Chapter Text
She lay there, enjoying the warmth of bare-skin on bare-skin and the fuzzy-clear feeling in her mind. Well, if she was being honest, it was mostly fuzzy. Her mind started to drift off into that pre-sleep world of half-logic and flights of fancy–
"Oh no, none of that!" Said Jasper, rolling into a sitting position and disturbing her bedmate's comfort.
Lapis popped her eyes open. "What."
"I said none of that! You can't stay over. I have work in the morning."
Lapis's eyebrows furrowed in disbelief and cold anger. "Jasper, I'm drunk as hell. I can't drive like this."
"That's not my problem! You snore like a warthog. Get an Uber." The tall woman reached down and handed Lapis her wadded up clothes and her bag, which contained her keys and phone.
The smaller woman snapped upright. "Ugh! You're an absolute savage!" Jasper smirked and shrugged. Lapis scowled, snatched her stuff, and stomped out of the room, slamming the flimsy bedroom door.
In silence she put her clothes on. A heat was creeping up into her face and ears. Shame. That's what she felt. She kept coming back to this stupid apartment, this stupid woman, those stupid bottles of bitter beer. Identifying the feeling somehow made it worse. She choked back angry tears. How could she end up in such a downright pitiful situation like this? How did she end up so trapped in this damned cycle of instant gratification and childish decisions?
While she derided herself, her body had taken her out of Jaspers apartment and out the door of the complex. She fished her phone out of her bag. Her dead phone.
"You're kidding," she said. "You're absolutely shitting me."
She looked at her car. Maybe she could make it. It's dark, but not late enough for the after-bars-close cops to be out in force. She took some steps, gauging her drunkenness, hmming like a scientist. Yeah, she could make it. Her apartment wasn't that far. I mean, she'd be going under 50 the whole time. It's not like it was a route she hadn't taken before. Drunk driving was a stupid as hell move but… she was in a bind. She would absolutely NOT beg Jasper to let her back in.
She got in her car, turned it on, and took a breath. It's gonna be fine…
----
It was fine. She'd made it this far, with only a block to go. A giddy, spiteful feeling bubbled up in her chest. This felt like a victory she had won over her serial-sex-friend. Serial-sex-frenemy?
No, definitely serial-sex-enemy.
This called for a celebration. Lapis's mind wandered to the box of cigarettes she kept in her glovebox. A guilty pleasure which she couldn't resist after a few drinks. The increasingly sober part of her brain told her to wait until she was home. The still drunk part wanted a smoke, damnit.
She leaned over, taking her eyes off the road to find the glovebox latch in the dark.
It happened fast. There was a sudden crunch and a dizzying change in velocity. Lapis felt her stomach and her soul shoot out of her body in opposite directions.
"Oh no, oh fuck, oh god." She scrambled out of her car door. There were prayers sent off to a number of gods, just in case.
"Oh, come on!" A shrill voice exclaimed. The other driver. "My bumper stickers..." They met eyes.
"I'm so sorry, I..." She felt like she was floating. Her legs wobbled.
The strangers mouth fell open softly. "Are you… drunk?"
There was right no way to answer that question. Fortunately, she didn't have to. The conversation swiftly ended when the back of the strangers car began reflecting alternating red and blue lights.
Fuck.
----
A little bell chimed as Lapis walked in. She wondered if that was supposed to be charming. She looked around the office. The decor was rather… busy. There were knick-knacks of all shapes, sizes, and values on a mish-mash of bookshelves and tables. Lapis checked in and found a chair. At least the chairs were all the same. A portrait of a lady with an impressive amount of curly hair hung opposite Lapis's seat. This place was not at all what she was expecting. Shouldn't it be a stuffy office or something? She absent-mindedly wondered if the last few months had been an elaborate prank. What a lovely thought.
The only other person in the room was a young boy, playing a bulky Gameboy. That thing was probably older than he was. Lapis felt a clutch of nostalgia for the good old days of limited colored screens and struggling to find adequate light sources to play by. Ah, sweet inconvenience. The boy looked up and met her eyes. She made a face. The kid smiled and made his own. They had an epic battle of facial contortions for an embarrassingly long amount of time. Lapis felt herself having more fun than she had had in a while. A cynical part of herself pointed out how absolutely sad that was.
