*Apologies. In this section, you'll see a multitude of underscores and periods at one point. They are there for formatting purposes and to help represent two characters voicing apart from one another or simultaneously. Fanfiction . net's document system does not allow more than one space between words or characters, and the "Tab" key is out of the question. It also does not allow part of the text to be aligned left and another part to be aligned center if they are in the same line. The underscores were my only work around. They are also there so the format doesn't get too out of hand depending on whether it's viewed on mobile or desktop. 2 stand alone periods are there for breaking up the verses.
Steven slunk up the hill overlooking Beach City on which his mother's blossoms had once bloomed and floated away. He had discreetly followed Topaz and Peridot well away from the clutches of the Gems and the Beach City-zens to this spot looming over the ocean. They stopped here, and sat with one another on the edge of the cliff facing the waves and the town. Steven found himself a low boulder to crouch behind. He felt like a cat stalking his prey. He also couldn't get over how li'l Peridot was.
Topaz and Peridot just sat there awhile, in the wind, watching the water and whatnot. However, Peridot was fidgeting and Topaz, like the boulder which Steven hid behind, was coldly still.
They took so long to say anything that Steven's bladder was about to burst all over his boulder. (For some reason, Steven always had to pee super bad whenever he played ninja or hide-n-seek.)
"Why did they let us go?" said Peridot, finally.
"I don't know."
"It doesn't make any sense."
"No."
Gulls and other birds flew overhead. They surfed the high wind and called at it, just to say something.
Peridot said, "What are we doing here?" The sun kept doing magic tricks with the clouds. "You're a traitor..."
"Yes," said Topaz.
"Are you one of them now?"
"No."
"Then what are you?"
Topaz looked at Peridot, taking in her face and her eyes. She had an expression resembling something Steven had sometimes seen in his father's face. She shifted closer to Peridot, right next to her. Topaz watched her more, but Peridot turned to the ocean again. Topaz moved some hair out of her face from the wind, behind her ear. Then, Steven could swear he saw the smallest curl of her lips.
"No," said Peridot. Topaz moved in and began scooping Peridot up again in her arms. "I said nooo!" But it was too late. Topaz already had her in her clutches. "I don't like being held."
"Mhm." Topaz was hunched over with Peridot in her lap.
Then Topaz slouched even more so that she was face to face with Peridot. "Stop it," said Peridot. Steven couldn't see Topaz's face, but she shook her head. Topaz, using two fingers, lifted Peridot's visor up and off. "Stop," Peridot said softer. But, Topaz tossed her visor over the edge of the cliff. "Stop," she said once more, like a plea. Then Topaz leaned in and planted the most sincere kiss on Peridot's Gem. The greenest bunch of collards couldn't compare to how much green flushed into Peridot's cheeks. She was fetal in Topaz's arms, and Topaz looked down at her like a sugah mama holding her sweet, sweet baby.
Peridot, suddenly remembering her nakedness, whisked a hand over her face and, in a flash, restored her visor. Then, as abrupt as a falling star, Topaz laughed. And this falling star was not aflame with sarcasm or indignation, but it sparkled with sincerity. It was fleeting, and Steven felt that even the molecules in the air tried to listen in for that fleeting moment. Steven would later decide, if he could describe Topaz's laugh as a thing, he would say that it was like dew drops trickling off a crisp green leaf in the early morning. They trickled down to his heart and cooled it.
Topaz doubled over Peridot, embracing her. "Hold onto me," she said. When Peridot finally pulled her hands out from under Topaz, her hands wavered in the air before they eventually settled on Topaz's shoulders.
Just as Peridot grabbed hold of Topaz, Topaz threw herself and Peridot backwards. The momentum started them rolling down the hill, through the grass. Peridot reminded Steven of his first ever ride on a roller coaster.
Steven's heart bubbled up and he leapt up from behind his boulder as Topaz and Peridot rolled past him. They seemed to shine because he has stars in his eyes-brighter and brighter. They got so bright Steven had to squint, and by the time they reached the bottom of the hill he realized their brightness didn't come from himself. They got so bright Steven was forced to cover his face.
When Steven opened his eyes the planet Earth was gifted a second sun. At the bottom of the hill was a person entirely new-Topaz and Peridot had fused! His boulder completely forgotten, Steven raced down the hill to meet this new Gem.
