First to Fall

Lapis had kept her word that night, and as soon as the two girls plopped on her bed, they were out like a light. The next morning they woke up with no hangover, but still feeling a bit groggy. So they slept in all the way into the afternoon. The blue haired girl’s bed was so comfortable to Peridot. She would not be able to tell the difference if she was sleeping on a cloud instead. When she fluttered her eyes open, Peridot found themselves curled up facing each other, with Lapis’ face dangerously close to hers. The other girl’s makeup was still intact, though her eyeliner was smudged a bit on her lower lids. Her naturally straight blue hair managed to stay in the style which she usually kept it, lucky for her. Lips slightly parted, Lapis made no sound as she was lost in deep sleep.

Peridot studied her for a while, forcing herself to keep her eyes open. The light which shone through the cracks of the blinds casted highlighted strips on Lapis’ body, gradually moving down. Although her head was averaged sized, she had a thin face, which complemented her fit shape. She had worn a pair of running shorts and an oversized t-shirt to bed with a giant, vintage donut printed on the front. The down comforter bed sheet curved along with her body, showing the outline of her body. Even in sleep, Lapis was ridiculously attractive.

A sudden urge came over Peridot to kiss her right then and there. But she held back from doing so. What was wrong with her? Here she was, sleeping next to the most wonderful girl, and she was still debating whether to kiss her or not. Lapis made it clear she was ready to take it to the next level, but always held back. Peridot did not ever once feel pressured with her. But if they were already sleeping together in the same bed, they were going to have to talk about where they both stood. The blonde was surprised she even lasted this long with Lazuli. Not that she was unattractive or anything. She was average at the most. Rather it was her holding back, which may have turned most other girls away.

But Lapis was different, and Peridot had to let her know exactly how she felt. And soon.

She fell back asleep again after that.

Her dream replayed the events which took place hours before. She, Lapis, and Lars were still looking for Jasper, but when they found her, the bigger girl was faced away from them. Approaching her slowly, she turned her head around to acknowledge them. But rather than it being Jasper, it was the homeless man Yellowtail, eyes hollowed out and no teeth. This sudden shock was what woke Peridot up, heart racing, along with her phone vibrating underneath her.

Thank goodness. Squirming a bit, she found it and pulled the device up to her face. Checking the screen it said fifty missed emails, and two text messages. There were no weekends when it came to work, and the clients she worked with were always relentless to obtain updates on her progress. Fortunately half of it was spam, which left only half the amount for her to go through. It was a little past noon now, and she was supposed to deliver one of her clients results today. She had worked on it a bit on her computer the previous day, but put it off after deciding to go out. Breaking into the target’s server was the easy part. It was rummaging through the folders, files, emails, and software to search for the desired material, which ate up all her time. Even then it never took a tremendous amount out of her day.  

To secure her own computer, she wrote her own network security software and hardware, consisting of several firewalls nearly impossible to crack. This allowed her a healthy layer of protection and privacy. She knew how Diamond Co. utilized their systems, and even wrote software for them in the past. But that was the past. Along with knowing exactly how they functioned, she knew how to exploit them and where exactly the holes were written. Not even the programmers who worked at Diamond seemed to catch them yet. Working at her mother’s company saved her time and energy from having to use any alternative methods when guessing passwords and codes. This, she used to her advantage.  

It meant she could weasel her way into the loop of every project the company worked on, from large to small scale, and internal to external. She could find out who was going to be promoted, who was about to be laid off, and who was getting paid what salary. Like she really cared, but it was mildly entertaining to read all the same. There were two things in particular which she did with her access to all this information.

The first was archive as much as she could on her computer. She had in her possession copies of important documents, contracts, programs, beta applications, and more. It was always interesting to guess and figure out the direction Diamond’s future was heading, based on their future decisions and products. This she did simply for fun. She had countless unimportant files, so she spent most of her time with the ones that were noted as classified.

Before she left Diamond, she managed to formulate and copy over a master list containing every username and password, on a flash drive. She now had permission into any account used by the corporation. Including her own mother’s accounts, the chief executive officer. Reading though her emails was always interesting. Peridot would scoff to herself as most of them were worded too kind, too polite. That was not her mother. Yellow Diamond was selfish, uncaring, manipulative, never gave a damn. She was never around a lot either. The only positive quality Peridot could think of, was that she never downright ignored her. But even so, Yellow Diamond constantly placed too many high expectations on her growing up. If she ever failed to meet her mother’s standards, Yellow Diamond would make her feel subpar. She would say things like, “you’re never going to go anywhere in life,” and “what’s wrong with you.” Over time Peridot would occasionally wonder the same thing, those words forever ingrained in her mind.

Her mother presented her the opportunity to work for Diamond Co. saying “she could perhaps make herself of some use there.” That was the “in” Peridot needed, a perfect opportunity to do something right. At the same time, her mother never cared if she did anything right. The blonde constantly wondered what she was doing wrong in Yellow Diamond’s eyes. Then one day in high school Peridot had enough, giving up all attempts at trying to impress her, along with everyone else. And she was wholly content with that, never having any real friends to begin with.   

Even though during Peridot’s time at Diamond, security and privacy experienced a massive increase, Yellow Diamond never acknowledged this. Even more importantly, she never paid her for any work. When Peridot approached her about it, Yellow Diamond went on a tangent, explaining how at her age she used to work for free. The CEO’s stubbornness was probably the only quality that was passed on to her. It was pointless in negotiating any further. That, according to Peridot’s morals and contract, was wrong. She had signed the contract when she started work there, and it was Diamond Co. rule that every employee must be paid. The fact that her pay was being withheld meant Diamond was breaking the law. Not like they had never broken a law.

