#who is probably tired of hearing me talk about Steven Universe at this point.

[hifi-walkman]

Thoughts on that kids show from the 2010s that changed the course of my life:

So, season 1 of Steven universe is really clever, because it shows the world from the perspective of a child in such an effective way. For example, the plot.

The viewers become aware of homeworld as a threat in ocean gem, but the crystal gems (other than Steven) know homeworld is coming from episode 2.

The red eye is the first thing homeworld does to check on earth, and the crystal gems are *powerless* to destroy it until the laser light canon is used (and that's *old* gem tech, not even the new stuff!)

In serious Steven, Coach Steven, and Steven's lion the gems are actively working to dismantle structures they had previously left untouched for thousands of years. Why? In case the diamonds try to use them.

Even after lapis' two parter the extent of why and how the gems are preparing for homeworld to attack isn't spelled out.

Pearl is trying to *escape* just like lapis did in Space Race, she knows it's possible... She knows if they leave earth they can be safe. Warp tour shows more explicitly that homeworld was already coming before lapis left, that even though she was Steven's introduction to the concept, homeworld was already interested in earth for other reasons. In rose's scabbard, they're clearly cleaning up the battlefield to keep extra weapons out of homeworld's hands, as it happens right between two major homeworld episodes, and just barely before the finale itself. Steven may not have known homeworld gems were coming for them, but the crystal gems did, the message only told them just how little time they had to prepare for it.

When you're watching Steven Universe for the first time, all this context slips past, you don't consider the reasons for the crystal gems going on certain missions, because the viewer doesn't have the information to even realize there was anything to consider (because the crystal gems are obviously keeping that info from Steven early on). Only on a rewatch does the exact level of urgency weigh in on the viewer, only when looking back do they realize exactly how much danger Steven was in even in the first season. It's a really clever set of details.

[someonesmoth]

Hiiii!!

Saw your moon knight fics and they’re amazing!! 🥹

Could you do a hurt/comfort about the boys? (Steven & Co, maybe even platonic “I’m not actually worried I just decided to take care of you cus whatever” Khonshu)

I’m thinking smth about the reader coming home from a stressful work day haha. I work 7am to 4:30 pm with like 30-40 1st graders (sometimes other grades but mostly them) so I’ve been pretty busy.

(The reader def don’t have to work in a school environment tho)

Totally get it if you’re busy and/or can’t.

Have a great day/night! 😊😊

Hey!! Waaa I’m glad you enjoyed my writing! It makes me super happy to hear that <3

Sorry for the wait and sorry if it’s a bit short, but here it is^^

Comfort after a long day at work

Marc Spector:

- he was probably figuring out his next move for his moon knight activities when you came through the door of his apartment

- those tired eyes of yours and the way you tried to suppress your yawns concerned him.

- Marc walks towards you and puts both his hands on your shoulders, “how was work today?”

- you started to give a brief synopsis into your day, making it insanely obvious today was too much for you

- he nods in understanding as he hears you, a small smile laying on his face while he runs his hands on your shoulders in comfort

- “I get it sweetheart, I have alot of those too…” reminds me of his painstakingly tiring missions.

- he left a small kiss on your forehead, “I’ll make you food tonight, you should go lay in bed for a bit.” You couldn’t even protest, you were too tired

- he held your hand to lead the way, softly laying you down, he was planning on taking care of you until you fell asleep.

- you felt a bit guilty, watching him turn on the stove.

- he looks back at you with a charming smile, “i promise I won’t burn it.”

Steven Grant

- oh my, right when you walked through the door with dragging footsteps, he went to you in a hurry

- “you’re finally back!” He grins, cue you softly leaning your body against him

- he hugs you gently, rubbing your back soothingly, “oh darling, work was rough today it seems?” You nod

- steven then pulls you back, grabbing your hand and sits you on your shared bed

- “do you want to talk about it while I make some tea? Or would you like coffee?” You say whichever of those two options and nod at the idea of talking

- he seemed happy to have you home, you work too hard sometimes and he would love for you to take a break. He’s glad he’s able to hear your worries and doubts.

- steven stands up and heads to the kitchen, “now, what has you so worn down, love?” He has a small gentle smile on his face as you start talking

Jake Lockley:

- Jake hums as you appear opening the door

-he hugs you in a firm embrace, before backing away and noticing how tired you look, “well, aren’t you a bit too happy?” He sarcastically said, a smirk lingering on his lips

- you huff, hitting him softly on the back, he lets out a small laugh, “ay mi amor, do you want me to make you something to eat?” You nod, letting go of his embrace and kissing him on the cheek without saying anything

- he rolls his eyes, “I’ll make you your favorite, so don’t be a baby.” “Jake, just cook and don’t burn the house down—“ “you know I cook the best meals in this universe, stop complaining and tell me why you came back so grumpy. Who do I have to kill-“

- you raise an eyebrow and laugh, “Jake, I’m fine really…just lots of work.” He hums in response, he is happy to hear what happened during the day, he tries to keep up with you.

