A/N: It's past midnight so it's technically already Friday. Finally, Lapis' past is revealed, and this chapter turned out GINORMOUS, i'm so sorry. A few trigger warnings, maybe? For burning, emotional manipulation, and parental abuse. I hope you enjoy!
To avoid further annoyances and vengeances in the future, this time Peridot made sure to get into her apartment as quietly as possible. Of course, this wasn't that easy of a task when she had to basically drag Lapis' limp body all the way upstairs and into the living room. Being shorter than her proved to be a really big challenge, and while Lapis' legs did move eventually, she was still ridiculously heavy. Leaning against Peridot's shoulder didn't help much, but the bartender somehow managed to close the door with a foot and lots of grunts.
They stopped at the living room, and Peridot assessed the situation, calculating exactly what would be worse: She could either drop Lapis on the couch and leave her to rest there, or take the girl to her room and share a bed. The first choice was easily the most appealing right now, seeing as the blue-haired woman was slipping inch by inch from Peridot's grip, but she also had to think of Amethyst; she would be waking up soon for her first day on the job, and Ame was known to be pretty loud in the mornings, especially early ones.
Now, taking Lapis to her room would require them to walk further right now, but the consequences the next day wouldn't be so devastating. Amethyst would wake up without noticing a single thing, and Lapis would be able rest easily since Peri's room was farther away from Amethyst's than the living room. She also thought that Lapis would rather wake up next to her than in a strange couch all alone once she recovered her senses. And so, the bedroom it was.
"Alright, just a little longer, can you make it?" Peridot whispered, and Lapis' head bobbed down, in some sort of understanding. They walked slowly in the darkness, step by step, and as soon as they reached the door, Peri pushed her in gently. She closed the door then with a foot, finally elbowing the lights on to see where exactly her bed was, and let Lapis go as smoothly as she could – which, to be fair, wasn't smoothly at all. "Sorry!"
"Hmm…" Lapis grunted as she fell down in a twisted position, hugging the sheets close. Peridot sighed and stretched her sore arms, yawning. She looked over at the girl in her bed and grinned before going into the bathroom to wash up quickly. After brushing her teeth and putting on her alien pajamas, Peri went back to the room just to see Lapis slumped all over the mattress, leaving little space for her to lay on. She breathed out a laugh.
"Someone's a bit spacious." Peridot mumbled, sitting next to her and touching her backs. Lapis just hummed and the bartender started stroking her shoulders, then her backs, and finally her hair again, because she loved the feeling of it. Her eyes lost focus for a moment as she relaxed and took in everything that'd happened that night – from the giddiness of seeing Lapis at the bar on a Monday, to the thrill of their kisses on the dancefloor.
It was quite mind-boggling, how intense things seemed to be around Lapis – it felt like she just did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, and Peridot had always yearned for something like that for herself, but didn't really have the luxury. And that wasn't a bad thing per se, because she was content with her life at the moment. She didn't go on adventures (the closest thing to it was following Amethyst to strange places in the middle of the night, like a junkyard) or risked her life doing dangerous things (smoking one cigarette was already a stretch), but there wasn't anything to complain about. She worked crazy hours, but met great people, so it was a fair trade; and every decision she had made led to meeting Lapis at one point, so really? Life was pretty good.
"A variable," And as usual, her brain formed thoughts that her mouth tried to reproduce out of nowhere. "People usually look for a constant in their lives, but I never understood why. Variables are so much more exciting…"
Lapis sighed as she felt Peridot's fingers running up and down her backs, which told the bartender that she was still awake and listening. "Are you okay?"
"Keep talking…" Lapis' voice was barely a whisper, muffled by a pillow she managed to snatch somehow. And had it been anyone else, Peridot would deny this request because she was always ashamed of the things she spilled involuntarily, but it wasn't anyone else, it was Lapis who requested her to share these abstract words with her, and so she complied.
"It's just… a variable is something unknown. It's always changing, and the results depend on them. I like that about you. Which is weird for me to say because I'm always anxious about things and people, and I want to have a plan for everything. But that's just normal, too." She felt Lapis shifting beneath to finally give her space to lie down, and so she did. "We barely know each other, so… a variable. Is what you are, I mean."
