Wooow okay 8k (leaning on 9k) word Lapamedot. I wanna say sorry but I kinda don't wanna. I really liked the idea of these three interacting together so I just kinda started off with like four or five paragraphs and it just? Turned into this? So yeah. #LetLapisandAmethystInteract2k17

This was honestly more self-indulgent than anything so yeah, if you manage to get through the whole thing thanks for reading!

Amethyst swears it was an accident, okay?

Quartz's honor and everything.

Although yeah, she figures that's a weak explanation since she's not even a proper Quartz, but whatever. Her point still stands. She never meant for all of this to happen.

Besides, it's not like she isn't accident-prone—she is a mistake, after all, right? An overcooked runt with a loud mouth too big for her scrappy, defective self. It's not like she doesn't constantly screw things over and—

Ah, crud. There she went again. Old habits really do die hard, don't they?

But she would try to stop. She would try to stop for them.

You can have her Quartz's honor on that.

It was all an accident. It started with her flopped over on Steven's bed in boredom, languidly gazing at the ceiling-turned-floor and the floor-turned-ceiling after helping herself to a bottle of sriracha, a canister of whipped cream, and a pizza pie or two (or three).

"Roll call," she muttered to herself as she thwacked her legs restlessly against the mattress. "No one, no one, annnnd no one."

Steven? Out on the boardwalk with Connie, and something about the way he constantly smoothed out his shirt and the way his breath smelled like the apple and mint mouthwash that he had bought one year ago and had never used before told Amethyst that he meant for this to be an alone kinda thing. Pearl? She was out, too—Amethyst had caught a glimpse of that cool, pink-haired chick whose number Pearl had snagged a few weeks back draping her arm over her and grinning as Pearl gladly launched into an explanation on hard light projections. And despite her current state of boredom, Amethyst couldn't help but feel kind of sorta maybe really proud as Pearl beamed back at her before turning her gaze to Sheena as they walked out of the temple, her silvery piercings and Pearl's rainbow-flecked gem alike glimmering gracefully in the streaming sunlight. It was just meant to be, even Amethyst could see that. Good on them.

And Garnet? Oh, Garnet. Typical Garnet. Gone on some solo mission again (Steven had vaguely mentioned something about "Hoppy" and "Hopper" in regards to her before he took off, but then again he was also babbling on about how the plot twist in Mini Golf Quest was poorly done and how Lion Lickers actually didn't taste half bad. Just nerves, Amethyst supposed. He was probably planning on finally smooching Connie today or something, considering that he was practically chugging down that mouthwash. Good. It was about time).

So there she was, wondering just how far she could crane her neck backwards without having her lunch snake back up her throat. Heh. Even puking would be better than this.

No one even told her to hold down the fort this time. And yeah, maybe she didn't really do a good job of it last time since she pretty much up and left the temple and took the kids to the beach, but what else was new? Just a mistake on top of a mistake on top of a mistake, sandwiched between some good old-fashioned self-hatred and unhealthy coping mechanisms. She was her own torta. And a disgusting one, at that.

Good thing disgusting was kind of her thing, right?

She groaned and heaved herself off the bed as soon as she realized she had said that out loud. Even though Steven was far out of earshot, she could still feel his frown of disapproval boring into her. Maybe it was some sorta weird fusion thing? Or Quartz thing?

Orrr maybe it was her dumb, guilty conscience sorta thing.

Don't get her wrong; Smokey Quartz had helped. Smokey Quartz had helped a lot. And beating up Jasper kinda helped too, even if Amethyst does sneak into the Burning Room sometimes to gaze at the bubble that seemed to be looking back at her just as wistfully.

But as much as Smokey Quartz helped, she could sense how uncomfortable their presence had made Steven. And she could sense Steven. More than she had ever been able to before. When they fused, she could sense all that pain, all that uncertainty and frustration and that sore, sore feeling of incompetence that was just icing on the shame cake. Both of them together just meant twice the self-hatred, twice the frustrations, twice the sore, sore (sore, sore) feeling of incompetence (and only three halves of the arms for some reason? Amethyst didn't know what was up with that, but whatever. Garnet only has half of the arms, so maybe Smokey actually has one redeeming quality to them, at least).

Smokey was some sorta weird mishmash of a mistake-flavored cake torta.

She snorted at the thought. What a load of artsy spiel. It sounded like a...morp.

That's what Peridot called them, right?

Oh, jeez. Peridot.

She swung herself down the ladder with an unceremonious thwomp and looked down at Steven's bed from below. It seemed like it was just yesterday when Amethyst was sitting up there with her whip out to flatten Homegirl into a green pancake while she launched herself all over the furniture in a frenzy like a shrieking, caffeine-shot frog.

And it seemed like just last month she had arrived at the Galaxy Warp with her floaty fingers and stone-cold Betty turtle frown.

And now? Now the dork was playing with toilets (where did she even get those?), wearing a (n admittedly fitting) bowtie, and grinning from visor-tip to visor-tip half the time Amethyst saw her.

Oh, and rubbing her biceps.

Yeah, she wasn't gonna forget that no matter how preoccupied she had been with beating up Jasper at the moment.

She really hadn't done that visit justice, had she? Steven had offhandedly mentioned that the two (oh right, Lapis was there too, wasn't she—Amethyst had nearly forgotten for a moment) were really trying to impress her. And maybe Amethyst couldn't really vouch for Lapis, the new resident stone-cold Betty, but if there was one thing she knew about Peridot, it was that she was always trying to impress others. Like, always. All the time. And Amethyst had just let her down by snapping at her playing with garbage (as if she wasn't any better) and took off to be all emo. As if Peridot didn't get enough of that already from Lapis.

An apology seemed...called for, but like, what? After two whole months? Maybe Amethyst wasn't the best at staying on-schedule (primarily because she didn't have a schedule) with stuff, but she wasn't this bad at it.

But then again, Peridot had promised to have Lapis return Pretty Hairstylist back to Amethyst in a week, and it had been four weeks.

Time was a social construct. Connie was ranting about that once at 3 AM (she had had one cup of hot chocolate too many) during a sleepover with Steven while the latter just kept mumbling drowsily into his pillow, "Arright, arright, we can have waffles for dinner! We invented breakfast, I geddit!"

Pfft. Humans could be so dumb sometimes. Any time was a good time for waffles.

