fandomhigh | Library, Wednesday

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Library, Wednesday

Peridot was slightly late to the library today. She'd brought Pumpkin with her again, and had taken a slight detour on her way to work. Pumpkin had noticed all the well-lit rickshaws, and had taken off after them, barking, trying to make friends with each and every one.

It was a slightly frazzled Peridot who made her way behind the desk, Pumpkin tucked under one arm, and started to do the last of the tidying in the wake of the weekend's research frenzy.

[OOC: Open!]

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So the other-Peridot's cracked gem had disappeared along with everyone else who was supposed to go back to that other timeline on Sunday night.

Unfortunately the hollow feeling (not evil gonna-join-a-world-ending-cult hollow, just regular hollow) in the pit of Jason's stomach hadn't. So here he was, showing up on Peridot's regular library day in an effort to remind himself that this timeline's Peridot was still in one piece and uncorrupted.

"Hey," he greeted her with a little wave. His first instinct was to just go behind the desk and sweep her up in a hug, but he was making a conscious effort to get better about asking for consent about these things first.

"Hi, Jason," Peridot peered up at him from behind the desk, more than a little on the chipper side. "Have you come to bask in Pumpkin's presence?"

Pumpkin, who was sitting on the desk, looked up at Jason and barked.

"You should. She has great presence."

"I... no?" Jason managed, as he looked over at the pumpkin-dog. Pumpkin was pretty cute, though, and he'd be all over that in a second.

"I mostly came to, um. Check in on you." Logically, he knew that other-Peridot and this-Peridot were two separate beings, but. Logic and emotion didn't always mix.

"To check on me?" Peridot tilted her head a little, and then spread her hands. "I was a little frazzled earlier. Pumpkin decided she wanted to go say hello to every rickshaws. Have you seen how many rickshaws there are out there today?"

Too many. There were too many rickshaws. It was nuts.

"No, I mean," how do you explain that you severely incapacitated someone's alternate universe self, and now you were feeling super guilty about it?

"IsitokayifIhugyou?" he asked quickly.

Peridot blinked.

And then blinked again for good measure. And then kind of gave Jason an appraising little squint.

"Yes?"

You were acting stranger than usual, Jason.

Annnnnd there Jason was, clinging to Peridot the moment permission was given.

"I'm glad you're okay," he managed, after a few moments.

Peridot blinked again, and then kind of reached up to awkwardly hug Jason back.

She was still kind of getting used to that weird human desire for bodily contact all the time.

"I'm... glad you're okay too!"

That was what you said, right?

"Thanks," Jason said, huffing out a bit of a laugh at Peridot's somewhat perplexed tone. "Did you know that there was a version of you from that awful future here?" he asked. Super casually.

"I... didn't know she came here, no," Peridot said after a long pause. She sounded distinctly uncomfortable, now. "The damaged Peridot?"

She'd seen her when they'd all been dragged across last year.

She had then very pointedly just not thought about it after then.

Jason hadn't been here for that, so he'd no idea that some people in Fandom had already known about the place the evil versions came from.

"Yeah," he nodded.

Peridot squirmed a little, kind of looking half-away, rather than back up at Jason.

"I don't know what happened to her," she admitted. "I never asked."

She hadn't really had it in her to.

"She lost a lot of friends, I think," Jason said. "And because of that, lost hope too." He was pretty sure, anyway. The other Peridot hadn't exactly been super-coherent.

Peridot fell silent again. And then she nodded, slowly.

"Gems can live forever," she said, after a pause that felt as though it dragged on far too long. "Organic beings... usually don't."

Something else that she'd been trying very hard to not think about since she started coming around to appreciating the value of the humans of this planet.

Sometimes organic beings get trapped in walls and exist as kind of digital ghosts that like to yell at teenagers who are just doing their best? But that was irrelevant.

"Yeah," he said. "Some of us stick around longer than others, but generally we're pretty temporary."

"I... don't know what to do with that."

She swallowed, and then sighed and shifted back to kind of wrap her arms around herself.

"I've seen Gems shatter, but that's not the same. Not really. I mean... it is. They're gone. Shattered is as good as dead. But I never cared. They never meant anything to me."

This was a hell of a time to realize that she'd spent thousands of years alone and couldn't bear to go back to that.

Weirdly, Peridot's words made Jason feel just a tiny bit better. They confirmed that he hadn't actually killed the other Peridot. Just... incapacitated her for a bit.

"I don't have any easy answers," Jason admitted. "I've seen someone close to me die. And it hurt, so much." Sure, Billy had come back, but again, irrelevant. "But even just in the short time I got to know him, he'd made me a better person. I'd been angry and alone and he was part of the reason I actually started to care about anything again, and I wouldn't trade that for the world."

"I..." Peridot let that syllable hang, and then just shook her head. She still wasn't quite ready to acknowledge that she would outlive almost everybody she knew, almost everyone who meant anything to her.

She definitely wasn't ready to think too hard on how soon she could be facing that fact regardless.

So she just shrugged a little, helplessly.

"So, you met that other Peridot?"

That was how this conversation had started, after all.

"Yeah," Jason nodded. "We... fought." Fought was maybe a bit generous. The other Peridot hadn't put up much of one.

"You... fought."

Peridot's head tilted to the side a little.

"I don't understand."

What would they fight about?

Jason shrugged. "She was angry, and wanted to end the world. I... kind of like the world. Plus, there was also the matter of the promise I made you last month." You know, the one where she'd asked him to poof her if she ever was corrupted?

Peridot gave a slow little nod.

"She was... corrupted?"

Maybe not the sort of corruption that she was somewhat familiar with by now, but corrupted enough that Jason had thought it was necessary to put her down.

Jason nodded. "Her gem was all kinda, uh? Cracked? And she kept flickering in and out, it was weird."

Peridot tilted her head a little, and then nodded.

"She was damaged," she replied. "When a Gem gets damaged, she might have difficulty holding her body's shape. Sometimes it'll get all twisted up in itself. It isn't the same as corruption, but I can't imagine it's a pleasant experience."

She paused.

"Wanting to destroy the planet is close enough, though."

Not that corruptions generally wanted to end the world, either. But Peridot wanted to kind of throw Jason a bone, here. He hadn't just targeted an injured person, he'd stopped a threat.

Except aside from throwing some- admittedly very sharp- pieces of metal at him, she hadn't really put up much of a fight.

"Oh," he said, voice suddenly small. "Then I shouldn't- I shouldn't have..." he trailed off, frustrated with himself.

Why did he always manage to rush in and make the wrong choice?

Peridot shook her head a little and then kind of reached out for another hug. If it meant she was wrapping her arms around his knees... well. So be it.

"She was damaged," she said again, "but that doesn't mean she wasn't a danger. If she said she wanted to destroy the world, she would have had the means to."

She peered up at him stubbornly.

"Peridots don't say things like that unless they're sure they can."

And maybe they had slightly over-inflated ego issues from time to time, but those generally came from a place of certainty. They were damn good at what they were made to do.

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Library, Wednesday

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