. “As the story goes.”

Peridot nods and whispers, “She sounds like a lovely woman.” Lapis reaches for her face and smooths down a piece of stray hair.

“She was,” she grits her teeth and then gives out a high-pitched laugh, “I was just a rotten daughter. I never even looked back.”

Lapis holds her breath, she viciously picks up her fork and knife to tear into the chops now, she only pauses to rub viciously at her eyes with the back of her hand.

She freezes when a soft hand lands on her knee.

“You did what you could. I’m sure,” she looks up ever so slightly, Peridot looked earnest. She always looked earnest. “I’m sure she’d be proud of you.”

Lapis scrunches her nose up, “I think she’d call me a land gremlin who crawled into a human woman’s lap.”

Peridot sniffs, “Well, I mean.” She scratched the back of her neck, “You’ve been very good at keeping us alive- she’d probably like that. I mean, I like that.”

Lapis melts back into herself a little, “And it’s a nice lap anyway.” She looks away and then rubs at her eyes again. “Fuck,” she whispers, “I didn’t mean to go into all that.”

Peridot squeezes her arm carefully, “I’m glad. I’m glad you did!” She reaches up toward Lapis’s face, “we’re a team.”

She can feel her face heating up like a microwave with tinfoil inside, Lapis squirms in place, she looks back and forth and then back to Peridot. She takes her hand with her eyes half-lidded, “wanna get out of here?”

Peridot gives a half smile, “I’ll get the rest of the wine to go.”

They box up the rest of their fancy meal and take the bottle in a little brown bag, they leave the restaurant with the soft music, low yellow lights, and waiters in suits.

Lapis fixes Peridot’s collar when they get back outside, examining her pressed outfit, “all that for little old me.” She points at the starch collar.

Peridot looks over her shoulder at her, “I always wanted to wear this on a date, got it like in eleventh grade.” She grins, “my classmates would have freaked if I brought a girl like you to homecoming with me though.”

“A fish person?” Lapis looks off to the sidewalk as they walk uphill, “people can be more tolerant of the monster underclass than you might think actually. I bit off a guys pinky finger in this English village once and they threw me a parade.”

Peridot laughs, “that’s pretty great.” She elbows her, “but I was talking about if I brought a hot girl.”

Lapis points to an ice cream place across the way, “so hot, amirite?”

Peridot tugs on her wrist as they cross the street, “you have no idea.”

Lapis follows along with her white skirt flitting around her legs, she snorts, “Yeah. The kind who cries at restaurants, you’re welcome.”

“Hey,” Peridot slows down, she meets her eye and they stand outside the ice cream parlor. “It’s okay.”

Lapis doesn’t meet her eye, “Let's never mention my emotions again.”

Peridot rolls her eyes and then gets on her tiptoes, Lapis feels a warm kiss on the cheek, “I’m about to face off with the demonic forces of the supernatural. And I’m getting ice cream. I think we’re both a little messy.”

Lapis snorts and threads their fingers together, “we’ve done weirder things.”

She buys her a double fudge ice cream and kisses Peridot up against a tree before they even make it home.

Chapter Text

Peridot squirmed against the corner of her desk, the hard corner digging into her back, her cheeks flushing and vision blurring over as sharp teeth dug into her neck.

“Oh,” she huffed breathily. “There.”

Lapis held Peridot’s arms and kissed her neck roughly, biting down and sucking on the sensitive skin, Peridot bites her lip and tosses her head back in response. Her whole body was tingling and there was flush working itself up from her fingers to the tips of her ears. Lapis knew what she was doing.

“You’re so small,” Lapis put her hands around Peridot’s waist, laughing slightly as she pressed another kiss up to her jawline, “and noisy.”

Peridot made an indignant noise and she just snorts, Peridot grabbed onto the desk as Lapis slowly tilted her backward. They had made it into her room this time and the bright lights of the moon played across Lapis’s nose and pretty brown skin.

She tries to kiss her again and Lapis drags her hands lightly over her sides, she shivers.

