Chapter Text
Pearl exchanged a guilty look with Gem. Sure, there had been something very entertaining about playing footsie with Gem under the table while she referred to her as her ‘best friend in the entire world’. But even if it was true, they hadn’t meant to actually upset anyone. And as much as Zed reassured them both that Tango was fine, and even though it wasn’t technically a lie, Gem was at least as close to being her best friend as Grian was, she just had other feelings for Gem as well, but she still felt bad.
Pearl could remember the first time this had happened with Tango. They were freshly moved in to their old place and Tango had very kindly moved their stuff over in a trailer he’d attached to a quad bike , and was putting together some furniture for them while Pearl tried to repair the bookshelves some old lady had been more than keen to get rid of at a yard sale. Pearl was pretty sure Tango had hit his thumb with a hammer or had misread the particularly awful and very old ikea instructions and had sworn so loudly Pearl had jumped a little (and being the group’s token Australian, it took a particularly violent swear to get her to have any sort of reaction). And had marched himself out the door without another word, quickly followed by Impulse.
“Sorry,” Tango had said when he’d come back, “I er-” Tango cut himself off. “You know how toxic masculinity teaches men that the only way they can express their emotions is with violence?”
“Yeah?” Gem said. She had kindly come downstairs to help fish a splinter out of Pearl’s hand after Tango’s outburst.
“Well toxic masculinity is also known as ‘my dad’. But I’m working on it, I just need to not be around people when it get frustrated ‘coz I don’t wanna hurt anyone.” Tango looked at the ground as he spoke.
“Well, your dad sounds crap and I am not above glitter bombing him,” Pearl told him, the offer hanging in the air. “But props to you for cycle-breaking.”
“And I’m sorry I scared you, I didn’t mean for you to drop your hammer on your finger,” Gem said, which made Pearl’s head spin. Gem did that?
“Thanks,” he said, still not really meeting their eyes. “There’s a reason I basically lived at Impy’s house when we were in school.”
Pearl could tell Gem was thinking about that same conversation, she reached across and squeezed Pearl’s hand. Yeah ok, the jig was up. Mumbo and Scar cleared away the plates in a disgustingly romantic fashion so by the time Tango came back inside, the kitchen was clean and they were exchanging kisses over the countertops.
“Hey, um Tango?” Pearl said. “We owe you an apology.”
“Nah.” Tango waved it off, “you’re all good. I’m sorry I got all wound up, it’s been a rough week.”
Normally they would have let Tango launch into the story of whatever nonsense various clients had gotten up to at the garage, but Gem spoke.
“No, we owe all of you a bit of an apology. Pearl has been my girlfriend for the last two weeks.”
Pearl baulked at how plainly she’d said it, but her reaction was quickly overshadowed by everyone else at the table.
“I’m sorry what?” Was Zedaph’s rather restrained response.
“You have got to be joking,” Mumbo said, sounding rather exhausted.
Tango had just let out a sort of tired-sounding chuckle. “Of course you are.”
“That checks out,” Scar said, wrapping an arm around Grian who was shouting at them.
“Finally!!” Grian crowed.
“You made me live with your pining for two years and then decide to tell us you’ve finally gotten together like this?” Impulse groaned. “I don’t know what I expected from Grian’s best friend.”
“Actually it was Gem’s idea,” Pearl told him, reaching over to press a chaste kiss to Gem’s hair in appreciation of her brilliance.
“Gem?” Impulse said, giving Gem a look of complete and utter betrayal. “Sweet Gem did this?”
Gem just grinned back at them, her sharp smile reminding Pearl exactly why she had raced over to Grian in first year. She looked over at him and he smirked, Pearl had a sinking suspicion he was thinking the same thing.
“Hey Gem,” Grian said, “did Pearl tell you about the full on gay crisis she had in first year over you?”
