Note: Written for fanfiction user lexboss! Thanks for the prompt, I had a lot of fun writing it. Hope you like it!
Warning for a fair bit of possibly weird and upsetting discussion about food and eating.
It's past the midpoint of the Earth day, Peridot is unpleasantly purposeless, and her tentative attempts at luring Lazuli away from her half of the barn have proven completely ineffective when the sound of shuffling flip flops ushers in a flushed, huffing, enormous rectangular package-carrying Steven, followed shortly by a similarly parcel-laden Pearl. Peridot frowns uselessly as Lazuli finally emerges from her silent, shadowy little corner and immediately gravitates toward them. Understandable, but frustrating.
"Surprise!" calls Steven, trying to lift up their rectangular package and stumbling back a step. "It's a barn-warming party!"
"Here, give me that," Pearl tells them, taking their package and balancing it atop her own. "You can carry the cooler."
"Thanks, Pearl," Steven says, flashing her a smile. They take yet another rectangular package (presumably the 'cooler') and hand it over to Lazuli. "We brought food and presents!" declares Steven. "This one's the food."
"Hm. Amethyst did mention Earth packaging is a delicacy," Peridot muses, eyeing the bright blue polymer box.
Steven chuckles. "The food's inside the cooler, Peridot."
"I knew that, of course."
"Okay, you wanna see your presents?" Steven asks, gesturing excitedly to Pearl.
Pearl walks over to the middle of the barn, overturns her two boxes, and puts them down with a loud thud and a jingle. "It's two piles of electronic trash," says Pearl, and lifts away the open boxes with a flourish. Two piles of electronic trash spill out.
"Wow," says Lazuli, not sounding particularly impressed; and then, not sounding particularly thankful: "Thanks."
"They're not just electronic trash piles," Steven says proudly, "they're the official Electronic Trash Pile TV and Game Console Assembly Kits! Handpicked from the very finest of garbage heaps, complete with homemade brand name blueprints."
"Great," says Lazuli, likely insincere. Peridot is inclined to agree. Whatever this 'game console' is, it sounds useless and not dangerous at all.
"The technology is fairly unsophisticated," Pearl assures them. "I can have these assembled in no time."
"Pearl, this is supposed to be a group project, remember," Steven whispers loudly to her.
"Right." Pearl nods, holding her elbow. "In that case, we can have these assembled in slightly more than no time."
Pearl is proven correct. Despite Lapis's lack of enthusiasm and Steven's slight overabundance of it, the unsurprisingly primitive machinery requires barely any effort to put together. Pearl insists on doing most of the work, but she is very quick and precise with her hands, and is overall more help than hindrance. Within a shorter time span than the duration of an Under the Knife episode, the two large piles of electronic debris are reduced to a single small one, and three inelegant but functional appliances stand before them.
"Once again, you prove unexpectedly technically adept," Peridot tells Pearl kindly. Pearl strangely does not appear pleased.
Steven pats the boxy machines happily and plugs one of them into an electrical outlet. "Ta-daa!" they say as it turns on, hissing static. "Lapis, meet your first TV! Peridot, meet the first TV that's yours! We don't have cable in the barn yet, but it's a start."
"Mm. My own television device." Peridot circles around her handiwork appraisingly. "Intriguing."
"I knew you'd like it," Steven tells her, smiling brightly, before turning away and taking Lazuli's hand. "Come on, Lapis, we are gonna participate in the most current, up-to-date human pastime: passively watching whatever's currently on TV, one episode at a time, helplessly dependent on the network's whims!"
"Finally, some good ideas," Peridot says, ready to put her excellent human relationship analysis skills to use.
Steven makes a scarily effective apologetic face at her. Not that she's liable to be affected by that sort of thing. "Sorry, Peridot, but I think it's too early in this barnmateship for you and Lapis to watch In Sickness and in Stealth together," they say solemnly. "Your relationship might not recover."
Peridot crosses her arms. "Hrm."
"But look! I got you a copy of Ace Race, the best track and field simulator for the Ninturbo Whee! Pearl can teach you how to play."
"Oh, great," Peridot grumbles. "Pearl can teach me."
Steven and Lazuli drag their newly constructed television to the other side of the barn, settling comfortably on top of a couple of old Earth vehicle tires to watch something Peridot isn't invited to join.
"So," says Pearl, smiling somewhat painfully. "Hi."
"Yes, hello," Peridot replies politely. "Let's get this over with."
