#lapnet

-Los Angeles, Mid-Wilshire, March 12th, 1966

Lapis

  It’s a scene eerily similar to how Lapis and Garnet first met. Lapis had just gotten over a bitter split-up with Peridot; the latter had long been exhausted of the former’s shit, the former proceeding to duck into the cheapest dive nearby and drink herself under the table of The 555. Segregated dingy deserted shithole by day, a disgusting party den by night frequented primarily by the dykes near 8th avenue who had enough money for a few drinks and a night out, and not much else.

  Same shit, different day; The Aphrodite was another dingy shithole in the middle of Mid-Wilshire, it’s population consisting exclusively of the dykes around white enough to avoid the attention of the establishment’s armed security guards hired and hauled in from who knew where. Lapis and Garnet could get through because Lapis could talk herself through anything Garnet couldn’t just stonewall through.

  Her cheap gin and tonic is tangy with metal, half their life budget blown on whatever drinks they could get their hands on. They’ve burned enough cigarettes between the two of them that she’s starting to feel sick from the nicotine. The floor is sticky, the leather is ripped and tattered beyond repair. Playing tonight is a band down on their luck, enough so that they’d play here; everyone’s got to start somewhere, but reputations are fickle things. The fact they’re playing at a dyke bar will stick with them for the rest of their terminally-ill careers.

  None of it’s as interesting as the lonely girl they’ve chosen to watch over for the night, slumped at the bar table with nothing to keep her company. Save for the murky pitcher she’s ordered and been drinking up, all by her lonesome.

  In her ear, Garnet whispers. “That one’s looking a bit lonely.”

  Lapis would’ve sputtered, back at her,  if she wasn’t feeling down from all the nicotine. “You think?”

  The sole girl at the bar tries her hand at pouring another glass, only to spill the clear concoction all over the table and onto her sundress. “She’s deadass drunk. Look at her. How do you think she got through security?” Lapis asks, dizzy from all the nicotine burned between the two of them.

  “Asian girls usually don’t come off as threatening to them. That, or one of them might’ve been hoping she’d drink herself in.”

  Lapis takes another drag from her cigarette. “So if she doesn’t come home with us, they’ll be the ones taking her out.”

  “I agree.”

  “We’re doing something?”

  Garnet scoffs. “How noble of you.”

  “She’s too drunk for me to ask for it tonight.” Lapis admits, downing the rest of her glass. “But it’d be wrong to just… leave her there.”

  “Well? Go to her then.”

  Lapis looks back at Garnet, then back at the girl, then back at Garnet. Garnet knows how to play on her conscience; that the scene playing out right before them is a mirror of how they first met doesn’t escape them. Lapis has half a mind to ask Garnet to ask what she’d first said to her on that fateful night back in autumn ‘65, but she’d figure she’d end up be left sleeping on the hotel couch-sofa tonight if Garnet ever realized she’s forgotten three-fourths of their first meeting together.

  “Kiss me luck?” Lapis asks instead.

  Not even acknowledgement shines through Garnet’s thick aviator sunglasses. “You’re a better flirt when you’re horny.”

  “Fuck you Garnet.” She smiles back at her as she stands.

  “Tomorrow morning’s going to be rough on her, the poor girl. You think someone flaked on her?”

  “She’s absolutely blitzed right now, no doubting that. We driving back to her place, or we taking her back to ours?”

  “Depends on how far away her address is. Didn’t you have a girl to save?”

  “Working on it.” She walks over to the bar, brushing off her leather jacket, slipping onto the seat right next to her without any trouble. The girl is absolutely inebriated, not even noticing that someone’s sitting right across from her, now pouring a drink of her own. A lemony rum punch, strong enough to give the girl slumped in front of her poisoning, if her thin frame is suggestive of anything in her oversized beige sundress.

  “You know, you’ll be poisoning yourself if you keep this up.” Lapis downs the drink, and pushing the pitcher out of the girl’s reach.

  The girl raises an eyebrow, looking up at her from her stupor. Eyes heavy, on the verge of tears. A breakup.

  Agitated by her questions, the girl scowls. “Can I help you?”

  At this, Lapis can’t help but smirk at her expense. “I think that’s the question I should be asking you.” Up close and personal, she realizes the girl’s taller than her, if only just. Her plain, cheap sundress shows off the most elegant legs Lapis has ever had the pleasure to set her eyes on. The girl tucks back her short-cut hair, an unpretentious strawberry-blonde. Her eyes, weary and close to tears, suddenly grow wide now that she has someone to talk to.

  “Hey, if you don’t want me bothering you, that’s fine. I’ll just head on back over to my friend-”

  “No! No.” Pearl grumbles, her fringe drooping over her wide eyes as her hand reaches over to grasp her arm. “Stay. Please. I’m scared.”

