Shattered Hearts (Steven Universe)

Chapter 6

Hi, everyone! Sorry I haven't updated this story much lately. I ran out of ideas for a while, but now I have another chapter to give you lovely readers. Enjoy! ~ @awesomeri14

Peridot collapsed onto Ben's couch, trying to hide the exhaustion and despair on her face beneath the extremely soft polyester pillows. The boy that she had had to come to sat down beside her. Before she could stop him, the human pulled her into an upright position. "That was a little sudden, Peri. I mean, I don't mind having you here, but-wait, are you...crying?" "No," Peridot snapped. "I just...have something in my eye, that's all." Ben chuckled. "For a green alien, you're not as good at lying as I thought you would be." Peridot didn't answer him. She was afraid that if she did, she would break down and cry in front of him, and she didn't want his sympathy. Her face burned from embarrassment, and she faced the opposite direction. Ben sighed, then spoke. "If you don't want to tell me what's wrong, then don't, but there must've been a reason for you to come back here after you said that you didn't trust me." Peridot glanced down at her boots. They were coated with dirt from her wild run from the Crystal Gems in the filthy field. She winced. "It really shouldn't concern you. You humans think that you can fix every problem, but you can't, not when you don't understand what you're dealing with." "Then let me understand. Tell me what I need to know." Ben's eyes revealed his unspoken yearning to learn more information. "No. I've told you enough already." The boy's facial expression hardened. "Fine," he muttered. He got up from the couch and walked into a different portion of the room. He apparently wasn't as mad as he seemed, for he came back, holding a brightly colored bag in his arms. He turned on the rectangular device in the room with a controller that Peridot hadn't noticed before, and the screen flickered to life. Ben tore open the top of the bag with his hands and took out triangular shaped things that he put in his mouth. The green gem studied him, hearing the things crunch between his teeth. Her intrigue got the best of her and she talked to him. "What are those?" Ben paused in his crunching to look at her with disbelief. He turned off his rectangle with the controller and turned to look at her. "They're...Doritos. You've never had any before?" Peridot shook her head. To her surprise, the boy tossed the bag into her lap. "You can eat some. I'm not all that hungry anyway." The green gem studied the archaic pictures on the red bag and opened it cautiously. Strange smells wafted up from it, and the orange chips lay scattered all around inside of the odd container. When her face became visibly paler, Ben looked at her with concern. "Is something wrong?" "Eating...I'm sorry, but I'm not fond of this "eating" you speak of. Besides, gems such as myself don't need to eat."

The human boy grinned. "Oh, they don't, do they?" Peridot winced at his jubilant expression. So much for not telling him anything. "You just told me something else about yourself," Ben exclaimed. "Wait, can you eat at all?" "Yes, but I don't need to, really." "Then try one of these." The boy took a triangular chip from the bag and waved it in front of her face in a tempting manner. He laughed. "Are you sure that you didn't style your hair to look like these do?" "No," she replied coolly. "That's idiotic." The gem snatched the snack food from his taunting hand, and, after studying it for a moment, put it in her mouth. She crushed it between her teeth in the same way that Ben had, and swallowed it slowly. Peridot had braced herself for the likelihood of the chip being poisonous, but when nothing terrible happened to her, she looked at the bag and then back at the boy. "Well?" Ben said. "What do you think?" Peridot's eyes brightened to the color of a tree's leaves in spring. "It's...it's marvelous! I've never tasted anything with so much flavor before!" The green gem had a giddy smile on her face, and she took a few more chips out of the bag and ate them rapidly, scarfing them down. As she grabbed another handful, Ben took the bag back. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't eat that much all at once." Peridot swallowed and blinked, looking at him in confusion. "Why?" "Well, Doritos aren't tbe healthiest food, and you could get a stomachache if you eat too many of them." "Oh." Peridot blushed. She had never really eaten anything before back at Home World, so the sensations of this human activity-the chewing and swallowing and tasting- were so new to her that they had overwhelmed her mind momentarily. Ben patted her shoulder. "It's fine. I like Doritos a lot too. So, can you tell me why you came back here now?" The gem shuffled her feet on the floor and rubbed the remainder of the crumbs from the chips off of her fingers. At last, she answered him. "Yes."