Chapter Text
Nighttime had finally arrived, and everyone was soon ready for the last activity of the day: collecting fireflies in a jar, Sheena’s request. They all had a little jars in their hands and were walking over to the secluded area could usually be found the most little luminescent bugs flying around.
Peridot was practically squealing with joy. “This is so amazing! It’s just like when I was a kid!”
“Oh, you’ve done this before?” Lapis asked.
“One time, when I was a kid. I went camping with my brothers one weekend, and it was fun! It rained a lot but it kinda helped us all fall asleep faster.” She answered cheerfully.
Lapis couldn’t help but smile at that, it was so sweet how Peridot would always see the bright side of any situation, the girl was just light in the shadows making her world brighter.
Speaking of bright, looking around she realized they were surrounded by little yellow dots floating around in the air. Turned out the fireflies had finally come out of their hiding place and provided the scenery with an atmosphere of beautiful enchantment, it was as magical as if actual fairies had been flying around them.
Good thing they weren’t fairies because soon many of the little bugs had been trapped inside their jars. There was nothing to worry about when it came to the tiny creature’s well being of course, all jars had pierced lids to let the air in, and they even had put moistened paper towels inside to keep the air in the jar humid. That way the fireflies would definitely have air to breathe and wouldn’t dry out, not to mention they would release them as soon as they were done with the activity.
Speaking of which, this particular activity happened to require two people to do it. Well, it wasn't like it was ‘absolutely necessary’ as much as it was simply easier that way, since one person would hold the jar and the other would catch them using a net.
“Oh, there, there!”
Peridot was jumping excitedly around the place, swinging her little arms from here to there trying her best to catch some fireflies. Lapis was standing a couple feet behind her, gazing sweetly and giggling a little at her adorable display of childlike joy. The girl was simply too much for her.
“Yes! Another one in the bag! Or well, net.” She laughed a bit as she helped Lapis moving the little bug from the net into the jar. “This is so fun!”
Lapis smiled at her. “I’m so happy you like this, my love.” She kissed her on the cheek, inciting a bubbly giggle from the short girl. Suddenly, Peridot had replaced the jar in her hands with the net, and Lapis gave her a confused look.
“It’s your turn! Come on sweetie, you are so tall and agile, I’m sure you can catch a million fireflies!”
The bluenette went a little red but nodded nevertheless, honestly she wasn't really interested in this as much as just doing it for Peridot, but that was it exactly: she was doing this for Peridot, so if the little blonde wanted her to catch fireflies then that’s exactly what she would do.
She started swinging the net around, targeting the little flying dots in the air. Peridot was watching her from behind, slowly getting lost in the sight of her lover and the others having fun in the concealed atmosphere the little forest and the night stars provided.
Or at least she was, until she was once again dragged by the shoulder by a mystery chubby hand but also another one over her mouth. Peridot had first tried to scream and fight back, but then she saw it was just Amethyst. The purple haired girl released her shoulder and put a finger on her lips, mimicking her to stay quiet and follow her with a hand gesture.
“What are you doing?!” Peridot whisper shouted.
Amethyst smiled mischievously. “You’ll see!” She was guiding her to a little more secluded part of the area.
“Amethyst you’re going to get us in trouble! Lapis is surely worried sick for me and Pearl will kill us for leaving the grou-” She was cut off as Amethyst pulled her arm and hid them in a big bush.
“Could you just chill? It’ll be fine dude, promise! I’ll explain Lapis and P later, right after we catch FRIGGIN’ BIG FOOT!”
Peridot wasn’t amused to say the least. “If that’s what we are doing right now we are both getting grounded for eternity.”
“Hey, we are not kids! We are grown ass women, and there’s no soul on earth that can tell me what to do!”
“What about Jasper?”
Amethyst held a finger mid air as if about to protest, but slowly lowered it. “Fair point. But! She won’t get mad if I manage to get Mr. Big Foot home with me!”
“I’m pretty sure she most definitely would. Definitely. And how are you going to do that anyways?”
“So glad you asked!” She puffed her chest proudly. She took out a piece of paper from inside her shirt and shoved it into Peridot’s face. “Voila!”
