Hello! I'm back for another installation!

Stargazing scenes hold an inordinate amount of importance to me. Don't ask me why; even I don't know why. I guess it's the atmosphere that night brings? Ugh it's just so pretty. I'm rambling.

Anyways, thanks for the support! :)

A Welcome Reprieve

(i.e., Peridot Wishes Lapis Would Stop Laughing at the Paint Cans)

Despite the fact that the barn was no longer on the receiving end of any sunlight at this particular point of time in Earth's rotational cycle, the night was a bit warmer, almost uncomfortably so, than most. And despite how useless she had found the activity to be just months prior, Peridot would admit: perhaps stargazing wasn't so bad. Perhaps it had just been the (undeniably monumental amount of) stress which had resulted from making sure the Cluster stayed dormant that had caused her to ignore the activity's perks.

It was aesthetically pleasing, for one.

The sky was a sheet of rich blue, like a deep cut of well-incubated Sapphire, speckled with a smattering of pinprick stars, some so small and imperceptible she had to squint vigorously to make them out—not that it should have really mattered.

Most of them were probably already dead. She was merely left examining the consequential emanations of light which had traveled millions of light years to reach this planet long after their sources had burned out, resulting in these ghosts of gaseous, celestial emanations blazing through the void. Peridot drummed her fingers on her knees as she furtively connected each one with each other with her darting eyes, her legs thwacking against the neatly bundled bale of hay she had pressed up against the barn wall, right next to the front entrance.

Constellations.

Cygnus. Aquila. Lyrus. Ursa Major. Ursa Minor.

Steven had pointed them out to her; Pearl had briefed her on their formal names.

She wasn't aware stars even had names. That is, names apart from 1026-032, 1031-078, and innumerable other strings of digits used to identify the bodies purely for the sake of gaining objective bearings while maneuvering the vast expanse of space.

But now they had names—and pictures, too, admittedly, but Peridot still couldn't see how the clusters of stars Steven had instructed her to connect together resembled a swan or a bear in the slightest. She didn't mind, however.

Alive, no. But indisputably enjoyable to observe.

It almost didn't matter that every single time she looked up at the sky, her eyes seemed to stumble upon—

"Hey."

—Lapis Lazuli.

Well, it wasn't supposed to be her she was going to be gazing at, but she stood in front of Peridot resolutely, blocking the center of her field of vision and then some with spikes of blue hair haphazardly poking out of her head and curling up, over, and around the stars. She prodded the hay bale with a toe as Peridot cleared her throat and looked on at her uncertainly.

"Er...yes," she said slowly, lifting a hand from her knee and tracing it across the coarse strands beneath her. "This is...hay."

Lapis looked mildly taken aback for a second before raising an eyebrow at Peridot and giving her a small snort. She crossed her arms.

"Human wordplay witticism?"

"Pun," Peridot corrected with a small smile. But it vanished right when Lapis shifted her position and the sky was unobstructed once more.

Just her, the hay, and the stars.

...And Lapis giving an uncharacteristic "uh" right after just as uncharacteristically clearing her throat. Peridot narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she watched her appear to be addressing the grass beneath her toes.

"Can I...?" she trailed off.

Peridot frowned. "Yes?"

Lapis merely responded by grunting and awkwardly thumping her calf against the edge of the hay bale. It was only when she did it a second time that Peridot became aware of her implications.

Not that it cleared things up any more, but she understood.

She gaped in disbelief at Lapis, whose arms were still nesting in between her elbows.

"You're asking me? For my permission? And for you to willingly sit with me, nonetheless?"

Lapis gave a sigh laced with irritation. "Is that a yes or a no?" she snapped back curtly.

"...Er."

Yes, Peridot was well aware that was not one of the given choices of response. But then again, the fact that Lapis was actually looking at her expectantly and waiting for a response practically warranted a baffled reaction.

"Welllll," she said, stretching out the word as much as she could while racking her mind for more words to string together, "from what I've gathered, stargazing is an activity meant, uh, for two. So..." she gave the expanse of hay to her right a quick pat before placing it back on her knee. "Affirmative."

"Mmm. Alright." Peridot watched as Lapis seated herself down onto the bale in one quick, fluid motion, an action that was much more graceful than the unceremonious thwack she had given the bale just moments ago. That was simply how it was with Lapis; gruff and graceless one moment, refined and elegant the next. Admittedly a bit volatile to handle at times, but surprisingly rewarding when you could. She turned back to the night sky, her eyes fixed right in the center of the sheet of blue.

