CHAPTER TWO

The early morning sun rose slowly over the horizon, casting a golden glow over the land before it crept just high enough to shine directly upon Peridot's face, waking her up. She rolled over, and almost crashed straight into Steven. For a split second, she simply stared at his sleeping face in confusion, then it all came rushing back to her and she blushed from head to toe.

Once again, the urge to run away rose up within her, but before she could act upon it, his eyes opened and blinked before focusing upon her. And then he smiled. "Good morning, beautiful."

She smiled bashfully back at him. "Good morning. Um, handsome."

Steven laughed and leaned forward to give her a kiss. "A very good morning," he murmured, pulling her closer.

They kissed again, but when they broke apart, Peridot's gaze fell upon the temple door and she drew back slightly. "I should probably get out of here before the gems catch us," she said reluctantly. She would've very much liked to go again, but last night had great and she didn't want to spoil the experience by being stabbed to death by Pearl now.

"Hmm?" He rolled over to see what she was looking at. "Oh, it's OK, they agreed a while ago that they'd stay in there until eight every morning. Unless there's an emergency, of course."

"And what time is it now?" Peridot asked warily.

"Uhh..." He reached for his phone and his face fell. "Seven forty-five. Boo."

She laughed and gave him another kiss, just because he looked so sad, before phasing on her clothes. "Well... I guess I'll see you around."

"Yeah." Steven stared thoughtfully up at the ceiling and then rolled over and leaned on his elbow to watch her. "What are you doing later today?"

At once, her face lit up. "Oh! You haven't heard! We're beginning work on the nuclear fusion plant!"

"Yeah?" He sat up straighter. "They finally gave you permission?"

All of the newly cured gems in Little Homeworld had been very eager to try out some of the new technical advancements that had been made during the last 5000 years, primarily television and internet, but even his father's millions couldn't pay that electricity bill indefinitely. Somebody had half-heartedly suggested growing an inert power gem, but he'd shot that idea down at once, partly because nobody could be sure if it would harm the Earth in the same way growing a live gem would, but mostly because the more he learned about his mom and the other Diamonds, the more he suspected gem power sources might be a little more alive than they claimed and he wasn't ready to face that can of worms yet, let alone start canning his own worms.

And then Peridot had brought up hydrogen fusion. "It's the same principle that powers your sun," she'd explained. "And we can use water as fuel! The only waste product would be oxygen!" Everybody had agreed that it was an excellent suggestion.

Unfortunately, none of them had been aware that Ronaldo had bugged the meeting. Upon hearing the word 'nuclear', he'd panicked and gone straight to the authorities. Feds had stormed the town, Peridot, Garnet and himself had all been arrested, and Lapis had then made things exponentially worse by waterboarding a dozen officers. Rather unsurprisingly, it had taken months or boring legal bureaucracy and paperwork before the local government had agreed to let them build the desalination plant, and they were still fussing over the nuclear fusion plant when he'd left for Homeworld a few days earlier.

"Uh huh!" She puffed out her chest with pride. "After more than an entire Earth year of meeting with scientists and arguing with ridiculous government authorities, I finally won them over with facts and logic!"

"Uh huh," he echoed, a little skeptically. And with good reason; when he'd left, all the Earth scientists were still insisting the planned reactor was too small to produce more power than would be required to run it in the first place. Peridot had tried explaining that gems had the technology to make things bigger on the inside, but they'd all dismissed it as 'science fiction bullshit" and refused to listen.

"Yes! Well, I was finally able to convince Garnet to give a tour of the temple to a small team of scientists before you left."

"Garnet and a team of Quartz soldiers?" he guessed.

Peridot grinned. "They were tired of having to watch Camp Pining Hearts on the screen in the hall. And I was tired of loaning out my DVDs. It took them a while to believe the evidence of their own eyes, but once they did, they informed the necessary authorities, who finally agreed to let us start building."

"That's great!" he exclaimed.