“If I were you, I’d point a gun at your boss and I’d tell him to give you a break, si?” “No-“ half of the things he says are sarcastic…but you never know.

Khonshu:

- He was planning on just talking to his avatar briefly, maybe even scold him—

- he saw you walk into the room with tired movements, he stared at you with an invisible raised eyebrow

- “you look like you have been run over by a vehicle-“ you huff, rolling your eyes.

- you put your things on the floor, not minding that they were in the way, “if you came here to bother me, go away big bird.” You said, passing by him.

- he stands and stares at you, he felt a bit awkward with his tall frame standing in the small room.

- “staring into my head isn’t going to get you anywhere, khonshu.” You give him a side eye as you go to the kitchen to get a glass of water

- he softly taps his spear on the floor, carefully choosing his words to speak and not sound like a worried dad

- “I was just looking for my avatar. Have you seen Marc today?” You shook your head, “been working all day.” That’s evident by the eyebags and how messy your hair is.

- “have you gotten any sleep?” You again shook your head, “don’t have time for that.” Khonshu tilts his head a bit, “why don’t you rest now? You have come home from your duties.” “Gotta work on report cards, khonshu.” He had no idea what report cards were, he audibly sighs

- he walks closer to you, “take a break, y/n. It won’t hurt.” “If I don’t get it done-“ “your work can be done tomorrow, it is best for you to be wide awake when working so you give it your best.” You look up at khonshu, thinking he was right

- “…fine. You’re actually right this time.” “What? I am always right!” “Whatever khonshu.” You head towards your bed, getting the covers off of the bed for you to get in. You breathe in peace finally, “im surprised you stayed to give me advice, big bird.” “Y/N, close your eyes before I close them with a hit to the nose.”

- you laugh, finally going to sleep soon after. Surprisingly, khonshu grabbed the blanket you have thrown off, tucking you in carefully. He figured he’d find Marc later.

[cloud9in]

The Half of It - 2 (Poppy x MC)

Summary: Bea, the town’s outcast is recruited by the school jock to win Poppy’s heart. But what happens when she starts falling for her as well?

HIGHLY recommend you read/re-read part 1

No warnings this chapter

Word Count: 2.6k

Chapter 2: How to write a love letter 101

 “In love, one always starts by deceiving oneself...and ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls romance.”

- Oscar Wilde

I was tasked with what was probably the hardest piece of writing I’ve done in all of my years of highschool, and I wrote eight different versions of the analysis on David vs Goliath my freshman year. That’s besides the point, it wasn’t like any normal research essay. No. For some reason I found that my one and only letter to Poppy would have to be the best thing I ever wrote in the entirety of the universe. Too bad I had to make it sound like it was written by Carter, that big stupid jock. You can guess how severely depressed I became after reading what he had initially written…

 “Dear Poppy, I think you’re really beautiful. Even if you were ugly, I’d want to know you, because you are smart and nice, too. It’s hard to find all those things in one girl. But even if you were only two of those things, I’d be into it. But you’re, like, all three, just to be clear.”

 Bea reads off the paper, turning her head with cringe and confusion at the confident jock sitting next to her. Carter smiles, “She’s all three, like you know all three backs of football. The running back, the fullback-”

 “Thanks for clarifying...:”

 Carter stares awkwardly, waiting for her to continue on. And Bea does, with a big ass sigh.

“...About me. Some people think I’m the cutest one in my family. Those people being my grandma...who’s dead now...Never mind about my dead grandma. All I’m saying is that I like fries. I like dipping them in my milkshake. Is that weird? It’s actually really tasty. Would you like to try that with me sometime?

 CJ, school quarterback.”

 Bea takes a good five minutes to compose herself. Yeah this was definitely gonna be a long week. She lowers the paper slightly and turns to Carter, a puzzled look in her eyes. “So what you’re trying to say is-”

 “I’m in love with her.”

 That confession definitely would have sent her sprawling a few feet back if she hadn’t been sitting. Love? What was love? And why does she despise it now that Carter has mentioned it. 

“...Have you ever spoken to her?”

 “Well...no, I’m not good with words. Besides, would I be here with you if I did talk to her?”

 Bea rolls her eyes and huffs exhaustingly. “Carter, you're not in love. You’re just stubborn.”