“She did,” Gem said and Grian’s face fell as Pearl’s feeling of relief rose. “But I’m sure she left out the embarrassing details, so feel free to tell it again.” Nevermind Pearl made awful choices.
“Ok so you know the turtle in a pond metaphor?” Grian said, only for everyone but Pearl to look at him like he’d just announced that he was going to be celibate and give up pranking for the rest of his life. “Right. Er, so the idea is that it’s really hard for people to define the absence of something, like asexuality or aromanticism, because if you’ve seen turtles in your pond you know there are turtles in your pond, right?”
“Love, what does this have to do with sexual orientation?” Mumbo asked.
“I’m getting to it!” Grian said impatiently. “But if you have a pond and you’ve never seen a turtle you don’t know that there aren’t any turtles, because you might have missed them, or looked at the wrong time or something. Anyway the point is, if a twenty-one year old Australian with control issues comes up to you in a panic because she thinks her aroace label might not be valid anymore, you have to remind her that the label is there as a tool to describe the pond, not a label to tell the pond and the turtles what to do. And some ponds only have turtles when exactly the right conditions are met, or just very rarely and all of those are valid ponds as well. I mean, you don’t call Scar gay just because he has two boyfriends, he’s still pan regardless of who he’s dating, you know?”
“I hate that I understood all of that,” Pearl said.
“And yet I seem to recall you were very grateful the first time around,” Grian shot back.
“Screw you, I was emotionally vulnerable,” Pearl replied.
“You love me.” Grian grinned.
“Unfortunately.”
“Not as much as she loves me, though!” Gem said with a smile. “I'm so glad I finally kissed you.”
“Wait, Gem was the one to actually make a move?” Tango said, looking at them both with wide eyes, like he was waiting for this to be another prank.
“Yep,” Pearl popped the ‘p’. “She just up and kissed me.”
“Ok show of hands,” Mumbo said, “who was betting on Pearl being the one to make the first move.”
Every hand save Pearl’s was raised.
“Gem, put your hand down,” Pearl said.
“But you’re so practical, I thought if you had feelings for me you would have done something about them already.” Gem toyed with Pearl’s ponytail.
“Not when it comes to you apparently.”
Grian mimed throwing up into a nearby monstera. Snorting when he was Pearl flip him the finger in retaliation. “What? You’re allowed to go on about how gross we all are, but the minute I do it back, it’s nothing but rudeness? Typical.”
“Grian, Grian, Grian, if I’ve had to announce my presence every time I come close to entering a shared space to avoid seeing something I don’t wanna see, then I’m entitled to call you gross as often as I want to.” Pearl told him as though she was a teacher and he was a particularly thick student.
“That was one time! And Scar put his shirt back on-” Grian objected before being cut off by Pearl.
“The fact that you need to ‘that was one time’ me, proves my point.” Pearl said, smirking as Grian pulled a face at her, his way of conceding that he didn’t have a good comeback for her.
Pearl couldn’t help but feel unbelievably smug as Gem wrapped an arm around hers. Her skin was so soft and gentle, Pearl could sympathise with the animals that Gem always seemed to be able to lure into her hands. They got it. And the fact that Gem was clearly some kind of fairytale princess that had somehow ended up being born in Canada 24 years ago was a secret between Pearl and the animals.
“Hang on a minute? Did Grian just accuse me of having control issues?” Pearl said, only realising as she looked back on their conversation.
“Pearl, I love you, but that wasn’t name-calling, that was stating facts.” Gem told her soothingly.
“Gem? Gem betrayed me? Oh this is too much for my little heart to take. Scar, tell Gem I loved her.” Pearl dropped to the floor, which was a difficult task to complete with Gem clinging to one of her arms and laughing.
Scar rolled his eyes affectionately. “Somehow, I think you’ll find it in your heart to forgive her.”
“Yeah, I mean, you got over that time she hid a duck in your spaghetti, so this is nothing.” Impulse agreed.
“Wait, that was Gem? Gem did that?”