Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Beach City was a small, lovely town, where pretty much everyone knew each other from the inner city to the boardwalk. You've lived your whole life there, and you loved it. It was home. It was also a really strange town, and you're pretty sure the world almost ended like six times in the last 4 years. Although honestly, you never had to worry about that much, since Beach City was also home to the Crystal Gems, and that Steven Universe who just always managed to save the day. So you’re told. Steven was a fun kid, and grew to be one of your good friends (he’s so insistent on being everyone’s friend. It’s very charming and you love him for it), but you’ve mostly spent your time at work this summer.

One of the easiest jobs to get is Funland, since that always tired Mr. Smiley is chewing through people constantly as the pay is shit, the hours are long, and it’s so hot. Like Mr. Smiley says, "Funland is funderstaffed". You feel like he says that to mock you a bit, since there’s just the two of you here. You really only cared to work there on your off season to help dad out with bills, and to see your best friends. Except THIS summer you guess, since all (2) of your best friends had to go out of town for summer either because of family get togethers or romantic getaways. Those bitches. And you were finally of drinking age this summer. You weren't about to let that get you down, or ruin any plans you’ve made yourself in the next upcoming weeks though. 

You’re on the last forty minutes of your shift doing the work of four people. Emptying tills around the food court, cleaning tables, emptying trash cans, and jesus christ this task list seems longer today. It feels ever so fucking slow. And warm. You’re melting, you feel disgusting, and you just want a shower. Thank god it’s payday and you have the next two days off, because you seriously wanted to go out and unwind. See, there’s this newly renovated piano bar you’ve wanted to go to for weeks here locally in town, and you had planned on going with your friends.. but. You know what? Screw waiting on them. You’re going tonight. And besides, who knows! Maybe you’ll meet some new people and make a friend, or show your best friends that you can finally get a girlfriend!! Haha.. or at least get drunk enough to ignore the growing loneliness you’ve been feeling as of late, and desperately trying to ignore.

Funland never truly got busy, so you quickly closed the food court that had been dead for hours down. The last 15 or so minutes you spent sitting at the ring toss booth, and very thankful for the protection from the beating sun on your face. 

"YOOOOO Y/N!!!" You hear a familiar voice shout from your left. You put down your phone (obviously looking at memes) and lean over the counter just in time to see Amethyst, accompanied by Steven, jogging over to your booth. 

"Oh, thank god. Finally some human interaction." You responded to the purple gem as they reached your booth. Steven smacked down some tickets for the game and grinned.

"Just spending some time away from the temple". He says, and you nodded as you handed him two stacks of rings. He joyfully pulled them towards himself as Amethyst snickered. 

"He means to say his A/C broke, and Pearl got tired of hearing him groan about it so she kicked us out." The short gem elbowed Steven playfully. 

“Us? Why’d she kick you out too?” You say, giving Amethyst a pointed look.

“That’s because Amethyst brought up like 7 of the junk fridges from her room to try to create some sort of.. open fridge cold air whirlwind right in the middle of the living room. It didn’t work as intended at all, though. I’m pretty sure those fridges were really old, or something, because 3 of them caught on fire and now we have scorch marks all over the floor. Anyway, Pearl was pretty mad about it. Sooooo, now we’re here!” Steven says while laughing, and attempting to toss the rings onto the obviously not rigged bottles. 

"So anyway," Amethyst turns to you and leans her elbow on the counter. "Any big plans for tonight?" She steals half the stack of rings from Steven and starts chucking them in the most violent way possible without actually breaking anything. She somehow gets 3 perfect.

 “Ughhh, yeah actually. I sort of convinced myself I’d go out and drink tonight.” You say with a tired grin. “I’ve been kinda daydreaming about not being here all day, and I’ve been wanting to try that one place.. the uh.. piano bar. That new one.”

“Isn’t that the place Bismuth helped fix up, and now bartends at?” Steven says to Amethyst. “She said this place was 1930’s themed with a stage, a spotlight, a piano and everything! It sounds like fun and I want to go.. a lot of the gems from Little Homeworld hang out there. Bis says I’m too young.”

“Yeah,” You say, “You’re what, 17? You’re still just a baby, dude. If you want, I can try convincing Bismuth to let you in sometime just to sing.” You say to him and wink. Amethyst bursts out laughing.

“You can try!! Bis won’t even let Peridot in!” She laughs. “She says her maturity ain’t the right fit. Whatever that means. She lets Lapis work there sometimes though when she wants, and Peri is still mad about it.”

You watch Steven miss every single shot. How can this kid be the person who saved the planet? His aim is terrible. Amethyst also misses the rest of her shots. 

“Have you guys actually ever won anything here?” You say out loud.

“Only when Amethyst cheats.” Steven says. “And anyway, I really want some food. Amethyst. Pizza?”

“Duuuuuuuude. I could eat at least 10 pizzas right now. PLEASE.” She slaps her hand down on your booth. “Y/N. Go out tonight. Have some fun for the both of us, because it’s my turn to clean the kitchen, and if I skip out again Pearl WILL make me do my own laundry.”

“Wooooow, jeez, it must be so terrible to be self-sustaining and clean your own shit,” You’re smiling while chiding her, “and yeah, I will. Maybe next time come with me?”

“And leave me all alone!?” Steven whines while starting to walk away.

“Go hang out with Connie, you turd. At least you HAVE a girlfriend!” You reply.

“You’ll find one eventually Y/N!! Maybe tonight!!” He yells back while waving before they both disappear from your field of vision.

“I really fucking doubt that.” You say to yourself, alone.

You busy yourself cleaning up, and walk over to the main building to clock out. You check your phone, and it looks like the group chat pinged. It’s Harper. FINALLY. Harper has been MIA for the last week. Well, not missing, per se, but she’s been on a roadtrip with her girlfriend of 6 months and didn’t invite you..or your other best friend, Alex. And yeah, you would’ve had to decline because your dad needs you to pick up some slack while he’s out on business, but.. STILL. Shit kinda hurts. But it seems like she finally got service and remembered you guys exist. It’s actually just a selfie with her and her girlfriend with a mountain in the background. She captioned it “I wanted to dive right into mt st helens but she wouldn’t let me get close enough.” You grin and decide to reply with, “Maybe next time Leah won’t let you pussy out”. Honestly, you really didn't mind being the 'single' friend most of the time, but sometimes you wished you could finally meet someone. Then you could also be sending cute couple pictures to your idiot friends, and finally feel like maybe you’re worth someone’s time.

Alex just responds to the chat with 14 flame emojis in succession. Before you can send any knife emojis back, your phone lights up with a call from your father. You answer on the second ring.

“Hey dad. What’s up?”

“HEY KIDDO!!” Jesus. Your dad is enthusiastic and as loud as ever. “HOW ARE YOU TODAY, my sweet, dear offspring?”

“I’m chill. Getting off work. You?” You smile to yourself while grabbing the rest of your things to leave for home.

“Just got out of like, my fifth meeting today. It’s awful. I think they’re trying to kill me over here? I’m pretty sure they only paid for the plane ticket because they’re going to reap my organs after they LITERALLY bore me to death. I’m 100% sure my presence isn’t even needed for any of this.” He rants into the phone.

“Dad. You’re the lead project planner. You have to be there. It’s like.. your entire job.” You laugh into the phone.

“I thought my entire job was so sit there and look pretty?”

“Really? You think they’d choose you for that when they have Brian? Dad, come on. You know how beautiful he is.” You hear your dad sigh wistfully.

“Yeah, that gorgeous bastard. Anyway. I’m real sorry in advance, but they’re extending my stay for another couple of days, and instead of being back tomorrow, I’ll be back next thursday.” He says, sounding apologetic.

“Oh, okay. That sucks.” You try not to sound disappointed.

“Kiddo I’m sorry! If I could come home tonight I would get on that plane in a heartbeat. I hate this as much as you do.”

“I know. And it’s alright. I’m going out tonight anyway, and I’ll hold down the fort until next week yeah?”

“You know you’re my favorite kid, right?” He says.

“Dad, I’m your only kid.” You scoff into the phone.

“That YOU know of! Love you!” and he hangs up. You roll your eyes, stuff your phone into your pocket, and head out.

Your house wasn't very far from Funland, meaning you could walk home alone safely even at night. Not that Beach City was ever an unsafe town.. if you conveniently happen to forget the aliens trying to destroy the town several times. 

Within minutes you were unlocking your front door, toeing off your work shoes, and heading up into your room. You drop all your shit onto the floor, and flop on your bed. You wonder to yourself, should you be putting more effort into your appearance tonight? Steven did say it was 1930’s themed.. you don’t have very many dressy clothes. You feel like the only color you look good in is black, so you get up and open up your closet. Flowery dress.. God no. Overalls? Noooooo. You swipe through too many sweaters, honestly. There’s a couple decent things in here to put an okay outfit together, or.. wait. Ha! There. That cute black dress you wore 2 years ago for your aunt’s funeral. It’s the best you’ve got, you admit to yourself. And you even still have those black flats! Look, like basically zero effort involved.

You head to the bathroom with your things for tonight and take a shower. It feels nice to scrub off the layer of sweat and grime that come specifically from working at Funland. Oh and, not having to smell like carpet deodorizer and stale caramel popcorn is always a plus. Once out of the shower, you dry off and get into your clothes. You style your hair in your favorite way, and just put on a small bit of makeup. You know, small efforts help to feel less like a paper bag. You look nice for once, you admit to yourself. 

You head downstairs, stuffing your phone and wallet into a small shoulder purse. Grabbing your keys, you put your shoes on, say goodbye to your cat, and walk out the door, making sure to lock it behind you. With your keys safely stored in your bag, you headed into town. The bar was roughly ten to fifteen minutes away, so you decided to hoof it. No need to waste money on a taxi when you had two perfectly toned legs, ya’ll.

Chapter Text

The place actually happened to be like, right on the edge of Little Homeworld. Outside had full glass windows, tall, that reached the ceiling. Inside the lighting was dim, and a bit smokey. You figured it looked alright enough to head in, and gave the bouncer your ID. He nodded and you walked in.

It smelt of cigars, and of cinnamon, and it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. A pretty woman in a low-cut red dress was playing the piano on the stage, and it was some contemporary jazz piece. The low murmur of people talking filled the air in between the swells of music, and the place actually seemed busy with people and even gems enjoying themselves. You liked the vibe. It was.. comfortable. At ease. You looked over at the bar, rather than any of the tables, and saw a spot near the end. Perfect. Right by the bathroom. You headed over and plopped down on the stool. There were three empty at the end, so you took the one in the middle, which had the best view of the stage from back here.

While waiting for the bartender to come back down this side, you took the chance to look  at the people around you. A couple familiar faces.. small town you know? And some new ones. New gems too. You can see Mr. Fryman sitting at a table with Kofi and Nanefua, and they look like they’re playing poker. You try not to snicker since Kofi looks absolutely blasted, and Mr. Fryman is cursing up a storm because Nanefua is clearly winning. You see her wink at Mr. Fryman. You suspect a rigged game.

Your phone chimes a couple times. You pull it out of your bag, and check to see who’s bothering you. Ah. The group chat.

Alex: ughhh you guys my gmas killing me

Alex: no seriously mexico fucking blows rn 

Alex: i cant step outside without feeling like my balls are melting off my body

Alex: and my brother won’t stop listening to the book of mormon soundtrack

Alex: im going insane

Your friends are so melodramatic. You type out a couple of replies.

Y/N: You should be used to mexican summers by now, you go every year.

Y/N: And for the record, your brother is valid. Book of Mormon slaps.

Alex: what the fuck youre supposed to be on my side u ass

Alex: i thought our special thing was wicked. OUR SPECIAL THING, Y/N

Y/N: I’m allowed to like multiple things. Including musicals. 

Alex: never. fuck you. also what are you even doing rn come play minecraft with me

Y/N: Yeah as much as I’d like to, I can’t.

“Y/N! So you finally came to see what this place is all about! What can I get ya?” you hear a familiar voice ask. Turning around to face the voice, you see Bismuth wearing her usual overalls and a rather nice looking bow tie. 

“Hey Bis, how’s it going? I like what you’ve done with the place. It’s nice. And uh, I’ll just take a hard cider for now.” You smile at her and set your phone down for a minute.

“Thank you! After we finished Little Homeworld, I had to find something else to focus on in my down time.” She explains while grabbing your drink from the fridge under her side of the bar, and opens it. “So tell me,” She sits the drink in front of you and leans on the counter. “What brings you out here today?”

You take a rather long sip from your drink before meeting the large gems eyes. On the stage, a tall, beardy man replaces the woman that just finished her piece. He immediately starts this jaunty, irish tune. He’s singing loudly, and it’s not bad. A couple of people are clapping to the tune.

“I just really needed to get out.” You replied, taking another sip from your drink. “I was kinda hoping I’d meet someone new, maybe get another friend to hang out with, since my friends wanted to ditch me this summer.” As you’re saying this, more people join the clapping. It’s getting a bit rowdy. “Or maybe at least get drunk enough to forget how lonely I feel.” You add, shrugging. 

“Well, I can supply the drinks, and at least a bit of company.” Bismuth winks, and turns to the patron 6 seats up waving her over. 

You check your phone again, and there’s more from Alex. AND Harper? She must still have phone service wherever she’s at.

   

Alex: what are u fuckin doin that so important that u cant play minecraft with ur best friend

Harper: yeah, Y/N. the heck. Also alex, get lost, she’s MY best friend bitch

Alex: u had ur chances but u left us so we’re a duo now. u can go

Harper: excuse me!? I WILL end you.

Y/N: Oh my god, chill. I’m just out right now, so I can’t okay? 

Y/N: And nice of you to join us, Harper.

Harper: fuck you I miss you okay. And I miss constant wifi :(

Alex: OUT!? What do you mean OUT. its night. u play games with ME during this time

Alex: for real what the fuck are you doing

Harper: yeah, you don’t go out without us. Wtf are you doing?

Y/N: I’m at a bar!!

Alex: WHAT

Alex: dont tell me its the one place that just opened

Alex: Y/N do NOT betray me you TOLD ME you were gonna go with me!!

Y/N: I was. But I was also bored and you’re both gone, soooo. 

Alex: wow

Alex: i cant believe youve done this to me

Harper: hmmm. ;)

Harper: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ;)

Y/N: What.

Harper: you tryin to find girls again? 

Harper: like that one time you went to empire city just to peruse the mall?

Alex: LMAOOOOO

Y/N: No.

Alex: LMAOOOO Y/N GOOD LUCK TRYING TO FIND A GF LOLL

Y/N: I’m not trying to find a girlfriend you fucks. Christ.

Y/N: Also Alex, you’re one to talk. You can’t KEEP a girlfriend.

Alex: ur just mad i have a passionate and intimate relationship w/ my hand

Y/N: And it will probably stay that way. 

Y/N: Besides, so far, no one cute here. So it’s a bust.

Harper: a bust. Lmfao u just outed yourself :)

Y/N: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

You put your phone down before seeing whatever Alex attempts to reply back with. It sounds like the current boisterous song is coming to a close, and really, most of the people here are clapping along with this guy. It’s fun. And despite the playful ribbing from your shit-talking friends, you’re starting to have a nice time. You finish your drink, and nod over to Bismuth who catches your eye and nods back. You look over onto the stage, the man having cleared the piano, and see Lapis wiping down the piano and seat. Guess he spilled his drink while playing. Lapis, unlike Bismuth, actually dressed up a bit for the job. Her hair was pulled in a cute, small bun, and she was wearing what looks like a tailored tux with no jacket. The vest fit her quite well. She seemed.. happy. Good for her.

No one had taken up the stage again yet, but the place was still lively with chatter. You see someone out of the corner of your eye move towards the stage, but Bismuth comes over again so you tear your gaze away. 

“Another cider? Or do you want something else this time, Y/N? She asks, cleaning a glass with a rag, and moves on to the next one. 

“Ehh, yeah, give me another cider.” You say as you pull out your phone again. Bismuth sets down the drink in front of you.

Harper: what a goddamn disaster. she got that from me i think

Alex: no, youre both disasters separately

Y/N: Fuck you guys. Give me a break.

You hear the piano start to play again, and someone pulling the mic forward. You look up to see pink hair.. And someone kind of familiar. She’s wearing black slacks, a white collared shirt, and suspenders. The shirt is partially open, and you see part of a pink gem showing through on her chest. It looks like she’s got mascara running down her face. 

And then.. she starts to sing. 

It’s lovely. It’s slow and a bit sad, but she seems to be enjoying herself. She’s definitely done this before. Quite a few of the people around quiet down some, so you can hear her pretty clearly. You drink some, and text your friends.

Y/N: Guys, I lied. There’s a cute gem here who can sing.

Alex: holy fuk

Alex: what

Y/N: She looks kind of familiar though? I can’t quite place it though.

Harper: dude theres like near 100 gems now in little homeworld lol

Harper: you’ve probs seen most in passing? :P

Alex: are you serious Y/N? cant flirt with human women so u turn to aliens? lmfao

Y/N: Ohhhhh my god. Die.

The gem on stage sings the chorus with gusto - man she’s really getting into this. You’re kind of taken a bit with her performance. It just pulls you. But also.. She really seems familiar now and it’s bothering you.

Y/N: No I’m serious she seems really familiar and not in that In Passing kind of way.

Harper: what does she look like?

Alex: yeah a description would be nice 

Harper: TAKE A PIC

Alex: holy shit YES 

Y/N: I can’t take a pic. She’s too far away, it’ll be blurry.

Alex: literally just zoom in lord almighty

Y/N: Okay. Hold on a sec.

You turn on your camera app, and face the stage. Looks like the gem is actually finishing up her song. Perfect, you’ll snap a pic once she stands up. She finishes, and most of the people are clapping for her. You zoom in, and it’s grainy, but decent enough to make out most of her. You snap the pic.

The flash was on.

A couple people turn to look at you, and you try turning away quickly, horrified, and see the gem looking in your direction before walking off into the crowd of people. You cannot imagine a worse scenario. 

Y/N: FUCK FUCCCCKKKKKK.

Y/N: (image sent)

Y/N: I GOT YOUR FUCKING PIC BUT THE FLASH IS ON.

Y/N: I’M PRETTY SURE SHE SAW THAT IT WAS ME THAT TOOK THE PIC.

With shaking hands, you take another sip of your drink and wait for a reply. Why is life like this.

Harper: uh.

Harper: ummm.

Alex: wait

Alex: one fucking second

Y/N: WHY ARE NONE OF YOU CARING ABOUT MY PLIGHT. 

Y/N: I’M TRYING NOT TO COMBUST ON THE SPOT HERE.

Alex: shut up for one second

Alex: harper isnt that

Harper: uhh. yeah i think so.

Y/N: WHAT!? WHO IS IT. WHY DOES THAT MATTER AT THIS POINT.

Alex: lmao i cant believe i have to tell u this

Alex: bitch do u remember that shit that happened last summer

Alex: where half the town almost died from that gem shit

Alex: that’s her   

Alex: that’s the bitch who almost killed like, the entire planet

Harper: you know that night your dad almost died??

As you’re typing back a reply, someone pulls the stool out next to you and takes a seat. You see a sliver of pink out of the corner of your eye as you try not to actually Look. Oh god. It’s her. God can’t help us now.

Chapter Text

She sets her mostly empty drink down on the counter, and turns to look at you when Bismuth walks over again, stealing her gaze right back.

“That was nice, Spinel. I think that was my favorite song of yours yet.” She says to her. “You want another round?”

“Aw jeez, thanks I guess, Bis.” Spinel says sheepishly. “And yeah, I think I’ll need it tonight.”

You pretend that nothing weird has ever happened to you at all in your life, and down the rest of your drink. You want like, 5 more of these and then you'll be able to deal with this.

Y/N: Yeah. I remember the night. She's also sitting right next to me. Uh.

Alex: for real

Y/N: I might be internally having a panic attack.

Bismuth pours Spinel her drink, and she sighs. "It's just, today was kind of rough. Blue called and wanted to apologize for things that she doesn't need to be apologizing about, and I kind of wish they'd calm down a little and let me exist in peace."

Bismuth nods. "Steven has talked a lot about them. They seem really difficult to be around, if I'm going to be honest. They don't quite get.. real people problems."

"You have no idea." She replies, and takes a long drink. “They don’t even understand privacy. I couldn’t do anything without them basically following me everywhere. It was stifling.”

“Seriously, I’m not sure what I expected from the Diamonds, but if you told me that 5000 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you at all.” Bismuth says, “I’m just glad you have some much needed breathing room.”

“It was long overdue. Several months in their presence was more than enough.”

Bismuth gives Spinel a tired smile, and turns to you.

“How are you holdin up there, Y/N?” She hands you another drink. “You’ve only been here 25 minutes or so, and you’re on your 3rd already. That kinda night?”

“Err, just in the mood I guess.” You reply and laugh. You weren’t trying to eavesdrop. Bismuth turns away to a couple of other patrons and busies herself making a few mixed drinks for them.

Alex: dude kick her for almost killing ur dad

Y/N: What, and get myself killed? Fuck no.

Alex: ur a pussy

Harper: did she say anything about you taking a pic?

Y/N: No! Please don’t curse me.

“You know, if you wanted a pic so bad of myself, you could’ve asked.”  Spinel says, turning to face you directly. You stare at your phone and can feel your face heating up for being called out. You can feel your mouth working way faster than your brain can even comprehend.

“My friends are shitheads and didn’t believe me when I said I saw someone cute on stage.” You say, and immediately shut your mouth. If you could sink into the floor right now and disappear forever, that would be great. God doesn’t grant you this though, and you curse him for it. “I mean.. I’m sorry. That was rude of me to do without your permission.” She grins. 

“Ya know, I didn’t actually see who did it, I just saw the general direction of the flash and walked towards it, and happened to find an empty seat next to someone looking fairly nervous.” She laughs. “Way to out yourself there.”

You look at her. Fucking goddammit. “I seem to be doing a lot of that today. Ughhhhh.” You drag your hand down your face in dramatic fashion, and take a drink. You’re starting to feel the alcohol slowly take a small bit of effect. “Song was nice by the way.”

“Oh, thanks.” She looks a bit surprised, like she’s not used to compliments. Hm. 

“I’m not so musically talented myself, but uh. I can make some mean enchiladas. AND I can make a calculator spell the word “boobs”.” You say, like it’s somehow impressive.

“What’s an enchilada?” Spinel looks at you suspiciously. Oh right. Gem. 

“It’s.. food. Hold on.” You say and pull up an internet browser to google the definition of enchiladas so you can show her a pic. You see the group chat go off a couple times and keep swiping away your friend’s rapid texts, knowing that they’re asking you too many questions right now and you’re determined to show this alien one of your favorite foods. Tonight sure is a weird night. You find a good pic of enchiladas, and turn your phone towards her.

“See? Tortilla, cheese, meat. Great stuff. You can even change some of the ingredients and make them a couple different ways. All pretty good if I do say so myself.” You say as she looks at it, and you can see your phone chime with another message notification. You pull your phone away quickly before she has any chance to see whatever the fuck your friends are talking about.

“Humans are strange.” She replies, a pondering look on her face. She takes another drink and sets the glass down gently, keeping her hand lightly on the glass. You notice her fingernails are short and clean. You wonder if they grow like human nails? You wonder how similar gems are to humans in general. “You guys have to eat to survive? And you all grow so much all the time, and you’re constantly changing. You can’t even grow limbs back, or shapeshift. What’s the point?”

“The point?” You laugh. “I mean, science IS advancing and we can grow organs from plants, in a lab. Can’t grow limbs back.. yet. I can’t exactly change being human. Besides, you gems as a race don’t exactly look like you have any fun at all. Being human is all about having new experiences.” You say.

“Well, maybe I’m having fun now.” She says, tapping the rim of her glass. You kind of look at her for a second. She seems to be tapping her left foot on the side of the stool, maybe kind of nervously? Her hair is up in a ponytail, and she's pushing some of the fringe behind her ear. She’s cute, you think to yourself. 

“Oh?” You say as you smile slyly into your drink. You think you see her blush a bit.

“It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Last time wasn’t so nice. Some guy tried punching me, he was drunk and recognized me from the earth attack last year. Bismuth had to kick him out.” She says stiffly, and takes a drink. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“My dad almost died.” You say. She winces.

“I am really sorry. I do regret how I dealt with my entire situation.. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it." She sighs. "I’m just glad no one actually died. And thanks for not cursing me out, for all of this."

"He's hard to kill, anyway." 

"What?" She says, staring at you incredulously. 