"Well..." She rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "We also made an agreement to share any excess power with the State of Delmarva, with any profits to be split 30:70."

"Oh." He looked blankly at her. "Is... is that good?"

"I have no idea." A small smirk slid across her face. "I have spent a lot of time calculating our energy forecast over the past year while they've been dicking us around, there isn't going to be any excess power." She smiled wider as he started to laugh. "So anyway, I shall be working on that today," she finished, and started heading for the stairs. "Bye!"

"Bye, Peri!" He waved lazily after her. "See ya!"

She walked calmly over to the warp pad, and a few moments later, she was back in Little Homeworld, where she finally gave in to the urge to start skipping with glee. "Oh what a night!" she sang to herself, bopping along to invisible music in the bright sunshine. What a night indeed. She'd fantasized about it many times, but never seriously believed it would happen. Her! And Steven! The gem she'd been crushing on ever since she'd taken that first step into the rain four years ago. Who'd then turned out to be a Diamond, one of the most elite and powerful beings in the universe. She'd known then that he was forever out of her league. But she'd been wrong! He'd chosen her! Truly, this was the best day of her life. Nothing could put a dent in her happiness-

"Ah, 5XG! Would you be a dear and stretch up and give me a hand with this Earth artifact?"

Peridot's smiled vanished at once. "Nice going, Peridolt," she muttered under her breath. "You had to jinx yourself."

Because one of the other downsides to making peace with Homeworld and curing all of the corrupted gems was that because they'd all been bubbled or corrupted for the last five thousand years, they'd skipped Era 2 entirely. And so every so often, one of them would ask her to shapeshift a little or jump up impossibly high or, on one mortifying occasion, pool their strength and join a fusion, and she would be forced to explain why she was unable to do any of those things. Whenever she saw the pitying looks in their eyes, she wanted to scream. She'd saved the Earth! They'd all be dust if it wasn't for her! Still, she couldn't be too mad at them, it wasn't their fault they didn't know about the limitations of Era 2 and once it had been explained to them, they did stop asking her to use powers she didn't have.

Moss Agate 4FL was not one of those gems.

Moss Agate 4FL was, in fact, her old manager from Homeworld, an Era 1 gem who had overseen the general education of Peridot technicians and thrown an absolute tantrum upon finding out that the newest addition to her ranks had been created especially to oversee a secret project on Earth belonging to Yellow Diamond. It was something Peridot had never been able to resist gloating about on those occasions when her manager was being particularly obnoxious.

Of course, a few years later, she finally realized the reason she'd been chosen wasn't because she was special, but because she was wasn't. An Era 2 Peridot, even one that required a few extra resources to make her smarter than average, was easily replaceable. An Era 1 Agate, even one as stupid and spiteful as Moss Agate, was not. She wondered when Moss Agate had figured that out too. Probably when Peridot had failed to return.

She'd put her old life behind her and almost forgotten about Moss Agate entirely, when the other gem had shown up with a small group of other Homeworld gems a month earlier, who'd all finally succumbed to curiosity and decided they wanted to see what made Earth so special. Peridot privately thought they all just wanted to meet Steven in person. As for Moss Agate, she suspected her motives were less to do with any real interest in what Earth had to offer and more about trying to find out exactly what Peridot's secret mission had been. That, and getting on every single one of Peridot's last nerves.

She turned around to tell Moss Agate once again that no, she couldn't stretch anywhere, but the words died on her lips when she realized that the 'Earth artifact' was, in fact, a large chunk of scrap metal lodged in a tree. It suddenly occurred to her that she'd never told Moss Agate about her metal powers. What better time to demonstrate them than right now?

"Certainly, Moss Agate 4FL!" she declared with a wide smile that got even wider when she saw Moss Agate's brow furrow in confusion. "Allow me to assist!" She held her hands aloft and concentrated, and Moss Agate's mouth dropped open when the twisted chunk of metal shifted and started to float, raining twigs and leaves down upon her. Peridot waved her arms theatrically and made it spin in circles, just for fun.

