#AUGHHH WEEPING

[grasslandgirl]

AAAAAAAA TED ANDDD TRENT SITTING IN ON GIRL TALK W REBECCAAAA 💖💖💖💖

[kellerybird]

*gross sobbing* (major houseki no kuni/land of the lustrous spoilers I just. I gotta process this somehow) (reblogs ok!!)

[stefisdoingthings]

Nightow. Hey Nightow. Thank you for making men cry in various situations. Doing God’s work.

[unknownarmageddon]

“say it for me. just once.”

cross traced a finger along killer’s jaw, drawing him closer with a guiding pressure and he breathed against him, “why?”

killer met him with his own whisper, a kiss of his words on cross’s teeth, “because, if you’re the last one i’ll ever be held by, and kissed by, and if its just us and us by ourselves in this hellhole… i want to hear it. just once.”

the words killer asked for were lodged in his throat, always there lately. on the cusp of being let out, but held down firmly, and ignored. better left untouched, the warmth between them met with accepting silence.

killer’s kiss was simple enough for cross to follow, the minimal space between them warmed and humming with the equal echoes of their magic. sometimes, it felt like cross’s soul was hooked on it, always so eager to answer the call of killer’s magic.

and yet, eager as it was, his tongue was not.

he hesitated.

killer kissed him again, loosening his tongue into a more pliant state.

it wouldnt mean anything, nothing that wasnt already felt, if he said it, it wasnt an earthshattering sentence, but it felt like one. cross opened his mouth, the words there, and lodged again, and killer chuckled, his teeth nipping against cross’s jaw, but it wasnt mocking.

it was fond, unbearably fond, and cross swallowed, still tasting killer on his tongue as he whispered into the warm air between them.

“i love you.”

killer kissed him again, and cross let him, let killer chase the words to their source, and he relished in the feel of him, the taste, the scent, and perhaps it wasnt so hard to say it when it felt so starkly true.

he couldnt give killer the world, no, that was a time lost, an opportunity stolen, but he just knew, from the way their magic sparked together with every kiss, that admitting his love was, to killer, perhaps even more valuable than a world.

the world was theirs already, theirs alone. it felt like that, anyways, less like a gift and more like an inheritance.

killer gave a snort when cross’s finger tickled the inside of killer’s ribs, and cross pressed his face to killer’s shoulder, inhaling slowly.

the world was gone, but that didnt matter as much when he had his own little world, his own home, here in his arms. a world was his and his alone, and he was his, too.

but, it didnt hurt to add a little sugar on top when sweet midnight kisses couldnt be enough for tonight.

cross whispered it again, like it was a secret, and he understood, a little, why killer asked to hear it to begin with.

there was nothing like it, hearing it spoken, such weighted words now that nothing else mattered, and cross got it.

killer whispered it back, just as secretive, just as unsteady, and the warm thrill that spurred in cross’s soul, sending his magic surging with fond affection, well.

he gets it.

…he’ll probably just kiss killer next time he asks for it, because he’d rather occupy his mouth with killer’s voice rather than his own. thats what they did best most nights anyways.

-p anon

OHHHH MY GODDDDDDD

[brown-little-robin]

I'm a little curious about Five's past. Could you tell us a little about him?

Yeah! Okay SO. >:D

Five is a modified clone of Two. President Thawne put extra Eobard Thawne (Reverse Flash) DNA in him. This gave him, among other things, lank hair, blue eyes, a distinct lack of any accelerated healing, and an ability to time travel at will.

major spoilers ahead:

Pres. Thawne gave Five a particularly abusive CRAYDL on purpose. It was a sort of comparison project, actually—Five got a CRAYDL who neglected him, sexually abused him, and taught him nothing useful except survival (of a kind). Three got a CRAYDL who adored him, prioritized his happiness, and was given the freedom to educate him extensively. Which one would be the better weapon—the one raised in a hellish crucible, or the one raised to be happy and loyal?

Five wasn't kept in virtual reality as much as the other clones. His CRAYDL left him alone in the lair a lot. It was a boring, awful existence. He spent a lot of time making art out of his food rations, trying to hack the televisions, and sleeping. When his CRAYDL was there, he was just. trying to survive The Horrors.

Three defected for reasons I won't get into here. Meanwhile, independently, Five killed his CRAYDL and vowed to end the Thawne line. He thought it would be a short and simple project: find his grandfather, mother, and genetic original (Bart Allen) and kill them and then himself. When he found out that he wasn't the only clone, he had to adjust that to a longer timeline because he needed to kill all the clones. And then he went to the past and met Three, who introduced him to Two, who was able to convince Five that not all people with Thawne DNA are irredeemably evil monsters to be eradicated.

So Five changed his plan again, slowing it down again. He has to protect Two and Three—that's his first priority. Killing the other clones has to go slower now, because he has to concentrate on making sure that the Thawnes don't notice Two and Three in the past and kill them. (There's a delicate balance going on between the future and the past, you see. Basically, Pres. Thawne has decided that he will treat the past as if it is happening at the same time as the present, meaning that he sends each clone out in succession and only acts on the information he receives from each clone after they're done. So far, it has kept the timeline from collapsing.)

Basically, Five's brilliant plan to go out in a blaze of glory keeps getting interrupted by new information and he handles it like a champ.

Also: if you want to read a little Five one-shot I wrote, it's here!

[eddiestardust]

who is blixa I need to knooooow

OH MY GOD SOMEONE ASKED AUGHHH!!!

So Blixa Bargeld is a German musician born in West Berlin, 1959, and is the founder of Einstürzende Neubatan, who are often credited as one of the original pioneers of the industrial music genre!! their first album Kollaps was released in 1981 and is classed as “unlistenable”. Artists like Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails has cited their music as a huge inspiration for his own music! they still make music now, their most recent album being released this earlier this year: it’s called Alien Pop Music (its so fucking good- Planet Umbra is my personal favourite)!! However, Einstürzende Neubauten’s most famous album is provably Halber Mencsh: released in 1985, it’s a very harsh sounding album and it also had an accompanying DVD release!! very good album, one of my favourites :]

Blixa also worked with Nick Caves band The Bad Seeds. Blixa was one of the first members of the band to my memory?? anyhow- Blixa and Nick were very close for a decade or so, and Blixa’s guitar was incredibly important for the bands sound. he actually duetted with Nick Cave on The Weeping Song (which is another one of my favourite songs- also has a great music video!), and often did backing vocals in the songs 👍 she sadly left in 2003-4 (can’t remember waugh)- it was for an accumulation of reasons, some of them being that they were fed up with the manager of the band, felt that she was being replaced and that she was now married to Erin Zhu (they’re still together!!!) so he left. To my knowledge, Nick and Blixa have never resolved sadly, which is a shame :<

Blixa has also been involved in film! He starred in a film called Die Totale Therapie (which is free on youtube last i checked) and Nihil (which is also on youtube). Also worth pointing out that Blixa Bargeld is nonbinary, and in her words, they have no preference to pronouns and that anything works :)

And because i can, heres some of my favourite pictures of them!! she’s the prettiest person alive waugh

[lucentel]

reborn thoughts //

THIS SCENE FUCKS ME UP SO BAD GODDDDDDDDDDD there's so much to unpack here. his character development is so gooddd god . the way he's not entirely a bad person, he used to just be some dude who loved his sister enough to hunt down a group of bullies twice his size to steal their shoes to give to florinia as a birthday present while having the biggest shit ass grin on his face ,, but jealously and his desire for attention since his sister didn't show any emotions towards him took over and he just. started being an absolute ass

also the lines "i wonder, did i even smile at him then? / if i did, would he be here now?" AUGHHH WGGUUUU (starts writhing and convulsing in agony on the floor while weeping and sobbing) SHE DOES CARE SHE REALLY DOES>.... she wouldn't have stuck around trying to un-statuify him if she didn't AND HE DOES TOO HES JUST TOO MUCH OF A WUSS WHO WANTS TO LOOK COOL. "you have been gone for a very, very long time, and so have i" AGGGHHHHHHHH AGHH fucked up sibling issues are finally being communicated and resolved in a healthy and happy manner i could shed a tear. hope he gets run over by a train and dies arceus bless

[nerves-nebula]

hi. Here’s the promised suicide fic. It’s about the reasoning of the process, not the actual act of committing suicide itself, just as a heads up.