Lapis slightly opened her eyes as she turned away from Peridot to face the wall.
"But that's fine, too. I'd love to know more about you, but in our own pace. I think we move differently. Much more…" Peridot struggled, frowning. She brought one hand up, which moved back and forth. "A flow. Like a stream of water? But one with lots of nuances. That sometimes halts because there is an obstacle blocking it, but eventually moves on. I know I already compared you to the river, but… that's not really what I'm talking about now. Does that even make sense?" It was a standard question, and when Lapis didn't answer, Peridot assumed that she had finally blacked out. It didn't bother her, so she turned around and closed her eyes as well.
It was a nice feeling, sharing a bed with someone. It was a whole lot different from when she used to sleep with Amethyst because they didn't have the money to buy another bed, but Peri couldn't put in words the exact difference. She felt relaxed.
"I'm scared." Lapis' voice cracked the delicate atmosphere suddenly and Peridot immediately snapped her eyes open. She moved again to stare at her backs.
"Of what?" She asked, quietly. A moment passed, and then two, and the stillness of the room suddenly felt a bit suffocating.
"…Of losing you." Lapis confessed after what seemed like an eternity. "Of scaring you. I'm scary."
Peridot waited for her to continue because she was sure there was a lot Lapis wanted to talk about right now, even though she seemed to be completely exhausted. When she didn't, Peridot spoke. "You're not scary."
"You don't know me."
"Would you let me?" There wasn't an answer. "Know you."
Lapis shook her head faintly. "You don't want to."
But she did, and oh, how much so. There was nothing else Peridot wanted more at this point in her 24 years of existence than to know Lapis. "You know," She swallowed and scooted closer to her body, trying a different approach. "When we first talked at the pub, I remember telling Amethyst the next day all the details about you. I rambled at 7am about how incredible you were and how much I wanted to see you again, and she almost hit me in the jaw."
Lapis snickered quietly at that.
"And back then all I wanted was to… know you. This feeling hasn't changed at all." A yawn made its way out of her mouth, and she closed her eyes. "It's okay if you don't want to share anything right now. Just know that I'll be here, either way."
Once again, all that they could hear was some birds outside and a few occasional cars down the street. The silence was mortifying, and Lapis clutched the sheets strongly until her knuckles went white. She was going to spill it. She was still a bit light-headed, the blue dress was still on her mind, and Jasper wasn't around to shut her thoughts out with an orgasm. She shouldn't have drunk so much. Now she was about to lose Peridot because she couldn't keep her damn past to herself.
"It's so much," Lapis closed her eyes tightly. "It's too heavy and I can't carry it by myself, and I'm about to— to drop all of it on you. I can't— I can't do this. It's not fair to you, it's not…"
Peridot had been almost asleep, but woke up at the sound of her stuttering voice. She tentatively wrapped an arm around Lapis' torso, her small figure fitting perfectly against the taller girl's backs, and she whispered against her shoulder. "It's okay. I can take it."
Lapis let out a stupid sob – look at that, she was actually shedding tears over the woman again– and exhaled. "…Okay." She removed herself from Peridot's grip to turn around and stare at the bartender in the darkness. If she was going to ruin everything, the least she could do was face her.
I grew up in an orphanage in another Estate. I never knew my parents, and never wanted to. They abandoned me, and that was all.
The orphanage was a good place. There were lots of kids my age that had also been through the same thing, so we bonded fairly quickly. I loved the children there, we were like family. I played with them every day in the yard, we had breakfast, lunch and dinner together, we took showers together, we dressed up with the same clothes because we thought it was fun.
I loved the people in charge of the orphanage, too. Mr. Smiley was always telling jokes and Mr. Frowny always looked sad, but we managed to cheer him up often; he was also a great cook. Madame B.D. was the headmaster, and we were a bit scared of her, but she always meant well. My favorite was Miss Quartz, though. She taught us the alphabet and the wonders of the world, and for a good part of my life I never wanted to leave. But Miss Quartz started filling our heads with ideas of amazing things beyond the orphanage walls, and how great it would be once we got adopted by a loving family, and I started to get excited at the prospect. Being adopted suddenly seemed nice.
