'Life's a pain in the neck', Peridot thought to herself as she scribbled a signature onto her empty meal plan. She was a freshman at H.W. university now and had to take care of her own problems, and she refused to have any complications mess with her schedule; eat, got to class, game,sleep, repeat. She was multitasking between tumblr and paperwork when a rhythmic knock came from the door,followed by it being opened by the biggest girl she had ever seen.
"Oh great i get a roommate" The large girl said with sarcastic amusement in her voice when she saw Peridot's bewildered stare."I'm Jasper".
"P-Peridot." Peridot answered back slightly intimidated. She took a moment to observe her new 'roommate'. Jasper appeared to not have any luggage other than the large cardboard box she had propped against her hip. Her long white hair hung loosely around her waist in a poofy was wearing a tshirt with the sleeves cut off roughly, a pair of ragged jeans, and, surprisingly, flip flops.
Jasper walked over to the empty bed and set the box down."Hey i've gotta bounce and talk to the football coach,i'll catch ya' later nerd."
Peridot rolled her eyes as jasper left the room, closing the door a little less than slamming it as she didn't bother paying any further attention to her new room mate other than thinking 'wonderful' sarcastically and started working on the huge file of paperwork the office had given her.
Jasper P.O.V.
It was dark when Jasper finally got back to the dorms. Pushing the door open quietly she saw Peridot fast asleep next to a stack papers. A slight smile appeared on her face.'well, i may as well put my stuff up make my side look pretty." Jasper thought as she walked over to her bed.
She pulled out a sharp switchblade and cut the tape holding the box closed and looked down at the few items she packed. Inside the box was a small stack of polaroids, a few football trophies, some folded clothes, a framed photograph of her and her ex girlfriend P.D. , and a long black scarf with four diamonds on the end. She set the polaroids on the nightstand beside her bed and shoved the trophies on the shelf if the closet, the clothes went into her dresser. Finally was the photo, the two of them smiling straight at her with large flakes of snow covering them and turning P.D.'s nose a slightly darker shade,around her neck was the could hear the laughter of that night fresh in her mind and feel the burn in her throat from the freezing gave a watery smile and gently sat the photo on the nightstand facing her bed. Jasper picked up the scarf out of the box and held it up to her nose and sniffed,the scent of vanilla and coffee was intoxicating;more memories she tried to suppress filled her mind like pouring water into an already full shook her head angrily and shoved the scarf into the drawer of her nightstand, But the anger didn't last. It drained out of her leaving in its wake moved the now empty box and laid down on her bed as sleep made her eyelids gave one last last look towards the photo.
"Good night, don't forget i'm right here when you wake up" Jasper whispered as sleep consumed her.
Peridot P.O.V.
Peridot woke up the next morning to the annoying sound of her phone screaming, her friend Amethyst set her alarm as horror movie screaming and she couldn't find out how to reset it. She turned her alarm off and looked over to Jasper's messy but empty bed. Slowly crawling out her bed she made her way to the closet to grab a hoodie and cut off jeans. She grabbed her backpack and she was out the door to her classes.
The first class she had was chemistry with a creepy old guy who couldn't see past his fingertips. Peridot looked around,nope, no Jasper this hour,lucky me. The hours slowly crept past and Jasper wasn't in any of her classes, until her final class with Ms. Quartz. Peridot walked happily into the class until she saw jasper in the back corner surrounded by a group of equally beefy girls,they were all talking loudly about parties and football. She tried to ignore them but one of the shorter girls called her out.
"Hey, ain't you supposed to be giving someone lunch money right about now?" the girl with a small afro and red skin said.
Peridot rolled her eyes before shooting back with,"No offense, i think you're in the wrong part of town, the elementary school is downtown past the 'get some new one liners' shop."
Ms. Quartz stood and looked at the girls sternly before Jasper slapped the back of her head.
"RUBY! That's my room mate, learn some common decency before i have to teach you myself. Sorry about that Peri- Ruby can be an idiot sometimes."
" it's fine." Peridot said as she sat down at a desk close to the window that looked out at the courtyard that was covered in trees.
"Actually Peridot, it isn't, all gems are equals and deserve to be treated as such." Ms. Quartz said calmly."Ruby I would like to see you after class please. You too Peridot." she finished with a sweet smile as the rest of the students, gem and human alike entered the class."now class what can you tell me about the great g-"
The rest was lost to peridot who was staring out across the open courtyard with a fuzzy was brought back to real time when the bell rang. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.'Wonderful, I have to stay here instead of going to my room and eating frozen pizza is exactly how I wanted to start my evening.' Peridot thought sarcastically while she waited for the rest of the class to the class was finally empty both Ruby and Peridot walked up to Ms. Quartz's desk nervously.
"Please girls lighten up a bit, neither of you are in trouble," She said with a small laugh."I just wanna have a conversation. First off, Ruby why did you say that to Peridot?"
" I wanted to make my friends laugh...im sorry."Ruby said looking at the floor and shifting her weight from foot to foot.
Ms. Quartz nodded and looked at Peridot, " and why did you say what you said, Peridot?
" I had to defend myself. I wasn't just going to let myself get shoved around." Peridot answered as justifiably as she could.
"I understand both of you. But Ruby you know just how horrible it is to be picked on, where do you think you should stand on the line of that?More importantly, what do you think saphire would say?" Ms. Quartz said with a knowing look at Ruby, whose eyes had widened and a maroon blush covered her face.
"Please don't tell sapphire, Rose please! I really am sorry."Ruby said quickly with worry in her eyes.
"Who's sapphire?" Peridot asked confused.
"My girlfriend…" Ruby whispered looking at the ground. "only my close friends know i'm gay."