He realizes he wants to die early along the line – it’s very hard not to. It’s a wonderful daydream, one where he won’t have to feel quite as tired. An endless sleep, soft and gentle and merciful; everything life isn’t. 

The next step is planning. He spends hours constructing his family’s faces in his mind when they find out  – weeping, enraged, resigned, indifferent. Imagining their judgement leaves him almost embarrassed. It is an inevitability, but it still leaves him wrong-footed. The worst thing about all of it is the thought of his body, limp and bloated, being found and dragged around most of all. He contemplates methods too – most of them seem terribly slow, and therefore get discarded as possibilities. He doesn’t have the guts for it, quite frankly, doesn’t want to flail around or panic when it’s already too late. He’s never quite been as good at handling pain as any of his siblings.

Would he even want to be found at all? There’s ways to mitigate that, he knows. He’s the smart one, he could figure it out. Even a pathetic genius has his uses. Which would be worse for them? 

His reflection period ends slowly. The realization trickles in slowly, until it’s inescapable. It’s quite simple; he is living on borrowed time. He lets life push him along only when he needs to. The others are moving. 

Life slips through his fingers, in an endless blur. He is just waiting for the right moment now. 

His heart stops beating the moment failure becomes more frightening than success. He imagines it. Imagines his weeping brothers by his bedside. The very notion is exhausting. Maybe that’ll be the final straw to get him shipped off to a psychiatrist, wether he wants to or not. He imagines the gossip and wants to claw his ears from out of his skull. It’s a feeling he is utterly tired of, add this to the list of reasons. He’s got more than thirteen, now. It’s not going to be as neat as that either. He isn’t one of those pretty girls and he won’t leave a body like a fallen angel either. Graceful, tragic, beautifully sad. The kind of body he has is far more suited to be found face-down and bloated in the sewers he grew up in, or in pieces on some weirdo biologist’s counter. 

He has a body that gets picked apart and torn through and bloated and stained and smeared on the walls. He’s tired of that one too, tired of being not-quite human or animal or yokai. There is only one great majority he could possibly qualify for, and maybe this is all he’s ever been meant to be. Draxum’s not a bad scientist, but everyone has failed projects. It’s better to catch it early and build it new from ground up, but sometimes you just need to let go. 

It’s alright. He’s always known he wasn’t meant to live. Every litter needs a runt. Every family has black sheep. Soon enough he’ll be gone, and all of that will die with him and it will hurt like hell, but it will be mercy. 

Firstly: AUGHHH yeah that hits the spppot. That’s the good shit. Especially the parts about it feeling inevitable, and feeling like you weren’t meant to live. Like. Yeaghhhh.

Secondly: for some reason this made me think of a scenario where he plans to kill himself and sets up for Bishop to receive his body, since bishop always did wanna dissect him. It’d be kinda funny cuz the turtles would be freaking out and then bishop would show up like “hey guys what’s up”

Or like, Donnie would try to kill himself in a New York alley and Bishop would show up early like “yo it’s cool u wanna donate yourself to science but I’d get better data if you were alive” that’s just sooo funny to me.

Anyway point is: AAAAAAAA thank YOUUU

[annqer]

just finished the new hsr quest, i'm waiting for some epic sunday art from you to go insane over >:3c

you're my favourite artist for sunday. you're THE artist for sunday

YESS HELLO HAIII OMGGG IVE BEEN THINKING HARD ABT A DRAWING INSPIRED BY THE QUEST CAUS. IT KILLED MY ENTIRE FAMILY, RIPPED OUT ALL MY HAIR AND MY LIMBS, CUT ME IN HALF, EXPLODED ME, MADE MY EYES POP OUT OF MY SOCKETS, MADE ME WEEP CRY FALL TO KNEES BLEED OUT TO DEATH AUGUHHHH DISINTEGRATES SO HOPEFULLY SOON!! AND AUGHHH CRIES WEEPS SOBS AGAIN IM ALWAYS SO HAPPY WHEN PPL REFER TO ME AS THE SUNDAY ARTIST I WORKED SO HARD FOR THIS AAA GIGGLES FROLICKS THROUGH THE FIELDS DOES A LIL TWIRL!!!!

[italicized-oh]

well instantly my thoughts go to othello act v scene ii. put out the light then put out the light.

aughhh FUCK. ME. YET SHE MUST DIE ELSE SHE'LL BETRAY MORE MEN.

O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade

Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.

Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee

And love thee after. One more, and this the last.

So sweet was ne’er so fatal. I must weep,

But they are cruel tears. This sorrow’s heavenly:

It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.

"be thus when thou art dead and I will kill thee and love thee after" @zukkacore this is the WHOLE always5jaces thesis

justice/Ankarna

grieving while (s)he's still here

always already dead

don't touch me yall I'm on fire

also. I am now looking at my snippet of shatterstar marriage ritual fic. I am Looking. wedding bed funeral bier sacrificial altar what's the difference when you love someone and you (think you) have to kill them. ANYWAY

[analoceits]

ok, have yall seen that tumblr post interpreting hey there delilah as a father/daughter song? consider: remus as virgils father singing this song.

"Hey there Delilah, don't you worry about the distance / I'm right there if you get lonely give this song another listen / Close your eyes / Listen to my voice it's my disguise, I'm by your side." I AM WEEPING. its LITERALLY soothing his anxieties aughhh.

"Delilah, I can promise you, that by the time that we get through / The world will never ever be the same / And you're too blame." this is how a parent talks about their child am i wrong

[apopcornkernel]

hello,,,,,,, song rationale under the cut because im very extremely normal about them

GUSTO WITH YA by DENȲ

I know I'm independent but I think I need ya Kayang mag-isa pero mas gusto with ya (I'm fine alone but I would rather be with ya) Parang mababaliw when I don't get to see ya (I feel like I'm losing my mind when I don't get to see ya) Sanay nang 'di umasa but ang gusto is ya (I'm used to not hoping for more but what I want is ya)

i've said this countless times but im so so obsessed with how much dinahbabs depend on each other and how babs literally called dinah for a mission in one of her lowest points and especially parang mababaliw when i don't get to see ya in the context of control freak babs like oh....

Gusto ka lang makasama kahit na abot umaga (I just want to be with you even 'til the morning) 'Di mawawalan ng gana, ikaw lang ang nakikita (Can't possibly lose any eagerness, you're the only thing I see) My definition of vision, no, I ain't into submission But that can still be your mission, forgettin' all my cautions

do i have to elaborate

Sanay nang mag-isa, pero mas sasaya Kung lagi kang makakasama (I'm used to being alone, but I'll be even happier If I'm able to always be with you)

😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊😊 yeah.

