#like I studied lit and taught analysis and am capable of thinking

[thresholdbb]

Me, an educated person capable of analyzing media through theoretical lenses: Damn! Look at how she sits in that chair

[mage-cat]

Stories and Games

Happy Amedot day! I present a sequel to Braids, featuring Peridot gifting Amethyst with Li’l Butler fanfic and the two of them visiting the arcade. It is shameless fluff, that I enjoyed writing tremendously.

Story is below the cut and the link to the AO3 version is through here.

“Amethyst!” Peridot called out as the two Gems came in sight of each other roughly halfway between the Barn and the nearest warp pad. “I was just on my way to the Temple to see you. I have something for you.” She clutched a bright purple folder to her chest. “I was thinking about some of the things you said you wish the writers of Li'l Butler had done with Tiffany Richington's character and ended up writing it out into a story I thought you might like.” She held out the folder and Amethyst took it.

“Since when do you write stories?” she asked as she began to leaf through the dozen or so pages inside.

“It started with posting Camp Pining Hearts analysis on the internet. Further investigation of the Campers community made it clear to me that my ideas could find a wider audience if I worked it into fanfiction. I've been doing it for a few months now. I think some of my commenters suspect that I'm not human. They keep asking me if I ever sleep.”

Amethyst snorted out a small laugh. “Well, there's no way I'm gonna wait to read this,” she said as she settled under a nearby tree.

It was a sort of spinoff plot based on what Amethyst had admitted was one of her favorite episodes, the one where the daughters of the Money and Richington families had to take a cooking class. The jokes in the episode were mostly just the standard 'cooking for the first time' sitcom hijinks, but by the end, Tiffany Richington had really gotten into the spirit of things, experimenting with the ingredients in some actually creative ways. It echoed how Amethyst enjoyed eating in a way that few things did, and she had been a bit bummed that they hadn't turned that into a recurring character trait to milk jokes out of.

Peridot had written about Tiffany going to a culinary summer camp. The setting probably had allowed Peridot to reuse some details from Camp Pining Hearts stories, but since Amethyst had only seen bits and pieces of the show, she wasn't sure how much. It didn't matter anyway. It was a story about Tiffany enjoying herself to an extant her uptight family rarely allowed her, about discovering new tastes and textures, and about shaping something new for the sheer pleasure of it. It said almost everything Amethyst had ever felt about food and everything she had wanted for Tiffany's character and a few things she hadn't realized she had wanted for her. There wasn't much in the way of Li'l Butler gag-style humor, but Peridot's quirky world-view threaded its way though the whole thing, making Amethyst chuckle regularly.

Peridot kept a close eye on Amethyst's expression as she read. What she saw was encouraging. “So you like it?”

“Like it?” She looked up from the last page with an ear-to-ear grin. “Peri, this is perfect. I love it!”

“Perfect.” Peridot repeated the word softly, as if tasting it, before her head jerked. “Oh, in all my excitement, I just realized I must have derailed you. Were you heading to the Barn for anything specific?”

Amethyst's smile turned sheepish as she fiddled with the folder. “Um... yeah... I was... was wondering if you might wanna go to the arcade with me.”

“Is this a date?” Peridot asked matter-of-factly. When Amethyst's eyes went wide, she continued in the same tone. “I only ask because Lapis is starting to threaten that, I quote, 'If you two keep up is mutual pining thing much longer, I am going to give you a cold shower every time you mention her name.' I ran some calculations. Spending that much time with my hair dripping would get annoying quickly.”

“You talk about me that much?”

“Of course, you're a fascinating gemetic study.”

Amethyst looked skeptical at the clinical phrasing. “Because I'm defective?”

Peridot's tone turned earnest as she began to gesture broadly. “Because you defy the standards for Quartz soldiers to be a standard all your own, one that I in many ways find to be superior to the standards I was taught to identify in my Kindergartener training.”

Amethyst remembered the times she had seen Peridot try to lie. There are people who can fake sincerity. Peridot wasn't one of them. Amethyst smiled as she realized that Peridot really meant what she said. “Yes. Yes, I'm asking you out on a date.”

Peridot began to mutter, moving as if heading back to the Barn. “I understand that first dates are intended to be special occasions. Extra attention paid to grooming, gifts given...”

Amethyst took Peridot's hand, breaking her line of thought. “Yo, Peri-mour, we can have a date like that later. I promise. Today, I just want to hang out with my favorite nerd and maybe show her how to play skee-ball. You cool with that?”