Despite being friends with most of the kids there, there was a girl I could never get close with. Her name was Jasper, and she was 3 years older than me. Madame B.D. told us that we had arrived at their doorstep on the same night, and that we should probably try to be nice to each other, but something about her threw me off. It was like she pushed everyone away on purpose. Maybe she wasn't as comfortable with being an orphan as I was. I didn't know her story.
When I was five and Jasper eight, we were adopted together by a single woman.
Her name was Merga.
She looked regal, almost like a celebrity. White hair up on a bun, a green dress and black heels, sunglasses, heavy silver jewelry adorning her thin wrists and neck, beautiful make-up. She was fourty-five years-old and had a pompous aura around her. Not a single wrinkle, not even on the corners of her mouth or in between her eyebrows. She introduced herself as a businesswoman of sorts, and the first thing that struck me was the scent of perfume. It was strong, and she told us it was an expensive brand. The woman was rich and was never able to get married or bear children of her own, so she wanted to give all her love to us. I was immediately enchanted.
The day Jasper and I said goodbye to everyone at the orphanage, I was a bit saddened, but also excited. I finally had someone whom I could call a mother. But from then on, I would also have to call Jasper my sister. For some reason, however, I never could. Jasper wasn't my sister. We weren't even friends, so it was very awkward. I decided to not dwell on it.
We were shocked when the first place Merga took us to was an airport. "We are going to live in another Estate," She told us. That took me completely by surprise, because I wanted to be able to visit the orphanage once in a while. I hadn't been prepared to never see Mr. Smiley, Mr. Frowny, Miss Quartz and Madame B.D., or the other kids ever again. I cried all the way to our new house, but eventually accepted that this was a new life for me.
It took us a few years to realize why we had been taken away.
Merga had run away from the prying eyes of the orphanage. She didn't want to be found, and she didn't want us to be found. Still, everything she had told us had been true; she was indeed rich. She was a businesswoman, she wasn't married, she didn't have kids. Her perfumes were expensive and her house was a mansion. She had legally adopted us, and nothing could take us back.
And, as we found out later on, she owned a circus.
"There is one single rule in this house," She told us, pleasant as always. "You will call me mother, or refer to me by my stage name, only. Merga doesn't exist."
We were confused by her words.
"I'm Malachite. Okay, dearies?"
And that was the name we grew up hearing from her phone calls, here and there. So that was what she became.
For the first few months, she was nice. Gentle, even. Always pleasant, always complimenting me and Jasper, treating us well, feeding us and letting us play with the innumerous toys she owned for some reason.
Then we found the room.
It was huge, filled with innumerous circus equipment, and by the way Malachite smiled when we asked her what those things were, I was sure she was waiting for us to find it. She took the time to teach us the proper names of each equipment. "That's a trapeze. That is called a Tissu, and that's an aerial hoop. Those are juggling balls, Devil Sticks, Diabolo, that's a ring of fire. Go on, play with anything you like."
We were kids, so of course we were hypnotized by the colorful tools. I took a liking to the balance beam and trapeze. I'd always been good at things that demanded stability and keeping my equilibrium, so I climbed them with ease. Jasper was too clumsy for things like that, so she played with other stuff. For some damned reason, the objects she was most curious about involved fire.
"Why is this called a ring of fire?" Jasper asked, and Malachite's grin was almost feral. We didn't notice it at the time, though – we assumed she was just happy to share her knowledge with someone. I remember when she told me to keep playing, and then took Jasper somewhere else. That night, Jasper came back with her eyes gleaming with excitement. "She showed me lots of videos of people juggling with fire, and other things! Did you know you can spit fire too?"
That scared me, but I didn't give it much thought. It was also the first time I ever saw Jasper smiling so hard.
A few months later, mother came back home saying that she had enrolled us in some classes. We assumed she was talking about school, since we hadn't been doing anything for almost a year now, but it was nothing like that – it was a circus course. Malachite had decided that we would be home schooled, but she was a terrible teacher. The courses seemed to be everything that mattered, and so we grew up thinking that they were indeed the most important part of our lives.
Five times a week, we would learn how to bend our bodies in strange ways, how to have a better grasp of our reflexes, how to fall down without hurting ourselves. And she would watch, and yell at us if we messed up. "Again!" She would scream. And we didn't have a choice, because she wouldn't let us rest until we did what she wanted.