Just her, Lapis, and the stars.

"Homeworld's galaxy, huh?"

"Ack!"

She stiffened as Lapis exhaled, her breath mingling in with the night air and making it slightly chillier than it was mere seconds prior. Peridot peeled her eyes away from the spiral of streaks up above, her cheeks burning as she muttered out a meek "Yes."

Lapis nodded, leaning back against the barn wall. "It looks better up on the roof."

There were a vast multitude of responses Peridot could have shot back at that, including but not limited to For you, maybe; I vastly prefer the perspective offered from down here; and the more recently learned Suit yourself, despite there currently being no shirts within an attainable radius for Lapis to suit.

But even the prospect of using Earth slang wasn't appealing to her right now as she ceased drumming her knees and ended up squeezing her thighs instead, staring up at the sky apprehensively.

"Perhaps," she managed to mutter as she cast all of her other responses away, eyes locked on the galaxy burning as bright as ever above her. She felt like she should have offered something more to work with as the silence hung in between them with an incalculable amount of tension. She bit her tongue as she looked across at Lapis, who looked vaguely uncomfortable and unsure how to respond.

This wasn't how conversations were supposed to work.

She pressed her hands into her thighs harder.

Clod.

"Hey."

Peridot inhaled sharply as she processed the word, much softer yet much clearer this time, laced with something she could only place as...

...Concern?

"Are you...okay?"

Peridot exhaled sharply as she processed Lapis's voice yet again. "Excuse me? Am I registering this correctly? You're asking me if I'm okay?" She snorted. "Did the Lapis Lazuli I've been residing with get swapped out for another one when I wasn't paying attention? Did I—ow!" she scowled and rubbed the leg Lapis had kicked as she snorted back at Peridot.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Peridot's scowl faded into a small frown as she curled her leg back up onto the bale of hay, and Lapis's chuckling quickly subsided. "I'm..." she bit her lip, recounting an uncharacteristically (heh, everything and everyone seemed to be acting uncharacteristically today) hazy memory of her breakdown. "Okay," she enunciated finally. "I appreciated your, uh...verbal reassurance earlier today."

"And watering the seeds?" Lapis asked, her leg nudging Peridot's again, but much more gently.

Peridot brightened. "Of course!" she chirped. "That as well."

The corn didn't seem to be doing much as of now, but then again, it had only been 4 hours upon incubation. They had chosen an expanse of grass and dirt Peridot had concluded obtained optimal corn-growing conditions: rich brown soil, generous exposure to sunlight, and plenty of room for Peridot to put the tractor to good use (she frankly had no idea what it was for, but she figured it was nothing she couldn't deduce. For the mean time, however, she was perfectly fine with driving it around in circles and cackling triumphantly as Lapis expressed how she was duly impressed by rolling her eyes—it was a sign of approval, and no one could convince Peridot otherwise. Tractors were cool).

"—And my latest morp?" Lapis interrupted, smirking as Peridot recalled the conglomeration of rubbery cushions filled with gas that let out a chorus of grating pbhffts whenever Lapis gave them a squeeze (which was, regrettably, much more often than Peridot preferred).

She sighed in exasperation. "Don't push it."

Lapis responded by rolling her eyes (it was a sign of approval! Just...maybe not all the time. Perhaps it was ambiguous depending on the situation). "Oh, I'm pushing it?" she retorted. "You're the one who forced me to live with you after dragging me away from Homeworld, where I was trying to get to for thousands of years, only to interrogate me, use me like a tool, and make me everyone's prisoner again!" She ticked off each accusation with her fingers as Peridot's mouth went uncomfortably dry.

...Peridot sincerely wished she had a repository of possible responses at her disposal for that. She shifted hesitantly as Lapis started laughing, of all things, her chest heaving up and down in between snickers.

"Um—" she squeaked out, fiddling with her hands.

Lapis's laughter abruptly died out as she caught Peridot's expression, and she cleared her throat and glanced aside as she let her shoulders slump.

"...Yeah. Not funny." She cleared her throat again. "Sorry."

"Humor is...subjective, I suppose."

"Heh." Lapis shrugged. "I guess."

