Lapis could only stare at Peridot in silence, her shopping bags from the convenience store having been forgotten at her sides, no care for if the contents inside got wet from the rain. She just stared at Peridot for what felt like forever trying to understand what was going on. Mind trying to figure out why Peridot would be out here. She was just shocked to find the girl who had taken over her thoughts out here. In a storm. Drunk. She snapped out of her stupor when she saw the blonde shiver where she sat, worry and concern quickly taking the forefront of her mind. The girl was probably out in the rain far longer than Lapis, she was completely drenched from head to toe. She had to be freezing! Lapis quickly got to her knees, trying to discern any injuries on the blonde as she looked her over.

Worry filled her system, and maybe just a little bit of anger too at seeing her student and friend like this. "Peridot, are you okay?" she asked. Her response was a drunken, carefree giggle from Peridot as she slowly helped the blonde to her feet, though the young woman swayed and stumbled a little, so Lapis kept her hands on her to help keep her up.

The blonde took a moment to respond, just staring at Lapis with wide eyes, between the alcohol and the water blurring up her glasses, the teacher had to wonder just how bad her vision was currently impaired. Peridot pulled herself from Lapis' grip and shot finger guns at her. In any other situation, Lapis would have found it adorable, "I'm better than okay, Laz. I'm feeling great—whoa!" she cut herself off as she very nearly lost her balance again just from taking a few steps back. However, she managed to keep herself upright without Lapis' help this time, her bottle of whiskey was still clasped between her fingers, the sound of the liquid sloshing inside was audible even through the rain.

Lapis glanced down at the dark bottle, and then back at Peridot, at the drenched, drunken wet cat look that she had now. She hadn't a clue what Peridot was doing here, why she was drunk and where she got the alcohol from in the first place. But, there was no way she could just leave her out in this rain. Nor was she going to trust Peridot to be able to get back home safely on her own. Could Peridot even lead the way home in her state or was she too drunk to remember her way home? Lapis didn't want to risk it if it could keep them out in the rain longer than needed.

"Come on, let's go," Lapis said, gently taking a hold of Peridot by the arm and, after picking back up her bags with her other hand, she began leading Peridot down the sidewalk. She wanted to get her somewhere safe, where she could dry off and where could sober up. Somewhere Lapis could watch her so that she could make sure that Peridot was okay and stayed okay. She really couldn't help the bitterness and sour taste she got in her mouth just from thinking of what could have happened if someone other than herself had come across Peridot, drunk and vulnerable, in the rain tonight.

Thank God Lapis had found her when she did, and thank God that Peridot didn't appear hurt at all. Still, they were going to have a rather long talk when they got out of the storm about why Peridot should not be drinking, and if she still decided she was going to be drinking, why she shouldn't go wandering out in storms while drunk. For someone so smart, Peridot could be so stupid.

Peridot smiled at her and Lapis could feel her heart constrict a little and do some backflips, even drunk she had a beautiful smile. Her steps were uneven and she gave the occasional hiccup, but regardless, she was pretty willing to follow Lapis through the rain without complaint, "Where we goin'?" she asked innocently.

"Home," Lapis replied, and then as an afterthought she clarified, "my home. It's not far from here."

"Oooh! Ms. Lazuli, how forward of you!" Peridot burst out laughing as she put a hand to her chest, clearly trying to do the swooning pose but failing big time as she was unable to contain her laughter.

At the implications being made, Lapis' face turned red, feeling hot despite the chill of the rain. "Oh hush, you know I don't mean it like that," she chided, unable to look Peridot in the face.

Peridot was grinning ear to ear as she drew closer to Lapis, almost hugging her arm as she followed, "Aww, and with that my dreams are crushed." If Lapis didn't know better, she'd say Peridot was trying to flirt. But, it was just the alcohol talking. Lapis was sure it was just the alcohol talking.