"My dad. He's done so many stupid, dangerous things that I remember from my childhood. He must have some kind of divine blessing, because even when he fought that gator off grandpa's porch, he came out without a scratch. And that was one really pissed off gator." You say. Spinel laughs heartily. She's actually really cute when she laughs, and you can't help staring for a second. “There was also that one time this guy attempted to rob us at a gas station, and he took the bastard down with the unopened energy drink from his cup holder. You wanna know what he had to complain about afterwards? That he had to now go buy another energy drink. That’s my fucking dad, I guess.”

“Your life sounds interesting.” She says in reply.  “I can tell that you love him though.”

“Yeah. He’s kind of my entire life. He’s all I have left of my family.” You say, smiling. “He’s a good dad. He tries his best.” You hear your phone chime a couple more times, and roll your eyes. They’re so fucking needy. “My friends are extremely obnoxious, and must know what I’m doing at all times. You have anyone like that in your life? Because I could pawn off Alex on you if you want.” You grab your phone and open up your group chat to see what they’re talking about. There’s quite a few missed messages.

Harper: she hasn’t said shit in a while and i’m kinda worried.

Harper: what if she got kidnapped. D:

Alex: shes probs in the middle of a bar fight tbh

Alex: im pretty sure that alien started it or something

Alex: she was probs all like “im gonna kill ur planet now and finish u all off!!”

Alex: and Y/N was like “not on my watch BITCH” and decks her

Alex: the whole bar claps

Harper: shut up it’s been like 10 mins and she hasn’t said anything and i’m nervous.

“I have a few people who I’d call friends here. Bismuth, Lapis, Amethyst.. Steven. I kind of feel like I’m bothering them when I’m around, in general..” She says, swirling the drink around in her glass. She regards it, lifts to her lips, and takes a drink. “Steven sometimes asks how I’m doing.. I know he cares. I have a hard time letting myself be honest with him. Cause.. you know. He’d try to solve all my problems. And I try to deal with them on my own.”

Y/N: I'm not dead. We're talking. She's nice.

Alex: wow are all genocidal maniacs nice i wonder

Harper: TALKING. YOU'RE TALKING TO HER

Y/N: YES WE'RE TALKING.

Y/N: She even apologized about my dad, and the entire shebang, really. 

Y/N: She's nice conversation, anyway.

Harper: whoa she apologised?

Alex: youve got to be kidding me rn

Alex: lemme just go revive gengis khan so we can have a nice chat over tea

Alex: this is absolutely nuts why am i the only sane one here

Alex: im gonna go fucking feral 

"It's such a Steven thing to do, too. You should've seen how he was when he found out about my mother." You laugh, and set your phone down on the counter. "He literally tried to go out and find her. He's such a sweet kid, but I had to break it to him that even if I knew where she was, I didn't want to see her."

Off to your left side, you feel someone approach you at the bar. You turn your face to see who it is. It's a man who looks a decade older than you are, and you've never seen him before. He nods to regard you. 

"Can I get you a drink, beautiful? You look absolutely lovely." He says, leaning in slightly.

"Thank you, but I'm alright." You put in your best polite, but fuck off smile. 

"You're just going to say no without even considering it?" He smiles, and you hate it. He's giving you terrible vibes and it's making you uneasy.

"I said I'm good." 

"Yeah bu-" He starts, but Spinel cuts him off.

"She says she's good, pal. Leave the dame alone." She crossed her arms over her chest, and glares at him. 

"Damn fine, stuck up bitch. Didn't want to talk to you anyway." He spews, and leaves to the other side of the bar. Thank god, you think to yourself.

"Thank you for that." You say to her, seriously relieved. "Fucker needs to learn how to take no for an answer." 

“Yeah, well. No one harasses a girl on my watch.” She regards you carefully. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

“No?” You lift an eyebrow in response.

“What happened with your mother?” She says, grabbing for her drink and taking a sip.

“Oh. Um,” You’re a bit surprised that she seems to genuinely care. You’ve known her for all of like.. a half hour. “She left when I was 5. Just had enough of dad and I, I suppose. Dad says it just came out of nowhere, and he has no idea what happened. We were a happy family, and then one day after dinner, she went into their room, packed some things in a single bag, and left.” You pause to take kind of a long drink. “And no one knows where she went. It’s been 17 years. Not a single word. It actually really fucked me up for years. I felt abandoned and absolutely worthless. How could you raise a child for 5 years, and just fucking bounce? Like, did she read a manual on how to fuck up your kid and give them emotional problems for the rest of their life? God, what a fucking bitch. I can’t even IMAGINE doing that to a kid.”

Spinel is staring at you with wide, shocked eyes.

“Eventually I ended up gaining some friends that helped me get over it, for the most part. They’re stupid and I love them. And if they ever found my mother, they would murder her in a heartbeat.” You say, chuckling. Spinel is still staring at you. “Are you okay? You ask. 

“I’m fine, it’s just.. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like me.” You watch her fiddle with her fingers. She moves slightly, and you see her shirt open, heart gem glimmering in the low lighting. You don’t want to be caught staring at it, like a crow to a shiny object. (You want to touch it. You want to touch it bad. Is it warm? Is it cold? Is it smooth? You need to know.) “I also had a very important person abandon me. The MOST important person to me, actually. For uh.. 6000 years.” You look up and your eyes make contact with hers.

“What.” You say. “6000 years.”

“Yeah.. It’s kind of embarrassing now, though.” She shrugs. “But it was terrible, and now I’m here. I’ll never get closure the way I want from Pink Diamond, because she’s gone forever. Anyway,” You kind of want to hug her. “I’ve been surviving, and I think I’m doing okay.” She smiles slightly. Bismuth is suddenly in front of the two of you.

“I saw some commotion all the way from the other side. That guy bother you? Want me to deal with him?” She says, all while refilling Spinel’s drink without even asking.

“Nah, he fucked right out of here when Spinel told him off.” You say, and finish the rest of your cider. Blegh. Warm.

“Is that so?” Bismuth say, grinning. She’s pointedly looking at Spinel. Spinel is giving Bismuth a dirty look. Oh my, what is going on there? You feel your bladder cursing up a storm inside you.

“Bismuth, I’d like another beer please.” You slowly get up on sleepy, wobbly legs. “And I’ll be right back, gotta pee.” You turn and look at Spinel, who looks back. “Guard my purse.”

“Cannnn do.” She says while taking another drink.

You make your way slowly over to the bathroom that was actually just 15ft away from you, and go over to one of the stalls and plop down onto the toilet, pulling out your phone to look at group chat. 

Harper: so my brother got catfished again

Alex: LMFAO

Harper: how many times is this? 4? for fucks sake

Harper: he’s 29. you’d think he’d have his shit together by now, but noooo.

Alex: that is honestly the saddest thing ive heard

Alex: wins most pathetic man of the month

Y/N: oof.

Y/N: Yeah that’s just sad.

Alex: Y/NNNNNNNNNNNNN!!

Alex: how are yoooouuuu

Y/N: I’m fine. I’m having a nice time.

Harper: you still hangin with the not-evil-now alien? :p

You choose to reply later, and instead finish your business in the stall. You come out and wash your hands, making sure you wash them thoroughly. You never know what kind of germs are in bar bathrooms. You’re drying your hands when you hear the bathroom door open, and someone is walking in. You turn to look, and it’s a familiar figure. A man. 

The man from earlier.

Chapter Text

The man turns to look at you. “The fuck? Why’re you in the men’s room?” He says, slurring his words a bit, and putting up a hand to brace his weight against the nearest wall. He fucking reeks of liqour that you can smell from here, and his hair is slightly disheveled.

“I’m not in the men's room. You're in the ladies' room," You say, boldly. You feel the alcohol you’ve consumed making its way to your head, and the words flow out of your mouth freely. "And if you don't mind, I'll be leaving." You move to step past him and towards the door. As soon as your fingertips brush the door handle though, a hand shoots out and grabs you by the wrist, stopping you. You freeze.

"You are such a rude bitch, you know that?" He says, pushing himself away from the wall and facing his body towards you. You try and pull your arm away from him, but his grip is tight. What the fuck? You're going to snap this bastard's neck.

"Let go of my arm." You say, livid. You can see his eyes boring into you. He looks down at your collarbone and breasts, his eyes moving all over any patch of bare skin you just happen to be showing tonight. You feel exposed in the worst way possible. Trying to move your arm out of his grip again, you feel his fingers tighten ever so slightly.

"Girls like you, you think you can just get whatever you want by dressing like that and going to a bar," He says, spitting a little and glaring at you.

"I'm not TRYING to do anything, let my arm go you bastard-" you get cut off as he tugs you forward, he's now only inches from your face and the smell of musty cigarettes and shitty vodka hits your senses. It's utterly revolting, and you hold back gagging visibly. You hear noise coming from outside the bathroom.

"You are taking an awwwfully long time in there, Y/N.” You hear Spinel say from behind you as she’s opening the door. She audibly stops. “What the fuck is going on here?”

Before you can even attempt to comprehend what is going on, you hear an extremely loud THUD on the opposite side of the bathroom and you feel as though you are launched several feet forward. You feel yourself squished against something and open your eyes to see something shiny. Spinel is holding you against herself, a single arm wrapped around you. Her other arm is comically stretched out and her fist is huge, holding your harasser against the now damaged wall.

"You think you can just waltz right into the ladies room? Here? In this bar? You're stupider than ya’ look." She says, and tightens her grip around you. Ohhh my god, you’re such a useless lesbian, because you can feel her breast pressed against your arm and you’re trying SO HARD to not have an internal meltdown right now. You steel your face and try your best to dull your heart beats, because they’re currently Very Loud. Fuck. You hear the man whimper. “I thought I told ya to Leave. My. Friend. Alone.” She enunciates each word clearly, and angrily.

“Look, I don’t want no trouble..” You can hear him say, barely.

“You don’t want ‘no’ trouble?” She says, openly mocking him. “Shoulda thought about that before you came in here!” You hear the door slam open again, and can make out two pairs of feet running in.

“Spinel! We heard a loud noise! You guys okay??” Bismuth rushes over to the two of you, looking very concerned. She notices you in Spinel’s arms, and then the man Spinel is currently holding against the wall. “What happened!?” Lapis is standing next to Bismuth with her hands on her hips, and she looks pissed about the wall damage. Oops.

“This guy here,” Spinel shakes him a bit, and some of the wall crumbles around him onto the floor. You are trying and failing at not looking at Spinel’s gem. It glimmers every time she moves, and it sits perfectly right in between-. You look away before anyone catches you. “Came into the ladies room to harass a girl alone. I stopped him.”

“Y/N? You okay?” Bismuth asks.

“Yeah. Was just surprised.” You say, like you’re not a complete disaster.

“I’m just glad no one got hurt.” Bismuth says, and starts walking over to the trapped man. She nods to Spinel, who then slowly lets the man drop into Bismuth’s hold. She lifts him up by his armpits.. kind of like a child. You hold back a laugh. Bismuth holds him out in front of her, and squints at him. “And you.. You sir, broke like, 4 house rules. I’m gonna have to make you leave.” She makes her way over to the door with the man in tow, flopping him over her shoulder. Lapis turns to glare at the wall (and all of its damage), and then at Spinel, and turns to leave.

"We'll talk about this later." Is all she says, as the door closes behind her.

It is now so quiet in here that you could hear a pin drop. Spinel is still holding you, and you can hear her breathing ever so softly. “U-um,” You attempt to find your voice.

“Oh! Whoops,” She quickly drops her arm from holding you, and visibly deflates a little in relief. “I was so caught up that I..” She trails off, and her gaze makes its way over to your face. Her pink irises find yours. “I’m just glad you’re actually okay.”

“Me too.” You say, rubbing the side of your arm absentmindedly, still feeling a bit warm where she was touching you. Spinel notices your arm movement.

“Did I hurt you just then? I’m so sorry, I-”

“No, I’m fine.” You cut her off. “Still trying to wrap my mind around all of that. It just happened all so quickly.” You lie. You’ve dealt with worse men, in worse situations. This wasn’t something you couldn’t have handled yourself, if it got to that. She just didn’t need to know that you were having an internal gay crisis over being manhandled by a pretty girl. Alien. Whatever. “And thank you. For saving me, I mean. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come in, just then. Seriously, his breath smelled so bad.” You give her a warm, earnest smile.

“I would have done that for anyone, and besides,” You watch her cheeks turn pink as she shrugs. “Someone else was trying to talk to me while you were gone, and I wasn’t really feeling it, and you were taking forever..” She crosses her arms over her chest, angling her face away from you. Is she trying to hide the fact that she’s blushing? Holy shit she’s so cute. You find yourself embarrassed to admit that you’re completely enthralled with this pink alien. In a bathroom.

Story of your life really.

“So.. you came in here because you missed me?” You say, grinning, and wink at her.

“No! Not at all.” She denies a little too quickly. You suddenly want to make a hobby out of teasing her. “A-anyway, let’s just go back out if you’re finished in here?” You take a moment to look around at the bathroom. It’s destroyed. They will have to re-tile that entire wall.

“Yeah, I’m done here anyway.” You say as you move past Spinel towards the door. You grab the brass handle and pull open the door, holding it for Spinel to come out of the bathroom as well.

Outside, the entirety of the bar is still pretty lively. A few people have left as it’s nearing 11, but there’s a good 40-50 people still around. You see a rowdy group of young women laughing and swatting each other playfully while they watch a handsome blond man play a ballad. There’s quite a few spaces open up now at the counter. You don’t see Bismuth there, though. You look around and spot her at the entrance, talking to Lapis and the bouncer. Probably making sure that guy never comes in again, you think. You make your way back over to your previous spot, and Spinel follows you. Once the both of you sit down, you pull out your phone, and open up the right application.

“I hope your beer is still cold.” Spinel says to you as you swipe past a couple messages, getting to the bottom of the group chat.

“It better still be.” You take a swig, and make a face. It’s.. drinkable, you guess. “Also, it’s cider, not beer. I can’t for the life of me stand the taste of beer, it always tastes like shit. Don’t even get me started on IPAs.” You reply to your friends without reading half of the stupid shit they must’ve said while you weren’t paying them any attention.

Y/N: I was attacked in the bathroom. Wild day, I know.
Alex: it fucking serves him right to be honest
Alex: lil bastard had it coming
Alex: so now my brother cant look at sonic the same ever again
Alex: w
Alex: awrfawefaffasdfa
Alex: WHAT
Harper: What!? Are you okay????
Alex: the fucking alien!!!!!!!! i knew it!!!!!
Alex: she fucking attacked u in the bathroom when u were alone!!
Alex: she saw her window of opportunity
Alex: and POUNCED
Alex: im sorry that ur dead now
Y/N: I’m fine. The “alien” was actually the one that saved me.
Y/N: And her name’s Spinel, you shitlord. Have some class.
Alex: no
Alex: and make me
Harper: can’t tell him to have what he’ll never grasp. ;)
Harper: i’m glad you’re okay though. <3
Harper: what exactly happened?
Alex: fuck you
Harper: no thanks. i know im bi, but even i have standards.
Y/N: There was this guy that harassed me over drinks earlier, right?
Y/N: Spinel actually told him off after he wouldn’t leave me alone the first time.
Y/N: And then, when I went to the bathroom, he came IN.
Y/N: He literally fucking grabbed my arm ya’ll I was mad af. The audacity.
Y/N: So then Spinel comes in and punches him against the wall??
Y/N: Like she killed the wall. Guy was fine. They kicked him out.
Alex: damn
Harper: i’m glad she was there to save your ass since i couldn’t be.
Harper: and what did we learn today Y/N???
Harper: you go out with US and not ALONE.
Y/N: Bitch you left me to be across the country for summer. I have new friends now.
Alex: oh so im chopped liver now huh
Alex: one sexy murderous alien saves u and now ur too good for us
Alex: im telling ur fuckin dad
Y/N: NO.
Y/N: YOU WOULDN’T.
Alex: tee hee

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever had whisky.” She replies, taking a drink. You set your phone down for a second.

“I’d offer for you to try mine, but this isn’t in ideal shape.” She raises one of her eyebrows. “It’s a bit warm.” You look at the bottle with slight disdain. “And this isn’t even a great one, regardless. There’s a few better tasting, actually.. you should try those sometime.”

“With you?” She says with a questioning look on her face.

“I, um.” You look at her. “I was going to give you a list of suggestions, but if you wanted to drink with me again, we could do that too.” You say as you wiggle your eyebrows at her. She flushes red immediately.

“I wasn’t trying to impose, I just thought-”

“I’m just teasing. But.. if you do want a friend to drink with, I’m all yours.” You say, leaning on your left hand that's on the counter. “It’s not like I’m busy aside from work, anyway.” She’s staring at you with an expression you’re unfamiliar with, which is either longing, or concern.

“I might take you up on that offer. I don’t have any human friends aside from Steven, and he’s only half.”

“And upon your general pool of human specimens, I’m your best choice?” You say and laugh. She gives you an exhausted look, which makes you laugh even more. “You got a phone?” You ask her, and take another sip. She reaches behind herself and pulls her phone out of her back pocket.

“Steven gave me his old one a few weeks ago, I just don’t use it much.” You nod and take the phone from her hand. She doesn’t notice that you make sure your hand touches hers on purpose. You tap her phone open, and go to her contacts. And maybe, just MAYBE, you add a heart next to your name cheekily when you add it to her contacts. You text yourself a quick :).

“I added myself to your contacts. You should text me sometime. I also have your number now, too.” You hand her phone back to her. You grab your phone off the counter and the words “her smexy alien” are displayed on the lockscreen. You swiftly turn the screen back off, and down the rest of your nasty ass drink. Fucking christ, why are your friends like this.

“Hey. Spinel.” You turn to the voice in front of you. It’s Lapis. Her full attention was on the gem next to you.

“Yes?” Spinel says. She also downs the rest of her drink.

“You gonna pay for that wall, or what?” Lapis asks, leaning on the counter. She seems tired.

“I did do the damage, so I will, but I seriously think you should try to make that guy pay for this.” Spinel sighs. Lapis considers her for a second.

“We’ll see.” She says, and shrugs. She looks at you. “You want another one of those?”

“Yes please.” You say. This will be your last, you think. It’s late. She opens the bottle for you, and swaps it with the empty one in front of you.

“Yes, I will also take another one.” Spinel says to Lapis.

“I wasn’t going to ask you,” Lapis replies, and Spinel gives her a comically grave expression. “But since you insist, I guess I just might.” She smiles a little. She grabs a new glass, sets it on the counter, and plunks an ice cube into it. Then she grabs a brown bottle behind her, and pours Spinel another drink. She winks at Spinel as she grabs for the used glass. She walks away to a further sink, and starts helping a couple of other patrons who look like they’re about to head out.

“Sometimes, I don’t get her, but for the most part I like her. We both have problems.” Spinel says while watching Lapis from across the bar. She takes a long drink. You think fuck it, and do the same.

“She reminds me of my cat, if I’m going to be honest.” You say, “Kind of moody, but still wants you to know that it’s there, and it exists.”

“What’s a cat?” Spinel asks innocently. Your jaw drops.

"You don’t know what a cat is!?” You say, almost offended. You unlock your phone and go to your gallery, searching for your cat pics. You find one of the more recent ones of Jellybean, enlarge it, and show it to the gem. “This is Jellybean. She’s fluffy, stupid, and almost set herself on fire last week, true story.” Spinel eyes your phone screen.

“Oh, those things! I’ve seen them a few times, but they never let me near them.” She says, maybe a bit mournfully. “They look soft.”

“They are.” You grin. “I should let you meet her sometime. She loves people. She’ll drool on your shoes though, so be careful. She’s a total weirdo.” Spinel looks at you like she’d actually love that. You feel like maybe you underestimated how alcohol would hit you tonight, because you feel it coming to you very quickly.

“I’d love to meet her. I don’t get out much, honestly. I’m still trying to find a balance in my daily life. Steven’s worried that I’ll.. I don’t know.” She shrugs, swirling the drink in her glass. Bismuth walks over to the two of you, grabbing several used glasses on the way and dropping them into a nearby sink.

“Y/N, I’m sorry about what happened to you earlier. Stuff like that never really happens here.” She says to you while making herself busy wiping down the counter. “And Spinel, seriously. Thanks for stepping in.” Spinel gives a noncommittal grunt in reply.

“Bis, if I were even as half as beefy as you are, that wouldn’t have been a problem. I’d dare him, actually.” You say, and finish your drink. You regret it a little, but Papa didn’t raise no quitter and you’ll learn your life lessons eventually. In the meantime, you just feel pleasantly drunk.

“Aw, shucks, Y/N. You’re so kind.” She chuckles and flexes a little. “I have enough muscle for the both of us.” She wipes down Spinel’s side of the counter, and takes the cash handed to her by the couple next to the two of you as they get up to leave.

“Ughhhhh.” Spinel says, slouching on her stool. “I need to walk home soon.. ‘gotta long day tomorrow.”

“You live close?” You ask her.
“Kind of. It’s on the opposite side of little homeworld, and a nearly 30 minute walk.”

“Are you sure you’re sober enough to make it all the way home by yourself?” You grin, teasing her. “You’re not gonna get like, 10 minutes into the walk home and pass out in a bush somewhere?”

“No, I’m fine. I should be good enough for the walk.” She says while giving you a half-baked glare, and attempts to get up from her stool, albeit very wobbly. She stumbles a bit.

“Well, I was going to head out soon too.” You say, nodding at Bismuth that you’re ready to pay your tab. She makes her way over to you once she hands back the couple’s change to them.

“You guys good?” She asks. You nod in response.

“Yeah, gonna call it a night though,” you grab your card out of your wallet, and feel a little generous. Maybe a bit ballsy, too. You hand it over to Bismuth, who takes it. “For both tabs, please.” Spinel looks absolutely admonished and is about to argue, so you cut her off. “It’s thanks for earlier. Don’t argue with me.” She shuts her mouth promptly, and Bismuth laughs.

“I like that you two get along well. Warms my heart.” She says, looking at the two of you while working the register. She hands you back your card and the receipt slip.

“Oh, shut up.” Spinel glares. Bismuth just laughs at her and walks away. You put your things back into your bag, and regard Spinel.

“Well, I’m off. You should message me soon, and we could hang out.” You say, and turn to move when Spinel takes a single step forward, and slips onto the floor with a loud crash. You look at her, and cannot help laughing.

“OW.” She exasperatedly sighs. You lean down and give her your hand, which she stares at for a second longer than necessary, and then grabs to pull herself up with.

“Drunker than you thought, huh.” You say, giving her a smug look. You’re drunk yourself, but at least you know what you’re all about.

“Maybe,” She says, dusting off her pants and straightening herself back out. “Maybe I shouldn’t have ordered that last drink.” You still feel ballsy, and maybe a little courageous when you have a particular thought that you verbalize before actually considering in your mind.

“Wanna come home with me?” You blurt out. She stares at you blankly for a second, and then her entire face flushes. “Not like that,” You quickly backpedal. “My place is about 10 from here. You can crash on my couch? And meet my cat.”

“I’d love to meet your cat.” She’s smiling, and she looks eager. Or drunk.

“Alright, let’s go then.” You say before you can think any better of it. If your father or friends knew.. Oh my god, your father and friends CAN’T know. Your friends would laugh forever, and what would your dad think!? ‘Chill dad, it’s no biggie, just gonna show this ex-bloodthirsty gem our cat. except she’s cute and cool and nice now’ You give silent thanks to whatever gods are out there that your dad didn’t come home tonight.

You both meander your way outside of the bar, where the air is still thick with heat and humidity. A slight breeze rolls by, but it isn’t enough to cool your skin where you have already started to feel yourself sweating. You like summer, but hate nights like this. You’re both walking side by side, passing by houses and businesses alike, when she stumbles on a sidewalk crack and nearly topples you over. You catch her by both arms to steady her, impressing even yourself.

“Thanks,” She says and pushes some of her fringe out of her eyes to look at you. “You know.. you’ve been really nice this entire night. Humans haven’t been particularly cruel to me, all things considered.. but I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.” You keep walking with her.

“Well, you didn’t murder me like my friends thought you would, so tonight’s not a total bust.” At that, she laughs very loudly and openly. It’s a nice sound.

Maybe it’s the warm night, or the alcohol in the both of your systems, but the flush on her cheeks makes your heart feel as bright as the gem on her chest, sparkling in the streetlights.

Chapter Text

Within minutes, the two of you arrive at your house. It’s along a narrow street with a couple of other residences, in a pretty well-lit area. You walk up to the door, grabbing the keys out of your bag while you almost trip on the literal only step in front of the entrance. Smooth. You drunkenly fumble your keys attempting to unlock it. Spinel is next to you idly looking around, mildly interested in her surroundings. Once you unlock the door, both of you step in, and you close it behind you. 

