Lapis feels terrible. Pearl feels terrible, so maybe they can finally reach an accord in that.


Pearl

Pearl isn't very good at taking her own advice.

She'd briefly considered running after Lapis (like a mother bird, Amethyst and Steven would have teased,) but her own sanity convinces her otherwise. It seemed Lapis was convinced outright to arrogate Pearl's nerves with each passing word the two exchanged with each other, and by this point in her existence, Lapis had established a penchant for self-exile.

'No need to interfere with that,' she wants to tell herself.

That, and the note possessed no hint as to where Lapis was fleeing towards, and given the two days Pearl had taken to herself after that infuriating provocation on Lapis's part, and she could be anywhere by now.

Nothing to do now but retreat into her room. As she's been doing for these past century since the Crystal Gems faded into history. Same as it's been all these years, like her. Her room is timeless flow, endless cascade, a seemingly eternal peace, in an elegant harmony, allowing her a privacy where she can sulk as she pleases, whilst noone else could take notice and laugh at her own misery.

There'd been only one person in her life that had the gall to outright tell her flat that she was miserable.

And she'd just driven her away, off into space.

With a resigned sigh, uncharacteristic of her older part, (the affair with Lapis bringing up more uncomfortable memories than she'd like to have brought up,) Pearl gently rests a frail cheek against the surface of the water, and falls asleep for thirty-seven hours.

She never thought she'd adopt sleeping as another of one of her many habituations sticking to her from Earth. But it helped pass time once everything that could be dusted had been dusted. A respite from herself, if she would call it that.

And as much she doesn't want to admit it, the privacy of her chambers lets her think the forbidden thought.

That she quite honestly doesn't want to care much for humanity, despite being one of it's anointed 'saviors.' Apathy wasn't the right term to describe this inscrutable despair she felt when contemplating her time on Earth with the humans. Nor hatred, nor love, nor acceptance.

More like a perfect fusion between disdain, concern, and curiosity. That as much she didn't want to care for it,

It was all she had left.

A nostalgia for an unrealistically idyllic 'before' washes over her, when she had something else to care about and preoccupy her mind. Before the resumption of the Gem War, before everything, now she doesn't want to care much for the humans' fleeting, insignificant lives, no matter the heights they'd reach.

Her star burnt out on the second intergalactic war she'd joined; no need to join up with a third.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

BREAKING NEWS: LAPIS LAZULI GEM INFILTRATES THE ATMOSPHERIC BARRIER, QUICKLY DETAINED. ESPIONAGE SUSPECTED.

She couldn't help but laugh at the headline, reverting back to her seemingly unconditional concern for her well-being seconds later. What it stemmed from, was to be a question she would have to ask herself, after the matter was addressed.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

All unlicensed travel in the atmosphere was effectively grounded in force by the United Nations Joint Resolution AB-153, an ordinance that was to be imposed on all unmandated air travel effective immediately through force. In Lapis's case, doubly so considering she was a gem.

Paranoia against all of gemkind had been struck up out of nowhere since the Epsilon Eridani warpath had been declared by the Remnant forty-three or so years prior; internal security was now a top concern in the affairs of human liberal democratic politics.

Knowing all of this beforehand doesn't prepare her for Lapis's body, unconscious, restrained by a motley of electrical wiring, IVs pumping in cocktail after cocktail of chemicals which her physical form would have no choice but to convert into usable form, inducing unconsciousness for the duration of her incapacitation.

Adaptor: Two million volts. Cell watch: Four THETA VI-Class guard drones, each functionality set to Shatter if the prisoner in question would show any hostility.

It was a miracle really, Lapis already hadn't been poofed beforehand before Pearl's arrival.

The setup aroused some pretty obvious implications as to the intention of humanity towards gemkind. Though it wasn't as if she hadn't known beforehand the treatment Lapis would have been subjected to, the conditions of captive gems imprisoned on charges of insurrection having been exposed by whistleblowers somewhere around 2279, by a team of insurrectionist gems whom Pearl never heard of in the news again shortly after their arrest.

It was surreal, watching Lapis's attempt to escape the orbit of the earth rendered grounded by the swarm of wasp-drones surging her form mid-air, rendering her powers nil. Plastering her body in a thick solution aimed at the 'humane' capture of conscious beings. Namely gems like her.