They plug everything in and Pearl explains the objective of the game and hands her the controller. It's simplistic enough, resembling some of the very early backup controls for low grade missiles back home. Peridot is immediately cheered up by this familiarity and the fact that being taught proves unnecessary, after all.
Pearl keeps her character jogging smooth and steady, meticulously avoiding every single one of the conveniently placed running accessories, such as inflammatory pod spray and nail studded baseball equipment. 'Peal can teach you,' Peridot thinks scornfully. Right. She's had four minutes of exposure to this human gaming, and already she has a better understanding of its mechanics than Pearl. She spills a bottle of what appears to be vegetable oil on the track, causing Pearl to take a long detour to avoid slipping. Both Peridot and her character cackle victoriously.
Over on Steven and Lazuli's side of the barn, Peridot's fourteenth least favorite television program has commenced. The dramatic music carries over, interspersed with Steven's running commentary and Lazuli's irritatingly flippant remarks.
"And that's Caitlyn, she just married her son's boyfriend's mom, but her son's boyfriend didn't know her because she left to study mosquitoes in New Zealand when Caitlyn's son's boyfriend was a baby," Peridot can hear Steven explain.
"Sounds like organic storytelling," is Lazuli's reply. "What's Caitlyn's son's boyfriend's name?"
"I don't know," says Steven. "I only remember the names that are four syllables or less."
"It's Argyropus!" Peridot calls over her shoulder. "And that's exactly four syllables, you clod!"
"Thanks, Peridot! Oh, it's a Leah scene. Watch this, Lapis. You'll like her. She's almost as funny as you."
Peridot scoffs and focuses her attention back on pulverizing Pearl's player character using the crude human weaponry strewn around the running track. If nothing else, this game certainly seems realistic enough.
"Go away, Kayla. I'm trying to dissolve into the ground and become a vindictive earth spirit," Leah grumbles from Lazuli's television.
"Sure. Text me whenever."
"You know what," Peridot hears Lazuli say quietly to Steven, "I think Leah and Kayla could be good for each other."
"What!" Peridot drops her controller in her lap and sharply pivots around to inform Lapis of her horrible tragic miscalculation.
Steven turns to frown at her and shakes their head slowly.
"Fine," Peridot mutters and picks her controller back up. While her back was turned, Pearl has taken the opportunity to make her character grab Peridot's by the hand and lead her along. "You didn't even exploit my momentary distraction!" Peridot wails. "What were you thinking!"
"That would have been unsportswomanlike," says Pearl, ridiculous nose in the air. So Peridot does the only reasonable thing and throws a handful of steel shavings and sand in Pearl's character's face.
Pearl's character grabs a broom upgrade and, instead of attempting to trip Peridot's, begins to tidy up the track.
"I can't believe Steven won't let me watch human cleaning lather operas with them," Peridot grumbles. "And I can't believe Lazuli thinks Kayla and Leah are a superior pairing to Kayla and Aman! And I can't believe I'm stuck playing television games with you!"
"I don't want to hear it," Pearl tells her imperiously. "Steven did ask Garnet to do it, you know, but she has had problems with the television games in the past, so I volunteered. Now please stop throwing explosive everywhere, this is not conducive to a safe long-distance running environment."
Peridot throws a hand grenade at Pearl's player. It bounces off her bicep and explodes between them in midair. The screen fades out to the words Game Over.
Pearl sighs and restarts the game. Peridot feels somehow deflated.
"What is the purpose of this... gaming, anyway?" she asks Pearl, less disdainfully than is perhaps warranted.
"To have fun and clear your mind, as I understand it," Pearl replies, frowning deeply. "Though I don't see how an experience this stressful can be considered relaxing. Some particularly peaceable humans use it as a nonviolent outlet for aggression, apparently."
"That sounds completely useless and counterproductive."
Pearl sighs. "Honestly, I agree," she says. Well. She might not be entirely devoid of common sense, after all.
"This planet seems to place a great deal of importance on 'having fun'," Peridot observes. She jabs her controller to the right, causing her character to elbow Pearl's character in its human diaphragm.
Pearl nods. "It's an odd fixation," she says, skipping over a rocket launcher upgrade right in her path.
"Are you trying to lose on purpose?" Peridot demands, tripping Pearl with a crescent produce peel. "Also, you are surprisingly reasonable for your kind," she adds magnanimously.