Peridot would be lying in claiming that the silence between them that followed wasn't awkward; but somehow, in spite of herself, she felt much more at ease gazing up at the sky while being accompanied by the now-considerably-chilled air offered by the exhalations of the Gem sitting next to her. Why she was so cold was beyond Peridot, but she supposed the night was getting to be a bit stuffy anyhow. A welcome reprieve. She now continued to drum her fingers on her knees, instilled with a new sort of vigor, getting herself lost in the systematic rhythm, the view of the night, and—

"You're humming."

Peridot froze up before groaning irritably.

"Ugh, I know," she grumbled. "Ever since I'd recalled that...song that Steven had taught me, I can't stop singing it! It's driving me up the wall," she declared, careful to deliberately emphasize the last five words. Heh. Earth slang.

...But of course Lapis didn't seem to catch the drift. Perhaps next time.

"War and death?" she inquired.

Peridot gaped and blinked at her in disbelief. "...Really? Out of all the words you could have remembered, it was those two?"

She shrugged. "They were in the song, weren't they?"

"I won't deny that. But it's Peace and Love, Lapis."

"Peace and love and war and death?"

"Rrgh, no!" Peridot launched herself off of the hay and twirled around to face Lapis, a hand placed firmly on her own chest. "Here, listen to me. Life and death and love and birth—"

"Life and death and love and birth," Lapis deadpanned.

"Er—that's off-tune, but yes." Peridot cleared her throat and continued.

"And peace and war on the planet Earth."

"And peace and war on the—"

Peridot shook her head fervently, arms suspended upwards in frustration. "No, no, no! You have to transpose your syllables to the corresponding notes! Mi fa mi mi fa mi ti la."

Lapis slouched against the barn wall, lazily waving a hand in the air. "La ta fa mi fi la."

Peridot blinked. "We'll...work on that later," she decided with a sigh, letting her shoulders slump.

"Singing is more of a Pearl thing," Lapis muttered.

Peridot smirked at her. "Well, it's not like the Pearl here doesn't sing. But I..." She frowned. "I understand what you mean. Everything is starkly different here. And occasionally, there are rules for things, but they're unspoken and one has to figure them out for themselves."

"Is this about the roof?"

"For the last time, I wasn't aware that humans couldn't fly!" Peridot snapped before grumbling incoherently under her breath. "And I didn't know that their appearance modifiers aren't a part of their physical form. Or that all of them require entire rooms dedicated to expelling waste." She snorted. "I know this place is ridiculous, but the inhabitants are far more ridiculous!" She shook her head as her tirade dissolved into a small series of chuckles, prodding the hay bale with her foot in a way similar to how Lapis was doing so earlier.

"Did you know that Garnet stargazes by herself?"

Lapis looked at her uncertainly. "Um—"

"The permafusion," Peridot clarified.

Lapis nodded slowly. "Permafusion," she echoed in a low voice, rubbing at her wrists. "I still don't get that."

"Oh! Well, it's quite simple. You see, she's made of two components: a Ruby and a Sapphire. And both of them wish to stay perpetually fused despite the lack of any real need to—"

"I know what she is," Lapis snipped back, making Peridot's mouth snap shut at her acerbic tone. "I just...don't get it." She raised her hands up to her head, digging her fingers into her scalp. "How she can stand to be like that."

"I do," Peridot said suddenly, quietly.

Lapis blinked, hair still splayed in between her fingers. "What?"

Peridot grinned. "She's like—like Percy and Pierre! Not like..." She clicked her tongue dismissively as her fingers fluttered in the air. "Percy and Paulette."

Lapis gave a harsh, guttural laugh as she peeled her back off of the barn wall. "Did you seriously just compare—"

"—Oh, and you're Percy," Peridot interjected, shrugging in defense when she noticed that Lapis continued to gawk at her. "Just—just clarifying," she added hastily.

"Why can't I be Paulette?"

Peridot snorted. "Paulette is reserved especially for clods."

"Percierre is for clods."

"Percierre?" Peridot repeated dubiously. "Is that some sort of speculative fusion name?"

"Uh...I guess?"

She repeated the word a few times before letting out a sharp, nasally chuckle. "Well, it sounds infinitely better than..." She wrinkled her nose. "...Paulcy, doesn't it?"

Lapis lowered her hands from her head and apprehensively planted them onto the hay.

"...Yeah."

"They're so incompatible!"

She clenched the strands tightly, resulting in a dull crunching sound emanating from in between her fingers. "Mmm."

"But..." Peridot sighed, gazing across at Lapis's suffocating grip on the hay bale.

