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GW2: First/Last

List of Glow Week prompts here [About one month before the events of The Future]

As the shark's body distended across the glass dome, Steven wondered: how much the water around them changed the temperature of the air. Aquariums had to be fairly warm, after all, but there were enough visitors in the summer to presumably warrant some air conditioning. There weren't that many right now, considering that the exhibits closed in an hour or so; that just meant that he could share the space with Connie and they wouldn't have to worry about strange looks from people who thought they were sitting just a little too close together. Steven didn't really care, but they were still in public. Who could tell they were on a date? Would anyone see them and wonder about how long they had been together, or whether things were going well, or how they had met? Who knew their history?

Connie squeezed his hand and shuddered slightly. Her palm was so warm in his own. Steven briefly looked down to their laps to watch the cerulean shadows trail over the folds of their jeans. Once upon a time he would have likened the ghostly strands of light to the atmosphere of an alien world. Now that they had both been to alien worlds, he really didn't have the words to describe what this light resembled.

"Hey," Connie said. "Thanks again for this. It's good to get out of Beach City for a little bit with you. It's cozier than I thought."

"If they turn the A/C down a little, it could even be a nice place for a sleepover," Steven chuckled.

"A sleepover? Oh man, when was the last time we did one of those?"

"It's...been a while. Must've been just after we got back from Homeworld?"

"Unless you count falling asleep after Little Homeworld construction meetings," Connie remarked. "But that was less hot chocolate and cartoons, more tea and pencil shavings."

Steven chuckled, wincing at the memories of those long nights. He had worked himself just hard enough to regret it now, even though it was necessary. It had seemed so long ago that the buildings had gone up, that all the zoning permits and materials had been brought in, that all the Gems started to get acclimated to life on this planet. Gravity, biospheric balance, ecology—everything had to be in order. But before all of that, he had rested somewhat, enough to have his time with Connie and enough to feel like he was at home on his home planet. They had had so many playdates and adventures when he was in his tweens, and sometime in that era they had gotten too old for sleepovers. He didn't have to say it—he couldn't say it—but there was a reason that the throwaway line was little more than a joke.

"I think I'd like sleeping here, though," he sighed. "The sounds of the water, the fish overhead... If fish could sleep like we do, I bet that they'd rest really well. As long as they didn't have to worry about getting eaten."

"Sleeping with the fishes? As long as you're not in trouble with the mob, seems restful to me."

"Why don't they just say sleeping with fish? It's like, how many mobsters care about the distinction between fish and fishes?"

"You never know, there could be overlap between organized crime and marine biology!" Connie giggled. "Mobsters who study lobsters."

They snorted simultaneously, and Connie snuggled just a little closer to Steven. She was pushing him against the end of the bench, but he didn't mind, not as long as he could support her. Steven's heart thumped for a beat as Connie leaned her head against his shoulder. If people didn't know they were on a date then, they knew now. He couldn't turn his head, but Steven could hear the muted fascination of a small group behind him. Only the stragglers were left now, Steven and Connie among them.

He could sit here with her for hours. They had already spent their hours wandering around, getting lunch, touching the sea stars and urchins, getting splashed by rays, listening to shows about the deep sea and oil spills. Earth was full of so many fish, so much life in the water that surrounded them. Maybe every piece of land on Earth was an island. Maybe Steven could imagine Earth as an island itself in a sea of space. Everything in the universe was its own island in the end, surrounded by the waters of life until it merged with some other isolated land mass, and then the island became a sanctuary. Steven gently bit the inside of his lip and laced his fingers with Connie's own.

"It's weird," Connie murmured after a moment, "but this kinda reminds me of the day we first met."

"When we got knocked into the ocean?"

"Off the roller coaster. That bubble of yours sure is something."

"Heh. We could've just done that again, maybe. Rolled right off the beach instead of driving all the way down here."

"No, no, it's..."

Connie shifted her legs. Steven felt his chest and thigh muscles tighten reflexively.

"I don't know why I wasn't more scared," she said. "Of the ocean, I mean—all I could think about was how awful it was to not have made a friend. That nobody cared if I was gone. It wasn't...fair? And then you cared. After a whole year, and you didn't even know me."

Her voice was softer, but more distant. At the edge of Steven's vision, he saw a moray eel float out of its hole. Then a second eel. They stared straight out at him, a silent audience. He dragged his heels on the carpet, just an inch farther from the glass.

"Were you thinking about me for a whole year? I mean, what would you have done if you hadn't met me again? There are lots of out-of-towners who come to that parade."

"What are you saying?" Steven said, just a little too quickly.

"No, Steven—"

Connie sat up, and for the first time since they'd come in here, they made eye contact. She wasn't mad. She wasn't any kind of upset. Steven still felt himself tensing up, like there was a rubber band trapped somewhere in the gears of his body.