“Home sweet home,” You say to her while toeing off your flats, and setting your bag down on the entrance table. “Make yourself comfy. And please take off your shoes.” 

"Nice place." She says as she's currently eyeing your photos with your dad on the entry wall. You watch her bend down to untie her shoes and you almost want to help her, because she’s clearly struggling. Inebriation and basic motor function don’t go hand in hand.

"Thanks. It's not much but with dad here, it's home." You reply with. You point at one of the more embarrassing photos, the one from the fair when you were young and crying, ice cream on the ground, and your dad laughing his ass off. "This is my dad. As you can see, he's a huge dillhole." You say while smiling, despite yourself. She looks at it more carefully once her shoes are off, getting a little closer to it and squinting.

"You look a lot younger." She says, finally.

"Humans grow, remember? This was over 10 years ago, anyway. I was still a kid."

"Did your dad grow too?” She wonders out loud.

“He’s an adult, so he stays the same, but aged some. He’s got a huge beard now. And since I’m an adult now too, I shouldn’t really be growing anymore.” She honestly just kind of gives you a look like that’s fuckin weird, but whatever. “Give me just a second, I’ll be right back.” You say to her, and leave her by the entry staring at your family photos as you make your way to the kitchen and grab two glasses out of the cupboard, filling them with water. You also grab a bottle of aspirin, and head back over to Spinel. You hold out a glass and the pills for her to take, and she does. "They're just basic painkillers, you'll thank me for it later. Don't wanna be hungover in the morning and all." You take yours, and down them with almost all of the water. She eyes hers, shrugs, and does the same.

“Wanna sit on the couch for a little while and watch tv? I kind of want to wait a little bit before sleeping, if I go to bed this drunk, I’ll wake up nauseous.” You say to her while grabbing the glass from her hand, and put them back into the kitchen.

“Sure, it’ll give me some time to sober up as well.” She follows you to the living room you share with your dad, and sits next to you, one leg tucked under the other. She puts her arm over the back of the couch, between you two. She sighs and her face relaxes, and sinks a bit into the couch.

“Comfy?”

“Very. This is comfier than the bed Lapis gave me. I don’t need to sleep really, but I kind of like the break it gives my mind.” She says, and you chuckle.

“Some human things aren’t so bad, yeah?” You grab the remote, and turn on the tv to the science station. Fuck yeah, ‘How It’s Made’ is on. Nothing else that’s on matters anymore. 

“I mean I kind of have to adjust to human things while living on earth. Don’t want to be a complete outsider, I guess,” She smiles, looking over to you. “I like ice cream, and booze, and finding new weird human music. You guys are good for that.”

“You don’t sound like you’ve tried enough human things, and you’ve been here how long?” You say, already thinking of a few things you’d like Spinel to experience. The show a murmur in the background while you two chat, narrator describing the process of putting peanut butter into jars. You’ve seen this episode countless times by now, but you still catch yourself watching it every couple of seconds.

“Actually living here? Give or take.. 4 months. I was going back and forth between the diamonds, before I figured out that living with them wasn’t the best for me.” She’s watching the show, vaguely following along. She moves her arms to take the ponytail out of her hair, and lets it fall all along her shoulders and the back of the couch, running her fingers through it to smooth it out. You can’t really help but stare, because she looks different with her hair down, like way more casual, and soft, and for a very brief moment you can imagine what a domestic life would look like with her. You shake your head to clear your rampant thoughts. 

“4 months, and just that? I’d figure you’d have a few more things under your belt by now.” You say to her, watching her put both her arms over the sofa back, completely relaxed. She’s staring directly at the screen now, almost pointedly.

“I don’t.. really know how to exist normally, yet.” Her tone is a little quieter. You’re still staring.

“What does that mean?” You ask, slightly concerned. 

“Remember earlier I told you someone important abandoned me?” You nod. “Her name was Pink Diamond. I don't know if you know, but gems are created for a purpose, and they know exactly what they'll be once they come into consciousness. I existed to be her companion, and best friend. Things were wonderful for a while.. but. I guess she grew out of me, because the next thing I knew was that she said she'd be back, and then I basically stood in total isolation on a floating garden, waiting for her to come back, like she said. For six thousand years.” What the fuck, you think to yourself.

“You talked to no one?” You ask.

“Nope.” 

“You didn’t leave? You.. waited?” You ask, not caring that you’re not even pretending to watch the show. “Did she ever come back? What happened?”

“She never came back. She doesn’t exactly exist anymore.” Her tone of voice hasn’t really changed, but you can kind of tell she’s masking a lot of emotions.

“Disappeared? But.. how did you know? Did someone come and find you?” You feel like you’re prying, but she hasn’t given you any indication that she doesn’t want to talk about this. 

“About a year ago, I saw a broadcast of Steven.” The gears in your sloshed brain slowly start to turn. “Peace and Prosperity, and that also, Pink Diamond I had been waiting for? Steven’s her son, and she basically gave up her form so he could be born. So.. she’s gone, now.” She lets out a long breath, and pauses for a moment. “I’ve never felt worse in my life than in that moment. And, well, you know the rest since it was your planet that I almost destroyed.” She chuckles, albeit slightly off. 

Oh.

Oh, it all makes sense now. You know the rest. It’s only been a year!? And she went right back to the diamonds.. no wonder she came to earth instead after a little while.. Oh.. and her only friends are a few other gems, who went through different problems than her, so she hasn’t had anyone to relate to, or really share her grief, anger, or feelings of worthlessness you know she's going through.. and she's been on this planet for what maybe feels like a minute compared to how long she was isolated. Like, at least you still had your father with you when your mother left, and you gained really good friends. You're completely lost in your thoughts about how horrible what she went through was, that you don't realize that she's watching you now, with an unreadable expression.

"Are.. you okay?" She asks you. You look up.

"What a fucking massive bitch." You say to her. She stares, sits up and turns to you.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ruin the light mood. I-" 

"No. Don't apologize. I'm just mad that she had the gall to be your so-called best friend, and pull a total cunt move like that. You didn't deserve any of that. You deserve so much better." You say. "Both her and my mom can burn in hell." You’re fuming a bit at this point.

She looks vulnerable and you want to hug her. Fuck it, your drunk brain foregoes any rational thought and you surge forward, wrap your arms around her middle, and hug her. She makes a startled noise and freezes. “And I know that you’ve probably struggled with abandonment, and worthlessness, and she never had any right to make you feel that way.” You feel her arms relax and wrap around your torso. The feeling of her gem pressing against your chest. It’s hard, of course, and not at all cold like you had thought. It’s quiet for a moment, and you hope you hadn’t upset her in any way. You’re starting to fret to yourself, before she speaks up.

“Does this make us friends now?” She asks. You laugh loudly, and snort a little, much to your horror. You can feel her body shake, and for a moment you think she’s crying, but you can also hear her laughing a little.

“We were basically friends after 10 minutes of knowing each other, why are you even asking.” You reply. You can feel her smile against your bare shoulder, and you feel your heart jump. She’s so close, and warm, and you like the way it feels to hug her. Your heart feels like it’s beating itself out of your chest, and you’re worried she can feel it. Before you can even think about pulling away, something jumps up on the couch suddenly and startles the two of you apart, both of you screaming. It’s Jellybean. 

“Fucking cat,” You say, hand over your heart, breathing heavily. “You little asshole, you’re going to send me to an early grave". Jellybean chirps and headbutts your hand, smearing half her face on you in loving affection. 

“Oh, she looks so soft, I love her already.” Spinel says, and tentatively reaches out to let the cat sniff her hand. You watch Jellybean sniff a little, and then headbutt her hand as well. Spinel melts immediately as your cat crawls onto her lap, purring. 

“What a little attention whore.” You say, chastising your cat. She ignores you for pets. You look to the tv and see the episode wrapping up, and yawn. You guys should probably sleep. “Listen. I’m exhausted. My whole ass body hurts from work today. I’m gonna go sleep. Would you like to borrow some spare sleepwear?” You ask her, looking at her pants like they don’t seem that comfortable to sleep in. She shrugs.

“Yeah, it’d probably be a lot more comfortable if I did.” She replies while petting your cat. You stand up, a bit reluctantly. 

“Gimme a sec, I’ll be right back.” You say, and head upstairs to your bedroom. You go over to your dresser and grab a spare clean oversized shirt, and some shorts that you hope will fit her. You also grab a spare set of blankets, and a pillow. You head back downstairs with the items in your hands, trying not to trip back down the stairs. “Hope these are okay.” You say as you hand the clothes over to her.

“They should be fine.” She says, still petting Jellybean. You suspect your cat loves Spinel more than you now. “And hey,” She looks at you. “Thanks. For everything.” She’s smiling softly and sleepily, and you fight down a blush. She’s really pretty, and you’re trying really hard to not think about it.

“Don’t mention it.” You say, and turn around to go to bed before you do anything weird. Or stupid.

Before you know it, you’ve stripped down to your pajamas, you’ve taken your makeup off, and you’re flopping into bed. You fall asleep pretty quickly, and for once, and no dreams.

By the time you’re awake, it’s near noon, and Spinel has already gone. She left the clothes she borrowed on the couch folded in a neat pile, and looks like she accidentally left her hair tie on the couch. You check your phone. Spinel left a text.

Spinel: Thanks again for letting me crash for the night. You’re a doll.

You smile and go on about your day as usual running errands, with thoughts of Spinel occasionally on your mind. You decide to send her a text in the evening. 

Y/N: Hey, do you wanna hang out in a few days? You can pick what we do since I’ve done basically everything around here.

She replies back within seconds of you sending the message.

Spinel: Yesssssssss.

It’s definitely just hanging out, and not a date, you attempt to convince yourself. You wonder what she’ll pick.

Chapter Text

You spend your weekend lazing about the house and playing games with Alex, trying your best to not obsess and overthink everything that happened with Spinel. The both of you agreed to hang out in another 3 days, and you’re really eager for the next couple of days to pass. She didn’t tell you what she wanted to do, so you’ve been waiting on a response for nearly a full day by now. She wasn’t kidding when she said she didn’t use her phone much. You try to spend your time concentrating on building your tower in your minecraft server with your friends, when you hear a rustling noise from your headset, indicating Alex was back from grabbing food. You hear him set a bowl down on the desk and he picks his headset back up.

“Ugggghhhhhh.” He starts. “I was gone for like, 5 minutes and some creepers blew out the side wall of my fucking chicken coop..” You hear him chew whatever the fuck he was eating.

“That’s what that was? I thought I heard something in the distance but ignored it. I’m too far away anyway.” You reply. “I’m adding more floors to my tower. Wanna go get me more wood soon? Because I’m starting to run out.” You hear him scoff.

“Why do you always make ME go and get more wood? I wish Harper was here so she could be your supply bitch instead. Do I not look fucking busy here? First of all. I’m eating, Y/N, you brat. Second of all, I’m trying to repair my STUPID CHICKEN COOP. There’s like 60 chickens all LOOSE here and homeless!” He cries. “I have some acacia if you want it, but that’s all I’ve got to spare.”

“Yes, I’d totally love some ugly orange wood to break up all the NICE colors I have going on in here. Fuck off with your acacia.” You say, checking your inventory to see if you even have an axe. You hear your phone chime 2 times, and quickly grab it off your desk to see what it is. It’s just 2 texts from your dad asking you to pick up his prescription from the store. You sigh audibly.

“Whoooooo was that?” You hear Alex say. Nosy bitch.

“Just my dad.” You roll your eyes and say. “Wants me to pick up his prescriptions tomorrow.”

“Why’d you sound so disappointed, then?” He asks, and you can tell he’s up to something. Bastard.

“I’m not disappointed, stop trying to read my emotions.” You say. “You always do this when you think you’re onto something.”

“I am onto something!!” He whines. “I can tell you’re hiding something from me, Y/N. You know what happens when you hide things from me? I find out, one way or another.”

“You’ll get nothing out of me, and you won’t find anything.” You say, deadpan.

“HA!!! So there is something.” He says, smug. 

“Okay you little shit,” You sigh into the mic. “It’s literally nothing. Drop it.”

“I bet I can guessssssssss.” He giggles, and you’re considering blowing up the rest of his chicken coop.

“I doubt it.”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…” He says into the mic, obnoxiously.

“Nope.” You say. Desperately trying to steer this elsewhere.

“Isssss it….” He continues, “Maaaaybeeeeeeee…. Spinel?” He asks, his voice pitching in that certain way when he knows he’s fucking right.

 God fucking dammit, do you hate your friends. You can’t even hide anything for 2 days.

“No.” You argue.

“You’re a fucking liar Y/N, and I know you’re being difficult on purpose.” 

“Nooooo. Fuck you.” You give up. He’s going to be annoying until you give him what he wants.

“That’s my girl.” He says smugly, and you can hear him chewing again. 

“When you come home, I’m punching you in the face, I swear to god.” You threaten.

“Don’t be cute,” He says. “Side note, by the way, I’m actually coming home this week instead of the end of next week. Some of mom’s clients had to move their appointment forward due to some other things, so we get to go home early this year. I am SO FUCKING READY to be home at this point. Being able to only hang out with my brother blows.”

“Yesss,” You answer. “Now if only Harper got her ass home.”

“For real,” He burps. “Anyway. Back to what I was saying.” You were hoping he’d drop it. “Spinel. The gem. What's the deal with her?"

"Nothing." 

"Really? Because the other night you said otherwise. Did you even get her number?" He asks, accusingly.

"Of course I got her number, I'm not an idiot," You retort, mildly insulted. "She just hasn't texted me since our initial text last night. We made plans to hang out, since she hasn't done much around here, but hasn't given me an update on what she wants to do."

"It's been less than a day. Why does this have your panties in a bunch?" He prys.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Do you liiiiiike her?" He sings obnoxiously into the mic. You consider hanging up the call for a brief moment, but you know that he'd absolutely call that one a defeat, so you yield. You just sigh, again.

"I don't know. Kind of. She's funny, and sweet, and really easy to talk to. Also she's really pretty." You admit. “I don’t think I’ve got on with anyone that quickly, like ever.”

“Do you seriously have the hots for an alien?” Alex asks, amused.

“You can’t judge me!” You yell, slightly miffed. “You think xenomorphs are sexy!”

“THEY’RE JUST SO CURVY, OKAY. AND THOSE TONGUES!!” He wails in reply as you laugh at him.

“I’m just saying! At least she’s fairly normal looking.”

“You mean, humanoid. She’s a gem. Don’t they have weird powers or something?” He ponders out loud.

“Not the point, and besides,” You interject, “I’m not too sure she’s even interested in anything like that, anyway.”

“Like what?” he responds, taking another bite of food.

“You know like.. dating, humans, girls..” You mumble, checking your phone absentmindedly.

“Well, ask her?” He says casually.

“Are you shitting me? No.”

“Pussy. Want me to ask her?” He asks, teasingly.

“Don’t even fucking talk to her.” You scoff. “You will fuck up everything, I’m sure.” Your phone buzzes, and you open the notification to see that it’s a text from Spinel. Oh my god finally.

Spinel: Sooo, I’ve decided it’s gonna be a surprise. 

Y/N: That’s unfair!

Spinel: ;)

“What does that even mean!?” You accidentally say out loud.

“What does what now?” asks Alex immediately.

“Hold on,” You say, and take a screenshot of the text. “Sent you it. This is all I get, apparently. Cryptic. She gives me absolutely no signs.” You hear Alex’s phone ping on the other side, and then him chuckling.

“Yeah, you know what? You can figure this one out yourself, Y/N. You’re smart.”

“I hate you so much right now.” You sigh in frustration.

“And you’re gonna hate me even more, because I just remembered I promised my mother I’d help her with something. Bye!!!” He says and hangs up the call, leaving you sitting there. Ughh, this guy. Whatever, you think to yourself. You have other things to do anyway. 

But not before you blow up his chicken coop.

~

You spend the next two days at work letting the days pass painfully slow, with only the occasional text from Spinel. You’re not exactly overwhelming her with texts as is, as you also don’t want to seem too eager or desperate. So far, you only know that what the two of you are doing is casual, so to dress normal. You don’t even know when, or where the two of you are meeting.

You’re near the end of your shift that went from 6 hours to 10, thanks to Mr. Smiley leaving early and having you close up Funland by yourself. Tomorrow is the day you agreed on with Spinel, and with no answer still, you shoot her another text.

Y/N: So when and where tomorrow?

You wait for an answer for a few minutes, double checking all the tills you closed in the meantime and wiping a few surfaces down. You hear your phone ping, and you check it.

Spinel: Is noon good for you? Don’t worry about the where part yet.

Y/N: You're driving me nuts. Just tell me where we're going.

Spinel: Nope! ;)

Frustrated and amused, you finish the rest of your closing duties and clock out for the night. You grab your things, lock up, and head home. You spend the rest of the evening playing games with Alex, and have a hard time falling asleep, when you finally get around to it.

You wake up around 11:30 in a panic, completely aware you slept through your alarm. You check your phone, and Spinel's left a message about half an hour ago. You open it.

Spinel: I'll meet you at your place around 12 ish. Okay?

You quickly type out a reply.

Y/N: You got it.

You turn your phone's ringer on, and toss it on your bed to go and take a quick shower. You haven't even figured out what to wear. You finish your shower in like 5 minutes flat, towel yourself dry, and blow dry your hair. She said casual, you do casual best anyway, but why does this have you nervous? The fuck is she planning? Why is this secret? You're trying to keep yourself together while sorting through your clean clothes, attempting to find anything that works together. You have pants, and you're deciding between a sweater and some shirt when Jellybean jumps into the laundry pile, and you sigh out loud. 

Get it together, self. You grab the shirt. 

You put on a small bit of makeup - just eyeliner for the most part, and you walk downstairs to lounge on the couch and wait. You’re replying to a couple texts your father has sent you when you hear a knock on your door. You lay there for a moment, nervously, before getting up and heading over to the door. You check the peephole just in case - yep, it’s Spinel. You open the door to greet her.

“Hey,” You say, feigned casualness.

“Hey yourself. Ya ready to go?” She asks, leaning against the doorway. 

“Can I put my shoes on?” You step away from the door for a moment, and grab your sneakers.

“If you think they’re necessary.” She jokes, watching you.

“I could walk around barefoot, but it’s not really in the forecast today.” You lace up your shoes, and look over to Spinel. She’s got her hair up in a ponytail again today, and she’s wearing a light sweater and jeans. The collar is a bit wide, so you have full view of her neck and collarbone. She’s so fucking soft looking that you have to force yourself to stop staring. You also notice that she has a medium sized bag with her, contents completely obscured. She notices you looking at her bag, and moves it behind her shoulder. You think you see her hand shaking, but when you look a little closer it isn’t, so you dismiss it.

“No looking. That’s still a surprise.” She smirks. 

“You’ll have to tell me eventually.” You say, deadpan. You grab your bag from the table next to you, pocket your cell phone, and lock the front door. You turn to look her in the face. “Alright captain, where to?”

“Just follow me. We’re walking today.” She swivels around to face the street, her hair swishing from shoulder to shoulder. Ugh, she’s cute. You hate how easy it is for you to like her. You push down your feelings, and catch up to her side so you’re walking with her.  You pass by a couple houses, the air warm and slightly breezy. 

“So what have you been up to the last couple of days?” You inquire, looking around at the cars passing the two of you by, heat rising off the pavement.

“I fixed the wall that I ruined the other night, but only because Lapis was sending me increasingly threatening texts about it.” She replies, angling her face towards you. You catch her eyeing your hands for some reason, before quickly looking away.

“Yeah she seemed really miffed about it, almost like you committed a personal offense.” You say, laughing. You turn right at a street corner, and notice that you’re heading towards the beach. Hm.

“She can’t complain about it anymore, though, since I did such a nice job on it.” She adjusts the bag on her shoulder, and you hear a few items move against each other, but you can’t discern what exactly. “The diamonds have also been bothering me on my helping them with some homeworld event, but I’m not sure I’m keen on assisting them with it. They have the pearls for that.” 

“What did they want you to do, anyway? Don’t they have like, thousands of gems under their reign to help them with whatever they want?” You feel your hand accidentally brush against Spinel’s twice, and mumble an apology before putting your hand in your pocket. You catch her eyebrows furrowing for a second before she smoothes out her expression. 

“I honestly think they just want me there just to have me there. I don’t think they’re coping well with the fact that I actually want some space.”

“Well, they can calm down. Tell them to fuck off.” You say, joking, for the most part.

“Why don’t YOU tell the diamonds to fuck off, and see how well that works out for you.” She replies to you, grinning. The two of you are walking on the boardwalk now, by the beach. It’s pretty nice out, sun high up in the sky, a couple of fluffy white clouds around.

“I like being alive.” Spinel snorts at that, and you can’t help smiling. You feel like just being around her in general makes a permanent smile take residence on your face. “So. We’re at the beach. Are we having a beach day? I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

“No, we’re not going to the beach,” She scoffs and rolls her eyes. “We’re not even done walking, sheesh. Impatient.” You continue to follow her, and soon the two of you are walking the path that leads to the lighthouse by Steven’s house. You have no idea what she wants to do up there, but you shut your mouth and continue to follow. You’re both pretty quiet on the way up, concentrating more on the steep walk than on talking, but it isn’t uncomfortable. It’s easy, even. 

Once you and Spinel reach the top of the hill, she sets her bag down, and turns to you.

“We’re here.” She’s grinning and looking proud that she made it all the way up here.

“At the lighthouse. You’ve never been here?” You ask, confused. Her face falls, slightly, and you panic. “I’m not saying I didn’t want to come here, it’s nice! I just figured you’d like, I don’t know, want to go bowling?” 

“Steven said I should create better memories for the places I have bad memories attached to.” She says, looking at the ground and not meeting your eyes.

“You have bad memories with the lighthouse? But wh- oh.” The injector. Her arrival. You’re an idiot. “I’m sorry, I’m dense sometimes.” She meets your eyes and gives you a /look/ like somehow, she knows this already. Okay, ow. She bends down and opens her bag, and pulls out a little knit blanket, large enough for two people to sit on.

“So, maybe I’ve wanted to do this since seeing it in a movie I watched 2 weeks ago with Steven and Amethyst..” She trails off while unfolding the blanket and putting it down. She grabs her bag and sets it down on one of the corners, and starts to pull out what looks like 6 containers of food, and a thermos. After setting everything down, she looks up at you just standing there, a bit nervously. “Are you gonna sit down?”

“We’re having a picnic?” You look at her, breaking out into a slow grin. She flushes immediately.

“Don’t make fun of me.” She pouts, crossing her arms over her chest, and purposely turns her face away from you. You kneel down next to her.

"How can I not, when you always react so cutely." You tease her, feeling bold. You grab the thermos and examine it, but the contents aren't discernable from the outside.

"Remind me why I chose to do this, willingly?” She turns back to face you, glaring.

“Because you liiiiiiike me.” You grin, wiggling your eyebrows at her. She sputters and her entire face reddens, and you laugh. 

“A-anyway,” She grabs two of the food containers, clearly trying to change the subject. “I made some food for the both of us. Steven taught me how to make a couple of basic things, but I didn’t taste test any of them.” 

“Oh, so you can poison us both at the same time?” You grab the container, and it has what looks like potato salad in it. “This looks fine, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about.” She leans closer to you and peers into the container, shrugging. 

“I don’t know much about human food so I wasn’t sure if it looked okay. I don’t have a whole lot to go off of.” She grabs two forks and sticks them into the container. “Let me at least open the rest of these before you try that.” She unstacks the others and opens them, setting down sandwiches, pasta, some cut up fruit, some cheese and cured meat, and some cookies. Damn, she outdid herself. You weren’t expecting all of this, or.. any of this, at all really. This was actually pretty well thought-out.

“Spinel. This all looks so good, the hell.” You say, going for one of the sandwiches and taking a bite. Ham, cheese, spinach, tomato, and some mustard? It tastes just fine. “Tastes good, too.”

“Thanks.” She sheepishly pulls out the other sandwich and takes a bite, shrugging. “Kind of hard to ruin a sandwich, though.”

“You know what? I’ll let you find the truth about that on your own. Believe me when I say, you can ruin ANY kind of easy food.” You say, taking another bite.

The two of you eat in silence for a couple minutes, while you gaze out at the sea. This was a good idea. The warm breeze makes your hair tickle your face, and you push some of it behind your ear. You see Spinel staring at you, and turn to make eye contact. She turns away swiftly. Hm.

“So,” You say abruptly, startling her a bit. “I’ve never asked. What’s your favorite color?” She laughs out loud at the sheer banality of the question.