Then she dropped it at Moss Agate's feet. The other gem let out a shriek of alarm and Peridot burst out laughing. "I hope my help was satisfactory," she said mockingly, then spun around and skipped away, completely oblivious to the daggers being glared into the back of her head. Her phone buzzed and she paused for a moment to read the new message.

Last night was amazing! Do u wanna come over again 2nite? S xxx

For the briefest of moments, she considered playing it cool and putting the phone away to answer later, then dismissed it. It was a little late now to be acting coy. Instead, she typed out a quick reply before going on her merry way. Yes, today really was the best day of her life.

xxx

"-And because it took so long to defeat the indigenous population, the planet itself suffered only minor terraforming, so it's the perfect place..."

Steven tuned out the sound of Pearl's voice and stealthily peeped at the new message.

Sounds good. What time do you propose?

"-sure we wanna-"

I'll text u when the coast is clear

"-assure me they're all dead-"

OK, see you later

"-up to Steven-"

can't wa

"Steven!"

Steven jumped and hastily shoved his phone back in his pocket. "Nothing! What?"

"We're planning to heal a planet, remember?" Amethyst reminded him. "Skaro? Ring any bells?"

"Ska- oh yeah." He snapped his fingers, remembering what Yellow Diamond had said. "The uh, the Kaleds-"

"Daleks," Garnet corrected.

"Same thing," Pearl added, just to confuse matters.

"It took a long time to defeat them, so they'd only just started terraforming," he continued, ignoring the interruption.

"Which we just said," Amethyst said, and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "What's got you all distracted?"

"Nothing!" He widened his eyes innocently and hoped he wasn't blushing as much as he imagined he was. "I was just..." He thought wildly for an excuse. "Checking um, Ronaldo's website."

"I thought Peridot DDoS'd that thing to death?"

"Yes, but... I was just looking to see if it was back up yet. So! Skaro!" he declared firmly. "That's where we're going?"

"Well... there's a chance the Daleks may not all be dead," Garnet said slowly. "Some of them may just be dormant."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Steven blinked in confusion. "I mean, if we're trying to heal the place, right?"

"It's really not." Pearl grimaced. "The Daleks are a race of creatures whose sole purpose is the conquest of all the known universes and the total extermination of anything that isn't Dalek. They're an extremely powerful enemy, not just to Gemkind, but to every form of intelligent life."

"You can't win them over by appealing to their better nature," Garnet added before he could suggest doing exactly that. "They don't have a better nature."

Steven pursed his lips; as far as he was concerned, these Dalek creatures didn't sound a whole lot different to the Diamonds, and he'd managed to win them over. Still, it had been a difficult and ongoing task that'd only really worked because it turned out he was related to them, and he was pretty sure he didn't have any Dalek ancestry. Plus he wasn't really in the mood to go about trying to convince a whole new bunch of aliens to be nice for at least another few years. "OK, so if we run across any, we'll just bubble them. Problem solved."

"What about Peridot though?" Amethyst asked.

Steven almost fell off of his seat. "P-Peridot?" he stammered, feeling his face rapidly heating up again. "Wh-what about her?"

"She's basically a civilian. We can't ask her to go to a place like Skaro until we can be sure the threat has been completely neutralized," Garnet said with a small frown.

"Ask her-" Suddenly he remembered the plans they'd made back on Homeworld, how they were going to ask Peridot, with her Kindergarten and farming expertise, to help with the restoration. He hadn't really taken the suggestion seriously at the time because he'd assumed she'd be too busy with the fusion plant, but now... and once they were sure it was safe, perhaps he could persuade the others to leave them to work alone...

"STEVEN!"

This time he really did fall out of his seat. "What!? Geez!" he gasped, clutching his chest in alarm.

Amethyst held out a hand and pulled him back upright. "You're a million miles away today, dude."