  At the sight of this, Lapis nearly melts. “Of me?”

  “Of… everything, really. I’m… I’m a fool really.”

  A smooth, serene voice fills the room; the shoddy audition rejects dash off-stage to presumably their next mediocre performance, and with them, go the chaotic acoustics of their bar. The new singer  announces they’ve taken the stage; it’s all in the back of her mind really, but she’s glad she can hear herself think again.

  -Blue Moon

  The girl’s eyes glimpse through and their eyes meet; they lock for an abnormally long amount of time. “I’m not from around here. I’m, I’m lost and I don’t know what I’m doing, I ran away from home and-”

  Her words fumble and crash into a blithering incoherence but underneath it all, Lapis catches a few words. Money. Spent. Parents. Runaway. Rose. Scared.

   Lapis looks back at Garnet, begging her for assistance; Garnet throws her back a thumbs up and Lapis wishes she could just chuck this damn pitcher of shitty lemon-rum back at her.

  “You’re not from around here?” Lapis asks, trying.

  “N-no.” The girl says, long fingers covering her mouth. The shoddy lighting doesn’t mask her luminescent blush, and it sets Lapis off wondering how new to everything she just is.

  “Maryland, actually.” The girl slurs. “Small town. Had to escape it all. Parents. The fact that I kept seeing her wherever I went-”

  At this, Lapis leans in, arms curling around the girl’s frail body to wrap her in as warm as a hug as she can manage. “I understand.”

  A lie that wasn’t a lie. In Lapis’s case, it was better to describe what she just said as an emotion, a jumble of sorts. But she isn’t the one half-way across the country, drunkenly embracing a biker dyke she barely even knows so she’ll have to put away those feelings for now.

  “T-thank you.” The girl slips her fingers around the back of Lapis’s neck, igniting a desire she hadn’t felt since-

  Like her building nausea, she shoves it all, her feelings, her emotions back down inside. Their embrace breaks; Lapis pushing the girl back to where she started, trying to figure out where she was now.

  Again, she puts away her thoughts when the girl reaches for another drink, discovering that she’s spilt most of the contents on the table, and on her lap. Pouts, so very unfitting of the stature this girl would radiate if she wasn’t so absolutely gassed right now, when she realizes her pitcher’s been taken away from her. But she doesn’t complain.

  “You… you need help.” Lapis flusters out. “Maybe we can get you a taxi and send you to a hotel or maybe we go with you to make sure-”

  “Why’d you take it away?” Pearl slurs, reaching for the pitcher, prompting Lapis to pour whatever’s left in a glass for herself.

  “Why’d you go all the way out here?” Lapis asks, trying to redirect the girl’s attention away from her lost alcohol. “We’re in southern Cali. Other side of the country. Empire City wasn’t exciting enough for you?”

  The girl frowns at her as if to mock her for the teasing question, and Lapis just knows she has to have her. “I needed to be far away. Far, far away. And it seemed nice here. Beaches. Sun. Surfing. My parents... used to live, here actually.”

  “Really?”

  Without warning, the girl spills onto the floor under their stools, upchucking what must be at least a fourth of her pitcher. Grimacing and yanking her feet away, Lapis squeaks out something about her prized jump boots, about how the leather’s a bitch to maintain, and about how she can’t afford cleaners or anything like that.

  “Nice.” Garnet earns herself another glare from Lapis, joining their impromptu party.

  “My fucking boots! You realize how much of a bitch these were to get my hands on!?”

  “Vent.” Garnet says, deadpan as always, as she carefully removes the girl’s body from her own slosh.

  “They’re fucking jump boots. Straight from the inventory we raided a couple months back! Military brats get all pissy about them if you’re not in the fucking air force or whatever.” Lapis glances at the mess to see how bad it is, considering it’s mostly regurgitated booze and stomach acids, the damage shouldn't be awful. “Forget it. Is she okay?”

  “She’ll be feeling like absolute shit tomorrow, but she’s sleeping like a bird right now.” Without missing a beat, Garnet’s hand slips into Pearl’s purse, quickly fishing out her wallet to procure an ID of any sort.

  “Wouldn’t bother with the address. She lives in Maryland, so unless you’re into road trips-”

  “Just confirming her information. Name, age, and address?”

  “Didn’t get it, probably too young for any joint, and all the way out in fucking Maryland.” Lapis grunts, wiping off her boots with the bar’s cloth napkin.

  Garnet adjusts her sunglasses, focusing in on the girl’s identification. In all other cases, they’d be done by now and take her to wherever she is, or wherever they’ve holed up for the night. That Garnet takes off her sunglasses, perpetually fused to her head whenever they’re out together, means something’s off.  “Pearl. Name’s Pearl.”

