Kiss Cam

by

Silver-Eyed Rukia

Rated: T

Pairing: Lapidot (hinted)

Note: Please ignore any mistakes. Or point them out and correct me, whatever you prefer.

Cover art by: scribble-box on tumblr (scribble-box. tumblr. com)

Peridot hated sports.

She had never been particularly interested in any kind of physical activity and always loathed P.E. lessons in school due to the fact that a) her asthma wasn't exactly encouraging her to strain her body to its limits and b) her disability made it even more difficult to exercise without making an utter fool out of herself. Not that always being picked last for team competitions was helping any either.

Yet here she was, standing at the counter for various snacks and beverages and waiting for her order to be finished so she could finally get back to sitting on her reserved spot in the arena, surrounded by tons of people shouting and screaming into her ears to cheer on their favourite teams. Now that she thought about it she wasn't really looking forward to it, but suffering through it was still better than spending her Saturday evening alone drowning in books she wasn't even meant to study yet. Or at least that was what Jasper had said, shortly before she had dragged her away from said books.

The blonde paused her game and swiped away on her phone to read Amethyst's WhatsApp message and she cracked a small smile at the selfie of the stocky woman getting a piggy-back ride from the much taller but also much leaner girl she had started dating at the beginning of high school. They had known each other since middle school, but their constant bickering and teasing had only turned romantic since they had started hitting puberty rather badly. Her name was Pearl if Peridot remembered correctly, not that she was good at keeping track of names or people's faces, especially not faces.

"One large coke, a bottled water and a serving of family sized nachos for number 103, ready for pick-up."

The small girl placed her phone back into the pocket of her jacket and took her order, giving the boy with the stretched earlobes an awkward smile before stalking off to one of the many entrances. The halls were relatively empty which wasn't all that surprising considering the second period of the game was still being played but a few stragglers were still scurrying through the building. She looked around for a moment before realizing that she had forgotten which entrance she had come out of and silently cursed her ridiculously bad memory concerning stuff that really didn't interest her.

"Stupid Jasper, dragging me off to one of her stupid ice hockey games, stupid meathead", the blonde grumbled before fumbling around her pockets with her free hand. Even though her sports-freak of a friend wasn't the smartest girl to grace the face of this planet she was at least considerate enough to give Peridot a rough sketch of the layout of the arena to help her find the seats again. The sketch was more of a shitty, child-like drawing but hey, the effort is what counts, right?

"Not trying to be rude or anything, but you're kinda in the way, runt."

Peridot stuffed the paper back into her pocket and turned her head to face the source of the rude statement and came about face to face with a tanned, blue-haired girl who was just barely a head taller than herself.

"Who are you calling runt, you're about my height. Do you always insult strangers like that?"

The girl raised an eyebrow at the seemingly unexpected, snarky reply and smirked, eyeing the short, nerdy-looking but also quite attractive girl up and down.

"Only when they're blocking the entrance to the toilets and I have to take a major piss from all that beer. Usually I stick to knocking them out of my way but you looked so fragile, don't want to break a pretty thing now."

Before Peridot had enough time to register the insult-turned-compliment and the rising blush in her cheeks the blue-haired stranger had brushed past her, shoulders connecting for the briefest of moments before she disappeared into the restroom. To say that the blonde was dumbstruck by the exchange would have been the understatement of the year.

It had taken the blonde a good five to ten minutes to recover and finally get back to her seat after the weird encounter but when she did she sighed in relief and plopped down into her seat, wordlessly handing her friend the nachos and the coke, keeping the bottle of water to herself. Her throat felt really dry for some reason.

"Yo nerd, you're back", Jasper grinned and ruffled through the smaller girl's already messy hair, earning her a half-serious glare and a barely audible "tsk" at the motion. "Thanks for the nutrition, gotta keep myself well fed if I want to keep my winning streak in the wrestling team."

"With junk food and soft drinks? Very healthy." The sarcasm was practically dribbling out of Peridot's mouth and Jasper was about to retort and thus spark one of their usual arguments when she noticed her friend absently rubbing her left thigh. The large woman bent down to get closer to the blonde to make sure she would be heard by her even over the commotion inside the arena, even though the game was currently on break, placing a big yet gentle hand on Peridot's shoulder.

