"Well, aren't you just pretty as a picture," Jasper said, letting the book spill flat against his stomach and eyeing Lazuli up from his slouch across his cushions.

It wasn't an exaggeration; Lazuli was done up for the twins' show, ears and throat dripping with bright blue stones, all matching his eyes perfectly in color, but coming nowhere near to matching the cold shimmer of them as they sized Jasper up. One hand was resting on his hip, fingers tapping against smooth skin, the other was wrapped tightly around Pearl's wrist.

Pearl was glancing back and forth from Lazuli to Jasper and trying to edge backwards, but Lazuli's grip wouldn't let him any farther than a step and a half back.

Jasper grinned more widely and set the book aside; he'd only been reading it for so long because Cobalt had called him an illiterate fuckhole, and this was much more interesting.

"Need a bit of a baby-sitter, hmm?" he asked, propping his chin up on his palm; Lazuli's eyes narrowed. "Since I'm the only one off and all. Lucky for you, I don't happen to have any pressing engagements. You're more than welcome to leave your pretty little pet in my well-manicured hands." Jasper patted the cushion next to him.

They stared at each other for a long moment before Lazuli huffed a little sigh and tugged Pearl forward. Pearl's eyes went wide when Lazuli pushed him down on the cushion. He tried to scramble back up again, but Lazuli put his hands on Pearl's shoulders and pushed him back down firmly.

Pearl turned to look at Jasper for a second, then turned back to Lazuli. "No!" Lazuli pinned Pearl with those jewel eyes and gave a sharp nod; Pearl's lips twisted into an angry pout, and Jasper brayed with laughter.

His laughter stopped immediately when Lazuli turned the glare from Pearl to him and ratcheted the intensity up about three notches.

"Kyah!" Jasper exclaimed after Lazuli had turned to stomp down the stairs. "Did you see that look he gave me? If I ever wore clothes, it would have stripped 'em right off!"

Pearl was staring at Jasper, giving him a pale imitation of the look that Lazuli had been, and after a few seconds gave another carefully enunciated, "No."

"Oh, don't fret yourself, lovely," Jasper said carelessly, settling more on his side so he could get a better look at the tightly folded limbs and, after a moment, following his gaze with a light brush of fingers over Pearl's hip.

Pearl narrowed his eyes and tensed, but didn't shift off the cushion Lazuli had deposited him on, and that was interesting too. As was the slick paleness of him, making up for the fact that he was just this side of too old for Jasper to pretend he was a needy, helpless thing in need of deflowering.

"I'm a bit tired out from sweet little Opal this morning, truth be told," Jasper continued, stroking his hand up a bit higher to thumb the sharp angle of Pearl's collarbone. "So demanding, waking me up with my cock practically already inside him, I can't imagine where he learned a dirty trick like that…"

As Jasper kept rambling, words spilling out in time to the slow slide of his fingers along Pearl's skin, Pearl merely stared, eyes hard and barely seeming to even blink, until finally Jasper asked if he actually did speak more than just the one word. Pearl's gaze flickered, uncertain, and his brow tightened in concentration.

"You know," Jasper let go of Pearl's skin briefly to wave in the air, "I go, 'my, that's a lovely ass you have there' and you go 'blah blah blah blah'…" He did his best to make his 'blah' noises sound like foreign nonsense, pointing at Pearl.

For a handful of seconds, Pearl's expression didn't change, and Jasper was just beginning to decide that maybe this toy was a bit boring after all, when suddenly Pearl let loose a string of syllables that meant nothing to Jasper but ended in a question mark.

"Ah, yes!" Jasper hitched himself to rest his chin on both his hands, braid rustling down over his shoulder. "Go on then, sweetheart, give us some more."

Pearl's words were harsh and full of jagged consonants, making Jasper's ears perk and his skin prickle. Pearl seemed to enjoy it as well, the tension slowing draining out of him as he went on, probably christening Jasper with every foul name he knew, but it mattered little to Jasper.

