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errorryx · 6 months

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blood moon – part three

read on ao3 | read part one | gemcyt/life series, 3.2k words

for this update, i scrapped an old scene that provided context but was otherwise very boring. if you're curious, there's a longer explanation available in my ao3 notes.

—

Bdubs woke up in the late morning to the sound of several people arguing in the next room. He recognized Grian and Cleo’s voices, so he got up to see what all the fuss was, only to run right into Pearl in the hallway.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Pearl said in a low voice. “I was just…”

“Snooping around?” Bdubs attempted to deliver this line with an intimidating glare, but he only managed a yawn.

“What? No, of course not! I just wanted—I wanted to talk to you, actually.”

“Why’s that?”

“Grian said you were an expert on building. I had a few questions for you.”

“Really?” He brightened. “What else did he tell you about me?”

“He said if I had any questions about making a base, I should go to you first.”

“Well, he’s absolutely right. I know everything there is to know about building. I built this base we’re standing in now, you know. It’s called a crastle.”

“It’s lovely,” Pearl said. “Probably my favorite base! Don’t tell Grian, though.”

“Oh, you flatterer.” Bdubs waved her off modestly. “I do my best. So what were your questions?”

“Do you know what a chimney is?”

…A chimney. Right. Yes, he definitely knew what that was. “It’s the top part of a fireplace,” Bdubs said with perfect confidence.

“And what’s a fireplace?”

“Why, it’s the place you put fire, of course!”

Pearl looked baffled. “Why would you need a place to put fire?”

This stumped him for a few moments. Why would anyone have a place for fire in their home? “It’s a very complicated question,” Bdubs said. “I could explain it, but it would take all day, and I’m sure you’d find it very boring.”

“Right, of course.” A small smile appeared on Pearl’s face. “I wouldn’t want to take up all of your valuable time.”

“Is there anything else you want to know?”

“I guess I want to know why you’ve all started building bases for yourselves in the first place,” Pearl said. “They’re very lovely, but I don’t understand what they’re for, exactly.”

“Oh, of course! You’re a pearl, so you’ve probably never had a space just for yourself, right?”

Pearl blinked. “I guess not.”

“When me, Cleo, Tango, and Impulse first got here, we found lots of old ruins,” Bdubs explained. “That’s where we got all our books. Let me see, where is it…” He got up and looked through the nearby bookshelf. “Here it is! Man-Made Wonders of The World.”

He presented the book to Pearl with a giddy smile. Pearl took it, flipping through the first few pages with delicate hands. “What’s a man?”

“It’s short for human,” Bdubs said. He was very proud of having figured that one out on his own. “They’re a type of life-form that used to live here on this planet a long time ago. Cleo thinks they’re extinct, because otherwise we would have found one by now.”

“And they built all these? Without gem technology?” Pearl’s eyes widened. “Where are these structures? Have you seen them all?”

“Well, that’s the problem,” Bdubs sighed. “This planet’s really big, and none of us have a working ship anymore. If we had one, we might be able to explore, but it would be a long journey on foot, and Cleo doesn’t believe me when I tell her I can make sure we don’t get lost.”

“That’s a shame,” Pearl said, so quietly that Bdubs almost missed it.

“Wait a minute!” he said. “You must have had a ship to get here, right? Where is it?”

Pearl looked very much as if an agate had just walked in and caught her goofing off. “Well, you see—”

“Bdubs!” Cleo called from the other room. “What are you shouting about?”

“Coming!” Bdubs answered. “Don’t go anywhere,” he told Pearl, before poking his head into the other room.

He was greeted with the sight of two unfamiliar gems, a rose quartz and a peridot, the latter of whom seemed to be attempting to hide behind Grian. (It wasn’t working.) “These are Lizzie and Mumbo,” Cleo told Bdubs. “They came here with Pearl, apparently. Pearl was just here a second ago, but…”

“Oh, she was talking to me!” Bdubs said. “We were having a wonderful little conversation about bases.” He glanced back into the hallway, but Pearl had already disappeared. “Huh. She must have wandered off.”

“Seems to be a habit of hers.” Cleo didn’t look too happy. “You entertain our guests for a minute, and I’ll go make sure she’s not rifling around in our storage.”

“Sure thing!” Bdubs’ arms instinctively went to perform the diamond salute, but he knew Cleo hated when he did that, so he disguised the gesture by clapping his hands together. “So how did you guys all get here? Where’s your ship?”

