A/N: I'm no good at writing no-holds-barred cruelty, so I tend to go around it by writing out the aftermath. Hopefully this feels ugly and/or provoking enough?
Also: HOLY COW. Every time I update, 117 emails are sent out. I email 117 people my writing every day, and 114 people like this thing enough to have it on their favorites page. o.O Wow. Thank you, everyone, for showing an interest in what is honestly me just inelegantly spewing my love for this pairing into one concentrated area so I don't bother anyone else. Thank you all so much for your support! I don't think I've ever been a popular writer, and I know SU is a small fandom, but for me this is seriously amazing.
Sapphire's never really noticed before, but it isn't just symmetrical inmates like Onyx or gems of higher Mohs that can be bullies. Containment Unit supervisors can be just as bad, if not worse.
Citrine may be weird, but there's a difference between her usual idiosyncrasies and actual distress. They've known each other long enough for Sapphire to more or less tell the difference, at this point. She also is familiar enough with Citrine to know that the fact she's displaying her distress so blatantly means that something absolutely wretched has occurred. She's not the most discreet gem in normal circumstances, but she also tends to go out of her way to make sure that no one worries about her, either.
Right now, Citrine hardly seems to care.
"Whoa, what happened to you?" Ruby asks when the orange gem, looking distinctly downtrodden, shuffles across the recreation center to join their friend group. She's very late for her recreation period, and even her brightly colored, flouncy summer dress seems wilted with exhaustion and defeat.
Citrine lets out a breath, and says dully, "Supervisors. What else?"
Ruby scowls, and the air around her seems to flicker dangerously.
Apatite grimaces. "Which ones?"
"Kunzite and her pal Morganite, who else?"
Everyone except for Sapphire makes noises of empathy. Sapphire, for her part, only distantly remembers Kunzite's violet and Morganite's white and faintly azure color pallets She's passed them in the halls, she's pretty sure.
"I am so sorry," Apatite tells Citrine earnestly.
"They didn't force you to regenerate, did they?" asks Tourmaline with a sympathetic grimace.
Citrine gives her a—well, a rather stony look. "Three times. Because if you just try hard enough, you'll come out symmetrical, right?" She produces an uncharacteristically bitter laugh, and Apatite wraps an arm around her shoulders for a reassuring sideways hug.
"How did you get away?" asks Tourmaline.
What is it with Tourmaline and wanting all of the ugly details?
"I didn't, really. They finally just ran out of laughs and wandered off from the boredom." Citrine wobbles and leans into Apatite, seemingly to keep herself upright. "I'm not used to regenerating so much, so fast," she admits.
Ruby's jaw twitches. She's grinding her teeth together, and her hands are in fists at her sides. "That's not right," she says in a soft growl.
Citrine is usually flattered and a little flustered if Ruby makes any move to defend her, but right now she's too exhausted to do much more than flick her gaze at the red gem. "Yeah, well, if you can convince Kunzite of that I'd be much obliged," she says in a voice that's so defeated it almost lacks inflection entirely.
"Does this happen often?" Sapphire wonders.
Even Citrine has the energy to flash an incredulous look at that question.
"You've lived in Containment Unit 2," Tourmaline says. "And you mean to say that no supervising gem has ever attacked you like that?"
Before Sapphire can reply with the obvious, Ruby cuts in, "Supervisors are given expressed orders not to interact with her. Otherwise, they would have."
"Must be nice," Citrine mutters bitterly.
"Oh, it's because of your—you know," says Apatite, tapping her temple with her free hand. At this point their friends all know about Sapphire's future vision. A few too many poorly explained mid-sentence interruptions (those visions still happen every once in a while, even with her ability's recent enhancement) had required either an explanation or an all-out fight about twenty years ago. Ironically, it had been the typically jovial, make-an-awkward-joke-and-laugh-it off Tourmaline who had actually gotten fed up enough to confront her about it.
Sapphire almost admits to how little she's thought about the Supervisors' lack of interaction with her, but considering Citrine's current state she refrains and simply nods. She doesn't need future vision in order to see how badly a comment like that will blow over. Just the fact that the Supervisors aren't allowed to interact with her is provocation enough.
Come to think of it, they don't seem to bother Ruby, either. Maybe that falls under the same clause?
