ACCESS DENIED.

“i have them! i just… don’t know where i have them. but it doesn’t matter, ‘cause i’m not gonna look for them, ‘cause you’re too obsessed with that show! it’s good, but it’s just not that good. and it’s definitely not as good as ‘crying breakfast friends’!

“Ugh, fine. If you're not going to look for them, I'll just have to locate them myself! ...At a later point in time. When you're not. Making that face at me.  Gh, enough with the tactics! I will give it a try.”

            She averted her gaze from the younger gem, as it was the only way to let it soften. She wanted to be friends with her roommate, she really did, but she was unable to get over the anger for one reason or another. All she could really do was try to act civil and hope that maybe someday her grudge would subside and let her open up.

            “from what i’ve heard, some gems find it relaxing, because it shuts down the brain and helps you rest for several hours on end,” she responded with a shrug, folding her arms underneath her head in order to use them as a pillow.

             Thinking back on her experiences with the drill, something occurred to Peridot. Her first instinct was to note it down, but she hadn’t exactly found a perfect replacement for her tape recorder yet.

            “The organic life forms of this planet-- and to some extent, its non-organic inhabitants-- seem to have a strange preoccupation with doing nothing.” 

            Downtime was a foreign concept to her, to say the least. Productive Peridots were to always be doing something, micromanaging from one task to the next. What was a Peridot to do with downtime? That rigid Homeworld mold was no longer applicable to her, but her fingers itched at the thought in habit.

            “Night mares?” She spaced out the word, as if dragging it out would suddenly reveal its meaning. Things were certainly different. This planet wasn’t quite home yet for Peridot or her roommate, and its customs were even stranger. 

           Lapis rolled over so that she was on her opposite side and glared at Peridot, though the expression held less heat than it would have a little while previously.

          That didn’t necessarily mean that she didn’t want him to at the moment. It was a selfish thought, but the longer Lapis stared at her, the more she felt the pressure to say something. Unsure how to respond in a way that wouldn’t earn her a nice crack in her visor, Peridot fumbled for common ground. 

          “Sleeping-- ha!” A bout of nervous laughter. From what she could tell, whenever Peridot was around Lapis seemed to hate everything-- perhaps the best thing she could do was hate things with her, Peridot thought. 

“huh? no! peridot, you watched the same episode for three days! i’ll never see you again if i give you the other episodes! besides, i don’t know where they are. 

“What?! After all that, you don’t even have them?  How could you do this to me?!

“You take that back. There’s no way your ‘Crying Breakfast Friends’ could ever compete with the creative genius and intricate plot structure that is Camp Pining Hearts.

         “i know you’re there.”

          Well. She’d been caught red handed. Green handed, rather, but Peridot was in no mood to mull over technicalities for once. It was difficult to reconcile everything that had happened between her and Lapis. An uncomfortable tension hung in the air because of it-- she had the gem imprisoned in a cell mere months ago, for crying out loud. There were things that needed to be discussed, but when push came to shove, Peridot wasn’t very well-suited for conflict. So, she did what any anxiety-riddled gem would do in the face of a former ‘informant’ and lied through her teeth.

“what!? even after the whole friendship bracelet thing he wants to schmooze on paulette!?”

“oh, amethyst, i just knew you’d understand.”