"Jasper, these grades are astounding, I'm so proud of you!" Rose said as she read Jasper's report card while walking with Jasper to her house. Jasper's face color bloomed into red roses.
"Uh…" Jasper stuttered, not exactly sure how to respond. She reached out for Rose's hand and clenched it tightly. Rose responded by clenching it back. She scratched her messy blonde hair in awkwardness. The two giant teenage junior girl lovers were walking towards Rose's home from school in the windy spring season. The third marking period report cards came out that day, and Jasper was letting Rose see her report card, it was a huge improvement from the last marking period.
"How about when we get to my house, I'll make you some lemonade to celebrate," Rose offered. Jasper looked back at her. She smiled her toothy smile. She couldn't resist Rose's famous pink lemonade, nobody made it like her. She figured she deserved it. She worked so hard this marking period to not just get some pink lemonade but to hear Rose be happy about it. Rose was her inspiration for this marking period and she was looking forward to using her as one for the current fourth one.
"Yes! I win again!" Jasper silently yelled to herself. Rose laughed for a minute at Jasper's reaction. As the two continued walking on the sidewalk, she felt Rose stop in her tracks. She looked back to see Rose reading a flier on an electric post. Jasper was about to speak until Rose turned around to face her.
"Jasper, want to sing at the Beach-a-Palooza with me?" she grabbed the flier from the post and started walking again, since it was sudden, she would've dragged Jasper if she didn't catch up in time. Jasper started blushing at the thought of singing with Rose on stage in front of the whole town. It was both terrifying and exciting.
Jasper heard Rose sing a few times, and she's amazing at it then there's her, she heard herself sing once, and her deep raspy voice just wasn't cut out for singing. She could imagine a duet with it would just make it sound bad, nonetheless how good Rose was. She'd rather not be at Beach-a-Palooza at all then embarrass Rose at it.
Rose lifted her head back towards Jasper.
"It'll be fun," she added.
Until then she remembered the excitement of singing with Rose, hearing her voice so closely, the romantic tension, how happy Rose would be if they sang together and the fun of crushing all those who didn't have Rose to sing with them. Before she knew it, she responded.
"Sure, Rose! Together, we'll crush the competition," she grabbed Rose's wrist of her other hand and gave her an eager smile. She lifted them up. Rose blushed slightly, her eyes forming into stars. She then started laughing which left Jasper in confusion.
"Jasper, the Beach-a-Palooza isn't a contest," she corrected. Jasper blushed back in embarrassment. She should've known it was one of those pointless things where you have to put effort in but don't get the title of winning. That takes off some excitement. She took a good look at Rose again.
"Alright, Jasper do you have any songs in mind?" Rose asked as they sat in her bedroom as they were doing their math homework together on Rose's bed while drinking Rose's homemade pink lemonade. Jasper tried thinking of one but none came to mind.
"No, you?" Jasper responded as she looked over at Rose's homework. Alongside two of the six answers the answers, she found Rose doodling on the side of her paper, a girl and another girl then doodled music notes surrounding the girls.
"Actually I have a little one in mind," she looked over at Jasper. "I've been googling some songs and I thought this one song was wonderful and I loved for you to hear it,"
Rose used her phone to search up the song on Youtube, and eventually found the song by the first result. She pressed it and the song started playing. As Jasper listened to the song, she knew exactly what the sappy song was saying. Every lyric that was sung, she could say it was the way she felt towards Rose. Although the song was too sappy for Jasper's tastes, for Rose, she'd sing it. Each song felt one-hundred percent better when Rose was with her listening and enjoying it. Each second with Rose spent was pre-heaven for Jasper.
As the song ended, Rose slid the video out of sight.
"So, what do you think?" Rose asked, Jasper eagerly smiled at her.
"I think it's great! We'll blow the crowd away with this song!" said Jasper with stars in her eyes.
Rose couldn't help but laugh at Jasper's eagerness. Jasper blushed slightly. The girls then leaned towards each other while they continued talking about the song. It was a peaceful night all until Pearl called. Pearl was the secretary of the student council in the school Rose and Jasper attended as Rose was the president, and they met at the student councils, Pearl intentionally made it incredibly obvious she had a crush on Rose, and obviously, Jasper wasn't really fond of it. If Rose wasn't best friends with Pearl, Jasper would scare her off like she did everyone who attempted to hit on Rose. So she had to silently watch that stick's desperate attempts to get Rose to have feelings for her. She should really just back off.
"Hang on, Jasper," Rose shrugged, she knew Pearl annoyed Jasper to no end but she admired Jasper not hurting Pearl, she sensed a huge improvement from Jasper, when they first started dating, Jasper would be over protective and only went as far as threatening those who also romantically liked Rose thanks to Rose stopping her. Rose answered the call and began speaking with Pearl.