"...Not every fusion has to be."

As a lapse of silence occurred for the third time that night, Peridot grimaced and wondered if she should have worded her response differently.

After what figuratively seemed to be an entire Earth revolution, Lapis scowled and glared at Peridot suspiciously. "If you're trying to get me to fuse with you—"

—Yes, she definitely should have worded her response differently.

She froze in place, her mouth hanging open and snapping closed repeatedly before she shook her head in an effort to gain her composure. "What?! No no no!" She blurted out all too hurriedly, vigorously shaking her hands in denial. "I...I mean..." She shuffled awkwardly. "I'm not even sure if I possess the ability."

"Wha..." Lapis trailed off just as quickly as she had started speaking, eyes widening slightly in realization. "Oh."

Peridot nodded. "Era 2," she responded with a wry, mirthless smile. "And besides, I am well, well aware that your prior experience with fusion was...er, unsatisfactory."

Lapis snorted. "That's one way to put it," she muttered.

"Yes!" Peridot replied, although truthfully, it sounded more like a high-pitched shriek."So—so it would be illogical, not to mention highly insensitive, for me to, uh, try and coerce you into—"

"Pierre or Percy?"

"Er..." The tension in Peridot's body dissolved somewhat, if only to give way to confusion. She watched in wonder as Lapis got up off the hay bale and stared down at her.

"...What?"

Lapis stared back at her, her gaze unflinching. "I can't be scared of this forever. Do you wanna be Pierre or Percy?" she repeated firmly.

"I..." Peridot shook her head as she registered what was happening. "Oh my stars," she muttered weakly. "You're joking me."

"What, you wanna be Paulette?"

Peridot gasped in horror. "Lapis!"

Lapis smirked. "Yeah, thought so."

Peridot looked up at her uncertainly. The temperature of the air seemed to drop a degree a second as she observed the way the moonlight washed over Lapis's figure and rendered it a pale, muted blue. Her bow flapped slightly behind her just like Peridot expected it to. Just like it always did.

That was just how it was with Lapis.

"Do you...want to understand?" Peridot asked her quietly.

Lapis extended her hand out. "Yeah."

Peridot stared back at the offering before giving a quick laugh and grabbing it.

"Good. So do I."

And then she just proceeded to awkwardly gaze at the sight of their fingers laced together as she used her free hand to scratch the back of her head, her eyes darting around for a solid minute or so to avoid the judgemental stare Lapis was giving her.

"Um..." she managed finally, rigidly shuffling a bit to the left across the grass and then to the right, her hand still held in Lapis's. "Do we just—"

"We dance," Lapis replied, her free arm planted on her hip as she eyed Peridot almost amusedly. "You've seen fusion before, right?"

Peridot scoffed. "Of course I have! But..." She drummed her fingers on her chin and gasped. "I think I'll need to acquire something before we commence. Uh—" She yanked her fingers out from in between Lapis's and dashed into the barn. "I'll be back!"

Peridot would be lying if she claimed that she thought that the paint cans weren't necessary. But she wouldn't be lying if she claimed that Lapis thought otherwise.

"Pfft!"

"Hey!" Peridot glared at her, taking a wobbly step forward and craning her neck upwards as she huffed indignantly. Despite the height enhancement, she was still a few inches short of Lapis vertically. "This isn't going to work if you're going to mock me the whole time!"

Lapis snorted as she wiped a tear from her eye. "It's not gonna work if you keep tripping over your paint cans, either."

"Excuse you!" Peridot took another step forward. "I'll have you know that I—woahwoahwoahwoahwoah!" She quickly faltered as she teetered back and forth on the rim of her left paint can before settling back down and scrunching her face up into a scowl, her cheeks heating up considerably. "It's been a while, okay?!"

Lapis rolled her eyes (there! It had to be approval! Her paint cans were undeniably the coolest thing around besides maybe herself. Or those sunglasses sitting on a shelf in the barn that she had been eyeing for a while). "Whatever. Let's just get this over with."

She then proceeded to firmly interlock her fingers with Peridot's, pulling her in until they were inches away and Peridot could see the extremely, extremely faint hints of gold flecks across Lapis's face that she had never noticed prior.

Or maybe it was just the moonlight.

Or the fact that she couldn't think straight as she expended all of her energy into keeping her balance and trying to follow Lapis's intricate dips and swirls.