I was doing alright in everything that involved flexibility and acrobatics, but Jasper was not. Malachite scolded her the most, and I felt bad for her because she cried at night in our room. It didn't take long for me to realize that our mother was getting tired of Jasper's repeated failures, because she started complimenting me a lot in front of her. "Isn't Lapis good at what she does? Isn't your sister pretty? She is definitely a prodigy. If only you could be like her." Those words hurt both of us, but what could we do? We were just kids that had been thrown into a world completely unknown to us. There were no other children around where we lived, and we weren't allowed to go out of the mansion. All we had was each other, Jasper and I.
One day when I was seven and Jasper ten, she decided that she was going to make mother love her as much as she loved me. So she stopped trying to be flexible, and started reading about fire tricks. She asked our teacher to guide her through the process of controlling fire, and begged her to keep it a secret from our mother. Jasper wanted to impress mother in a way that she would never forget. She was angry.
And then she became obsessed.
When Malachite wasn't home, Jasper would grab the tools she stole from our teacher and practice on her own. Fire belts, fire fans, a fire staff, she wanted to be good at all of them. First she trained without actually lighting them up, but as she improved, she wanted more. Jasper barely talked to me anymore, and I was worried about her behavior. When she asked me to help her light up the fire fans, I refused, arguing that it was a terrible idea. Jasper got terribly mad at me, "You want mother to hate me, don't you? You love to have all the attention to yourself. Go away, then! I don't need your help!"
I tried to refute, I tried telling her this was getting out of control, but she wouldn't listen. Jasper pushed me and lit the fans on fire, turning them around, precisely, firmly, without a single mistake. Once her performance was over, she put down the flames and smiled triumphantly at me, like she had won. I was sure Malachite would yell at her for stealing from the teacher, but all she did was finally praise her. "Good girl."
When I was ten and Jasper thirteen, we were naturals at our inclinations. I stopped falling from the balance beam and the trapeze, and Jasper's twirls with the fire tools were impeccable. Mother was happy with our results, and praised us both equally now. I thought things would finally be okay now that we were both the same under mother's eyes, but they weren't.
I was jealous.
Jasper had been right; I did want mother's attention all to myself.
Because that was how she had raised us. I just realized that once I grew up, but everything Malachite did for us was like a set competition. "Jasper, would you help your mother carry these heavy bags? Oh, Lapis, you just stay there, you're not strong enough for this. Lapis, I dropped my earrings somewhere, can you help me find it? If I asked your sister she would probably step on them and ruin it. Which one of you can eat this soup faster? Which one of you can open this jar for mother? I love how quickly you take your showers, Jasper, dear. Lapis is going to bankrupt me with these water bills. Which one of you…"
Which one. Which one. Which one.
I had always been the one. Now Jasper was at my level. I hated it. I wanted her to fail in front of mother again, because I wanted to be praised more.
And so I burned her.
I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't want things to get so out of hand, but at the end of the day, that accident happened because of me. She was about to perform in front of mother with the fire fans at the gym, and knowing exactly where she stepped in her routine, I bent the carpet so she would trip. It happened so suddenly that I didn't have the time to process exactly how terrible the burns were. One of the fans fell straight on her face, and on her panic, she dropped the other one and stumbled right on top of it with her left arm.
I watched as the girl caught fire.
She was rushed to the hospital, and I couldn't move, or speak, or function. I saw the fans hitting her eyes. I was sure Jasper would go blind because of me.
By a miracle, she didn't. But the pigment of her dark skin was gone in the places where the flames hit the hardest. She had a white patch of skin across her eyes and cheek, and half her arm. Her skin never healed, and we stopped talking for a whole year.
And the worst part? Malachite loved it. She complimented Jasper's scars like it was a masterpiece, like her pain was something she had been blessed with. "My associates will enjoy this immensely!" She had never brought up her associates, but I was too shocked to ask.
Mother also didn't care about my emotional state, because three days after Jasper was put into intensive care at the hospital, she forced me to keep going to the classes. Of course I did terribly. It was like my body wouldn't respond anymore, and I had lost my balance completely. I couldn't even climb the balance beam without shaking, but Malachite didn't care. She pushed me to keep going, and acted like her other daughter wasn't between life or death. That fucked me up.