  “Anything wrong?” Lapis josses the napkin back into place, making sure to throw a few dimesin the pitcher before they leave.

  Garnet, sunglasses back in place, holds the girl’s ID up, asking her to look.

  The dim lighting of The Aphrodite makes it hard to see, but she finds what Garnet’s pointing her to instantly; it sticks out a sore thumb asides from the night unrecognizable photo, and the etched out name section. “Well.” Lapis one-notes.

  “Lapis.”

  “Fuzz’ll be all over her for crossdressing once they’ve thrown her in the jailhouse for something stupid.” Lapis admits, no longer interested in looking over the identification.

  Garnet takes Lapis’s glass, downing half of it before leaving the rest for her. “She have a hotel we can drive to?”

  “I think she said she burned all her money on the pitcher and the ride here actually.” Lapis holds out their keys, and shrugs disaffectedly.

  “So we’ll be taking her in then?” Garnet gently lifts Pearl from her stupor, carrying her bridal style.

  Lapis takes one end of Pearl’s body, helping Garnet carry her out of the bar whilst garnering only a strange look or two from the bar’s patrons. And two glares of disappointment from the white-shirted security. “Of course.” Lapis grumbles above the fading music. “Let her sleep tonight off, and throw up tomorrow morning. We should... probably forget we saw it.”

  That the streets of downtown LA hadn’t emptied by two in the morning was a testament to the city’s livability. Greeted with that cool summer night chill native to Southern California, the two stumble their way out of The Aphrodite.

  No raid tonight, meaning they could just dump her in the back seating of their miracle of a vehicle. The newest Shelby Model 66, almost criminal given they don’t have the money to cough up for the hotel keep tomorrow morning. In fact, it wasn’t even theirs; being a gift Lapis kept with her given by one of her rich ex’s during their ill-fated relationship.

  “Your thoughts?” Garnet asks, Lapis slumping against the window view, watching the city fly by, radio on full blast.

  You’re Going to Lose That Girl -The Beatles

  “On her?” Lapis darts her gaze over to her, still freshly knocked out.

  “Yeah. I think she’s plenty attractive.” Garnet continues, eyes on the road. She could never figure out how Garnet could still see through those damn sunglasses at night.

  Lapis’s eyes dart back to the passing cityscape, the lights and glows of the neon city streets fading as they left the main city. “She’s such a baby dyke.”

-Los Angeles County, Hawaiian Gardens, February 27th, 1966

  Garnet makes sure to drive extra slow for their passenger in the back. They don’t want to hurt her more any more than her drinking’s caused her, and they really don’t want to mess up the car interior any more than what a year of hard drinking and smoking’s done to it.

  After around a half-hour of pissing off drivers clocking 90 on The 605, they finally reach their destination: a motel Lapis somehow convinced the management to give them three more days to cough up their money. Making sure to park right outside their room window, they unceremoniously dump Pearl on the room’s sleeper sofa once they’re back in their room, making sure to wrap her in whatever blankets the room has on hand: two. Three glasses of tap water are set out for her, left on the bedside stand. Surrounding her front and back, two garbage bins, when she inevitably needs to hurl.

  “God damn it.” Lapis groans, throwing off her leather jacket and cleaning herself on the dresser. “I thought we were going to nail someone new tonight.”

  “We did.” Garnet says, stripping off her blazer. “In a different usage of the word, yes.”

  Lapis groans, earning a laugh on Garnet’s end. Soft fingers slip through, combing her mop of blue hair, faded into a sky blue. She’d need to bleach the roots and go ‘shopping’ for the hair supplies. Dying hair was expensive enough to actually bother spending on, as wishy-washy the two of them were between being ‘ethical,’ and lifting everything they could carry in their pockets from the nearest gas station.

  “We got any green left to smoke?” Lapis asks, as a soft thud lands on the bed.

  “We should probably sleep now. Wake up before she does.”

  “What if we don’t? What is she gonna do, hurl all over the hallway trying to leave?”

  “Mmm. I was thinking you’d be a bit more enthusiastic to jump into bed with me.”

  It takes a few seconds to many for it to connect. When she does eventually look over, she’s greeted by the sight of Garnet stretching, lying on their queen size bed. Waiting for her.

  The distance between them halves, is rendered nil. They laugh as Lapis struggles with her tattered jeans, wound a bit too tight for her. They lay into each other, teasing whispers, sharing pleasantries. Lapis’s arms slip her arms around Garnet’s waist, their fingers intertwining.

  “I figured you’d want.”

  “Am I really that predictable?”

