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Lapis couldn’t help but cringe at the way Jack pushed his bunkmate to the ground, shouting at the other boy. It was just… Unnecessary. And loud. And... Really, really familiar. Peridot, of course, noticed from the way she tenses.
“Uh, Lapis, are you okay with that? Or, is it too much like, uh, you know…”
Lapis hated the way Peridot acted so cautious around her, like she was made of glass. Yeah, she’d been through some stuff, but Peridot made such a big deal out of it. Lapis thought it was because of all those articles on trauma Peridot had been reading (she had a tendency to mumble whatever she was reading aloud). Everyone healed differently, and not everybody healed. Lapis didn’t know which she was, but either way, she was pretty sure she needed to learn how to deal with people offhandedly mentioning the gem who’d trapped her. Who she’d trapped. Who she tortured. Who tortured her.
That was another part of it. Peridot seemed to think Lapis was the only victim. Which… She wasn’t. She’d hurt Jasper. She’d held her down, and while that hurt Lapis, Jasper was the one screaming most of the time. But Peridot didn’t know that, and, honestly, Lapis wasn’t sure she was ready to tell her.
She wanted to tell her, though. She felt like it was some confession she needed to make. Something to get off her chest, to channel into a mirror and out of her mind. She wanted Peridot to know who she was making meepmorps with, who she was talking with, who she was watching Camp Pining Hearts with.
But, this… Wasn’t the time. Lapis could put it off a little longer, probably. “I’m fine, Peridot. I’ll tell you if I’m not, okay?”
Peridot didn’t seem to fully buy it, even leaning her head back to see Lapis’s from her spot, like, halfway on her lap. “You’re sure? Do you… Promise?”
Lapis tried to hide her discomfort with a nod and a fake smile, saying “Yeah. I promise.” Thankfully, Peridot wasn’t one to question a promise. (Well, at least not one of Lapis’s promises.)
“...Alright.” She turned back to the television, and Lapis sighed just slightly, not enough for Peridot to notice. She was really gonna need to talk to Peridot about that. But… It could wait.
~+~+~+~
Peridot paused the tape they were watching at the end of that episode, looking up at Lapis from where she’d ended up laying across her lap after a particularly angry rant about Jack’s encouraging behavior towards Paulette’s almost stalkerish courting of Pierre. (Lapis had to admit, she didn’t get it either, and Jack suddenly being added to the main cast just for having his bunkhouse switched to that of Paulette made no sense.)
“Hey, Laz? You wanna go make some meepmorps or somethin instead? Or maybe practice with our “musical” instruments?” (Yes, she did put air quotes around “musical” and only “musical”. She’d been doing it ever since uploading a video of one of their practices to TubeTube and being told it wasn’t “real music”.)
“Uh, yeah. I think doing some music sounds pretty cool, actually.”
Peridot grinned and rolled off of Lapis’s lap before sitting up. “Great, then let’s do that!”
Lapis smiled a bit and picked Peridot up, flying her down to the barn just this once to see if she could catch her off guard. She succeeded and Peridot curled into a little ball in Lapis’s arms with a loud squeak. When Lapis landed, she was laughing, and after a second, Peridot was giggling too. While she could be pretty angry, Lapis did have a good time with her roommate. Much better than she’d had with pretty much anyone else except Steven, if she was being honest, in her entire life.
They stood there giggling for probably a full three minutes before Peridot took a deep breath and managed to compose herself, and Lapis snorted once more before calming down. “Alright, so, uh, music. That’s what we need to be doing. Yeah.”
“Yeah. Music. Better get started on that.”
Still smiling, they each grabbed an instrument and went straight into the song they’d started learning the week before.
~+~+~+~
At the end of their practice session they’d decided to go back to watching Camp Pining Hearts, and a few episodes later they’d ended up with Peridot leaned pretty much all the way onto Lapis and Lapis’s arm around Peridot’s shoulder, because Peridot had found no rants that required getting up and Lapis’s arm was just more comfortable there. Lapis had noticed Peridot being a lot closer to her physically lately, and she had to admit it was a little odd. At the end of their current episode, she grabbed the remote to pause the tape they were watching, which also got Peridot’s attention.
“Uh, what’s up, Lapis?”
“Why are you leaning on me so much?”
Peridot jerked up into a normal sitting position at that comment, looking a little alarmed. “I- Do- Do you not want me to-”
Lapis sighed a bit. “Okay, I said that kinda weird. I meant in general. You’ve just been sitting much closer to me, touching me a lot more… It’s just a little odd, I’m not mad or anything.”
“Oh.” Peridot looked down, seeming almost… Ashamed? Stars, she was weird. “I don’t know, I just like being able to feel that you’re there, you know? It’s, it’s silly, I know, I just-”
“No, no, I get it. I… get it. It was just a little weird that it started so suddenly, y’know?”
“...Yeah.”
There was a moment of awkward silence before Lapis pressed play on the remote again, almost to punctuate the whole conversation, and another moment before Peridot slowly leaned back over onto Lapis. Lapis smiled at Peridot, almost encouragingly, and Peridot smiled back before they both went back to watching Camp Pining Hearts.