 “No I’m not! It’s love, I know it’s love. Love feels different, it doesn’t feel...real. It almost feels impossible. But we indulge in it because of the thrill, the adrenaline of chasing someone mindlessly...and wanting to be present in everything they do. There’s that ‘what if?’, the question that could make or break that love. Even if the ending isn’t what you had hoped for, at least you know how it felt to feel so much joy, so much want.”

 Carter stares up at the ceiling in thought, his eyes seem to be unfocused, staring at nothing and everything. Bea gazes over at him in part shock and part admiration, a smile painting her face. “...Wow.”

 “...Hm, yeah. I heard it in a dating app commercial once.” 

 Bea gasps and smacks Carter repeatedly with the letter in her hand, clearly disappointed. 

 “Wha- Ow!”

 “And here I was thinking you were being original.”

 Bea eventually sits back in her seat, her shoulders slumping as she reads the letter over and over again, trying to make sense of it. That was the problem though, it didn’t make sense, well maybe the fries part did, but the blonde had a lot of work to do. Carter watches her silently until he can’t hold back the lingering question in his head. “...Haven’t you ever felt it? That screwy feeling that love gives you? Poppy makes me feel screwy.”

 Bea continues to read, her eyes glued onto the words that are slightly falling out of the printed lines of the notebook paper. But her mind is fully elsewhere, she heard his question loud and clear. The only thing she could muster was an annoyed “no” in efforts to not become vulnerable.

 He intertwined his hands together, leaning back on the bench. “...Oh I get it, you’ve never been in love have you?”

 Bea’s legs were already one step ahead of her mind as they sprung her out of the seat. She grabs her bag and swats the papers in Carter’s direction, a scoff leaving her lips. “You want a love letter? I’ll give you a love letter!”

 “Yeah but will it be something that makes her fall in love with me and not walk away like you’re doing right now-” Carter’s voice rings out hurriedly yet Bea can’t hear anything except the pounding of her heart getting louder as she stalks out of the church. Love, love, love, what even is it? Will I ever feel it? There is nobody who could make me feel-

 The blonde was cut abruptly out of her thoughts as she crashed into someone, who was most likely on their respective part of the sidewalk. All of the materials in her arms fell to the concrete and Bea rushed to pick them up, “I’m sorry I-”

A familiar blonde set of locks and porcelain skin came into view and she immediately stopped and looked up. Poppy’s eyes were already boring into hers, a look of slight concern, and maybe annoyance? on her face. 

 “...I’m-I’m Bea Hughes…” She could only stutter, all those moments that she pretended to talk to Poppy in her room were definitely not paying off. 

 But maybe it did pay off because a small smile, masked with sparkly pink lip gloss started to form. Poppy bit her lip as her eyes crinkled with amusement, “...Yeah I know. You’ve only been playing my dad’s services on Sunday for, like, four years. He does favour you...even if you are a heathen.” Poppy peers over at the church that Bea had just come out of and raises an eyebrow in curiosity. She picks up a stray book from the ground and grins with an impressed look. “Remains of The Day...Loved it. Mr. Stevens is quite the character.” Okay, so Poppy has great taste in literature, that’s another thing to add to the list that Bea totally doesn’t have stored in the notes app of her phone. Listen, she has to write a love letter to Poppy Min Sinclair, so every piece of information is vital. 

 Poppy hands the book to Bea, their eyes never leaving each other while standing up. Say something Bea. Anything. It’s almost like the strawberry blonde was waiting, hoping, for her to speak . 

 But she said nothing. No, all the insecure blonde could do is stare into Poppy’s eyes, almost as if she wasn’t afraid to turn to stone. 

 The sound of car tires scraping against the pavement caused Poppy to break eye contact before smiling one last time at Bea. “This is me.” Bea watched the shorter girl stroll past her so casually, the complete opposite of what she was feeling in the moment. She didn’t speak until Poppy closed the car door and the driver took off, a frustrated sigh escaping her lips. “I’m Bea Hughes? Really?”

 ***

Bea sat in front of her tv, a pen and notepad in her hand. She couldn’t think of anything to write down. How do you write a love letter, or a confession? This is the one thing she had trouble writing. The tv blasted on with 1987’s “Wings of Desire”. Bea cocked her head to the side when the man started to profess his love. She put her pen to the pad and started writing. 

 Poppy,

 You don’t know me, and truth be told I see that as a good thing. You know that saying, there are plenty of fish in the sea? Well I am not a fisherman, nor do I think you are a fish. Letters are not the form of communication that I would personally prefer, but I am the one writing to you. So no more complaining. I think you are interesting. Like a book I want to read. I’d even read the author’s notes at the end just to get every bit of you. I don’t desire a lot of things, but I long for a wave of love to swell up in me. That’s what makes me so clumsy: the lack of pleasure.