She supposed that the good thing about finding Peridot where she had was that Lapis wasn't lying when she said she didn't live all that far from the park. All it took was for them to walk three or four blocks and then she was pulling Peridot through her front door and kicking off her shoes on the doormat. She wondered for a moment what her neighbors would think if they saw her taking home one of her students, but shrugged it off. Like she cared what they thought, and it wasn't like they really cared enough to keep tabs on what Lapis did.

"Just take your shoes off here, don't mind Malachite, she won't bite," Lapis directed as she pulled her jacket off and left it on the coat rack. Water dripped down from it onto. Even though she had her jacket on and zipped tight, her shirt was pretty wet and so was her pants, she'd no doubt have to change clothes. Of course, Peridot would too, she was far wetter than Lapis. "I'll get you some towels and a change of clothes, follow me."

Peridot shook her head at the offer and instead held her backpack up for Lapis to see, "No need. Got a spare set in here," she said.

"There's no way anything in there is still dry." Just from one look at the backpack, it was soaked all the way through. Lapis had her fair share of running her bags through the rain, and if Peridot had brought clothes with her in there, then they were bound to be wet. Wait… why would she even have a spare set of clothes in her bag? Lapis was going to have to ask her about that later. "I'll throw them in the dryer, but, I should have something around here you can wear."

Thankfully Peridot wasn't too argumentative about it. She put her backpack down and followed Lapis through the house. The bluenette managed to find a pair of shorts that had been too small for herself and a shirt for Peridot to use and ushered her into the bathroom along with a few towels.

"Go on and get changed, I'll be back in a minute," Lapis said from the doorway, closing the door as she left Peridot to her own devices for a minute so she could change into some dry clothes herself. Of course, the first priority was to dispose of the whiskey now that it wasn't in Peridot's hands anymore, and she was more than happy to dump the bottle into the trash on her way to her room.

Ten minutes later found Lapis and Peridot on the couch. Malachite had already come to investigate the new guest in the home and had already gotten bored; stepping off to sleep in the bedroom when Peridot showed to have nothing of interest to her.

Lapis was finding it hard to figure out what to say, how to start this conversation. She never thought she'd have to be questioning Peridot like this, after all, who in the world would have thought they'd run into Peridot drunk? But still, she had to get to the bottom of this. In the back of her mind, she realized that this could also be her chance to find out once and for all why Peridot had been avoiding her.

"Peridot," she began slowly, cautiously. She didn't want to start this off bad right away, who knew what kind of drunk Peridot could be, she'd handled enough people at the bar to know to be careful, "what were you doing out there?"

The blonde shrugged as she hugged her knees to her chest, watching the TV with interest as a bunch of chefs tried to prove themselves better than the other. "Cause I wanted too?" she offered. Lapis was sure that there was more to it. Her phone started ringing, and as Peridot pulled it out of the shorts pocket, Lapis caught a glance of the caller ID; Yellow Demon. She saw the narrowed eyes and furrow brows on Peridots face, her teeth worrying her lips as she watched the phone, not answering as it vibrated and rang. Only speaking when the phone stopped ringing and turning it on silent as she talked, "It's rain, rains nice, right? It's water, you like water, so I want to like water."

Lapis shrugged off the phone call, she could understand not wanting to answer a call when drunk, she did the same thing so many times in the past. Especially if it was someone you really didn't want hearing you talk drunk. "You're not the kind of person who'd sit down in a rainstorm just because you wanted too," Lapis pointed out instead, though the fact that she said she wanted to like water because of Lapis. It was somewhere between surprising and flattering, she wasn't sure how to describe it.

Shaking her head, she pressed on. "Did something happen?" Was it because of me? she wanted to add. A bit of guilt was gnawing at her from inside as the thought occurred to her. What if it was because of her? Because it was the only way Peridot could deal with whatever it was Jasper told her about her.

She didn't like thinking like that. But, it was a possibility. If she was the reason Peridot got drunk and threw herself out in the rain… she felt awful.