“They claim there’s no ship,” Cleo said on their way out of the room. Her tone of voice clearly indicated that she didn’t believe them.

“It crashed,” Lizzie told him very solemnly. “Horribly. Went up in flames and everything. Big disaster.”

“Funny coincidence,” Bdubs said, “that’s exactly what happened to ours.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pearl through the window, in the process of sneaking away. She met Bdubs’ gaze for a split second, and gave him a wink before vanishing from view.

—

Scott was out in the garden when Jimmy heard a visitor knocking at their door. Usually he waited for Scott to tell him what to expect, but it had been a while since they’d had any surprises, and besides, Scott rarely gave him a straight answer when it came to the future. So instead of waiting for him, Jimmy got up and opened the door by himself.

“Hi! You’re Jimmy, right?” Pearl stuck out her arm, and he took it, bewildered. “I just learned about handshakes from Bdubs. Did I do it right?”

“Probably,” Jimmy said with a shrug. “I wouldn’t know. What’s up?”

“You fuse a lot, right? I wanna talk about fusion.”

She must have seen Flower Agate at the party last night. “Yeah, sure. Come on in.” Jimmy stepped aside to allow Pearl to enter. She took a few steps, only to be stopped by the sudden appearance of a wall of ice between them.

“No,” Scott said evenly from where he stood at the back door, his arm outstretched. “Not happening.”

“Scott, what’s going on?” Jimmy backed away from Pearl, who looked just as confused as he felt. “Is something wrong?”

Scott ignored him. “I can’t tell what you’re planning,” he said to Pearl, “but it won’t work. You’re going to get yourself and a lot of other gems hurt.”

“What are you talking about?” Pearl asked. The ice only came up to her waist, but she didn’t try to step over it. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.” Her voice trembled on the words.

“Maybe not, but you will.”

“Is this about a future vision you saw?” Pearl said. “Just tell me what it was, that way I can—”

“I’m not taking that risk,” Scott said. “Just stay away from me and Jimmy.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Jimmy interrupted. “Can’t we talk about this? I’d rather have nobody get hurt, if that’s an option.”

“You and I can talk about this,” Scott told him. “But you—” he turned his attention back to Pearl, “—need to leave.”

Before Pearl could respond, Scott pushed the ice wall further forward, forcing her out the door. It slammed shut, and he hurried over to lock it.

“What has gotten into you?” Jimmy asked him. “Wouldn’t it have been a better idea to talk it out with her? What harm can one pearl do?”

“You really have to ask that question? You’ve met Joel.”

He couldn’t argue with that—Joel had caused a lot of trouble when he’d first arrived. But for the brief time they’d spoken, Pearl had been perfectly pleasant. “Can you at least tell me what’s going to happen?”

“I can’t,” Scott said.

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t. There are too many possibilities right now. We’ll have to wait it out and see how things end up.”

Jimmy loved Scott, he really did, but sometimes he made Jimmy want to tear his hair out. “Then what’s the use of future vision if we still don’t know what to do?”

Scott didn’t answer him. Jimmy looked down to see a small ring of ice encircling the hem of his skirt.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said hastily, reaching to pry Scott free of the ice. He set him down on the couch. “Forget I said that. How about tonight? Can you see what happens tonight?”

“We go to the party,” Scott said slowly. “We fuse again. It’s—I think there’s a new fusion? It’s hard to see as Flower Agate.”

“So that’s good, right?” Jimmy asked. “We’re safe.”

“I think so.”

“We’re safe,” Jimmy repeated, with more confidence this time. “We’ll be fine.”

He hoped Scott believed him. He wasn’t sure he believed himself.

—

Mumbo was at a party with a bunch of rebel gems, and people were fusing.

At least, that’s what he thought they were doing. Pearl had warned him this would happen, but it was one thing to hear about it and quite another to see it for himself. Right now, the sapphire and the lapis lazuli were involved in a dance that made Mumbo want to politely avert his eyes—yet at the same time, he couldn’t look away.

“This is…a lot,” he said.

“Yeah,” Pearl agreed. “Are you freaking out? It’s okay if you’re freaking out. We can go back to the ship.”

“No, it’s alright!” Mumbo couldn’t imagine going back to the ship and letting this happen without him. “We can stay.”