CAPABLE OF LOVE by PINKPANTHERESS

Right now I think you're the cause of my grief And I haven't slept well for a week You are somebody that I want to keep But you said, "It's not deep," and to that answer, I weep

loser babs is something i cherish so deeply like if anything the coffee sleep deprived fanon stereotype shouldve gone to HER and not tim!!!!

i think ALL the time about the post that's like "i am so happy for you and your ugly fucking boyfriend i'm serious" AND I THINK THAT . gestures at green arrow. gestures at dc who mostly pushes dinahollie and is also too much of a coward to ever outright queer a character as big as black canary (begging dc to prove me wrong btw). gestures back at babs

It's weird how people still think it's pretend The bond between us doesn't end But they don't know the long distance we went The one that we'll put behind us Now that we're more than friends

you know all those fucking panels where either other ppl are like "wait girlfriend as in...?" or that one where one of them was like "haha stop that they'll think we're an item 😝😝😝" yeah.

I always wondered if we passed on the street And I still never asked you yet to meet But there's no other place I'd want to be Than sat here replying to someone on a screen

PRE-REVEAL DINAHBABS MY ABSOLUTE BELOVEDHSJHKJFHKHGKSKLDJFLKSD god guys you know how much of a SUCKER i am for identity shenanigans.... the proper reveal in the hunt for oracle was amazing, dont get me wrong, but it would have also been amazing to keep the identity stuff going aughhh

And I think I need a picture 'cause it's never enough To see you smilin' in my mind when I lie still in the dark It starts with you-ooh Starts with you-ooh

pre!!!!!!!!!! reveal!!!!!!!!!!! dinahbabs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't you read everything you're supposed to? (Three little words, dedicate them to me) I'm wastin' away I feel so cold (Please make them personal then say them to me) I got a confession, I've never given up (My focus is everywhere, I'm not listenin') I just need to know if you're capable of love (I got a readin' on my palm just to see)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE CHAIN by FLEETWOOD MAC

okay honestly i don't think i have to explain this one too much because no homoerotic relationship with partners closer than life is complete without the chain by fleetwood mac

SAY I'M UR LUV by UMI

for this one it's mostly vibes but this part of the chorus is also very!!!

If you talk to me really nice, you could be the pilot, you could be the boss With my top down, city ride, where we going? I Never need to know So we could dance, you could spend the night Tell a pretty lie and I could say I'm your love

dc comics hire me i will write a birds of prey oneshot where babs is on the field with dinah for a recon mission and their cover is that they're together. and also they will almost get caught snooping but then kiss me, quick! and they can't seem to stop once they've started but then alarms blare somewhere else in the sprawling manor and they stare at each other hair mussed and lips swollen and "so." "yes." "we should go." "we should." and they pick their wits up back from the floor and save the day and get the baddies jailed and they will never ever acknowledge this moment ever again in their lifes. except maybe to take out the memory in the stillness of the night and turn it over in their hands, chest tight with everything they will never say, can never say

HURRICANE DRUNK by FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

the whole plot of this song is about getting wasted bc u saw the person ur deeply irretrievably in love with in the arms of someone else. do i have to even elaborate. i am so happy for you and your ugly fucking boyfriend im serious

VILLAINS OF CIRCUMSTANCE by QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE

I miss you now, what's come over me? We're hostages of geography The wait is long and heavy too Despite what you're accustomed to

LDR dinahbabs amen

I know life moves on, that's what scares me so Have no intentions of letting go Only us, no one in the world Only us, no one in the world

loving birds of prey additional characters of course but the original duo will forever hold a special place in my heart and in my delusional little head i think dinah and babs think of it sometimes too. in particular i think of that panel in bop #61 where babs said she was thinking of bringing helena in permanently and dinah started making objections 😶👉👈

I'd better do something, move earth and sky And patiently, sweetly, with all of my might I sing only for you, to the beat of my footsteps in the night

the beautiful thing about dinahbabs on the field is how despite the fact that babs rarely goes out herself, she's still able to rescue dinah always,,, the way she will literally call all sorts of favors just to get her out of danger,,,, it does something to me

WALK BACKWARDS by MAUDE LATOUR

I guess I'll never understand The line between our love and romance 'Cause when I look at you I Fall right into a dream Under galaxies in the middle of the city in New York So, I say thanks to an unknown force

im sorry but i dont think dinahbabs should ever be together. i need, no i REQUIRE them to be in the most horrendous situationship to ever ever exist. actually this is already canon in the bop in my head

Me and my friends do whatever we want And by friends I really only mean one in particular And that's you

i know they have lives and loved ones outside of each other but hear me out: what if they didnt

IM SORRY LMAO JFHDJDFHGKJD i'm just a hugeee sucker for those really unhealthy codependent relationships

Mmm, your hair's untied And it's only just about a quarter to nine You live east, so I walk backwards Sun's slippin' south on the west-side And we still got the rest of the night You live east, so I walk backwards babe

on twitter the artist explained this lyric as such: “In the summer I have a promise to see every sunset. But I live on the east side … and the sun sets in the west. So to get home I have to walk backwards to watch the sun slip… It’s about that perfect summer feeling”

and i think this kind of caught-breath soft summer moment is sosososo them like all the quiet longing buried under everything and everything..... and the laughter and the smiles and the setting sun warm and gentle on your face.........

I know your boyfriend's mad Watch you grabbin' my hand all day So, I just play it cool

do i even have to say it!

SYNERGY by UMI

When I move and I ain't thinking It's natural when you walk in (Yeah) Feel you, honey (Yeah)

+

Theory of relativity I feel your gravity I couldn't let myself believe I told myself to breathe

dinahbabs magnetism and unconsciously gravitating to each other in every room yep yep!!!!

COME OVER by CARLY RAE JEPSEN

'Cause you do something to my patience I can't hardly wait

hgjdhgjkjhfgjkhdjgsh hey .

Come over, come over, I'm ready to see you Whatever you're schemin', I'm already dreamin' Come over, come over and don't keep me waitin' Got nothin' on my mind but the two of us

whatever you're schemin i;m already dreamin. GOD. DINAHBABS

After hours, there's a space for you in heaven Picnic on the floor by a warm fireplace Up to now, there were tens, but you're eleven Let me show you how you fit right into place

GKDFSJGHJFHKSJHKGHDFGSLDKFGHSDLFKJHDKJFGHSDKJHKDJHDKJFHGKSJDFHJKFH i'm sorry i'm not coherent but DINAHBABS also the last 2 lines,,, i can't help but think about that side story in bop secret files where babs was literally going through and discarding female superheroes for the honey trap mission in black canary/oracle: bop until she finally settled on dinah as the perfect candidate THAT WAS FUCKING INSANE

DINNER & DIATRIBES by HOZIER

Honey, this club here is stuck up Dinner and diatribes I knew well from our first hookup The look of mischief in your eyes

oh god thinking again about that hypothetical bop comic i would write where they both go out on the field for recon and their cover is being a couple at a fancy eventkdfghdgjkghfdjgl

Your friends are a fate that befell me Hell is the talkin' type I’d suffer hell if you'd tell me What you'd do to me tonight

hey;h.,lghjglmdfhkjgsdfvb,m//gn../l

yeah.