In hindsight, she probably should have expended more energy on the former.

In one swift move and one sharp yelp, Peridot succeeded in both hopelessly losing her footing and dragging Lapis down with her—but fortunately, with one final effort to dig her cans firmly into the dirt, she managed to save Lapis from bearing the brunt of the fall, stooping over her with her hands plastered rigidly to her cold back as she stared back with wide eyes.

Unfortunately, Lapis seemed to slip right through after a moment anyways, plopping onto the dirt with another yelp and a thud.

Peridot immediately crouched down in concern, instantly lost balance and had her mouth meet a clump of dirt, and then promptly grumbled as she spit it out and kicked her paint cans off her feet. She brushed off her knees and inhaled sharply as she crouched down once more.

"Uh...Lapis?"

Lapis didn't look at her.

She was eyeing the grass once again, her voice quiet and almost...ashamed as she dug her nails into the dirt.

"I can't."

Peridot blinked. "Er...pardon?"

"I can't do it," Lapis muttered hoarsely. "It's just—" She shuddered. "So much like last time—I mean—" She shook her head. "Not—you, just—"

"That's okay."

Lapis jerked her head up in confusion. "What?"

"It's," she enunciated, grabbing Lapis by the arm and pulling her up, "okay. So you're not ready. Pfft!" She snorted. "Who cares? I've managed to be extraordinarily appealing and charismatic for this long without fusion, I'm sure I can hold out a bit longer. As long as you need. You still made an effort. That's what counts."

Lapis responded with another dry laugh, but it was her comment that she made in between snickering moreso than the chilly air she created with her exhalations that made Peridot shudder.

"We—heh! We would've gotten shattered on Homeworld for this."

She frowned as soon as she caught sight of Peridot unrapping her fingers from around Lapis's arm and shifting uncomfortably again.

"...Not funny?"

"Er..." Peridot sighed. "Not really, no," she admitted. "But we'll work on that."

Lapis laughed again, but this time, it felt more sincere. "Right after the singing lesson?"

"Hmm...yes," Peridot decided with a firm nod. "But not right now. I feel like now would be a more appropriate time to..." She stared back at the star-encrusted sky, not even feeling the slightest pang of remorse this time as her eyes stumbled across the spiral of starry streaks right in the center.

"...Stargaze," she finished, dotting together all the incomprehensible stick patterns Steven had taught her. "You said you preferred the roof?"

Lapis shrugged. "Yeah. But I guess down here isn't half-bad, either."

A valid point. Peridot picked up her paint cans and set them down next to the hay bale before plopping herself onto it and thwacking her legs to the rhythm of Peace and Love once more. Lapis followed suit, sans song.

One day, perhaps. One day.

But for now, Peridot would settle for this. She let her feet dangle downwards as far as she could manage, barely grazing the tips of the blades of grass underneath her as she acknowledged that the night would now probably be cooler than she had imagined it to be initially.

It was a welcome reprieve. She sucked in the air, adjusted her visor, and traced a finger over the sky.

"Hey, Lapis, do you know what a constellation is?"

It's...pretty freaking hard to write a fusion (or fusion attempt!) scene without making it seem intimate even in the slightest, so yeah. I tried my best to balance it out with a good dose of awkward.

I didn't want to make them actually fuse because:

a) I want to keep this series as compliant with canon as possible, so I don't want to make up stuff about their fusion that could be refuted in an episode later on.

b) Also, frankly, I just don't feel like Lapis is ready yet. I'd love to see a Lapis fusion in the future besides Malachite, but I feel like she needs a lot of time to warm up to action of fusing again, regardless of who it's with.

Lapis is the queen of awkward jokes I mean like. Remember her joke about the corn in the mirror in Gem Harvest? WOW that was awkward. But Peridot seemed to understand that that's just how her sense of humor is so I kind of wanted to allude to her getting a feel for it here. I also really really like the idea of Lapis just being naturally cold for some reason? Idk walking ice pack Lapis has just always appealed to me. Oh, and of course, the whole flecks of gold thing. I really like that headcanon as well.

Also, one more thing. For some reason, school has been immensely enjoying tearing every last iota of energy I have to shreds, so sadly, I must announce that I can't really update this weekly anymore. Probably once every ten to twelve days or something like that from now on. Thank you for the support regardless, though! I have many, many more chapters in store for this, I'm not stopping any time soon!

Thanks for reading; it means a lot! :)