"Miss Lazuli?" A older man's voice called her.
She straightened her face and looked up. The most Dad-like human being she had ever seen was standing in the entrance to the hallway at the back of the waiting room.
"I'm Greg Universe, right this way."
Lapis followed after the impressive ponytail that dangled under Greg's bald spot. Together, they walked down a line of office doors. Soon, they had reached the end of the hall and entered the last office. Greg's office was even more cluttered then the reception area. How? He had another picture of the long haired woman on his desk, but this one was a photo. A much younger Greg was smiling along with her. It looked like they were at the beach.
"Nice to meet you! So, here's how this stuff works. I'm just the middle-man; I'm here to get you set up with a permanent therapist. Your probation officer recommended that you…" Greg sat down behind his desk and flipped through a stack of folders that were seemingly tossed onto the desk from some unseen three point line.
"I'm the DUI." Lapis said dryly.
Greg looked up, embarrassed. "Right. So, your P.O. mentioned that you'll be tested to make sure you're not drinking, right? Well, we find that people that end up in trouble usually have something going on in their life that just quitting their substance of choice doesn't fix. That's what we're here for!"
Lapis stared at him blankly.
"Ahem, so uh, can you tell me a little about yourself? Anything you want to request in a therapist? Lots of women ask for a female doctor, for instance…"
"I just mess up. A lot. I don't care who sees me."
"Mm…" Lapis noticed he didn't start writing anything down, like she expected. He only gazed at her with concerned interest. "Do you work? Are you in school?"
The world's worst questions. Her fussy probation officer had made it very clear that she should employ herself as soon as possible. "I recently dropped out."
"What was your major?"
"Bio." She didn't want to be here. Maybe short answers would get her out of the office quickly.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-three," she said to the window.
There was some drumming of fingers on the desk, and then Greg smiled like he just remembered a funny joke.
"I think I know just the person for you."
----
Lapis looked down at the appointment card in her hand. She'd come in in about three weeks for her first session. After that, she'd go weekly until her P.O. was satisfied. Lapis felt the hole burning in her wallet like a physical pain.
Thankfully, the bus stop was a short walk away from the building which contained Greg's office. Public transportation in this city was generally a garbage fire. She hadn't noticed before.
"Hey!!!" Lapis flinched, an arm thrown up over her head in an awkward pre-karate chop pose. "Waiting room fun buddy!" It was the Gameboy kid, walking up to the bus stop. He held a bag of chaaps.
Lapis relaxed and smiled. "Hey."
"I'm Steven! Steven Universe." Lapis's eyes widened a notch. Another 'Universe'? Does that mean… "You met my dad today!"
Sure enough. "Call me Lapis." She said. Steven hopped up on the bus stop bench, sitting right beside her like they were old friends, and not like she was a weird adult stranger that he met in a shrink's office. His open heart was charming.
Steven settled into kicking his legs and finishing his chips. Lapis leaned back against the bus stop shelter, enjoying the easy company. Her eyes itched. It had been a long day. And it was about to be longer.
"You look so sad." Steven said, looking at her with more concern than she felt she deserved. Her face must have betrayed her thoughts. She fantasized about hanging it for treason.
"I'm just… thinking about my to do list."
"What do you have to do?"
Oof. "Well, for starters, I need to find a cheaper place to live."
Steven gasped. There were almost literal stars in his eyes. "Oh my gosh!"
Lapis leaned sideways, squinting into the blinding light of his joy. "What?"
"My friend needs a roommate! She just switched jobs a bit ago so she needs help paying rent! Plus she's the best, so she would be a great roommate! Well… she's a little messy, and loud, and sometimes she's mean without meaning to be, but…"
"Oh uhm…. I don't know if I should move in with someone I've never met. Besides, I'm not really a people person."
"Oh, yeah, I understand." His face fell. He had obviously already imagined years of incredible friendship between the two of them.
In disbelief, she listened to herself ask, "How much is rent?"
Steven looked tentatively hopeful, "Three hundred dollars a month."
Oh. "…can you give me her number?"