“Don’t worry,” her back presses up against the corner of the table, “I’ve got you.” Her voice is caught in her throat now as the bruising kiss spins her thoughts into bright spiraling patterns.

“Lapis,” she says wetly before swallowing, she clenches her jaw, she wants to melt right there. But there’s a jagged edge in her thoughts, catching on her wants and snagging in her mind’s eye. This was it.

Peridot puts her hand out, Lapis softly takes it.

Lapis was biting her lip, squeezing her hand as she looked her up and down, there was something hungry in her eyes. Peridot parts her legs a little and Lapis presses up in between them.

“You’re so pretty,” she weaves her free hand through her short locks and kisses her nose, Peridot breaths in raggedly. She kisses on the mouth, making her gasp softly from the pressure inserted in between her legs, a thigh worked its way roughly into her jeans.

She closes her eyes for an instant and her insides are a foggy swamp as Lapis wraps one arm around her waist and draws her closer. Their breaths mix in the humid California air and all Peridot wants to do is open herself all the way up to her.

She looks at Lapis’s form in her shapeless blue dress and can see the outline of her figure, chest heaving in the low lights.

“Wait,” her thoughts were caught in a tangled mess, her shoulders sink. “Wait.”

“Too fast?” Lapis takes a step back, her brow knitting together and hands falling to her sides.

Peridot squeezed her eyes shut, tensing briefly before looking up again, “I have something for you.”

Lapis cocks her head to the side, she gives a small smile, “couldn’t we wait for gifts after I’m done,” she bounces her eyebrows up and down before mouthing ‘you.’

Peridot blushes fiercely, “no.” She mutters, gulping thickly, “this has to be done. And if you… Well, it has to be done.”

Lapis watches her quietly, “What are you talking about?”

Peridot edges past her and toward her bed, “It wouldn’t be right otherwise.”

“Did my sexual miasma cause you to lose your little nerd head?” Lapis was putting her hands on her hips, though her eyes were still dragging up and down Peridot’s rumpled clothes. “Or was I bad?”

Peridot takes a deep breath in through her nose, “I have like, some morals, alright? Real ones that yell at me sometimes.” She reaches over her bed and drags her backpack over from beside it.

“That’s new.” She jokes lightly and Peridot rolls her eyes.

“It’s for,” She lifted her backup up onto the bed, “it’s yours." 

Lapis raises both eyebrows, walking over slowly, “Peridot?” Her eyes shone in her direction, bright and almost hopeful. Peridot could see the confusion on her brow, a light catching in her blue eyes.

“This thing is like a contract, right?” Peridot’s fingers prickle as they dance over her backpack zippers, “Well,” she gulps, “people shouldn’t do… stuff. Under contract.”

“Uh-huh,” Lapis folds her arms over her chest and eyes her, “Stuff?” She gives a half smile, “we won’t play Parcheesi or anything tonight then.”

“You know what I mean.” She imagines water surging into her lungs but pushes down the thought, Lapis wasn’t like that. Not now.

Even if whatever she was about to do changed her.

“Do you want to bang me or-”

“You’re beautiful,” Peridot reaches into her bag and starts to tear at the fake pocket there, “I know we didn’t start off on the right foot.” She pulls at the seems of the secret pocket one by one, “but you deserve this.”

Lapis’s eyes go huge as saucers, Peridot digs out a silver rumpled cloak that shimmered and moved without being touched. All the hairs on her arm stood on end as she grasped it and the feathery light surface tickled her skin. It was light and silky, unreal, like touching a memory or a word.

She exhales slowly and lifts the skin into the air, “Whatever happens next is up to you.” She met her eye, “Your contract is broken.”

She pushes the skin towards her and Lapis’s eyes are still huge, her mouth a shapeless open circle and stance loose and almost wobbling. “Peridot,” she lifts her hand gently, her fingertips almost shaking, “it was in your fucking backpack this whole time?!”

Peridot slapped her forehead with her palm, “you want your freedom or not?”

Lapis’s mouth curved up into an almost-smile, eyes shining, wet, in the light, “so all it took it wanting to sleep with me, huh?” She says with amusement, her eyes still leaking, hand stuttering forward like a backed up car engine.