Scarcely can speak for my thinkin' What you'd do to me tonight Now that the evenin’ is slowin’ Now that the end's in sight Honey, it’s easier knowin' What you'd do to me tonight

YEAH.

Tell me, tell me, tell your man, ah

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that is all. sorry to end with a whimper instead of a bang. also! midway throughout this post i realized i would do anything for someone to call dinah oracle's attack dog 😁

[crimsongrimoire]

First, it could have been just Crepus letting the boys have a little taste, you know, just a sip. On grand occasions, like the end of the harvest, or any holiday they have in Mondstadt.

Both the boys would be thrilled at this token of acknowledgment, like, yes, we'll soon be men!

But Kaeya being the little mischievous brat he is, sometimes drinks more than a sip. When Crepus throws a big party, like the tycoon he is, he finishes the abandoned glasses of wine when nobody's watching, and it makes him dizzy. And he loves that. It's nice. He feels good. He even managed, on several occasions, to make Diluc accompany him, and sometimes they end up hidden in a quiet corner of the manor, observing the party from afar and giggling stupidly.

But during one of those nights, for no reason apparently, he ends up drinking much more than usual. It's Diluc who sees something is wrong, and swiftly takes Kaeya outside, before anyone notices. Kaeya is not his usual self, he's really drunk, and mumbles incoherent sentences about loneliness and abandon and fear before passing out. Diluc has never seen him like that, he doesn't know what to do and it scares the shit out of him.

Maybe Crepus had noticed too, but he never brought that up.

🥖🍷

WAAAAH???? 😭🥺????

DAMMIT NOW I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING WITH THIS FUCK HELP-

[unknownarmageddon]

killer felt terrible. horrible. like he'd been gutted a thousand times over, hollowed out so painfully and violently that it left a gaping pit of hurt in his chest that tightened every time he thought about cross.

he didn't understand what he'd done wrong. except he did, but he didn't get it. cross wanted space. that was okay.

but it wasn't okay, because space meant being alone, and killer didn't like being alone, especially after having cross so close to him for so long. they'd spent some nights tangled together in a sweet embrace, exchanging kisses as easily as they did breath, sharing thousands of words between their souls, he'd let cross touch his soul, he'd felt cross's. cross had held him through some of his worst lv breaks, had wiped his face of liquid negativity when it hurt killer to even think of moving. he'd wrapped killer up in his arms, and when he couldn't do that, he'd wrapped him up with his coat.

so why, why, when killer worded the feeling he knew cross felt mutually, he'd heard it from cross's very soul that night, why was cross pushing him away?

why is he losing the one thing, the one person he had left to love, simply for daring to speak it aloud? it wasn't fair.

a surge of anger left a bitter taste in killer's mouth, but if left just as quickly as it came, lingering only as some sour aftertaste, like biting into an overripe mango. he wanted to be angry, because surely he didn't deserve this treatment? he had done nothing wrong.

but he didn't know what cross felt about it, how cross saw it, how cross heard it.

killer couldn't stop replaying it in his mind. he recalled it all just as vividly as it had been happening. cross's sleeping bag was stiflingly hot, his hands even hotter, every inch of them pressed together tightly, seeking out touch readily given. cross knew how to kiss, it always left killer's head feeling fuzzy and warm, and it had felt even more so then with every renewed kiss. they broke apart, gasping into each other's mouths and killer hadn't even thought about it, hadn't considered what he was doing, simply blurting it out when cross went to reclaim his mouth.

it was such a simple phrase. three simple little words, that shattered everything killer held dear and near to his broken, faulty soul. it drove cross away. cross.

he'd never loved anyone, not like this, not this much, and it was heaven turned to hell when cross was suddenly five feet away at all times, silent, cold, all but ignoring him, and it left killer shivering through the warm summer nights.

it was unfair.

-p :]

WEEPING WAILING SOBBING. CRYING EVEN

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT WHAT

OHHH MY GOD DUDE HOLY SHIT

Weeping head in hands

/pos/pos/pos I fucking love this one actually laying dead on the floor

[doggytail-duck]

Firefly has no right to make me wanna weep like a little baby but here we are. Every single time.

[novantinuum]

Fandom: Steven Universe

Rating: Teen Audiences

Words: 6.3K~

Summary: In another world, he doesn’t have his mother’s sword or shield to hide behind when Bismuth lands her strike. The bubble pops.

Steven falls apart.

Chapter summary: In which freedom is a future worth fighting for.

Finally finished this chapter, yay! I promise I throw canon off a ravine entirely next chapter, I just needed to set up some stuff. Hopefully the Ruby POV makes things somewhat fresh.

If you read this and enjoy, I’d greatly appreciate your support through reblogs here, or kudos/comments on AO3. Thank you! <3

____

Chapter 13: system/REBOOT, Part 1

The whole mission is Garnet’s idea. 

By this point, they’ve known about Homeworld’s rushed Beta Kindergarten project for about fifty years. Frankly, its composition leaves much to be desired. The area is rich in the iron and silicon deposits necessary to produce a strong batch of quartzes, but the foundation they incubated all their new soldiers within is red clay cemented sandstone; it’s soft, and in constant danger of erosion. According to all the rebellion’s peridots, many of them top Homeworld kindergarteners before their eventual defection, this type of stone is critically unfit for Gem production. It can’t compress the inclusions of injector fluid at the correct pressure, can’t reliably bar the excess from draining through the porous material. As a result many of the individually incubated sites are predicted to ‘weep’ and lose critical volume, which will inevitably cause the emergent quartzes to be ‘off-color’ in some fashion. Some may be under regulation height, some may exhibit crystal twinning, some may be incapable of standard abilities like shapeshifting or weapon summoning, so on and so forth.

As a fellow off-color herself, Garnet carries a deep empathy for all those who are forsaken and unwanted. She can foresee the dire fate of these Beta Gems creeping over the dawning horizon even without the benefit of future vision, can foresee that despite all of these soldiers’ loyal programming, they’re ultimately cursed to be eliminated within the cruel machine of Homeworld. One day beyond the battlefield, the so-called Great Diamond Authority will see no further use in their existence, and then they’ll be purged. Harvested for scrap. Trapped within a myriad of Gem-powered objects. Crushed and used within their drop ships for fuel. 

It’s pure tyranny. 

Thus, she refuses to let their cruelty stand without a just fight. They have to give these Gems a chance beyond Homeworld’s rule, because abandoning them would be abandoning everything that their brave rebellion stands for, that she stands for. She refuses to stand powerless and idle in the face of a Diamond’s commands like the Sapphire and Ruby she once was, refuses to let another tragedy slip by without at least attempting to mend its damage. She is Garnet, she is freedom, and she is love.

And deep within her core, she believes these soon-to-emerge soldiers deserve the same opportunity for renewal and hope as any other Crystal Gem.

 __

For all Ruby’s aware, a whole geological era could have passed between that fateful moment she first set eyes on Jasper and the shards-late arrival of Amethyst and the others. All three of them duck behind the low rock formations she’s hiding in the shade of, Steven still breathing heavily from the no-doubt harried and concerned exertion of their sprint towards her. Hard light coursing from the gem in her palm to all other extremities at random intervals amidst crackling cinders of immobilizing terror, (she’s almost surprised her form isn’t flickering at this point), she desperately attempts to babble an explanation. She’ll admit— it’s not a particularly coherent one. Ask her mere minutes later, and there’s little chance she’ll be able to repeat what she said. Heck, she’s not confident about her words now, in the heat of the moment. It’s probably something about holes, something about injector scrap, about all those Gem monsters, a-and—

"Whoa, what the heck!” Amethyst blessedly interrupts, raising her head above the rocks and pointing across the clearing at the orange and red striped quartz diligently prowling the area like a true squadron leader. “Jasper’s here, too? Did everyone decide to skip on over to Beta today, or somethin’?!”