  “It doesn’t take a mind reader to read you, Lapis Lazuli.”

  “This is fine though, isn’t it?” Lapis whispers. Their lips meet in a clash of lust and affection that sends them falling apart in the other’s arms. It’s a dance the two of them are familiar with, that it’s part muscle memory doesn’t take anything away. They’re there to catch each other, they’re happy to still be dancing this far long on their little stage.

  “It’s your move.”

  Lapis doesn’t say anything back, opting to slip her fingers underneath the the dress shirt Garnet was wearing, pulling it over her head, and off her body.

Pearl

  When Pearl finally comes to, her first thought back to sober reality is a wish that she hadn’t. Her skull is pulsing, splitting as if someone rearranged all the valves in her body to pump everything straight to the brain. Her throat is sore, and her mouth is so, very dry. In an attempt to reclaim control over her senses, she tries to toss her body over, only to knock her back onto some cold tin surface.

  Her body shivers, shakes uncontrollably with her teeth clattering against each other with enough force to knock the cavities out of her molars flat outright. Covering her shivering body is strangely nostalgic. Her lips are dry yet pasty, covered in some sheen that makes her just want to jump out of wherever she is and-

  Where is she? What was she doing-

  An excruciatingly long bus ride, a check-in to an extraordinarily sub-par motel, an absolutely filthy bar, a pitcher of the most disgusting liquid she’s ever had the pleasure of letting slide past her throat, and a mop of blue hair-

  “Rise and shine babe.” The blanket protecting her eyes from the blinding light out is gently lifted from her, still enough to make her panic. Whether from confusion or outright pain, she opens her mouth. A scream tries to escape her throat, but instead she just curls her body up, desperately clawing under the blanket for shade and protection. Escaping her lips instead is a wispy gasp.   Without thinking, she flips over the opposite direction, and hurtles herself off of the comforts of her dingy bed, and onto another tin object, tipping it over. As if to mock her, a generous amount of water is dumped onto her front, soaking her through.

  This time, Pearl manages to scream. Loud.

  “Jesus, you okay!?” Two hands peek through her covers, propping her up. The sopping wet blanket over her eyes is cruelly removed from her as she’s carefully set against the couch. Napkins wipe at her eyes so she can see; greeting her is a familiar face, and her messy blue hair.

  “W-where am I? What am I doing here!?” Pearl blithers erratically, wincing from the sound of her voice which she realizes now is too damn loud. The room is too damn loud, everything is too damn loud and now she wants to cry from it all. “D-did I-”

  “You drank yourself shit-faced last night so we decided to take you home with us.” Noticing Pearl’s state of mind, she panics. “H-Hey, don’t worry. We didn’t do anything to you. Promise.”

  A dumbfounded stare scans the blue-haired girl’s face, trying to recollect, pick up the pieces from last night, if there are any. “I’m Lapis.” Her eyes dart away, unwilling to look Pearl in the eye. “You… threw up all over my boots last night.”

  “Oh god…” Pearl squeaks, sinking in her blanket cocoon and bringing her knees up to her arms.

  It all dissolves into an emotional mess, Pearl blithering out more nothings, making Lapis both confused and flustered. “Hey, don’t-” Lapis pithers her words, instead placing her hands on Pearl’s shoulders as a comforting measure. Like last night. “I’ll... go get some towels okay?” She says awkwardly, disappearing off to the washroom.

  Pearl’s eyes instinctively dart around her surroundings, trying to figure out exactly where she is and see if their story checks out. With so little to reference though, she’ll have to take the girl’s word for it that this is a hotel room and-

  “Garnet, she’s up!” The girl screams from the washroom, making Pearl jump. “I swear…”

  Stumbling back in from the washroom, Lapis sits down in front of her, distance minimal. “I’m gonna wipe you off while you just relax. You’re in a hangover, and it’s not gonna go away soon.” The girl flusters, her gaze darting away from Pearl’s, with some undecipherable emotion. “If… you wanna do it yourself, or you don’t wanna be wiped down, just… say something.”

  Pearl nods, warily, and still shaking. “I’m… I’m fine. Go ahead.”

  Carefully, the girl begins kneading the towel over where Pearl’s soaked through, which feels nice on her end. They share eye contact for a brief moment before Lapis’s eyes dart away, as if she had suddenly remembered how awkward all of this is supposed to be.

  Spots and memories from last night are all she can remember, and what she does remember consists of her awkwardly wandering in, being convinced to purchase that drastically overcharged pitcher of rum, and deciding to down it all in one go, because sunk costs. What she does remember of the blue-haired girl confuses her, makes her want to learn more about her…

  “H-hey, you’re crying.” Lapis panics, dabbing at Pearl’s tears. “You alright?”