"The lack of oversight isn't right," Ruby declares vehemently. The air around her has also begun to shimmer unabashedly with heat. "We're already buried so deep beneath the rest of society that most gems above don't even know we exist, much less that we're stuck doing menial labor day in and day out like mindless drones. Being tortured on top of that is worse than demeaning!"
She's right, it is. Everyone here in Unit 6 thinks that way, and now that someone's finally said it aloud Sapphire can feel it acutely. How often does someone point this out?
"You say this every time, Ruby, but there's nothing we can do about it," Apatite says, sad but ultimately resigned. "We don't have any political pull here, and since most of us here in Unit 6 are asymmetrical, we're also a lot smaller and weaker."
These are all valid points as well. Sapphire can acknowledge this, and Tourmaline and even Citrine also seem resigned to it, but Ruby is still radiating heat like a volcano. She's too upset to see logic, or to care if it's even there. Small surprise.
"Citrine!" she barks, and the orange gem seems to regain a little of her quirky energy. "Where did you see Morganite and Kunzite go off to, after they left?"
"The west wing somewhere. I wasn't putting a whole lot of effort into observing them at the time."
"Good enough." Ruby cracks her knuckles, and Sapphire notices a proverbial fire blazing in her eyes. "I'll be back."
With that, Ruby marches off. Sapphire watches her go with the faint realization that doing this means she's abandoning her post as Sapphire's handler, something she has never done. Even after Ruby has tromped her way into the hall, though, Sapphire can't stop staring at the last place she saw her friend's broad red shoulders.
Protective to a fault, she thinks.
Well, Sapphire did the same stupid thing for Calcite, didn't she?
Plagioclase was never a Supervisor, though, much less a pair of Supervisors.
If memory serves, Morganite and Kunzite are pretty big gems. Ruby is a great fighter, and powerful for her size and stature, but will that be enough?
"Two on one—especially with Kunzite being one of the two—is very poor odds, even if Ruby is a higher Mohs," Tourmaline says. She shakes her head. "There's no stopping her when she's like this, though."
"I'd be flattered, but she'd do that for any of us," Citrine says as Apatite helps her into one of the least-uncomfortable seats in their general vicinity. It's hard to say whether she's disappointed or just weary.
"I know she's done it for me at least six times now, over the years," Apatite says, straightening up. "It never makes a difference, even when she wins. She stops one of them one time, and two more come back, twice as cruel as before."
What a defeatist attitude. Have they really been beaten down so low? How has Sapphire not seen this before?
Ruby's confrontation with Morganite and Kunzite will not go well. At best, she'll get herself poofed. At worst, cracked and/or crushed.
"I'm going with her," Sapphire decides.
"What good will that do? We just said you can't stop her."
"No, but I can help to even out the odds—or, at the very least, keep her from getting herself shattered," says Sapphire. "If anyone asks, we've gone back early. See you all tomorrow."
Sapphire doesn't wait for her friends to respond before leaving the center herself. Honestly, she should have just gone with Ruby on the outset. She should have known she would be doing this—who was she kidding, letting Ruby walk out without her? When it comes to bigger, more powerful gems picking on those they feel are beneath them, Sapphire and Ruby feel exactly the same way.
With the help of her future vision, Sapphire knows exactly how to find Ruby, and if she runs she'll catch up in plenty of time for them to come up with a workable strategy to make these Supervisors behave indefinitely. She's already has an idea of what to do. After all, if these Supervisors aren't afraid to abuse their authority, then Sapphire's certainly shouldn't be afraid to use the fact that Supervisors can't abuse her to their advantage.
Maybe two gems with elemental affinities and insight into the future against two bully-Supervisors isn't fair odds, either. There again, maybe that's just the point Kunzite and Morganite need driven home.
Despite the heated anger that's still rolling off of her in visible waves, Ruby finds it in herself to laugh as Sapphire zips into place beside her. "How did I know this would happen?"
As they fall into step, Sapphire notices Ruby's temperature reducing by several degrees. "You could have waited for me," she says anyway.
Ruby ignores this and flashes the smirk of one who already knows that victory is assured. And is it just Sapphire, or is Ruby clearer headed now than when she stormed off less than five minutes ago?
"So, what's the plan?" asks Ruby. "I know you already have one."
In hindsight, it really isn't any wonder that Garnet was so easily persuaded to join a revolution. Sapphire and Ruby had already been rebels, long before Rose Quartz ever came into their lives.