And, she supposed, as her feet dragged her to the warp pad as if on their own accord, any time was a good time for an apology.

"You just missed her."

That was the first thing Amethyst heard as she poked her head into the barn's entrance to look around, and it made her nearly jump a foot in the air and bump her elbow against the doorframe. She rubbed her arm and turned around to frown at Lapis, who was frowning right back at her with her arms crossed and her spiky blue hair looking as emo as ever.

"Yeesh. We really need to put a bell on you or something."

"What do you want?" she asked. It didn't sound threatening, but it didn't sound curious, either.

"I, uh—" She craned her neck to look inside the barn once more just to check if Peridot was, in fact, not actually there, and turned back to face Lapis. "Nothing."

"Mmm," Lapis deadpanned, her eyelids sagging so much that Amethyst was afraid her eyes would permanently snap shut at any moment. "Makes sense."

Amethyst snorted. "Dude, I can feel the sass comin' off you in waves."

Lapis simply raised an eyebrow at that, as if to say, Water metaphor? Really? Like asking me to be your prisoner wasn't enough?

Or maybe it was just her guilty conscience again. Although she wouldn't be surprised if Lapis hated her.

Lapis seemed to hate everyone.

She scratched the back of her head uncertainly before crossing her arms and kicking at a clump of dirt. "Look, I kinda came over here to say sorry."

"To who?"

Ugh. She said that like she was expecting a sorry—which, okay, yeah, she probably deserved, but Amethyst had no idea how to deliver.

You know how crickets chirp whenever someone cracks a joke on TV and no one cares? Yeah, that's what Lapis reminded Amethyst of. The literal personification of tough crowd. And it made Amethyst feel like the literal personification of yikes.

"To, uh, Peri," she admitted, relieved to see that Lapis didn't seem offended. Or maybe she was offended and it was just that all of her faces consisted of pursed lips and perpetually downward-sloping eyebrows so Amethyst couldn't tell the difference either way. "Where is she, anyway?"

Lapis jabbed a thumb backwards. "Went off to find some morp stuff. People leave a looot of things they don't want out here in the country."

Amethyst blinked. Well, that would explain the toilets.

"Huh. Well. Just wanted to tell her I was sorry for." She averted her gaze to the dirt clump she was attacking. "Y'know. Calling you guys' morps dumb and stuff. But..." She sighed in defeat. "I guess I should say sorry to you, too."

"For?"

Amethyst stared at her in utter disbelief. Did this chick know how to make sentences out of words that weren't more than one syllable?

"Uh, for the same thing," she told her, narrowing her eyes.

Over the course of what seemed to be a million years, Lapis's frown deepened, then the corners of her mouth twitched a little, then she bit the inside of her cheek, and then her expression finally settled to neutral once more as she walked past Amethyst and into the barn to plop down into a chair and cross her legs.

"Okay."

...Okay.

Amethyst didn't know if that translated into "apology accepted" or not, but at least she could say that she tried.

Right?

She leaned back against the barn's doorframe and crossed her legs likewise, watching as Lapis procured Amethyst's copy of Pretty Hairstylist from under the chair and sank into the plush cushions. Amethyst may have well have been a piece of furniture.

So much for trying.

But she still hadn't done what she had come here for, and the only thing that was waiting for her at the temple was that tub of mayo in fridge. And she wasn't exactly in a mayo sort of mood right now.

She furrowed her brows and cleared her throat, which beckoned Lapis to lower her book slightly and look at her quizzically as if to say, You're still here?

"Uh..." she began intelligently.

Crickets. Crickets. Crickets everywhere. Amethyst swallowed.

"Your, uh, baseball thing was pretty cool."

And then she proceeded to give her forehead a resounding thwap as Lapis parted her lips in confusion.

"...Thanks?"

Amethyst huffed, letting her shoulders slump and kicking herself off of the doorframe. She spread her arms out. "Look, I know this is awkward, okay? But it's gonna be even more awkward if I just pretend like it never happened—"

"—Actually, that would be way less awkward."

"Ugh, for you, maybe! But not for me! I was being such a dink and I ruined the entire visit and I'm just so awful—"

"—I'm worse," she cut in.

Amethyst blinked. "Uh...what?"

Lapis got up, keeping her gaze locked on Amethyst the entire time. "I'm worse," she repeated, simply and matter-of-factly.

Amethyst raised an eyebrow at her skeptically. "Yeeeaaah? How?"

Lapis shrugged. "Stole the ocean."

"I nearly killed Steven with one of those drill thingies at the Kindergarten."

"I almost drowned him."

Amethyst gave a sharp, hollow laugh. "Yeah? You ever almost shatter Pearl as Sugilite?"

"No," Lapis replied, her tone still eerily cool, "but maybe as Malachite. I broke Peridot's tape recorder."

Amethyst stomped at the dirt. "I dumped her limb enhancers into the sea!"

"I didn't give your book back to you," Lapis said, waving Pretty Hairstylist in the air. Amethyst frowned as she watched the pages flutter.

Hmm. Okay. Petty stuff, huh? Amethyst could work with petty.

"I said your morps and your music were garbage!"

"I'm terrifying."

"I'm rude!"

"I'm selfish."

"I'm disgusting!"

"I'm nothing but trouble."

"Yeah? Well I'm—I'm defective!"

"...Amethyst?"

Crud.

She grit her teeth. Oh no. Oh no no no no no.

Amethyst whipped around to see her carrying an armful of junk, just like Lapis had expected.

Had she expected the grin on her face, too?

Amethyst allowed her tensed-up shoulders to slump again. Okay, so maybe Peridot hadn't heard them. Amethyst watched as she dumped what appeared to be a rusty fire extinguisher, a broken, old-school alarm clock, and several pipes and springs onto the grass.

"What the—P-Dot!" Amethyst bit her lip. "How, uh...how much of that did you hear?"

"Just enough to know that you two are getting along much better than I had anticipated!" she replied brightly.

Amethyst's eyes darted back from Peridot to Lapis and back again, incredulous.

"...So none of it," Lapis muttered after a few seconds of silence. She slumped back into her chair.

Peridot waved her hand in the air dismissively. "Oh, I caught a few phrases: Steven, morps, books, defective! Here, look," she said, running into the barn. She rummaged through all the junk with such great bravado that Amethyst had to side-step at the last second to miss a bicycle wheel that whizzed past her face. Lapis tried to catch the golf ball that went flying above her with an arm that stretched out several inches farther and to the left than it was supposed to.