When I was eleven, and Jasper fourteen, we started speaking again. Not because we wanted to, but because we had to.
We were isolated from other human beings.
No one knew the pain we were going through.
We were all that we had. If we kept going without speaking for another second, we'd go completely insane.
The weirdest thing was, we started getting a lot closer. We'd spent years together and never interacted that way before. Touches were getting more frequent, we started sharing a bed, we lied to Malachite to stop the other from getting into trouble. I was sure Jasper still hated me, and I could barely look at her face without remembering the dreadful thing I'd done, but I felt myself getting sucked into her. Being together with Jasper was becoming my way of surviving that reality.
I needed her.
Jasper never touched anything that had to do with fire again and she didn't want to do the courses anymore. I was sure mother was going to yell at her until she figured out something else to do, but she didn't. "Your beautiful skin has earned you enough points, already." That fucked her up.
When I was twelve, and Jasper fifteen, we were introduced to Malachite's associates. I will never forget that day. Just thinking about it makes me want to hurl.
We were blindfolded and taken somewhere, with Malachite's constant reassurance that it would just be a short trip, and later we could eat burgers. That had been the nicest thing she had told us in months, so who were we to disobey? It was not like we had a choice anyway. I remember being dark, and cold, and she made me wear my gymnastics one-piece for some reason; for Jasper, she chose a sleeveless shirt and shorts, way too revealing for simple a visit.
Upon removing our blindfolds, we froze. Dozens of people in suits wearing masks stared at us from above, in comfy theatre chairs. There were spotlights on us, which blinded me for a second, and then a cheerful music started playing as Malachite's loud voice reverberated through the place. "Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys, and girls! Step right up, and witness The Water Witch's new acquisitions!"
Everyone applauded and I had no idea what was going on. I started shaking, fearful of those creepy, smiling masks, looking right at us like we were a prized possession, a display for them to enjoy. "First!" Malachite kept going, and I tried to make sense of where she was, but to no avail. "The world's youngest fire-breather! Born from the flames, her skin blessed with the marks of the Sun God! She is just sixteen, but already taller and stronger than most men. Rub this beast the wrong way, and you will. Get. Burned. Only fifteen years-old, Red-Eyed Jasper!"
More applauses. I looked over to Jasper and she was pale. "Second!" My heart almost stopped beating. It was my turn now, I knew it. "She might be the thinnest, smallest girl you've ever seen, but don't be fooled. This prodigy managed to perfect the static and swinging trapeze when she was just ten. Turn her around ten, twenty, a hundred times, and she still will land right on her feet! The perfect posture, the perfect reflexes, the perfect balance. She will never fall, because she is Stand-Still Lapis!"
People cheered for me. I was so shocked with the whole thing that the only thing my brain was able to process was that everything Malachite told them was a lie. Jasper refused to get near fire, and I could barely do a backflip anymore. Then the biggest question popped up: Just who were those people? And what were we doing there?
"Demonstrations in half an hour. Please, stand by and relax with some delicious popcorn." And then Malachite's voice was gone, as well as the spotlights. We were left in darkness, and soon I felt my arm being pulled. It was our mother, and she smiled pleasantly as she handed fire fans to Jasper, and pushed me towards a trapeze. We couldn't move, and she asked us softly what was wrong. Jasper finally stuttered that she couldn't do that anymore, and so did I. "Well, that is a problem, isn't it? I'm sure you can figure it out. Lapis, you've always been the most sensible one, convince your sister to twirl those fans in the air and let's get this over with. You don't want to disappoint me, do you?"
The worst thing? Those words worked.
From the moment we were adopted until that day, Malachite had never landed a hand on us. Sure, she was rough with her gestures sometimes, but she didn't use physical strength to make us obey her.
Her words were what stung the most.
And when she wasn't emotionally manipulating us, she was nice. She fed us, bought us expensive food and clothes, let us play around with anything we wanted when we weren't training, complimented us often. We didn't want to disappoint mother.
That was how we saw things, back then.
When she wasn't being a monster, she was nice.
So Jasper grabbed the fans, and I climbed the trapeze, and we performed in front of those people. I was crying the whole time, and so was Jasper.