Surreal, when Pearl's back on the Alpha-25 Luna Installation more than a century after her leave. When Pearl has to explain to everyone who she is, what she's here for, who their freshly captured Lapis Lazuli is, confirming that no, she isn't a spy from The Remnant, and that she doesn't need testing. Yes, her identification is legitimate. Yes, she is the Terrifying, Renegade Pearl from millenia prior. No, she won't be giving out autographs today.

She's not sure why she's going out of her length to save a gem who'd spent the entirety of their time together being, well, infuriating, obfuscating, provocating towards her, but not many of Pearl's decisions have ever held up well in self-reflection really.

Wondering whether or not she's a fool when she's signing the forms for Lapis's release, she's already known that answer for so long really.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

Lapis comes to sometime after the shuttle touches down in Atlantic, Jersey, sometime after the near permanent grey drizzle afflicting the state touches her lips. Stirs in Pearl's arms; her caretakers just left Pearl to carry the damned ocean gem by herself, without assistance, or any tools of the sort.

Part of Pearl contemplated just flat-out poofing her and storing her gem inside her gem. Her sincerity in contemplating this option is followed by her just realizing how broad she could be.

"You... you came back for me." Lapis mumbles, just as they're crossing the revitalized Neon Valley Street. Still lively with consumerism, flashy schemes of advertisement either marked with excessive neon or live performances. Her pace is slow, and she keeps walking with Lapis in her arms even with everyone staring at the unlikely duo.

"I suppose I couldn't stay mad at you." Pearl admits in a whisper. They're talking so quietly now; their whispers are as clear as day in the midst of urban life.

"I can." Lapis pouts, nuzzling against Pearl's frock. She couldn't deny that it came off as a bit endearing, seeing Lapis in such a passive state. That didn't involve stagnancy. "I've been mean recently."

Pearl resists the urge to quip a retort. "Admitting it is the first step."

"I can't stay stuck at the first step forever Pearl." Lapis yawns, nearly knuckling Pearl by raising her hands; she really should find a bench now, but recent urban initiatives abolished the contraptions in an effort to 'end vagrancy, and encourage fitness'. "I think...humans have a word for that; they call it the cycle of abuse."

How long has she been stuck where Lapis was?

"So you did read that E-text I gave you." Pearl quietly smiles, Lapis taking notice.

"Not like there was much else to do." Lapis croaks, vision dilating in and out. "Seriously though, you don't have anything better to read back there?"

"So you're presuming I'd allow you back at the temple." Pearl quips, a false threat. Lapis mumbles something unintelligible under her breath, deciding to pick her next words carefully, so as to not start another fight between them.

Lapis's grip on Pearl tightens, she'd like to pretend that Lapis was finally having an epiphany of some sorts to make her easier to deal with. Not that the anesthesia was still on her. "When I was in the mirror. I couldn't say anything, but I saw almost everything."

Pearl's grip on Lapis wavers, before tightening back up.

"Everything about you; I saw the war, your creepy little surface self, everything. And Rose."

Pearl fails to notice her useless breathing mechanism has ceased.

"You crying over her whenever she found someone else to play with, I'd know because your surface pearl would just start crying, and the catalog became a mess of things."

Lapis's weary smile fades. "Sometimes, it was funny. It felt sort of like revenge, for you keeping me in there all those years."

On the neon valley street they found themselves an odd sight on, the once terrifying renegade Pearl had found herself carrying the Lapis Lazuli who had once stolen the Earth's ocean. The life of the city still vibrant, though it's sounds having faded into a periphery, the light morning drizzle obscured alongside it. The daily fog of Atlantic City, though thick and obscuring, could not change the fact that Pearl still had Lapis in her arms. And that they were okay.

Their breaths were so close, outlined by the cold winter fog. Pearl hadn't taken notice of her own breathing until she took note of Lapis's.

"But eventually," Lapis continues, shaking Pearl from her romantic stupor (something that S. had teased her about so often,) it got tiring. Watching you cry over and over again over Rose got so boring, but I couldn't stop watching. Well, it's not like I had a choice physically, but something else changed inside of me."

Pearl nods, her gaze still failing to meet Lapis's; they were better without eye contact, she figured.

"In watching me fall?"

"One way or the other. I guess I eventually realized something about myself once I was out of that mirror."

It takes Pearl time for her to realize that Lapis is waiting for her to ask.

"What?"