  “I-I,” she tries to breathe, finding her nostrils to be clogged with phlegm and junk, “you’re just being so nice to me.”

  The girl’s cheeks flush red, their eyes meeting again. For a brief moment, Pearl’s nausea seems to be infectious, Lapis shoving the towels in her face and promptly standing up. “This is wrong.” The girl says, disappearing out of the living room. “Garnet, this is so much!”

  Now left to her own thoughts and ruminations, Pearl instinctively comes to the conclusion that she’s went and ruined everything, and has to leave the city, if not the state. Her eyes dart around the room with both a mindless curiosity and an urgency to gather her things and get out of here. Stained wallpapers, a spartan assortment of amenities, and the faint smell caught in her sheets gives some credence to the girl’s claim she’s in some run-down motel in the middle of nowhere.

  Though surprisingly, the room does come with a beat-up radio, playing out the tune to some surf rock song she’s never heard before, but finds strangely comforting in this situation.

  Surfer Girl- The Beach Boys

 Standing next to what was her sorry excuse for a bed, a makeshift nightstand, appropriated from some trash bin that’s carried god knows what. Laid out for her, and thankfully untouched by her water spill, her wallet and purse.

 Her wallet and purse were laid out for her.

 Her wallet was laid out for her.

  Nausea. She realizes why those trash cans were set out for her, grabbing the nearest one and throwing another portion of last night’s drink down the drain. When she’s done sputtering out whatever stomach acid’s still left on her teeth, she rinses with whatever water’s still left for her, spitting in the bin.

  “Sorry about that.” Demanding her attention, the girl apparently named Garnet, another one of the bar’s patrons she’d caught a glimpse of from the privacy of her booth, yet never had the courage to approach. Partially because she found herself stunned by Garnet’s everything, and partially because she’d seen a black person precisely twice in her life beforehand. “Lapis is a bit caught up on you.”

  Oh god. She just gave Garnet a disgusting show-

  Staring straight into the enigma that was Garnet’s sunglasses, Pearl, flustering and trying to come up with a coherent jumble of words that wouldn’t make her look like an idiot right in front of her.

  “H-hi, I’m Pearl.” She grins, stupidly.

  A smirk from Garnet and she maybe hasn’t ruined everything yet with this one. “We knew.”

  She doesn’t remember introducing herself last night.

  At this, Pearl’s heart crumples, and she decides that if she can’t bring herself to run away, she’ll just curl up into a ball until it’s all over. “I, I see. Well, I suppose I’ve made myself too much of a burden here, which means-”

  “Pearl.”

  Garnet’s voice grabs her attention; their eyes meet, Garnet’s sunglasses off. “We didn't mean to see it on your driver’s. We just wanted to see if you had an address, and-

  “Whatever the fed says about you on that shitty card doesn’t matter.” The Lapis jumps in, watching them from the hallway leading into what must be the master bedroom.

  Pearl’s eyes dart over to where Lapis; she’s almost hiding from her, much like Pearl wants to, and as to why Pearl has someone like her scared confuses her.

  “We didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable and intrude on your privacy.” Garnet continues, kneeling down. “We’re sorry, and if you’d like to leave right now, we wouldn’t stop you. But we…” Garnet’s eyes briefly dart over to the blue-haired girl’s eyes, “we’d like to ask you something. A proposition, really.”

  Pearl’s eyes briefly dart over to where her wallet and purse are, and it briefly crosses her mind to take the two and dash out of there, leaving it all behind as some awkward experience she could laugh off once she’d eked out something resembling a stable life for herself.

  But like everything else in Pearl’s life, it wasn’t so simple. She had exactly in her wallet seven twenty-five; having blown most of her money on the booze, an unused motel room half-way across the city, and the excruciatingly painful bus ride here from Maryland. It was a moment decision really, one day she was living out her miserable life in the all-male Ocean University dorms, making sure to visit her parents on the weekends. Three years into her engineering degree, she’d gotten her notice in the mail; once university was done and over with, she’d be drafted. A final letter to Rose, who was off with her loser musician off in upstate New York, and she declared ‘fuck it,’ and bought herself a bus ticket, that nice sundress that’d caught her eye during last year’s Christmas shopping, and left for her birthplace, in sunny Southern California.

  Twenty years of living for her family, hoping they’d one day see her the way she wanted them to see her, all thrown down the drain by her naivety. Ten years of pining after Rose, always standing by her side, her closest confidant from K-12, all tossed aside like she was nothing for some deadbeat drummer boy all the way from Beach City.

  And now she was here, Southern California. Surfing, sunshine, and whatever mythos the state could manufacture to make their image more alluring just so she might delude herself with the fantasy that she really would escape it all. And now she was here, stuck inside the hotel room of two strangers she’d gotten mixed up with after a night gone wrong.