Peridot shook her head, “I just wanted to do the right thing,” she lifted her chin up, “before we did anything else. And even if you don’t want to after.”

“You really aren't so bad.” She was smiling, but something else was underneath it, deep and almost warm. Lapis presses forward and her fingertips ghost just above the silver sheet of twinkling material. “Peridot…”

Their eyes meet, Lapis takes another step and their faces are inches apart, her hand slowly folds over the material and closes in around it, like it might escape otherwise. Peridot let’s go. She closes her eyes and lets it fall, just as Lapis makes a small gasping sound.

The air shifts like a torrent of rain coming down, a buzz in the air that almost choked her, Peridot squints out of her eyes as Lapis turns around and threw the sheet over her shoulder tops in one extravagant move. Her skin began to glow.

Peridot took a step back and gaped, the fizzle of energy in the room swooped and surged like a tangible force. It wrapped around her in all directions, Lapis lifted her arms in the air and she was nowhere and everywhere at once.

She turned around and she was still Lapis, but slick and slippery with tinted blue skin and eyes that glowed a deep and frightening storm. She was silver and mist, Peridot took another step backward.

Lapis reaches out, her form shimmering into normalcy again, going back to the other girl. She grabs her wrist and her lips tug up into a smirk, “Oh,” she breathes, “Oh I’m going to rock your world.”

“Wait," Peridot blinks a couple times, "How do you feel?” She looks her up and down.

Lapis flexed her hand open and closed, “Good.” She took a deep breath. “Really good.”

Peridot relaxes and scratches the back of her neck, “I should have done that a long time ago.” She watches Lapis for any signs of movement or summoning oceans to her side to drown Peridot’s room.

Lapis glanced back up, “You’re the only one.” She says slowly, “To do this.”

Peridot just nods, “I hope...yeah.” She says lamely, but Lapis was fixing her with a wild, untamed, look almost feral. Peridot lifts her eyebrows.

“Still?” Peridot mumbles, “Sooo, still?” She tries to clarify.

Lapis kisses her nose gently as she approached, “always.”

Peridot gulps and Lapis pulls her toward her, wrapping her in her arms and pressing a warm and vibrant kiss to her lips. The kiss is bright and makes her heart pound noisily in her chest, she opens her mouth slightly and Lapis pulls her closer. The kiss builds and she tugs at her hair a little bit as they pull together, biting her bottom lip and working her tongue into her mouth.

They make wet sounds as their movements get quicker and more desperate.

Peridot kisses her fiercely back until they are tangled in each other's arms. Lapis pushes her back slightly, she was shaking, her eyes were hooded.

"On the bed," All she can do is nod and Lapis gently pushes her on the mattress like she weighed nothing.

Peridot struggles to pull her shirt off over her head and kick her pants off all at once, Lapis was watching her mutely, face stoic and almost feral, wanting.

She feels the bed dip as she climbs in next to her, “who knew.” She kisses her on the cheek, “my little clownfish would be the most interesting human of all.”

Peridot turns to her but Lapis was pressing her fingertips down the seams of her pants and they were quite literally loosening and falling apart at their hem. Lapis tears her clothes off and runs her hands down her naked back as she pushes her underwear and bra somewhere off into the abyss.

The heat is pooling in Peridot’s stomach as an awe and a squirming feeling in her gut combines. Not everyone got to sleep with a God.

Chapter Text

The bed dipped as Peridot shifted on it, Lapis crawled onto the mattress after her, prowling across the sheets on her hands and knees. She appeared a little predatory, shimmering in the moonlight with her back arched and dress hanging loosely off of her.

“Would you like anything in particular?” Her head was bent down like a bird of prey considering it’s next dive bomb.

Peridot’s cheeks flared, “I haven’t, I haven’t done this much.” She kicks herself for stuttering, but the fact had been chewing a hole in the back of her head. She should know.

Lapis raises one eyebrow high, “that’s fine.” She grinned, “first time?”

She bites her lip almost painfully, “uh, no, once. In a closet at a grad party. She was some PhD student and were both a little… sloppy.”

