FountainPenguin

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PearlescentMoon

Location: Pearl's unit, Simmers' Quarter, 4th Floor, 552

🖤  🧡  💚

Scott’s exhausted, riled up on moonfluence, and worst of all… embarrassed. He doesn’t clarify all that, but Pearl would be the same. They untangle from the bed and spend a few minutes walking around. Scott’s got moonlight to shake like water off his wings. Break time offers Pearl the chance to follow up with Bdubs, because if she doesn’t, he’ll probably lose his mind. She checks her comm, but he hasn’t sent another ‘Still good?’ since she asked he keep his distance. Hm. Maybe he’s treating her like an adult who can make her own choices after all.

She sends another whisper anyway. Adulting’s a two-way street and she’s not gonna drop the ball on keeping Bdubs in the loop. She sits at the bar counter while Scott’s on the other side, eating another brownie. He sees her typing. He’s not near enough to read the screen and he doesn’t ask who, but Pearl glances up and their eyes meet anyway. He doesn’t look thrilled she’s talking to someone on the side.

“I’ll put it away,” she tells him. “Just writing someone back while we chill.”

“About the cat?”

“What?”

“You said you might adopt a second cat. You, uh… don’t date, so you-” And he laughs, tossing back his head. “You sort of glitched out my go-to options there! I was like, ‘No, Pearl doesn’t  like women; can’t gush and ask her who,’ and ‘Oh no, she doesn’t like men either.’ Pearl, that’s all I have.”

She laughs along with him, and exchanges a glance with herself inside her head. You can’t think of anyone else I’d talk to if I’m not trying to pick them up?

Sigh. She’s pouring words down his throat with a ladle. Deep breath. Remember… If Cleo and Martyn made it work, she and Scott can too. Open communication. Honest expectations. No judgment. Apologies. That’s how it all goes down.

He pauses for a moment, then says, “I’m sorry you got pulled away from Gem and Impulse. Bdubs… Bdubs mentioned that. I was dragon brain when I had him invite you to tea party. I didn’t know.”

“No worries. You needed me.”

That comment leaves him visibly uncomfortable. He stands there, half a brownie in his hand. Pearl doesn’t pay him much attention, swiftly messaging a couple other people who’d sent her whispers. Look, she might as well. Scott walks away at some point. Pearl hears the balcony door squeak open. He’s probably checking the lock.

… He’s not, when she looks up again. The door is shut. Huh? Pearl crosses the living room, a spatter of nerves curving up her spine as she can’t see Nugget, until she hears a mew from up the hallway. Pearl squints through the window to confirm Scott’s not talking to someone on his comm. He’s definitely there, though… slumped against the rail, fingers tangled at the front of his hair. His bun’s pulling loose. Pearl opens the door as noisily as she can.

“Hey. You all right, mate? We can meet tomorrow if you need a longer break.”

Scott says… nothing at all. He stares down over the small section of New Star that her balcony overlooks. There’s not much to see out here in the southeast corner - Pretty much everything’s on the building’s other side - but the lanterns are nice, all glowing blue and white. Pearl leans against the balcony’s edge, trying to give Scott plenty of space without, y’know… letting the guy who is a dragon and clearly fighting with some strong emotions right now out of her sight.

“I,” he finally says, “feel like I’ve gaslit, gatekept, girlboss’d too close to the sun. I’ve gaslit myself, I think.”

Yeah, and he looks it, too. “You wanna talk longer?” Pearl jabs a thumb somewhere in the west. “My boss needs Moo today, not me. I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

“This isn’t something I can talk about. Thank you, though.”

… Not sure what that’s about. “Mind if I hang out anyway?” See also, do not let the dragon stay unsupervised on the balcony. That’s not just a precaution for destructive powers, but if Alice seizes control of his body while his attention’s not all there and gets into trouble, well… Imagine if he careened into a wall and died from kinetic energy. Not good.

Scott shrugs. So together, spaced apart, they wait the minutes out on a little balcony in a little corner of a little city underground, way out here at the edge of the world. Or what may as well be, anyway. Pearl, knowing how much he loves to talk, expects that Scott will spill his thoughts eventually. He mostly doesn’t. After a while, he just asks if he can hug her again. She allows it. He squeezes her tight. They’ve got their collision back enough to feel it. Then he wipes his face and says if she gives him a couple more minutes, he’ll fix the door.

Pearl, maybe against her better judgment, carefully gives him alone time after that. She stays in the living room, though, until Scott’s ready to come back in. He waves his hand, rainbow sparkles glittering, and hands her a brand new key. Locks are changed. She thanks him and says she plans to tell Martyn off. Scott grumbles that she can absolutely report him for this because he had no business barging in if he wasn’t hunting and Pearl assures him that she’ll catch him sometime and talk about it privately. She likes to think he had good reason. He probably didn’t. Martyn doesn’t always think before he goes out wandering.

“Whyyyyy did he have a key?” Scott asks, trying a little too hard to sound casual about it. Pearl shrugs. She could lie to him, or she could be honest and it might be exactly what he needs to snap him out of allay brain (It’s impossible not to notice how he follows her, always staying a little behind and to one side).

“Gave it to him mid-Double Life for co-spawn roleplay.”

Scott freezes. Oh, yeah? Pearl turns on her heels, hands to hips. Her wings flap out to either side. “Don’t ask if you don’t want the answer, silly!”

He looks at her. He just… And she can see him rewiring his brain. The version of her his allay mind painted on a pedestal. The who she is doesn’t fit with who he thought he was doing favors for. He should drop it (Why’s he think he can ask?) but he says, “What?”

“Co-spawn roleplay. Came over and palled around; we pretended he sired my spark. What’s not to get? You and Cleo left us out in the cold, dude; we were lonely between sessions. It’s a long time to wallow.”

He looks very fidgety now, so Pearl changes the subject. “Wanna see my cobble baby?” You can paint them any way you like, but Pearl took her time and gave hers a proper face. Scrunched up nose and little bat ears, swaddled in its wings. She keeps it in a chest for when the nurse urges hit hardest beneath the waning moon.

“Not… really?” He rubs behind his neck. “You’ve made your point; that wasn’t my business.”

“Nope,” she says, grinning back at him. He makes a face. Scott tolerates the late-night bar conversations about what it might be like to have little sparks running around, but nursehood’s not for him. He’s a sire if he’s either one at all. Mob allays duplicate themselves without a partner, so maybe there’s something in his instincts that feels like it’s kind of gross. Or it’s some suppressed dragon thing. Rebellion. Who knows.