 Yours, 

Carter 

***

Bea pushes down on her pedals, pacing her breath with each turn of the wheels beneath her. The voice of Carter appears as he races behind her, careful not to send her flying last time. Then she’d never write a letter again.  “Bea! She wrote back!”

 The blonde pulled the brakes on her bicycle so hard a wheel might have popped off. She was out of breath but suddenly the reason for it was different. Bea grabs the letter from Carter’s hands and makes haste to read the words she imagined would sit on the paper. 

  Carter,

 I like Wim Wenders too. Wouldn’t have plagiarized him though.

 -Poppy 

“Who’s Wim Wenders and why’d you cheat off of him? Bea I looked up what plagiarism meant.”

 “I didn’t cheat off of him!...Okay maybe I did but this is a good thing!”

 “HOW?”

 “It’s...it’s like a game. She’s challenging us..but in a good way.” Bea nods to Carter but also to herself. There was a response. She didn’t think that Poppy would write back but she did and it has changed Bea’s outlook on everything. She was in, and there was no way it could stop now. 

 “So...are we back in the game?” Carter’s words jumble Bea out of her thoughts and she stutters, “Yep..yes we are.” No you are. “We are definitely back in it.” Nope just you Bea. 

 Bea leaves Carter with an awkward fist bump before peddling away, her mind racing with a million thoughts. But they always seem to close back into one familiar blonde who danced and did everything Bea couldn’t. She sighed, the adrenaline pumping its way out of her lungs. 

 “Game on, Poppy Min Sinclair.”

***

 Bea spent the following days perfecting her next letter to Poppy. This one would be more heartfelt, and less cringe and plagiaristic like her last one. It would come from her and only her...but for Carter of course. The thing is, when Bea started writing again, she didn’t think about the fact that Carter would take credit for everything on the paper, and that he would be the one that develops a *possible* relationship with Poppy. Maybe she didn’t want to think about that part, but the other parts brought just the right amount of serotonin to make her shitty day better. Everything she read, everywhere she went reminded her of the strawberry blonde, and of the unfinished letter. Bea attempted to step into the life of Carter’s and speak like a jock would, without making him seem like something he is not. But that was hard. Because it was her words, her mind. Carter would take that from her, even if it was unintentional. 

 It didn’t help that Carter didn’t want them to be seen together in public. He would slide to the opposite end of the bench in the church when his football buddies would come in. Bea didn’t take it personal. She of course had other things going through her mind. 

 It took 7 days. One week. To finish the second letter, a very short one. Bea wouldn’t describe herself as a perfectionist, but every word that Poppy would read had to be perfect.

Dear Poppy,

 Okay you got me…

 Now that that’s done, let’s start over yeah? I’ll start by saying that I sometimes hide behind other people’s words. For one thing, I know nothing about love. I’m 17 and I’ve lived in Farmsville my whole life. I hang out with my friends, I keep my head down. I’m a simple...guy. Which is to say, if I knew what love was, I would quote myself. But I don’t. I have a question for you, please answer it in any way you want. Are you happy where you are right now?

 -Carter

Bea sat in the church, silently tapping away at the keys of piano, a simple soft melody following the nod of her head. Carter had found her like that but didn’t want to disturb. Except, Poppy wrote back again, so this was big news. They both sat in confession booths as Bea read the letter quietly, her hand gripping the edges a little too harshly. 

Dear Carter,

 You know that it takes eleven muscles to yawn? This is the sort of weird fact I find myself recalling to keep myself from...well yawning. Or showing anything I feel really. And I find myself doing that a lot. So yeah..believe it or not, I turn to other people’s words too. 

 When you’re a pretty girl, and I know it makes me sound conceited, but sometimes I am, but that’s why you’re even writing to me right? I mean my image is what gives me attention, I’ve grown used to that fact. When you’re a pretty girl, people want to give you things. What they really want is to make you like them. Not like them as in, “i like you”, but like them as in, “i am like you.” You may think I’m different, but I’m like a lot of other people. Which makes me kind of no one. It looks like I’ve found my place but I really haven’t. Just a girl who’s lost in the mix. I don’t know why I feel like I can tell you this, but you provide the sort of safety I always craved. You’re interesting Carter, I like you. 

 -Poppy 

Bea read the last sentence more times than she should’ve. Carter watched her silently as she stared into the lines of the paper, maybe hoping that more words would magically appear. The blonde couldn’t describe the feeling in her chest, but it hurt. Physically. 

 “Uh...can I text her now?”

 “Too soon.”

 “No, I'm gonna do it now.”

 Bea felt herself starting to get frustrated, but calmness always overtook any other feeling she had. She was taught to be rational.