Lapis gave a little hoarse chuckle, her usual goofy flippantness showing through. “Sooo,” she clears her throat, “was it good?”

“As far as closet sex fingering goes?” She frowns, “probably not, no.”

Lapis laughs again and covers her mouth, “Oh my God.”

“It was my first time! Cut a girl some slack.” She props herself up on the bed, rubbing her legs together and feeling suddenly somehow more naked. Lapis wouldn’t be even close to a virgin. And Peridot didn’t remembered the last time she shaved.

Lapis examined her, she crawled forward a little farther. “Well,” she put a hand in the center of her throat and started dragging it down, “we’ll have to change that.”

Peridot gulped and felt the steady finger draw a line down the center of her body, making her squirm and naked chest heave slightly. “Change what?” She finally squeaked out under Lapis’s intense blue gaze.

Lapis cocked her head to the side, “the quality of your sex life.” She winks.

Peridot gave a little hitch of a laugh that came out more as a whine. “I mean, I mean,” she stammered and then Lapis’s finger reached her pelvis and briefly grabbed in between her legs. Peridot gasps.

Lapis briefly ran her fingers down her slit, “you’re wet.”

Peridot can’t help but arch up and let out a small noise, her face was burning. She knew they had barely down anything yet.

Lapis’s hand lingered there for a moment, feeling, touching. Finally, she let go and reached for her own dress, undoing the ribbon on the back, “I wonder what this will do to you then.”

She let her top fall away and her round, soft breasts swung free, upright and hard in the slight silver light. Peridot’s breath hitches and something throbs in between her legs.

“Oh,” she gulps dryly.

“Here,” Lapis reaches slowly for her, running a hand down her arm before grabbing her hand. “Like what you see?”

She raises Peridot’s hand gradually before placing it firmly against her bare tit.

She nods and squeezed gently, the soft and ripe flesh yields gently to her, like a full peach that wanted her to bruise it. Lapis groaned lowly and climbed closer, straddling her torso as she led Peridot’s left hand up to her other breast.

Peridot gropes and slides the heel of her hand over the hard nubs there, both of their breathes pick up. She straddles her and Peridot felt her up roughly in the low lights.

Lapis eventually leans down and catches her in a heated kiss.

It was a sharp, hungry embrace that left her a little dizzy as she cupped and squeezed the soft tits in her hands, the hard kiss drew her like water down the drain. Lapis bit her bottom lip and tugged on it, picking up a quicked rhythm as they came together.

The kiss bruised her mouth and made her squirm in place, made her reach for more as she tasted the salty brine of Lapis’s mouth. Like a harsh sea breeze and wild waves crashing against rocks, it made her insides melt.

Lapis nudged Peridot’s legs open and Peridot allowed her to bring her exposed knee up to the heat. She whimpered slightly in the back of her throat as Lapis pressed down on her pussy, inserting her leg there and applying a firm pressure that lit up sparks behind her eyes. She grinds down without thinking and trembles.

Lapis gently lifted her hips to help her ride up and down on the delicious feel of skin against skin.

It built up a trembling friction and she starts to let out breathy moans, she can’t help but rut helplessly up against her like a dog in heat. “Lapis,” she calls out, “Lapis.”

Lapis rises herself up and shoved her chest in her face, lifting her hips further to help her steadily pleasure herself. They built a fast rhythm until she was leaving a sloppy trail down her thigh.

Lapis was sturdy against her, her pupils blown up as her nails dug into Peridot’s hips and lifted her up and down. “Come on honey, come for me.”

Peridot arches at that and she starts to feel her toes curl, “Just like that.” She felt Lapis’s deft hand reach in between them, fingers running down down down. She ran her touch lightly over her flushed skin, exploring the folds and wet slit before stopping at the ball of nerves just above her pussy.

“Honey,” she strokes her clit with a vigorous precision. Peridot lets out a throaty moan as she touches her intently. “You like that?”