The sapphire and lapis finally fused, and he got to watch in real time as their forms merged into one. It was slow and confusing and oddly beautiful. He let out a gasp when the ball of light finally solidified into a single figure, which stood taller than most of the other nearby gems.

“I’m trying to be supportive of Gri,” Pearl said. “I know he likes this. When he fused yesterday, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so…”

“Happy?” Mumbo guessed, searching for Grian in the crowd. He found him talking to a blue gem, with Scar somewhere off in the distance. Maybe Grian didn’t always fuse with Scar, then. Maybe he liked to branch out. “He seems really at home here.”

He’d officially reunited with Grian that morning, which had been wonderful, but…strange. Tense. Mumbo had been expecting everything to promptly return to normal once they found Gri, but it was becoming more and more obvious that that would not be the case. Even worse, Pearl seemed to be in denial about it, and Mumbo had been taking cues from her for long enough that he had no idea what to do.

His attention was pulled to the nephrite and green jasper he’d met earlier, who were—well, if the previous fusion dance had made Mumbo want to look away, this one made him want to bury his head in the ground. Still, he watched. He’d never seen anything even remotely like it. He couldn’t imagine himself ever making moves like that, but perhaps he could manage a twirl or two. Would he have to take off his limb enhancers?

“I don’t know what else to do,” Pearl said. “Do you think if I fused with him, it would convince him to choose us instead of them?”

“Huh?” The second fusion dance had reached its culmination, but a third and a fourth had started up. Mumbo managed to tear his eyes away for a moment to look at Pearl. She had taken on an odd in-between color, which corresponded with the sun’s current position most of the way below the horizon. “Beg your pardon, did you say you were thinking of fusing with Grian?”

“I might as well try.” Pearl got to her feet. “I’ll just go ask him. No big deal, right?”

Mumbo was fairly certain that Pearl and Grian fusing would be a recipe for disaster, but he doubted Pearl would listen to him. “He’s been talking to that blue gem for quite a while now. You might be interrupting something.”

“I don’t care.” Pearl was fully red now. “We’re losing him. He’s in love with this planet. If we don’t offer him something better, he’s going to realize he prefers it to us.”

“Surely there’s a better way than—”

Pearl had already begun walking away before he could finish. Mumbo didn’t follow her. He’d seen enough of Pearl in her red state to know there wasn’t anything he could do except watch the disaster unfold in front of him.

“Boys,” a very sarcastic voice said behind him.

Mumbo looked up to see Rose Quartz—no, Lizzie—taking a seat in the grass beside him. “What’s a boy?” he asked.

“Not sure!” Lizzie said. “I heard Cleo say it earlier, just like that. I think it’s an insult.”

“Boys,” Mumbo repeated, trying to mimic her derision. He watched Pearl storm up to Grian and grab his arm, pulling him away from the blue quartz. “I really don’t understand pearls.”

“Me neither,” Lizzie said, with a little huff of exasperation. “Want a flower? I’ve been picking off the petals for fun.” She passed Mumbo a small white blossom with long petals, the stem severed halfway down.

Mumbo methodically plucked every third petal as he watched Pearl and Grian’s conversation from afar. He didn’t dare approach them, but he couldn’t help but wonder what they were saying.

—

“What are you even saying?” Grian said, throwing up his hands. “Have you gone mad?”

“Am I not good enough to fuse with?” Pearl asked. “You’ll fuse with spinels and quartzes but not me?”

“Pearl, I’m not—” Grian cast a glance at BigB, who was trying to mind his own business. It was proving to be a very difficult task. “I haven’t even fused with any quartzes yet, I’ll have you know. And besides, it’s not about what type of gem you are.”

“So why not? Spit it out.”

“I don’t think this is a good time.” Grian looked wary, but his mind was clearly made up. “Not while you’re still red.”

“That’s it, then?” Pearl threw up her hands. “You won’t fuse with me because I’m off-color?”

BigB winced at that one. “Woah, okay, I don’t think that’s—”

“Don’t you start,” Pearl snapped. “I’m talking to Grian right now.”

“Actually, I was talking to him first,” Grian said, before BigB could figure out a polite way to exit the conversation. “I know you’re still adjusting to living here, Pearl, but BigB didn’t do anything wrong.”