When Rose finished speaking, Jasper was already pumped up to begin practicing, so with a bit of lyric learning, they then began the somewhat fun practice.
It wasn't so fun practicing with Rose as Jasper expected, the excitement was there, but so was the sudden lowered self esteem. She was singing with Rose, the girl who had a voice that could challenge the best artists in the world. And she was Jasper, the girl best known for crushing the competition in volleyball, football, baseball, and basketball. The arts were just never her thing. The one time she sang in public was for that one Winter Concert performance which counted as a grade. So unlike Rose, who regularly liked singing, she had zero experience.
She felt her voice weaken as they practiced and Rose's stronger and better. When the session was over, Jasper watched Rose pour more pink lemonade and groaned to herself. Rose placed the glass of pink lemonade atop of the table.
"Thank you, Rose" Jasper grumbled and chugged down the glass and slammed it on the table, surprisingly not breaking the glass. Although, to any other eye, it'd be obvious Jasper was feeling down, Rose wasn't the kind to sense somebody's negative feelings unless it was painfully obvious or on occasion, literally spelled out to her. And even then she'd have to be told why the said somebody was sad.
Rose sat down only about three inches alongside her lover, leaving Jasper a slight blush, her eyes looked away to the ceiling. Although Rose's lucious lips weren't even moving, bells that rung out chimes of her singing splattered throughout her head. It felt like some raging sweet dream unitentionally turning into a nightmare.
It was the time of the day when Jasper had lunch, she was sitting next to Rose who usually sat with her team of misfits, Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet. Rose was excited to tell her friends about the Beach-a-Palooza performance.
Although,Garnet may of just had just mere intrest and nothing else within it while Amethyst was possibly too busy stuffing herself, Jasper noticed Pearl was in a noticeable rage that she was trying to keep bottled in. Her fists were tightly clenched and she could've squeezed her empty water bottle to death with that rage.
"I'm sorry, my water bottle's empty, and I'm super thirsty... I'm just going to go refill it," she said and stood up and stomped away. Rose, Jasper, Garnet, and Amethyst blankly stared at her dramatically leave the room.
"Well, Rose, I'm proud of you, I'm sure you and Jasper will sound good together," Garnet responded and patted Rose on the back. Amethyst stuffed two small loaves in her face and gulped them down.
"Honestly, it could be bad, we never really heard Jasper sing and she could be HORRIBLE!" Amethyst rambled, Jasper urged herself really hard to not choke the runt. Instead, she gave her a death glare which Amethyst didn't see.
"Oh, trust me, Jasper is tremendous at singing, we started practicing yesterday," Rose chirped and held Jasper's hand, she jumped slightly. Her hair stood up when Rose's touch went through her boundaries.
Amethyst couldn't help but laugh at Jasper's dorkiness, while Garnet drank some chocolate milk while observing the lovers. All the attention made Jasper nervous. She just wanted to punch somebody so she could relieve herself.
The day was here, the day Jasper was going to disapoint Rose greatly, the day everybody would laugh at her attempt to sing, the day Jasper was praying the world would end before it came. If there was a God, why would that God want Jasper to suffer so much, Rose was supposed to be the angel it sent right? Then why is the supposed God making her feel hell with Rose is the main question Jasper wanted to ask.
Jasper did her usual morning routine with a bit more grumpiness then usual. It was an awful day and Jasper wished she had something to do to avoid the upcoming disaster. School passed and it was 5 o' clock, thirties minutes until the actual Beach-a-Palooza would commenced. Jasper was in the town's local spot where the stage was, watching the various singers sing their heart out and getting applaused. She was wearing nothing fancy, just a red burgundy buttoned up shirt, jeans and sneakers. They were the last performance because they signed up the latest. Jasper was tensing up through each performance as she took the time to watch every performance in the Beach-a-Palooza, every performance was slightly good at least, she couldn't enjoy them however, she was too nervous about her own.
"Jasper!"
Jasper turned around to see Rose with a huge and eager smile on her face.
"R-rose," she mumbled.
"I can't wait till' we perform together," she said as she stood beside Jasper. Jasper looked over to her. She knew now was the worst time to tell Rose she wanted to back out, but she just couldn't go through with it. She took a deep sigh.
"Rose, listen," she growled under her breath.
"What is it, Jasper?" Rose looked over to her, grasping her full attention to her girlfriend.
"I'm not singing with you anymore,"
"What-what do you mean, Jasper?" a frown grew on Rose. Jasper cringed at her words,
"I'm not gonna sing that song with you on stage, not with you out of all people," Jasper said again, hoping Rose wouldn't respond.