Pearl purses her lips, and fails to jump onto the steam train cutting across the running track. "Who is even authorizing all of these vehicles and weapons of mass destruction on the field," she mutters.
Avoiding the train proves to be a good idea when it runs right into a previously invisible mountainside. Peridot just manages to leap off of it before it crashes. The blocky colorful graphics of the crash are suddenly terribly nostalgic.
"Do you ever miss it?" Peridot finds herself asking, quiet and frighteningly honest. "Home, I mean."
Pearl doesn't reply, runs her character straight into a patch of quicksand, frowns. "Uh, well, I've never –" she says eventually, stumbling. "It was never a good home for me. But… sometimes, I still do."
Peridot worries the inside of her lip, feeling relieved and ridiculous. "I guess it wasn't good for me either," she says, and her voice is thankfully inexpressive. "But I miss knowing what to do. I don't understand this place."
Pearl sighs. She puts down her controller, and turns to face Peridot. "You just have to keep trying to figure it out. I'm sorry I don't have better advice for you. But – I think you're doing very well."
Pearl's runner, free of sentient intervention, sprints straight into a landmine. The game over screen flashes, sparing Peridot the need to form a response.
"Oh good, you guys are done too!" Steven says, walking over, hugging the blue inedible cooler to their chest. "We're having dinner!"
"Dinner," repeats Peridot. "What does that entail?"
"The consumption of food during the latter portion of the day," supplies Pearl.
"Yeah! I made sandwiches!" Steven says happily, lifting the cooler up over their head. "So we have: ham and cheese – really not kosher, but it's a classic; meatballs and tomato sauce – obviously the best sloppy sandwich; tuna salad – don't try that one, Lapis; avocado, tomatoes and pickled lemon – that's the fanciest one; aaand, ice cream sandwiches! It's just Lion Lickers, but you can't have everything in life."
They start handing out the food. Peridot gets one of the smelliest ones. She takes it as a compliment. Pearl is handling hers as if it might injure her. Peridot holds her smelly food closer. She is not so cowardly.
"So… what do I do with that?" Lazuli asks, waving her bread envelope around. A slice of yellow sting fruit slips out.
Steven turns around to beam at her. "Oh, yeah! Lapis, you've never eaten before!"
Peridot immediately perks up at this. "Ohohoho. Just wait until you try this." She claps excitedly, jostling her sandwich. "This is gonna be fun."
"Uh…" Lazuli eyes Peridot warily. Peridot widens her grin. "Sorry, Steven, but this sounds a bit ominous," Lazuli says.
"No, no no no! Eating's great! Don't look at the weird faces Peridot's making."
"She is making some weird faces," Lapis says in her accusing monotone.
"I am not," Peridot protests, but cannot stop a weird cackle.
"She's just excited for you," Steven erroneously surmises. "We did this with her too a while ago. Look, you just have to take a bite and crush it into a paste with your teeth, then you swallow – uh! But you have to make a stomach first. I almost forgot. It's like, uh, a recycling system in your body, where you turn the food into sugar and – here, Pearl will explain."
Pearl grimaces very expressively. "Steven," she says, drawing the name out in her disapproving voice. "Is that really necessary..."
Steven turns to look at her, and Peridot can see the moment the argument is lost before Steven even opens their mouth. "Please, Pearl?"
Pearl sighs and begins to describe the intricacies of the human digestive system to Lazuli. Peridot watches delightedly as Lazuli's expression transitions slowly from bored and indifferent to mildly horrified.
"Steven, look," Lazuli says in a sad attempt at pacification. "This… daytime soap opera thing, it was nice. I had fun. But I really don't think eating's for me."
Steven visibly deflates. Peridot immediately feels inexplicably guilty. "Okay. Food really is great, though. Amethyst could probably explain it better than I did."
Pearl flutters over him for a second, looking a little bit desperate, then turns to face Lazuli and swallows audibly. "It's not… terrible," she says, her fingers tightening over her non-kosher, probably-non-violent meal. Pearl, Peridot is beginning to realize, is not a very good liar.
"Right," says Lapis, and turns to Steven. "How about we do the crushing to a paste part, then just spit it out?"
"I have heard that's how expired liquidated fruit tasting takes place," says Peridot, her great generosity winning out over the burning need to watch Lazuli embarrass herself a little.
"That is... acceptable!" Steven pronounces, and rushes to retrieve one of the large rectangular boxes.
The subsequent events are some of the messiest, grossest, most distasteful experiences in Peridot's recent memory. She's improving her 'having fun' aptitude admirably, she thinks.