Lapis waits until Pearl's eyes meet hers. "I felt sorry for you."

Five words she would have never let past her from anybody else, but from Lapis just ends up irritating and confusing her relationship with the ocean gem even more. Pearl's a fool really; she'd detested to hear those words coming from anyone all her entire life, yet coming from Lapis, makes her just want to just drop her and join the ground alongside her.

"Then you'd be right then?" Pearl whispers instead. "In that looking at me was a reflection of yourself?"

"What'd make you think that?" Lapis yawns. "I'd think I'm looking great so far, given that i've been drugged up and tazed and you dragging me out into the acid rain. You've looked like shit for the past thousand years."

At this Pearl laughs. Laughs at herself, laughs at Lapis, how sorry they must both look right now, soaked under the rain and worn by time. Lapis shivers, her physical form still unable to self-regulate her temperature. Pearl takes an umbrella out from her gem; Lapis wills the water off of their forms to dry them.

At the very least, they complemented each other.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

Sometimes, when she looks up at Rose, she can see it.

That look in her eyes that reminds her of who she was, and who she was meant to be.

"This is," Steven looks back at her as if remembering something, "was, my mom's pearl. Well, before Pearl, I mean our Pearl, I mean our Pearl before mom's Pearl who was also mom's Pearl but ours came after the other-"

Unlike the remainder of her secrets that were unearthed post-mortem one by one, each with varying distress to Pearl's mental health, she'd learned of this one secret from the other pearls themselves, whenever they'd have time to each other.

"Good luck." Blue Pearl had whispered over to her before meeting Pink Diamond for the first time.

Destiny. Fate. Love. War. Glory. Reinvention.

Sometimes, when she looks up at her, she can see it.

Successor. Next-in-line. Stand-in. Ersatz. Imitation. Replacement.

'Why didn't you ever tell me?'

Sometimes, when she looks back at him, she can see it.

That unconditional love that never was enough for everyone around. That always ever-present curiosity, affection for the world and everything around him.

Sometimes, when she's alone, she wishes she could go back. Go back to when he hadn't held the weight of the world on his shoulders. Before Homeworld. Before his first weapon. After Rose. Go back to when it felt as if she could have him all to herself.

Ah, she was losing him, just like she'd lost her.

She couldn't think that.

It was wrong.

She keeps telling herself. She'd gotten over it now hadn't she?

Get over it. Put it away. Bury it if she had to, did she really need another one of what those humans call 'Character Arcs?'

She can't.

Not when the little daggers inside her heart watching Steven grow close to Pink Pearl cut deeper and deeper into her flesh.

Not while her own relationship with S. crashes and burns.

Not again.

"My Pearl…"

"You're wonderful…"

oOoOoOo

Lapis

One day, she manifests the actual will to follow Pearl out to one of her little excursions. She thanks the stars Pearl doesn't venture out much further than the distant shore. Pearl lets her follow without mentioning a word; a mutual understanding built upon a shared awkwardness they knew they both possessed.

Underneath the midnight sky, upon a beach cast by the briny sea, two blades are manifested from her gem. A hologram is cast out; Pearl maneuvers perfectly around it before closing in onto the brutal kill. Two signs of the same coin; elegance, and war.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Eventually it becomes repetitive.

"How long are you going to keep this up?" Lapis eventually asks, tired of attempting to count the number of rocks on the jagged coastline.

"Not long enough." Pearl answers quickly, as if having expected the question to be fired off eventually. A near empty gaze; her movements have turned tired and predictable, whilst simultaneously tactically sound. A combination that well suited Pearl, if anyone else.

Lapis sighs, audibly. Pearl relaxes her gaze, looking at Lapis longingly.

She doesn't like this focus on her, so she shapes a wisp of saltwater and splashes Pearl in the face with it.

It's not her most creative work, but the indignant look on Pearl's face is well worth it; enough to send Lapis into a cackle.

Pearl indignantly groans, willing the saltwater off her visage before turning her back on her. "If you really are that bored of the single-module, I can move onto multiple enemies at once-"

"The war's over Pearl." Lapis states bluntly, as if revealing some all-important revelation. "But you're still stuck here like White Diamond's going to just jump out from the ocean any minute now."

"And?" Pearl objects. "What would you instead have me do?" Pearl asks, mocking.

Too easy. "Anything but this." Lapis sighs. "You have any other hobbies? Other than," Lapis pauses, "nerd junk?"