“Hmm, you know,” She pauses and sets her fingers on her chin, thinking. “It used to be pink. Now.. not so much.” 

“Your new favorite color could be like..” You trail off while looking around you, and you spot a couple of small wildflowers nearby. You point them out to her. “Yellow, like that.” She scrunches her nose.

“No, too bright. Maybe I should go for something more cool-toned.”

“Don’t you already have a few other colors you like? You know, you can’t just choose a favorite color. You gotta actually like it.” You say to her, eyebrow raised. 

“I like plenty of other colors! I just don’t know yet, I guess. Ask me again in a week.” She replies. “Anyway, you never answered, so.” 

“It’s pink.” You say.

“What?” She says in disbelief.

“Yeah, you know. Like your gem.” You take a couple bites of some pasta. It’s nice and zesty. She’s staring at you like you’ve grown another head. “What?” You say with a mouthful of food. “It’s always been my favorite. Dad used to get me everything in that color.” You think you see her cheeks redden, but you’re too busy eating to really notice. After a few moments, you hear a ringing noise coming from Spinel.

“Huh.” She says, and pulls her phone out of her pocket. You glance at the screen, and it’s Blue Diamond. Spinel stares at the screen for a few brief seconds, and swipes the call away. She pockets her phone again. “Yeah, I’m not in the mood to deal with that.”

“You think she’s calling about needing you over at Homeworld?” You ask her, poking at a few pieces of pineapple. She shakes her head.

“Probably.. maybe. I have no idea, actually. But I’m in a good mood and I don’t want her to ruin it.”

“Yeah.. that’s fair.” You chew your food thoughtfully, and stretch your legs out in front of you on the blanket. With the sun above you, and the food settling in your stomach, you honestly just want to lay down and take a nap. “I could call her back if you wanted, and like, I don’t know, tell her off?” You offer, and she laughs.

“I don’t think Blue would take it very well, especially coming from a human, and one she doesn’t know.”

“Offer still stands.” You say. “And besides. She's never met me, so."

"I think it's in your best interest to maybe steer clear from their bad side." 

"You don't think I could take on a couple of aliens!?" You say in mock offense.

"Do you have any special powers I don't know about?" She smirks, and uncaps the thermos. It looks like some sort of soup inside. 

"I have this uncanny ability to make people fall in love with me." You reply as she's taking in a mouthful of soup, and she nearly chokes on it, sputtering. 

"You have got to be the most ridiculous human I have ever met." She says while wiping her mouth, and sets the thermos down in front of her.

“I’d say the same to you, but I’ve spent enough time around Peridot.” At that she laughs super hard, and you grab the thermos and take a small sniff. It’s a homemade chicken soup with some vegetables, which is pretty safe by all means, so you take a sip. It’s probably the best you’ve tasted in a while, honestly. “You know, this is actually really good. Most of the people I know can’t even cook at a basic level like this. And they’re human and need to EAT to survive, which is pretty ironic,” You pause to take another sip. “That a gem is more wife material than most of the humans around here.” You kind of realize what you just said after it came out of your mouth, so you quickly shove some potato salad into your face to hide your embarrassment. You hope she didn’t pay too much attention to that bit at the end.

You chew your food nervously for a moment, before looking up to meet Spinel’s gaze. Her face is comically blank, like she forced any expression off it, and she’s staring in the general direction of your mouth.

“You’ve got something on your cheek.” She states, and points to the corner of your mouth. You wipe off your face, and give her another look. “It’s still there.” You wipe again and raise your eyebrow at her. “It’s, ugh, let me,” She says in frustration and leans right over into your personal space, swiping the corner of your mouth with her thumb. You feel your face heating up immediately, and mutter a thanks to her. She only leans back slightly, very much still in your personal space, and smirks at you.

“W- what?” You stammer, like a complete fool.

“Nuthin’. You’re just cute when you’re all flustered.” She replies, grinning at you.

“Cute!?” You all but yell in response, and give her a small shove to the side playfully. You guess you caught her completely off-balance, because you just managed to tip her over, and she’s howling in laughter much to your distress. You’re watching her fit of giggles die down as she’s holding her sides, half of her face pressed into the grass. 

Something deep down kind of clicks in place that you’ve been trying and failing to itch at for months now. Watching Spinel’s gem sparkle in the sunlight as she lays there, catching her breath, you think that maybe, it would be so easy to fall in love with her. And maybe you have already, just a little.

The two of you spend the next hour or so making various amounts of small talk with the occasional bout of teasing each other, before you agree that it was time to head home. 

The walk back is nice, and you find yourself cherishing your time with her quite a lot. You don’t really want it to end, but you do have to run a couple errands after this. You turn to Spinel walking beside you.

“Do you wanna hang out again soon?” You ask her. She looks a bit surprised that you asked again, but pleased nonetheless.

“I’d love to.” She smiles. “Do you want me to be the one who chooses what we do again?”

“No, let me choose this time.”

“Mmm, yeah, okay.” She bumps your shoulder with hers on purpose, her ponytail swinging lightly.

“Also, you should text me more. I’m going to spam you with pictures of Jellybean, and you’ve got to look at all of them. Otherwise, we’re not friends.” You bump her shoulder back, and she snorts.

“I think I’m getting the hang of human tech, so.. I’ll try my best.” She replies as the two of you pass by a couple of houses leading up to yours. “Today was fun, by the way. So.. thanks for spending time with me.” The both of you walk up to your front door, and you turn to face her.

“Don’t thank me. It was all my idea anyway, and you just went along with it. I’m just happy you agreed to try something new.” You say to her, reaching for your keys. 

“You’ll keep in touch, yeah?” She nervously fiddles with the hem of her shirt, not meeting your eyes.

“I’m gonna text you in twenty minutes. Count on it.” You move to unlock the door, struggling to get the key in the deadbolt. Once you wiggle it enough it unlocks pretty easily. You turn to say goodbye to Spinel, and you feel something soft and warm on your cheek. She pulls away so quickly you barely catch it.

“I’ll see ya soon!” She shouts, already at the end of your driveway, and keeps walking until you can no longer see her.

You stand there with your door open, completely frozen on your porch. You get your shit together after a few moments so the neighbors don’t stare, and head inside. You close the door and lean against it, unable to comprehend what just happened. You pull out your phone to text your friends.

Y/N: Can one of ya’ll bastards call life alert.

Chapter Text

You spend the rest of your evening doing exactly none of the errands that you needed to deal with today. Instead, you're laying on your couch and texting your friends.

Y/N: I'm so tornnnn.

Y/N: Do I say something about the cheek smooch? 

Y/N: Should I leave it be? 

Y/N: Because she's texting like nothing happened.

Y/N: What if I'm reading too much into it??

Y/N: What if that's just how she shows friendship affection???

Y/N: I might make it so fucking awkward if I assume something!

Y/N: This entire ordeal is mortifying!!! 

Y/N: I want nothing more than to dig a big hole and lie in it forever.

Y/N: I might be low-key having a panic attack about this rn but what's new.

Harper: Y/N. chill. you're way overreacting to this. 

Harper: even if it meant nothing, she still likes you as a friend right?

Harper: i think it would take a lot for her to like.. not wanna stay friends lol.

Alex: im just saying you could probably kiss her and she'd be ok with it

Alex: cheek kisses are pretty forward

Harper: don't listen to him. all of his relationships ended in failure.

Alex: wow

Alex: im seriously hurt 

Harper: am I wrong?

Alex: no..

Harper: my point exactly.

Harper: i’m not saying you have nothing to lose or anything.

Harper: because i myself had to tread very carefully with leah..

Harper: but i think you should just see where it goes and not like

Harper: put too much emphasis on this incase it was nothing.

Y/N: Yeah see now you have me worried it WAS nothing!!

Alex: oh my goooooooddddddddddddddd

Alex: the both of you approach women so.. pathetically

Alex: take a risk

Alex: live a little

Alex: what is seriously the worst that could happen

Alex: she kills you??

Alex: lmao

Alex: its funny cuz of.. you know

Harper: i can’t wait to be home and smothering him with a pillow instead of affection.

Y/N: You and me both.

Y/N: Try being the only one available to play games with him.

Alex: both of you fucking love me okay

Alex: alsooooooo i get to be home the day after tomorrow

Alex: the alex is back, babieeeeee

Y/N: Harper please come home I’m BEGGING you.

Harper: sorry you gotta deal with him alone for another month lmao.

Y/N: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Alex: can i get a fucking crumb of love here please

You swipe over to the couple of messages Spinel has left you in the past couple of minutes while you were talking to your friends.

Spinel: It’s another stupid ball, I just found out.

Spinel: I told her that I’m sitting this one out this time.

Spinel: She has so many others that would absolutely love to help her, and yet, still absolutely insists that I must be there.

Spinel: I don’t want to go back to homeworld right now, and not for this.

Y/N: And you put your foot down? Hell yeah, dude.

Y/N: Planning a ball for a bunch of gems sounds like a chore anyway.

Spinel: oh, it is, believe me.

Spinel: And they need everything to be PERFECT.

Spinel: Which isn’t realistic anymore now that they don’t expect any of the gems to stay in line with their gem class nowadays.

Spinel: The last ball they threw almost 4 months ago was utterly chaotic. 

Y/N: For thousands of years y'all as a race never pushed to deviate from the norm, and now that you guys are allowed to? I’d go batshit with it too.

Y/N: Being stifled in everyday life, and finally you’re free? 

Y/N: Fuck, I’d go around fusing with anyone!

Spinel: That is precisely what too many of them did.

Y/N: Lmao. I wish I could’ve seen that.

You tab back over to your group chat for a moment to see what they’re talking about.

Harper: see? they’re everywhere.

Harper: i wasn’t expecting the campsite to have so many.

Alex: you could have built an army and instead you took pictures

Alex: do you know how easy it is to lure chipmunks? 

Alex: oh that lil guy on the bottom right is so fucking chunky i love him

Harper: that’s the one that got the closest when i fed them. :3

Alex: oh i fuckin BET 

Alex: you dont get that chubby in the wild without takin a few risks

Alex: if u know what i mean ;)

Harper: i hate whatever you just implied.

Y/N: It’s not a conversation with Alex unless you roll your eyes at least 3 times.

Alex: hey i thought it was 4 times

Alex: dont insult me

Alex: anyway, y/n

Alex: are you workin the day i come back

Y/N: Yeah I’m actually scheduled a double.

Alex: scheduled

Y/N: Yes.

Alex: a double

Y/N: Yes.

Alex: he can’t SCHEDULE you a DOUBLE

Y/N: He can if he asks me ahead of time as a favor.

Alex: that fuckin bastard

Alex: always ruining my plans

Harper: you’re still mad at him for firing you last summer, huh.

Alex: OF COURSE I AM

Y/N: Bro you stole like $300 of cotton candy sugar that summer.

Y/N: It’s only fair.

Y/N: Besides, I’m only doing this because he said he’d give me a long weekend for it.

Alex: kay well

Alex: i guess i’ll just go bug you at work and wait for you to get off that day :'(

Y/N: Get me written up again, I swear to god. 

Your phone chimes several times, and you swipe down to see messages from both Spinel and Steven. You check Spinel's first.

Spinel: Do me a favor and ignore any messages Steven has sent you.

Y/N: What are you, my boss?

Spinel: I MEAN IT

You quickly switch over to Steven's texts.

Steven: I was going to ask you if your date with Spinel went okay, but I'm assuming it went fine considering she hasn't really stopped talking about you.

Ohhhh my god, this is wild. You reply to him.

Y/N: It wasn't a date as far as I know.

Y/N: I had fun. 

Y/N: She's telling me to not read your messages, lmao.

Y/N: Also what do you mean she hasn't stopped talking about me??

Steven: She’s been lying on my floor for the last hour basically gushing about you.

Steven: But you didn’t hear that from me!

Steven: :D

Y/N: Haha thanks, kid.

You switch back over to text Spinel, and get up off the couch to make yourself some tea. Pulling out your kettle, you turn the stove on and grab some raspberry flavored abomination tea bag that your dad loves more than any of the other good tea flavors.

Y/N: Sooooo.

Spinel: You talked to him, didn’t you.

Y/N: Hahaha noooo. :)

Spinel: The fuck did he say?

Y/N: Absolutely nothing.

Spinel: Seriously? I was sure he’d reveal something embarrassing.

Y/N: Nope! You should probably get off his floor eventually, though.

Your kettle goes off and you grab a clean mug, and pour the boiling water into it along with the tea packet. You look down at your phone, and grin.

Spinel: goddammit.

You let the bag steep for a little bit, and add in a small amount of sugar. Walking up to your bedroom you take a snap of Jellybean half lounging, half falling off the stairs and send it to Spinel. She replies with a couple heart emojis, and you wonder if Steven was the one to show her the proper use of them. You set your cup of tea down on your desk, and turn your computer on. It’s evening now, and it’s much too late to do anything left with the rest of your day productivity-wise, so you settle in on playing more minecraft. Your thoughts wander quite a bit, and you find yourself stuck on thinking about Spinel. Naturally. You wonder about a lot of things she’s learned while staying on earth, from things like - does she pay rent? Does she have a job? Does she know what taxes are? Does she know what a relationship with a human looks like? She said she watched a movie, but didn’t exactly elaborate. You don’t know what human-norms she’s been exposed to. You can’t even concentrate enough to mine any of this redstone for Alex, and you nearly die in-game when the thought of ‘does she know what sex is?’ pops into your mind. You grab your phone and shoot Spinel another message.

Y/N: Quick question.    

Y/N: If you don’t mind me asking.    

It takes her a few minutes to reply.

Spinel: Sure?

Y/N: Do you know how humans are made?

Spinel: w

Spinel: Yes?

Spinel: Steven told me about it a few weeks ago actually.

Spinel: Why are you asking?

Y/N: No reason! Just curious is all.   

Spinel: Hm.

Yeah you’re not too confident that she actually knows, and you’re too chickenshit to elaborate right now. You’ll enlighten her later. You spend the rest of the night browsing memes on your phone, and texting your friends and Spinel on occasion. Before you know it, your eyes drift close with your phone in hand.

You wake up when your alarm goes off for your morning shift, and curse at yourself for not charging it last night. It’s at a solid 32%, which isn’t really enough to go about your day, but you’ll have to make do. You get ready for a hopefully not shitty day, lock up the house, and head in to work.

It’s a complete shitshow when you come in, and you turn your phone off to save battery and concentrate on dealing with more than an average amount of tourists. You find Mr. Smiley sleeping in the breakroom/office/supply closet, and have half a mind to lock him in there from the outside for the rest of your shift. It’s pretty busy, and messy, and it isn’t until you’re there for several exhausting hours that you finally have enough time for a break. You turn your phone on, and instantly you’re flooded with messages from several different people. Ugh.

A couple from your dad - just checking in, really. Group chat too as usual, but none of it seems overly important. One from Spinel, and several from Steven. You open up Spinel’s message first.

Spinel: Do you think we could talk about a couple of things later?

Vague, and a little concerning. You text back an apology for getting back to her so late, and open the messages from Steven.

Steven: Hey are you busy?

Steven: I’m dealing with a bit of a situation right now, and could use your help.

Steven: Spinel locked herself in my bathroom, and she won’t come out.

Steven: She refuses to answer to anyone, and several of us have tried.

Steven: I’m just really worried about her, and you guys seemed to bond, so I was hoping..

Steven: That maybe you could come over?

Steven: Thanks regardless.

You check the timestamp, and that was over an hour ago. Jesus christ. 

Y/N: Steven I’m so sorry, my phone was off and I’m at work, give me a few and I’ll be right over, okay?

Y/N: I’ll be quick.

He replies almost immediately with a “please” and you pocket your phone. You try not to worry too hard about Spinel as you rush over to grab your things, and knock on Mr. Smiley’s office/broom closet door. He opens it groggily, clearly just waking up.

“Yeah?” he slowly blinks at you.

“I gotta leave early. Emergency.” You stare at him, trying to not be pissed at his lack of work ethic.

“Are you for real? You’ve got another 3 hours left.” He says and crosses his arms, and you glare at him.

“I’ve been working my ass off while you’ve been sleeping this whole time, AND I’m covering your ass tomorrow so you can go meet your old friend! So the LEAST you can do is let me go early when I have an emergency!!!” You almost yell out at him, and he holds his hands up in defense.

“Okay, okay! Fine. Only because you’re a good worker.” He says, and has the gall to look at least a little ashamed of himself.

“Damn right I am.” You spin around and head out of the building, practically running.

You almost trip and bite it several times on the way over to Steven’s place, but you’re more worried about Spinel. You’ve only been to his place twice, but once you’re there you run up the stairs and open the door without knocking. You’re greeted by the only two people in the living room, Pearl, and Steven.

“Oh, she’s here!” Pearl says and nudges Steven, who looks up from typing on his phone.

“Y/N! Thank god you’re here.” He says with furrowed eyebrows. 

“What happened?” You say and shut the door, and cross the room over to him. 

“I’m not sure! We were just working on something together for Amethyst, and she got a call from Blue and Yellow. She’s been ignoring them lately, and they’ve been bothering me in turn because of that, so I asked her to take the call just see what they want.” He runs his hand through his brown curls, and just for a moment, you see that 12 year old him in again. The obvious stress masks just how young he really is, and you feel bad that he can’t live life like a normal kid. “She went outside to take the call, and was out there for quite a while. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I did hear some yelling. And just when I was going over to make sure they were alright, she comes back in tears, eyes spiraling like months ago, and nearly knocks Pearl over rushing into the bathroom.”

“And nothing since?” You inquire, fidgeting with your hands.

“No,” He says, frustratedly. “I’ve been trying to reach the diamonds to see what this is all about, but I’ve only been getting the pearls. I don’t know what to do. She hasn’t been like this in months. What were they talking about to make her this upset?”

“Maybe I can find out. You said she’s in your bathroom?” You raise an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, the one right over here.” He says and points to it.

“Is it locked?” You ask.

“No,” Pearl glances towards the bathroom door and crosses her arms. “The lock has been broken on it for a while, since Peridot joined us actually. Both Garnet and I tried opening it, but I think once Spinel hears someone trying to come in she blocks the door.”

Hm.

“I’m gonna try something, but you guys are gonna wanna stay away.” You say to the two of them. “I don’t want to overwhelm her with more than one person.”

“Let us know if we can do anything?” Steven makes to pass by you and gives your arm a light squeeze. “And thanks for coming to help.”

“Anytime, dude.” You give him a half smile, and walk over to his bathroom. You turn to take a look back at the other two, and they’re already in the kitchen discussing something in soft tones. You move to knock at the door, make two light taps against the frame, and wait for an answer. 

A couple seconds pass, and nothing. Not even any movement. Nervously, you knock again, a little louder this time, and wait for a good ten seconds. 

Still nothing. 

You take a deep breath, reach out to grab the door handle, and very slowly and quietly open the bathroom door. You see nothing but absolute darkness, and step in. You feel around the wall to your right and flip a switch just as you close the door behind you with an audible click. The room instantly floods with the dark red light of the heat lamp, and before you can even think about finding another light source, you find yourself slammed up against the wall and let out a surprised yelp. You open your eyes to see Spinel’s face inches from yours, pupils wild, her hands splayed against your shoulders.

“U-um,” Your voice cracks a little. “Hey.”

You watch her eyes take a second to find yours, and almost instantly, she lets you go, arms trembling.

“W.. what are YOU DOING HERE!?” She cries, large tears pouring down her face, eyebrows raised in confusion, mouth trembling. Her hair is in loose pigtails, strands untamed around her face, cheeks stained with tear tracks. She looks like a mess, and your heart breaks, just a little. “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt y-”

“I’m fine.” You cut her off. “I should have said who it was outside the door, I’m sorry. And um.. Steven texted me while I was at work, and told me what was going on so I rushed over..” You trail off as you watch Spinel’s entire body shake, and she covers her face with both of her hands.

“I can’t believe I just did that.” You hear her wavering voice, muffled behind her fists, and she lets out a choked sob. “Maybe they were right. M-maybe I’m not meant to-” She quickly moves her hands down to look at the floor with wide, vulnerable eyes, and struggles to form the rest of her words. You hear her breathing pick up pace, and you’re starting to realize she’s hyperventilating. 

“Spinel, look at me.” Her eyes shoot up to yours, lips trembling. “I need you to breathe.” You do what your friends have always done with you, and gently grab both of her hands and hold them with yours, thumbs stroking her palms in slow circles. She freezes up instantly, and you’re about to panic, because while a familiar touch helps ground you, you register that maybe it’ll make it worse for her. But before you can pull your hands away, her hands relax ever so slightly, and she lets out a shaky breath. “Good. Just like that.” You motion for her to follow your breathing inverals, and she copies you, hands still shaking in yours.

It’s been a while since you’ve had to deal with something like this, but you’re thankful for having similar life experiences. After a solid minute or two of this her breathing is back to a normal pace, but she’s still crying, and now not meeting your eyes. Almost like she’s avoiding them.

“Look, I.. I don’t know what happened with you and the diamonds, but you can talk to me about it if you’d like. No pressure, though.” You give her hands a small squeeze, and she whimpers, looking up to meet your gaze. Tears are still actively streaming down her face, and you have no idea how to make any of this better. It physically hurts you to see her like this.

“C-can I not talk about it? I don’t think I’m ready..” She pulls a hand from yours, and wipes at her face. She just kind of smeared half of her face with wetness, and she looks miserable.

“You don’t have to talk about anything, Spinel.” You look at her, making sure she sees it in your eyes. You slowly let go of her other hand, and hold your arms out in a silent question instead. Her mouth opens slightly, the red glow of the light around her making her look extremely vulnerable and soft, and she looks at your open arms with a blank face for a moment before understanding. Almost instantaneously, she throws herself against you and wraps her arms around your shoulders, shoving her face into the cradle of your neck. You envelop your arms around her tightly, giving her sides a squeeze, and you feel her start to shake again. 

She lets out an unsteady sigh, and hiccups out another small sob. You pull her to lean fully against you as you stand there, bracing your back against the bathroom door. She lets you maneuver her, and you rest the side of your face against her temple while she cries. You resign yourself to letting her cry on you until she’s done, if she needs to. 

You feel her sniffle against your neck, and try not to mind that she’s getting your shirt soaked. You give her back a few gentle rubs, feeling her body quiver against yours as she’s trying to control her choked breathing. You’re not really counting the minutes, as right now you’re currently having way too many rampant thoughts about what the fuck the diamonds could’ve said to her. You’re mad as hell, honestly, and if you could say shit to them, you would in a heartbeat. You don’t want to make anything worse for her though, as much as you want to steal her phone and video call them to curse them out. It takes a few more minutes, but eventually her crying dies down, and you feel her breathing even out. Slowly, she dislodges her arms from twisting around you two, and you feel a sigh, her breath hot against your neck. You do your best to school your facial expression as you’re realize just how close you are to her, and she pulls her face from its resting position to look at you. She looks awful.

“U-um,” She lifts up her hand to attempt to wipe her face, failing to rub half the tears away. “I don’t really want to go out there yet..” 

“You don’t have to.” You say, quietly. “I can leave if you’d like some quiet to yourself.” Her face looks panicked for a second, and she grabs your wrist.

“Please don’t leave me.” She says, voice wavering again. You try not to let your heart shatter at her tone. 

“I won’t if you want me here.” You say, and sigh softly. “Here, hold on a second.” 

She lets your wrist go as you move slightly over to the sink, turn the hot water on, and grab a clean hand towel from the counter. You soak it in water, and squeeze out all the excess. Towel in hand, you turn back to her, and she’s looking at you cautiously. You lift the towel slightly, motioning to her face.

“May I?” You ask, and she nods slightly. 

Tenderly, you brush a couple strands of hair away from her face, grasp her chin with your left hand and pull her forward, gently pressing the towel to her cheek. She closes her eyes, and her shoulders sag a little as she lets you dab at her face, cleaning her of any tear stain marks. She sighs into your touch, and it strikes you that it would be so easy to just.. lean in and kiss her. 

Your brain almost short circuits and you snap your thoughts back to reality. There’s a time and place for everything. This is not the time, nor the place. 

Once you’re satisfied that she looks a lot better than before, you pull your hands away to toss the rag in the sink, and Spinel, for a brief moment, looks disappointed that you had stopped. Which.. kind of gives you an idea.

“Can I try something? Harper used to do this thing with me when I.. had similar breakdowns.” You ask her. She raises her eyebrow in response, clearly exhausted from crying so much. “Here.” You say, and take her hand and lead her over to the rim of the bathtub. You sit down on the edge, and motion for her to sit in front of you on the floor. She takes a seat in front of you, still confused, but obeys nonetheless. “Can I touch you?” You ask her, watching her face to make sure she’s alright. 