The magic sheet seemed to be a very rustic drawing of what resembled Amethyst, the tree in front of them, some lines that sort of looked like a rope at the bottom and a weird bear like creature about to step on it.
“This is what I call ‘Big Foot catcher 2000’, Amethyst’s edition! All rights reserved.”
Peridot just gave her a look. “Amethyst, this is just a rope trap like people do in cartoons.”
The other just shrugged. “I know, but I sort of blew my entire Big Foot trap budget on licorice and one of my girl’s bachelorette party.” She took out her phone and showed a couple photos of her and the bride to be doing keg stands wearing nacho sombreros. “So I’m kinda broke at the moment.”
“But I thought you guys made thousands of dollars with your-ehm- ‘businesses’?” Peridot knew that being a mafia boss might be a not so clean job but it was definitely well paid.
“Yeah, but I have this rule of separating my job money from my leisure money, cause to keep money coming you have to keep money going –business investment and my girl’s salaries I mean. So I can’t afford anything fancy until next month. I had to buy the rope on Etsy!” Peridot giggled a little at this.
“Besides, it’s so dark anybody could fall for this, and I made the trap big enough for his huge feet to fit in. Piece of cake.”
Peridot wasn’t tranquil at their current situation yet. “Still, we should have at least warned the others. They must be worried sick.” She looked away guiltily, what if Lapis thought she was in danger?
“Seriously Dot, you are worrying for nothin’. Right now we are the Hunter Squad, Lapicera will understand.”
“No I won’t.”
They both jumped in their places with a small yelp, as the blue haired devil appeared right behind them apparently out of thin air. She had a furious glare that seemed to pierce through Amethyst’s soul and sent shiver up and down her spine.
“What do you think you are doing?” She growled.
The girl with lilac hair just laughed nervously. “I, well I was- just, hanging around. Nothing dangerous or stupid.”
“Sure you weren’t, miss ‘I’m going to take Peridot on an idiotic monster hunt’. I don’t care what you do, don’t drag my Peri away from me just for a stupid fantasy.”
“HEY! It’s not a stupid fantasy, he’s real! And I only dragged Peridot with me because you ASKED me to!” She barked.
“All I asked you guys to do was help me give my Peri an amazing camping trip, not drag her into the night away from me to catch some three foot tall monster!”
Peridot’s eyes shot open. “You did what?”
Lapis had a flustered look, her mouth opened slightly. “I-”
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!”
All three heads turned at the sudden noise, it was coming from Amethyst’s trap and was extremely loud.
Amethyst’s face lit up. “OHHH, I GOT IT! I GOT IT OH MY GOD I CAUGHT BIG FOOT!” She screamed with pure joy, she jumped from their hiding spot and turned on her flashlight.
Then her expression turned from joyous into ‘I’m so screwed’.
Hanging by the feet, having fallen into Amethyst’s trap and screaming a wide variety of Spanish profanities, was Jasper. By the fire in her eyes you could tell she was not amused.
“AMETHYST WHAT THE HELL.”
Said girl had an impossibly apologetic look on her face. “Fu-fancy meeting you here sis.” She chuckled nervously.
“ONCE I’M BACK ON THE GROUND YOU ARE SO DEAD RUNT!”
Right on cue, a bunch of tiny set of eyes opened and glared at her from a hole in the tree she was hanging from. It was a family of raccoons that woke up from slumber due to Jasper’s yelling, they were all looking at her in the eye with clear anger.
“Oh shit.”
About half a second later five or six raccoons were covering her body and biting her everywhere, Jasper was trying her best to fight them off but they just kept coming just like her screams and cursing.
“I’LL SAVE YOU SIS!”
She hastily looked over at Amethyst, just to see the girl was holding a long, thick tree branch in her hands. She was running towards her, raising the stick over her head with a war scream coming out of her mouth. In that moment, little Jasper knew.
She was fucked.
“NO AMETHYST DON’T- AAAAAAAAGHH!”
