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[3rd POV]
The sun disappeared over the horizon more quickly than Y/N anticipated, he didn't even have enough time to escort Diamond back to the school before the dark blanket of the night covered everything in sight. The few sources of light were of course the moons in the sky, the not-so-well lit halls of the school and Dia herself. She was a literal disco ball at night due to how the gentle light of the moon reflected off her hair, if Y/N had sensitive retinas he would be blind by now. The reason wasn't just because of how bright Diamond was but also because of how close she was. She basically turned Y/N's right shoulder into a pillow and was snoozing off at this very moment while the red-haired male simply sat there with a deadpan expression.
"What's with that smug look?" Y/N lightly whispered towards the snail form of 'Phos' who despite having a completely unreadable face was giving him a smug grin.
The snail in response let out a series of incoherent noises that Y/N didn't even bother trying to decipher. He wasn't quite sure if he should wake up Diamond and try to look for Cinnabar this way or if he should take Dia back to school so she could rest. Fortunately enough for all of them, it seemed finding Cinnabar wouldn't be a problem because she found them instead.
"Ah, evening Shinsha," Cinnabar nearly blasted Y/N, Diamond and the snail form of 'Phosphophyllite' with liquid mercury, fortunately enough she managed to stop herself just in time.
"Y/N? Dia? What are you two doing out here?" Y/N shushed her with his finger and gestured to the sleeping form of Diamond, but it was too late as the unnecessarily lustrous Gem began waking up due to the ruckus.
"Hm? Ah, did I fall asleep? Ehehe, sorry," Diamond brushed the back of her head in embarrassment while both Y/N and Cinnabar simply deadpanned at her, "Oh, right. Cinnabar, we have a situation..."
"What's going on?" as a sort of non-verbal answer Y/N picked up the pink snail from the ground and held it towards Cinnabar, "Uh...?"
"Snail appeared, snail ate Phos, Phos is snail now," while Diamond sweatdropped at Y/N's rather simple and straight to the point explanation Cinnabar gawked at him and at the snail which just let its own version of a sigh.
"...That doesn't really happen you know..." in all honesty Cinnabar wasn't quite sure what to think of the two people in front of her now, she still thought of Y/N as a friend, or maybe more than that, but now both he and Dia just seemed completely insane, "Sigh, was the snail's shell damaged when it ate 3.5?"
"Yes?" both Y/N and Diamond simultaneously answered which only made Cinnabar facepalm.
"Y/N I thought you worked in the library a lot," and Y/N took offence to that.
"I just cleaned and moved the books, I only occasionally read or edited something," Diamond stifled a giggle at Y/N's obviously sulking tone while Cinnabar just lightly groaned but had a ghost of a smile nonetheless.
"Well, Mister Jack-Of-All-Trades, snails are shelled creatures, they eat rocks to repair the damage done to their shells. It's their natural behaviour, that stupid jerk is lying on the bottom of the pond filling the holes of that snail's shell," after giving them the answer they sought and Y/N both mentally and physically facepalming Cinnabar turned around to leave.
"Thanks for the help Shinsha!" with their thanks now being said both Y/N and Diamond rushed back to the school, but not before securing the snail in the wooden bowl, they also missed how Cinnabar stumbled and nearly fell.
While Diamond slightly lagged behind because she was carrying the bowl with the pink snail in it Y/N was running straight towards the pond, it was late at night and everyone had to be beyond tired because of today, so he would take the job of rescuing Phos upon himself and upon himself alone.
Bort dropped out of nowhere in front of them and Y/N slowed down for a second while Diamond stopped completely, "Where-"
But Y/N just ignored her for the moment and ran past her, "Hey!"
Bort's call fell on deaf ears as Y/N simply ignored her, leaving poor Diamond to explain things to the now even more frustrated battle maniac, "You. Explain, now!"
"Um..." Diamond merely sweatdropped, trying to find proper words to say in this situation while the pink snail visible deflated.
Meanwhile, Y/N already dived into the large pond, uncaring if the white powder he freshly applied today would dissolve, he had a friend to rescue dammit! Finding the shell was actually quite problematic in the dark but thanks to the help of glowing jellyfish he managed to find it in a reasonable timeframe. Red Matter drifted off his body and started to wrap itself around the shell. With the large and heavy object now secure Y/N started to swim upwards, breaching the surface in record time he attached additional tentacles to the two nearest support pillars and began to pull as hard as he could. If he was gripping something like a rope his fingers would most certainly be broken off by now, but because the tentacles wrapped around the shell were coming from his arms as a whole he didn't have to worry about that. Instead, if his body would reach the limit not his fingers would break off but his whole arms. The two support tentacles were attached to his back to alleviate some stress from his arms.