Peridot’s face scrunches in confusion as she regards her former mission partner.  “What is she doing?”

“She’s got all those corrupted Gems in cages,” Steven murmurs with realization, a tiny spark of outrage lighting up behind his eyes on those creatures’ behalf. “They’re not even bubbled, they’re just… trapped, and scared!”

Ruby brings her fist to her mouth, nervously nibbling at her fingers for a moment to anchor herself back to this present. Above all else, ignoring every thread of trepidation and insecurity she bears, there’s one burning question that pulses at her core with an unmatched luminosity about this whole scenario:

“B-but why would she want so many corrupted Gems in the first place? Doesn’t she know she can’t tame them?”

The purple quartz growls, the fringe of her hair casting a dark and menacing shadow over her features as she tilts her head down and glares at her self-proclaimed rival. “I don’t think she knows nothin’.”

And as— instinctively, mistakenly, running off of over five thousand years of deep engrained habit— she attempts to open her third eye towards the winding tributaries of potential futures they may soon find themselves wading through and fails, it slowly dawns on her just how isolated and lost they all are, without Sapphire’s sight. Without her love.

“Neither do I…” she says softly, her stature shrinking in the throes of that suffocating inadequacy. Riding an abrupt wave of frustration, she slams her foot into the coarse dirt, gripping thick chunks of her coily hair between her fingers. “Aughhh, this is a terrible time to not have future vision!” she huffs, spitting out each word staccato.

“Pipe down!” Jasper hollers at the poor corrupted Gem cornered in the distance as she kicks one of the bars of its cage, her booming voice easily reverberating off the cliffs’ curvature.

All four of them can’t help but bite back their gasps upon this clamoring startle. Peeking her head just above the rim of the rocky outcropping, Ruby watches the fur covered quartz visibly shrink back at the soldier’s command. Jasper continues, her unwavering act of confidence currently undeterred by this reaction. 

“You take orders from me now. You used to be a quartz too, didn’t you? What happened to you?”

Utterly failing to comprehend any of her words in this vulnerable, animalistic state, the corrupted Gem merely snaps its fangs at the bars, and then tilts its head sideways to begin chewing on one of them. Jasper scoffs, her lips rising in a mild sneer. Taking the risk to edge closer, she continues to verbally berate the poor thing, talking the same sort of smack Ruby’s former Homeworld commanding officer, Condor Agate, used to dish out. Ruby grinds her teeth together so hard as she watches this display that the pressure and heat alone might be enough to form a brand new batch of Gems. Jasper even finds a moment to rope Amethyst into her insults, which almost has the stone in question summoning her whip in pure unfiltered fury. It’s only Steven and Peridot’s quick clutch on her shoulders that holds her back from steamrolling into the clearing with zero preparation and potentially making a terrible mistake. Still, she’s gotta admit, the temptation to whoop this Homeworld brute’s butt right this minute is devilishly hard to resist.

Ruby growls, one of her gauntlets emerging into existence on her clenched fist with a burst of light. “Oh-hoh, do I wanna launch this baby right into her dumb, chalky face…!”

“But maybe first we should go back to the temple and grab reinforcements?” Peridot whispers hastily, whirling around to face her. Panic visibly tightens its grip on her form with each passing second. 

She pauses a moment to let the logic of this suggestion sink in, gaze hardened, and self-consciously aware of how her fellow Gems are (wrongfully) looking towards her as their leader in this chaos. What options do they even have? They can choose to fight, that’s one. They could disengage. They could retreat to Beach City and seek backup. If they were truly desperate, they could surrender. (Although she’s not confident Jasper would gracefully accept anyone’s defeat, not until it ended with their poofed— maybe even shattered— gemstones littering the coarse sand.)

As the gears are still pirouetting in her mind, she turns towards Steven, who nods in vehement agreement of Peridot’s strategy, his mouth stretched thin.

Sighing with frustration, she loosens her grip, recalling how even Garnet was barely able to match up with Jasper’s might. “Yeah, you’re right. She’d beat us into the dirt without Pearl or Sapphire.”

“Okay, so far we got three votes for retreat,” he says, holding up the appropriate number of digits as a visual. “Amethyst?”

In sync, the trio turn towards where the quartz just stood and find nothing but faint granules of recently upended dust filtering through a beam of sunlight. Both Peridot and Steven let out a fearful squeak at her absence.

“W-where is she?” the former Homeworld technician cries, craning her neck over the top of the rock formation to try and secure a visual.

“Up there!” Steven exclaims under his breath, pointing at a ridge a good ten feet above them that crosses from the arched entrance of this natural amphitheater all the way to the other side where Jasper stands, her back still turned to them.

Following the path of his index finger, Ruby catches a flash of purple, black and lavender stealthily advancing along the narrow rim towards the very soldier who reportedly poofed her with a single strike about a week back. The light sustaining her form nearly drains from all her limbs and rushes back to her gem. 

“Oh, shards no…”

Stars above, what the hell is her problem? she thinks, her mind riding in a narrow track between exacerbated vexation and dread. Does she have a death wish, or something?? Surely the last place a rational person would choose to run is directly into the arms of the Gem who clobbered them into a senseless cloud at their last meeting. Surely a rational person would instead choose to retreat and regroup. However, as she glumly reflects upon the dour happenings of the past few days, Amethyst’s actions prove she’s currently unable to think rationally about Jasper or any other kind of conflict. She’s been markedly sullen at everyone around her ever since she first got her butt whooped. Obsessed with her private training sprees. Emotionally stand-offish. Prone to making rash decisions, like letting her mouth run off at poor hapless Steven about matters that aren’t his fault, or slashing her whip right at people’s feet to push them away, or… or rushing directly towards Jasper in an enclosed space with little to no backup just because she’s desperate to show her up for the sake of her own self-worth, or whatever.

And Ruby gets it, to an extent. She understands how cripplingly powerless it can feel to be written off as ‘the weak one,’ as nothing but an expendable. She understands the vivid temptation to let one’s anger drive such antagonistic confrontations. However, she’d also like to believe that she carries enough self respect in this gem to not throw herself right on an enemy’s anvil. Whether or not Amethyst possesses the same level of restraint is another question entirely. She flexes nervous, twitchy fingers at her side as she watches her dear friend creep further along the rim, ever closer to what she fears will be her unquestionable demise. 

With the corrupted Gem’s racket still occupying Jasper’s undivided attention, Amethyst leaps from the cliff’s edge and into the clearing, pulling her whip from her gem in midair. The moment her toes touch the ground again, she slashes its barbed ends at the bars of the cage, right next to the quartz soldier’s hand. Jasper yanks her digits back. Her entire body snaps tense upon this disruption. Watching from behind their rocky cover, Ruby, Steven, and Peridot bite back the urge to gasp in shock. 

“HEY!” Amethyst yells, lowering on her haunches right behind her opponent. 