Her back curves, mouth open and eyes wide, she takes a sharp breath and her muscles tighten, coiling and building more until she feels a hot release like a dam being burst. “Ah!” Fireworks go off behind her eyes and all the blood rushes out of her head like a fire drill.

She mumbles nonsense through it and Lapis kisses her on her jawline and neck as she climaxes. Lapis murmurs sweet nothing words and strokes her devoutly. “Beautiful, there you go.”

Peridot rides out another swelling wave and takes in deep shuddering breaths as her sex throbs, thoughts scattered to the wilds.

Peridot takes a long minute to cognitize the words coming out of her mouth and then reaches up, reaching for her. Lapis wraps her arms around Peridot, guiding them both back into the soft embrace of the bed. They lay together, hugging and naked, for a long minute.

Peridot takes a deep breath through her nose after the empty, nothing space of post-orgasm let her start to think again. She resumes kissing Lapis once they are both blinking up at each other again. It’s a slow, sugary kiss this time, like they weren’t in such a hurry to climb into each others skin.

Lapis laughs a little bit into her mouth, sending vibrations through nose. She laughs again.

“What is it?” Peridot finally asks, trying to grapple with the question of whether she had done something wrong.

“Nothing,” Lapis was holding her close, “just the irony of it all.” She kisses her nose this time.

Peridot cocks her head to the sigh. “The freed selkie bones the human? Sure.”

Lapis shrugs, “maybe I would have done this before. Who knows.”

“Pfft, you mean before or after you wanted to drown me?”

Lapis kisses her neck, “like, before this even started. After you fell into my waters.”

“You definitely wanted to drown me then,” Peridot didn’t know why she still smiling fondly and pushing her sweaty hair aside.

“Or!” Lapis said loudly, “tie you up and bone you until you were wobbly and incoherent for days. Nothing says revenge like making all other sex after you seem like a bad fingerbang.”

Peridot rolls her eyes, “revenge. Right.”

Lapis shrugs loosely, “don’t worry. Revenge is my specialty- I have more.” She runs her hand down Peridot’s side and their eyes rove over each other again.

“Take the rest of your dress off.” Peridot orders as she tugs on the forgotten fabric around Lapis’s waist.

Lapis hums before propping herself up and ripping the little gown off, revealing the rest of her sloping waist and toned torso. Peridot touches everything she can reach, softly grabbing her hips and kissing just above her pelvis.

Lapis puts two hands on her shoulders and eases back into bed. “Put your mouth on me.”

Peridot just nods, “there’s nothing more I want to do than that right now.” Lapis kisses her cheek and then neck, biting her gently until she arches into it.

“Harder,” she digs her teeth in and Peridot runs her hands down her back until she cups her ass and squeezes it.

Lapis smiles dryly, “harder.”

She digs her nails into the soft flesh there and they slowly explore each other, touching lightly, putting their hands down each other’s thighs and weaving their fingers through each other’s hair. Peridot eases herself lower, trying to get Lapis positioned above her.

Peridot kisses her clavicle first, biting lightly just as Lapis did and then gently dragged her teeth down to her breast. Lapis tosses her head back and made a low sound as Peridot lightly tugged on her breast.

She teases and tugs before sucking it into her mouth, making Lapis groan in the back of her throat. It tastes warm and beautiful all at once.

She swirls the nipple in her mouth and ever so gently tugged on it with her teeth, Lapis dig her nails into her back. Peridot tugs harder and twerks her other nipple with her free hand. She intermittently licks and twists until Lapis is making breathy, needy sighs.

“Lower,” Lapis says, “touch me.”

Peridot smiles around the rigid nub, spittle going slightly down her chin, she lowers her hand slowly, teasing her as she pinched her sides and caressed her hips. Lapis giggles slightly, “Don’t tickle me.”

She kisses her again as she inches her hand through her pubes and feels the wet heat in between Lapis’s legs. She explores for a moment, making slow circles, feeling the slurry in between her fingers, relishing the slick hot sensation.

“Peridot,” Lapis whines gently. “I’m a hundred year old God.”

“Hundred years, huh,” Peridot bounced her eyebrows up and down, “then you can wait.”

“Erg,” Lapis pouts, “tease.”