Afterwards, when Steven opens the Lion Lickers' packaging and discovers that they have melted beyond all recognition, despite the cooler's best efforts, Pearl and Lazuli do their best to feign disappointment. Peridot joins them; not out of any particular sentiment, of course, but simply because Steven's smile is logically preferable to its lack.
"It really wasn't terrible," Lapis admits. "Maybe I'll try digesting next time."
Pearl sighs. "I'll draw you a diagram," she says, and a complete, life sized virtual depiction of internal human anatomy springs from her gem. Peridot very narrowly avoids jumping back in surprise.
"Whoa," Peridot murmurs.
Pearl turns around, looks directly at her. Peridot can feel her face warm.
"What?" she snaps. "Y-you're just, er, uniquely impressive. Considering your designation."
Pearl purses her lips again for some reason, finishes transcribing Lazuli's diagram, and walks away.
Peridot feels an odd sense of panic. Must be the smelly sandwich at work. "What's your problem?" she demands, following Pearl to the prone figure of her latest giant robot.
Pearl sits down on the robot's still chest. Peridot refuses to do the same. She feels small enough as it is. "There's nothing unique about me, you know," Pearl says, fanning her fingers out in some indeterminate gesture. "I've known a pearl who could reverse engineer just about anything. She'd project completed blueprints for you, just like that. She didn't even belong to a technology focused base. And the oral history, if you just care to find it – which, frankly, I never did – well, anyway. I've simply had extremely unusual opportunities."
Peridot is beginning to feel uncomfortably out of her depth. She does her best to grab hold of some part of the conversation. "Ha! You expect me to believe any old pearl could build a giant robot out of scratch, of an almost equal caliber to my own?"
Pearl waves her hand in the air, as if to swat away the words like an Earth buzz insect. "Well, no, obviously, not every pearl has any interest or aptitude for robotics – that's an incredibly arbitrary criterion, by the way, Peridot," she says, her tone astonishingly self-righteous. "My point is, if they did, and were afforded my same circumstances, every single one of them would absolutely kick your butt."
Peridot opens her mouth to say something clever and cutting, closes it again. She has nothing clever and cutting to say, she realizes, and doesn't want to, anyway. She sits down next to Pearl. "You know what, I'm going to go against my natural healthy competitiveness and ignore that blatant challenge," she says loftily. "I suppose I might have been a bit… careless, with my sincere and excellent compliments. I'm sorry about that. But I – um. Hm." She kicks her leg absently. The robot activates briefly to grunt in protest and goes back to sleep. "What I want to say is. You are not – intolerable. For – for a Crystal Gem."
"Oh," says Pearl, and blushes a bit blue. How embarrassing for her. "Thank you. I think you're really very tolerable, yourself."
Peridot certainly forms no expression nor exhibits any bodily irregularity in response.
"For a Crystal Gem," Pearl adds, with a – smirk?
Peridot gives a startled laugh. "I – yes," she says. "I suppose I am."
"So, sleepover?" Steven calls from the other side of the barn.
"Sure, Steven," says Lazuli with a soft smile that seems to be reserved exclusively for Steven.
"What do they mean?" Peridot asks Pearl. "What is this 'sleepover'?"
"Human beings spend most of their nights in a state of hibernation," explains Pearl, fluidly lifting herself off the robot's chest. "Lapis has just agreed to let Steven do this here."
"Oh," says Peridot, copying her. Exactly as fluidly. "What are we suppose to do, then? Engage in sleep, as well?"
"Nooo, Peridot!" Steven calls over. "Nobody sleeps at sleepovers! We're going to eat candy and stay up all night and tell scary, funny or embarrassing stories!"
"Stop," says Lazuli, holding up her hand. "I've changed my mind. No sleepover."
"She's stricter than I am," Pearl mutters to Peridot.
"I'm a little scared of her," Peridot finds herself admitting.
"That's okay!" Steven says to Lazuli, undaunted and undauntable. "Luckily, I have with me… a monopoly board! Pearl, a quick lesson in capitalism, if you please."
"Where have you been keeping that?" Pearl asks them, approaching uncertainly.
"The cooler's secret compartment, naturally," they reply, demonstrating. "Winner gets to pick which barn to sleep in!"
Peridot has a feeling this is going to be a long quarter rotation of the Earth. But not even Lazuli manages to quite seem suitably reluctant.