She looks up at you, the red light in the room flooding the entirety of her face, making her hair darker, and the whites of her eyes a bit more dramatic. 

“Yeah.” She says in reply, voice tired.

You reach out to her hair, and stop for a moment.

“Can I have you face the other direction, actually? Come over here.” You move to open your knees, making enough room for Spinel to turn around and lean against the bathtub. She’s close to you again.

“What are you..” She trails off as you start to take the hair ties out of her pigtails, one after the other. It takes a second, as it’s a bit tangled, but you manage to get both out, and let her hair fall down. You comb out her hair with your fingers, gently, and she sighs audibly while leaning into your touch. You run your short nails along her scalp, scratching and massaging as you smooth out her hair, attempting to pull all the tangles out.

“Touch used to calm me down, and Harper was really good at it, honestly.” You say while pulling out a particularly difficult tangle without hurting her. Her hair is long like this, and you like it. You wish you could grow your hair this long, but it’s kind of a pain to deal with, and the longest you’ve ever had yours wasn’t even to your mid back, you think to yourself. “Sometimes she’d give me shoulder and neck massages, but I preferred that she’d just play with my hair. There’s just something different about another person touching your hair.”

“I kind of get what you mean.” She says, tiredly.

“Can I braid your hair?” You lean closer to look at her face.

“Do what you want.” She says, looking fairly relaxed.

“Cool. Anyway, while Harper was good at that, Alex, on the other hand, was just terrible at any kind of physical comfort. He’s genuine, and he tries, but he’s an idiot. He’s a lot better at distractions, for the most part.” You run your fingers through her hair one more time, before starting to separate her hair into three parts for a french braid. “He’s funny, and comes from a large family, so he always has stories and jokes. Whenever I’d have a panic attack, those two were always so good about being there for me. I don’t know what I’d do without them.” 

You notice that Spinel‘s shoulders have lost most of the tension in them, and you’re secretly relieved. You keep talking to fill the quietness around you two, because you’ve always hated the quiet during moments like these. Your friends aren’t here, so it’s up to you to make up for it.

“It was kind of hard, at first though,” You say, and start looping the chunks of hair around your fingers, starting at the top of her head. “Because for a while there, back when I was 16 and dealing with the worst of my abandonment issues, I clung onto Harper like a baby koala. I had this super weird crush on her even though we had been friends since we were practically babies. I think I idolized her because she was just.. good to me.” You accidentally tug a little too hard on a strand of hair, wince and utter an apology while massaging the spot on her scalp. “I’m glad that didn’t ruin our friendship, but for a while there I really pushed my feelings onto her, which was kinda fucked up on my part.”

“Hm..” Spinel mumbles. “I kind of had a thing for Pink, I think. Which ended up screwing with me even more after what she did.” You stare at the back of her head and pause your hands for a second. Huh. Yeah, you had a hunch.

“If she were still alive, I’d punch her in the face for you, I hope you know.” You state, in full seriousness. This gets the first chuckle that you’ve heard from her today, and you’re secretly overjoyed. 

“I’d pay to watch that.” She says, and you laugh out loud. You see her smile, just barely. 

“So,” You continue, with both your hands and conversation. “A week or so after my 17th birthday, right after Harper talked to me about this guy at school that she liked, I confess to her. And not like a, ‘oh hey, you’re my best friend and I really like you’ kind of way, either. It was more like a, ‘have a mental breakdown over your best friend liking someone else and make them feel like shit about it on your walk home from school’ kind of confession.” Your hands reach the nape of her neck now, braid mostly done on her head, but you’ve got around another 20 inches of length before being finished.

“Harper avoided me for nearly a week after that. I was absolutely pathetic, and inconsolable. Alex was fed up with my shit after a few days, and nearly slapped me over it. He would’ve been in the right, doing so, honestly. I was a selfish asshole who only thought about her own feelings, and not about her best friends.” Your eyes drift to Spinel’s face, and her eyes are closed, eyebrows unfurrowed. 

“Anyway,” You’re nearly done with the entire braid now. “She did end up forgiving me. Thankfully. I don’t know what I’d do if it were my fault that I’d split up our friend group.” You pick up the discarded hair tie from earlier, and tie it around the end of the braid.

“I’m all done, by the way.” You say to her. She opens her eyes tentatively, and she looks sleepy. You stand up, and stretch your back. She also gets up on wobbly legs, and turns to look at you.

“Um.” She’s avoiding your eyes. “Thank you. For this.” She’s twisting her hands together, nervously. You lean your face closer to get at eye-level with her.

“Anytime.. and for the record, you look really cute in a braid.” You say and smile, giving her a cheeky wink. You watch her entire face from the neck up turn bright red, and think that you could probably do this forever, and never get tired. She gives you a noncommittal grunt, halfheartedly smacks your arm and you grin at her.

 You hear a quiet knock at the door, and look over to Spinel. She shrugs, so I guess it’s okay now.

 “You can come in!” You say to the door. It opens slowly, and you see Steven peek his head in.

“Um.. are we okay?” He asks, clearly very worried about her.

“I’ll be okay.” She says, and you think that maybe she should lay down and sleep. You verbalize this immediately.

“Spinel. I think you should go take a nap.” You look at her, and she blinks at you. “I’m serious.” 

“She’s kind of right.” Steven says in agreement with you. Spinel gives the both of you a shrug, and even that seems like it’s taking a lot out of her.

“Okay.” She says, and turns to walk out of the bathroom. Steven opens the door wider, and you can see Pearl in the kitchen leaning against the counter, trying to not seem like she’s intently watching all of you. 

Spinel makes her way over to the couch and takes a seat, sitting up rigidly. You walk over to her to make sure she’s okay before you leave for home.

“You know you can text me, right? And if you need me, I’ll be available. I’ll leave my volume turned on.” She gives you a nod. “Oh, and.. take this,” You say, and pull off the pullover hoodie you’re wearing right now, and hand it over to her. “Alex used to let me wear his oversized sweaters, and they used to help me sleep, so..” 

She tentatively reaches out, and takes it from your hands.

“Thanks.” She says, and gives you a small smile. With her hair pulled back like this she almost looks human, for a fleeting moment. You sometimes forget she’s a gem. You return the smile back at her, and turn around to leave. 

After grabbing your bag that you set down earlier from beside the couch, you head over to the front door and open it. Shouldering the bag, you start to shut the door and see Steven behind you. He closes the door behind him, his face searching yours for something you don’t quite know.

“I don’t know what you did, but thank you.” He says, completely genuine.

“You don’t have to thank me. I’d do it for you, too, you know.” You say to him, and he smiles. 

“That’s why I like you, Y/N. You’re sweet.”

“Yeahhhh, don’t tell anyone, though. You’ll ruin my reputation.” You smirk, giving him the side-eye. He laughs and pats your back.

“Ohhhhhh no! Whatever will you do!?” He rolls his eyes in jest. “Get home safe, okay?”

“No promises.” You reply, and jump down his steps, two at a time.  

It doesn’t take you long to get home, and you’re pretty tired yourself. You make yourself busy by preparing dinner, cleaning the kitchen a little, and calling your dad for another check-in. Before you know it, it’s nearly 11, and you need to sleep for your double shift tomorrow that you almost forgot about. You’re laying in bed browsing social media before drifting off, and you receive a text from Spinel. You swipe down and open the message.

Spinel: Thanks again for today.

Spinel: I baked some new cookies with Steven, and would like to give you some tomorrow if that’s okay?

You smile to yourself. Ughhhhhhhh, you’re catching the feelings disease, and you swat the air around you like it somehow physically manifested around you.

Y/N: I work literally all day, but feel free to stop by and give them to me.    

Y/N: Then I get to see a pretty familiar face to break up all the lame tourists.

Y/N: Cuz that sounds super nice. ;)

Spinel: I’ll see you tomorrow, then.

She didn’t react to your obvious teasing, but you won’t let that discourage you. You fall asleep thinking of the many different ways you can poke fun at her, and this time, you charge your phone.

You wake up the next morning feeling well-rested for once, and get ready for work. Alex has sent you a couple texts about when his flight will arrive, and when he’ll roughly come to meet you. Sometime around 4pm, apparently. You shoot Spinel a good morning text, and she replies almost instantly with the same, which makes you smile.

You head to work, texting your group chat about what happened yesterday with Spinel, and give them basically all the details. Alex makes fun of you for a bit, so you curse him out and pocket your phone as you clock in. Today’s going to suck, but you’ve got a few things to look forward to.

You make it a couple hours into your shift before you finally get a break, and Spinel texts you that she’ll drop by sometime in the afternoon once she’s done helping Bismuth with something. God you hope it’s not when Alex gets here, because you are so not fucking ready for that interaction. You eat your lunch and pray to any god out there that you could have one more day of peace.

You’re outside the main building repairing a couple parts on the carousel, ignoring the bulk of the tourists to focus on work. You don’t realize that quite a while has passed by, because someone walks up to you as you’ve got your head in a small door, and kicks you slightly on your ass. You jolt and bump your head against the opening, and you hear Alex burst out into laughter as you groan in pain.

God fucking dammit, this guy. You pull your head out to glare at him, screwdriver pointing at him threateningly.

“Do you want this up your ass? Because I can do that.” You say to him, and he laughs even harder. You roll your eyes at him.

“Don’t promise me with a good time, Y/N.” He says, and you stand up to smack him.

“I don’t think the pointy end would be a good time, idiot.” You deadpan stare at him. He grins.

“You don’t know what I’m into.” He shrugs, and flips his hair dramatically. You hate that he’s stupid and charming, and you love him so much.

 “I know I haven’t seen you in 2 months, but like, I feel like you’ve grown taller?” You stare at him, a little mournfully. You’re the shortest one out of your friends, and you’re of average height. He also seems.. handsomer. You think he definitely got a lot more tan. He’s definitely grown into his looks, his dark curly hair and recently shaved face making him look older than you’re used to.

“I don’t think I did, but I think you’ve grown shorter.” He laughs obnoxiously, and you smack his arm again, which makes him laugh harder.

“You’re so mean to me, like all the time. Why do I love you?” You cross your arms and pout, because you know it gets a rise out of him.

“Youuuuuuu knowww, because I’m just so loveable and gorgeous and the smartest one in the group??” He flutters his eyelashes at you like he thinks he’s cute. 

“Wow, you are none of these things.” You reply, smirking at him. He puts his hand over his heart in mock offense.

 “Y/N, I’m offended. I’ve been here for like, five minutes, and I’ve received absolutely no affection from you. If I don’t get love, I will wilt and die. Do you want to be responsible for my death?” He opens his arms wide, and you roll your eyes dramatically, and stand there.

“We’re not doing this in public.” You say, standing your ground.

 “Ohhh, YES we are, Y/N.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Prepare yourself for the onslaught.”

You take a couple steps back, prepared to run. He grabs your arms, wraps his around your torso, and picks you up, swinging you around.

“Nooooooooooooooooo!!” You cry. “Put me down you oaf!”

“No! I want love!” He all but shouts, and spins you around. He grabs your cheek with one hand and starts giving you big ‘ol smooches all over your face, and you’re giggling and trying to push him away, when you hear something drop and spill on the pavement a good twenty feet from you. You look up.

It’s Spinel.

Her face is twisted with heartbreak, and before you can even speak up, she bolts.

You look down, and see the cookies she made you scattered on the ground.

Chapter Text

Immediately you accidentally elbow Alex in the face as you try to get out of his grip, and he yells out in pain and drops you onto the ground.

"Wait! SPINEL!" You shout and run towards the direction she went, but you don’t see her anywhere. "SPINEL!!!" You shout again, eyes frantically roaming in every direction around for her, a couple of people stop to stare at you. She’s much faster than you, and could be leagues away by now.

You can't believe she would just run like that, without explanation. She was staring at you and Alex like.. did she seriously think that you and Alex.. oh god. She thought you were with Alex. 

Okay. You try not to panic as you stand there, awkwardly. You feel a hand on your shoulder.

"What the hell was that?" Alex says beside you. You can't speak for a moment, and when you do, your voice comes out hoarse.

"Er.. I think some horrible misunderstanding just happened." You say, defeated. You look up at him, and you're trying to not be visibly upset. He looks down at you, and makes a face.

"That was her? She could've said hi, sheesh.. she even left cookies here." He shrugs, looking at the spilled cookies on the ground.

"Dude. How are you so fucking stupid." You say, nearly about to smack him again. He gives you a confused look. "Are you shitting me? She came to give me those cookies in thanks for yesterday, and what does she see? You kissing all over my face." 

He still gives you a blank look.

"Ohhhh my god. You are such a fucking moron." You retort, staring at him for several solid seconds until a look of sudden realization hits his facial expressions.

“Oh. OHHHHHHHHHHHH.” He covers his mouth, and has the audacity to look mortified.

“Yeah.” You cross your arms. “Thanks for that.” 

“I uh.. man, I just wanted some Y/N love, I’m sorry. I just got so carried away.”

“I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m like, romantically involved with you.. Oh god what if she thinks I like men?” You cover your face in your hands, groaning into them. “I never told her that I liked just girls..”

“You told her about your crush on Harper though? What about that?” He raises his eyebrows in question.

“Yeah but I never told her about any of the other shit, and I haven’t exactly like.. given her any signals..”

“But you flirt with her all the time! And she flirts back! I know, because you’ve told me everything, multiple times.” He bends down and scoops up the container, and picks up the cookies and places them all back inside.

“Alex, I really hate to break this to you, but girls flirt with each other all the time. Most of the time, it’s over compliments, and sometimes it SEEMS genuine, but really, they’re just being nice.” You say. “Unless you’re super bold, with girls you basically have to be frank with them about your feelings and intentions for them to realize you’re serious. I myself prefer to kinda be sure that the other person likes me back, before I stick my neck out, you know? Because getting the ‘Oh, I thought we were just friends’ shit fucking hurts.”

“I’m pretty sure she likes you, dude.” He says to you like you’re an idiot.

“I’m not so sure about that.” You say, because you refuse to believe anything unless the cold hard facts are slapping you in the face.

“For someone so smart, how are you so stupid?” He sniffs one of the cookies, and looks like he’s contemplating taking a bite. You scoff. “You know what? Don’t answer that. It doesn’t matter. My point is, even I can tell she likes you.”

"Coming from you, that means nothing to me." He immediately looks up, completely offended. “What? I mean, seriously. Do I have to remind you of all of our middle school and high school years? That should explain itself.” 

“Okay when you put it that way, YEAH, I was stupid, but this is different. This is me absorbing someone ELSE’S love life, and even I’m not that much of a fool.” He sighs, and mournfully tosses the cookies into the bin closest to you. “I think you need to like, give her a call or something and explain yourself. She looked really upset.” 

“Yeah, I..” You pause for a second to pick your screwdriver back up. You don’t even want to work anymore. “You’re right. I’m just nervous.” 

“Just do it before you overthink it.” He replies.

“Ugh, okay.” You pull out your phone, swipe over to your contacts, and press the call button on Spinel’s name. Immediately, it goes to voicemail.

Of course.

You leave a voicemail for her to call you back as soon as she hears this, and you also shoot her a text.

“She’s not answering.” You say.

“Of course she’s not, I mean, I wouldn’t either. Give her a while and try again later, she probably just needs some time.” He says, and also pulls out his phone, typing something on it real quick. “Also, give me a minute, mom needs to call me about something for tomorrow.” He steps a couple feet away from you to take the call.

You stare at your phone, and for the first time in a long time, you really don’t know what to fucking do other than just stand there. What if she’s so upset, she never talks to you again? Will she give you a chance to hear you out? And are you ready to talk about your feelings with her? 

Lord.

You haven’t really thought about them too much yourself, if you’re going to be honest. You’ve been keeping this all super casual in your mind, because it feels irrational to grow feelings for someone this quickly, considering you’ve known her for less than 2 weeks. But.. you admit, the more you push the thoughts away, the more you understand that you might like her a lot more than you originally considered, and denying them will just cause you issues like that one time when you were 19.

You sigh out loud. Off to the side you can hear Alex arguing with his mother about some errands she wants him to run tomorrow, and for a brief moment you consider just going home, but then remember that not even Mr. Smiley can cover the rest of the shift. You have a good two hours left, you can survive, hopefully. You make yourself busy with fixing the part you were previously working on - but you’re having a hard time concentrating. After a couple minutes, Alex taps on the side of the wall, and you peek your head out to look at him.

“Look, I hate to do this to you right now, but mom wants me to go grab a few things from her office, and pick up an order from the print place before it closes.” He pushes his curly dark hair out of his eyes, half leaning on the wall next to you. “I can probably be back by the time you’re done with your shift.”

“Hmm.. alright.” You mumble, trying to keep your mind on more positive things. He leans closer to you, stretches out his arm, and pokes you on the cheek.

“Don’t hyperfocus on this. Shit will be fine, you just gotta give her some time to get back to you, okay hun?” He gives your cheek a little love smack and stands straight, heading out already. You watch him go.

“Super easy for you to say..” You say to yourself, and busy your hands.

Most of the rest of the shift passes quietly, and you receive no messages from anyone. You hate that you can’t do anything, not really, so you send Spinel another text. She still hasn’t seen the other one, and it’s been nearly two hours.

Y/N: Can we talk? Please.

You aren’t in the mood to text anyone else, so you put your phone back into your pocket, and start all of your closing duties. The next twenty minutes goes by in a heartbeat, the crowds of tourists long since dissipated. There isn’t a lot to do. Once you clock out and grab your things from the breakroom, you feel your phone vibrate so you pull it out quickly to see who it is. You try and fail not to feel disappointed that it’s just Alex.

Alex: she wrapped me up in some other shit so like, im runnin hella late

Alex: im sorry

Alex: its gonna be a while, ill let you know when im done and ill just come over to ur place

Alex: if thats ok

You type out a couple replies to him, and sigh out loud. It’s for the best really. You don’t exactly want him to talk to you about all this stuff right now anyway. You head out, lock up the place, and walk in the general direction of your home.

By the time you’re home and settled, Alex has given you an update, and it’s been nearly four hours since you saw Spinel with no response. You’re seriously starting to worry, because she’s never not replied to your messages like this. You go to send her another text, and realize that she still hasn’t opened any of your messages. You send her another inquiry, and pop up your chat with Steven.

Y/N: Steven.

Y/N: I need you to answer asap.

You see that he’s online, and you wait for an answer. It only takes him a minute or two to get back to you.

Steven: Hey Y/N, what’s up?

Y/N: Have you talked to Spinel in the last couple of hours?

Steven: Not since this morning, why?

Y/N: Can you call her just to check up on her? I’m worried about something.

Steven: Yeah hold on.

You wait for several long minutes for him to get back to you.

Steven: Her phone’s just going to voicemail, which is pretty weird. Maybe she accidentally let it die? I’ll let you know when she answers back.

Steven: Are you guys okay?

Y/N: Uhh, I’ll get back to you on that.

Steven: Hmm, okay. 

You go to lay on your couch face down, and scream into the cushions.

Apparently you fall asleep that way, because the next thing you know, you have to peel your drool covered face off the couch cushion. You blink away your sleep-heavy eyes, and blearily check your phone. It’s 5am.

The only message you’ve received is one from Alex saying he stopped by, but left since he saw you were sleeping. Okay wow, he could’ve woken you up into a better sleeping position. Your neck feels like shit. 

You’re trying to ignore the growing feeling of dread in your stomach, pointedly not thinking about how Spinel hasn’t texted you back yet, and how long it’s been. You grab a glass of water from the fridge, trudge up the stairs into your bedroom, and flop on your bed. You pass out again nearly instantly.

When you wake up again, the sun is glaring into your window, and you groan. You roll over and pull the covers over your head. Fuck the sun today. You grab your phone from your nightstand, and notice it’s almost 1pm, the fuck? Why the fuck did you sleep so long? You look at all your notifications, and pretend that you’re not looking for a specific one from someone. 

Spinel still hasn’t texted you back, and STILL hasn’t seen any of the messages you’ve sent her. You are starting to panic a little, so you shoot Steven a message.

Y/N: She hasn’t said anything to me at all, has she answered you?

You message your dad and friends back while waiting a few minutes for Steven to reply. It takes him a few minutes to get back to you while you're laying in bed.

Steven: Her phone is still off, and she hasn't replied to anything I've sent her. I'm gonna ask Lapis to check up on her since they live in the same building. I'll get back to you when I get an answer.

It's been like twenty hours since you've seen her, and you're worried. There's no point moping around though, so you get up and get dressed for the day. You make and eat breakfast, even if you don't normally. You need a distraction from your thoughts, so you give your dad a call to check up on him, and ask him when he's coming home this week. He talks to you about his long days in meetings after meetings, the silly shit he got up to with a coworker last night after drinking, and the new hobby he's thinking of picking up when he gets back home. You guys talk for a long while, and maybe it's something you really needed, because you momentarily forget about what you were so worried with in the first place, until your phone buzzes. It's ringing actually, and your phone screen lights up with Steven's name. You tell your dad you've got to go to take this other call, and answer Steven. You sit there, phone in hand for a moment, before putting it to your ear.

"Y/N?" You hear him ask, although a bit muffled.

"Yeah. Anything?" You reply, trying to keep the nervousness out of your voice.

"She's uh.. She's on homeworld with the Diamonds right now? Maybe they worked something out with whatever event they were planning." He says into the receiver, completely casual like this is no big deal. Like that answer didn't just shatter your morale.

"Hm, okay. I appreciate you telling me this." You want to hang up and cry. 

"Why didn't Spinel tell you she was going? I mean, she doesn't need to let me know since I go back to homeworld frequently.. are you guys okay?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhh." You say, unable to form an answer that isn't too revealing. "I'm not sure. But I'll let you know if anything changes."

"You know you can talk to me, right?" He says, gently. You appreciate that he cares, but it's best if he doesn't interfere.

"I know. Thank you, Steven." You reply, holding back any emotion that will give you away.

"I'll talk to you soon, okay? See you, Y/N." You say goodbye as well, and hang up.

You sit at your dining table for several solid minutes without moving, staring blankly at your phone, mind swirling with thoughts.

Okay. Alright. You can do this.

You refuse to cry, and you pinch your arm to get the prickling feeling away from the edges of your eyes. Fuck. Okay. 

So she just.. left. She left, when she was fighting with the Diamonds literally yesterday about something awful they said to her, so awful that she had an emotional breakdown over it, and couldn't even TALK about it with you afterwards. 

She left for homeworld to escape you. 

You, specifically.

Because of a misunderstanding.

You probably sit there for a good twenty minutes absorbing everything, weighing the gravity of the situation. Afterwards, you get up and distract yourself with chores. You refuse to put any more thought into this, and just figure you'll wait. 

At around 6pm, Alex comes over, and the two of you play Minecraft for the rest of the night, and he pointedly doesn't ask about Spinel at all. You're thankful that he's here in person, for once, because you don't know what kind of stupid shit you'd do without him here.

He spends the night and crashes on your couch, and you lay awake for most of the night, restless.

When you wake up, Alex has coffee and oatmeal ready for you, which is pretty funny because he never makes food. He's usually awful at it. He's sitting at the table sipping his coffee and drawing in his sketchbook, and he looks up when you make your presence known.

"Wow, you kinda look like shit my guy." He says, taking another sip of his coffee, and setting the mug down.

"Thanks. Had insomnia pretty bad last night.." You trail off and move to grab a mug from the cabinet and pour yourself some coffee. It's a black coffee only kind of day. 

You sit down on the opposite side from him, and slowly drink your coffee. It smells good. You're worried Spinel hates you and never wants to see you again. You pull the bowl of oatmeal towards you and take a bite of lukewarm mush.

"This is kind of awful but thanks." You say as you shovel more into your mouth, and consider adding more brown sugar to this.

"I ain't no Gordon Ramsay, but I try." He doesn't look at you as he shades the back leg of the deer he's sketching. You watch him bite his tongue in concentration, and you take another sip of coffee. It's kind of burnt tasting, but whatever. You've had worse. "What do you want to do today, anyway?" 

"Mmm." You eat another bite of oatmeal. "Can you please pick? Cuz I'm kinda braindead right now and I don't really feel like concentrating." He looks at you with mild concern.

"Last time I got to pick, you banned me from picking out what we do for a solid year." He furrows his eyebrows, twisting his pencil in hand.

"Yeah, well.. I don't really care right now." You shovel more food into your mouth.