She bounces her eyebrows up and down before easing her fingers over her.

She lightly touches her clit, just brushing the ball of nerves and nothing else. Lapis squirms against it and heaves toward her to bite her ear and tug on Peridot’s hair. “Come on.”

Peridot rubs gently, hearing Lapis make a choked sound as she finally eased pressure onto her clit before diving deeper. Circling her hole roughly, sliding across it and feeling the loose rim.

“You’re wet,” she mimics Lapis’s words, grinning up at her.

“I fell into a pool,” she says coyly and shakes her hair down.

Peridot rolls her eyes before making slow hard circles, “This’ll be one way to drown me then.”

Lapis gives a throaty laugh, “fool.”

She shrugs, “then we’re both fools.” She kisses her cheek.

“Of course.”

Peridot slowly rubs her clit again before edging forward, testing for a moment before sliding two fingers inside of her. She was loose and ready for her.

“Ah,” Lapis does a sharp intake of breath, shuddering slightly as Peridot gently scissors inside of her, “Peridot.” She says in a small voice and Peridot pets her hair.

“Sshhh,” she starts moving her fingers in and out, “I’ve got you.”

Lapis leans over her and squeezes eyes shut, Peridot picks up the pace, fucking her, scissoring her fingers and stroking her silky insides. She must hit something as Lapis lets out a breathy cry as she got deeper. “Fuck.” Lapis’s muscles tensed around her fingers before relaxing.

She hummed and got two knuckles in easily, Lapis pressed down on her hand for more. Peridot tweaked her nipple again and Lapis visibly trembled. “Bean awhile for you too?” Peridot jokes.

Lapis doesn’t respond as she rode her hand, lifting herself up and down, Lapis’s hair spreads out in all directions as Peridot pulls on it. She bites her ear and eases a third finger inside of her.

“Peridot,” she calls, “ Peridot. ”

Peridot drags the heel of her hand against her clit just as she slid her three fingers in and out, spreading her wide open. Lapis throws her head back and calls out, her voice echoing loudly against the walls and vibrating through the house. Peridot hopes Ulyana is asleep at the very least.

Peridot kisses and bites her neck as she trembles.

Peridot feels Lapis’s muscles tense around her fingers and her whole body writhe for a moment as a hot wetness ran down the fingers inside of her. Peridot shivers and tries to milky her through it, thrusting in and out shallowly.

Lapis comes down in a mess of heavy breathing and wild hair, her eyes glazed over and spit coming down her chin.

Lapis looks down at her in daze, managing a wry smile, “Are you sure you’ve only done this once?”

Peridot’s cheeks flare up again and she eases her fingers out of Lapis’s fever hot body. “I’ve done… research let’s say.”

Lapis lets out a hoarse chuckle and kisses her arms gently before moving Peridot’s fingers up, she holds her hand for a very long moment, she then bringing them up to her lips. Peridot watches mutely as she kisses each digit and then slowly licks her pointer finger.

Peridot inhales sharply as Lapis sucked one in past her lips and into her mouth. It was warm and her tongue messaged her fingers rhythmically.

Peridot wrinkled her nose, “necessary?” She asks faintly as the girl licked her.

Lapis just sucks on the pads of Peridot’s fingers and holds hard eye contact with her, Peridot gulps at the display and she throbs again as Lapis tasted herself.

She sucks hard on the fingers, lapping up the slurry there before letting them fall out of her mouth.

“Come here,” she says softly and leans over her Peridot lets her arms hang out her sides uselessly as Lapis brings her into a hard kiss.

She tastes musty, a thick raw scent that made her groan slightly. It was an open mouth kiss, tasting Lapis’s pussy and feeling another pulse of pleasure twist through her gut at the thought. She laps at the roof of Lapis’s mouth and sucks on her bottom lip, making the other girl press down harder.

They tease and lick until Peridot is high on Lapis’s mouth and slick, feeling her own body react again, her hips thrusting up for something. Lapis’s hands wander down and holds her there.

“I want you,” she growls and Peridot lets out a heaving breath.