"I'm not saying—I'm not saying anything bad. It just feels like...some kind of magical destiny, but in a different way, just for us. It makes me feel like there is an 'us.'"

Hadn't there always been? But Connie was right. There was a world in which they had never met after that fateful incident, where Connie hadn't been on her own on the beach, where Steven hadn't discovered his bubbling powers. She had helped awaken that part of her abilities and he had been her first friend. What was she really trying to say? Steven suddenly wanted to look anywhere but her.

"I..."

Connie broke their eye contact. Steven tried not to be too relieved. Slowly, Connie curled up next to him again, with her legs on the bench and her head on his shoulder. Nobody was going to try and sit next to them right now. They were alone under the dome.

"I'm just remembering, every time you were in danger, every time that you almost could've died, and I can't believe that you still cared about me when you had so much to lose, and I was just thinking about myself, a-and I know, don't—don't say anything, I was little, I wasn't thinking, I'm not blaming myself for feeling that way. You cared. You really cared, and you didn't even have to try."

He did try. Steven tried a lot, especially back then. That day he had ridden his bike across the sand to Connie, he had seen her and he had known, even then. What had he known? There were no words for the magical sensation that may or may not have been love. It was the love of friendship that had blossomed into the warmth between their bodies right now. Had it always been that way? Would it have been that way if Steven had been destined to die out in the recess of space, or on Homeworld at the hands of White Diamond, or somewhere in the center of the Earth—or maybe even earlier, a child frozen in between the vessels of the warp. It had been so cold. He hadn't even thought about a bubble then, not in his exhaustion. Steven wished he had just been in the throes of mania, but he could still remember that blunt satisfaction, fading breath, a little whisper in the back of his mind:

It's my destiny to die.

A destiny, or a legacy. The last thing he would ever do. Steven gripped the bench's arm with his right hand and let his head swim. Connie was just telling him what was on her mind, but he couldn't share it back. He already had, many times over in the past, but this was just too much. No, he had to control himself. He had to breathe. He had to think about...

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..."

Connie sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. The immediate desire to comfort moved Steven to unlatch his hand from where they were locked. He reached around Connie's shoulder and pulled her into him. She hated crying in public like this, or at least Steven thought so; Connie was shrinking into herself, stiffening, catching her breath like she needed to trap it in her body before it came out in further confessions.

"It's okay. I...I know it's been a weird couple of months," Steven said quietly. "Do you think about it a lot? Meeting for the first time, I mean. Or is just 'cause we're here?"

Connie cleared her throat. Steven could feel her relax, almost imperceptibly, inch by inch.

"It's been a lot recently," she sniffled. "Sometimes I just think about you without trying to. I always have, but I've been worrying without trying to, either. It doesn't help. It never helps."

"I don't want you to worry about me, Connie, I never want to make you feel that way."

"Steven, it's not your fault. Talking about it helps a little. Being here with you always helps. There are some times where I want to just be with you forever so I don't have to worry, but that's just the worry talking, isn't it?"

"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad."

There it was, the littlest laugh. Steven still reddened thinking about his proposal, talking about marriage without the considerations, running the play by play of his naivete in his mind. They had to laugh a little. If there was destiny to be had, if they were ready for the future, it would be further off than Steven could prepare for. But perhaps it would happen. He just couldn't force it until it was ready.

"Maybe it wouldn't," Connie replied quietly.

And that was the end of it. Steven felt his throat twitch, closing up any remnants of this conversation, like all their conversations that had to end on these notes. They had been hinting at marrying each other for so long now, and what could they do with the jokes and asides? Connie relaxed and seemed to allow her muscles to find peace in Steven's warmth. He was full of blood and questions. Steven glanced down at his hand where he had silently made indents into the metal of the bench's arm; his other barely grazed Connie's muscles.

Destiny. Love was not part of destiny. Love was work. Destiny was a force, a bind, a contract between his living tissue and all the strands of space that moved him. Sometimes those strands curled his fingers into fists. Sometimes those strands turned his fingers upwards to stroke Connie's cheek and graze the soft cliff of her jawline. Destiny was cruel. There would be a last time, just like there would be a first time. Steven had sat with Connie on the beach as she read to him. What would she have done if he hadn't returned to finish it with her? He hadn't thought about the book at all when he was floating in space, not that he could recall. When they had been at the bottom of the ocean, Steven knew he would have drowned to save her if need be. One human girl, one Gem boy, separated by the ocean—and that would have been all the destiny he needed, filling his lungs with seawater as he imagined her becoming the new leader of the Crystal Gems. She would have been the last beautiful thing he saw. Steven looked straight upwards at the undulations of the largest shark in the dome. It blocked out the light. Its blurred body swam through Steven's tears, unaware of him, of anything but the water around its gills. He and Connie were surrounded. They would be here until the all the lights went out, and they would be here in the dark, and they would be together beneath the glass.

-AQ

#glowweek2 #day 7 #fanfiction #WAHHHHHH

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