Chapter Text
War
It was the middle of the day on a Thursday, the heat beat down on the street like an oppressive hand weighing down the inhabitants into droopy caricatures of themselves.
Peridot grumbled to herself as she made her way down the street in her sweatshirt and last pair of shorts. It was finally time to do her laundry after being reduced to her swimsuit as undergarments.
She makes her way to the tiny laundry mat off of University Lane, rumor was it was both the most gross and overpriced but Peridot could respect that, seeing as she too could bear that description...and it was literally the closest one.
She makes her way into the small laundromat only to find no shopkeeper there, as expected, and two of the main washing machines with ‘out of order’ signs on them. She understood why it was so unpopular.
She rolled her eyes and turned down the next aisle for the most reliable washing machine she'd used up to that point. Old no button for the left nozzle.
Her eyebrows rise when she approaches it only to find the only other patron in the shop sitting in front of the hatch. Peridot examines her, her face is in her hands and shoulders shaking slightly.
“Hey.” Peridot voices. The girl doesn’t look up, caught up in her good cry while watching a dryer spin round.
“Hey.” She repeats. The blue haired teen finally looks up, water leaking out the side of her eyes but framed by two eyebrows making an angry V shape.
“I’m busy right now.” She bites, looking her in the eye defiantly.
“What kind of person…?” Peridot fumes, but takes a deep breath through her nose then evens out her tone. “That’s my washing machine.” She picks up her garbage bag full of laundry and shakes it.
“Find another one.” The girl snaps, looking away and staring adamantly across from her into the tumbling spin of the dryer, multicolored and rumbling like a storm cloud about to break.
“What,” Peridot was not up for this, her last sweater was so itchy she was in a constant state of shifting her torso and rearranging her arms.
“Do you have some sort of,” Peridot gestures at her, “problem?”
“Are you asking or insulting?”
“Insulting. Move.”
The blue haired girl stuck out her tongue at her and leaned back wholly on the contraption.
“Ugh! I don’t have time for this.” She goes back over to the steady but leaky secondary washing machine. She dumps her entire wardrobe into it and starts it in a hurry.
“You’re a jerk you know!” Peridot calls to the stranger who was still there. An ironic assertment since Peridot was not known for her warm heart.
“You’re wearing a bathing suit under your clothes!” The girl retorts. Peridot grabs her sweater and covers the swimsuit strap, but it was too late anyway.
“Yeah, well, I’m doing laundry now.”
“Ha. Well, I’ll alert the presses, slob is forced to find soap when they run out of underwear.”
“You don’t know me.” It was completely true. “And it would have been sooner if weepy eyed you hadn't found this the best place to break down in.”
“Erg!” The girl erupts, “I don’t need this right now.” The beep of the dryer resounds like the buzz of a cicada, and the girl flies to it, yanking the door open and grabbing her clothes.
Peridot glares at her from the side, only forced to look away when the girl is digging out a pair of blue panties and Peridot blushes and looks anywhere else.
Her phone rings when she’s close to done storing her clothes back in the neat little crab-themed bag she brought.
“Hello. This is Lapis.” She answers as Peridot watches with interest.
“Yes, I know.” She begins in a small voice. “Don’t yell at me, I know!” Her voice trembles with anger into the phone as she puts the bag on her hip and saunters out.
“Have a nice life loser!” The girl calls back over her shoulder to Peridot as she leaves. Her kind of girl.
“Don’t cry on anything on the way out!” Peridot responds with her hands on her hips.
She sighs when the back of the girls skirt disappears from the window. Why did she have to fight with every person she met? Cute girls in particular.
She tries not to dwell on it and gets her text book out instead, she had work to do, she always had work to do.
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Peridot carried her bedsheets and pillowcase in a saggy mess in her arms, it coated her skin in a sugary soda and made her regret a multitude of life decisions, such as drinking Mountain Dew in bed while playing Skyrim.
The walk over was deceivingly hot, and she in turn looked like a hot mess. Her usual top knot was askew and her clothes an amalgamation of end of the semester desperation. Black half shorts and a bro tank over a tie-dye shirt, clothing to fit the black hole of stress and nerves that was her body at the moment.
However, even she wasn’t going to lie in dripping wet carbonated bedsheets.
Peridot walked into the little shop in a slump, going to the only open washing machine on a Saturday, the place abuzz with noise and customers. Peridot slipped in the coins and dumped the plain green sheets in the wash, pouring in detergent absently.
Of course she spots the blue haired wonder a few steps away, her back to her. Normally Peridot wouldn't bother but she finds herself speaking despite herself.
“You work here or something?” She says to the girls back. She looks around curiously for the voice and then turns around in surprise.
“Oh. It’s you. Swimsuit girl.” Lapis, her name Peridot remembered, eyed her up and down. “As put together as ever I see.”
“Do you produce the water for the wash? Like they pay you one cent per tear and you fill up each machine.” She returns snidely.
Lapis rolls her eyes at her, and turns away. They ignore each other for the rest of the spin cycle, Peridot on her phone and the girl with a small book. Peridot guesses it’s a romance novel.
When Peridot retrieves her sheets and pillowcase from the appliance, she turns back to her, staring fixedly.
“What?” Peridot finally says deadpan when Lapis doesn't look away.
“It’s a cliche.”
“Again, what?”
“You’re pillowcase is Superman symbols?” Peridot looks down at her well worn superman pillowcase from 10th grade. "Such a nerd thing."
Peridot readjusts her hair.
“It’s a classic,” she justifies defensively, “why so judgemental?”
“I’m not!" Lapis pauses, trying to collect herself or change the topic, "...marvel is better.”
“DC is the original! Marvel just copies their stuff. Even popular characters are knock offs, like Deadpool.”