Another longing look from Pearl, this time more distant, looking past Lapis even. Tempts Lapis into splashing her with water again. "Amethyst really wore off on you, didn't she?"

Lapis doesn't say anything, too embarrassed to answer yes.

Also not knowing what to do with the knowledge that Pearl quite literally had an entire repressed compartment of her own ego which repressed her… 'choice emotions,' towards Amethyst.

Yeah, best not to get into that mess.

oOoOoOo

Lapis

Pommery Cuvée Louise Brut Millesime, 2194.

"So you do drink!" Lapis is quick to tease Pearl, dusting off a now ancient bottle of Champagne. Found in an entire cabinet of assorted drinks and mixes, hidden from view, and for whatever reason, clearly having fone undusted. Her impetus to assist Pearl in the chocolate mousse cake she'd announced she'd be making for Lapis had quickly sputtered out into a one-off burst of energy she was now using to explore what'd changed about the kitchen since she'd last seen it.

Pearl turns an eye over to her from her mix, giving off a look of stiffness. She does her best to return to the task at hand, though her movements stiffen. "Not necessarily." She's uncomfortable. "Most of that wines in that collection are from long before you came back."

"Sounds like you all had some wild times here without me." Lapis muses, without skipping a beat.

Pearl shifts in discomfort, nearly misplacing an egg.

"I would just like to clarify the myth I driiiiiiii-" she nearly fumbles the sugar when Lapis pops off the cork and immediately begins drinking direct from the source. A tired sigh escapes Pearl's ever-so impenetrable facade. "Lapis, at least get a glass."

"Hmm?" Lapis brushes the sour drink from her lips. "Thought you weren't drinking with me."

Pearl rolls her eyes, before directing them back at the bottle at hand, as if remembering something. She then sighs, dejectedly, mumbling something unintelligible from where Lapis's is sitting before returning to her overbeaten cake mix.

"What was that Pearl? Didn't hear you."

Pearl doesn't even look up at her. "It's, nothing, Lapis."

"Who'd even get wine anyways in this place? Garnet seems more like a cocktail type of gem, Amethyst probably doesn't have the patience for wine. Peridot would probably love sweet drinks as well, but who'd be sappy enough to blow…" She inspects the pricing, "seven-hundred and fifty dollars on a bottle of wine? Did Connie-"

The glass bowl is slammed down with a sharp crack. "Lapis, it was me." Pearl snaps."I bought the damned bottle of wine, are you satisfied?"

Ah. Oh.

Pearl moves to leave, faster than Lapis can realize how royally she's screwed up now.

Shit.

"Pearl!"

Lapis is just fast enough to fly over before Pearl can make her way out the door.

"Pearl, look, I'm sorry, for whatever that bottle of wine was, and for drinking half of it even though you were yelling at me, and," she groans when Pearl doesn't respond back, "Ugh! Just, talk to me damn it! What did I do wrong this time!?"

"Lapis." Pearl breathes, clearly struggling to not snap back at her like she did before, as she's about to slam the door shut right in Lapis's face, "I'm not mad.'

"Yes, you are Pearl."

"No, I'm not. What reason would I have to be mad at you?"

"Well," Lapis grabs her own hair in frustration,"that's what I'm wondering! Maybe… maybe, you're not the only one mad at yourself, you know!"

Lapis shuts her eyes closed, as if pretending the mess she's just made wasn't actually real could make this entire disaster she's concocted just go away.

Instead, she holds her breath for a door slammed shut that never comes. When she opens her eyes, she's instead greeted with the familiar sight of a sulking Pearl, stuck on the steps just off of the patio stairs.

Tepidly, Lapis joins her, sitting down on the steps right next to her.

"Mad at myself." Pearl murmurs to herself. "I suppose that's a new low, even for me."

A deep silence settles in between them. Pearl seems concentrated, angry, furious at something, and for some reason, Lapis can tell it isn't her for once. And for some reason, she questions if it was ever her. The waves crash violently on the distant shore; her supposed element ever so calming.

"I've been ridiculous." Pearl mutters darkly, creases forming under her worn, giant blue eyes.

"No, you're not. I'm being an ass-"

"Yes, you are." Pearl sighs, to which Lapis flusters, flushes, and balls her hands up at. "But you're also right. I suppose I'm also mad at myself as well."