Now, there’s obviously no way to prove it without somehow obtaining intimate knowledge of her headspace, but upon external observation, Ruby swears that this big, buff Beta Kindergarten quartz is masking surprise. The sentiment is visible in the alignment of her shoulders, lifted high and tight against her neck. It’s visible in her narrow stance, light years away from the proper form of a soldier expecting battle. Flexing her thick, dexterous fingers at her side, she makes a blatant show of puffing out her chest before she turns to face her challenger, an almost predatory smile curving upwards on her lips as she regards her.

“You back away from her,” Amethyst hisses, nodding towards the Gem in the cage.

Jasper lets out a hearty chuckle. “Oh-hoh, what do we have here? You finally decide to crawl back for a rematch, runt?”

She grits her teeth, tightening her fist around the pommel of her weapon. “That’s right. I’m back, and I’mma wipe you all over these cliffs!”

“Perfect,” her opponent practically purrs, cracking her knuckles in anticipation. “I’ve been needing a light warmup.”

 __

Rose approves her mission without question, when she first brings her the idea. Of course she would, in retrospect— the hidden diamond she was. 

Garnet takes forty of her fellow soldiers and friends with her to the Beta Kindergarten. They don’t wield any weapons. These Gems are brand new, stepping into the light for the very first time. There’s no need to threaten them; all she wants is to peacefully talk, to introduce them to the concept of freedom, of choosing their own path beyond the Diamonds’ rule. 

At the time, all she wanted was to follow her beloved leader’s example and choose peace and harmony over subjugation and brutality.

But with the bitter truths they know now, and reflecting upon the horrid atrocities they themselves participated in amidst the war… despite Rose’s self-proclaimed ‘pacifism,’ despite the shaky justifications of their cause being different than Homeworld’s brand of violence... she’s increasingly unsure if any of them ever had a choice.

 __

Tragically, it only takes mere seconds for the initial triumphant beats of Amethyst’s war against Jasper to devolve into a one-sided thrashing. 

With a mighty, almost frenzied yell, Amethyst moves one foot forward for counterbalance and slings the weighted, barbed tip of her weapon directly at her opponent’s face. Jasper catches it midair, mere inches from her gem. An arrogant smile paints her visage. After winding the whip’s end around her hand, she yanks its user towards her with a snap of her wrist, swings her in a wide arc, and effortlessly slams her into the nearest cliff wall, blowing up a huge plume of pulverized rock and dust. It all happens so fast that the rest of the party barely has any time to react. As the rubble settles, Ruby finally spots her friend amidst the chaos, collapsed on hands and knees in the dirt. The poor Gem’s hands are nearly trembling as she vies to rise to her feet again, vies to stand her ground and keep fighting. 

There’s only one thing she knows for sure, watching all this: if hard light were consumable rather than indelible, she would quite literally be chipping away at her knuckles with her teeth by now.

His expression blown wide with fear, Steven breaks their communal silence to holler Amethyst’s name. Hands flexing in and out of fists, he darts away from their hiding spot. And they tried to stop him, they really did— it’s simply that he’s far too nimble for either of them to catch in time.

“Steven!” Peridot cries, trying and failing to grab his hand to hold him back.

“Steven, no!” Ruby yells, arms outstretched, as he sprints into the clearing— entirely blowing any remaining amount of cover the three of them had, placing his gem at Jasper’s mercy, and causing a thousand living nightmares to flood into her consciousness in but a millisecond. “Come back!!”

“Wait! Wait,” he gasps, waving his arms wildly to catch the larger quartz’s attention as he passes into the center of this natural coliseum, firmly planting himself at Amethyst’s side. “Stop! We don’t need to do this!”

Giving a growl that would rival that of a corrupted Gem’s, Ruby clenches her fingers around thick coils of her hair at either side of her head and yanks. “Aughh, why does nobody listen to me when I’m short??” 

A faint trail of glowing embers marks a record of her path as she leaves Peridot by their rocky outcropping and storms right into the open after him. Oh, hoh, hoh— that boy can disobey her clear, simple orders all he wants, but in his folly he’s forgetting one very important fact: rubies are stubborn Gems. And she’ll fight to protect him from the crossfire of Jasper’s hubris and Amethyst’s self-destruction even if that means braving her deepest terrors to run out there and drag him back to safety herself.

(Ideally, she’d be able to drag Amethyst with her out of the thunderdome as well, but she’s also quite the stubborn one. So try as she may, that’s not likely to happen.)

Ruby strides towards the middle of the clearing and defiantly plants her feet in the sterile soil right in front of Steven, and adjacent to Amethyst. She summons her gauntlets, her features twisting in a scowl. “Stand down and let them go!” she shouts up at that bulky orange quartz with all the Garnet-like confidence she can muster. “This is not a Homeworld controlled planet!”

“Steven, Ruby, get out of here!” Amethyst hisses under her breath, her battle-ready stance solidifying with a strange mixture of apprehension and anger as she regards the two of them.

“No!” she shoots back, tugging at her arm. “Come on, you know I can’t just leave you here.”

Jasper’s molten amber eyes narrow, her steely gaze colliding right into her.

“ You,” she says, enunciated as sharp as a dagger. “One half of that vile war machine.”

“War machine?!” Steven cries, distraught by the very implication. “She’s not a war machine! Garnet fuses for love!”

“Yeah!” Ruby jabs her fist in the air loud and proud.

The Homeworld warrior scoffs, seemingly not impressed by their display of solidarity. She folds her arms solid across the Yellow Diamond insignia emblazoned upon her chest and steps closer to address her directly. “And where’s this love now?” she spits, mockingly stooping to her level.

And despite the faint, triumphant memories of her last incursion with this quartz, (well… Garnet’s last incursion), she can’t help but cower in her presence, can’t help but crumble like the deficient sandstone of this very kindergarten under the cruel, personalized precision of her blunt words. Because... she’s right. Because that’s the whole problem, the pulsing heart of life’s cruel game. Fusion offered her a tantalizing taste of freedom, a glimpse of a reality where, together, a lowly guard and her sapphire could achieve literally anything through the strength of their love!— but that world feels like nothing more but an unobtainable mirage now. She’s absolutely useless on her own, just some pathetic waste of resources! No authority, no power, no wisdom of foresight— she brings nothing to the Crystal Gems’ cause. She never did. It was always her. Tears bead at her widening eyes, her gauntleted fists already beginning to tremble at her sides. 

“I-I…”

“Where’s any of your power now?” Jasper continues as she raises back to her full height, lifting both open hands towards the empty, cloud-streaked skies. She throws her head back as she offers them all a bright, boastful chuckle. “To think I used to view you traitors as a threat, but now even your disgraceful cause is falling apart, isn’t it… Rose?”

Still standing a step behind her, Steven’s immediate reply brims with tones of frustration. “I’m not—“

“But you’re wrong!” a high, familiar voice urgently calls out from behind them all. 

This whole messy confrontation breaks to a halt as everyone turns to gape at the lone Gem poking her head out above the rocky outcropping. Peridot gasps at the sudden influx of attention, and hastily ducks for cover again. 

“What are YOU doing here?” Jasper growls with annoyance, grinding one of her feet in the dirt as if inwardly hoping she could shift the very earth they stand on and finally gain the advantage of surprise once more.

“I-I…” the green Gem stammers, slowly creeping out from her hiding spot, summoning newfound confidence as she lays her eyes on each and every one of her friends. “I’m here because our cause hasn’t fallen apart! We live on Earth to be free, to learn new things about ourselves. Like how I can bend metal to my bidding!” she exclaims, tossing enthusiastic fists into the air.