~+~+~+~
A few hours later, Lapis had gone up onto the roof to watch the sunset, and Peridot was still on the truck catching up with what had happened online before she went up to join her. (She’d been worrying a lot about some drama going on in the online community that watched Camp Pining Hearts.) Lapis couldn’t quite lose herself into the colors of the sunset tonight, instead getting caught up in thoughts about Malachite.
It wasn’t healthy to dwell, she knew that, but. It felt almost. Nice. Being stuck in one place with someone she could just push all her anger onto, someone she could be justified in beating into the ground. Jasper had been fighting back, of course. That was part of what made it justified. But it was still a terrible thing for her to have done.
And Peridot didn’t know. She somehow seemed to think Jasper was the only bad guy in the situation. At least, that was how she acted. Lapis should mention it to Peridot, she knew that. Maybe talking about it would even help her feel better! But… She didn’t think she could right at that moment.
Peridot clambered up to the roof at just that moment, getting Lapis’s attention off of the past and onto right then. “So, the drama seems to be dying down. I just don’t get how so many people can be wrong in so many different ways.” She laid down next to Lapis, sighing a bit.
Lapis sighed too. “Yeah. I hope all that stuff just dies off soon.” She didn’t mention that she could be one of those people that was wrong in yet another way. Peridot didn’t seem to pick up on her thoughts, but she did scoot a bit closer to her until their sides were touching, which was honestly… Really comforting. Lapis could understand why humans spent so much time touching.
They laid there for a while before Lapis managed to talk. “Uh, Peridot?”
“Yeah?” Shit, Lapis had no clue what she was trying to say.
“I was… I was just wondering, uh…” Oh stars, what the hell was she doing? What was she trying to say? “Nevermind.”
“No, what was it? I’m curious!” Peridot had turned on her side to look at Lapis, who sighed and turned to face her roommate.
“It was nothing, really. I just. I don’t know.”
“...Oh. Well, alright then.” Peridot gave her a vaguely concerned look, and Lapis sighed before turning onto her back, eyes closed. The next thing she felt was Peridot’s arms wrapping around her in a hug. Her eyes snapped back open.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m hugging you, you clod. Either hug me back or push me off, already.”
“Peridot…” Lapis laughed a bit, before wrapping her arms around Peridot.
“What?” Peridot’s voice was slightly muffled from being pressed into Lapis’s shoulder.
Lapis only replied with giggling, which Peridot soon joined, anyways. They let go of each other after a few minutes, smiling, and laid back to watch the stars.
~+~+~+~
The next morning they trained together. Well, not exactly together. Peridot trained by throwing pieces of metal at targets with her powers, and when she missed, Lapis dumped water on her. Eventually a drenched Peridot got sick of it and went to go sit on Lapis in some strange form of retribution, forgetting that Lapis really wouldn’t mind if her skirt was a little bit wet. Lapis just laughed and dumped more water on the both of them. Peridot hissed a bit and shielded her face.
Peridot whined, “Lapis, stop that!”
“Do you really want me to stop?”
Peridot’s only answer was a bit of laughter and wrapping her arms tightly around Lapis.
“Thought so,” Lapis mumbled, brushing some of the water out of Peridot’s hair as a fakeout before dumping more water on her. Peridot screeched a bit, but it was from joy.
“But, I thought you didn’t like water anymore.”
“Eh… It’s more just being, like submerged in it.”
“Oh… Okay.” There was a pause.
Lapis took a deep breath, feeling much more up to talking about Malachite now, and knowing she wasn’t likely to do it at a later time. “Uh, Peridot? Could I talk to you? About Malachite?”
Peridot stopped smiling at all, adopting a fully serious (and somewhat surprised) expression. “Y- Yeah, of course you can.”
“Okay, well, I think. You might have the wrong idea about what kind of mess that was. I’m not the only one that got out all messed up, and Jasper’s not the only one that did bad stuff. We were both getting hurt. You know that, right?” Lapis adjusted her legs slightly. This was… A lot easier than she’d imagined. It still sucked. But it could’ve sucked worse.
“Yeah. I guess. But Jasper actually deserved it. She was trying to hurt… good gems, and she manipulated you into fusing, I guess. I mean, you. You just wanted to go home. Right?” Peridot sounded actually guilty. Lapis sighed a bit, thinking about the fact that Peridot had obviously put some thought into that.
“I- Yeah. I didn’t really think of it that way. I still shouldn’t’ve hurt her, but, I guess… Yeah.” Peridot wrapped her arms around Lapis a bit tighter, and Lapis hugged Peridot back, suddenly wanting to cry. Not because of something bad though- Because she felt really happy. “Thanks for listening, Peridot. And, thanks for not hating me.”
Peridot looked at her with those big, innocent eyes, and said, “Why would I hate you? You’re my friend,” and Lapis really did start crying, pulling Peridot closer to her. “Lapis? Are you okay?” Peridot sounded panicked, and Lapis’s crying became doubled with laughter as she replied.
“I’m much, much better than okay.”