She didn't seem to care that it sailed right past her.

"Nope—nope—nope—aha!" Peridot pulled out a copy of How to Talk to People, a triumphant smile on her face. "Steven's book has informed me that sharing commonalities amongst one another encourages bonding! I can only deduce that you two are getting along! Ooh! Maybe once the bonding is complete we can all hang out," she added, letting loose the dorkiest snicker Amethyst had ever heard in her life. "This is great! What do you say, friends?"

Amethyst gave a long, low whistle. Wow. Talk about selective hearing. She looked back at Lapis. Lapis just shrugged.

She was being a real help today.

"Uh. Yeah," Amethyst managed, finding herself unable to shoot down the cat-like smile forming on Peridot's face. "Sure."

That earned her a hearty slap on the back, courtesy of Mega Wondernerd. "So what brings you here, Big A?"

Lapis groaned. "Don't call her that."

"Why not?" Peridot retorted, throwing her arms up in the air. "Her name starts with A and she makes me feel big. It makes perfect sense!"

"Do you even know what that means?"

"What? Is this 'Big A' some sort of Earth slang I don't know about? Tell me what it means!"

"Uh—well—"

Yeah, no.

Amethyst cleared her throat, cut into Lapis's explanation, and saved Peridot just in time.

"I came here to say sorry."

"Er..." Peridot's cat mouth inverted into a turtle's. "Pardon?"

"Sorry," Amethyst repeated, crossing her arms over her chest, "for being such a dink that one time I visited you." She shrugged with one shoulder. "Y'know, saying you were playing with useless garbage and stuff."

"...Oh," Peridot said, although it came out as more of a squeak. She apprehended Amethyst with wide, uncertain eyes before clearing her throat as well. "I...well, I forgive you, but..." She trailed off and fidgeted with her hands. "Uh, that was two months ago, Amethyst."

"Time is a social construct," Lapis muttered from behind the cover of Pretty Hairstylist.

Huh. Steven should have a sleepover with her some time.

"Hmm. Interesting," Peridot replied, stroking her chin and pacing around on the barn's wooden planks. "I know what my next morp is going to be about! The fluidity of time." She paused right where she was and jabbed a finger at the chair. "Lapis, I'll need your liquid manipulation skills!"

As if on cue, Lapis lowered her book, got out of her chair once more, and proceeded to looked Amethyst dead in the eye as she spoke.

"I'd probably just botch it up."

...Wait, what? Were they still playing that game?

Not that it didn't feel good.

Not that it didn't didn't feel good.

In truth, Amethyst had felt kind of awful ranting about herself to Betty Blue and having the absolute ray of sunshine do likewise, but it felt awful in...a sort of liberating way she couldn't even begin to bring herself to explain.

Instead, she settled for narrowing her eyes at Lapis in suspicion. "You..." she said, finding the rest of the words stuck deep in her throat.

Peridot frowned, her arms akimbo. "That's ridiculous! Your hydrokinesis abilities have never been anything but spectacular! Amethyst, would you like to assist us as well?"

"Sure," Amethyst replied all too swiftly, trying her best to hide the beginnings of a dry, hollow, mirthless smile forming on her face as she gave a nonchalant shrug. "Y'know, if I don't end up breaking everything." She bore her eyes into Lapis's. "I'm," she enunciated, "Really. Clumsy."

"You shouldn't let me take control," Lapis said, eyes tracking the globular, shiny, green attack drones whizzing in the air. Oddly enough, Amethyst could still tell her voice was directed at her. "You can't trust me."

Maybe it was the last line that made it obvious.

"Hmm..." Peridot considered this. "Well, you did crash one into the silo once. And I suppose it would only be fair to give our guest a turn." She offered her remote control. "Amethyst?"

"Nah, man. I'd probably tear a hole in the silo. I'm reckless."

"Er..." Peridot narrowed her eyes. "Okay...? I'll do it then. Even though the whole purpose of this exhibition was for it to be interactive," she grumbled.

"Wait, what?"

"She's been reading up on museums," Lapis informed her.

Peridot practically started skipping in place. "Can you believe it, Amethyst? Entire structures dedicated to nothing but morps! I told Steven to transfer Occupied over to a museum so humans could get a chance to bask in my creative genius as well, but he said it wasn't that easy to get your works in." She huffed.

"It is three toilets," Lapis said. "Pretty hard to move around."

Peridot glared at her. "That doesn't explain why he refused to exhibit Wow, Thanks! That's perfectly mobile! And your leaf!"

"The leaf was pretty bad."

There she was, at it again. Amethyst got that awful, wonderful feeling in her shapeshifted gut.

She couldn't wait for it to be her turn.

"No, it wasn't!" Peridot snapped back. "Straightforward, perhaps, but that's just a stylistic choice!"

"Yeah, Lap, she's right. I mean, it's not like it'd be worse than anything I'd make."

Pretty weak, yeah. But she'd find a way to finish it off strong.

Lapis raised an eyebrow at her. "Don't you love playing with garbage, though?"

"Yep! 'Cause I fit right in!"

Nice. Amethyst gave herself a mental high five. Nice.

"I don't fit in anywhere," Lapis retorted coolly.

"Yeah? Well I—"

"—Ahem!" Peridot cleared her throat irritably. "Are you two even bothering to witness the incredible display of aerodynamics happening right in front of your vision spheres?"

"Woah." Amethyst dropped all of her comebacks to stare up at the drones whizzing around in numerous figure-8's thoughout the sky. "You doin' that without a remote?"

"Evidently!"

"Not bad," Lapis admitted, which they all knew meant "actually kinda sorta really good."

"Wow, thanks!"

Amethyst nudged Peridot's shoulder just gently enough to not disturb her ferrokinesis. "Sweet job, P-pod."

Peridot beamed in response, and for a moment, the two were silent, their gazes softening slightly as the drones hummed and buzzed rhythmically.

And then Peridot lowered her hands and pouted as all the attack drones fell to the floor with an almost synchronized thud.

"I still don't see how this isn't worthy of human exhibition."

Amethyst leaned against the barn's doorframe once more, blowing out an unruly tuft of hair that was obscuring one of her eyes. "Hey, heard you were pretending to be me while we were out on our field trip to the zoo. How did that go?"

Lapis shrugged. "Okay. You're really noisy, you know."