"And we haven't even left Earth," Garnet quipped.

"Did you sleep all right last night?" Pearl asked in concern.

Inspiration struck at once. "I had a little trouble falling asleep," he said, which was technically true. "Maybe I'll have an early night tonight."

"Of course," Pearl agreed at once.

"And in the meantime, let's go and explore Skaro."

xxx

Twelve hours later, Steven smiled and waved goodbye to the gems as they stepped inside the temple. As soon as the door sealed shut behind them, he sprang into action. "Candles, music, clean sheets, clean clothes..." he muttered under his breath. Was rose petals on the bed going too far? Probably. Plus, he realized, it probably wasn't a great idea to put rose petals in a place where he planned to spill a few bodily fluids. "Cancel the rose petals."

The plain, neutral bedding was exchanged for a more grown-up navy blue set, a romantic playlist was playing on his phone and he'd changed into a smart shirt and pants, and so he paused to send a message to Peridot before he began lighting the candles he'd strategically placed around the loft. Then he stepped back and looked critically at the scene before him. Had he forgotten anything? No, everything was perfect. He smiled with satisfaction and reclined on top of the duvet, striking a sexy pose.

Then after a few seconds, he frowned and sat up again. Forget the rose petals, was all of this too much? Last night they'd both been blinded by lust, but now, she'd had time to stop and think about it. For all he knew, she just wanted to talk, and here he was, setting up the room for more sex. He couldn't have been more blatant if he got those rose petals and used them to spell out 'fuck me' on his bed.

In a panic, he jumped to his feet and moved to snuff out one of the candles, but before he could, there was a tap at the window. He spun around to see Peridot standing on the other side of the glass. The rising panic was immediately replaced with curiosity and he rushed over to let her in. "Hey," he said in a hushed voice as she carefully climbed over the window frame. "Why didn't you warp in?"

"I was concerned the sound might alert the others," she explained, brushing down her skirt. "So I used the warp up on the hand of the temple fusion statue and climbed down."

"Huh." He nodded slowly. "Smart."

"Of course." She smiled smugly, and then looked around appreciatively at her surroundings. "Wow, everything looks so nice!"

Steven looked at her in her cute skirt and the oversized sweater he was pretty sure he recognized as once being one of his own. She'd even tied a green ribbon in her hair. "Not as nice as you," he said sincerely.

Peridot blushed and picked a speck of lint off her sleeve. "Oh, this old thing?" she said demurely. "It's just something I found lying around."

"Really?" he asked, and began walking around her. "And did it happen to be lying around in my laundry basket?"

"Erm..."

"I'm kidding," he reassured her, taking hold of her hands as he returned to stand in front of her. "It looks great on you."

"Oh good." She smiled in relief and leaned up on tiptoe to give him a long kiss. Then another one. Then they stumbled back onto the bed and carried on kissing.

So. Perhaps she wasn't interested in just talking after all, Steven happily concluded. He knew perhaps they really should talk about it and establish exactly what their relationship was now... but he also knew Peridot was far more logical than emotional, and he didn't want to go full Boyle and frighten her off, especially not when she looked so cute straddling his lap. Instead, he pulled back slightly and ran his hands lightly up the sides of her torso and around her back, before pulling her closer. "You know," he murmured a little breathlessly, "it'd look even better not on you."

"Oh, do you?" she teased. "Would you like to confirm that theory?"

"Very much so," he admitted cheerfully.

"Very well then!" She wriggled back slightly, smirking when she felt the growing bulge against her crotch, and took hold of the hem of her sweater and pulled it smoothly over her head.

Steven's mouth fell open and stars appeared in his eyes. He'd been expecting a t-shirt, probably one of his own again, maybe a bra. What he hadn't been expecting was nothing at all. No, Peridot really wasn't interested in just talking, he reflected in the moment before he buried his face between her breasts.