A teal luster overtakes Pearl's pale complexion. Lapis fights the the urge to just break with these complicated emotions around her and just flee, but she's even grown tired of herself at this point. Just for once, she'd like to surprise herself.

"The bottle." Pearl nearly whispers. "I bought it for Amethyst."

It takes Lapis a second to make a guess why a bottle of whine for Amethyst would rile Pearl up so much. "You two were…"

"Yes."

And from how Pearl blew up, says it all as to how it all crashed and burned.

Just like everything else in Pearl's life.

"Are you happy, Lapis?"

"No." Lapis rings hollow. "You're mad at me."

Pearl scoffs, before darkly smiling. "Oh, I can't stay mad at you."

"But you can stay mad at yourself." Lapis mutters. "Trust me, I have a lot of experience with that."

A temporary frown turns into a laugh on Pearl's part, and Lapis is glad for those few times she can actually make Pearl laugh, even if it's at their own self-inflicted saudade.

"I make you feel terrible." Lapis states, bluntly while gazing into the creamy orange-colored sky.

Pearl sighs. "A lot of things make me feel terrible nowadays." To which Lapis snorts. "Everything's gone. Rose, the Crystal Gems, Steven, Connie. It's all supposed to be stuck in the past, but I'm still here. Stuck on Earth. Where does that leave me?"

For once, Lapis's gives an answer that feels truly honest. "Stuck here on Earth with me."

It takes a few seconds, but Pearl's laugh when her answer finally connects is truly crystalline, ringing out, both to the sea out beyond, and towards the city gone. For once since Lapis's returned, even if it's just for the briefest of moments, Beach City sounds like it's normal self, back three centuries ago.

When the laughter falters, Lapis realizes that they're stupidly staring into each other. Pearl staring at her full of trust with as warm a smile as she can manage, with her huge, stupid blue eyes...

For some reason, she can't stand it when Pearl looks at her this way, sharply jerking her eyes away before flushing blue.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

A month or so later, and the Beach City History Festival approaches. As grateful she is that she hasn't been approached for a speaking position by the festival committee, that she hasn't been invited as a "historical consultant" for the past few decades or so is highly suspect, considering humanity was so prone to forgetfulness between generations.

That she's hoping to take Lapis along with her on the day of the festival drives her into witnessing the festival preparation. Structures and rides for the town carnival are airlifted into the town on demand, and for just a few weeks each year, Beach City sounds alive, if not like it's former self.

Historical re-enactors try their best to recreate the conditions of the town centuries ago in vain. Near perfect replications of the culinary diversity of the town before, scrutinized down to the source of the ingredients. Hiring professional cosplayers to completely reenact the life stories of each resident whom had the honor of living here years ago. The effort was certainly commendable, if not unsettlingly obsessive.

Her tour of the town before the day of the festival goes by quickly and unnoticed; she hadn't had the heart to deal with dozens of organizers demanding that she be on a panel to answer questions for several accursedly long human hours straight. An impulse speeds up her trip on the way back home, fueled by the realization that he hadn't seen Lapis at all in the temple whilst leaving.

An irrational fear that Lapis had left her (really, where would she go?) disways itself once she locates Lapis gazing upon the moon at the cliff's edge. On a whim, she joins her up the worn path.

Lapis pretends not to notice her on the approach. When she lays down on the grass right beside her, she doesn't bother taking notice of how long it takes for Lapis to break the awkward silence between them.

"Question." Lapis bats out, without even looking over to her.

"Answer."

"You don't have to answer this Pearl, if you don't want to."

"Now, I'm curious." Pearl teases, to which Lapis snickers.

"Who was the girl you were sending nudes to?" Lapis asks.

Pearl nearly chokes on the air she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"M-must you be so crude?" Pearl glares at her, recomposing herself.

"Told you."

Pearl groans.

"You, don't have to share this with me if you don't want to." Lapis suddenly blurts out, before re-establishing the distance between them.

Pearl gives her a look of disdain, before sighing. As much as she doesn't want to share S. with her, Lapis of all gems, something about her makes her feel safe in choosing her as a confidant, as insane her rationale might be.

Everyone had long known that their relationship had crashed and burned, but at the end of the millenia, the only gem who'd asked her what had happened, was the last gem she'd wanted to share it with.

And for some reason, she feels okay with that. No sense of condescending superiority like Garnet had, no sense of mocking repetition that Amethyst gave her.