Amethyst snorted. "Thanks, I try."

Lapis responded with a small yet undeniably present smile before asking, "How does he like the new sign?"

"Huh? Oh, Greg? Aw, man, he loves it."

"That makes sense. Y'know, considering I didn't help make it at all."

"Peridot said both of you made it, though."

"Peridot's being modest."

"Dude. Are we even talking about the same Peri?"

Lapis chuckled. "Maybe not. She kept trying to be Garnet."

"Pfft! Even Garnet's not all that modest, y'know. She wouldn't even let us buy Steven some darn ice cream without butting in and saying it was her idea. And FYI, it was everyone's idea. 'Cept for going back to pay for them. That was Pearl's idea." She wrinkled her nose. "It's just way cooler to say you went out and stole 'em, y'know?"

"Like how I stole the ocean?" Lapis asked expectantly.

Amethyst rolled her eyes. "Yeeeaaah, but that ain't exactly shoplifting," she said before smirking. "You can't compete with me on that."

Lapis shook her hair out in response, and Amethyst looked on in wonder as she brought a whole sheet of blue down like a curtain over her left eye before pursing her lips and giving a thumbs up.

"Whatever, dude."

Amethyst snickered. "Huh. Not half-bad. That's almost as awful as me. Almost."

She kept coming back to the barn. This could've been her seventh time, it could've been her seventieth time. But either way, she knew it wouldn't be her last.

Of course she'd come here to goof around with Peridot and watch her eagerly show off her paint cans and bowtie and sunglasses and hear that dorky cackle that sounded like a donkey with a clothespin pinched over its snout, but now there was someone else here, too. Someone she could just spill everything to without being seen as a "bad example."

Lapis just—she just got it. She understood. She wouldn't scold Amethyst or cast her a withering look whenever she took a jab at herself. She didn't have to mask being awful or pass it off as a joke—no matter how fun that could be sometimes (seriously, bow-zo? That one was golden—even if it was partly Steven).

The closest she had ever gotten to be able to hate herself so unchecked was with Steven. With Smokey. But it still made her feel terrible. Not the good kind of terrible, but the kind that made her burn with shame as she watched Steven—her Ste-man, the same little ray of sunshine that used to play video games with her that Amethyst would let him beat her in on purpose and traipse along with her while humming his newest song on their way to the boardwalk for some bits, that Steven—hate himself so passionately.

And even though Smokey had strengthened their bond and they had some sort of weird Quartz solidarity thing going on now, the facts still remained, and they were that:

a) Steven was a kid.

b) Amethyst wasn't a kid. She never was a kid (even though being a baby does sound pretty rad).

c) Being a kid, Steven wasn't expected to handle everything maturely, even though he admittedly was doing a pretty impressive job at it.

d) Being a...not-kid, Amethyst wasn't expected to wallow in self-loathing.

e) (Or at at least make it vocal, anyhow).

And so that was why Lapis was pretty much the coolest thing since anchovy-diesel pizza (hey, it was good, okay? One day, she'd be able to convince Garnet to give it a whirl. One day).

"—The sign is a success!"

...And Peridot was the nerdiest thing since sneezing into your "anticubital fossa."

It was honestly incredible how those two managed to get along.

"Everyone—woah! Everyone loves it," she continued enthusiastically, screeching to a halt at the side of the barn's doorframe opposite to Amethyst and leaning her weight against it before losing her balance and almost falling over. Their pumpkin-dog bounded in after her, yipping just as excitedly. "Even if it isn't in a museum. Hmm...hey, maybe we should move all our morps to the Dad's vehicle washing facility!"

"Toilets," Lapis reminded her. Amethyst could see she was trying her best not to betray the smile that was threatening to take over her face.

"Ughhh," Peridot groaned. "Fine. What about the others?"

"I think they look better in here."

Peridot pouted and stuck out her tongue at her. "You're no fun," she grumbled.

The smile took over her face entirely now. "Thanks, I try."

Amethyst could second that.

Peridot turned to her and beamed, and for a second, Amethyst wondered what she'd look like with braces. Those were probably the only thing aside from the bowtie and paint cans that could make her look even more nerdier.

"Amethyst! Are you ready for the incontestibly coolest night of your life?"

"Yip!"

"No, not you, Pumpkin! We barely have enough room on the loft as it is! Plus, you like the beach episodes. Who even likes the beach episodes?!"

Pumpkin let out a small whimper as Peridot sighed and put a hand to her gem. "Fine. Next time. Amethyst needs to watch them all in chronological order, anyhow. I suppose the beach episodes are inevitable, as much as I regret admitting it."

"Uh..."

"Camp Pining Hearts," Lapis said before blowing a tuft of hair out of her eyes, only to have it fall right back in place. "Season 5."

"What?!" Peridot looked horrified, her voice going up nearly an octave. "No! Not Season 5!"

"I like Season 5."

Peridot rolled her eyes as she marched out of the barn. "Oh, now that's just low, Laz."

"Holy smokes," Amethyst muttered before snorting. "Laz. That's so cute."

Lapis shot her a glare as she launched herself out her chair. "I'm not cute."

"Yeah, I know," Amethyst shot back. "You're terrifying."

Lapis wasn't actually that hard to befriend, Amethyst figured out (okay, maybe it helped that she didn't interrogate her or anything, but whatever). You just had to get on her good side—you know, by insulting her. What else?

Lapis gave her a crooked smile as they walked out together. It was a smile of mutual understanding.

"Thanks."

"—I still don't understand why Paulette is still around after seven whole seasons!"

"Uh, spoiler alert."

"It's not a spoiler, Amethyst! She's an absolute hassle to deal with right from Episode One! Surely the whole camp must have come to a consensus on how aggravating she is, right? She's the one downfall of an otherwise flawless show!"

"What about the maple syrup plothole?" Lapis asked.

"Ugh." Peridot gave a derisive snort. "We don't talk about that."

Lapis had flown up to the truck, obviously. For Amethyst, it was a bit less obvious, but she decided to shift into a hawk and dart up there, but only after getting the thumbs-up signal from Lapis that Peridot wasn't looking (she knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help but feel just a biiit guilty freely doing what Peridot could, well—Perinot).

Oh, and Peridot?

She made her way up by floating on a trash can lid.

What a nerd.