But we didn't want to disappoint mother.
After the show, Malachite talked for a few minutes with her associates, and we stood by her side shaking, but quietly. I was numb, so I didn't really hear what she said, then we were blindfolded again and put inside the car. Malachite kept her promise and bought us burgers, and I ate them without tasting anything. That night, we collapsed in our shared bed, and cried until we didn't have the strength to sob anymore.
I needed at least a month to recover from that humiliating exposition, but of course mother wouldn't make things easy. We found out she was being paid ridiculous amounts of money for our performances, and so we would need to double our training. I was a kid, but it didn't take a genius to realize what exactly was happening.
Jasper and I were just products for purchase. We were circus slaves. And Malachite had shaped us in a way that her words could make us do anything she wanted. That had been her plan all along.
Until this day, I wonder just how many orphans were adopted and then discarded by this witch.
And it was hard, you know? Saying no to her. Defying the witch. We've been molded into the perfect little servants, because what could we do? She took care of us despite everything. We were trapped into this nightmare with no way to leave. We were just kids.
Until the day when we were not.
I was sixteen, and Jasper was nineteen, and after years of humiliating circus acts and traumatic experiences, Jasper decided that enough was enough. Probably because she had suffered more abuse from the witch than I had, but one day for some reason, she snapped. "Let's run away." She said. Run to where? There was nowhere to go. But she grabbed my shoulders and slapped me across the face with such strength that I saw stars. "Wake up! This isn't living, this is torture. I'm going to get the fuck out of here, and you're coming with me."
"Why?" I asked, not minding the pain on my face. To be honest, I welcomed it.
"Because I can't live without you." And we both knew that she didn't mean it in a romantic sense. We were so codependent that just the thought of going anywhere without Jasper made me break in cold sweat. It was messed up, but what could we do if that was how we managed to cope with life? When I realized she was really leaving, I panicked, and accepted going with her.
We stole some cash from Malachite's wallet and left the mansion. The door was unlocked because mother always thought we would be too scared to disobey her. And we were, because even then we were shaking terribly as we left the house.
We took the first bus to another city, and that's how we ended up here. Then for an entire year, we were homeless. It was ironic, how we managed to make some money by doing circus tricks on the streets. What could we do, if that was all that had been taught us for eleven years? Eventually, we managed to move in to a shitty apartment, with one mattress in the floor and a smelly bathroom. Jasper and I tried finding a job, but no one would hire teenagers who had never attended school. I left home every day in the morning to perform on crowded places, and came back at night with some money. Jasper did the same in another part of town, and that was how we barely survived. In the darkness of our shared bed, we started finding comfort in each other, to block out the traumatic flashes of memories that made us wake up yelling in the middle of the night. I leeched off of Jasper, and she did the same to me.
Then the first package arrived.
It was a huge box, with so many things inside, things we hadn't seen for a whole year. Ham and cheese, bread, butter, a dozen eggs, milk, flour and pasta, even meat. Everything was of the highest quality, and it was like we had just opened a box to paradise. We ate so much and so well that night, that we actually cried happy tears. Once the box was empty, I saw a letter at the bottom. Jasper grabbed it and read it out loud.
It was hers.
Everything that we ate was Malachite's. The witch knew where we were, and she was sending us gifts.
"My dear daughters. I will admit that I was a bit saddened by your departure. I have no idea what came over you to leave the comfort and luxury of our home; the warmth of the fireplace on the cold Winter nights, the softness of your beds, the beautiful clothes, the cozy bathtub. I assume that it was a momentary divergence, because that is just how teenagers are. But do not fear, my lovely children, because Mother will always be willing to welcome you back with open arms. Do not think for a second that I am angry at you, because all I really am, is worried. How are you getting by? Is there enough food for you? A bed? Plumbing? A fridge? I am sending you this gift to show you how much I still care. Once you decide to end this charade, please, do return. Until then, Mother will take care of you, as I always have been. This will be the first gift out of many that I have to offer. Tomorrow, a special delivery should be arriving at your doorsteps. I hope you understand how much I love you despite the fact that you decided to abandon your poor mother. I am sad, but I will keep an eye on you for as long as I am alive. I know you miss me, and you will return to me. With love, Malachite."