  They’d… they’d been so nice to her.

  And she had nowhere else to go.

  She’s too lost in her beachside fantasy to consider otherwise.

  She had nothing else to lose.

  “I’m... listening.”

  Ticket to Ride -The Beatles

  “Just remember, you don’t have to accept. And you can back out at any time. That’s how we work.” Garnet affirms, eyes shining through her dark aviator sunglasses as if to get Pearl to confirm that yes, she does understand.

  “I understand.” Pearl affirms, pressing the towel against her soaked clothes. That she’s still sopping wet is irritating and sends her into a shivering fit, prompting the blue-haired girl to toss out two more towels from the bathroom, each of varying cleanliness, but at the very least, dry. She’s grateful nonetheless.

  “We’d like you to come along with us. We’ve been driving up and down Socal for the past few months or so, getting by. Taking whatever we need to live, spending whatever money we run into on girls and booze. We’d get it, if you think that sounds rough, or if you wouldn’t want to live with a couple total strangers you just met. But the thing is,”

  “I think you’re really cute.” The blue-haired girl jumps in, still from the safety of her hallway. “Garnet and I’ve been together for a couple months now, and we’ve been talking about finding another. Maybe two, maybe more.”

  “Maybe you’ll be the one.” Garnet finishes.

  Lapis fishes from her pocket a small carton of Lucky Stars, unfiltered and fresh. Producing a lighter from her skirt pockets, she takes a drag for herself, before walking over to hand the tobacco over to Pearl.

  “Symbolic.” Garnet deadpans.

  “Your fucking degree is rubbing off on me.” Lapis says back, to which Garnet shrugs.

  Unlike last night with her and alcohol, this isn’t a new experience. Pearl’s smoked with Rose before, smoking endemic in Beach City High. Her fingers nearly fumble the fragile tobacco but she manages to bring it to her lips and take her drag.

  She coughs. And hacks, her world is sent spinning. She’s still in a hangover after all, and her arms fumble for the nearest trash bin, her moment of relative peace shattered when the sends back up another portion last night’s drinks.

  “Shit, you need water. And coffee, but I’d rather not deal with the assholes up at the front desk…”

  “I’ll get you another glass.” Garnet affirms her, heading to the washroom. “Anything else you need?”

  Against all the ringing and vibrations in her fragile skull, Pearl whimpers out her answer. “A cold shower… sounds about right.”

Garnet

   Whether Pearl accepts their offer or not, it doesn’t change the fact that they’ll be charged with the bill for the extra week they’ve roomed the second they hit the front desk, and they’re just a couple everything short.  

  “We’re dipping?” Lapis asks, slothing around on the sofa-bed, arms curled to her body now that Pearl’s locked away behind her shower.

  The desk drawers are knocked open, inside some leftovers from the previous occupants, unnoticed by housekeeping; some goldish medallion, several unsmoked cigars, and a handful of dimes and nickels. “Unless you can get us another extension, that’s the plan. Grab anything not bolted down that you’ll be able to toss in the trunk.”

  At the base of the bed, Lapis stretches with lethargy. “Are we hitting the pawn shop first, or are we gonna look for one once we’re in SD?”

  “That one we found off of Garden Grove offered good prices.”

  “Yeah, but shopkeep was an ass.”

  Garnet gets to work pilfering sheets, mugs, lamps, whatever she can find and stuffing them down her suitcase for good measure. That Lapis hasn’t started helping her says everything Garnet needs to know about her current psyche.

  “You’re nervous.”

  Garnet isn’t in the mood to help Lapis sort out her own emotions; that Lapis hasn’t been able to make up her damn mind about their situation reminds her that she’s still hurt, enough to split into two.

  Lapis scoffs unconvincingly. “What have I got to be nervous about?”

  “She reminds you of Peridot. And-”

  Lapis’s eyes widen, casting a glare over at her. “Don’t you dare bring them up-”

  “I will bring them up when it is appropriate, Lapis Lazuli.” Garnet crosses her arms, telling Lapis to back down.

  Lapis wants to get better. Wants to feel better, wants to be better, without putting in any of the work and change that comes with it. And most of all, she wants someone to just feel sorry about everything she’d dug herself into, and as much as Garnet wants to understand, that Lapis won’t do the same for her or them hurts.

  “S-sorry.” Lapis gets out, gaze suspiciously avoidant.

  “I know.”

   The pitter-patter of waterdrops from Pearl’s shower dominates the acoustics of their room. Lapis’s nervousness is infectious, as very un-Garnet-like it was for her to be nervous.

  Or rather, to admit it.