On the cliff face over twenty feet away, a skinny length of metal from one of the injector’s legs slips from the device, falls straight down, and noisily clatters as it collides against the rocky soil. Amethyst facepalms. Meanwhile, Jasper appears so underwhelmed by this display that in any other circumstance, her glazed-over expression could be comedic.

Peridot briefly scowls at her botched handiwork. “And sure,” she shrugs, nodding towards that shard of metal, “nothing’s ever perfect here, but together, we work to help and support each other, just like we’re supporting Amethyst now. Isn’t that freedom worth fighting for?”

A few beats pass as the heart of this proclamation sinks in, the ticking seconds seeing Steven beam in pride at his friend’s progression since the beginning of her stay on Earth, and Jasper’s features scrunch inwards in an almost sour manner. Between the stifling roots of her own despair, even Ruby herself can’t help but feel a little uplifted by this hopeful sentiment. It’s a well-timed salve to an old burn, a naive yet ultimately truthful promise of lighthearted days to come. After all, hasn’t her time as a Crystal Gem taught her by now that no circumstance is permanent? That a single unifying cause can collapse empires like a wildfire, can continually reshape one’s entire understanding of existence? Her gauntleted hands shift at her side as a new spark of timid confidence ignites at her core. What was she thinking, letting this brute of a quartz tower over her and define the very pillars of her own story? She’s better than this. For the very sake of her friends she has to be!

But alas, before this newfound bravery can see its hour of triumph on this secluded battlefield, she finds herself once again cast aside by one of the very friends she’s vying to protect.

Amethyst growls in frustration at their continued presence, and summons her weapon. “UGH, you GUYS!” She slashes its barbed tips against the cliff face right above Peridot, not close enough to hit her, but certainly with enough force that it spooks her into diving behind the low rock formation again. Scowling, she then turns and plucks an actively protesting Steven right off the ground. “Get out of here!” she yells, tossing him back towards the clearing’s entrance. “This isn’t your fight!”

Ruby gives a sharp yelp as she just barely leaps backwards to dodge the business end of her whip, swinging low in a vain attempt to tangle up her feet. “Hey—!”

“It’s just you and me, Jasper,” the purple quartz breathes heavily, and abruptly whirls around to jab her finger towards her opponent. “ONE-ON-ONE!”

Silently, a consenting smirk riding over her lips, the taller Gem summons her ramming helmet in a glittering flash of light.

 __

The mission is— in the terms of the brave humans they sometimes fight alongside— a bloodbath. 

When they first warped in, Garnet only expected to find a small handful of disoriented jaspers, citrines, and carnelians roaming about. Gems they could talk to. Gems they could reason with, just as Rose reasoned with her fellow quartzes at the very start of this bold rebellion. Instead, what emerges soon after their arrival is more shocking and unpredictable than any future Garnet could’ve ever visualized.

Bursting from the very heart of this slapdash, rushed Kindergarten, despite every single locational and structural disadvantage this place stacks against one’s favor, is Her.

The strongest, most perfectly formed jasper she’s ever laid eyes on. She’s seven feet tall, built as solid as diamond, her flawlessly faceted gemstone gleaming bright and proud in the rising sun. She wastes no time in following the miserable orders the Great Diamond Authority cruelly embedded deep within her soul, immediately calling the hundreds of scattered and confused off-color Gems surrounding her to action.

Garnet and her squadron simply don’t have enough time to intervene, to try and settle this skirmish halfway peacefully. They don’t have the numbers. 

Twenty three Crystal Gems are shattered that day. Numerous more on both sides are cracked or poofed.

And yet one of the greatest tragedies, in her mind… is that these emergent Gems never got the proper chance to consider any purpose beyond their assigned station. Never got a chance to glimpse the promise of their own freedom. 

Everything happened so fast. 

She took this place for granted— thanks to her own preconceived notions about the kinds of Gems that could emerge here, utterly failed to foresee this potential turn of events— and in the end it cost lives. Both those of her fellow Crystal Gems, her friends … and those of the Beta quartzes she failed to save from Homeworld’s damaging influence.

That night, as she bitterly weeps for the recovered shards of the beloved they lost, clenches her gauntleted fists tight around her gemstones, she vows to never let such a harrowing tragedy escape her vision again. No more.

A leader like her is not allowed to fail.

 __

With the mighty roar of a lion, Amethyst stamps her leading foot to the ground to center her balance and rears her weapon-wielding arm back, wholly intending to defend her pride from this boorish bully. The first and second slashes are fruitful, one striking Jasper in the face, and the next hitting her chest with such intense force that it slams her into the cliff wall a few feet back, but Ruby can’t help but dread the litany of unknown possibilities haunting their future as she watches, powerless in her lack of second sight to influence their present. Could Amethyst win this fight? Sure. There’s gotta be at least one river of time where that occurs, where Jasper is so wrapped up within that facade of insufferable hubris that she fails to take her seriously as an opponent and pays the price. But on the other hand, she senses so many chinks in Amethyst’s armor that she can’t help but fear the opposite. She’s blinded by her anger, unable to consider consequence rationally. Her form in battle— compared to her usual performance— is notably sloppy, as if she’s throwing herself at this fight with such an explosion of tangled, raw emotion that her years of training and refinement have all but melted away in the inferno. Her fingers are trembling as she tightens her grasp on the whip’s pommel.

All of this stated, Ruby may not possess the gift of Sapphire’s future vision, but she has more than enough experience on patrol and on the battlefield to recognize a soldier who is woefully unprepared for a fight. Something terrible is about to happen, she can just feel it.

“Be careful!!” she cries, cupping her hands around her mouth.

“It’s fine, she’s totally rocking this!” Steven says with a huge grin, seeming uncharacteristically calm, given the circumstances. He whoops, and punches his fist in the air. “Go Amethyst!”

Ruby and Peridot briefly match eyes, the noted concern in their gazes pointing towards the fact that they both think that Amethyst’s insistence to fight is reckless and naive. In retrospect, of course her friend would agree with her. She spent a lot of time cohabiting with Jasper on their journey to Earth, so she’s bound to be well aware of her fundamental nature.

At the moment however, given the shorter quartz’s tunnel vision, she’s certain that any of their valid concerns would fall upon deaf ears. 

“Who’s weak now, huh?” Amethyst spits from across the clearing, flicking her wrist to activate the triplet spiked balls at the ends of her whip, an upgrade gifted by Bismuth she surprisingly hasn’t seemed to have abandoned. With a holler, she swings her leading arm back and around to build up momentum and then slashes at Jasper’s chest three times in succession. The last hit comes with enough force to push her backwards in the dirt a few feet. “Who’s powerless NOW?!”

Then, just as Ruby fearfully predicted, the winds shift. 

The firestorm doubles back upon them, Jasper merely swatting the flail ends away like they were nothing more but a momentary nuisance. Her expression narrows into a scowl. Emergent shock mingles alongside the dark cloud of Amethyst’s anger like wayward lightning bolts as she growls in frustration, the side-swept fringe of her hair shadowing her features. In retaliation she summons a second whip and immediately slashes them both against the soil, endowing them with a crackling, purple-tinged energy, almost a fire of her own making. She tucks into a ball and literally hurls herself at the quartz warrior, her form only recognizable in the heat of that moment via a dazzling blaze of light.

The resulting collision throws up so much dirt and smoke that Ruby has to throw her small body in front of Steven’s to shield him from the worst of the debris. 