Topaz's and Peridot's fusion sat up in the grass, holding her face from the dizziness. "Don't ever do that again," she demanded herself. She chuckled, "Why do you sound so...?" Topaz's and Peridot's fusion opened her eyes; she had four. She looked down at her legs, which were thick with muscle. She found her boots. "Why do I have your...?" A shriek escaped Topaz's and Peridot's fused lips. All four eyes as wide as the sky, she discovered her skin was the color of honey. (Her voice was about as smooth as honey, too.)
She brought a hand to her face. Then another. Then another. Then another. Uncoordinated, Topaz's and Peridot's fusion put two hands on her face and the other two through her hair. She felt the nape-length of her dark yellow hair and the one braid in it. She felt the squareness of her jaw, the fullness of her lips, the angles of her face, her cheeks, and the size of her nose. She put her palms over her eyes and discovered a visor. Then, as if she was afraid of what she would find, she lifted the visor and, with her fingers, touched the Gem centered in her forehead. The honey fusion found another Gem on her left shoulder, too. In her eyes was the universe. Her mouth hung open. Words drooled out.
"We fused."
Then the honeysuckle Gem threw herself down into the grass. "Oh my stars!" Just as Steven was about to make it down to her, Topaz's and Peridot's fusion's physical form wavered. As Malachite had done, her face pulled away from itself. She was enveloped in a white light again, and out from it fell the physical forms of Peridot and Topaz, spat to the ground like loogies.
Steven halted. Topaz and Peridot got up from the grass. They just looked at each other. On this sunny day where the light played magic tricks with the clouds.
Peridot ran away when her name stumbled out of Topaz's lips.
"Topaz," exclaimed Steven, running. Topaz's muscles boiled and her teeth mashed when she saw him. Yes, her muscles boiled up; her drooping lips tightening and baring her teeth. It made him halt again. Yet, Topaz shook Steven away, and took off after Peridot, saying her name more.
Steven pursued them. It was hard to keep up in his sandals. Topaz was faster than Peridot, but she just kept up with her, staying behind her. Peridot was telling Topaz to stop, but she wouldn't listen.
Steven followed them through the grass, away from town, down to the shoreline. Losing breath, he lagged behind, eventually losing sight of Peridot and Topaz. He stopped to wipe the sweat trickling down his cheeks. Here, he saw tracks in the sand. He followed them to a low alcove in the cliff side that overlooked the ocean. Steven came upon it and caught his breath.
He started to enter the cave, and heard Peridot's and Topaz's voices echoing off its porous walls. He walked on, keeping, with all his might, his sandals flat against his feet so that they wouldn't slap his heels as he moved. The cave wasn't deep. When he saw Topaz and Peridot just beyond the bend, he shrunk. He found a recess in the cave wall just big enough for him to duck into.
Unable to restrain himself, Steven craned his neck. Topaz was on her knees, and Peridot was in front of her, facing the wall.
"I didn't mean to show that," said Topaz. "Not like that..."
"No," said Peridot. "It's... fine." She breathed in the salty cave. "I don't even know... who you are. What is this? What's happened to you?"
"Do you... not like it?"
"I don't know what to think about it," said Peridot, dropping her words on the ground. "I don't know what to think about you right now. What are you doing with yourself?"
"I'm... trying to be... different."
"What?"
"I don't want to... hurt..."
"You don't want to hurt?"
"You," she said. "Anymore."
Peridot turned to face Topaz. "You're trying to be different so you don't hurt me anymore."
"Yes."
Peridot looked away from Topaz. "Is that the lip service you give me? All this time, ever since we've gotten to this planet, you've been so stupid. You've been so stupid, and you haven't said a word about anything like being different to me. ...Trying not to hurt me anymore? Well, you failed. Nothing's changed. When you-" Peridot inhaled sharply, as if she were about to break out sobbing. "That was real different!"
"Peridot..." pleaded Topaz.
"Just giving up like that."
"I'm sorry..."
"You scared me to death."
Topaz brought her fist down into the cave floor. It made Peridot jump. "I was trying to figure things out... I still am... I was in the wrong place then."
"And this is right?" said Peridot, turning to face Topaz again. "Allying with the enemy? Forsaking your Homeworld?"