"Jasper, why can't we sing together?" Rose asked, she moved her hand to Jasper's shoulder in concern which made it harder for Jasper to say the words to it.
"It's complicated, okay?" Jasper muttered.
"Jasper, please tell me..." Rose frown grew sadder, causing the same effect to happen to Jasper's heart. Jasper dared to glare at her which alarmed Rose. She moved her hand away from Jasper. Jasper looked down on the floor, her face grew red again in frustration.
"It just is..." and before Rose knew it, Jasper ran out of sight, tears formed in her eyes. Jasper attempted to blink them away. She was angry with herself but she didn't know why. The feeling just kept hanging around. Growing as long as a sunflower.
Jasper ran to her house, in her room and started punching and kicking innocent objects that were in there, she even broke some of the object but she didn't care, she was too busy thinking about Rose singing with Pearl instead of her, and the sight of Rose being disappointed cause of her was breaking her heart. An hour later, she completely wrecked her room, the only things remaining were her photos of her and Rose together in picture frames. Jasper took the time to look at the precious moments together.
"Jasper-"
Jasper turned around to see Garnet, her arms crossed and a stern look on her face. Great, another one of Rose's annoying friends who want to annoy her. Why do they think, because they're her girlfriend's best friends, they could casually talk to her?
"Why are you here?" she grumbled.
Garnet did the annoying thing wheere she'd adjust her over-worn purple sunglasses before she'd speak.
"Why did you leave Rose out there?" Garnet asked. It took all of Jasper's remaining willpower not to punch those stupid sunglasses off her stupid face.
"You wouldn't understand!" Jasper shouted, stomping. "Just leave me alone." Garnet gave a mysterious little half-smile that only served to make Jasper even angrier at the tall woman.
"Oh," she said. "I think I understand perfectly."
Jasper folded her arms.
"Oh yeah? If you're so smart, you tell me what to do about this."
Garnet stepped further into the room and closed the door behind her, her movements slow and deliberate.
"You're angry because you want to sing with Rose, but you don't want to let her down. You're angry at yourself for disappointing her. And there's something else there too..."
Jasper scoffed.
"And what's that?"
"Oh," Garnet responded. "Interesting. It looks like somebody has a little crush on our friend Rose."
Jasper blushed and looked away.
"What would you know about romance? You've never loved anyone in your life."
Garnet chuckled. "Let me tell you a story."
Once there lived two young girls, Ruby and Sapphire. Sapphire was a beautiful singer, and every day she went to the park to practice. But it never sounded right, no matter what she tried. One day when she was practicing, a young girl named Ruby came along and was enchanced by the beautiful sound she heard. She followed the noise to Sapphire, who was singing softly to herself in a clearing near a pond. Ruby wanted to approach her, but she knew the beautiful girl would never be friends with a common street kid like herself. So she came back, day after day, hiding in the shadows_ for another chance to hear that beautiful voice._ Months later, Ruby was hiding, listening to
Sapphires beautiful song. But today it sounded... Sad, like all the joy had been sucked from the singing girl's heart. Ruby, who was hiding in the bushes, was unhappy to hear
such a sad song in place of the normalserenade. She finally decided that she would do it. Today was the day she would come out of her hiding spot and talk to her. As soon as she tried though, she lost her footing and fell into the shallow pond, splashing Sapphire with muddy water. Apologizing, Ruby scrambled up and tried to run from the clearing. Until, that is,she felt a hand on her arm.
"Don't go," Sapphire begged. "Stay. I've seen you, you know. You've been listening to mysong."
Ruby didn't know what to say.
"I... You have?" Sapphire nodded.
"Yes. But why would anyone do that just to hear my song?"
"Well," Ruby responded sheepishly "because it's the most beautiful song I've ever heard, _ _and sung by the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."
Sapphire giggled in response, then looked sad again.
"It's not complete, though. There's somethingwrong and though I try I can never figure out just what." She looked at Ruby. "What if... What if you sang it with me?" Ruby nearly fell back into the pond.
"Sing? With you? I... I can't, I don't know how-"
"That's okay," Sapphire replied softly. "I'll teach you."
And so, from that day forth, Ruby joined Sapphire in her daily singing practice, first humming along with her until she had the words memorized and then singing with her. And finally, Sapphire realized what had been wrong all along. It wasn't that the song was wrong, it was just missing something. It was missing it's other half.
"And now," Garnet finished. "Rose needs her other half."