  “Let’s not fight in front of her.” Lapis mutters.

  “Would it be right for us? Taking her in?” Garnet briskly asks, securing the locks on her suitcase. As much as she’d like to state otherwise, she and Lapis are messes; Lapis especially, but hell if she’ll ever admit it.

  “You heard her. She’s got nowhere to go.” Lapis responds, avoiding the damn question. “What are we supposed to do, dump her out on the streets like everyone else?”

  The squeaking of a shower lever cutting off the showerhead signals to the two of them time’s up; either they put away their petty squabbles, or they risk alienating the poor girl even more than they already have.

  “Shower’s mine.” Lapis jumps to the claim first, Garnet being too distracted by her own thoughts to contest.   “Fine with me.” Garnet grumbles, frustrated with the edges of her friend, lover.

  “And… tell Pearl about them for me. If she’s okay with it.”

  “Can do.”

  The bathroom lock clicks open, steam pouring through the widening crack in the door. Pearl stumbles through the thick mist, wearing the clothes set out for her by Lapis; an oversized flannel, a plain beige tee, with some tight jeans, mildly tattered at the edges. More surprising than Lapis’s body size matching with hers, is how much portions of Lapis’s usual wardrobe fits Pearl.

  Before Lapis can claim the shower for herself, Garnet makes sure to toss three pieces from Lapis’s wardrobe over; a cut up tank top, a denim jacket, and black leggings, all of which bounce off of Lapis’s thick head as she disappears into the shower. She’ll have to make sure Lapis doesn’t traumatize their guest once she’s finished.

  “How’re you feeling?” Garnet asks, having nabbed everything she could. “Come to a decision yet?”

  Pearl tepidly nods, setting her lithe body down on the now stripped-down sofa-bed. “I’d like to come with you. Learn more about living here. Functioning as an… independent adult, it’s… I suppose with company it would be so much less overwhelming.”

  “That’s a reasonable answer. Though I need you to understand. Don’t feel obligated to do anything you don’t want to do.”

  “But I want to!” Pearl’s outburst is unexpected for the both of them, Pearl’s fingers instinctively covering her mouth. “It used to be that life was so terribly simple.” Pearl continues calmer. “I would know how, and when and where everything would happen, just like my parents had told me; education, marriage, children! Now… I suppose some of that sense of childish wonder is back in me, though I could do without the overwhelming sense of uncertainty and fear. Am I… making sense?”

  From where she sat, Pearl looked so small, so fragile.

  Nervous fingers crawl over Pearl’s vision, in shame. “Oh, I’m terrible really, I may have shared too much information, and rambled on on unimportant matters, I-”

  “Pearl.”

  Pearl’s eyes dart up, desperately looking for any sign of reassurance.

  “You’re fine. And never tell yourself your story is unimportant. Because it is. Especially if you’re who we hope you are.”

  Pearl flusters, overcompensating for her inexperience with… everything, by nodding with enough vigor to snap her skull straight off.

  “And you do recognize that if we like you, it’d be a commitment to the both of us. Not just Lapis.”

  “Yes. I know what polyamory is, an… old friend taught me.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t been expecting that answer, having expected Pearl’s silence on her and Lapis’s relationship being an indication of confusion, rather than understanding.

  “It’s just… I wouldn’t be intruding on the two of you, would I?”

  “Lapis is completely smitten with you. And we’ve only just met, we have plenty of time to get to know each other.”

  That Pearl doesn’t pick up any of the subtext beneath her words would be enough to make Garnet laugh at Pearl’s expense, if not for her large eyes softening. “I’m intruding on you, aren’t I? I-”

  “You’re plenty attractive.” Garnet reassures her, Pearl’s flushing red from the compliment. “It’s not you I’m worried about, it’s Lapis.”

  Pearl’s eyes naturally widen with worry. “What about her?”

  “Who she’s been with before.” Garnet admits, taking the spot right next to Pearl. “She’s hurt her girlfriends before.” Garnet’s words are laced with a worry for the delicate girl beside her, as much as strong as their bond was.

  “You?” Pearl asks, eyes wide with worry.

  Garnet scoffs. “I watch over her. She’s the one who told me all about it, and we’ve been working on it ever since we decided to become an item. But change takes work, and Lapis isn’t the dedicated sort.”

  Pearl’s eyes fall, though not in a fear, but in a sort of contemplation. Analytic, as if considering her options. Garnet isn’t sure which would have been more appropriate for her. “How did you and Lapis meet?” Pearl asks, in a near whisper.

  It was a question she never had the pleasure of answering, but the answer she could remember clear; all that was left was to organize her thoughts on the matter.