The truck itself wasn't the roomiest, but they managed. "Managed" meaning that Amethyst and Lapis sat on either side of the truck, with Peridot squished (yet oddly not complaining in the slightest) right in the middle. One of her knees grazed Lapis's stomach, while the other jutted into Amethyst's chest.

She was fine with that.

"Eh." Lapis shrugged as she wriggled her toes and gazed languidly at the TV. "I think Pierre's worse."

"What?!" Peridot gaped at her. "Pierre? Pierre? Pierre is so—so strong and capable, though! He's a brute! He's magnificent!"

"What about blondie over there?" Amethyst chimed in, pointing at the screen. "I don't like him. His bangs look stupid."

"Percy?!" Peridot spat. "You two are hating all the wrong characters!"

Lapis snorted. "Yeah? Why do you hate Paulette so much, anyways?"

Peridot let out a squeak of indignation as she shifted her position violently and nearly jabbed her knee in Lapis's face. "Lapis, did you even read my essay?"

"It was 1,001 pages," she deadpanned.

Amethyst took that as a "no."

Peridot huffed. "Precisely! 1,001 pages on how Paulette is the absolute scourge of Camp Pining Hearts!" she proclaimed, pointing an accusing finger towards Lapis's chest. "There's more than enough reasons in there to reinforce my assertions!"

"Then shoot," Amethyst said.

Peridot blinked. "What?"

"Gimme a reason."

Peridot's face scrunched up like she'd eaten a lime (pfft. As if she wasn't a lime herself). "Ugh. Very well. Ahem! First off, she's untrustworthy," she began, ticking off a finger to keep track. "I mean! Take this episode for example! She's stealing the kayaks from Pierre's team just so Percy will win the race by default. She's so incredibly selfish, she's let herself become the kayak race."

"Cold," Lapis muttered.

"She's just—such a nuisance!" Her knees started butterflying up and down rapidly in agitation. "She uses what little strengths she has as a means to manipulate others!"

"Hey. Percy wanted to kiss her."

"He did not!" she snapped back at Lapis. "She's a seductress! It's evident! Everything is her fault! She's manipulative and moody and standoffish and rude and a pebble-brained clod and—"

"Sounds familiar," Lapis interjected.

Her gaze met Amethyst's again and she felt a sharp yank in her gut.

It was time.

"You're right," she said back, as slow and even as possible. "It does."

She snorted at Amethyst, crossing her arms. "Since when have you manipulated?"

"Oh, I dunno, Sugilite? That was all my fault. All of it! At least Malachite was like, a two-way trainwreck."

Peridot abruptly cut off her rant, her knees laying tense and anxious on Lapis and Amethyst's thighs.

"Er...Lapis? Amethyst?"

"At least you're not standoffish," Lapis continued, oblivious. "At least you don't break everything you touch."

Amethyst huffed indignantly. "Uh, I thought I was plenty standoffish when I snapped at your dumb morps, thank you very much."

"Well—"

"You're not a monster," Lapis shot back.

"You're not a mistake," Amethyst declared.

"Well at least—"

"You're not a disaster just waiting to happen."

Amethyst nearly screwed her eyes shut in concentration; she was in the zone now. "You're not stupid and stubborn and disgusting and—"

"WELL AT LEAST YOU TWO ARE ACTUALLY COMPETENT!"

That...that shut both of them right up. Peridot's knees slammed together as she curled her body up and started hugging her legs.

This couldn't be good.

Lapis looked on uncertainly like she was completely innocent. "...Peridot?"

Peridot drew in a deep, shaky breath before wiping her eyes. "At least you two are capable of holding your ground," she muttered to her knees. "At least you two can reshape yourselves outside of your purposes without becoming hopelessly confused! At least you two aren't weak—useless—clumpy—clods!" she spat out, gritting her teeth and giving a jerky pause in between each word.

This time, Amethyst didn't wish her pizzas would come snaking back out of her throat, even though she felt like they were about to at any moment. She gave a weary sigh as she wrapped an arm around Peridot's shoulder. Oddly, she still wasn't complaining. It kind of made Amethyst wish she'd hiss and shove her arm off just for old times' sake, just to make her dinner settle back into her stomach.

...That was selfish of her, wasn't it? Of course it was.

"Aw jeez," she mumbled as her pizzas churned around and around and around inside of her. "Have we been rubbin' off on you?"

Peridot shook her head and tightened her grip on her knees, pinching and rubbing the fabric between her fingers. "Every time you two interact, it's to express self-loathing." She gave a humorless snort. "A commonality, I suppose. Just like the book tells you to interact. But I...don't..." She bit her lip. "Like it," she declared.

Lapis inhaled sharply. Amethyst tightened her own grip on Peridot's shoulder.

"Dude, you don't have to hate on yourself like us! We just—we kinda do that 'cause it's our thing, y'know? We both know we're awful and—"

"YOU'RE NOT AWFUL!"

Peridot was glowering at her, then at Lapis, then Amethyst once more.

"Per..."

"And I'm not hating on myself because I feel like I have to," she said, releasing the grip on her clothes. "I...want to."

"I—What?!" Amethyst sputtered. "You think all that crap you just spewed out about yourself is true?"

Lapis inhaled sharply again, clasping her hands together and fiddling with her thumbs for a a solid minute before mumbling out, "It's...really...not." She shifted her body around as much as the truck would allow her towards Peridot.

Peridot sniffed, the now-setting sun casting a pale yellowish hue over her face. "I beg to differ."

Amethyst snorted. "Dude, you can lift cars."

"And you can shapeshift," Peridot shot back, narrowing her eyes.

"And what? You think that's important? You think I've actually made myself useful with it? You think I've ever made myself useful?"

"You're not useless," Lapis snapped. The sunset made her look greenish blue. Her hair was a muddy blue going on black, like someone dumped all their junk into the ocean and left it to rot. "You literally warped through space to save Steven's dad." She sighed. "I stayed here and terrorized everyone and acted like a kid."

"I was the one who got carried away, though," Peridot muttered. "I forced everyone to assume the roles of those they undeniably weren't. Even if Pumpkin does make a good Pearl."

"But you guys fixed it all! Everyone's happy now!"

"Even the three humans in the pizza vehicle and the ocean man with follicles all over his face?"

Amethyst blinked. "Uh—yeah. Even them. I mean, look at that sweet sign you guys made! Plus, you didn't set the town on fire! That's more than I can say for myself."

Peridot blinked and Lapis narrowed her eyes a bit, but none of them questioned it.