Jasper was in awe of Garnet's story, yet she was too proud to admit it, now Pearl was probably going to steal her spot, the one she backed out of but was ready to go back in. She grabbed her ripped up blue jean jacket and ran out of her room, but on the way she looked back at Garnet.
"Um...thanks, Garnet," Jasper begrudgingly told her and scratched her hair.
"You're welcome," Garnet responded, she stretched her arms and cracked her knuckles. In less then a second later, Jasper was dashing downstairs, out of her house, and ranall the way to the Beach-a-Palooza, she saw the performance before Rose's scheduled one being finished up, she wasn't too late. It wasn't too late to talk to Rose. She ran backstage to see Pearl blabbing about something that was surely annoying Rose. Jasper could see Rose was pretending to be interested. Jasper couldn't wait any longer to talk to Rose.
"Rose!" she shouted with stars in her eyes and love in her heart. Rose took notice of Jasper's outburst and had stars formed in her eyes as well. Rose walked over to Jasper ignoring Pearl. The two teenage girls locked hands together.
"What are you doing here?" Rose asked confused but happy.
"I want to sing the song with you again," Jasper responded
"I thought you didn't want to sing, what changed your mind?"
"Garnet convinced me," Jasper sheepishly said.
"You...spoke to Garnet?" she retorically asked in an amused tone, "Well that's new,"
"Wait, what about me?" Pearl asked in a disappointed tone. Rose's attention then gone over to Pearl.
"Oh um, I don't need you to sing with me anymore, but you can watch us in the audience!" Rose said trying to lighten up the mood. Pearl still disappointed, decided to listen to Rose. Because she never objected Rose, yet there was some visual bitterness Jasper could notice from her walk
"Up next, Rose Quartz and Jasper in Singing!"
Jasper and Rose looked at each other and together walked themselves on stage while gazing into each other's eyes and locking arms with each other. Rose lowered her hand and Jasper clenched it tightly. The lovebirds were welcomed with applause by the small audience. Jasper was nervous at first but the calming eyes of Rose cooled her down.
Rose started off the song and Jasper followed along, the duo's voices were joined and it sounded nice, the audience was silent as the two continued singing, Rose would have a few three worded solos and so would Jasper but most of the song, they sung together. Jasper felt like her heart would explode out of her chest, in a somehow good way. Her expectations of singing with Rose this way weren't wrong. As the song finished, Rose curtsied while Jasper hesitantly bowed. The performance was rewarded with more applause. Jasper couldn't believe they were actually cheering for both her and Rose. She expected silence but no, this was actual clapping.
At the end of the Beach-a-Palooza, Garnet walked up to them with her hands in her pockets.
"Hi, Garnet," Rose waved. Jasper stared at her with a blank face.
"I knew you guys were going to be good," Garnet smirked. Her glance slid over to Jasper. Jasper blankly stared at her until she remembered the "Other Half" conversation.
"Thanks, Garnet, you were good in yours too, no doubt," Rose humbly responded.
"Rose, can I talk to you in private?" Jasper asked, tugging Rose's arm. Rose questionly looked at Jasper.
"Um, okay," she said. "Um, sorry, Garnet, I have to go somewhere with Jasper,"
"It's alright, I understand," Garnet nodded.
Jasper led Rose to an open field on a hill with small flowers being blown by the spring breeze. It had a marvelous view of the stars and you could see plenty of consellations painted on the night sky.
"Jasper, this place is beautiful, why haven't I heard of this place?" Rose asked, she bent over and grabbed a purple flower and planted it in Jasper's hair.
"Quartz, can I tell you something?" Jasper said, look down at the swaying grass. Rose's attention was full on Jasper's. "For two years, I've been deeply in love with you and although I'd deny it before, I'm happy to say now,'I'm in love with Rose Quartz. I wouldn't need heaven because every second with you is like heaven itself," As Rose listened, Jasper could see Rose blushing at her words despite it being super sappy. Her feelings for Rose were strong but sappy.
"Jasper, do you really mean it?" Rose asked, her face started looking pink. Jasper nodded. Rose's glanced look to the stars then back at Jasper. "Jasper, I feel the same way," she whispered. Jasper couldn't be happier in her life, the thought of knowing Rose liked her back was like the galaxies, beautiful.
"Rose, would you like to watch the stars with me?" Jasper muttered
"Of course I would," Rose grinned and peck Jasper on the cheek. "And maybe later, we could go over to my house and have some pink lemonade?"
"Yes!" Jasper eagerly responded. Rose giggled at Jasper. The two sat down together and leaned on each other holding hands, they did it plenty of times before, but this time, it was special because the two knew they loved each other. Finally the two halves became one.
Finally, I finished this. This is my first one-shot and SU fic completed in general so please comment and like.