"Fine. You said so, okayyyy, so no complaining later." He rolls his eyes and huffs, pencil scratching against the paper. Your phone buzzes several times on the table, and you reluctantly grab it. One message from dad, and.. two from Steven. You open up Steven’s messages first.

Steven: What did you do?

Steven: She doesn't want to come home.

Your stomach feels like lead. Alex notices you immediately.

"Uh. What's wrong?" He asks, leaning over. You tilt your phone away from him and you can feel the tears coming. You swallow, trying to get your face to cooperate.

“Um..” You feel your voice wavering, so you take a steadying breath. Looking down at your phone again, you struggle to form any kind of coherent words at all. You push your phone over to Alex, he reads what's on your screen, and looks back over to you with a serious face.

“For real? Are you kidding me?” He says, and you can hear the frustration in his voice. “I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind.”

“No,” The words finally find you. “Let me deal with this, please.” You give him a half hearted smile, and pull your phone back to yourself. With shaky hands, you text Steven back.

Y/N: Listen, I didn’t do anything, but..

Y/N: I’d prefer to get this sorted with her in person.

Y/N: I don’t want to play the messenger game

Y/N: I want her to hear it from me.

You don’t have to wait too long for his reply.

Steven: Okay well, I don’t know how well that’s going to work

Steven: Considering she refuses to talk to me about any of it

Steven: Let me know if you end up wanting me to do anything?

Steven: And I’ll message you if anything happens on my end.

Y/N: I appreciate that. Thanks.

You sigh and look up at Alex, who’s watching you with his chin in hand, leaning on the table.

“Anything?” He inquires.

“Nothing.” You say.

“Well, let me clean up the mess I made and let's go out. Mom let me have the car today, so we can go wherever. You said I can choose and no take-backsies, just give me a few minutes, alright?” He stands up and takes the both of your plates to the kitchen, and you watch him for a moment before deciding to get up and get dressed. 

You head up to your bedroom and open your closet, rummaging around for something cozy. You grab a soft long sleeve shirt, and sweatpants, because who gives a fuck honestly. You’re looking inbetween all your sweaters for your favorite one that you’d like to wear today, before realizing that Spinel still has it. Instantly, your eyes fill with tears at the reminder, and you let yourself cry quietly in frustration where no one can see you. 

After a few minutes, you wash your face in the bathroom and get dressed, settling for a different sweater. You take a couple deep breaths, and head downstairs to Alex.

You spend the rest of the day with Alex, and he takes the both of you to Empire City to browse the mall and window shop, and he buys the both of you dinner. You feel like he’s being extra sweet to make you feel better and you appreciate him so much for it, but Spinel’s on your mind literally all day and you can’t distract yourself enough. He gives you a big hug after dropping you off at home, and before leaving he makes sure that you’re okay. You’re not, not really, but he helped you not spiral further downwards today.

The next day you only work a half shift, so you get to sleep in and you take full advantage of it. It has now been three days since Spinel disappeared with no word since, and you’re beside yourself with worry. But you can’t let this stop you living your day to day life, so you do what you do best and keep on with your routine.

The fourth day goes quickly as you work a full shift, and you’ve got quite a few things to do before your dad gets home tomorrow. You’re excited to see him, as he’s been gone for nearly three weeks now. The house will be back to normal, and way less lonely.

Your dad comes home the fifth day and you spend the entirety of it with him, and you don’t think about Spinel at all. The both of you go to the movies, and then to the beach to have a relaxing afternoon as family bonding time. When you guys head home, you make him his favorite steak and potatoes and he talks about all of the things he had to do and how much he missed your company while he was gone. You think he notices that your mood has slightly been off today, but he doesn't ask about it.

The sixth day, Steven sends you a text about her still not being home, and you wonder why you even bothered opening the message. At this point you’re no longer despondent, you’re now just frustrated with the growing feeling of anger building inside you.

By the tenth day, you’re rightfully pissed. You gave her more than enough time to get over whatever feelings she felt - and she’s not taking any of your feelings into consideration. She left you to deal with the aftermath of what she assumed to be true, and never even gave you the chance to explain yourself. You haven’t sent her a text since that last one you sent over a week ago, and you think you’ll send her one more.

Y/N: Whenever (or IF, I guess) you decide to pop back in on earth, I’d like to have a chat. :)

Steven hasn’t said anything much in the last week, either. You kind of feel like he’s avoiding you because of this, but it doesn’t matter now. If she never wants to come back, that’s on her. 

Two more days go by - pretty uneventfully. You spend most of your time at work, or playing minecraft with Alex and the occasional Harper when she’s actually in a motel versus camping. The two of them haven’t asked about Spinel at all - and you know they’ve talked about it extensively in private. You’re secretly relieved that you don’t have to talk about her, though.

Two weeks pass, and you give up entirely. Life goes on.

One of these late afternoons you’re lying in bed after work and texting your friends, and for a moment you think about shooting Spinel a last message. You don’t think she’ll come back to earth at this point, but you want your sweater back if she ever visits. You swipe over to your chat with her to let her know this, and your eyes glance at the ‘seen’ icon at the bottom, timestamp dated nearly 36 hours ago.

Huh.

Wait. What the fuck.

You sit there for a moment, frozen in shock. Shock that quickly turns into boiling anger, and you find yourself texting Steven faster than you realize.

Y/N: So she comes back and you say nothing, yeah?

Y/N: Remind me to not do you any favors for a while.

Eyes stinging, you go back over to shoot Spinel an angry message, but before you can even type out half a sentence, Steven rapidly texts you back.

Steven: Hold on for a second, okay?

Steven: Let me explain something.

You don’t really care at this point.

Y/N: nah man.

You get up from bed, pocket your phone, and waltz downstairs. You put on a sweater, toe on the nearest flip flops, and head out the front door. Dad’s at work currently, so you lock the door and head over to little homeworld. You walk briskly over to the bar you met Spinel at, and after a small hold up with the bouncer, head in and move directly to the counter, facing Bismuth.

“Hey Bis,” You say to her, and she glances over to you from her current patron, and smiles at you.

“Y/N! It’s been a minute. How’ve you been?” She replies, facing you.

“I’ve been alright,” You lean a bit over the bar. “I actually just have a question, if you don’t mind.” Bismuth looks at you inquisitively, and you continue. “What’s Spinel’s address? She never gave it to me.” You smile sweetly at her.

“Hold on, let me get a pen and some paper.” She says as she sets down her glass, and grabs a pen and some receipt paper from the register. You watch her scribble something down, and she hands it to you.

“Bis, I ever tell you that you’re the best?” You take the piece of paper from her hand.

“Only once,” She grins. “But I could stand to hear it again.” You laugh at that, and pocket the note.

“Thanks for this. I’ll pay you back later, promise.” You wink at her, and turn to leave. You hear her chuckle and pick the glass back up from the counter.

“I’ll keep you to that!” You hear as you leave the building, pulling out the note again to glance at the address.

It’s over a mile away, and you figure now or never, and walk towards the general direction of her place. You try and fail on calming your nerves on the near 30 minute walk, and by the time you get to her apartment building, you’ve worked yourself up into a whirlwind of emotions. Also you’ve pointedly ignored your phone this entire time, and you’re pretty sure you’ve missed 5 calls and dozens of texts, but you knew that if you looked at any of it, you’d lose face and chicken out.

Spinel’s apartment is on the 9th floor, and you marvel at the technology side of the building for a bit. These gems really knew how to build stuff. You take the elevator up, and once you’re on the floor, you take a sharp left to the odd numbers side of the building. You reach her door and stop, almost touching the frame to knock on it. Although it’s pretty quiet in the building, you can hear a faint voice, or voices, coming from inside her apartment if you listen closely enough.

You take a deep breath, and let it out. You take another three, and consider leaving altogether. You steel your nerves, lift your arm, and knock on her door frame twice.

You think you hear the voice quiet down as you stand there, waiting. Several seconds go by, and you can hear your own heartbeats.

For a sec you think that she won’t come to the door, but after a few more moments you hear quiet movement towards the door you’re standing in front of. You make a point to step to the side, so whoever is answering the door can’t see who’s standing there through the peephole.

Very slowly, you see the door handle turn, and the door swinging open several inches. You watch Spinel peek her head out the door, her phone in her hand, and turn to make direct eye contact with you. She freezes instantaneously, like she expected it to be anyone else other than you standing there. 

Her hair is in a messy bun, and your eyes trail down to notice that she’s wearing your sweater. 

This pisses you off immediately.

Chapter Text

Before you realize what you’re doing, you brace your hand against her door in case she panics and tries to shut the door on you.

"Hey." You say, looking at her. Her mouth is slightly open, eyes wide. She struggles with her words for a moment before actually saying anything.

"...hey. Um-" You cut her off.

"We should talk." You stand there, determined. She opens and closes her mouth repeatedly like she can't seem to grasp what she wants to say.

"I'm not sure if-" She pauses, looking out towards a sound at the end of the hallway. You hear a figure coming this direction. She grabs your arm and pulls you into her apartment, and she shuts the door quickly.

You take a second to look around you. It's a pretty simple setup in here for a single person, and everything is clean and tidy. She has basic amenities, a small kitchen, a small living room, and what looks like a single bedroom off to the side. There's no decorations, and it feels.. not super lived in, aside from in front of the TV, and the couch. Your eyes meet hers, and she crosses her arms, looking off to the side awkwardly. You speak up first.

"So first off, it really feels fucking great, honestly, to have someone I care about just leave me to go off planet without a single word. Amazing, really. And it wouldn't have been so bad, but you ditched me for WEEKS without saying anything, leaving me to just.. EXIST, not knowing if I'd ever see you again? And the.. the worst part is," You trail off for a moment to get your emotions under control, and cough into your hand. "The worst part, was that you fucking CAME BACK DAYS AGO, haven't said SHIT to me, and you leave me on READ."

Spinel is staring at you, frozen on the spot. Her body looks rigid with tension, but you keep going.

"I just thought I meant maybe a little more to you than that! More than just someone to CONVENIENTLY lean on when you're having a rough time!" You take a breath and continue. "AND also, thanks for basically involving Steven in all of this, so now I have to do damage control with him! AND YOU’RE WEARING MY SWEATER." You let out a huff of breath, winded from all of your near shouting, and cross your arms.

Spinel isn't looking at you and she's shaking like a leaf, arms clutched at her sides, and you know you've just upset her. You feel the fight drain out of your body, realizing you shouldn’t have approached her with anger, and you reach out to her with your right hand. 

Before you can even touch her, she slaps your hand away and raises her eyes. You don't think you've ever seen her this angry, her face contorted with fury, eyebrows furrowed and mouth twisted with malice. She grins, and it doesn't reach her eyes.

"Ya know, I was planning on leaving back to Homeworld for real tomorrow, but maybe I'll go back a day sooner." She says, tightly. "My presence isn't exactly welcome here on Earth." 

"Don't even fucking start that shit with me right now." You spit out, angrily. 

"Don't start what? Me leaving? Why the fuck do you care? Because supposedly I just USE you anyway!" She all but shouts, her voice rising in volume. She's clutching the sweater around herself, fingers gripping the edges of the sleeves.

"I don't know! Maybe it's because you're my friend and I care about you!?" You think you see her eyes flicker with emotion, but you're upset all over again and your chest feels tight with turmoil. "You can't just leave again without telling me WHY." 

"I don't need to tell you anything." She coldly retorts, her eyes purposefully not meeting yours, frustration in her voice.

"Bullshit, you don't get to just show up into my life and leave without explanation." You feel your hands start to shake in agitation, and you ball them into fists to stop them from doing so.

"I don't need to explain anything to YOU!" She ends the last word with a shout, silence echoing around the apartment.

You stare at her angrily for a moment, ears ringing.

"Oh my god, you are so infuriating." You say at her, nearly about to lose your goddamn mind. This is absolutely ridiculous and not at all how you thought this would go.

"I'M infuriating!? ME? YOU'RE THE INFURIATING ONE." Her breathing is heavy and she's tense with fury, and she looks like she's about to snap.

"What the FUCK did I do to deserve any of this? What the hell did I do for you to leave and treat me like this!?" You spit out at her, feeling like she just punched you in the chest.

She unfurls her arms from around herself and starts pacing, clearly agitated. 

"You don't understand," She takes a few steps to the side, and then turns to face you. "Because you've been giving me really mixed signals this entire time, and, and.." Her eyes trail up to meet yours, and she's glaring. "I thought that, maybe.. MAYBE, somehow, I had a chance to.." She stops for a moment and takes a breath, and shakes her head, her loose hair falling around her face. "It doesn't even matter."

"What doesn't matter!? Spinel, you're literally giving me the run around, and I'm about to just take my sweater from you and leave. You clearly want nothing to do with me here." You say in frustration. She holds the jacket to herself, defiant look in her eyes. 

"You were with a man. You never told me you were with someone." She says, finally. She's looking down at the floor and not meeting your eyes again.

"Spinel." You say. 

She avoids your gaze completely and doesn't move.

"Spinel, look at me." She doesn't shift for several long seconds, and eventually looks up at you. She's still angry, but she also seems worried for some reason.

"What." She says, voice flat.

"That was Alex." You say, like this was obvious the entire time.

Almost like you can hear the record scratch, you watch Spinel stop, and her face goes completely blank for a solid five seconds before going through a series of emotions that you can't quite place. Her face settles on something neutral. 

"What." She says, blinking.

"You know, one of my best friends, Alex? That guy." She's still not looking you in the face.

"Yeah I know who he is. You've told me." She's nervously picking at the hem of your sweater, and you can basically see the gears turning. "I.. I thought he was still gone.. so he was back early?" She pauses for a second, and you see her quickly mask her jealous expression. "And why was he kissing your face!?"

"He's just affectionate like that. I don't really mind, everyone has their quirks." You reply.

"So you don't care when people kiss you on the face?" She looks at you, tone indignant.

"What? No, I mean yes, that's not the point though. Spinel.. why did you run?" It takes her several long seconds to reply.

“..I was scared.” She replies, voice quiet.

“Why? Was it something I did?” You ask, confused as all hell as to why she’d be scared.

“I uh..” She swallows thickly, clearly hesitant to talk. “No. You have been good to me since we’ve met. It’s just.. me.”

"You." You repeat back at her.

"Yeah." She pauses to take a long sigh. "I have issues handling rejection.. I've been working on it, but I reacted pretty badly that day, I admit. And then, well. The days that followed after, as well."

"Rejection? Wh.." You pause to squint at her. "What rejection? As far as I know, I've rejected nothing?"

She stares dumbly at you for so long, that you're starting to feel like an idiot just standing there.

"You're joking." She says, completely deadpan.

"No?" You reply very stupidly, and cross your arms.

"Oh my god.. you're for real right now. I can't believe it." The look in her eyes right now making you feel like a fool, and she shakes her head in disbelief. "I've passively made a move on you several times, and every single time you brush it off like it was nothing."

You open your mouth in shock.

"Like when!?" 

"Look, if ya didn't get it then, I'm not explaining it now." She sighs again in frustration. "It doesn't matter. Anyway, when I saw you there with him and he was touching you like that, it was like my body was on autopilot and my flight response took over. I honestly don’t remember the first few days, it flew by in a blur. Steven was the one who eventually got me to come back here, but.. I don’t know. I don’t know if earth is good for me.”

You’re staring at her. You’re an absolute moron.

“Spinel..” You say, and trail off for a moment, attempting to find the best way to form your words. “Did you ever think that maybe.. just maybe, you were wrong in your observations?”

“What?” 

“Like, seriously. You should’ve figured out by now that I’m just stupid when it comes to these things.” You feel your phone vibrate in your pocket several times and wish you could chuck it somewhere.

“What the fuck are ya on about?” She raises her eyebrows in confusion.

“Ughhhh, I’m really bad at this,” You sigh loudly, covering your face with your hands and groaning into them. You look up to see Spinel observing you intently. “Look, I-”

You are interrupted by loud, frantic knocking at the door, and the two of you nearly jump where you’re standing. You make eye contact with Spinel, silent question in mind. She shrugs like she’s not expecting company, and looks at the direction of the door before she makes her way over, you trailing behind her. You’re standing about a foot or two behind her, and you can see past her shoulders as she reaches for the doorknob.

You watch her open the door and there’s a fairly large gem standing behind it, and you see her try to peer into Spinel’s apartment. She locks eyes with you.

“Whatcha need, Morgan?” Spinel says in an exasperated voice. She’s clutching the door tightly, you notice.

“I heard quite a bit of shouting coming from here? Are you guys okay?" You hear the gem ask.

"It's fine, don't worry about it please." Spinel is trying to basically close the door on her neighbor, who has her arm against the door casually. The gem regards you for a moment, her gaze unreadable.

“Are you sure?” She asks Spinel.

“Yeah I’m fuckin positive.” Spinel replies, and not at all enthusiastic. 

"Well, let me know if there's any trouble alright? You know where to find me." The gem replies, and slaps the doorframe before walking away. Spinel closes her front door and flips the deadbolt for good measure. 

"..well, that was.. something." She leans against the door and sighs. “Morganite is super annoying. She’s also really nosy. I have a feeling she'll gossip about about a human being in my place to the others on this floor." 

"She was looking at me like I was suspicious." You say, feeling a bit miffed about it.

"I think she's just surprised I have anyone over. They all think I'm some hermit." She replies, and picks at the end of your sweater sleeve that she's wearing.

You're staring at her. It's quiet, whatever leftover tension there was before is gone now due to the interruption. Her arms are crossed again, and she seems uneasy. Several long lapses of silence fill the room before anyone speaks again.

"Do you..  do you really think that I'd take advantage of your kindness for my own comfort?" She says, not meeting your eyes. You've forgotten you even said that, and now ashamed you said it in the first place.

"...No," You say, and take a breath before continuing. "I'm sorry. Really, actually sorry. I didn't mean that at all, I was just so mad and everything just kind of flew out of my mouth and I said a couple of things I regret. You didn't deserve me saying that to you, and there's no truth to it. And I'm sorry for running over here so angrily, and taking it out on you immediately. It wasn't my brightest moment, and Alex will be pissed once he realizes what I did."

She's still leaning on the door, and she looks like she's contemplating something while biting her bottom lip.

"I'm.. sorry for the emotional ordeal I put you through. You didn't deserve a friend ghosting you. And.. I'm sorry for stealing your sweater," She says eventually. "I'll give it back." She actually moves to take it off right now, and you stop her.

“..You know what? You can keep it. It looks good on you, and I have plenty of alternatives.” She readjusts the sweater, and you notice her cheeks color a little bit.

“..are you sure?” She asks hesitantly.

“Positive.” You say, and regard her for a moment. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?” She raises her eyebrows in response. 

“Were you really gonna leave Earth, and not say anything to me?” You don’t want her to leave earth forever, but you don’t know how to ask her to stay, or if she even wants to.

“No,” She wrings her hands anxiously. “I was working up the nerve to call you, actually."

"What exactly were you gonna tell me?" You ask, curiously. "Because I feel like a phone call would have not worked out as intended."

"Er.." She's purposefully studying her hands and not you. "It isn't like I could've gone to your place to talk, I wasn't sure if you hated me by now. And, I don't know, I hadn't thought that far ahead yet. I was actually talking to Steven about it on the phone before you knocked.." She trails off for a second and is quiet for several moments before speaking again. "Listen.. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have just left like that without a word. I should've at least let Steven say something to you.”

“Hm.. yeah. Even a ‘she needs time and will be back eventually’ would’ve changed this entire scenario. But.. what’s done is done, and there’s no going back. I’m just glad you’re okay, and that you still want to be my friend?” You look over to her, and give her a small smile. You watch her eyes meet yours slowly, and you think you see her smile a little.

“Might have to try a little harder to get rid of me.” She says in jest, and you chuckle.

The both of you lapse back into another silence, but this time it isn’t tense. For a moment, you gather your thoughts, and realize you still have something bothering you. Something that she hasn’t answered yet. 

“Spinel.. why were you fighting with the Diamonds back then? You never told me.” You ask, bluntly. She gets this deer-in-headlight look, and freezes. 

“U-um..” She starts, and stops. She tries again, and you notice her start to shake a little. 

“If you’re not ready to talk, it’s okay. I can wait forever, even if you never wanted to talk about this.” You say, and almost regret asking her in the first place.

“No, I’m fine.” She pushes her fringe behind her ear, takes a shaky breath, and continues. “Steven said I need to be more honest, so I’m trying.” 

You walk a step closer to her, and she chews her bottom lip for a moment in consideration. You think you see her eyes flicker enough to feel like she’s mentally preparing herself for something.

“So.. back to that day, before you helped me with my breakdown.. the diamonds just really, really wanted my help with that stupid ball. I wasn’t exactly letting up on why I didn’t want to go to Homeworld, because it wasn’t their business. They got pretty upset with me, but I tried not to let them sway my decision.” She pauses for a moment to breathe, and continues.

“Yellow was actually pissed enough to hang up on me. But then, a few minutes later Blue called, and well.. she’s always been the one to care more about how I felt, and when she privately called me to ask what this was REALLY about, I opened up to her about meeting you.” She stops again, specifically staring at a certain spot on the floor to avoid your eyes in particular. 

Huh. You are almost about to say something, but she keeps going.

“Instead of being happy for me about making a friend like I thought, she gets upset about me choosing to spend my time elsewhere, and goes on and on about how short and insignificant human lives are! She basically told me that before I even know it, you’d be dead. And like, I know.. I know about your life spans already, especially compared to gems, but she didn’t have to say that so cruelly..”

You have no idea how to respond to any of this information as you feel your brain short-circuiting, and it wasn’t what you had thought at all. You can’t even comprehend all of this before your mind screeches to a halt as you see a tear roll down her face. Before you can do anything, she speaks again, wiping the tear away pretty quickly.

“Later that night while Steven baked cookies with me, making me feel better about all of that after my nap, he convinced me to have a heart-to-heart with Blue. It went okay. I talked about how much you make me laugh, and that you just knew how to deal with my hyperventilating. She seemed impressed, honestly.. and well, you know what happened after that the next day.” She finishes, and sighs deeply. “Now you know the whole story, actually.”

Yeah. 

You do know. 

You feel like shit for jumping to conclusions, and you wish you could take back every terrible thought you had about Spinel’s disappearance. She might’ve not handled everything well, but lord was she dealing with a lot. You don’t know if you’d be quite as resilient as her, if you were in her shoes. But she.. still came back, when staying in homeworld was the easiest option to her. You’re completely lost in your thoughts when she clears her throat awkwardly.

"I do want to apologise again for this. And uh.. I really appreciate you still wanting to be friends despite all of my recent issues."

"Spinel you don't need to apologise again, and for the record, I'd do it all over again if it meant we could still be friends." You slowly walk over to her couch and flop on it, and sigh loudly. "You know, I think all of this really took it out of me. I feel exhausted even though I haven't really done anything." She lingers by the door for a couple more seconds before also making her way to the couch, and she sits beside you. Her body language isn't uncomfortable, but it feels like she's.. waiting for something.

"I'll leave in a little bit, I don't want to intrude more than I have already. Just give me a few minutes to rest my feet?" You ask her politely. She raises her eyebrows.

"You're leaving? I mean.. you don't have to go. I don't care if you stay." She replies, and you can tell she's forcing herself to sound casual and not hopeful whatsoever.

"I can stay for a bit if you'd don't mind." You say, and watch her smile slightly, looking pleased. She's so cute that you don't know what to do with yourself. You're painfully aware of your feelings for her now, and every small thing she does sets your heart aflutter. 

"Please." She says, and reaches over to grab the tv remote on the small table in front of the two of you. 

"Do you even use this?" You ask her, watching her squint at the remote for the power button.

"Not really.. I've used it only a couple times, but I can never seem to remember how to use it." 

"Here." You motion for her to let you have the remote. She hands it over, and you're hyper aware of her fingers brushing against yours. 

This is going to drive you mad.

"Anything in particular?" You ask her, turning on the TV and immediately adjusting the volume lower so you can still hear her talk. You have a feeling the two of you won't be paying any attention to the TV regardless of what you choose.

"Cartoons." She says, and you can't help but snicker before covering your mouth with your hand. "What?" She says, looking at you in near offense.

"Nothing. I just wasn't expecting that I guess." You say, grinning and flipping through the channels before you settle on one. She looks like she wants to smack you, and you hold back another chuckle. You set the remote down on the 10 inch space between you and her.

"What were you expecting?" She asks, raising an eyebrow. 

"History channel. It's all about aliens right now, you know." You reply, and she gives you this deadpan look.

"Really." She says exasperatedly, but there's a hint of affection in her voice. It spurns you on. 