 “You do that and she’ll think you’re just like everyone else.” You’re not like anyone else Bea, she needs to know that. 

 Carter lets out a heavy sigh and pulls out his phone. Bea felt a buzz in her pocket and pulled hers out as well. A message pops up alerting Bea of another income of $50 being sent to her. 

***

 Bea slogged through the crowded halls trying to find the exit but before she can walk any further, a firm hand grabs her and pulls her into a familiar classroom. The blonde turns to scowl at the perpetrator which was probably Bradley, but instead she sees bright red lips and black glasses. Ms. Kingsley. But she doesn’t look too happy.

 The older woman holds up a paper which Bea recognizes immediately as her letter to Poppy. How in the world did she get that? 

 “So...this is why half my class is failing their essays?”

 Bea could make a snarky comment back to her, but the sight of the letter sends her thoughts spiraling once again. She lets out a defeated sigh. I mean how did this woman know she’d  written that letter? Ina Kingsley knew everything. “Look...I’ll be reopen for business soon enough.” Bea starts to turn to leave and looks at Kingsley one more time. “I can’t do this for much longer.”

 Bea couldn’t hold in her feelings for much longer as well. But not even Kingsley knew that. She walked out of the classroom with her head down, hoping to avoid eye contact with the one she wanted to see the most. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

End Note: Part two is here woah. Thought it would never come. 

Tags: @samanthadalton @somewillwin @clowneryme @baexpoppy @zigxryanz @uselesslesbianfr @aleiramacaii  @thedaft1 @alexlabhont @iamsimpforpoppy @cloakanddaggerthings @straightlikewetspaghetti 

[pastpatientlywaitingforimagines]

Constellation | Spencer Reid x Reader Platonic

WC: 2547

A/N: A cheeky little Galaxy post :)

WARNINGS: SPOILERS FOR 13x01, hospitals, general CM stuff, descriptions of panic attacks and PTSD (fictional so possibly not accurate and DEFINITELY not how everyone might experience it)

This is part of my GALAXY universe! If you liked this relationship, check out the MASTERLIST for more content!

You had only just been allowed to resume field work after an extended medical leave when Cat Adams resurfaced, leading Emily to sideline you once again.

“I’m not having this fight with you, (y/n).”

“I’m cleared for field work.”

“I know, but you’ve been cleared for less than a week and I don’t want your first case back to be this one.”

“Why, because it’s Cat Adams? I’m not afraid of her.”

“Because you’re not afraid of her, that’s why.”

“Emily-“

“I told you, I’m not having this fight. You’re going to stay here and work the case with us. JJ will go with Reid.”

As much as you resented Emily for not letting you go to the prison with Spencer, you were glad she was at least sending JJ. At least he wouldn’t be alone. It was enough to keep your head on straight, and Emily even let you go with the team to collect Diana. It made you feel more useful, especially when Spencer’s mom recognized you among the team.

When you got back to the BAU, you planned to make sure Spencer and his mom had everything they needed to resume normal life. Instead, you were greeted by Morgan, who had a lead on Scratch.

You expected Emily to tell you to stay, Scratch was just as big of a threat as Cat Adams, but she handed you a kevlar vest and didn’t say anything about it when you joined the team in the SUV’s.

It was thrilling, being back in the field. You understood why you hadn’t been allowed to be there in so long, your mind kept flickering to Spencer and his wellbeing. For the past three months, the thought was loaded and often lead to panic attacks. Now that he was released, you had to keep reminding yourself that he was safe before your worries got that far.

The speed of the drive was enough to fuel your adrenaline, but it was amped up quickly when the spikes took out your small caravan.

The truck came out of nowhere, smashing into your vehicle and immediately disorienting you more than you already were. When you finally came to, the first thing you noticed was the pain in your left arm. There was a woman next to you, she didn’t look physically injured but her behavior told you otherwise. She clearly had something internal going on.

You tried to exit the vehicle, but the side was smashed into your leg. While you didn’t think your leg was broken, you surely wouldn't be able to get it out on your own. Your hands found your gun instead, and on autopilot you double checked that it was loaded. You couldn't figure out where the rest of your gear was, or your platoon. You started whispering their names, trying to locate them.

“Smith… sound off. Marcos… sound off… Taylor… sound off. Taylor… sound off.”

“(y/n)?” a strangely familiar voice called. You tried to melt into the seat as much as you could, keeping your gun drawn towards the door on the other side of the woman. It opened, revealing a man you felt like you knew in another life.

“(y/n), it’s Matt Simmons. Are you hurt?”

“I don’t know who you are,” you kept your gun trained on his forehead. He paused for a moment, noticing the state that the woman next to you was in.

“Ok, ok. I’m going to take Tara, you stay where you are and I’ll help you next.”

