Lapis pushed the door open to their shared room and found Lazuli sprawled out across her bed.
"Forget it, they both failed." Lapis said dropping back onto his own bed.
"What?" Lazuli's eyes were free of tears now as she glared at her brother "she didn't even think about it?" Lazuli demanded sitting up.
"She just said there's nothing she can do." Lapis shrugged and drew imaginary pictures on the ceiling with his finger.
"Unbelievable." Lazuli huffed "maybe one day I'll be as great a parent as her." She snarked sarcastically.
"I said the same thing." Lapis chuckled.
"We have to do something." Lazuli said "you can't just have kids and not pay attention to them."
"Yeah, well, they did." Lapis said dismissively.
"Stop pretending you don't care." Lazuli snapped as she strode across the room, ignoring the aches and pains covering her body. Really she had gotten away with minimal damage.
"I mean she didn't even notice the outfit I stole." Lazuli threw the clothes onto the ground and crossed her arms, she winced. Her shoulder still ached.
"Maybe you're just that good." Lapis hung his head over the edge of his bed so he could watch Lazuli pace back and forth.
"Relax, it's not like anything new has happened" Lapis examined his broken hand I can't wait for this to come off, but eight weeks is so long "just accept it, we have these parents, it's not like we can trade them in."
"I wish we could." Lapis kicked the wall hard enough to crack it.
"Ow!" she yelled falling back onto the floor. Her body ached all over again from the double impact.
"Lazuli!" Lapis flipped out of bed, shaking his own injuries "are you okay?" he sat on the ground beside her.
"Yeah," Lazuli clenched her teeth against the pain "yeah, I'm fine." She pushed herself back up and dropped onto her bed "I'm going to sleep." She mumbled, her face in the pillow. Lapis picked himself back up, cradling his injured arm to his chest as he dropped into his own bed.
"Sounds like a good idea." His voice was muffled by the mattress but Lazuli heard him.
"I'm usually full of them." Lazuli said smiling to herself.
Lapis lifted his head from the mattress to scowl at his sister "shut up." Lazuli smirked but didn't say anything else.
"I can feel you planning something." Lapis sighed.
"I thought you couldn't feel intangible things." Lazuli taunted.
"This is different." Lapis argued "we're twins, we're two halves of…" he yawned "…a single whole and all tha… stufffff…" he spoke through yawns and turned over onto his side "I thought we were going to bed, Lazuli…"
"Shut up, Lapis." Lazuli spoke around a yawn. She turned onto her side to go to sleep but then she saw the window and thought of the feeling she got earlier. I know someone was watching us Lazuli slid out of bed. She examined the streets, she didn't know what she was looking for but she knew something was there. There wasn't too much going on outside. A little old lady walked her little dog down the street, an old man in a trench coat and cane hobbled along the sidewalk but there was no one else and nothing suspicious going on.
"I know there's something." Lazuli whispered to herself as she stared out the window. She sighed, frustrated, and looked over at her sleeping brother "you're so useless sometimes, Lapis." She shook her head and perched on the window seat. "But what am I looking for?" eyes scanning the street she leaned back against the wall, man was she banged up. Lazuli hadn't ached this much since the time she and Lapis got jumped for marking someone's territory. She smiled to herself thinking of the looks on their faces when they found six more of Lapis' and Lazuli's tags on 'their' streets. On top of the fact that Lapis and Lazuli were not fighters, there were at least twelve people there, some were adults. Lazuli thought they did pretty well because they both got away without a single broken bone. Of course they came out as one big bruise but still, no broken bones? Lazuli considered that a victory when in a fight that badly outnumbered. Lazuli glanced at her phone sitting on her bedside table, she could call her friend best friend Cookie, Lazuli hadn't had much contact with her friends lately, of course she was also skipping a lot of school lately too. But, Cookie loved stakeouts.
"I'll call her." Lazuli padded across the room and snatched her phone up.
"Lazuli!" Cookie's voice was a bit on the screechy side when she was excited but Lazuli loved her all the same.
"Party?" Lazuli guessed at the sound of music and screaming in the background.
"Yeah, a rave downtown." Cookie giggled, someone has had a bit too much to drink? Lazuli thought with a laugh.
"You should totally come meet us down here-oop- excuse me." Cookie giggled. Lazuli was a bit concerned for her friend, she was the kind of girl that attracted attention.
"We haven't seen you in forever." Cookie groaned. Lazuli guessed she had stepped outside because the sound weren't quite as loud.
"I'd come down but I'm one big ache covered in bruises right now." Lazuli groaned "I couldn't handle all those people."
"Oh gosh, did you get jumped again?" Cookie sounded a mixture of concern and anger.
"No, Lapis and I were running from the police and we ended up getting cut off by some random car and we ate the pavement to put it comically." Lazuli yawned, now she was really getting sleepy.