His patter cut off in an indignant squawk when Jasper reached up and pulled Pearl down to tuck his back against Jasper's chest.

"Oh, don't stop now, I was just starting to enjoy myself," Jasper encouraged, grinning when Pearl wriggled harder and let loose a string of noises that was definitely not complimentary. He got an arm tight around Pearl's waist and rubbed his thumb just above Pearl's navel, and grinned when Pearl's cock twitched a bit, the muscles in his stomach tightening under Jasper's fingers. "There now, not so bad, hmm?"

Twisting to peer at Jasper over his shoulder, Pearl snarled another sentence or two, and Jasper hummed in approval, nuzzling his cheek against Pearl's shoulder. Pearl huffed an indulgent sigh and went back to talking, turning his head away again when his neck was likely starting to stiffen.

It wasn't Pearl's neck Jasper was particularly interested in stiffening, but Jasper could afford to wait a minute, especially if he could spend it plotting his next move. Turns out he wasn't as tired as he had first thought, and while he entertained a brief fantasy of sucking Pearl off and making him scream in that rough speech of his, he realized that the chances of getting Pearl to reciprocate willingly were slim to none.

Best this way then, Jasper thought, taking advantage of the moment when Pearl was mostly limp in his grip to roll him over so that their chests slid together when they breathed. A smart little thing, then, since he didn't stop talking this time when Jasper moved him about, just rolled his eyes a little when Jasper slipped a hand in between them and wrapped fingers around Pearl's cock.

"Ah, interested after all, are we?" Jasper's grin widened, then an actual chuckle escaped when he widened the sweep of his fingers to catch at his own cock, pressing the two together, and Pearl's eyes widened. "Me too, if you didn't notice."

Jasper stroked once, hand not really big enough to grip both of them well, but Pearl hissed anyway and spat an irritated word when Jasper stopped. It didn't take Pearl long at all to realize that Jasper squeezed them when Pearl was speaking, and stopped when he stopped.

"Mmm, clever boy," Jasper approved when it only took Pearl a bit longer to realize that two hands wrapped around them would speed the process significantly. "Don't you dare stop, you gorgeous thing…"

And Pearl didn't, not until his voice stuttered along with his whole body, drawing tight and spilling hot over Jasper's cock and fingers, and Jasper did his best to add to the effort.

"Ahhhh," Jasper said lazily when Pearl tried to roll away, cuddling up against his side with an arm over Pearl's belly to keep him exactly where he was. "Just where do you think you're going, lovely? Let's hear a bit more of that voice of yours."

When Lapis and Lazuli climbed the stairs hours later, Lapis' weight leaning hard on Lazuli's side and his eyes shadowed, they found Pearl still nestled against Jasper's side, chattering away, the bottom half of Jasper's braid undone and spilling across Pearl's chest as he trailed interested fingers through it.

"Now now, don’t say such awful things about Lazuli, dear," Jasper teased, mouth close to Pearl's ear but meeting Lazuli's gaze with open amusement. "He might have heard!"

Lazuli made a disgusted noise with the flat of his tongue against the roof of his mouth and gave Pearl a jerk of his chin before turning away to help Lapis to their spot, heels dragging a little under the added weight.

Pearl scrabbled to his feet immediately and Jasper let him go, smirking just a bit when Pearl shot one quick glance back over his shoulder as he scampered over to the twins.

Jasper watched for a second as Lazuli ran questioning hands over Pearl and shot disapproving glances Jasper's way, but he could already hear Cobalt bickering with Topaz as they came up the stairs and groped behind him for his book.

His hand bumped into smooth skin instead of paper, and Jasper had barely turned before he was shoved on his back in a whirl of mocha muscles and clinking beads.

"Had a nice rest?" Opal inquired, rolling his hips and making Jasper hiss.

"No!" Pearl said loudly, then laughed when Lazuli frowned.