“You have me,” Lapis starts delicately kissing down Peridot’s body and dragging her teeth across the sensitive skin and soft parts. Peridot shifts a little bit and Lapis kisses down her pelvis and toward her exposed thighs.

“You don’t have to…” She trails off as Lapis starts to suck and form bright red marks in her paler inner thigh.

Lapis kisses the spot, her eyes flash up dangerously, “I want to make you call out my name again.” Peridot bites her lip and can only nod, Lapis’s lips curl back, “I want you to walk around with me on you.”

Peridot lets out a soft mewl and parts her legs.

Lapis bites down again and she arches as as she digs her teeth in, forming dark red marks as she sucked and pulled on the tender inner thigh skin.

Peridot almost starts begging as she gets closer and closer to her sex, leaving a vivid trail of red blotches in her wake. Peridot would be carrying her around for days.

The imprints feel sharp and intoxicating as Lapis kisses and nips at the place were her leg met her pelvis. Peridot whimpers, “I, I can’t,” she felt like she was going to cum again just from all that, the heat already twisting in her gut.

Lapis kisses her lower belly, moving to the juncture of her thigh and kissing, feeling, tasting.

Finally, she moves painfully slow to the place inbetween her legs. Peridot moans a she licks all the way up her slit in one long strip. “Oh, God, Lapis.” It was like a prayer she was about to repeat it a lot .

Lapis licks roughly up and down her folds, nipping gently sometimes to make her writhe and kick out. Lapis held her in place and worked her warm tongue over her sex over and over.

She occasionally graze her clit and suck on it roughly before moving on again, almost driving Peridot to what she figured was insanity, moaning and pressing into her mouth. “Lapis, Lord, there, Lapis.”

She bounced her eyebrows up and down. “Lord, huh.” She kissed her clit once, twice, and then placed it into her mouth and sucked. Hard.

“Lapis!”

“Mmmmmm.”

Peridot bawled her hands up in the sheets and clawed at them as Lapis swirled the nub in her mouth and made her lips vibrate on it in a deep hum. The vibrations go straight through her cunt and a high brutal wave coursed through her until she felt like there was nothing left.

She climaxed with a silent sharp cry and her body felt like it crumbled away from her, a distant dream of a thing.

Then Lapis moved down and started to tongue her hole, moving her tongue forcefully around before flicking it in and out.

“Lapis, I’m, I’m, I’ve got nothing left,” she felt like jelly after it’s been pulverized. Twice.

“Lover,” Lapis mumbles around her, “Almost.”

She calls out gently before biting her lip, nodding her head again in acceptance.

Lapis thrusts her tongue into her hole, licking and digging her nails into her soft skin as she holds her hips still. She fucks her open with her mouth, diligently working it in and out, breaking her into bits as Peridot with just her warm lips.

Lapis eats her out until Peridot is a bowl of yowling noises and sensitive edges. It felt like her cunt was a raw wobbling mess, Lapis fingers ran over her clit as she works her hole over.

She cums once more and lets the warmth surge out of her and feels Lapis lap up that too. They are both panting, shaking when Lapis finally pulls her face away. Spit and slick were dribbling down her chin, shining in the moonlight as she looked at her.

Her eyes were a wide unfocused blue and they sat, naked, sweaty and covered in new scratches and bite marks. Peridot reaches for her and Lapis takes her hand, holding it where she lay in between her knees.

“You were… are, wonderful,” Peridot sighs, though her voice barely goes above a rasp.

Lapis unevenly crawls up over to her, “better then?”

Peridot breathes heavily and manages a snort, “than my first time?” She tries to whistle, “I’m not sure that counts any more.”

Lapis kisses her again, there was no power behind it, just a simple peck that made them both sigh in contentment. Peridot draws her as close as she possibly can, feeling her warm skin against her and a deep drowsiness weigh down her bones.

She thought again and again the same phrase, the ones on romcoms and silly dramas right as the music swells, right as the rain pours or their faces fall. But she couldn’t say it out loud.

She could just kiss the top of her head and let them both hold each other close as the lights in her head dim out.