"How about the mall tomorrow?" Lazuli offered.
"Yeah!" Cookie exclaimed "I have cheer practice in the morning but I'll be there around noon to pick you up, okay?" Cookie hiccuped.
"Yeah- I'll…" Lazuli yawned "I'll see you tomorrow, I'm gonna pass out."
"Okay, see you tomorrow." Cookie said gently "get some rest, I need you in top clubbing condition." The call ended with an abrupt crash. Lazuli dropped her phone on her bed beside her and laughed "she just dropped her phone."
"You were too hard on her, Adam."
Lazuli woke to the hushed argument of her parents.
"It was an accident, she didn't mean to do it and if you had bothered to stick around your son could have told you that it's water proof."
"Those two mistakes up there are your problem, I didn't want them." Adam was bad at keeping his voice down.
Lazuli rolled her eyes and looked over at Lapis, she wasn't surprised to find his eyes open.
"Daddy's drunk again." Lapis smirked sarcastically.
"More like completely trashed." Lazuli scoffed folding her hands behind her head as she stared up at the ceiling, her arm ached but she ignored it, pain simply meant you were still alive.
"We're mistakes right now." Lapis went on.
"Yeah and the next time you score the winning basket." Lazuli paused for her brother
"Or you test the highest in the country." Lapis interrupted
"We'll be his pride and joy." Lazuli finished scornfully
"You go up and apologize to your daughter!" Meredith yelled at Adam dropping her hushed whisper and shouting the order in his face. Lazuli and Lapis snickered to themselves.
"Well, at least we never have to wonder about who wears the pants in this family." Lazuli smirked. Lapis rolled over and pulled his blankets over his head.
"What are you doing?" Lazuli snapped at him.
"Going to sleep, of course." He smiled to himself "I wouldn't want to interrupt your guy's father daughter talk, now would I?"
"What are you talking about?" Lazuli growled
"Mom just ordered him to do something." Lapis yawned "he'll be up here in three…two…one."
"Lasthuli." Her father sighed as he creeped into her room. The bed was completely silent as he sat beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder "Lasthuli." His name slurred on her name.
"Yes, daddy." She feigned innocence, yawning and stretching as she rolled over as if she had just woken up.
"Your mosther sthinks I was tooo hard on y-you." He leaned on Lazuli heavily.
"Daddy?" Lazuli tried to push herself up but her father had a good hundred pounds on her. "Dad." She snapped trying to push him off. His snores startled her so badly she would have jumped out of bed if he wasn't pinning her down.
"You're joking." Lazuli clenched her teeth together. "Lapis." She reached for her bedside table to find something to throw at him. "Lapis, I know you're still awake." Lazuli shoved at her father's dead weight "get up and help me push our drunk of a father onto the floor." She thrashed against his weight but it was useless, Lazuli stood five foot two and weighed a solid hundred pounds dripping wet and still very injured.
"Lapis." She snapped.
"I'm coming." He groaned rolling out of bed careful not to bump his broken arm. "Not entirely sure how much help I can be, down one arm and I'm not exactly the muscle body builder type anyway."
"Just try." Lazuli braced her hands against his shoulders as best she could and pushed while Lapis grabbed the back of his collar and pulled.
"Try harder." Lazuli ordered trying to get her legs into a position to help push Adam off.
"I'm trying." Lapis hissed clenching his teeth with the pain of exertion. Finally, Lazuli managed to slide out from under him.
"Forget it." She huffed "I'm sleeping in your bed." Lazuli tucked herself into Lapis' bed and closed her eyes, now she really was tired and her body ached more than it had in days.
"I don't remember agreeing to that." Lapis crawled into the other side and pulled the comforter over his head.
"Two halves of a single whole." Lazuli smiled over her shoulder at her brother, "remember?"
"Whatever, Lazuli."
"Dad's such a prick." Lazuli mumbled
"How long did it take you to figure that one out?" Lapis chuckled.
"Shut up." Lazuli snapped "you aren't the one he just passed out on."
"Boohoo, poor Lazuli." Lapis taunted drifting off to sleep.
"You're always such a jerk sometimes." Lazuli huffed half asleep herself.
"It's either always or sometimes, Lazuli." Lapis yawned.
"Wha…" Lazuli swallowed her yawn and tried to look at Lapis.
"What you said didn't make any sense. Always and sometimes are different." Lapis pointed out.
"You're stupid." Lazuli yawned tugging on the blanket.
"You're the one not-" he yawned "not making any sense."
"You're the one stealing all the blankets." Lazuli yanked on the blankets and bundled them all around her. Lapis was already too far gone to care. Lazuli settled into the nest she had built around her.
"You still don't make sense." Lapis mumbled.
"You're still stupi…" Lazuli trailed off as sleep took her over.