Good. Amethyst wasn't really up for divulging the "Bits" incident to them right now.

They all sat there in some sort of weird, telepathically-agreed-upon silence, the only sounds present being the distant chirping of crickets and Paulette's racking sobs (yeesh. Maybe she was just as scourge-worthy as Peridot claimed she was).

Lapis, of all people, was the first one to break the silence, right as the moon took its place in the sky, a brilliant disk of white among the pinprick stars.

"Maybe we're all awful."

Amethyst snorted. "Thaaaat's the spirit, Little Miss Sunshine."

Peridot shot up from her weird sitting fetal position and gasped. "Wait, I think she's right! We all have...er, defects, for lack of better word."

Amethyst sighed. "I don't have defects, Dot. I am the defect."

"That's not bad, though!" she squeaked out in frustration. "We're all...defective. All of us," she proclaimed, stomping the floor of the truck for emphasis. "Servants shouldn't be engineers. Permafusions shouldn't exist. Steven shouldn't exist! But does that mean you don't want him to exist?"

Lapis looked horrified (which, for Lapis, meant frowning slightly, chewing the inside of her cheek, and lifting her eyelids half an inch. Maybe a whole inch if she was feeling really wild that day). "Why would you say that?"

"I'm making a point! Our defects themselves aren't the problem here. It's how we view them."

"Hmm," Lapis said, her curiosity piqued. She considered this for a moment before rubbing her wrists and deflating. "...Yeah, I still hate myself."

"Ditto, Water Witch."

"But I don't hate you!" Peridot cried. "Or you, for that matter!" She snorted. "Even if you did make me miss this entire episode with your bickering."

Lapis snorted right back. "You've already seen this one ten times, though."

Peridot sniffed. "Eleven, actually. But I'm flattered you bothered to keep track," she said with nasally chuckle as she scooted towards the TV. "Here, I'll rewind the tape."

"Actually, why don't we let Amethyst choose something?"

"What?" Peridot asked. Amethyst followed suit.

Lapis seemed unfazed, raising an eyebrow and a corner of her mouth at both of them, giving them a lopsided smile. "She's our guest, Peridot."

As Amethyst felt Peridot's knee fall back onto her thigh with a soft thud and watch tufts of Lapis's hair glint dark blue in the moonlight, she actually realized she felt like more than just a "guest," but she decided not to ruin the moment.

"Hmm," Peridot said, a hand plastered to her chin. "You make a valid argument. Amethyst, what would you like to watch?"

She responded with a devious grin.

"Get out the laptop, dudes. It's Li'l Butler time."

Amethyst doesn't remember when they all fell asleep, exactly. Somewhere around the second half of the part 2 Hawaii special where the Richingtons tried to hire a dolphin as their chauffeur. Peridot was more fascinated on attempting to glean information from "visually observing aquiferous Earth mammals"; Lapis was more interested in why it had a hole on its back to let out water if it lived in water.

Oh, that's right. Homegirls have never seen a dolphin before.

Homegirls haven't seen a lot of things before.

It was times like these that really made her realize she was hanging out with a bunch of aliens.

...And it was pretty cute, honestly.

When Amethyst drifted off, she was a dolphin wriggling in the waves of the ocean and Lapis was floating right above her, a small smile gracing her face as she kicked sea spray into Amethyst's face, one of her eyes masked by a sheet of spiky, blue hair (jeez, Lapis somehow managed to even make Amethyst's hairstyle look emo). Peridot was surfing on a giant, broken tape recorder right next to them, yelling Defective! Defective! with absolute glee.

...Dreams were weird.

But nothing prepared her for what happened next.

This time, when Lapis threw droplets into her face, her entire foot came with it too and Amethyst was subsequently kicked into the realm of consciousness.

And then she realized that, yes, Lapis's foot was indeed in her face.

And it was cold. Like back-of-the-freezer Lion Lickers cold.

"Uh...you mind?"

"Wha—oh." Lapis's voice came out oddly breathless and wheezy as she straightened her posture. "I—sorry."

Her breath came crashing out of her like waves. She pressed her hands against her cheeks and screwed her eyes shut. Amethyst snapped the laptop in between them shut to subdue the laugh track belting out of it. She scooted a little closer. Lapis looked like a blue ghost in the pale moonlight, the gem on her back glinting with speckly flecks of gold and blue intermittently, as if scared to settle on just one color. Amethyst shook her head once she realized she was staring.

"Bad dream, huh?"

Well, at least that was better than "your baseball thing looked cool." It was a start.

Lapis nodded. "Ocean," she said, gesturing vaguely, her voice still somewhat hoarse. "Trapped."

"Sounds, uh..." Amethyst scratched her cheek. "Pretty bad."

She ran her hands through her hair, damp with sweat and plastered to her forehead. Her shoulders tensed up. "I know I shouldn't still be freaking out about this," she muttered. "I'm ridiculous."

"Uh, no, you're not. I mean—whatever you went through down there, it sounds pretty awful."

Lapis sighed and gave a mirthless chuckle. "Dreaming is awful."

"Eh, not all the time. Once, I had a dream I was riding this giant hot dog in space, but then—pyoooo—I ran outta juice, and the planet I crashed into was made outta cotton candy." Amethyst grinned. "Mmm. Now that was a nice one."

Lapis laughed at that.

Like, actually laughed. It wasn't a sharp inhalation or a snort or a small titter. It resonated into the night as she wiped a tear from her eye and Amethyst looked on in wonder.

"You're weird."

Amethyst shrugged, the grin still plastered to her face. "Thanks, I try. So, uh..." Her smile faded. "You wanna talk about it? You don't have to if you don't wanna, though."

Lapis's laughter quickly subsided. "It's fine," she said morosely. "I just..." She rubbed at her wrists. "I'm scared. Of hurting everyone. Like I hurt Jasper."

"But Jasper hurt you! So you hurt her back."

Lapis glared down at her hands, clenched tightly against her skirt. "I was a monster."

"You're not the monster. Both of you together? Malachite? Now that was the monster."

"But—but I was awful! How can anyone trust me—"

SNORT!

Lapis's mouth snapped shut at the exact same moment Amethyst opened up hers and started cackling.

"I know someone who trusts you. Enough to drool on you. Wait—" Amethyst scooted closer to inspect Peridot's face. "Is she drooling?"

