Disclaimer: I don't own Steven Universe... although I do own a large amount of merchandise.

Authoress' Note: So yeah... after watching Beta, I'm ready to hop on the Lapidot train. However, I like them as both a pairing and as a "best friends... kinda" duo, so that's where this fic is coming in! Enjoy!

Together

Ugh... why does she insist on bothering me? I just want to be left alone... Why does she think that I like her at all? Yeah, I protected her from those visiting Rubies, but that didn't mean that I liked her! I just didn't want to be captured again, and that was it!

Today, she came back from hanging out with Steven and... I think it was Amethyst?... and she spent the whole night blabbering to me about how they went to this amusement park and how Steven introduced her to this tablet thing with something called the "Internet" and whatever else she was bragging about... I guess the plushie she brought back was cute, but otherwise I had no real interest in whatever she had to say.

Doesn't she know I'm not ready to be her friend? Why does she insist on coming up here to my silo and pestering me about things I don't care about? I don't like her! I'll probably never like her! Ugh, she's just so –

"...And look at this! I have metal floating powers! Isn't it the coolest thing you've ever seen?"

I watched as she held the tablet up in the air without touching it... Okay, I have to admit that was pretty cool.

"Wow. That's pretty neat. How did you find out?"

"It just... kinda happened! Amethyst was going on about how I was thinking about things I couldn't do instead of things I could do, and she tried to throw this into the ocean, but I stopped it from going in the water with my powers! And that's how I won this cute thing! I used my powers to play this ring toss game... Pretty cool, isn't it? You must be impressed!"

Yeah, I guess I was... but I wasn't about to let her know that. "Eh, I guess."

Ugh, she's making that face again. That weird smile and wide-eyed look. As if I gave her the best praise ever. "Ooo, I knew that you'd find it so cool! Hey, hey! Let's take a picture together, Lapis! Like... like a selfie or something like that!" she exclaimed.

"A what-now?"

"I don't know either... Steven told me that there's this thing called a selfie when you hold up a camera like this," she said as she scooted closer to me and held the tablet up over our heads, with her fingers this time, "and then you click this button down here and it'll take a picture of you! Then I'll place it all over this thingie with pictures he signed me up for. I was on it all day posting funny jokes, but Steven said that a lot of people post pictures on it too."

Like I want to have my picture taken, especially with her. "Ready? One, two-" she started counting down.

I pushed her away from me, just as she pushed the button. "Aww! Why did you do that? The picture is really blurry, and you're barely in it!" she yelled at me.

"You never even asked me if I wanted to have my picture taken!" I mean, I might have done it if she had asked, but she didn't! She just tried to force it on me! How fair was that?

"Oh... this was one of those manners things, wasn't it?" she asked... Did she really expect me to answer her?

"Uh, yeah."

"I'm sorry... I guess I got too excited. You're right, I should've asked. My bad."

Well, at least she realized pretty fast she did something wrong. Although now she's looking at me like she's about to cry... Wait, why do I feel bad for that all of a sudden? She was the one that messed up, not me!

"Ugh, stop looking at me like that. It's okay; I accept your apology."

There. I said it. Now stop looking like that. Good, she smiled. Guess I rather see her smile than see her frown.

"Well, I guess I bugged you enough. I'm going to go watch some more Camp Pining Hearts. If you need me, I'll be in the barn!"

Good, she's gone. Finally, I can be left alone again! But... what is this Camp Pining Hearts? And what does she mean that she's going to watch it? Is there some camp nearby she spies on with cameras inside of the barn that I don't know about? I mean, I guess it's possible – there was a lot of junk in that barn – but that's kinda creepy... right?

Darn my curiosity! What the heck is this!? "Hey, Peridot! What is Camp Pining Hearts?"

She stopped and looked up at me as if I grew two heads. "What is it!? It's like... the best show ever! I guess Steven's dad had a whole bunch of tapes with this show on it and it's really cool! There's this jerk Percy, and then there's-"

"Okay, okay! I get it!" I could tell she was about to ramble on and on... although that really didn't settle my curiosity... "Can I join you?"

"YES! OF COURSE!"

Man, I swear people in the next town could hear her scream. And her face! She acted as though I gave her the best gift in the world... well, maybe I did. That tablet didn't seem all that impressive to me. So I followed her into the barn, figuring I'd watch an episode or two, that'd settle me down, then I'd go back to my silo...

Where did the time go!? It's sunrise already! I swore it was nighttime! And we ended up watching half a season of episodes! What happened to just watching one or two episodes, huh Lazuli? How did I end up spending the entire night staring at a TV screen, sitting on a dirty couch, next to HER of all Gems?

… But I can't deny that the show was really good. I mean, REALLY good! And I guess Peridot was decent company and was really good at explaining things. Although she did take nearly an hour ranting about how one pairing was better than another... and for some reason I actually sat there and listened. I listened to her. And I didn't get annoyed.

Man, what happened? Last night I was more than happy to see her leave, but now I wanted to stay right here and watch more of this show with her.

"Do you want to watch more? We can stop for now, if you want!"

"... Sure, I guess." I didn't want her to think that was I really excited about this idea... although she definitely seemed excited enough for both of us.

"GREAT! Ooo, the next episode is really good! There's this competition between the houses where they have to create things from sticks and leaves... I should give that a try. Creating something from things like sticks? I mean, I did help create a drill from junk in this barn. Sticks should be easy!"

Last night, I probably would've rolled my eyes and ignored her, but today... the idea sounded like it might have been a bit of fun. "How about we do it together?"

That face again. That happy face of hers... I guess it's not so bad. "Really!? Really, really Lapis!?"

I shrugged my shoulders, and somehow I couldn't resist smiling at her. "Why not?"

I chuckled as she ran around as if I gave her another gift, waving around her hands like crazy. I watched as she went to find the next tape for the show, and I just sighed as I turned away and looked up through a hole in the barn's roof. The sunrise was really pretty. "Hey... before we watch the next episode, how about we watch the sun come up?"

She stopped and beamed, coming back and sitting next to me on the couch, still having that wide-eyed happy face. She had her knees folded up to her chest and arms wrapped around them... she looked kinda cute like that.

Maybe this isn't so bad, living together like this. I thought it would be horrible, but it's actually not that horrible. She is even kinda fun, and we do seem to have some things in common... man, I wasn't expecting that overnight I could find myself actually enjoying her being next to me, but I'm not really unhappy about that either...

I guess I could like her, after all.

-end-