“Where’s my platoon?” you asked. The flicker of realization that briefly crossed his face confused you, but instead of acting on it he took the woman he called Tara out of the SUV and started calling for someone named Luke.

“Sergeant (y/l/n), I’m Luke Alvez with the 75th Rangers. I’m going to help you get out, ok?” A new voice, also familiar, said to you calmly, “can you put the gun down?”

“Where's my platoon, Alvez?” you asked again.

“You were in an accident,” he slid onto the seat next to you when you lowered your weapon, though you kept your finger on the trigger.

“They ambushed us,” you whispered quietly when he got to working on freeing your leg.

“I know. Do you know where you are?”

“Afghanistan,” you answered incredulously, “where are the helicopters? How are you going to extract us without helicopters?” You were starting to panic more than you already had been, breathing increasing rapidly. You held your arm at a funny angle, trying to keep it where it would hurt the least. Your best guess was at least one broken bone in your arm and also a broken collarbone on that side.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok. You’re having a flashback. I can’t get your leg out from here. The first responders are going to have to help, but I can’t have you shooting them.”

“No,” you pushed back on him with your good arm, “If I can’t move you need to find Taylor first.”

“Who is Taylor?”

“You’re no help to me,” your hand flew to your left wrist, fiddling with the bracelet you wore.

“Ok, I’ll be right back,” he stepped out of the SUV and back to Simmons. Despite the clamor of first responders around you, you could still hear what the two men were saying.

“They’re deep in a flashback. We can’t get power tools in here until they’ve calmed down or they will start fighting and hurt a lot of people including themselves,” Luke said.

“So how do we do that?”

“They keep asking about their platoon, about someone named Taylor. I know (y/n) got into a humvee accident while they were overseas, I think they’re reliving it. I don’t know all the details though.”

“Who does? Does (y/n) have a therapist we can call?”

“Yeah, but it’s three in the morning,” Luke fell silent for a minute before speaking again, “I’ll call Reid. He might know something.

You had an inkling that those words were supposed to mean something to you, and it only frustrated you more when they didn’t. Alvez announced that he was rejoining you in the SUV, then pulled out his cell phone, a move that confused you because phones like that didn’t work in the desert.

It confused you even more when the call seemingly connected, Alvez giving the person on the other line information about being ambushed by Scratch, Steven being dead, and Emily missing. Though familiar, none of those names made sense to you, or your situation.

“No,” you hissed, “Taylor. I can’t find Taylor.”

“(y/n) is ok. Their arm is broken, and they're deep in a flashback. They keep asking about someone named Taylor. They never talked about a Taylor in group, what can I do to help them?” Alvez listened for a minute, then handed you the phone, “it’s for you.”

“Where did you take Taylor,” you asked harshly as soon as you had the phone in your hand.

“Listen to me, (y/n). It’s Spencer. Your mind is playing tricks on you, you’re not in Afghanistan anymore. Look around,” you finally took a minute to observe your surroundings. There were too many trees for you to be in the desert, he was right. Of all the things that weren’t making sense to you right now, he was the most familiar. He had the answers you were looking for.

“Where am I? What is happening to me?"

“You’re with the FBI in Virginia. You can trust Luke, he’s going to make sure they take you to the hospital and I’ll meet you there.”

“Is Taylor ok?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you where Taylor is when I see you at the hospital, ok? I know you’re scared and hurt, (y/n), but listen to me. It’s only rain. Can you picture the rain for me?”

A single memory jumped to the forefront of your mind, standing in the rain with a curly-headed man you were certain was Spencer. You could feel the way the droplets hit your skin, you could feel the comfort you had with the man you knew was your best friend. You could feel your lungs opening up and your breathing get easier.

“Spencer,” you exhaled, finally finding footing in your brain, “it’s only rain.”

“Keep breathing, Luke is going to get you out and I’ll meet you at the hospital, ok?”

“Yeah,” you fought to keep your breathing steady, “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”

You hung up and handed the phone back to Luke, counting your breaths.

“Give me another minute, Luke,” you could still feel your heart racing, though your mind was fighting to come back to reality. Once you felt like you had a better grip on it, you gave Luke the go-ahead and braced yourself while the crushed door of the SUV was cut off of the vehicle. It took every grounding technique you had to keep your head in the right place, and more than once you felt yourself start to panic about where Taylor was.

Luke rode in the ambulance with you, reassuring you multiple times that it was ok when you apologized for pointing a gun at him and Matt. You could feel your body crashing from the loss of adrenaline, the usual post-episode exhaustion coupled with the almost excruciating pain coming from your left side.

When Spencer arrived at the hospital, your brain was still cloudy from the exhaustion and various pain meds you had been given when the orthopedist had set your arm.