"Hmm..." Lapis bent down to prod Peridot's cheek and then proceeded to cringe as she hastily wiped her hand on her skirt. "Affirmative," she said, pinching her nose and squinting at Amethyst. It only succeeded in making her cackling even louder. And to think Peridot said her impression of her was lousy.

"Um...is she blushing?" she asked, her voice now back to normal.

Amethyst frowned as she leaned over and then gasped upon inspecting the greenish-blue tint dusting Peridot's cheeks. "Oh, man, you're right!" She snickered. "Bet she's dreaming about smooching you or some junk."

Lapis gaped at her. "What? I bet she's dreaming about smooching you."

"Nooo way. She likes you way more."

"Uh, no," Lapis declared, crossing her arms. "She likes you."

Amethyst sighed, kicking at the truck's floor with her scuffed boots. "I'm not cool like you are."

"I'm not funny."

"I'm not artsy," she shot back.

"I'm not friendly."

"I don't have that pretty, mysterious emo vibe goin' on."

Lapis frowned. "...Emo?"

Amethyst shook her head. "Never mind. Look, you're really—"

"GAAAH!"

Her response was cut off by a foot padded with soft fabric bonking her forehead.

"Ow! Jeez, what is with you guys and bopping me right in the kisser?"

Peridot straightened up, eyes darting back and forth as she twiddled her thumbs. "Kiss...er," she echoed uncertainly.

"Uh, Peridot?"

"Aack! I'm sorry!" she shrieked. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—"

"You kicked Amethyst in the face," Lapis replied, casting her a quizzical glance, her arms still crossed. "Not me."

Peridot proceeded to whip around and scream at Amethyst now, her voice getting higher by the second. "Amethyst! I—I'm—"

"Woah, dude. It's fine. You, uh...you had a bad dream or something?"

"I—no! Far from it!" she shot back, her cheeks now an almost brilliant teal even in the dull moonlight. She sighed. "I...I understand from my research that whilst humans enter their circadian dormancy cycles—"

Amethyst blinked at her. "Uh—"

"Sleeping," Lapis chimed in.

"—they have images transmitted to their neural processing centers—"

"Brain."

"—and most of those aren't supposed to make any sense because it's essentially a nonsensical amalgam of miscellaneous thoughts and feelings accumulated throughout the day, but—I—" She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head fervently. "It wasn't nonsensical! I mean—I suppose it was considering that..." She fidgeted uncomfortably and bit her lip. "...that it would never happen in actuality, but it was perfectly coherent when I was visualizing it and I...I actually enjoyed it despite having never experienced it before and—"

"Ohhh my stars, Peri! Just plant one on her cheek or something! It's not that hard!"

Peridot ended her tirade with a turtle frown. "...What?"

"I know you like Lapis." Amethyst shrugged. "I mean, who wouldn't?"

"Lapis, for one," Lapis muttered.

Amethyst ignored that.

"And I'm pretty darn sure she likes you back, too!"

Peridot blinked rapidly until her breathing steadied, and then she turned to face Lapis, her voice so low Amethyst could barely hear it.

"Is this...true?"

Lapis shifted uncomfortably, the bow on the back of her neck flapping lightly in the breeze.

"Do you want it to be?"

Peridot pressed her hand firmly into a palm on Lapis's thigh.

"Yes."

Amethyst grinned. "Aw, sweet! Ultimate Wingman Amy's back at it again. So, what're you waiting for?"

"Er—" Peridot looked down and started pinching at her fabric again. "You."

Amethyst's grin fell flat.

"Uh...what?"

She sighed. "My, uh...my dream involved mouth-to-mouth contact with both of you. So if I were to emulate it—" She shook her head. "If you want to, that is! I mean—I mean, is that bad?"

Peridot didn't really look like a frog right now. She looked more like a kitten (a kitten with a reallyyy funky haircut, maybe) cast out on the street, frightened and ashamed and helplessly confused.

Lapis just looked more like a slightly bewildered wolf.

Amethyst blinked at Peridot, then Lapis, then back at Peridot once more. "What? No Per, 'course not! I mean, maybe it's not as common, but it's not bad."

Peridot looked up at her expectantly as she continued to press her hand into Lapis's. Lapis seemed too preoccupied with prodding Peridot's knuckles with her free hand and turning a shade of dark blue that rivaled Peridot's teal to do much of anything else.

"And you're...certain of this?" Peridot inquired.

"What, you don't trust me?"

"Negatory," Peridot said so sincerely in a way that only she could pull off. "I trust you more than anyone. You and Lapis." She paused for a beat. "Well, I did trust Steven, but then he lied to me about the amount of episodes in Camp Pining Hearts."

"Heh," Amethyst snorted, her eyes straying away from Peridot and Lapis momentarily to gaze at the laptop paused midway through Li'l Butler. "Probably didn't wantcha to get carried away."

Lapis rolled her eyes and snickered back. "She's Peridot. She'll get carried away no matter what."

"Eh, yeah, you're right. It's pretty cute, isn't it?"

Lapis smirked. "Yeah."

As expected, Peridot puffed her chest out and pounced on that almost immediately. "Hey! I am not—"

Smeck!

Peridot gaped at Amethyst like a dying fish as she pulled away.

"...cute," she murmured weakly. She then proceeded to sputter incoherently and burn bluish-green again as Amethyst winked at her. Her hair was frayed a bit right at the top, her visor slightly askew as she kept shaking her head and trying to form a sentence.

...And yeah, maybe Amethyst was burning up a little bit as well. It didn't really help that Peridot was just naturally warm. Or the fact that the nerd snuck her tongue into Amethyst's mouth at the last minute.

It tasted like hand sanitizer.

It was oddly fitting.

Peridot ran her fluttering fingers through her hair, which only managed to mess it up even more. She sucked in a deep, somewhat shaky breath. "Amethyst—"

"It's Lapis's turn now."

"Uh, no?" Lapis stared at her. "Wait, what?"

Amethyst prodded her shoulder. "You heard me! Plant one on her." She snickered. "Five points if you can peg her on the mouth."

Lapis was just about to respond when Amethyst's view of her was obstructed by the back of Peridot's head.

"Or, uh..." she stared at them. "Five points if she can peg you on the mouth," she muttered.