Peridot sighed happily and rocked her hips against him again, feeling him growing even harder beneath her. She knew she'd have to eventually have to talk to him about this development in their relationship, but she'd decided to put it off for as long as possible. Definitely until after she'd had another orgasm or two. Maybe three, she thought as his lips closed around one of her nipples.

"Yeah," Steven said huskily when he was finally forced to take a moment to breath. "You definitely look better without the sweater."

She grinned and gave him a quick kiss. "Well, I happen to think you'd look better without this shirt."

"I like this shirt," he protested, looking mildly offended.

"I like it too," Peridot agreed. "I'd like it even better if it were on the floor. May I?"

He laughed and lowered his hands to her butt to give her a bit more room to move. "You may," he conceded.

She needed no further encouragement; her fingers slid lightly across his chest and up to the top button. She rather wanted to rip his shirt open as fast as possible, but she restrained herself. For one thing, she wanted to tease him. And secondly, she rather suspected she didn't have the strength to pull off such a feat and she'd just wind up struggling with the garment and looking rather silly. So instead, she slowly worked the first button free, ran her fingertips over the small patch of bare skin, then leaned forward and kissed him.

That done, she pulled back and repeated the process. Every time she leaned forward to kiss him, she made sure to grind her crotch against his until he finally broke and held up a hand to stop her. "Sorry, I just- I need a moment, or I'm not gonna make it much further," he confessed.

"Hmm. We can't have that," Peridot mused. "Perhaps there's something I could do to... take the edge off?"

His eyes widened. Was she suggesting what he really, really hoped she was suggesting? He tried to think of the sexiest way to ask her to blow him, but then her hands were in his lap and his mind went blank. "Um..."

"Yes?" she asked sweetly.

"Um..." He bit his lip and briefly closed his eyes. This sort of thing had always been so easy in his imagination, he thought ruefully. "You could um..." He coughed self-consciously. "G-give me a blow job?"

"An exemplary idea!" she agreed at once, and slid off his lap and knelt in front of him. Her hands swiftly unbuttoned his pants and tugged them down before tossing them out of the way, and then they wrapped firmly around his cock. For a moment, she simply gazed at it in fascination; after all, he hadn't had much of a chance to get a good look at it the previous night. Then she leaned forward and ran her tongue around the head.

Steven groaned and dug his fingers into the bed sheets. His imagination may have been better at conjuring up dirty talk, but here, it had been letting him down. Then her lips closed around him entirely and he swore. "Fuck, Peri!"

Peridot smirked up at him, a look that clearly stated that was her intention, then she returned her attention back to the task at hand: namely giving him the best blowjob of his life. True, it was a low bar seeing as it was his first and only one, but she was still determined to make it a good one. And judging from the noises he was making, she was doing pretty well so far.

If her mouth had been free to ask, Steven would've readily agreed with her. Instead, he plunged his hands into her fluffy, blonde hair and watched helplessly as her cheeks hollowed with suction and his cock slid in and out between her lips. "Peridot... please... I'm gonna-"

She glanced up and him and hummed in acknowledgment without slowing her movements. The vibrations tipped him over the edge, and without realizing, he cried out and tightened his grip on her hair, holding her in place while he rode out his orgasm. "Stars, Peridot!" he gasped.

Peridot waited patiently for his grip to loosen, then she sat up and licked her lips. "Do you feel better able to continue now?" she asked, climbing back onto his lap.

"Mmm..." He smiled a little groggily at her and leaned forward to give her a quick kiss. "Yeah, I'm good." He grabbed her butt again, and then raised his eyebrows when he felt dampness against his cock that had nothing to do with the blowjob. "But now I'm thinking maybe you're the one who needs the edge taking off."

"Well... I suppose I wouldn't- eep!" she squealed as he suddenly lifted her up and dropped her onto the bed.

"Shh," he scolded lightly as he began to tug her skirt down. "Or you'll have all the gems out here." He tossed the skirt aside and kissed the bare skin just above the top of her panties. "Now, what was that you were saying?"

