fandomtownies | The Streets of Town, Thursday Morning

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The Streets of Town, Thursday Morning

Everything was grey these days. Grey, or that muddy red-brown color that humans left behind when their bodies were damaged, but in the fog, the always, always fog, even that seemed grey, or black. Dirty. Earth was dirty. Dirtier now than it had been, and smaller, just one island apart from the rest, but this was the Earth that was most prevalent in Peridot's mind. And she still had her mind, as sharp as ever. Just... damaged, a little.

That much was plain to see just at a glance if you could catch sight of her, skittering across cobbles and ducking behind things, a bag strapped to her back that she was slowly filling with anything that looked like it could be of any use to the humans in the village. She might even be easy to spot in the gloom. After all, a greyer take on green was still practically lush in comparison to most other colors, and there weren't many things left on the island that were more verdant than Peridot.

She ducked behind a pile of rubble that hid away a stockpile of medical supplies that she'd dug out from one of the buildings in town earlier in the day, as well as some yellowed but unused notebooks and a couple of unopened boxes of pencils. All things considered, it was hard to say which prize she was more proud of. She seemed to be tucking them all into her bag with equal amounts of reverence, after all.

Around here, memory was as valuable as even the most powerful medication.

[OOC: Open streets, if you dare to brave them!]

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The fog had not melted him or Dark Nation and while the streets and buildings had changed dramatically from what he was used to, it was still recognizably Fandom when Rufus headed out for personal inspection that morning.

He'd wind up in the library soon enough but, given that all Portals were down now, Rufus wanted to know what they were dealing with. Monsters didn't scare him--he was confident he could take care of himself and Dark Nation--and the streets were fascinating in their changed state.

Rufus didn't bother to hide as he walked the streets, though he wasn't going out of his way to be seen either. His eyes were alert and, now and then, a faint smile curled his lips. It was almost exhilarating, being free to do this.

In a place like this, 'not going out of his way to be seen' was practically 'wandering around with a neon arrow over his head,' and Peridot's head snapped up as she noticed the figure making his way down the street, wide eyes flickering with static briefly before returning to empty, solid white.

The figure wasn't moving like one of the emptied ones, though sometimes that just meant that there was a slight tether to humanity left still. It didn't necessarily mean he would be any less viol--

He came a little closer to her hiding spot, his features coming into sharper focus, and Peridot gasped. It was possibly the most sound that had escaped her lips all day, and in these streets, it was deafening.

It was true what he’d told Kathy yesterday—Dark Nation was a puppy. But Rufus had been training him and Dark Nation was deeply uneasy with their surroundings already. A low growl started coming from him, even as Rufus’ eyes narrowed as he searched for what had made that noise.

He didn’t do anything as asinine as call out ‘who’s there?’ like the dim-witted heroine from a bad movie.

He did have his guns out, now, when he hadn’t been holding them visible a moment before, and he waited, pausing in his steps, to see what crawled out of the woodwork.

It was the guns that had tripped Peridot up, admittedly. Rufus being back, she could possibly wrap her head around. The humans never came back before, but she didn't pretend to know much more about their capacity to heal now than she had before everything had gone horribly wrong. But the guns?

She looked down at the pair that were strapped to her, big enough to almost run the entire length from hip to knee on her tiny frame, and frowned. How did he have...?

She hunkered herself down for a moment more before making up her mind. If he was hollow, he was a terrible excuse for a hollow so far, and if he was Rufus, he wouldn't shoot. Squaring her shoulders a little, she pulled herself to her feet and stepped out from the rubble, wide eyed and visibly shaking.

He didn’t shoot.

He eyes narrowed as he took in Peridot, noting the visible changes in appearance, attitude, and demeanor, before his confusion cleared—ah, this must be Kathy’s Peridot, then—and he spoke. “Enough, Dark Nation.”

Dark Nation’s ears remained back as he stared at Peridot but he stopped growling.

Then Rufus realized that the guns Peridot was wearing were… well. They were his. Had he given them to her so she wouldn’t be undefended?

This Peridot was nobody's Peridot. She had been, once. She'd belonged to Yellow Diamond, and then she'd turned away, and then there were no diamonds left until she'd found somebody who could have been. The monsters had taken him away.

But there he was, and there was his dog, and she hadn't seen his dog in even longer than it had been since she'd seen him and she hardly even realized that she was moving until she was already running toward him, dropping to all fours at once as though she'd long accepted that running on two feet was an impractical waste of time. Especially in a world that was actively trying to destroy her.

He lowered his guns, able to recognize desperation but not sure what had caused it. No one had ever run to him that way and Dark Nation was only ever desperate if he badly wanted a treat.

Rufus himself had never been so—

Perhaps it was that confusion, but he didn’t realize what she was going to do until she was already clinging to his leg. He looked down, appalled and momentarily speechless at her unseemly display of… whatever this was.

Dark Nation sniffed at her curiously.

Peridot didn't seem to notice the sniffing, or the way that Rufus - Rufus - was staring down at her in confusion. She just knew that whatever this was, it was real. He was real, warm and solid under her arms, and so help her, she wasn't letting go.

Her shoulders were shaking even more, and usually this meant that she was having difficulty holding herself together. That happened from time to time, even now, after years of living with a damaged Gem. But her face was wet, too. That part... that happened less, these days, she noted, some part of her mind filing that information away almost clinically.

She looked up at Rufus. Her eyes flickered again, but she resolutely held her form.

Oh gods—oh Shiva take him; she was crying--

Rufus stopped himself from recoiling only through sheer force of will. He had to get her to stop. If only for his sanity.

“Cease that appalling display of emotion,” he ordered, though he still made no move to shake her off. Dark Nation’s tail wiggled tentatively. He recognized her scent though it was different too. “There’s no need for it.”

Then, in what he was going to look back on and swear at himself later, as it was his first mistake, Rufus said, arrogant Shinra to the core, “I’ve been looking for you. We’re to attain high ground and you’re to report to me what you know.”

He’d been born to lead. Rufus could bullshit better than most. He could fake being prepared.

Okay, no. He was fourteen years old and nothing had ever prepared him for emotional trauma. He panicked.

That... that made Peridot flinch, made her slink backwards, letting go of Rufus' leg and cowering away a little as though she'd been struck by him. There was more Yellow Diamond in those words than Rufus, and for a long moment (a second, a human lifetime, both were a miniscule eternity, even to a Gem, in this place) she stared at him in shock.

And then she shook her head.

No. She wasn't taking high ground, and neither should he. There were safer places, smarter places, than putting yourself at the top of a tower with the big ones, in plain view. Tentatively, she reached for the hemline of his coat, and tugged it questioningly, turning to look toward the park instead.

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