Silence trickled down in the sweat on Steven's face, scratched his toes from the sand between them, and stuck to him using the muckiness on the cave walls. He thought to intervene, but he didn't know with what. As well, he also cornered himself between desire and shame; the conversation before him was very private. Despite this struggle, Steven wound up with nothing and just watched.
Peridot got tired of looking at Topaz again. "It's not too late. No one knows except me. I mean, what do you think you're going to accomplish?"
"...I-"
"This was why I made you leave in the first place."
Topaz stuck her fists in her eyes. "This," she said. She breathed. "I don't want to... have to fight you anymore..."
"Then let's stop and figure out a way to-"
"I shouldn't have to. Fight you. ...It shouldn't be this way..." Topaz then began to sing:
.
"Coming home from war and strife-
Flak I still had on my back-
I did not see it at the time.
Now I know how I was blind.
.
You need to know how sorry I am,
For all the wrongs I've dealt to you.
Look at me, I've been so lost.
I need you now, more than ever."
.
_ _ _ _ _ _Peridot began to sing, too:
_ _ _ _ _ _"Gone from home, resigned at work,
_ _ _ _ _ _Days away from you and me,
_ _ _ _ _ _I dragged you with me on my back.
_ _ _ _ _ _How could I have been so blind?
.
_ _ _ _ _ _All your words, I've heard before.
_ _ _ _ _ _I'm not a fool, you're so see through.
_ _ _ _ _ _Look at you? All I can see:
_ _ _ _ _ _Your auburn hands hold terrible things."
.
"Sever them, I need you back.
Gone from home, I'll set you free."
.
_ _ _ _ _ _"Set me free? From what, from whom?
_ _ _ _ _ _Don't you see? We're prisoners here."
.
"This is the last promise I'll make."
.
_ _ _ _ _ _"I've had the last promise I'd take."
.
"Save me from this
Criminal in me."
.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Penitence won't
_ _ _ _ _ _"Please, _ _ _ Help you anymore."
Is there anything I _ _ _ "Is there anything you
Can do _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Won't do
To make it up to you?" _ To make me pity you?"
.
The song ended. "Anything," Topaz said, like a secret. "You're all I've got..."
Peridot kept making and breaking eye contact with Topaz, before settling on breaking it. "I... I don't... I don't know... I don't want to... go back to that."
"And we won't. We won't have to go back to that... Please. Just one more chance." Peridot grimaced. She tightened her arms and rested her chin on one of her shoulders. Topaz was as small as Peridot. She grabbed a handful of her own leggings. "Don't you care about me?"
"Like that," said Peridot, cringing. "I don't want to go back to that."
"Like I care about you?" Topaz grabbed another handful.
"Of course I care about you, you clod." Peridot wiped her nose and rubbed the back of her hand on her shirt. Then she rolled her eyes. "I just can't stand you."
Topaz put her palms to the ground. "You can't stand me?"
"I can't."
Topaz got smaller than Peridot, like she were about to worship her like she was a queen. Instead, Topaz whipped her head up and shoved her hair out of her face. "After everything I've done for you? Everything I've risked for you?"
"After everything you've done to me!" Peridot used her fingers to count. "Worried me to death over how reckless you were. Made me feel more disgusted with myself. And left me all alone!"
Topaz got up. "And everything I will do to you?" She stepped forward. "Why does everything have to be about you and what you want? 'Ooh, Topaz, you need to work to get yourself promoted.' 'Ohh, Topaz, you need to get over her right now, you're embarrassing yourself.' 'OOHH, TOPAZ! I can't STAND the way you look at me like that!' 'Clod, clod, cloddy, clod, clod!'" She stepped forward, and Peridot stepped back.
"Stop."
"I would rather throw myself off another cliff than to hear you say that insipid word again."
Peridot ran out of space and backed into the wall of the cave. "Stop it!" she said.
Topaz was over Peridot now. "You can't stand me? Then why didn't you let me be? Then everything would've been about you from then on! Everything-!"
"STOP!" Peridot tried to shove Topaz away from her, but she didn't move her an inch.
"How about when I got to this planet?"
"I tried to build you up!"
"How I sacrificed myself-"
"Make you greater," Peridot croaked.