We wanted to vomit everything we had eaten. Jasper tore the letter apart, and in a fit of rage, punched the wall. I was scared because she had found us somehow, and she was still playing mind games on us. We had a restless sleep that night.
And, true enough, her next deliver arrived in the morning.
She had bought us a house. A huge house, not as big as the mansion, but incredibly spacious nonetheless.
We took an entire week to dwell on it. The house was there, on the address in the paper. It was ours, and Malachite had paid for it. The longer we stubbornly refused to set a foot in the place, the worse our condition became. Jasper was irritable, I was mad, we took it all out on each other under the sheets of our crappy mattress in the floor; the situation was unbearable.
So we accepted it. We moved in to this house because we didn't have a choice.
"Just for now," Jasper said, and I agreed. It was a suburban neighborhood, and we managed to find some work there. Things were finally looking up, because we were employed and soon enough we'd be able to get out of that place. It was just for now.
Malachite kept sending us expensive gifts, once a week. All the packages that came in the mail immediately went to the trashcan. We didn't want anything to do with the witch. We were just living in the house because it was temporary. That was what we kept repeating in our heads.
But one day, I don't know when, we started slipping. I caught myself inspecting the box to see what was inside, and secretly munched on a snack she had sent us – it was my favorite as a child. It was just one.
Jasper, too. Her hair was a mess, and Mother knew the brand of shampoo that worked. I caught the smell of it on Jasper's hair one night, but decided to keep quiet. I needed a new shirt, and she had sent us one. Jasper needed a pair of shoes that fit her huge feet, and, oh, what a coincidence, there was one in the mail. We made accidents on purpose, and we were very aware of it.
It was like she was winning us back.
Two months later, Jasper snapped. "No! We can't keep doing this to ourselves. Fuck that. Fuck her, I won't let her control us like that. Throw your shirts on the garbage, now!" She slammed the door open and ran out of the house. Once she returned, she held a lighter in one hand, and a pack of cigarettes on the other. "I liked playing with fire before she turned me into this, so I'll take this part of me back."
That was when Jasper started smoking, and I did as well, because I felt that I owned her this one. I dyed my hair blue because Malachite told me I looked good in blue. If she wanted to cover me in blue, then I would do her the favor; I became obsessed with the color.
During all this time, we thought that we were rebelling, mocking her, outplaying her. But now I realize that we were not. All that we stupidly accomplished was doing things that reminded us of mother, because she was right.
We missed her.
And we were too weak to fight it.
Time went by, and eventually Jasper's strong and athletic body did her a favor and she was called to a female rugby team. I was fired because I was a mess, but it didn't matter; I had mother's deliveries to sustain me. Jasper was doing great, and in six years she managed to make enough money to buy herself a good apartment. She told me to come with her, but I refused. I was tired of living with her, of having to look at her face every day, reminding me of the horrid things I had done, things I had gone through. I was sure she would argue, but surprisingly she accepted my choice of splitting up. I guess I reminded her too much of our childhood, too.
And now I'm here. Still living in Malachite's house, still receiving her fucking packages in the mail, still too weak to refuse them. Jasper receives them too, and I know she looks through the stuff before deciding what she wants to keep. After all these years, Malachite still has us wrapped around her finger, and I'm afraid that one day we'll break and really go back to her.
One day, we'll go back to doing circus tricks.
Lapis finished the long tale with a tired sigh, unable to keep her eyes open anymore. "This is it. I'm sorry." She turned around again to face the wall, and finally blacked out. Peridot didn't move, didn't speak, and didn't think. Her eyes lingered on Lapis' backs for almost a minute, and then she finally lost the battle to her own exhaustion.
It really was a lot.
A/N: SO THAT WAS A RIDE EH? *absolutely dies* So this chapter was incredibly exhausting for me to write for a few personal reasons, and also because this whole week I've been writing, rewriting, and not quite satisfied with it. I'm also stressed out on work, it's been a very busy week.
But, to be honest, I think that me being exhausted actually helped me set the mood for this chapter very well. As I said before, this story is very important to me, and I want to pour all of my feelings into it, good and bad. I'm glad I could turn my stress into this. Thank you once again for reading, I promise things will become cheerful again soon ;;;
-niigoki