“How are you feeling?” he took a quick glance at your medical chart before actually making eye contact.

“Just tired, and still not… still not all the way here. Taylor… I still can’t figure out what happened to Taylor…”

Spencer sat down on the edge of the hospital bed, eyes soft, “Taylor was killed in the accident ten years ago. Your humvee was ambushed, do you remember?”

“Yeah,” you breathed, “I remember. Ten years ago when I was in the military. Now I’m a Supervisory Special Agent for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. We were chasing a lead when we were ambushed by Mr. Scratch, Peter Lewis,” Spencer nodded, “is the rest of the team ok? I haven’t seen them.”

“I haven’t seen anyone yet either,” he hesitated, and your knowledge of the man clued you in to the fact that he was calculating the probability of declining your condition if he told you everything he knew. The odds were in your favor, because after a moment he spoke again, “but Steven is dead and Emily is missing.”

“Emily’s missing?”

“I don’t know much about it, I have to talk to everyone else.”

“Then go talk to them, I promise I won’t go anywhere until you come back,” you reassured him. He made his rounds to JJ and Rossi in their rooms, then returned to yours with Luke on his heels. The other man stopped at the doorway when Spencer re-entered your room.

“I have to go take care of something for Rossi. You’re going to be ok here,” he said quickly before you could protest.

“I’m coming with you,” you started to get up. Spencer caught you gingerly when you practically fell into his grasp, still fatigued from your earlier episode.

“You can’t, not like this,” he whispered, lowering you back down onto the bed, “stay here a little longer. Will is in the next room with JJ, he said he’d take you home when they discharge you.”

“I don’t want to go home, Spence. I want to help find Emily.”

“I know, you can’t go into the field like this though. Tell me you’ll be good for the doctors so I can leave here without worrying more about you.”

You couldn't say no to this man you cared so much about, not when he was looking at you with the biggest puppy dog eyes you had ever seen from him.

"I'll try my best," you sighed, leaning back onto the pillow.

"Thank you," he gave your good hand a squeeze before heading back towards the door where Luke was waiting.

"Luke," you called before they could leave. He stopped in his tracks, inquisitively making eye contact with you to show you he was listening, "don't let him get lost in that big brain of his, ok?"

"I won't. Rest up, we need you back at full strength as soon as possible."

"Thank you," you whispered after him as he followed Spencer out of the hospital. You tried to get some sleep, but it didn't come easy as your brain tried to make sense of the events that had transpired the past few days. First Spencer's mom was taken, Spencer was released from prison, then Cat Adams showed up claiming to be pregnant with his baby, and now Scratch had literally ran a truck into your team- your family. It was a lot for one person to process, especially since your brain had taken an unwanted break from reality earlier in the evening.

You managed to doze off for a little bit, flitting in and out of sleep until exhaustion finally took over and pulled you deeper into its throws.

You were woken by a nurse who cheerfully informed you that you could go home. Will came to collect you and held your bag of belongings for you when he walked you out to his car.

He answered all of your questions to the best of his ability and even offered to bring you back to his home when you expressed how much you didn’t want to go back to your apartment.

Henry and Michael were enough to distract you from your reeling worries and keep you grounded while you waited to hear from the rest of the team. You let the boys draw on your cast, leaving the hard plaster full of colorful artwork.

As you were eating breakfast that Will had made, your phone finally rang.

“Emily is safe, Scratch is dead,” Spencer said when you answered.

“Thank goodness,” you sighed.

“Are you at home?” He asked next.

“No, I’m at JJ and Will’s. I wasn’t ready to be alone just yet,” you told him honestly.

“How’s your head?”

“Clearer now that I’ve gotten some sleep and some food. How’s yours?”

“Still getting back up to speed. Why don’t I pick you up and we can have a quiet day with my mom? We could all use the rest.”

“Sure, Spence. I’d love to spend some time with your mom.”

When Spencer came to pick you up, you noticed a soft smile playing on his lips when he saw the way you were curled up on the couch watching tv with the boys tucked into your side.

You let them greet him first, they hadn’t seen him since before he had gone to prison. Once they released him he finally wrapped his arms around you tightly.

Your relationship had never been very physical. In fact, you could count the number of times you had hugged Spencer Reid on one hand. Standing in Will and JJ’s entryway, though, embracing him for the first time since he had been arrested, you didn’t want to let go.