"Hey Peri, you alright? I could have gotten us the stuff if you weren't feeling good."

"I'm fine, my leg is just…acting up more lately. It seems that my brain has yet to realize that something is missing even though it's been missing for quite some time now."

Jasper knew that the topic was still a sore one for the younger girl, especially since she hadn't been born with just one leg but both, and both had been functioning like they should. The car accident that had shattered her left knee-cap and everything below that point at the end of middle school had also left her already pretty low self-esteem utterly devastated, making the blonde retreat more and more from her friends and family and instead turn to the world of fiction and her studies. The long haired senior was almost entirely sure that Peridot had already finished all of their textbooks by now, judging by her never-ending barrage of A's and A+'s she was getting.

The two of them had always been an odd pair, ever since they had made friends with each other shortly after entering elementary school. Even back then Peridot had always been smarter than the average kid her age, breezing through the subjects she liked and being picked on for being an utter disadvantage for whatever team she was on in P.E. Jasper was, in many ways, her exact opposite: tall, buff, intimidating and full of confidence. But her skin condition had also always been a topic for people to ridicule her, even though she, unlike Peridot, frightened people into stopping the bullying, no matter if they were bullying her or her best friend. And even though they appeared to be polar opposite they also complemented each other. Peridot was brains where Jasper was brawns and they always made sure to help the other out in any way possible.

The last break was officially over when the announcer started yelling into the microphone excitedly, making the audience erupt into cheering and riling them up for the last period of the game. The Homeworld Sharks, Jasper's favourite team, were currently playing against the Crystal Tigers, a relatively new but still impressive team that had breezed through the tournament like a whirlwind during tornado season. The points were more or less evened out, the Sharks being just a few points ahead of the Tigers but everyone knew that could change any minute. The buff girl gave her best friend a final pat against her back before returning her attention to the game, already cheering and yelling with the rest of the fans. Peridot smiled, happy at seeing Jasper being so into her favourite sport before she whipped out her phone again, eager to finish her paused battle against the Elite Four in Pokémon Red to distract herself from all the commotion. She noticed someone sitting down next to her out of the corner of her eyes but decided to pay it no mind, instead focusing on not getting her ass kicked by the Champion.

Every now and then the cheering would get louder or turn into boo-ing when a player was either getting checked without a penalty or commiting a foul and thus earning a penalty. The person who had sat down next to her at the beginning of the final period seemed to be an avid fan judging by their constant jumping up and sitting down, brushing against Peridot in the process more often than not. The blonde was slightly annoyed but ultimately decided against saying anything; she didn't want to sour anyone's experience by being a sports-grump after all. That train of thought made her remember the blue-haired girl she had met during the second break and her rather rude behavior and Peridot paused paying attention to her game for a moment to remember exactly what she had looked like.

The most noticeable feature about her entire appearance had been her seemingly bottomless blue eyes, like sapphires embedded into a soft-featured, tanned face and sparkling in mischief like the eyes of a cat ready to pounce. A somewhat short blue shock of hair had framed her flawless face, revealing her pierced ears and bringing out her beautiful eyes even more. The last thing Peridot remembered, considering she had been standing relatively close to the girl and thus had only seen what she looked like from the shoulders upwards, was the Homeworld Sharks scarf wrapped around her neck, the greenish design of the merchandise adding a nice touch to her unique colour palette. She felt like she had seen the girl before though, somewhere…but she couldn't quite remember where exactly.

A tap on her left shoulder broke the blonde out of her dazed state and she had barely enough time to turn her head towards the distraction before a pair of lips came crashing down on her own, one hand grabbing her jacket and pulling her closer and another hand supporting the stranger while resting atop of her left thigh. Peridot neither broke nor returned the kiss, too stunned to do anything but stare in wide-eyed horror as she felt as if the hand on her thigh would leave a permanent mark on the sensitive skin. The arena exploded into cheers and cat-calls and a whole other array of noises coming from everywhere in the stands and only when the kiss finally ended, when the hand on her leg moved away and the hand on her jacket loosened the grip a little did the crowd return their attention back to the game, no longer paying the random encounter any mind.

She recognized them. She recognized those incredibly blue and deep sapphires and she certainly remembered that smug smirk on that flawless face and Peridot didn't know why but she really loved that expression and knowing that those into a smirk curled lips were insanely soft and tasted like a mixture of beer and cherry chapstick…'Wait a flipping moment!'