“It’s such a good channel.” You continue, watching some cartoon in front of you that you haven’t seen before. “They don’t even talk about history anymore aside from a couple of specials. They also have this stupid pawn shop show, which is utterly staged and atrocious, but my dad loves watching it, so by proxy, I’ve seen every single episode.” She’s not even pretending to be watching the tv, and for some reason this makes you nervous. You try to calm your heart, to no avail.

“I have no idea what a pawn shop is.” She states, fiddling with her fingers in her lap.

“It’s a shop where you go to sell your things to. You know, like if you don’t want your tv, or bicycle, or cell phone, they will buy it off of you if it’s in a sellable condition.” You explain to her, and she’s listening almost intently. “They don’t give you a whole lot of money for it, though. Most people only do it when they’re in a bind for cash.”

“Yeah but why a whole show for that? That sounds kind of boring.” She says, her face slightly confused. She scrunches her nose a little, and instantly your mind fills with affection for her, and you push it down. You have to forcefully tear your eyes from her to not seem suspicious.

“Um, see, the thing is with the show, it’s all mostly staged, so people only bring in pretty interesting items. Like ancient coins, religious texts, fucking weird cars, that kinda shit.” You explain to her and shrug.

“Religious texts?” She asks and raises her eyebrows, even more confused.

“I’m not even going to get into that, okay.” You laugh, the thought of talking to Spinel about mormonism absolutely hysterical.

“Hmm,” She regards you carefully. “I’ll make you talk to me about it some other time, then.”

“Yeah we’ll see about that.” You reply, and it’s quiet for another moment between you two, lull of the characters talking in the background. After a couple seconds the show transitions into a commercial break, and the TV blares with an obnoxious ad.

“Ugh,” She says, and the both of you reach for the tv remote at the same time, hands bumping into each other. Your face heats up near instantly.

"Ah, s-sorry," You pull your hand away quickly, and you briefly catch her eyes watching your hands before pulling her gaze away. She leans against the couch, and you can tell she’s mulling over something. You have no idea what.

You watch the now-quieter commercial for a couple of seconds - needing a distraction, because if you focus on anything else you feel like you’ll have a heart attack. Spinel sits beside you quietly, before speaking up after a little while.

“Thanks being cool and not letting any of that affect our friendship. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to talk normal, like this.” She says, staring into her lap, fixated on a loose piece of thread. You think you see her hands shaking, but she interlaces them together so you can’t tell. “This is kind of embarrassing, but uh.. I like what we have. It’s a different relationship than what I get with the other gems.”

You stare at her, completely flustered at her admittance. 

“Yeah, me too,” You profess, relieved to know that she feels the same way. Her eyes lock on to yours, and she’s looking at you with a fond expression, and you have no idea what to do with yourself.

You want to confess your feelings to her.

You don’t know how to - not without sounding like an idiot, and you sigh out loud. You really don’t want to do this right now, considering everything else that's already happened, but you should probably get this over with sooner rather than later to avoid any more miscommunication. Better to try and fail, then to never say anything at all, you guess. You mentally talk yourself up for a few seconds and you suck up your anxiety and hope for the best.

“Look, uh, I’ve been wanting to tell you something for a while now,” You start off with, and you watch her neutralize her facial expression. Oh god, this already isn’t going well. You’re fumbling with your words. “U-Um,” You try again, and stutter.

“Y/N, listen, you don’t have to.” Spinel says seriously, and you freeze. Instantly it feels like your veins fill with ice, and you stare at her carefully concealed expression.

How.. how did she know. 

How did she know you were gonna talk about your feelings.

“I.. I-I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to make things awkward-” You feel your knees lock up, and you want to bolt.

“It’s fine.” She says, and she’s torn her gaze from yours.

“But..” You stop, unable to continue as you feel a lump form in your throat. This isn’t good. You try to stand, but your legs aren’t moving and you feel like you’re on the verge of an anxiety attack.

“You don’t have to tell me you’re not interested, I get it. I can read body language.” She states plainly. “I appreciate you trying to let me down easy, though. It’s why our friendship is important to me.” She finishes, still not meeting your eyes.

Huh.

What the fuck.

“Wait a second, Spinel,” You say shakily, mouth moving faster than your mind can process anything right now.

“What,” She says, humorlessly. “I don’t know if I can talk about this with everything else that has happened today.” You stare at her, dumbly.

“Can you hold on for a second?” You try to gather your thoughts, mind reeling. She thinks you know something you clearly don’t. She thinks you just let her down? There wasn’t even an offer of anything! There has been no spoken feelings! She’s jumping to conclusions, and you’re exasperated with frustration at this. You refuse to have another misunderstanding between the two of you.

“Y/N, really. We can do this another day.” She says, and moves to get up. Your arm reaches out to grasp her wrist before you realize what you’re doing. She’s staring at you incredulously, and opens her mouth to say more, before you cut her off.

“Ilikeyou.” You blurt out before realizing, and your mind goes blank once again, but this time it’s literally filled with internal screaming. You can’t move.

The silence around the room is deafening, as the two of you stare dumbly at each other for what feels like an eternity.

“What.” She says.

“I like you.” You repeat at her, more for yourself than anything.

“..I like you too..?” She replies very slowly, ending the last word in a question. Her face is comically blank. You’re starting to grasp that she either doesn’t get what you’re trying to say, or is being purposefully obtuse.

“I mean, romantically.” You continue, bluntly. “I have for a while, actually.”

“Uh..” You watch her blank face stare at you uncomprehendingly for several seconds, before turning several shades of scarlet. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.. there wasn’t a good time for it.” Spinel is basically ceasing to function right before your eyes. “Are you okay?” She’s flustered from the neck up, and her entire body is stiff from shock. 

It’s so quiet in this room that you could hear a pin drop. Your heart is pounding, and you feel like you’re about to explode. She’s staring at you and isn’t moving.

“Spinel.” 

She doesn’t move, or reply.

“Fuck it.” You say, and lean in to press your lips against hers. 

As soon as you do this she freezes instantaneously, and you pull away immediately. You’re horrified for a moment, searching her face to find she’s got her mouth slightly open, eyes wide.

“I-I’m sorry, I thought maybe.. I-” 

Before you can finish, she cuts you off by grabbing your collar with both hands, and smashes her lips against yours.

It all happens so fast that you can’t process any of this, because the only thing that matters now is that.. she kissed you.

Spinel is kissing you.

You slowly pull your arms up to her face, and glenty grasp her face with both of your hands. You kiss her for a long moment, tenderly holding her face, before pulling away to look at her

"You know, this kind of ‘like’.” You say, almost sarcastically.

“Oh.” She replies, still surprised. 

“Oh?” You repeat back at her.

“Sorry. Uh. I’ve been wanting this for so long that I don’t really know what to do with myself.” You feel her hands trembling as she clutches onto you, her soft breath against your face, and she smells nice. 

Your heart is bursting with affection for her. She leans in to kiss you again, softly, at first. Her lips are warm as she opens her mouth slightly, lips sliding against yours, and you tilt your head to kiss her a little better.

You want to touch her. 

Slowly shifting your hands along her scalp, you grasp the band holding up her hair, and disentangle it from her head. Her lips never leave yours as you run your fingers through her long strands, and her mouth parts ever so slightly more against yours. She sighs against your mouth, and pulls away for a moment, her eyes slightly dazed.

“Why’d ya take my hair down?” She asks, and your heart jolts at the sight of her. Hair disheveled, lips wet, your sweater askew on her shoulders, slight blush on her cheeks making her look delicate.

“Sorry.. I just love your hair. You look really pretty with it like this.” You say to her, and you watch as her face lights up like a cherry. "I mean, you're pretty in general. Not to say just right now."

“Uggggghhhhhhh, you can’t just say that.” She says, completely flustered.

“Why not?” You say, and grin cheekily at her. 

"Because! Because it's too much all at once." She replies, brushing some of her hair over her shoulder, seemingly trying to act way more casual than she is. It's so endearing, watching her react to all of this.

"Sorry, I'll let up a bit on the flirting," You have absolutely no intention of doing so regardless of what she says.

"Hhhhuuuuuuddnavhfto." You hear her mumble from the side, pointedly not meeting your eyes.

"What was that?" You raise your eyebrows in question. You think you know what she said, but you're gonna prod anyway.

"Hmm." She replies.

"Spinel.." You lean closer to her face, and she leans farther away in embarrassment. You watch the pink in her cheeks spread further down her neck, and you want to kiss her again. You clear your throat.

"You don't have to." She says. 

"Oh?" You mock her with your innocent tone. "You like it when I openly flirt with you?" She gives you a slightly scandalized, embarrassed look.

"You're insufferable, you know that right?" You can tell she doesn't mean that at all.

"Yeah but I'm pretty sure you're into that?” She smacks you a little, and you giggle.

“I don’t need to admit anything.” She says, and you laugh a little harder. She reaches out to grab your hand, and you look down to where she’s entwined your fingers with hers.

“..is this okay?” You ask her, wanting to make sure she’s comfortable with any of this. 

"Yeah?" She says, almost like you’re an idiot. You raise an eyebrow.

“Have you even done any of this before?” You ask her, except you know the answer.

“Nope!” She says it with such bluntness that you almost laugh. She’s so goddamn cute. “Have you?”

“Hm,” You reply, “A few times. Never with anyone I’ve actually liked, though.” She squeezes your hand.

“I’m kind of jealous, to be honest.” She says offhandedly, and you look to her.

“That I’ve done stuff? It wasn’t all that great, actually..” You trail off, really trying to forget about that last experience you had.

“No, that other people have done this with you.” You try to fight down a blush as she watches your face.

“Listen,” You give her hand a squeeze this time. “None of those people ever mattered. Besides, you’ve been the only person to ever give me consistent heart palpitations. I mean, aside from Alex, but that’s just because he scares me shitless constantly.”

“Can you not bring up Alex right now.” She says, with slight disdain.

“Why, are you jealous of him too?” You lean a little closer to her, and smirk.

“No.” She pulls her hand away from yours to cross her arms. She’s pouting. Wow.

“Spinel, you have nothing to worry about with him..” You watch her eyebrows furrow. “Seriously. I don’t even like men.” She glances up to meet your eyes. “And besides, even if I did, come on, really? Alex? I have much better taste than that.” And with that, she laughs out loud. “He’s like a brother to me.” She’s still laughing, and you wait a few seconds for her to catch her breath.

“Yeah, okay. That’s basically Steven for me.” She replies, and takes a deep breath to steady herself.

She makes a point to slip her hand back into yours, and before you can make a comment on it, she leans back into your personal space, tilts your chin up with her other hand, and she kisses you again. You feel her hand glide up your arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps as she pushes your sweater sleeve up to feel your skin. You exhale, feeling your heart rate pick back up, and you let her press her mouth a little harder against yours.

She rubs her thumb along the inside of your wrist in small circles and leans even closer into your space, and you can feel the heat radiating off of her. She bites your bottom lip, and she hesitates for a moment - you think she’s going to pull away, when she slips her tongue in, and you gasp into her mouth. She pulls away abruptly, her chest rising and falling with her rapid breathing.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry, did I mess that up?” She looks slightly panicked, the flush of her face and the wet of her lips making her look absolutely devourable. 

“Uhh, what?” You slow blink at her. “How did you know about that?” She blushes, looking away from you.

“I uh.. maybe.. did a teensy bit of research?” She says, nervously rubbing the skin of your wrist.

“Research.” 

“Yep.”

“On kissing.”

“..uh huh.”

“Why?” You ask purely out of curiosity at this point. Also you’re having fun watching her avoid the subject.

“No reason..” She replies, trailing off, and still not looking at you.

“No reason! You just, what. Googled kissing? Asked Amethyst? Steven?” She makes a strained face, and sighs loudly.

“Auuuuughh, it was for you, Okay! I got curious and used the internet, because like hell I was going to ask STEVEN. He knows about my feelings for you and would’ve made fun of me relentlessly.” She lets out a long breath after finishing. You’re speechless.

She had to have done this before.. all of that other stuff happened. Once realizing this, you feel your face slowly start to smile. She watches you carefully for a moment.

“I seriously hate how smug you look right now.” She states in faux irritation.

“Why? Because for once I- mmph.” She cuts you off with the press of her mouth against yours, and you pull away to keep talking. “Listen, you can’t keep shutting me up with kisses.”

“You don’t seem to mind so much, and besides, I’m really feeling like you’re picking on me too much here.” She huffs, rolling her eyes. There’s something about her body language that’s telling you that she’s arguing for argument’s sake, and not miffed in the slightest.

“I want you to know that I’ll never let up on teasing you, first of all, so jot that down. Secondly, you can’t use my weaknesses against me. That’s foul play.” You say, and watch her break out into a grin.

“We never agreed upon any rules, and you’ve done nothing but embarrass me and make me squirm today. I feel like it should be your turn now.” With her eyes on yours, you see her left eyebrow raise, and a shit-eating grin take over the rest of her face.

Your heart starts to beat faster as you feel her hand move to touch your thigh, and you can feel the warmth of her palm through your jeans. Things are.. starting to feel a tad more intimate, and you swallow your nerves down. You glance down to her hand for a second, and when you look back up, she’s just an inch from your face. 

This time when she kisses you she grabs you by the hips with both of her hands, and with the easy strength only a gem possesses, she lifts you onto her lap. She rests her hands on your waist, looking smug, and you’re starting to feel a little.. cheated. Two can play at this game, but.. you’ll bide your time. She sighs into the kiss, and you let her lead for a while. She’s eager to touch you - her hands are roaming ever so slightly, from your waist to your hips, but you can tell she’s kind of hesitant. 

You tilt your head so she has better access to your mouth - the sensual wet slide of her lips on yours has your stomach tying itself into knots. She eases her mouth open a little more, and you take this opportunity to slip in your tongue. You feel her exhale out her nose, her hands clutching your waist, fingers starting to dig in to your sides in anticipation. She either did quite a lot of research or happens to be a quick learner, because you find yourself struggling to lead. You feel one of the hands on your waist move to the back of your head, and she combs her fingers through the hair at the nape of your neck. She holds you close - her tongue gliding against yours, and you have to force yourself to suppress a whimper.

Since you’re the one sitting in her lap, thigh on each side of her legs, you feel you have a certain advantage. A height one, specifically. You’re only a few inches above her, but you can see the expanse of her collarbones and her neck, and you get an idea.

You pull your lips away from hers - she grunts in annoyance, and you kiss her on the cheek; once, twice, before trailing them downwards towards her jawline, stopping to kiss there too, and down to her neck. You experimentally give her neck a small kiss, right under the corner of her jaw, and you hear her breath hitch in response. Both of her hands are on your hips again, and you feel her nails digging in as you swirl your tongue on the bit of skin you just kissed, and you bite down, just a tiny bit. You hear her let out a quiet moan, and you pull away to stare at her face.

“U-um,” her voice wavers, and she’s so embarrassed that every inch of skin you see is flushed red. You want to kiss all of her. You raise your eyebrow, and feel yourself smirking.

“What was that?” You ask in jest.

“..nothing..” She says, not meeting your eyes. You try not to make any more fun of her, even though she’s so endearing like this. You clear your throat.

“You’d tell me if you were uncomfortable, right?” She quickly turns her head to meet your gaze.

“We’ve discussed this, and I’m fine. You can literally do whatever you want.” She replies, completely casually. Your brain feels deep-fried as you try to fully comprehend what she just said, and you can feel your face heating up as you attempt to form your words.

“You.. you can’t just say something like that to people.” 

”..but I’m saying this to you, specifically. Like.. I want this.” She tears her eyes away from yours, and she’s still blushing enough to light up a city block. You’re rendered speechless again for a minute while you regain your composure. 

She wants this.

..and lord, so do you. More than anything.

”Do you even like.. know.. how any of this works..” You ask her once you find your voice again.

”I kind of have a vague idea.. but no, not really.” She replies, and you stare at her. Okay, you had a feeling she didn't know, but like..

"Wait a second. Didn't I ask you if you knew what sex was and you told me Steven told you?"

"..about that." She laughs nervously. "I uh.. I lied!" 

"You lied." You repeat, deadpan. "Why lie? I wouldn't have assumed you knew, or made fun of you."

"I didn't want to seem like a complete fool to you." She says, and your heart hurts from how much you like her.

"You're dumb for thinking I'd judge you for that. Besides, it's a human thing. Not a gem thing, as far as I know." You run a hand through your hair, and exhale a slow breath. "Just.. let me know if you hate any of this, alright?"

"Oh, I'm sure I won't, I've liked everything so far. I trust you." She says, and grins a little. 

She's going to be the cause of a heart attack.

"You know what? Fine." You say, and lean in to kiss her some more.

You feel her smile into the kiss, and wonder why, until you feel her hands trail down your back to grab your ass. You sigh into the kiss in exasperation, and you can feel her smile turn into a smirk again. You were going to take this a bit slower, but now your goal is to wipe that look off her face.

You move to the other side of her neck, and trail a couple of kisses along it, feeling her breath hike. You open your mouth to scrape your teeth against her warm flesh, and you feel her body stiffen in anticipation.

"..h-hey, wai-"

You don't wait, and you suck down on a spot you deem decent enough to form a hickey.

"A-ah.." Her voice cracks a little and you pop your mouth away from the spot, surveying your work. 

You want to leave many more, but you guys have time for that some other day, hopefully.

"I'm a little proud of myself." You say, and you see her shift her eyes down to her neck, suspicious. "You can't see it from that angle."

"What did you do?" She squints, still trying to look for whatever your talking about.

"Nothing. It's a surprise for later." You say, and grin cheekily. She glares a little at you.

"I feel like I shouldn't be so trusting with this."

"What! How could you say that?" You reply in mock offense, putting your hand over your heart. She gives you a deadpan stare, and you laugh.

"Okay, enough of this." She moves to grab you by the hands, but you quickly push her into the couch backrest by her shoulders.

"Oh, no. No you don't." 

"Wha-" She stares at you, comically startled, and baulks.

"I'm in control here." You watch her facial expression rise to your bait.

"This isn't how this is going to work. I'm the one who-" You adjust your legs slightly to pivot yourself, and with your hands still on her shoulders, you push her down onto the couch, and her head hits the armrest.

You look down at her and your heart rapidly picks up pace. Spinel's mouth is slightly open in surprise - she's blushing harder than a tomato, and she looks nearly lovestruck staring at you right now. The zip-up hoodie that you gave to her is splayed open - the tank top underneath it riding up a little, and an inch or two of the peak of her gem is visible above the hem.

Your heart is beating so hard and fast that you feel almost faint, but the look in her eyes has you reconsidering how you feel about her. 

And you feel like you have just maybe fallen a little more in love with her. You store that thought to analyze at a later time, because you have much more important things to do right now. You know. Like the person beneath you.

You kiss her gently before she can say or try anything, and you leave your hand on her hip, feeling an inch of warm bare skin where her tank top is riding up. You slip your fingers underneath the fabric, dragging your hand up slowly past her stomach, and swallow your anxiety as you place a hand on her breast. She pulls an inch away from your lips almost as if to say something, but as soon as you swipe your thumb over her nipple, you feel a soft gasp against your lips instead. 

Honestly you’re kind of surprised she’s not wearing a bra, but then you have to stop and think for a second. Gems don’t give a shit about human norms. Also, you’re kind of wondering why she has nipples in the first place, but you’re not going to question it. If Steven’s dad didn’t, then neither will you.

You’re brought back into the present by Spinel kissing you again, and with tongue. You experimentally pinch her nipple between your thumb and forefinger, and you feel her fingers digging into your thigh. She’s super into this, and it’s definitely a turn on, making you flustered as well by proxy. 

You move to lift her shirt up - exposing her chest entirely, and you marvel at the view for a second. Seeing her like this, in your sweater.. her heart-shaped gem standing out in between her breasts.. makes your heart jump into your throat. You’re feeling a lot more determined now, and you lean down past her face, and scoot down a couple of inches.

“What are you..” She says, suspiciously.

You leave a couple of kisses down her chest, and take a nipple into your mouth, her hands shooting up to your shoulders as you swirl your tongue around the area.

“Ahh..” She puts a hand over her mouth to stifle herself, which in turn makes you want to try harder to pull more out of her. You flick your tongue against her nipple, grazing it slightly with your teeth, and you can feel her legs twitch underneath you. You keep at this for a few moments, her noises getting slightly louder, and you’re getting annoyed that she’s smothering her moans. You pull away for a second, still feeling the warmth of her skin on your face.

“Look, you don’t need to refrain from uh.. any of this, you know. It’s just us here.” You say, and move one of your legs off of her and onto the floor to gain some balance. “Like I’d actually prefer to hear you, because it helps me know that I’m doing this right.” You lie, like a liar, because you just want to hear her. You wish you could record the sounds she’s making and store it somewhere forever. With your other knee, you part her still-clothed legs and lean back fully into her space. 

You like being in between her parted thighs. It makes you feel.. powerful. You can’t believe that a year ago, this gem was trying to destroy the planet, and now she’s.. lying beneath you. Like this.

She looks down, considers you in your position for a moment, and bites her lip nervously.

“I feel kind of exposed here.”

“Good.” You say, and wink at her. She blushes, looking almost.. small under you, and you lock her lips with yours. She grabs into your waist immediately, and you just gently touch her sides as she relaxes into your hands.

You let her get used to your touch, and your hand wanders down to her outer thigh, where you rest it for a moment before rubbing your thumb in steady circles against the fabric. You feel her fingers tremble against your sides as she sighs into your mouth, and you think she has no idea about what you’re going to do.

You trace her hip with a ghost of a touch, and trail your palm to the front of her pants. With dexterity you didn't even knew you possessed, you unbutton the three clasps with one hand.

You pull away to study her face to make sure she's alright, and her eyes are filled with arousal. 

"Is thi-" She silences you with a finger.

"Don't even ask what I think you're going to ask." She says with enough vague irritation, that you feel like you should've given her zero warning instead.

You slip your hand in between her parted legs, and her eyes shoot up to latch onto yours. You slip a single finger inside her.

And, well. No one else you had ever been with had been this wet before.

You pause, feeling her body heat against your palm. She looks like she wants to say something, but as soon as you move your finger slightly, she moans instead.

She moves to put her hand over her mouth, and with your other hand, you grab her wrist to stop her. She’s watching you with heavily-lidded eyes, and you push the rest of your finger inside her. She tenses her legs on either side of your hips, and you probably should’ve taken her clothes off, or at least her pants, because your wrist is going to hurt later. You don’t really care right now, though.

You carefully watch her face while you slide the one finger in and out of her slowly, and she’s honestly aroused enough to take another finger almost immediately. And since no lubrication is needed, you go ahead and add another finger to the steady thrust of your hand.

This time, she moans openly, and it’s an attractive sound.

You keep this up for a little while before getting a little more serious about it, and quicken the pace of your fingers. She’s breathing heavier, and making slight whimpers every time you fully slide your fingers in her. You lean in to kiss her once more - you can’t help yourself. She’s eagerly kissing you and lifts one of her hands to the base of your skull, pressing her mouth further onto yours, the wet glide of her lips doing things to you that you didn’t think possible.

You pull away momentarily to breathe.

She’s meeting the thrust of your hand with the snap of her hips, and you’re completely mesmerized by the image in front of you. Half of her face is pressed into the couch cushion - her brows are furrowed with half-lidded eyes, hair wild around her head, and the heave of her chest as she’s moaning openly, and loudly. She looks positively lewd. You make a conscious effort to curl your fingers inside her, hearing her moaning turning into whimpers as she puts a hand over her mouth in an attempt to silence herself. You let her, because you’re determined to make her not care about how loud she is regardless. After another couple of thrusts, your fingers slick with her warmth, you add in a third finger, curling that one upwards as well. This causes her eyes to open and meet yours, her mouth agape in a silent cry - her other hand shooting to your hip to hold on to something. She wraps her legs around your waist, and crosses her ankles in order to keep you in place.

You lean down to kiss her neck, teeth scraping against her jugular, and run your tongue along her pulse, where you can feel her heartbeat thrumming against your lips. You feel her wrap her arms around you - her nails lightly scraping against your back, the whine in the back of her throat increasing in volume as she moans, breath hot against your ear.

“You know,” You say, pulling your lips away from the reddening skin on her neck, your fingers slowing into a deeper rhythm. She’s trembling so much it’s like she can barely contain her form. “Seeing you like this.. makes me wish we did this a lot sooner.” You move to swipe your thumb over the bundle of nerves above where the rest of your fingers are currently moving inside of her, her moans filling the room around you. You fucking hope they made the walls thick enough so her neighbors aren’t hearing this. 

