author's note: uploading from my ao3. this was a request from peach.
"'Sup Peridork!" Amethyst yells as she grabs an unsuspecting Peridot from behind, laughing.
"A-Amethyst!" Peridot shrieks, jumping out of her arms, "What are you doing?!"
"Garnet told me to come check up on you. What are you doing?" Amethyst asks, mimicking Peridot's nasally voice and gestures.
Peridot sighs irritably and brushes herself off, rolling her eyes. "I'm ... 'stargazing'," she mutters as she turns around and looks towards the sky. For the first night in weeks the sky was completely clear, the waxing gibbous moon softly illuminating it. The stars and the planets sparkle and shon down at them, much brighter in the countryside than they'd usually be in the middle of the city.
Amethyst looks towards the sky too and sniggers. "Stargazing?"
"Yes. The fu- I mean, Garnet said she finds it 'relaxing'," Peridot looks down towards the ground and kicks at a pebble. "I personally just find it frustrating."
"Aw, what's the matter?" Amethyst playfully throws her arm around Peridot, pulling her close. "Is someone homesick?"
Peridot grunts and shakes her arm off. "No. I just find this activity completely unproductive and pointless. Not to mention, this position is extremely uncomfortable."
"Have you tried lying down while stargazing? Sure is a lot more relaxing than standing up and doing it," Amethyst says as she drops the ground and lies back on the grass, sighing contentedly.
"Why would you do that?" Peridot questions, looking down at her in confusion. "How are you supposed to see the stars from down there?"
"It's more comfortable?" Amethyst rolls over and smirks at her. "It's more about fun and less about being the next Copernicus."
Peridot stares at her for a moment, contemplating the idea before cautiously sitting down on the ground beside Amethyst. She studies Amethyst's posture and awkwardly slides down into the grass, laying her head back at looking up at the stars.
"Is this right?" she asks, turn her head towards Amethyst for her approval.
"There's no right way to do it, Peri. Just relax. " Amethyst snickers, closing her eyes, "Oh man, this brings back memories. Pearl and uh… um, she used to take me out on the beach all the time and try and teach me about the stars and all the dumb names humans gave them."
"They give the stars names?"
"Yeah. I dunno, they just connect a string of stars together and call it something, like "The Dog" or whatever. I could never remember them. I liked making my own up more," Amethyst points towards a group of stars, "Like see that one? Near that red planet? Kinda looks like a hotdog from here."
Peridot squints and shakes her head, "I don't see it."
"Eh, maybe I'm just hungry. Whatever," says Amethyst a she lays her head back and closes her eyes. After a moment she opens an eye and looks at Peridot. She had a look of discomfort painted across her face as she stared up at the sky. The reflection of the stars and planets and occasional shooting star are clear in her visor, especially the reflection of a certain, far-off galaxy.
Homeworld's galaxy.
It was the first planet the gems told her about, back when they were trying to teach her about her heritage. They talked about it which such disgust and disdain that she learned to associate it with that too. Even so, she still often wonders what it's really like. While she feared the return of Homeworld gems just as much as the others, she still couldn't help but be curious about how her life would have been had she been able to see it. Hearing Peridot talk about Homeworld and the diamonds was the first time Amethyst had ever heard something different about it. She still couldn't understand what Peridot was so proud of though. She couldn't image how bored she'd be blindly following some bigger gem's order with no freedom or life outside of that.
"You can see Homeworld's galaxy from here," Amethyst says, breaking the silence as she points up towards a cluster of stars and planets.
Peridot jolts slightly at the sudden comment, but nods. "I noticed."
Amethyst lets out a shaky laugh. "That was the first one Pearl showed me. Surprisingly..." She looks away from the sky and towards Peridot, "Uh… Do you ever like, miss it?"
"Sometimes," Peridot sighs and closes her eyes. "Well… Often."
"Oh..."
Silence descends upon the pair again, all is quiet except for the gentle night breeze and the occasional chirp of a cricket.
"Do you?" Peridot ask after a few minutes, her voice soft.
"I think you're forgetting something, dude," Amethyst says, lowering her voice and looking away. "I've never left Earth, remember? Except for when you kidnapped us in your crazy space hand. Or that time we went to the moon. I've never been. Never wanna go either..."
"O-oh… Right," Peridot mumbles. "Sorry."
Amethyst turns towards her and smiles, "It's cool."
"But haven't you ever wondered what you've been missing out on?"
"Well I mean... from what the others told me it doesn't seem like a great place, y'know? Sure, maybe it was good for Rose or Sapphire but what about me or Pearl or you? There's tons of us there, right? And like you said I am… defective," Amethyst clenches her fists and frowns, "No one would want me there either."
