"I don't know," Pearl grunts in frustrated honesty, her tightly-knit muscles unyielding beneath Garnet's soft touch. She burrows deeper into herself, pressing her face into the crook of one bony arm. "Everything today was my fault. I feel like, like such a useless idiot, and I shouldn't get to act like it's just bad luck or it doesn't matter, because it isn't and it does, and I..."

... deserve to be punished, she finishes inside her head, tongue suddenly glued to the roof of her very dry mouth.

Pearl lets the unfinished sentence hang for a moment as she swallows, gathers up her courage. Then she shifts, slow and sheepish, until she can meet Garnet's eyes over the edge of her shoulder.

"Could you... do that thing?" Her voice squeaks at the end, and she purses her lips through a hot pink flush. "That we talked about last week?"