Ms. Quartz smiled, " i have an idea. Ruby, Peridot knows one of your secrets, Peridot tell Ruby something in turn. Just a some middle ground so this doesn't happen again" She winked at them with amusement coverering her every feature.
"Well, umm i have a very unhealthy addiction to llamas with hats." Peridot said trying to be as sarcastic as possible.
Ruby snorted," Don't we all. Be serious." Her expression became dark as she waited for Peridot's answer.
Peridot sighed heavily, " when i was in the 7th grade i was expelled from my private school for spray painting a mural on the entire backside of the school." Peridot picked up her bag and walked to the door.
"What did you paint?" Both Ms. Quartz and Ruby simultaneously.
" The words, ' rebellion is revolution, the school board is one giant clod.' With a lot of triangles and hashtag marks." Peridot said as she walked out the door.
Rose looked toward the door, "well, that wasn't on her transcript." Rose said flatly.
Peridot took the long way back to the dorms so she wouldn't have see Jasper as fast.'I cannot believe that just happened.' 'what if they tell?' 'what am i gonna do?'. Thoughts kept racing back and forth in her head, she didn't even realize when she finally made it back to her dorm. When she grabbed the handle and turned she found it was locked.
"Jasper! Open the door or i'm gonna pick the lock!" Peridot yelled without letting go of the handle.
"No way shorty, not happening." Jasper said. Her laughter was muffled thru the door.
Peridot got down on one knee and started picking the lock with a kit from her back pocket. After a few minutes of loud cursing she heard a soft click and opened the door to a suddely not laughing Jasper. Peridot flipped her off as she sat on her bed and pulled out her laptop and textbooks and began to work. Jasper flopped onto her bed began to sing in loud off key german.
"What on earth are you shrieking?" Peridot said covering her ears and laughing.
" I'm not totally sure. Pearl was singing it when she got wasted at 'Glory Greatest'." Jasper said throwing a bouncy ball at the ceiling. " Pearl is another one of my crew. Not counting me, there are about seven of us. Pearl, Lapis, Garnet, Ruby, Sapphire,Quartz, and Amethyst."
"Wait you know Amethyst?" Peridot asked suprised. She figured Amethyst would have mentioned knowing her, then again they hadn't spoken since the night before last…
"Yeah, she's one of the linebackers on my team. Fast little brat." Jasper laughed and pulled out her phone, after a few seconds of scrolling she turned the phone to face Peridot. It was a picture of Amethyst in full football gear holding her helmet and eating a burger. The front of her jersey read 'lions' with the number 86 underneath it.
Peridot shook her head, " i went to highshcool with her and we're pretty good friends." She ran a hand thru her diamond hair and sighed heavily."college is wierd"
" I'm glad we agree on something" Jasper said leaning back against her headboard. "this place may actually be the the thing that kills my beautiful self." she slung her arm over her eyes dramatically.
Peridot rolled her eyes and smiled. 'You've got to be kidding me' she thought, truth be told she was started to enjoy Jasper's sat back in her bed and picked up her advanced Robotics engineering text book and began sifting thru her homework. Her eyes scanned the pages as she sketched a small round robot and began writing formulas for its gears. She barely noticed when Jasper walked over and stared over her shoulder at her work.
"What in the stars are you doing?" Jasper asked with a disgusted and confused look on her face. Her long white hair fell in her face as she leaned over, peridot sniffed lightly and found she smelled like pumpkin spice and deodorant. Peridot straightend up and cleared her throat.
'I'm doing my robotics home work." Peridot said setting down her pencil and trying to lean away.
"Well that sounds boring. You should be on a sports team. Its better than, " Jasper leaned in to read her book "whatever that is. Or you always have the option to come cheer for have practice every tuesday, wendsday,and friday." She shot her a wicked smile that made her golden eyes all the brighter.
"I'll consider coming to practice, but im not cheering."Peridot said flatly."but you have to return the favor."
"By doing what exactly?" Jasper asked with a raised eyebrow.
You have to work on the club fair with me, you'll just be Putting up decorations and setting up stands. You also get extra credit for it." Peridot said as she leaned back against her pillows,"you win, i win."
"Deal" Jasper said smiling.
Jasper P.O.V.
After a few more hours of Peridot doing her home work and having the kids upstairs yell at her to stop throwing the ball at the ceiling, She decided to find a new way of entertaining herself.
"Hey Peri." Jasper shouted, making Peridot jump.
"What you clod?!" Peridot said with a very annoyed look on her face.
"We dont know much about each other,so i figured we could do a bit of brain picking over chinese, what do you think?" She wiggled her phone at Peridot with a raised eyebrow. Honestly she just wanted to know something about Peridot so she wasnt rooming with a really uncomfortable to stay in a room with somebody you know nothing about.
Peridot shrugged."its sounds fine with me." Peridot stood up and walked over to the small coffee pot and made herself a large cup.
Jasper dialed the number and ordered entirely to much sweet and sour chicken.
"So Favorite color"Jasper asked to break the silence
"Green." Peridot said without looking away from the slowley filling cup."what was the name of your first pet?"
Jasper thought for a moment, "if you mean actual pet, It was a cat named nacho. If you mean pet like goldfish or hamster, it was a mouse named cloud."She laughed fondly at the memory."why did you come to this school?"
" it was the farthest most reasonable distance i could get from my mother and highschool rep." Peridot said quietly before sipping the coffee."This might be a little personal but, whose the girl in the photo with you?" Peridot looked over her cup.
Jasper's formerly loose stance was now tense." Pink Diamond…. She's my ex-girfriend."Jasper's expression bacame sad and angry.
"Did you have a bad break up?" Peridot asked concerned. Her voice echoed worry over Jasper's mood change.
"No, she died two winters ago."Jasper said gruffly."Drop the subject."
Peridot's expression became sad as her mind processed what Jasper just told a knock came at the door, the food was here.