"-so you could get away?" said Topaz. "Did you forget that? How about when I'd hold onto you and tell you that you were the best thing that'd ever happened to me? Did you-"
"No, I didn't forget!"
"-forget that?"
Peridot was crying now. "What do you want from me?"
"I left Homeworld for you. My status, my title, my creed. It's all gone. There's no going back for m-"
"No, you left Homeworld for yourself," shouted Peridot. "Forsaking everything you've worked so hard for so you could appeal to some false sense of higher being. Everything you've ever known. Especially me."
Topaz shook her head. "You'll stay with me."
"Oh, stars above..."
"Would you choose Homeworld over me?"
Peridot stifled her crying as best she could. "You haven't changed. Nothing's changed. You still infuriate me to no end. And I don't want it. I don't want it anymore."
Topaz arched over Peridot, leaning on the cave wall. "You can't say it. You can't say, after all the time we've been together, all the stars we've sailed over, that you don't want anything more to do with me. You can't say it."
Peridot sniffled again, and looked Topaz right in the eye. "Look at you now. The biggest Gem around. You haven't changed."
Topaz's fingers sunk into the rock wall. She broke off handfuls of it, whipped around, and hurled them. She cursed. Steven ducked into his nook and hid. The narrow cave shook from Topaz storming his way. Pebbles tumbled onto his belly with every crash of her fist. And when she past by Steven's nook, as she was about to waylay more of the cave, she caught him out of the corner of her eye. It was like a big, fat boulder crashed into his gut when she found him. Sparks flew from her eyes and lit her on fire.
Like she threw a punch, Topaz threw down her hand and clenched Steven's shirt. She reeled him from the sand as if he were as weightless as a plush toy. Steven yelped, pulling at her fist. He couldn't pry it one bit.
Topaz flounced out of the cave with Steven in her fist. His sandals fell off. "Topaz," he pleaded, "I'm sorry! I-ugh!"
Topaz swung Steven higher into the air, above her head and grabbed his shirt with both her hands. "Who do you think you are," she said. "You think us a game, to laugh at how pathetic we are?!"
"No! I don't!"
Topaz slung Steven down into the beach sand and pinned him. She blocked out the sun. "I should beat you into mush."
"Topa-!"
Topaz slapped a hand over Steven's mouth. "Shut up! I'm sick of hearing your disgusting voice." She dug her fingers into his cheeks. Her hand sweated.
Her muscles pulsed with discontent, yet in the peculiar arch of her back and the brokenness that Steven saw in her eyes, she also told him that she knew her existence would never get better than this, that she would never pull herself out of her pit into which she may have dug herself. The heaving in Topaz's breathing, to Steven, and the heat from her told him the price in pain she has paid for her discontent, and seemed to him, especially with what just happened, to overshadow her sadness. This was all communicated to Steven in this moment of physical contact with Topaz. Topaz's face blurred behind Steven's tears.
He cried for Topaz. He cried for Peridot. He cried because he was scared. And for some reason, he was reminded of his mother, and cried because of her, too; thinking of what she could do that he couldn't. The comfort he'd imagined so often from his mother if she were still here, he allowed that tenderness to flow through him and tried to transfer it to Topaz through touch, similarly as she had with Steven just now.
Steven reached up to Topaz, looking in her eyes as he could, and grasped her discontented arms. He wanted her to know that he sees her, that he feels her pain, and that, no matter what happened, everything would be ok. He held her. Just like the mother, Nut.
Waves rolled over on the beach. Topaz frowned, baring her teeth. The sun shined again as she drew back. She huffed. Topaz threw Steven to the side, into the wet beach sand. She got up and marched away.
Steven picked himself up and wiped the wetness and sand from his face. Peridot had seen the whole thing. Topaz saw her, too, as she marched away. Peridot avoided her by looking at the water. Only when Peridot was good and behind her did Topaz steel her gaze forward. She made down the beach, inland. The loose sand didn't slow her down.
Steven followed Topaz's old bootprints back to the cave and got his sandals. "...Are you ok, Peridot?"
"Don't talk to me," she said, with her arms crossed. "Just leave me alone." Peridot went back into the cave and vanished. Steven looked back down the beach, and then into the cave again. He suddenly felt lonely. With nothing else to do, he made his way back home.
...