Her face lit up. “That is an acceptable first official date.”

After a quick stop at the Temple to leave the folder in a safe place, Amethyst and Peridot soon found themselves in front of the arcade's skee-ball setup. “I actually stink at this game most of the time,” Amethyst said, “'cause I get frustrated, which makes my problems worse, but I think you'll be good at it. It isn't about throwing the ball hard. You have to throw it just hard enough and let go at just the right time. It's precise, like a lot of the stuff you rule at.” Amethyst tossed her ball so that it rolled up the incline, hit the ball-hop, and landed in the twenty point ring. She shrugged. “Like I said, I'm not great at it, but even a pretty lousy throw gets you ten points.”

“Could you help guide my first few throws?” Peridot asked, grinning.

Once Amethyst realized what she meant, she chuckled as she stepped behind Peridot to take her right hand, already holding the ball, in her own. “You have watched way too much cheesy romance, but I gotta say, I think I kinda dig it.” With her chin on Peridot's shoulder, she could smell her hair. It reminded Amethyst of the time she had spent a half hour putting CDs in a microwave to watch lighting spark off of them, a mix of metal, plastic, and the ozone left over from the light show. This may have been part of the reason why their first two throws barely made it up the ball-hop. Their third finally made it into the thirty point ring.

“I'm pretty sure you'll do better than this on your own,” Amethyst half-joked.

“I'll admit, if we had this much co-ordination in the three-legged race, we would have fallen over pretty quickly.” As Amethyst returned to her lane, Peridot continued, “I don't know why you act like you're so bad at control though. I mean, back when you all were trying to capture me, you managed to wrap me with your whip on multiple occasions without ever actually hurting me. I'm pretty sure that's not easy.”

“That's different. My whip is a part of me. These balls aren't.”

“Just because you have a talent for something, because it's a part of you, doesn't make the way you use it any less remarkable. I mean, I once saw you shape-sift into a fully functioning helicopter capable of carrying three people. That is an intense level of control over your physical form.”

“I mostly shape-shift for gags,” Amethyst said as her tossed one of her balls.

“And for most of my time on Earth, I've used my engineering skills to make art projects and gadgets of marginal practical utility. Does that make the work I did on the drill less important?”

Amethyst kept her eyes on the rings at the end of her lane as she continued her game, though her vision wasn't really focused on them. “Come on, you can't compare my shape-shifting to something that literally saved the planet.”

Peridot played through her own game as she continued, “I've been on this team for less then a year and have witnessed or been told of several plans that hinged on your shape-shifting. I think the comparison is fair. If Pearl and Garnet don't see the value in that, then they're bigger clods than I ever thought.” Her last ball sailed into the highest ring. “Fifty points! Woohoo!” She tapped Amethyst on the shoulder and pointed to the other Gem's score. “Oh and while you were distracted with disparaging yourself, you landed four balls out of that nine-ball set in the fifty point ring yourself.”

A half-dozen rounds of skee-ball later, they moved on to the rest of the arcade. Peridot really got into the spirit of Road Killer and said that the mechanics of Teen of Rage warranted further analysis. They both proved laughably terrible at Meat Beat Mania. In the end, they traded all their tickets for an equal value of slide whistles because Peridot said they inspired her for a new project idea. It came to enough whistles that they had to split the load between them to carry it all back to the Barn.

They were nearly there when Peridot's steps began to slow, then stop, with Amethyst beside her. “I know you said that this date wasn't following most of the formal structures, but,” she hesitated, “I understand that it's typical for dates to end with a kiss. I've sort of have been looking forward to trying that with you.”

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

“Camp Pining Hearts was my introduction to the concept, and it's not like there has been anyone else I would want to try it with. Have you?”

“I've gotten some practice in.” Mostly Vidalia along with the rare concert-goer that didn't mind that they towered a foot or two over the girl hitting on them.

“I'd like to learn from you.”

Amethyst thought that Peridot probably hadn't imagined their first kiss involving them both carrying an armload of slide whistles, but maybe it was a good thing. It left what to do with their hands for a second lesson. She leaned forward and kissed her, slow and sweet, enjoying how her metal and ozone smell translated to the taste of her lips along with a trace of something mint-flavored. Peridot, always a quick study, soon returned the kiss.

When they separated, Peridot looked slightly dazed as she said, “Wow, thanks.”

“You can thank me by returning the favor sometime.”

“You won't have to wait long for that, Ames.”