“Yeah, but Deadpool turned out a better character. Which is true of all Marvel personalities.” Lapis crosses her arms triumphantly.
It was the weirdest, but not first, scwabble Peridot had gotten into of Marvel vs DC.
Halfway through, Peridot starts to snicker.
“What?” It was Lapis’s turn to ask.
“Well one, you're a total nerd. Who would have guessed.”
“You have a top knot and Minecraft key chain!”
“Which are completely cool. Aaand,” she gets back on topic, “you're still talking to me even though your clothes are done. And you don’t like me. Don’t you have stuff to do?”
“And you have a lot to do on this Saturday I take it? Maybe I’m waiting for you to leave.” Lapis replies unbelievingly.
“So you can follow me or what?” Peridot says half jokingly.
“Pfft, you want me to follow you? Desperate.”
“No. But I do have the golden age of Superman comics, totally better than anything Stan Lee has done.”
“Take that back! Also… not interested. I don’t go out with lonely nerds.”
“I wasn’t!... Fine, I’ll leave so you can get back to whatever, crying, lying to yourself about good media.” Peridot puffs out her face and grabs her already dry clothes to get out of there, dejected. Cute girls were jerks.
Lapis seems hot and angry, but her face softens slightly, Peridot makes a face close to a snarl. It was too late.
“I didn’t want a date. I don’t befriend mean girls with the personality of a soggy saltines anyway.” That was the last time she almost reached out Peridot decided.
“Okay, maybe I was over the…” Peridot doesn’t let her finish, and kicks over Lapis’s meager amount of clothes into the discharge of the leaky washing machine.
“That was uncalled for!” She calls at Peridots back furiously, “I was trying apolo... I mean, I'll literally have to wash those all over again! You're the worst person, Peridot.”
Peridot is already out the door and making a very obscene gesture through the Laundromat window, Lapis sticks her tongue out at her with similar distaste.
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Peridot shows up exactly 15 minutes early to her class and sits in the second to front row, she would normally sit in the front row but she had mellowed out since Freshman year. Much more relaxed, the second row.
She waits impatiently for class to begin despite doing this to herself, playing with her pencil and checking her phone incessantly.
The professor showed up five minutes before the ten O’Clock start date, something Peridot frowned upon slightly. She forgave her instantly though when the women turned around and smiled at the room.
The rumors were true. She was beautiful. Thick pink hair swooped in enormous curls and a tall full body dressed in whites and pinks, and smile like a smooth sunrise. And even Peridot, now and then, enjoyed beautiful things.
The rest of the room soon filled in with the last students straggling in for the first day, Mrs. Quartz stood in front of the board and wrote the name of the class in red white board marker: War, Peace and Strategic Defense.
It at least sounded interesting for her ‘Human Context’ core curriculum. One last humanities course before she never have to write another essay again.
“Alright everyone, my name is Rose Quartz, Professor Quartz for you, and we’ll be going over the syllabus today.” Peridot had the syllabus at the ready on her desk, two copies, highlighted.
“No late work will be allowed, be on time, and no cell phones except on the last day, when we can all take a selfie together.” She let out a tinkling laugh that filled the room, Peridot could feel the class collectively swoon. How embarrassing (for them).
“Second of all, here are your TA’s, you will meet with them once per week for recitation depending on what group you're signed up for.” She gestures to her left where three women sat at attention.
“This is Garnet,” a dark skinned women with an afro, serious expression and glasses stood up and nodded her head at the whole class. A businesswoman, Peridot could respect that.
“Amethyst.” A purple haired east-asian young women took a bow before the class before winking at them.
“and Pearl.” A very slim graceful looking girl stood up primly and waved at everyone as if she’s the Queen. That was her TA, Peridot arches her eyebrows unimpressed.
“And Steven!” A young brunette boy bursts out from behind the podium, doing jazz hands and presenting an excited grin.
Professor Quartz laughs and pats his head as she turns to him, “and this is my son Steven, he’ll be visiting now and then since it’s summer vacation.”
“and there isn’t much to do.” He contributes good naturedly. Peridot rolls her eyes, she did not need a comical sideshow to disrupt her unfortunate summer-mester.
She would remind the teacher to get back on course material and resists the urge to raise her hand. She was mellowed. Right.
She throws her hand in the air.
“Questions at the end. Look to the first page on attendance…”
She goes over what they were covering, homework each week, big final project, blah, blah, Peridot takes notes with a pointed boredom.
When the end of the period came Peridot raised her hand calmly,
“Yes?” Professor Quartz turns to her with a smile.
“What’s the curve.”
“No curve for this class.” She reassures, the class seems collectively pleased, Peridot frowns.
“And what is your policy on electronics?”
“People may have computers, but have to sit in the back.”
“And who should I talk to about….” Peridot had a list of questions she asked every semester in a business like fashion, she was paying for these darn classes she better get her money’s worth.
“Let’s take a few other questions.” the Professor shuts her down as they usually do. Peridot settles in, ready to wait.
Some crods ask obvious questions for the next bit of the period until Peridot is done with their non-syllabus reading asses.
At the last minute she raises her hand,
“And what’s your-” bfffff Someone makes a fart noise from the back of the room, obviously fake and the class erupts in laughter, Peridot goes red in the face, “what’s your-” bfffff more laughter.
“I said,” bfffff,
“Alright everyone settle down.” Peridot is grateful towards her when the teacher scolds them, damn right settle down.
“What’s your policy for disruption?” She changes her question, the class actually laughs on her side this time, Peridot is pleased with herself.
“Not tolerated, mostly.” the teacher beams. Ugh.
The class was dismissed, Peridot left immediately, avoiding her usual round of talking to the Professor after class.
She was hot and uncomfortable, who needed this?