Peridot winces and sits up, drawing her knees close to her chest. "Yes, but... but that's how it's meant to be. Everyone has a place and purpose, here it's just... madness! Chaos! There's no structure, everything is messed up and unorganised. Pearls in combat, perma-fusions! I -"
"Woah woah, I thought you'd figured all this stuff out, Dottie," Amethyst interrupts, frowning.
"Not really," Peridot mumbles, resting her chin on her knees. "I kind of get it but a lot of the time it still… alludes me. I want to understand but it's hard. I guess I better get used to it though. It isn't really as bad as I thought it would be."
Amethyst doesn't respond for a while, instead she sits up too, staring down the hills towards Beach City. Her gaze shifts to Peridot and she studies her frail frame, hunched over with her head practically between her knees. For some reason, she felt extremely uncomfortable and couldn't figure out why.
"What's it like?" she eventually asks. "For you, I mean. On Homeworld."
"For me, it was good," Peridot looks up and stares at the ground, smiling wanly. "My manager said I was an outstanding technician, a more than competent peridot. I got moved from being a warehouse worker to working on Homeworld and then she even assigned me my own ship after I'd worked on it! And I got to mingle with some of Homeworld's most renowned technicians and physicists! Then I was given my own mission, she let me work by all myself. It was a peridot's dream."
"And then we got involved?"
"Mhm," Peridot nods, her smile fading. "I thought that when we got back from Earth, they'd all be so impressed by my work and I'd be moved up the ranks even more. Emerald was so proud when she saw my robonoids and when I reported the incident at facet five. I couldn't wait to come back and see her again. I bet she wouldn't even look at me now." Peridot hides her face in her hand and sniffs. "I suppose I just miss belonging… I had my place. We all had our own place. But now, I have no where. I don't belong anywhere."
"Join the club," Amethyst remarks, forcing a laugh.
Peridot turns around and gives her quizzical look.
"I don't belong anywhere either," murmurs Amethyst as she looks away and tosses her hair so it hides her face.
"But you're a 'crystal gem'. You belong with those three, don't you?"
"I guess," Amethyst glances at the barn and sighs. "Still never felt like I really belonged. I was just some dumb little kid they let run around after them. You know how they feel about the kindergartens. How'd you think they feel about me?"
Peridot shifts around awkwardly, "But you're a rebel. All you've done is fought for this gem forsaken planet too! Isn't that what being a 'Crystal Gem' is all about?"
Amethyst glares at her. "I'm not a rebel! I'm just some immature defect. I didn't fight for this planet, I didn't even know what we were fighting those monsters for for years! They didn't want to tell me about all the 'bad' things. They didn't want me to know why they all hated me so much. I-I'm everything they fight against. I'm everything they hate. I don't belong here! I don't belong anywhere!"
Amethyst drops her head and let her hair completely cover her face. She stares at her lap as she breathes heavily, shutting her eyes as that familiar feeling of regret washes over her again. She hates lashing out but it's hard to resist. Especially when her past is involved.
She feels Peridot's small hand rest on hers and she looks up, staring at Peridot through her bangs.
"Join the club," Peridot says with an awkward smile on her face and Amethyst cracks up, but doesn't move her hand.
"Peri, you're a riot!" she laughs, wiping her eyes with her free hand.
Peridot laughs too but quickly goes quiet. "I didn't know you felt like that, Amethyst."
Amethyst stops laughing and sighs, looking away. "Yeah, it's not really something I talk about a lot, y'know? Sorry for dumping all my dirt on you."
"Dirt?" Peridot repeats.
"It's nothing," Amethyst says with a small smile. "And uh, sorry we kinda ruined your life by the way."
Peridot tightens her grip on Amethyst's hand and smiles too. "It's fine. But just so you know… I don't hate you."
Amethyst's eyes widen and she blushes. "Heh, thanks, dude. You too."
The two stare at each other for a moment, before Amethyst laughs nervously and pulls her hand away. "Soo, uh, you wanna make up some dumb constellations with me?"
"S-Sure," Peridot stutters, laying back on the ground with Amethyst and looking up towards the sky. "The… chicken…" she says, pointing up.
"Chicken?" Amethyst splutters. "Where?"
"Up there! Near your moon!" says Peridot defensively, dropping her arm.
"Looks more like a plate to me," Amethyst jeers, looking at Peridot with a smirk, but it softens to a smile when she feels Peridot reach over and rest her hand on hers again.