“Yeah?” Her words are coming out all breathy, she’s unable to contain her voice into being even remotely steady. “Ya think I’d do this on that first night we met?” She turns her face to yours, pupils blown wide and your noses are touching, her open lips barely grazing yours. She has the loveliest flush on her cheeks, and you find yourself completely and utterly enamored with her.

“Well, no,” You say, and smirk at her. “But I do have my charms and I’m fairly confident that I could’ve-” She cuts you off with a kiss, her wet lips colliding onto yours as she grabs the back of your head, grasping the hair at the base of your scalp. She moans into your mouth, and lifts her hips on quivering legs to pin her body closer to yours. You feel her gem between the two of you against your sternum, and the press of her naked breasts against yours. She bites your bottom lip as you drive your fingers slowly into her, your thumb still rotating in circles, and you can tell by the trembling of her body that you're driving her mad.

You pull your lips away from hers with a wet smack, and watch her as she quivers beneath you.

"I like watching you like this." You say to her, purposefully going a tad too slow. You press her back down onto the couch.

"If you keep sayin stuff like that, I'm gonna combust." She replies, nearly out of breath. You've never been more aroused in your life. 

She’s nearly writhing against you, moans turning downright filthy close up to your ear. You feel like you’re going insane with desire as she spreads her legs further apart, her body pulsating on your fingers. There’s something to say about watching someone tense in desperation, feeling her muscles strain as her legs are nearly vibrating against your hips, and she’s thrusting against your fingers once again. 

You can tell she's getting close. It almost seems like you got her to this point too quickly, but you had been touching and teasing her heavily before this for quite some time. You continue to mainly focus on your thumb, the jerk of her legs squeezing around your thighs - and you watch her face as she moans - pressing the side of her face into the couch, hair a mess - and she notices you watching her. The two of you lock eyes for several long moments as you slide your other three fingers faster inside her, before you get an urge to do something you've been wanting to do this entire time.

Without breaking eye contact, you lean down to her chest and kiss her gem, right in the middle.

Her eyes widen in surprise, and with a high pitched whine at the back of her throat turning into a louder moan, Spinel slaps a hand over her mouth as she comes, other fist coming up to your head as she grasps your hair. Her entire body is convulsing with tremors as she wraps all her limbs around you, unable to let go. She's shaking for a long minute before you finally feel her body relax enough, and she drops her head against the armrest, breathing heavily.

You watch her chest rise and fall with every breath, facets of her heart shaped gem sparkling in the light.

After a few moments, she opens her eyes, and looks at you above her.

“What was that?” She asks, plainly. You almost laugh.

“An orgasm.” You reply, and you watch her face as it looks like something clicks in place.

“Oh. That makes sense. My limbs feel like jelly.” She sits up shakily, and you want to keep touching her all over. You run your fingers through her hair and she closes her eyes, as you comb out all the tangles and smooth out any of the loose strands. She looks.. thoroughly fucked. After you’re done, you drop your hands, and she opens her eyes slowly to meet yours.

Her eyes flicker between yours, and she’s contemplating something. Her face breaks out into a slow, smug smile and for some reason this makes the hairs on your neck stand up.

“What are you..” You trail off, staring at her nervously, and a few seconds pass.

Very quickly, before you can blink, she’s pushed you off-balance and down against the other side of the couch. You blink up at her, and she licks her lips, eyebrow raised.

“Uhh,” You say, like a dumbass.

“It’s my turn now.” She says, and grins. You gulp audibly.

She moves to actually get off of you, and you’re confused for a hot second before she grabs you by the waist with her easy strength, and lifts you over her shoulder.

“Hey! You can’t manhandle me like this!” You say, squirming to get out of her grasp and she slaps you on the ass, making you yelp out loud.

“I’m a hundred percent sure that you don’t mind, actually.” She’s walking you to her bedroom, and honestly? She’s right. But you’re never going to admit that out loud.

She opens the door to her bedroom, and from behind her, all you can see is a wall and a dresser. She walks you over to what you assume is her bed, and nearly slams you onto her mattress, climbing on top of you.

“You weren’t kidding about your bed being worse than my couch.” You say, and she winces.

“Yeah I’m sorry about that. I kinda forget about it because half the time I sleep on the couch.” She replies, taking off both her sweater and tank top, all at once. She then proceeds to also take her pants off, and now she’s completely naked. You watch her brush her hair away, messy from pulling her clothes off, and she looks at you almost like you’re.. prey. Is the best way you could put it.

Her hands find her way to your stomach, and she slides your shirt up with interest.

“I can take my own clothes off, you know.” You say, and she chuckles.

“Can you?” She pulls your top up to your neck, exposing your bra. “What the hell is this?” She asks, puzzled.

“A bra. It supports the titties.” She stares at you blankly. “Please don’t make me explain why bras exist to you right now, right here.” She shrugs, and attempts to lift the bra up. “Okay, that’s not how you do that.” You roll your eyes in amusement and attempt to sit halfway up, considering that she’s sitting on you.

You pull your sweater and shirt off all at once, and move your arms behind you to unclip your bra. You struggle with the hook clasp for a couple seconds before finally getting it loose, and you fling your bra to the other side of the room with both of your clothes you have already tossed in that direction. She’s watching you intently, and you feel your face flush with embarrassment. You don’t really want to since she’s watching you, but you also take off your jeans as well.

“Are you not gonna take those off?” She asks, and points to your underwear. “Because if I’m naked, you gotta be naked as well, doll.”

You scoff and take off your panties as well, and keep your legs firmly closed. Your automatic reaction to cold is to cover yourself, so you put an arm over your chest without thinking. Both her hands shoot out to grab both of your arms, and she pushes you back flush against the mattress. She keeps her hands in place, and now you can’t move them at all, and the air hitting your torso almost makes you shiver.

“Don’t cover yourself, I’ve been wanting to see you like this for weeks.” She says, eyes roaming your breasts. You fight down another blush, and push away any of your own insecurities. 

“Weeks, huh?” You reply, raising an eyebrow at her.

“You heard me.” She chuckles again, and leans down to your collarbone. “I still have no idea what you did to my neck, but I’d like to return the favor, whatever it is.”

You struggle against her grip, and she doubles down on her strength easily. You realize she could’ve had her way with you whenever, and this entire time she was just holding back. You swallow, unable to get the image of her doing whatever she wants to you out of your mind.

“I swear to god, please don’t leave a mark on my neck. I work in public, and if my dad sees this I will never let it down.” You nearly beg her. She grins in return.

“You left a mark on me? I’m kind of impressed.” She says, the ghost of her breath tickling your neck. 

She kisses your neck softly, and trails them a little over to the side, stopping a bit at the flesh between your neck and shoulder. She hovers there for a second, before you feel her tongue experimentally lick your skin. She presses her entire mouth to the spot and kisses it, and proceeds to swirl her tongue around the area. You think she’s trying to mimic what you had done earlier, but you quickly cross out that thought as she literally bites down into your shoulder.

“Ahh-” You hiss out, unable to cover your mouth from the noise you just made, and she stops for a moment to look at you in amusement. You feel your face heat up. This is unfair.

“I kind of get why you were enjoying this so much earlier.” She says to you.

“Shut up..” You reply, and she laughs a bit against your skin.

“Cannnn do.”  She retorts, and bites down again on that spot, harder this time, and you can’t stop the sounds coming out of your mouth between your clenched teeth. She soothes the spot with a couple sweeps of her tongue, and pulls away to survey her own work. 

“Nice.” She says, grinning. You look over and see half of a bruised bite mark on your shoulder.

“Marking your territory?” You joke in amusement, and the look in her eyes momentarily changes to one of possessiveness. She leans down to speak directly into your ear.

“Precisely.” Her hot breath is tickling your ear, and she chuckles again.

You’ve never been more turned on in your life.

She kisses your cheek, and moves one of her hands to grope your breast. You try not to make any noise to give yourself away, but you think she can tell anyway, because she lets both of your hands go, and starts to fondle her way down your torso. Every touch of her skin against yours sets your nerves on fire, and you watch her lean down to take your nipple into her mouth.

You try not to moan out loud, but a small whimper leaves your lips and you can feel her smiling against your skin. One of her hands finds its way to your other breast, and she swipes her thumb over the nipple, mouth still working on the other one.

The arousal building between your legs is horribly prominent to you, and you try to ignore it. Honestly you don’t even need foreplay, because finger fucking her earlier was more than enough to get you going.

She runs her tongue over the area, teeth scraping and softly biting, hand still teasing you. Her other hand is fondling your hip, tracing circles into your skin with her thumb. After a few moments she pulls her mouth away, and leans back up to kiss you. Her legs are placed perfectly along your sides, and her naked breasts are pressed against yours, her gem touching your chest, hard to the touch.

You kiss back fervently, giving up on containing yourself. If she didn’t care to, then neither will you. You moan into her mouth, and she slides her slick tongue against yours, breathing in between the gasps coming from her. She’s kissing you downright filthy - wet lips moving against yours, teeth scraping against your bottom lip, and she grinds her hips against yours. You can feel how wet she still is between her thighs. You moan again, grabbing her hips with the both of your hands and dig your fingers into the flesh there, keeping her in place.

Not even your fantasies lived up to this. 

The supple flesh of her breasts pressing against yours, steady grind of her hips moving in a short rhythm, mouth against your lips, all of this is driving you insane with arousal. You’ve never been attracted to someone like this ever in your life.

She lets up after a few, and moves to get off you. You miss the lack of skin contact, and she sticks a knee between your legs, spreading them almost forcefully.

“If I don’t touch you right now, I’m gonna explode I think.” She says, looking downwards, and you want to cover your face with your hands in embarrassment. 

You feel her actually get in between your legs, and your face feels like it’s on fire. Both of her hands trail down your hips to your thighs, kneading the flesh softly there. She massages your skin for a few seconds, before you feel her hand press against you, and she slips a finger inside.

“Wow, are you supposed to be this wet?” She asks smugly, already moving her finger in slow thrusting motions. You moan through your teeth, and you feel like your entire body is flustered.

“You cannot ask me that.” You reply, the feeling of her finger already driving you crazy.  

“Why?” She chuckles in a low voice.

“Because you’re just as turned on as I am.” You retort, and she adds in another finger already, making you moan out loud.

“Hmm, you’re right about that.” She grins, moves her slick fingers a little faster, holding your thigh spread open with her other hand.

You move a hand up to your face and bite a finger as you stifle another moan, and you clench your legs as you feel the pleasure quickly spreading. Spinel watches you for a moment, and a slow smirk forms on her lips.

“Stop making that face.” You say to her, and she locks eyes with you.

“No, because I can tell you like it.” She replies, and you groan into your hands. She’s right, and you hate that she knows it too.

She winks at you, pulling her fingers out of you, and you whine in protest. She spreads both of your legs apart, and with a grin she leans down in between your parted thighs. 

Tenderly, she presses her mouth against you, and you feel her wet tongue immediately lap a stripe up your opening, before maneuvering downwards. Your hands find the blanket beneath you, and you grip them to distract yourself from the embarrassment, and you feel her tongue slip inside you. 

“Ahh,” You slap a hand over your mouth to stop yourself from being loud.

You have no idea how the fuck she knew how to do this. Just exactly how much research has she done? Did she look this up specifically for you? You moan, unable to look her in the eyes, and you know she’s watching you. 

She grips your thighs tight enough that you feel like she might leave bruises, and you find yourself uncaring. She presses her face further, tongue lapping at you, and you feel your legs trembling. Your hips buck against your will, and she chuckles, the vibrations leaving your nerves feeling electrified. She pulls her mouth away for a second to say something.

“I want you to know, I could do this for hours.” She says, and moves her right hand away from your thigh to push her fingers inside you again, curling two upwards like you did with her.

She’s a fast learner, you admit to yourself. She thrusts her fingers in and out of you, and leans forward again to place her mouth upon your clit, swirling her tongue in circles. You let out a low moan, and you can feel the pleasure building at your core. She adds a third finger and easily slides it in with the others, and your hand flies down to her hair to grip onto something.

It doesn’t take you long to get to the point of no return, and with her tongue expertly working against you, slick fingers driving inside, you feel your legs tense, and she grabs your thigh roughly with her other hand. 

And then you feel her mouth smirking against you, and that’s what does it.

You feel an intense spasm of pleasure hit your body like a freight truck in rolling waves as you orgasm, and you grip her hair with both of your hands, needing to hold onto something as your legs tremble against her head. Your body shakes for a long while and everything feels overly sensitive, as you try to steady out your breathing.

You slowly disentangle your grip from her hair, hoping you didn’t hurt her at all during any of that. Spinel is looking at you with a grin, and she leaves several kisses upon your open thighs.

You flop your limbs down, suddenly tired. Spinel leaves another few kisses along your body as she gets up, and she crawls half into your arms, making you chuckle. 

"I kinda wanna go again." She says, touching you softly. You laugh out loud.

"I'm so goddamn tired it isn't even funny. I don't even have the strength to walk home." You reply, and she turns her face to look directly at you.

"I didn't want you to leave tonight anyway.." She says, stubbornly. God, she's so cute.

The two of you stare at each other for a couple seconds, considering each other. You chew your bottom lip anxiously.

“Can I ask you something serious?” You inquire, and she laces her fingers with yours.

“You can ask me anything.” She replies.

“Are you still planning to go back to homeworld?” You don’t look her in the eye, nervous about her answer.

You don’t hear her say anything for several long seconds, and you feel your heart clench, assuming the worst.

And then she bursts out laughing. She buries her face into your shoulder, and laughs for a long time. It takes her a while to recover, and she wipes her eyes when she finally pulls away from you.

“Of course not. Actually.. you were the reason I was leaving in the first place. I didn’t want to admit I was completely heartbroken over you. I thought escaping was my best option.” She admits.

You consider her for a moment.

“You’re an idiot.”

“If I’M an idiot, then you’re the captain.” She says, and scoffs. “Maybe next time let me hold your hand when I’m trying to.”

“Okay, but like, real talk here? You never actually said you liked me out loud. Not then, and not even earlier. Not directly, anyway. That was all me. Do you even-” She smacks your arm lightly, and you laugh.

“I basically nearly fell in love with you that first night, okay?” She says, her cheeks turning pink. You feel your face heating up as well, and you lean in to kiss her.

“Yeah, not really understanding why, though. I’m nothing special.” You say jokingly. She gives you a look.

“You were the only person to still treat me nicely even after figuring out who I was.”

“You weren’t at all what I was expecting, honestly. My impression of you changed nearly instantly.” You roll over to your side, smiling at her softly, and you rest your head on her shoulder. She pulls a hand up to run her fingers through your hair, and you sigh, relaxing into her touch. You feel your eyes droop, until you hear a noise coming from the other side of the room. You lift your head up. 

“Is that your phone?” You ask her, glancing over to the both of your clothes on the floor.

“Yeah, ignore it.” She waves her hand dismissively. “I’ll get to it later.” You shrug, and lay back down in your previous position, which was quite comfy. Perfect snoozing conditions, actually. You mind wanders for a bit, her hand resting on your lower back and tracing circles into your skin. You think about a few things from earlier.

"You're actually sensitive on your gem?" You ponder out loud, and she shudders. You move your hand to trace your fingers along the face of her gem, ignoring the quivering of the person beneath you.

She gasps, and grabs your wrist to pull your hand away. 

"Yes, and no teasing.” She says, slightly scandalized, and you laugh. She slaps your offending hand. You grab the hand after the slap, holding it up to your lips, and kiss the palm of her hand. She blushes, and leans in to kiss you. 

The two of you lay there in each others presence, softly talking about a few unimportant things before you drift off to sleep against her chest, the easiest sleep has ever come to you.

-

Your name is Steven Universe, and you’re very worried about your friend.

Yesterday, Spinel had called you about her current predicament with a very specific person she had met weeks ago in distress. You’ve been trying to reassure her this entire time that she was most likely over-reacting to the situation, but she needed to come to this conclusion naturally by herself. She also had to leave very quickly in the middle of your phone conversation, and hasn’t called or texted you back. Usually she gets back to you fairly quickly, but this time she hasn’t, and you’re starting to fret a bit. None of the other gems have heard from her.

It’s still pretty early in the morning, nearing 9am, when you receive a phone call from someone you rarely talk to, their name flashing on your phone screen. You sigh and answer.

“This is Steven.” You answer, and you hear fumbling in the background before a voice comes through the receiver.

“Steeeeeven, my man.”

“Alex, why are you calling me?” You say, and sigh. You have better things to be doing.

“Don’t act like you don’t miss my velvety voice.”

“What do you want.” You cut to the chase.

“Y/N’s dad called me a bit ago, and turns out she didn’t come home last night. I’ve texted and called her a bunch with no answer. Have you heard from her? I’m worried.” He says, and he actually does sound worried for once.

“No, I haven’t. Though, um.. Spinel’s hasn’t been answering any of my messages or calls either, and I was thinking of going over to her place to check up on her. You think maybe she heard from Y/N?”

“They haven’t been talking, so I doubt it. Wait, is she back?” He asks.

“Yeah she came back to Earth a few days ago.” You reply. “And yeah, as far as I know they haven’t been communicating.”

“Do you mind if I come with you? I have a few questions to ask her anyway..”

You pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh. 

“Yeah..”

“I’ll pick you up in 20?” He asks.

“Sure, I’ll be ready to head out by then. Thanks.” And you hang up.

You barely got any sleep last night, and you’re not really in the mood to deal with Alex’s weird energy today. You just want a nap. And maybe a donut.

You groan out loud, and Pearl gives you a look from the kitchen.

“Why does everything have to be so complicated!!” You shout at no one in particular.

When Alex comes to pick you up, you give him the address, and in no time at all, you’re at the edge of Little Homeworld, standing in front of the apartments Spinel lives at.

“How do we get in?” He turns to ask you. “Are we breaking in? What’s the plan?”

“I have a key, Alex.” You say and sigh out loud. 

“That works too, even if it’s the boring way.” He says, wistfully. You glare at him.

“Let’s just do this.” You retort, and the two of you head inside. 

The elevator ride is short, as well as the walk to her door. You hope she’s home, because honestly? You might scream in frustration if she isn’t.

You move to unlock the front door to her apartment, and Alex puts an arm in front of you to stop you from doing so.

“You’re not gonna knock dude? What if she’s naked in there. Respect her privacy.” He says to you in mild offense.

“Gems don’t really go around naked, Alex. Also, she gave me a key because she trusts me. Calm down a little.” You say, pushing his arm out of the way and unlocking her door.

The both of you step inside and close the door behind you. You look around, and things seem pretty normal? Which is good, you guess. Her bedroom door is closed, and you call out to her just in case.

“Spinel?” You say loudly, hoping she’d hear. You wait a few seconds, and nothing.

“She’s probably sleeping still?” Alex says, shrugging.

“Probably, yeah. She likes to sleep in usually.”

The both of you walk over to her bedroom door, and before you can open it, Alex stops you again. You almost groan in frustration.

“If on the very slim off chance Y/N is in there with her, you owe me fifty dollars.” He grins at you, and you want to smack the guy.

“I highly doubt it. Spinel would’ve at least texted me about it.” You say in response.

“You so sure about that?” He says, smugly. “I’m just saying.”

“I hope you’re prepared to dish out some money, because I’m going to slap your smug face with it.” You roll your eyes at him.

“I love it when you speak like this to me, baby boy.” And he gives your back a light smack.

“Let’s just get this over with so I can go back to sleep.” You say, and turn the door knob.

-

"Well, you owe me fifty fucking buckaroos, Universe."

You wake up to a door nearly slamming open, and the loud voice of Alex. For a split second you think you’re in bed at home, until you hear someone else groan very loudly in frustration.

Your eyes shoot open, realizing exactly where you are. You’re naked, barely covered by a single blanket, and lying on Spinel’s chest. You sit up rapidly and the blanket falls down, exposing your breasts, and Steven covers his eyes.

“Ohh my GOD.” He yells, covering his entire face with his hands. Alex is laughing like no tomorrow, and Spinel is finally conscious enough to sit up as well. She’s kind of like a zombie for a brief second, before she also comes to the same conclusion you do, and pulls the blanket up to her chest in abject horror.

“What the fuck are you guys doing here!?” She shouts in confusion.

“I WOULDN’T BE HERE IF YOU MAYBE ANSWERED YOUR PHONE!!” Steven yells from behind his hands.

“Get out!!” She yells in reply, and stretches her arm long enough to physically manhandle them out of her room, slamming the door behind them.

The two of you stare at the door in silence for several long moments, before Spinel lets out a long, dramatic sigh. You cannot believe that just happened.

You laugh out loud a little, and Spinel turns to you in mock offense. "How can you be laughing right now!? They just saw us like this!" She says, completely exasperated.

"Come on, it's a little funny." You say giggling, and grabbing for her hand. "I don't know what they were expecting, honestly." And at that, she laughs too.

"Yeah, you're right."

You get up to your piles of clothes and grab both of your phones, sitting back down in bed and placing her phone into her hand. You both check them near simultaneously, you nearly bumping shoulders with her. Turning on your lock screen, you feel your face wince.

"I've got.. 17 missed calls, 6 voicemails, 43 texts, and.. 239 messages from the group text." You say, and turn to her. She's glaring at her phone.

"78 missed calls, 14 voicemails, and 104 texts." She raises her eyebrows, and gives you a look.

Slowly, she grabs your phone out of your hand, and with hers, she chucks it onto the furthest end of her bed.

"We can deal with that later," She says, and reaches over to tilt your chin up, leaning in to kiss you. You smile into it, pulling your hand up and tucking loose strands of her messy bedhead behind her ear, feeling her lips against yours. You feel your chest tighten with affection as she presses against your face a little harder, and she sighs into your mouth. You pull away for a moment.

"Hey. Aren't they still out there? I didn't hear the front door close." You state, not wanting her to stop kissing you, but unable to continue due to sheer principal of it. She scoffs.

"Isn't that more of a them problem?" She says sarcastically, and you laugh.

“Yeah, well, we should be getting up and dealing with all of that anyway. As much as I don’t want to.” You reply with a chuckle, and swing your legs over the bed. 

“Ughhhhhh, I don’t want to!!” She exclaims, and dramatically falls back onto the bed, flailing her limbs around before basically flopping into a pile of spaghetti. 

“Wow.” You say, completely deadpan at her theatrics, and you move to stand up.

You grab your clothes from the pile on the floor, and fight down a blush from the memories flooding back to you. You push them into some far compartment in the back of your brain to analyze later.

You pick up her clothes as well, and toss them over to her. You misjudge your aim, and it hits her in the face with an 'oof' from her. You keep your mouth closed as you try not to laugh, and you get dressed in yesterday's clothes.

She continues to lay there, even after you’re done dressing yourself.

“Will you get up and get dressed?” You put your hands on your hips, slightly amused.

“Ughh, why?” She replies disdainfully.

“Because I want coffee, and I gotta have an awkward conversation with my dad preferably by phone, and I also have today off.”

“Why do I gotta get dressed for this?”

“Am I not allowed to want your company? I figured we could also go do something..” You trail off, watching her. She sits up, and looks at you in surprise.

“You want me to come with?” You give her a specific look. “Like a date?” You grin at her before replying.

“Precisely.” She smiles back at you, genuinely, and it makes your heart flutter.

You wait for her to get dressed and the both of you leave her bedroom, both Alex and Steven long gone by now. Spinel grabs her keys, you both put on your shoes and she grabs your hand - entwining her fingers with yours, and opens the front door. 

As she’s locking it behind her, you hear footsteps approaching, and you see Morganite next door unlocking her apartment.

She quickly glances at the two of you and your held hands, and you think you see her blush. She gets into her apartment quickly. Spinel’s staring at her door blankly.

When you both get into the elevator to go down to the lobby, you both burst out into laughter.

“Did you see her face!?” Spinel laughs, nearly tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

“Dude, she DEFINITELY heard you yesterday.” You’re laughing, and super thankful that you don’t live here.

“I hope she doesn’t say anything to the other neighbors. If she knows what’s good for her, she won’t.” Spinel replies smugly. You giggle and squeeze her hand. She squeezes back, and gives you another soft smile.

A few quiet moments pass between you two, and you regard her.

“I never asked. Are we dating now?” You ask her, and her eyes widen in surprise.

“Are we not?” She replies in a worried tone, eyebrows furrowing.

“We are. I was just checking.” You grin, and you see her shoulders relax in relief.

She leans over to kiss you, and the elevator door opens. You both step out, and today is bright and sunny, and it hurts your eyes.

But.. today, you find yourself not really caring.

You’ve got Spinel beside you, and a whole day ahead of you with her.

And, you smile to yourself, many more days to come as well.