"I guess… I guess I'm not, huh?" Peridots voice was soft, but it was only a moment because she smiled, voice as loud as always as she spoke up again, "But, can't a gal try new things? I tried alcohol and I tried the rain. At least I liked one of them."

"You could have gotten sick," Lapis retorted. Just because Peridot wasn't going to give her a straight answer didn't mean she was going to give up. "You're not the drinking type, you're not the kind to make stupid choices like this," she said and then hesitated a moment, adding on after making her decision. "Peridot, why have you been avoiding me? Did I do something wrong? Is this because I did something?"

The blonde fell silent. Her entire posture had gone stiff at the question, as though it was the last question she even wanted Lapis to ask. Her nails curled into her legs, digging into her borrowed shorts as she stared at the TV without a word. Her discomfort was clear, and Lapis regretted asking her that question since this was the result of it all.

"Peridot, are you okay?" Lapis asked, turning her entire body to face the blonde, "I'm sorry, look, you don't have to tell me right now."

Yeah, she wished Lapis hadn't asked that question. It wasn't something she really wanted to admit to the blue haired woman just yet. Peridot looked up and swallowed dryly. Okay, no, she was lying to herself. She wanted to answer Lapis question, really, she did. She wanted so badly to just tell her that 'hey, sorry I was avoiding you like the plague, it's just because I'm in love with you', but, well, she wasn't the most articulate when drunk and handling feelings. The butterflies that Lapis still managed to put in her even now wasn't helping her all that much either. She wanted to tell her, she just couldn't get the words to come out.

She glanced at Lapis, at the worry that was on her face at seeing Peridots unease. She felt her insides heat up and turn to goop. Lapis had always been pretty, and she seemed even more so. Maybe it was the alcohol talking, but, well, just looking at Lapis she could feel her unease start to calm. She liked looking at pretty things, and Lapis was the prettiest one in this house. It was so easy to just get lost in looking at Lapis right now, and it was so hard to look away.

Her blue eyes were so beautiful if Peridot was being honest, and she was pretty honest right now, they were the most breathtaking shade she'd ever seen. She could stare at them for hours and never get bored. Her skin was flawless, smooth and soft. Peridot found her eyes dipping lower, to the plump lips she'd dreamed and desired to cover with her own.

She couldn't trust herself to use words to answer Lapis' question. But there was a different way to convey it all. If there was ever a chance. She'd rather do this now and brush it off as a drunken act of stupidity later when she was sober then spend forever wishing she'd not backed out of it.

"Peridot?" Lapis asked again. The blonde had been staring at her silently and she was a little concerned if she was okay. "Are you spacing out or whmph!"

She never got a chance to finish because Peridot had leaned in, quickly cutting her off as she captured Lapis' lips with her own. Small hands came up to grab Lapis by the arms, holding onto her but just loose enough that if Lapis wanted to she could break out of with ease and push the blonde away.

She didn't push her away. Lapis' mind had gone blank for a moment, eyes wide in surprise as she felt the younger woman's lips against her own. Feeling the blonde so close to her. Kissing her. It was like her mind had to go through a reboot system, and when it finished, she was hyper-focused on what was happening.

Peridot was kissing her. Peridot was kissing her. Peridot was kissing her.

Before she could even do anything, Peridot pulled away. Her face red, her eyes hazy, her breathing a little uneven. Yet she was watching Lapis, eyes laced with a tinge of fear, looking for something, anything from Lapis. Her grip on Lapis growing weak, like she was torn between letting go or holding onto her.

Lapis could feel her heart beating fast, her pulse a drum in her ears. Her face was burning. Her mind was screaming at her. She shouldn't want this. Shouldn't do this. Shouldn't have enjoyed the kiss as much as she did. But she couldn't find it in her to listen to her brain, she knew what she wanted, who she wanted.

Lean arms wrapped around Peridot, pulling her close, holding her tight with no intentions to let go as Lapis dragged the blonde into another kiss.