Lapis was just as low and as pathetic as she was, and it made her feel…

Perfect.

"Three centuries ago," Pearl shakily begins, "while you were still here, I met a human girl, who astonished me with her beauty. With help from Steven and Amethyst, I got the courage to talk to her, and we entered a courting relationship. It came as suck a shock to me, that I couldn't find the courage to talk to her for several more months, but when I did, I thought I had fallen in love, all over again."

Pearl opens her mouth as if to say something, but the moment escapes her; she's only had herself to hold up the world these past few decades, so she couldn't ask the same question she should have asked herself so long ago.

But Lapis can ask for her.

"Why did she leave?"

Hundreds of different answers, excuses, lies bubble up in her throat like tea leaves choking a drain; none of them rise to the occasion.

What was she supposed to say?

That she'd failed, and there was really no simpler way to put it?

"I don't know Lapis. I don't know."

Then, Lapis does something she hadn't been expecting.

Two arms wrap around Pearl, encompassing her in the warmth of a hug. As pitiful as they must be, she can't deny. They're warm together, however cold they must be on their own.

"I thought you would cry." Lapis whispers.

At this, Pearl scoffs.

"I thought I'd be over it by now."

"Do you hate her?"

"For leaving me? Love isn't conditional like that Lapis. Noone's obligated to love one another, nor do we have right to make people obligated to love us."

"It's not a question of whether it's right or wrong Pearl. I'm just asking if you hate her."

"That's ridiculous. What reason would I have to hate her?"

"You're a pearl. You have every right to hate every star in this Diamonds-forsaken universe from end to end."

"Garnet said it wasn't healthy to be that way."

"I'd think it's more unhealthy to keep everything bottled up the way you do."

She could repeat what Garnet and Steven's taught her about life and love but she's been regurgitating these repetitive mantras for decades on end. That she's still stuck at square one even after all that time and that distant shore Garnet and Steven had so desperately wanted her to reach was a myth she'd never believed in.

"Like you?"

Or maybe she did believe during a time of ideals, only to have her dreams all come crashing down on her at the end of it all.

"Why did you come back for me?" Lapis suddenly changes the subject, discomfort showing on her features. Pearl is happy to oblige with the sudden paradigm shift, certain that she'll be back in her room by the end of it all, wondering why in the stars she decided to share so much… intimate information about herself with Lapis, of all gems.

Pearl expects the answer to be as longwinded and disappointing as her love life, but finds the answer coming quickly to her lips. "I felt sorry for you."

Lapis scoffs. "Is that all we're good at?"

"Apparently." Pearl sighs.

"I've been trying to figure things out. Be more open. Try not to be a dick to you." Lapis mumbles, Pearl recoiling at the vulgar language. "I guess that's the same reason why I'm still here."

"What do you mean?"

"You. When I was stuck inside your gem, every time you cried. Everytime you broke down because of Rose. I hated you, I wanted you to be shattered. Every time you cried, I wished I could reform just so I could laugh at you, yell at you, scream at you for keeping me inside you all those years."

"And then… I realized it. I felt sorry for you."

Another blasted uncomfortable silence between them that over time, that over time, dissipates into a mutual discomfort. They were so close to understanding each other, so far, Pearl realizes. Eventually notices that Lapis has been staring into Pearl's eyes for far longer than comfort dictates, and teases her by tilting her head questioningly.

To Pearl's delight, Lapis flusters and flushes blue, quick to re-establish the distance between them once more. Looking away to the now very interesting distant stars, the endless void staring back at them. For a brief moment, they felt an undeniable peace with it all.

"Is this all we can do together?" Lapis tries joking, but ends up hanging their mutual staleness over the both of them. "Stargazing?"

At this, Pearl smiles, though melancholic. "I'm a boring person. Like you said. Same hobbies. cooking, cleaning, the same interests over thousands of years. Uninteresting."

No wonder why Rose and S. had left her.

Lapis shifts her head in Pearl's lap, the neon gaze of the distant city in the foggy mist far too bright for her liking.

"Well, I'm a boring gem too." Lapis reassures her, sighing. "Is that why you won't let me go? So we can be boring together?"

At this, Pearl smiles. "That sounds lovely, if you'd let it be that way."

oOoOoOo

Lapis

Pearl's tears manifest in her dreams; the stubborn gem having grown more adept at hiding her emotional state with centuries of practice.