"Mmm..." Peridot groaned, squirming as his mouth moved lower, kissing the flimsy material covering her pussy. "I was going to say... I wouldn't be opposed to this."

"Glad to hear it," he murmured, hooking his fingers into the waistband and slowly peeling her panties down, kissing each inch of bare skin as it was revealed. Then, when her pussy was uncovered, glistening with desire, he mustered up all his self-control, turned his face aside and began kissing her inner thighs instead.

"Steven..." she whined, wriggling impatiently.

"Shh..." he said again. He waited a moment until her movements subsided, then moved back up and kissed her clit. Then he ran his fingertips gently around the outside of her labia, parting the folds so he could slip his tongue between them.

"Ah!" Peridot couldn't help crying out. She bit her lip hard to prevent any further outbursts and dug her fingers into his hair again, silently urging him on.

Although his psychic powers didn't go quite so far as mind reading, Steven picked up on her unspoken commands (although to be honest, they were pretty damn obvious, even to someone as clueless as him) and continued to steadily eat her pussy until her bucking hips threatened to throw him off and her juices ran freely down his chin. Then he turned his attention to her throbbing clit, gently flicking the tip of his tongue over it. At the same time, he slowly slid two fingers into her and pumped them in and out of her.

Despite her best efforts, when the moment came, and her with it, Peridot couldn't help making noise. Stars flashed before her eyes and she let out a wordless cry as intense pleasure washed over her. Steven pulled back slightly and watched with fascination as her body convulsed in unison with the spasms in her pussy where his fingers still remained. When she finally relaxed and slumped back onto the bed, he withdrew them and lay down next to her. "So... was that good?" he checked.

Peridot giggled and rolled over to give him a quick kiss. "Very good," she assured him.

Steven smiled and stroked the curve of her hip. "And... do you wanna keep going?" he asked hopefully.

She looked down at his cock, which was standing to attention once more, and smiled back. "I'd like that very much," she said, leaning forward for another kiss.

Needing no further encouragement, he rolled on top of her, poking her a little uncomfortably in her inner thigh in his haste before he slowed down and pushed into her. Peridot let out a small hiss of discomfort; the friction against her overstimulated clit was almost painful, and Steven stopped at once. "You OK?"

"Nng... let me just..." She shifted slightly and tilted her hips upwards, which relieved the discomfort and had the happy side-effect of pulling him in deeper. "Ooh! That's a lot better! Now you may continue," she ordered.

"Oh thank goodness," he groaned and started moving again, slowly at first, to make sure she really was comfortable, but when she made no further complaints, he began to steadily fuck her harder. She raised her hips to meet his thrusts, urging him on, reveling in the feeling of being filled so completely. "Oh fuck, Peridot," he groaned, feeling his pleasure building once again. "You- ah- you feel so good!"

"T-the feeling- hah- is mutual," she panted, bucking her hips up to meet him again.

Her internal muscles clenched around him and his movements began to falter. "Ah- I'm gonna-!"

With that warning, she reached down between them and rolled her clit between her fingers, feeling him sliding into her beneath her fingertips. He slammed into her one last time, just as she reached her own peak, and her pussy clamped down around his cock, locking him in place and coaxing every last drop of cum out of him. Finally, exhausted, they both collapsed in a panting, sweaty, sated heap.

"Wow," Steven said when he finally got his breath back. "Again."

"I couldn't have said it better myself." Peridot paused. "Well if I'm entirely honest, that's a lie, I probably could come up with something more eloquent to describe the experience."

Steven laughed and pulled her in for a hug. "Like?"

"Um." Her mind went blank. "Upon second thought, 'wow' works perfectly." She wriggled deeper into his embrace and smirked up at him. "And I hope I can 'wow' you again in future."

"Good." He kissed her hair and yawned. "I look forward to it."

We need to talk.

The thought flickered across both of their minds. And both of them silently decided it could wait until another time.