She tried in vain to stop the shorter girl by waving her arms in between them, which wasn’t useful at all since it didn’t even register though the shorter girl’s fight growls and sharp swings of the tree branch. Amethyst was doing her best to hit the raccoons off her sister but the animal’s agility along with her terrible aiming caused her to hit Jasper instead every time, the sound of the wood against her sister’s body echoed in the forest along with her screams of pain. As did Lapis’ frenetic laughter behind them.
“Oh god.” She wheezed, curling over herself. “Oh my god, this is too much I can’t!”
“Lapis!” Peridot protested. “Shouldn’t we do something about this?”
“You are absolutely right, princess.” She straightened up, put on a serious look on her face and a shuffling hand inside her pocket. A second later she was recording the scene with her phone.
“Lapis!”
The bluenette giggled. “What?”
After a moment of disapproving glaring from the blonde she relented with a sigh. “Fine.”
She stopped the video -with a little grumble- so she could call Garnet and the others with her phone. A couple minutes later Sheena had put Jasper down, and Pearl had already arranged an appointment with their doctor so she could make sure the raccoons hadn’t injured her seriously or infected her with rabies. As it turned out, Jasper had noticed their absence and had come to fetch them, with extremely hilarious painful results.
Needless to say, Amethyst was completely, indescribably grounded. No TV privileges or wrestling matches ‘for one thousand years’ like Garnet had put it.
They went back to the camp and spent the rest of the night in peace. Jasper was obviously still pretty pissed at her little sister so they sharing a tent was a little awkward, or at least it was until the shorter girl managed to make her laugh with her terrible jokes and repeated apologies.
The next morning they all had a delicious breakfast consisting of eggs and bacon, all of them making sure to tease Amethyst for her little stunt of the previous night. Especially since Lapis had made sure to share the video she had recorded in their chat group. It was just too funny.
Soon, all their equipment was packed and inside the car’s trunk. They made sure they had put out the camp fire properly, taking all their garbage with them or disposed of it the right way and hadn’t accidentally left anything behind.
Once they were all in the car they made themselves comfortable, since the trip back to Beach City would take several hours. Peridot was looking at the woods for the last time, her little green eyes stuck on the glass window. Or at least until she felt herself being lifted up by strong hands on her hips, a little yelp escaping her lips as she landed on Lapis’ lap.
“Are you okay princess?” Lapis asked concerned.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Next time warn me though.”
Lapis smiled at her. “Sorry my love, I just –uh- want to save up room, so the others can in the fit in their sits more easily.”
Peridot gave her an amused grin as she cocked her eyebrow, she could recall yesterday’s trip clearly and they had all fit in the car without much trouble. “Sure you do.” She laughed, followed shortly by nuzzling into her neck. She could feel how warm her lover was and how fast her heart was beating.
Jasper had driven the previous day, but since she was still sore from the previous night’s incident Garnet was the one behind the wheel. She turned on the engine and soon they were on their way.
The rest was still tired because of all the exhausting exercise they had done during the trip, and were slowly falling asleep. Peridot could feel herself drift off to sleep as well, but refused since she still had one thing to ask her lover. She looked up to her once again. “Lapis?” She whispered, mostly to not wake up the others.
“Yes Peri-baby?”
“Were you serious?”
The bluenette tilted her head. “About what?”
“About you asking the others to help you give me a good camping trip.”
“Oh, that…” Her cheeks went a little red. “Well, yes my love. I only want you to be happy, and I’d do anything for that to happen. Even beg the others for help.” She knew she hadn’t exactly ‘begged’ as much as ‘demanded’, but the others knew her enough to differentiate her ‘I’ll kill you’ threats from her ‘please help me’ ones.
Peridot hid herself in Lapis’ shoulder, her face warm and home of a lazy smile. “Thank you my queen, but you know you didn’t have to. I’m always happy when I’m with you.”
She felt strong arms wrap themselves around her, keeping her safe and pressed against the Hawaiian’s body. “I love you Peridot, you are the most important person in my life. I just want you to know that. How much I love you, and how happy you make me too.” Lapis placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head, making her squirm in delight.
“I know.” She smiled. “And I love you too.”
Lapis took that as sign it was okay to stop talking, and soon they were both snuggling in deep slumber. The car kept moving as the afternoon sun caressed their skin and the silence was only interrupted by the soft snores of the group.