  A peaceable breath is sucked in before she starts. “It was several months after her last relationship had ended. I was short on money, but even more importantly, I had a landlord who kept raising the rent on me whenever he wanted. Lapis on the other hand, was homeless. Eventually I knew I was going to be out of a home by the end of the month, so I decided to go for a drink.  The 555 was the closest lesbian bar nearby, and I ended up finding Lapis underneath my table. Just as drunk as you were.”

  “Took her home like you. Ended up letting her sleep on my couch for a couple of days, and we started sleeping together. By the end of the month, we decided to we wanted to travel together, so we decided to dip out of LA, and straight up to Santa Barbara, where Lapis’s car was impounded. Rest is history.”

  Lapis’s affinity with water leads to her taking excruciatingly long showers, (that she’s confessed to spending most of the time inside having fun with the shower head,) the current of which was now ending, announced by the cutoff of water.

  Once Garnet’s finished with hers, they’ll be dipping out before hotel management comes up to personally knock at their doors.

  “Anyways.” Garnet shifts gears. “If you’re still with us, you’ll need to be caught up to snuff. Once I’m done showering, we’ll be driving down south, to San Diego. There’s a rich boy with a summer home down there who Lapis faked being in love with for a month or two before the whole liking girls thing clicked for her. She’s got a spare key, and he never visits this time of year so we should be fine.”

  “We’ll be squatting!?” Pearl sputters incredulously. Garnet throws her hands up in innocence.

  “Hey, rich people problems that he has the money to throw at. It isn’t even his actual home, if it makes you feel better.”

  “What if he has security? What if he checks on his property early-”

  “Then we’ll dip out like we’re going to do now.”

  “Excuse me!?” Pearl demands.

  “Uh, Pearl?” Lapis’s voice announces the end of her shower.

  Pearl jolts, turning around to meet Lapis, body half-obscured by the bathroom door.

  “You threw up all over the soap dude. Seriously?”

-San Diego North County, The 5, March 12th, 1966

  Chapel of Love -The Dixie Cups

  They had to leave the torn-up leather chair behind. Nothing to strap it onto the car, and contrary to Lapis’s protests, it didn’t fit in the backseat of their Shelby. In the end, they jossed the damn furniture into the hotel dumpster, before dipping as fast as they could before management noticed Lapis’s face.

   Garnet and Pearl ride the Shelby, Lapis riding right beside them in her 1964 Harley Davidson Sportster. In a stunning revelation for her when Garnet first learned, it was actually legitimately owned, bought up with Lapis’s and her mother’s savings. Back when she was still caught up with the Hell’s Angels, having long given up all efforts at living a legitimate life, before she’d met Garnet.

  It’s an awkward ride between her and Pearl. Besides the radio, only the sound of Pearl’s breakfast (Raisin-Bran, straight from the box, without milk,) fills in the distance between the two of them, now they don’t have anything to talk about.

  It’s not like they could converse like normal people; parents, childhood, and life before California being off-limits. Not at Pearl’s discretion, but at Garnet’s, and her respect for whatever similarities they have between each other.

  “Oh, that’s so pretty.” Pearl sleepily mumbles.

  San Onofre was an unspoilt stretch of land, rugged and untouched by humans, save for The 5 carving right through it, and the hundreds of seabathers playing in the sun-kissed sands, painted an unpretentious honey to match the rest of the earth around.

  Windswept bluffs carve the countryside around them. Breaking the sands, tidal wetlands carved out by the eternal California surf that’s always inviting, always calling.

  Well, Southern California surf. Anything north, and most of those shores were quite nasty.

  “Most of Southern California is. Unfortunately, it has some of the worst people in the entire world.” Garnet adds, without missing a beat.

  Pearl’s already lulled herself to sleep, resting a delicate cheek against the car window.

  “Stick with us, and you’ll love living here.”

You Really Got Me -The Kinks. Recorded July 1964, Released August 4th, 1964 in the UK.

  why did i write this i hate socal

  Do comment and kudos if you want to tell me what you thought of it, if i should keep writing more, or if i should remove my fic bc it’s problematic or it sucks

  I can’t promise y’all much, but i do promise this fic won’t end in a stupid love triangle ending with pearl and lapis breaking off leaving garnet or some bs.

  CW Explanations.

   The word ‘dyke’ is used by Lapis a lot, bc she swears like a sailor, and we’re about a few decades before political correctness.

  Lapis does mention something that can be taken as transphobia. “...Fuzz’ll be all over her for crossdressing…” Lapis is observing that if Pearl is ever arrested for something petty like theft or something minor, then her identification will lead to her petty crime being marked up to crossdressing.

  Pearl is accidentally outed as a trans woman when Garnet checks her wallet for any ID of any sort.