"Come on, why is it so goddamn heavy?!" Y/N's feet dug into the hard ground as he used every ounce of his strength to bring the oversized shell out of the water.
He could hear cracks coming from his arms as the shell finally breached the surface before roughly hitting the quartz floor of the school. With a breath of relief, all of the extorted crimson liquid pooled back into Y/N's body and filled the cracks that appeared across his arms. While Red Matter couldn't heal him instantly it could provide enough support for Y/N to make it to Rutile in one piece.
"You already got it out?!" Diamond came running in and nearly ran straight into Y/N.
Pretty much everyone else, minus Kongo-sensei and Rutile followed after her with ropes in their hands, "Yeah, you take too long. Go back to sleep."
"Nu-uh! We have to excavate all of Phos' shards!" everyone else nodded to Diamond's determined exclamation, "And you, to Rutile, now!"
For a second Y/N was shocked to see Diamond, of all people, be so commanding. But, he took the command with stride and simply nodded in acknowledgement before making his way to their resident quack doctor. He arrived as Rutile was already setting her tools on one of the wooden tables.
"Hm, Y/N? Did everyone already collect Phos' shards?" Rutile barely looked from her "workbench" before continuing to organize her tools.
"Not really..." Y/N took a seat not too far from Rutile who just appeared to be done organizing her workplace, he then took off his black vest and left his upper body clothed in only a white t-shirt, "My arms nearly broke off, think you can patch me up?"
Rutile just stared at Y/N's cracked arms, Red Matter already filled the cracks and basically made sure that they wouldn't fall apart, but it was not a good short-term solution because of how long it takes for it to solidify.
With a sigh, Rutile picked up some of her tools along with some glue and sat by Y/N's side, "It's not every day that you out of everyone suffer an injury."
Y/N let out a dry chuckle at that as Rutile got to work on fixing his partially broken arms while he leaned his back against the wall and relaxed, "Today... has been a day."
Rutile stifled a laugh at the image that appeared in her mind and did her best to get back to fixing Y/N, although with that image floating around in her head it was pretty hard, "Some days are like that. Don't break on me next time."
"Yes ma'am," Y/N gave a mock salute in response but winced when Rutile suddenly bonked him on his already cracked arm with a hammer.
"And get some sleep, you've been restless lately," true enough to Rutile's words, Y/N has been rather restless as of late.
Mainly due to Cinnabar because he felt like it was his obligation as a friend to keep her company at night. And while he couldn't physically become tired and pass out due to insomnia, sleep calmed his mind and alleviated troublesome thoughts. Not to mention it helped pass time.
"Okay then..." Rutile was about to protest but simply stayed shut and continued working on fixing Y/N which took longer than expected due to Red Matter interfering with the glue.
"All done," but when Rutile looked at Y/N again he appeared to be dozing off, his head gently placed against the rockhard pillar.
Gently sighing she went to pick up a pillow and a blanket that was lying around her workplace. She placed the pillow behind Y/N's head and covered him with the white cover before sitting down beside him and waiting for the others to come in with the collected pieces of that mint-haired slag. Her eyes darted from the sleeping form of Y/N to the entrance to the office. Not hearing anyone coming she quietly nudged herself towards Y/N and leaned against him, taking some of the white blanket she previously gave him for herself. Y/N's shoulder was by no means soft but it still seemed like everyone's favourite pillow, surprisingly. But Rutile still seemed unsettled, so she gave the entrance one last glance before looking back at Y/N.
"Hm...?" Y/N groaned slightly in his sleep when he felt something press against the side of his face, more specifically his cheek.
The feeling vanished as quickly as it appeared, and so did Rutile who was now nervously rummaging through her tools trying to keep herself busy while Y/N slept like a log. A dreamless sleep, but it was a good night's rest nonetheless and with how busy Y/N was starting to become he appreciated even the smallest chance to take a breather, be it alone or with somebody else. Even if that somebody else hugged him in his sleep, or used his shoulder as a pillow, or even if they k̶i̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶h̶e̶e̶k̶, he would still welcome their company. That's what friends do, after all.
[[TO BE CONTINUED...]]
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Braggski: Yep, a DOUBLE UPLOAD! The first one in my career, I think. Hope you enjoyed it, I know it wasn't much but I thought I'd give you guys some Y/N x Rutile scenes.