To Lapis's surprise, Pearl's the one who falls asleep first; maybe she's exerted herself trying to hide a century's worth of tears. But she can't deny that the pale gem looks so serene while she doesn't have to deal with the constant bullshit thrown at her on a daily basis.

That Pearl's actively adopted sleeping as a regular part of a routine comes as a surprise. That Pearl's demandingly affectionate in her slumber is another matter entirely, and that Pearl's gem projects her unconsciousness into reality comes as one she should likely inform Pearl about one day, if only to see the look on Pearl's face.

Wandering hands grab onto Lapis's right arm; her eyes are firmly encapsulated on the vision before her.

"I need help Garnet."

"I know what you're going to say Pearl."

Pearl flusters, and hugs herself uselessly; it's a question she doesn't really want to ask, to which she already knows the answer to. A question that comes from a place of desperation, desperate enough to make her say it anyways, despite knowing the answer beforehand.

"I, I know, we've discussed this before,"

"So you're aware of what I'm about to say as well."

At this, Pearl shrinks under Garnet's gaze; funny, how even through a projection Garnet had that ability to make you want to knock the visor off her face, despite knowing how right she was.

"You're," a nervous gulp of useless air, "such," another stutter, "a perfect relationship,"

"Not true Pearl."

"-and, I just need advice,"

"I can't give you that love. Not me, not Amethyst, not Peridot. You have to find it for yourself Pearl."

A single tear escapes Pearl's eyes while Lapis watches her form. Slender fingers claim the teardrop as her own, and she lies down her head gently, so not to wake her, on Pearl's lap, letting herself be lulled to a thick sleep.

oOoOoOo

Pearl

When she stumbles out of her slumber, an incredible urgency grips Pearl's faculties, her hand reaching into her gem and pulling out her once misplaced phone.

Lapis's arms are still wrapped around her form. Phone in one hand, the other's fingers found stuck tangled in Lapis's mop of blue hair.

The mess and tangle of limbs would be embarrassing, but there's nothing to indulge her embarrassment at the situation at the moment, and Lapis is surprisingly… warm.

In spite of everything that they've said together, lo, likely because of everything they've said together, Pearl opts to rest the phone down on a nearby tuft of grass and opts to scoot further into the embrace, preserving the heat between the two. Telling herself that this is just a matter of preserving warmth between them, and most definitely nothing more.

She kids herself.

The warmth between them comforts her from the embarrassment of everything she's laid bare; once she begins recollecting more and more of the confessions of the past few weeks or so, she wishes that the warmth could swallow her whole.

Lapis stirs, and Pearl realizes she's been unconsciously playing with her hair, messy and unkempt as it is. A groan, and an unceremonial flopping over her side later, and Lapis has successfully untangled herself from Pearl's embrace, whilst impressively remaining asleep all the while.

It's much too cold to brave the weather out on her own, and she doesn't feel like turning off the temperature receptors she's grown so used to over a generation or two.

Sighing, she remembers the impulse she woke up for, and finds both her phone, and the cliff's edge. Resolving to resign her phone to the ocean below. With a steady arm, her old phone is cast out to sea, and she makes no attempt at retrieval. Dragged out to the deep by the retreating tide, it sinks to the bottom of the seafloor, never to be seen again.

oOoOoOo

S. (8/28/2023)

I'm going to be frank with you. I don't want to see you anymore.


In this fic, Pearl's had enough of a string of bad luck in that she's 'failed' her 'character development, and perceives herself to be stuck in constant cycles of apathy and misery, much akin to Lapis.

I'm interested in romances founded on self-destructive egoisms; Lapis pre-redemption and a Pearl having failed her 'character development,' suit each other to a tee, as they both have misery they can mutually relate to. And instead of building on that, they're content to stay in the hole they've fallen into themselves. Most romances focus on two characters that help each other 'grow' as a person.

This ain't that. Not right now. It won't end badly for them, I love these clods too much to separate them or give them a bad ending. But if I'm being honest, it'll take some time to figure out where to even go from here.

As for Amethyst: in case If I was far too vague in this chapter, yes, Pearl had dated Amethyst. (I like to joke that Pearl had an entire compartment of her mind which was just Pearlmethyst hell) The main focus of this fic for now is Pearlapis, though I am a multishipper.