Peridot pulled back after a moment or two of clasping Lapis by the shoulders and making some sort of weird slurping noise (that's right, Homegirls have probably never kissed before, either) and gave Amethyst a long, hard, serious stare, seemingly unaware of Lapis tracing her mouth over and over again with her fingers in disbelief and of the string of saliva dribbling down from her mouth and across her chin.

What. A. Nerd.

"Now it's your turn," she declared, eyes blazing with determination while her hair continued to get messier and messier, blondish strands poking out and bobbing up and down in the night breeze. And despite all of that, Amethyst could tell she meant business, which only resulted in making her cackles louder than usual.

"Alright, alright, P-Dot," she said, leaning in and reaching a hand out to brush her cheek. "You're so impatient!"

Peridot shoved her hand away the moment it touched her skin.

"No."

Amethyst frowned at her. "Uh...what?"

"I meant with her," she said, pointing at Lapis, who suddenly snapped to attention and hesitantly eyed Amethyst with pursed lips. "It's only fair."

"...Oh." Amethyst prodded the laptop with her foot. "Uh—"

And then Lapis lunged for it.

Man, she was a wolf, wasn't she?

Her aim was a bit off so they ended up smashing their noses together at first, but she quickly caught on and slid her face down a bit so their lips pressed against one another's. And then it was over just as quick as it had started, both of them inches away from one another as Peridot looked on in hushed awe like they were Percy and Pierre.

Amethyst scratched the back of her head, trying to avert her gaze to the truck's floor and failing miserably. "That was," she breathed. "Um."

"Nice," Lapis finished quietly. "Your lips are soft."

"Hey! Mine are soft, too!"

Lapis cracked a smile back at Peridot. "I never said they weren't."

Amethyst put a thumb to Lapis's lips. "Yours are kinda rough. And thin."

Lapis snorted and pulled away. "Thanks."

"I like it, though. Smells like the ocean. Your lips feel like coral."

She blinked at Amethyst. "Wow, was that spoken morp?"

"Eh," she replied, shrugging, "close enough. It's poetry, Lapis."

"Poetry?" Peridot piped up. "That sounds ridiculous!"

Amethyst snickered. "And morp doesn't?"

"Morp sounds infinitely more sophisticated," Peridot said huffily. "Also, your lips..." she added as she smacked her own together, "They leave some sort of distinct flavor. They make me feel like...my tongue...is a Ruby."

"Oh!" Amethyst laughed. "Hot sauce. My b."

"Er, no. It's no one's 'b.' I like it."

Hmm, alright. Douse lips in hot sauce before smooching aliens. She could dig that.

She grinned at the two of them. "So, how do you homegirls like kiss—"

"I want more of it."

Amethyst play-slugged Peridot's arm after a few seconds of gaping. "Woah, slow down there, P-pod!"

She responded by tightening her grip on Amethyst's leggings, her other hand still laced in Lapis's, her voice almost a whisper. "Please."

"What she said," Lapis added.

Amethyst's grin became even wider, if that was possible. She wiggled her eyebrows at them and scooted even closer.

"Ask and ye shall receive."

Amethyst doesn't remember when they all decided to go back to sleep, either. All she knows is that even though those two plopped down on either side of her and conked out like the dead, Amethyst still couldn't bring herself to conk out with them. Maybe it was the way Peridot's snores vibrated and tickled against her left thigh. Maybe it was how Lapis's arm was sprawled over on her right, with her head rested right on top of it (FYI: Lapis drooled, too. It formed a river that trickled down Amethyst's shoulder and probably would have made Pearl shriek in disgust. Good thing disgusting was kind of Amethyst's thing, right?).

But that was okay. She liked it.

"Amethyst?" she heard Peridot mumble drowsily from her left.

Amethyst, however, was as wide-awake as ever. She glanced down as Peridot cracked open one of her eyes.

"Mmm?"

"I think we should be the ones in the museum."

Amethyst chuckled. "I think you're still half-asleep."

"Noooo!" she protested, smushing her hair into Amethyst's stomach. "Hear me out! You and Lapis are aesthetically pleasing, and I can only come to the conclusion that I am as well since kissing is usually an action executed if all participating parties think likewise, and..." Her hands fluttered in front of Amethyst's face as she let out a massive yawn. "Your lips are like the down of an Earth avian laced with Rubies and...and Lapis's are bumpy and textured and cool like coral, and..." Another massive yawn. "and..." she concluded, slipping a hand under her visor to rub her eyes, "we're all...morp."

Amethyst elbowed her and chuckled. "Go back to sleep, nerd."

Peridot gladly obliged, sprawling herself over Amethyst's chest and burying her face in the crook between Amethyst's neck and shoulder, interlocking an arm into the crook of Lapis's elbow. "Mmmmm."

Amethyst snorted. "Nerd," she muttered again, drumming her fingers on Peridot's leg. Then she turned around as gently as she could to wipe the drool off of her right shoulder.

"Heh. I wonder what you're dreamin' of."

Definitely not being trapped in the ocean, Amethyst decided as she brushed back a lock of Lapis's hair and saw that her eyes were actually closed, rather than screwed shut, her brows arched upwards instead of downwards, her mouth letting out breaths of sea breeze instead of crashing waves. She looked back up at the sky and all its pinprick lights, all stars that were glimmering thousands of light years away (yes, even though Amethyst didn't seem like she knew much, even she knew that light years measured light, not years). Apparently, Homeworld's galaxy was out there, too. Garnet had told her about it once. Amethyst wouldn't ever know it from here since she had never bothered to look at where Garnet was pointing—why would she? This place was her home after all, wasn't it?—but maybe Peridot did. Maybe Lapis did.

Heh. Homegirls.

As she leaned against the back of the truck and closed her eyes, feeling Peridot's warm body draped over her chest like a furnace and Lapis's much, much cooler body pressed against her shoulder like an ice pack, she closed her eyes, sighed contentedly, and decided she would ask them in the morning.

Whoo! This was fun! If there are any typos in here or a weird tense shift or two, don't worry. I'm probably gonna go through this a few times over and fix them as soon as I catch them.

There were four main reasons I wanted to write this:

1) Lapis and Amethyst having a self-loathing showdown.

2) Sleepy Peridot mumbling nonsensical artsy spiel.

3) I'm multishipping trash.

4) *chanting fervently* KISS KISS KISS KISS KISS KI

Oh, and the title was snagged from a lyric from "Flaws" by Bastille, if anyone's curious.

Anyways, thanks so much for bothering to read all the way through! It means a lot! :)