Pearl gave him a look of pure fury, then turned the same gaze on BigB, who immediately put up his hands in surrender. “Fine,” she said. “I get it. You’d rather hang out with your new friends.”

“Pearl, I don’t—”

“Whatever, Gri,” she said coldly, and turned on her heel, walking away into the dark.

Grian sighed. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he told BigB.

“Did you know her from somewhere?” BigB asked him. “That really didn’t seem like a conversation between two gems that met yesterday.”

“I guess there’s no point in keeping it a secret if she wants to have loud arguments in front of people,” Grian said. “Yeah, I know her. At least, I thought I did.”

“That bad, huh?”

Grian shrugged. “Something’s going on with her, but I have no idea what it is.”

“You think it has anything to do with the whole color-changing thing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her do that before.” Grian stared off into the woods where Pearl had just disappeared. “I’ve never seen any gem do that before.”

“Me neither,” BigB said. “I bet if anyone knows, it’s Ren. He’s seen a lot of weird stuff.”

“You think he’d know something?” Grian looked even more worried at the prospect. “I’m not sure if I should bother him with this.”

“I can ask him,” BigB volunteered. “I don’t mind.”

He looked around at the rest of the party, finding Ren lounging in the grass by himself. He was surprised Ren and Martyn hadn’t formed Red Diamond yet, considering all the other fusions that were going on, but he wasn’t about to question it. “Hey, Ren! Can I ask you something?”

“What’s up, dude?” Ren waved him over. “Is something wrong?”

“Not with me,” BigB said. “I just wanted to ask, have you ever seen a gem change color?”

“Hmm.” Ren took a moment to think. “I can’t say I have. Not permanently, at least.”

“What about temporarily?”

“Well, that’s a different story. I’ve seen it happen a few times.”

“You have? Really?”

“Sure, have, m’dude. It’s pretty funky.” Ren sat up straight, immediately towering over BigB. “Happens sometimes on planets with different types of suns. Most gems look about the same, but sometimes a gem will go a bit—well, I don’t want to say off-color, but—”

“So it’s just a trick of the light?” BigB asked.

“Sometimes,” Ren said. “Sometimes nothing else happens, but—haven’t seen it myself, mind you, but I’ve heard certain gems will start to go a little off the rails, if you know what I mean.”

BigB laughed. “Like we all did when we got here?”

“Hey! Not all of us!”

“You’re right,” BigB said. “It was mostly you and Martyn.”

Ren sighed. “I suppose you’re not wrong. Why were you asking about color-changing gems, anyway?”

“You’ve met the new gems, haven’t you?”

“Seen ‘em, yes. Not really had a chat with any of them yet. I was planning on introducing myself, but I was worried I might intimidate them with my size.”

“You could always shrink down,” BigB suggested. “But yeah, Grian and I just talked to Pearl, and she was kind of…the wrong color? Last I saw her she was close to the same color as Grian, but this time she was red. Is that normal?”

“She was red, you say?” Ren looked alarmed. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. Saw it with my own eyes. Grian said it happened last night, too.”

“That’s…not good,” Ren said. “Where is she now?”

“She got upset and ran off.” BigB pointed in the direction he’d seen Pearl disappear. Ren’s frown only deepened.

“We should probably go make sure she’s okay.” He got to his feet, then looked down at BigB and hesitated. “Maybe I’ll take your advice on that shrinking thing. Wouldn’t want to scare her.”

BigB watched as Ren shrank down to match his height. Amusingly, Ren’s gem stayed the same size, making it look huge on his chest. It was odd to be able to look Ren in the eye, but BigB found he quite liked it.

“Alright, you lead the way,” Ren told him.

“Just you and me?” BigB asked. “We’re not getting anyone else?”

“We don’t need a whole group for one pearl,” Ren said. “She’s not hostile, is she?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then I’m sure we’ll be fine!” Ren flashed him a grin. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

—

(I'll update this fic with the next part when it's done, but you can save it on ao3 if you want to make sure you catch it!)

if you read this all the way through and enjoyed, please consider reblogging!

#gemcyt #pearlescentmoon #mumbo jumbo #bdoubleo100 #jimmy solidarity #(is that the tag people use? calling him solidaritygaming feels weird to me idk)#scott smajor #(same deal it just Feels Right this way)#grian #bigbst4tz2 #i'll stop there because the rest of them don't have that many speaking lines #3rd life series #my writing #my stuff

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