Peridot took it upon herself to make things right.

She had not only improved security, but transformed major internal programs. Any regular programmer in her position would be paid at least eighty five grand annually. Not only had she taken that exact sum from Diamond, but multiplied that by two for two years’ salary, along with a friendly bonus most dedicated employees received on the holidays. Peridot did all of this without it notifying Diamond’s system that this large sum had been transferred, all the way over to Beach City. When the accountants would find out eventually, it would appear as a serious fluke, and think first to blame each other. Not some college aged girl in her twenties, whose mother owned the company. It definitely would not be the largest loss the company would put up with. Instead they would yell at each other for a bit, maybe do some investigating or put it on record. Someone would get fired, and eventually sweep it under the rug. They were a multi-billion dollar company, so losing a few thousand would not affect them terribly. Observing their finances through the years, they could make it up quickly by their next quota. Peridot did not keep the transferred amount in her personal savings. Instead she started an untethered, private account, separate from her savings and checking. The blonde supposed what she did was illegal to some degree, but were Diamond Co. and Yellow Diamond any better really?

Peridot wke up from deep thought when Lapis twitched a bit next to her. The tan girl stretched a bit, and gave a soft, morning moan.

“Mm, good morning,” she mumbled out.

“Morning to you too,” It was the afternoon, but she did not care. Peridot stroked Lapis’ bangs out of her face, revealing her forehead. Light now reflected off her eyes. She purred softly at the touch.

“I have to go and work, I have an assignment due later today.”

“No…” She groaned and grabbed her waist. “Can’t you stay for just a few more minutes?

Normally she would have been practical and told Lapis otherwise, that it was important, and she barely had started on it. But just looking at her face made her cave, and gave up all resistance. After fifteen minutes flew by, she got up from Lapis’ bed and changed out of the night clothes given to her. She pulled off the tank top, exposing her braless back. The thought to change in the bathroom slipped past her, until she realized as she clasped her bra, she should have. Little did she know Lapis was watching her from behind.

“You’re so attractive Peridot.”

The blonde whipped around as she pulled down her shirt. “Huh? What do you mean? I’m not at all…”

“Of course you are, everything about you.”

Peridot’s whole face turned red. What was she supposed to say to that? That was the first time in her entire life anyone had told her she was attractive, so she grew up thinking she was just mediocre looking. She fumbled through her words formulating the correct thing to say back, until she came to a simple “thanks.”

Lapis smiled, finding Peridot flustered mildly entertaining. Peridot put on her jeans, went over to the taller girl, and gave her a long hug. Their embraces started to feel familiar now, and though Peridot was not used to “familiar,” this kind was comforting.

She left the house, shutting the door behind her, but was unprepared for the heat which engulfed her as soon as she stepped outside. By the time she opened the door to her own house, she was sweating and panting. Her clothes already needed to be washed from last night, but now especially so.

“Have a fun time?”

Garnet’s voice caught Peridot off and jumped. “Oh,” she laughed, “I didn’t see you there.” What was Garnet assuming?

“I figured you would spent the night over there,” she said casually, “so I left the back door open just in case you needed anything.”

“Oh thanks.”

The blonde headed into her room, changing out of her outfit immediately. She put on running shorts, a loose black tank top which exposed her sides, and a sport’s bra. The next thing she did was turn her fan on, before opening her laptop.

Okay, back to work for me.

Only an hour had passed when she finished, and sent everything to her client in an organized folder. The client contacted Peridot expressing concern that his wife was cheating with another man at work, using a separate computer to communicate. Peridot found out that not only did this woman have a separate computer, but also another phone. After gaining access to her desktop, she searched all her files, finding some not totally suitable for work pictures. From opening the first photo and seeing what it was, she quickly exited out, copying and pasting the entire picture folder to her computer. She did not need to see, nor have any desire to see the rest, and named the folder “Untasteful Pics.” While browsing, the woman apparently kept a note document file with all her usernames and passwords. It was way too convenient, not to mention predictable, coming from someone who uses their work computer to conceal their other life. And by the time she had scanned through the target’s emails, Peridot had everything she needed for her client.

There was more than enough proof that this woman was cheating. Taking a screenshot of the files she sent it to the client with the message “ready to send.” It was not long until her sent Peridot the total sum to her PayFriend account, and delivered him the results. He sure as hell was not going to be happy, with everything totaling to five gigabytes. But she was kind enough to name the files based on what they contained or showed, just in case he did not want to look at anything explicit.

Logging out of her accounts and shutting her laptop, she went and plopped on her bed, lying face up. It was time for a break. Grabbing her phone, she went through her gallery and all the pictures of her and Lapis Lazuli. She had a few of them on the beach, hanging in the city, and going out with their friends to downtown. Eyes remaining on one picture, it was a selfie Lapis took of them both, before she messaged it to Peridot. They both were smiling. A red light shone down on them both from the background, acting as a filter and distorting the colors. Their heads leaned in towards one another, and part of Lapis’ arm could be seen from holding up the phone. Peridot smiled. They were a pretty good looking couple if she thought so herself.

But wait, were they really a couple? This was something they both needed to figure out. Or maybe Lapis was waiting on her. Not knowing how most people went about this, Peridot came to the conclusion that she would officially ask Lapis to be her girlfriend. Yes it was a formal method, but at least this way everything would be cleared up with no ambiguity. After doing a few internet searches, she devised a plan of going about it.