When the thick curtains of dust finally part, the consequences of this overly-impulsive move are revealed. Jasper still stands proud and tall, her mettle unaffected by this attempted show of strength. Barely a scuff even marrs her uniform. Meanwhile, Amethyst lays hunched over on hands and knees, hacking up fragmented remnants of sandstone she likely swallowed amidst the impact. (Alas, that’s the price she pays for choosing to always reform with an semi-operational digestive system.)

“Is it sinking in yet?” Jasper queries pointedly, advancing towards the trembling Gem on the ground.

Amethyst is so exhausted she can’t even muster the strength to respond, her arms quivering beneath her as she vies to hold up the simulated weight of her hard light form.

Her foe roughly kicks her in the chest, her foot striking mere inches under her gem. Ruby visibly cringes at both the shallow huff of distress that this hit elicits from her, and Steven’s cries of fear in response. 

“It doesn’t matter how long or hard you fight,” Jasper boasts, her imposing figure hovering like a bad omen over her quartz sibling’s, “because I’ll always be stronger! Runts like you never had a chance. Runts like you are worthless.”

Angrily, she grinds her teeth together, cradling the vulnerable gemstone on her hand. 

Worthless.

Worthless.

Who the hell does this square hunk of stone think she is, slinging such heavy-handed words around like the blunt end of a mallet?

“Get your worthless, sorry forms back in formation!” wretched old Condor Agate used to scream at her and the others in her squad, back when she spent eternity guarding empty corridors, back before she was eventually reassigned to Sapphire’s personal guard. “You’re an embarrassment to your commanding agates, all of you!”

Ruby growls, finding her resolve. That’s it. No more. She can’t bear to stand at the sidelines gripped in fear while some bully is literally beating her friend into the ground, both physically and emotionally. She can’t bear for Amethyst to fall prey to the same type of unwavering torment she herself experienced all those years ago on Homeworld, torment that utterly deformed her sense of self-worth until recognizing any ounce of good in herself became a gargantuan, near-impossible task. Admittedly, she still hasn’t healed from those days. Not entirely. Sometimes she’s unsure she ever will. But it’s her duty to put an end to this, to what’s happening in the here and now. After all, what’s the point of being a Crystal Gem if you don’t look after the people you love?

“We have to separate them,” she says firmly, turning towards Steven and Peridot. “She’s gonna get clobbered!”

The former kindergartener’s expression warps to despair under her visor. “But how? She doesn’t even want us to be here! And none of us are strong enough to face Jasper…”

“Could we make a distraction?” Steven suggests, his voice tinged with the same sort of urgency she feels thrumming like a frantic drum line at the depths of her core.

Humming in thought, Ruby considers the status quo. To no success, she attempts to ignore her friends’ expectant gazes, trustingly falling upon her exactly like all those fellow rebellion soldiers used to look at Garnet… as their de facto leader. But she’s no leader, far from it. Garnet would barely have to think before coming up with a genius, foolproof plan, but she’s going into everything blind. She can’t weigh out potential consequences before rushing into action. She has no ability to pinpoint the most ideal outcome and work backwards from there. With all this in mind, it’s really no wonder that Garnet passed command of the group to Pearl instead of her. At least Pearl has experience leading missions solo.

And yet desperate times call for desperate measures.

She scans their surroundings for inspiration, considering what options may be open to them. At this point there’s no time to double back to the barn or the temple for reinforcements. (And she strongly doubts Lapis would care to so much as match eyes with Jasper, anyways.) One or more of them could always charge into the fray to attempt and break up this small skirmish by force, but that would risk their safety, too. The last thing she wants is to knowingly throw her friends into harm’s way. No, the best option would be breaking the two quartzes up using something in their immediate environment, something large and heavy but capable of being quickly moved, something like...

Her eyes snap wide. “That injector!” she whispers excitedly, pointing to the hulking piece of junked equipment precariously hanging from the cliff wall, only stabilized by a few legs that still penetrate the cracked sandstone. “It’s right above them. If we knocked it down, then maybe…”

Peridot flashes a hopeful smile, and nods.

“We’re on it,” Steven says, summoning his shield. The two of them glance at each other, perhaps silently coordinating their plan, and then leap into action.  

“Metal powers activate!” she exclaims, and throws her hands up in the direction of that rusted injector. 

Subtly but noticeable, its legs begin to shift and creak under the force of her ferrokinesis, loosening from the eroding stone. Licking his lips, Steven aims his weapon and hurls. It strikes the device directly at its center, clanging against solid metal. The injector wobbles for a moment, its delicate balance obviously destabilized by this force, and then begins to slide free from the porous kindergarten wall. One still-impacted leg snaps under the torque as the cylinder’s immense weight plummets towards the ground.

“Heads up!” Steven calls out, causing a bemused Jasper to flick her gaze skyward, towards the falling object staining the soil with an ever-growing shadow.

The collision of the junky old injector almost appears like a small explosion, flinging dirt a good ten feet into the air and resolutely separating the two quartzes. But Ruby barely has time to high five Peridot and celebrate their success before the kid she’s supposed to be keeping safe darts off into the clearing once more. She hisses a small curse under her breath. Drat, of course he’d run straight to Amethyst’s side again at his first opportunity! She should’ve seen that coming a whole star system away. At least Jasper’s been temporarily marooned on the other side of that busted Gem tech, though.

The real question is, for how long? 

Nibbling at her lip, she hastily sprints towards the edge of the injector to keep a watchful eye on their opponent as Steven attempts to have a mid-battlefield heart-to-heart. (At least, that’s what she assumes he’s doing. Admittedly, they kinda failed to hammer out the fine details of their plan before sprinting into action. Her fault.) Thankfully though, at first glimpse it seems the impact’s force has effortlessly knocked Jasper clear off her feet. She seems slightly dazed, but beyond that remains unscathed. Time will only tell if this strategy was a beneficial one. Briefly turning back towards the group, Ruby watches Steven crouch next to Amethyst. She’s muttering something to him, she thinks— her expression raw with fresh tears— but her words are far too hushed to make out. Whatever she shares, however, it’s clearly enough to elicit a strong emotional reaction from her companion.

“No, no!”  he pleads, hurt painting his features. “My mom- Rose, she doesn’t matter. Whatever Jasper thinks doesn’t matter. She's the only one who thinks you should be like her!”

“But-”

“Stop trying to be like Jasper. You're nothing like Jasper! You're like me!”

“But even you’re different!” she explodes at first, but any anger present in her form immediately evaporates into something more innately hesitant, more self-conscious. Her fingers claw thick troughs into the reddened soil as she curls them inwards. “I’m not like you at all, I’m not some di—”

“No, that’s not the point!” he says, tears of his own budding at the corners of his eyes. “You’re like me because we’re both not like anybody. And yeah, it sucks. Everyone always expects us to be someone we’re not, but you know what? At least I've always got you. And you've got me! So stop leaving me out of this!”

Slowly pushing herself to her feet behind the junked injector, Jasper groans, her voice strained with newfound exhaustion Ruby never imagined she possessed. 

“Y’guys, she’s getting up!” she calls out to her friends behind her, equally a warning as it is a call to action. After all, if this bold stunt finally managed to crack through the first layer of their opponent’s armor, then they might genuinely stand a chance now.

She’ll never know if they heard her, though— because in the same split second she turns back to check on them, the now embracing pair is engulfed in a blinding white light.

Even in the absence of a soldier's fire, everything turns to smoke.