"What the heck are you doing, you clod?!" The blonde's outburst was about as loud as the rest of the yelling going on so it didn't catch anyone's attention except that of the stranger who in return only widened her smirk, leaning closer to say something directly into Peridot's ear.

"Smile for the camera."

Confused Peridot only followed the girl's outstretched hand and looked at the screen showing the score, or at least where the score should have been displayed if it weren't for the replay of them kissing being broadcasted to everyone in the arena again with a huge headline stating "Kiss-cam" above it. The blonde felt like her head had just caught a virus and had made her brain stop working entirely since all she could do was look back at the girl, mouth still ajar from the kiss, and stare at her in slack-jawed wonder. At this point she must have been spacing out for some time because the smirk on her opposite's face was slowly losing its edge and instead turned more worried when she wasn't getting any response. Jasper, who had watched the entire scene unfold, was staring at the tanned girl from behind her best friend, looking anything but amused that she had stolen what she assumed to be Peridot's first kiss during a kiss-cam video in a freaking ice hockey arena.

"Hey, uhm, your friend's kinda scary and honestly looks like she's about to beat me into a bloody pulp, care to give me a hand? Name's Lapis, by the way. Lapis Lazuli."

Peridot almost mechanically turned around to face her best friend, which in turn made Lapis let go of her jacket completely, and finally managed to find her voice again. She shook her head slightly before leaning closer to Jasper, voice a high-pitched hiss and face still fully flushed with embarrassment.

"That was my first kiss! And it was a beautiful girl too and oh my stars everyone saw it!"

Jasper had to bite back the laughter at the utter look of horror on the blonde's face, game all but forgotten when she leaned closer too and offered her best friend a piece of advice.

"Yeah well, look on the bright side: your nerdy ass seems to have left an impression on her", the tall girl started and sneaked a glance past her friend to see Lapis still eyeing the pair with a look of barely restrained curiosity on her face, "girl's still checking you out and she is looking damn fine. I'd hit that."

Peridot only sputtered in response, a "you stupid meathead" being audible between all her gibberish, before Jasper chuckled and placed her big hands on her friend's shoulders, turning her around and lightly shoving her in the opposite direction before letting go. Which in turn made the blonde nearly fall flat into the blue-haired girl's chest if it hadn't been for her arms catching the smaller girl before she hit her. Emerald orbs stared into sparkling sapphires before Lapis' smirk returned, her voice dripping with cockiness as she spoke.

"Well, I like your take on "hitting on somebody". I wouldn't have taken you for the bold gal, seeing you freezing up kissing me and all that."

"I didn't kiss you, you kissed me and that without my permission so don't act so confident about your stunt." Peridot silently thanked her brain for loading her back-up files for coherent speech. At least she wasn't going to make herself look like a complete retard in front of Lapis.

"Kiss-cam. I didn't make the rules for that." The tanned girl let go of her opposite when said senior returned to her normal sitting position, humming quietly to herself before looking at the phone in the blonde's hand, which she surprisingly hadn't dropped in all the commotion.

"Pokémon, hm? Damn, I kissed a nerd." She leaned a bit closer and wordlessly took the phone right out of Peridot's hand, intentionally brushing her own fingers against those of the blonde. She paused the game and scrolled through the contacts and after finding out what she wanted she created a new contact, typing up her phone number before returning the device to its rightful owner with a wink. "But I liked it, Peri." And with that she stood, just in time to see the last second of the game ticking away and the announcer notifying everyone that the Sharks had won the match with just a couple of points in the lead. Lapis quickly disappeared in the crowd and all Peridot could do was stare at the number of the random girl that had stolen her first kiss in the middle of a hockey game.

And the weirdest part about everything was that she didn't even mind. She was certainly looking forward to meeting her again and this time she would make sure that she left the girl just as dumbfounded as she had left her today.

Oh boy. I can't stop writing about these two. Especially my favourite gem, Peri :) (Which is funny cause Peridot is my girlfriend's birthstone. Guess what goes on her engagement ring ;) So...have another Lapidot AU because I am a trashcan aboard the ship with a course down Lapidot hell. Anyone who wants to join, feel free to let me know!

Phrase of the Day

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.

~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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