Galaxy Taglist: @kermitsaysgayrights @niallthedancingharry @shadyladyperfection  @thatsonezesty13  @lexshead @ceeellewrites @howdycharlie @girlycakepops @fantastic-fans @canimarrypizzaornah @daisyflower138 @dyingrexx @taylormobley @bazzleslynn @tj-drinks-tea @willa-wonky @eddiesbifocals @tee-mbrown @reniescarlett @bone-hurty-bitch

[missskzbiased]

I Hate That I’m Afraid to Love You (16)

Genre: Romance, Friendship, Angst, Hurt /Confort , Suggestive, Fluff, College Au, Enemies to Friends to Lovers Au, REALLY Slow burn, Love Square (?)

Pairing: Hyunjin X Fem!Reader  X Han X OC

WC: ~ 4,5,K

[Previous] [Chap] [Next]

Masterlist

Warnings (general*): Language, Mentions of (Physical abuse, Death/ Loss of Loved One, Child Abandonment/Neglect, Divorce, Toxic Parents, Cancer, Mental disorder, Anxiety Attack, Alcohol, Food), Suggestiveness

Notes: It’s Paris’ Pov and the next one will be Hyunjin’s Pov. I just thought it was good to point it out. Songs mentioned: “Both Of You- Steven Universe” and “Count on Me - Bruno Mars”

Updates: Tuesdays

                                                       ////

   PARIS’ POV

    Holy. Bloody. Cow.

    Honestly? Although you enjoyed teasing Y/N about her suspicious relationship status with Hyunjin, you would never ever ─ even in a thousand million years ─ imagine that he would just pin her against a wall and kiss her in front of everybody. And by everybody, you meant you and Han, because nobody else seemed to give a... Thought about that. Okay, you found kinda odd the fact that they kept trading that book without a real reason… Even so! Wouldn’t Y/N have told you about it?

    There was no way they were together.

    She just denied everything a couple of minutes ago! She would never lie straight to your face like that. You knew it. Then again… The way her hands were pressing against his chest instead of pushing him away immediately kinda told a lot about the situation.

  On a normal day, you probably would have said something ─ maybe take a picture to send Chan so you could tease the hell out of them ─ but right now you couldn’t bring yourself to do any of this. The intimacy of the situation made you embarrassed to keep looking at them, prompting you to avert your eyes. Maybe it was destiny, but out of everything you could meet, Han’s deeply hurt eyes were the first thing you came across with, which made your stomach drop.

  He was devasted.

  You didn’t need to think twice to turn your back to Y/N and Hyunjin ─ who would still hear a lot about it at some point ─ and go after Han that was already rushing away from the scene. You hopped some steps, trying to get closer to him as fast as you could but it wasn’t a coincidence that Han was an athlete and you were a musician.

    “Han!” You yelled loud enough for him to hear but he didn’t turn around. He should thank God for loving him to the point of letting him ignore you exactly at the time you hadn’t your guitar in your hands. You really needed to buy a new one anyway… “The baby is yours!” You screamed, and this time he turned around.

    “What are you doing?!” He hissed, wide eyes darting around to see if anyone bought your bluff.

  “Getting your bloody attention!” You spat while trying to ease your breathing, finally reaching him.

  So what now?

  As you stared at him ─ letting an awkward silence set between you two ─, you couldn’t help but think about what Hyunjin said. Han wasn’t there to talk to Y/N because of you… It was because of her. You tried not to let this affect you more than necessary but it was too late. Did he really need someone to convince him to go to your performance? Didn’t all those years mean anything for him? Was he talking to you for all those years just because of Y/N?

  You clenched your jaw.

  “So that’s it? You’re going to ignore me now that you were rejected?” You scoffed, crossing your arms over your chest “We spent years hanging around, eating together, going to each other’s games and performances… And now you’re going to throw all of this out of the window?” You inquired, frowning as you studied his features.

  “That’s not really what I’m trying to do…” He muttered under his breath, clearly embarrassed of his actions. You huffed in disbelief, shaking your head before looking straight into his eyes.

  “Honestly, Han?” You sighed “I really believed you liked me… I thought we were good friends, you know?” You shrugged, lowering your gaze “Now I look back and… What was it that we had between us? Was I only a way for you to get to her? Am I really your friend? Do you even consider me as someone you’d like to have around?” You felt your heart tightening inside your chest, making your breathing heavy.

  “No! Of course, I like you, Paris!” He rushed to say, hands shooting to your shoulders to give a reassuring squeeze “I just can’t find it inside me to go there and—“ You snorted, grimacing as you pushed his hands away from you.

  “You can’t find it inside you?” You snickered “Good Lord… You’re so selfish!” He gasped, surprised to see you upset like this “How would you feel if Y/N didn’t find it inside her to go to each one of your games?! How would you feel if she dropped you just like you were nothing?! How would you feel if she avoided you like the plague?!” You shouted, gesturing around mindlessly to get the anger out of you.

  “That’s different…” He tried to reason.

  “But it is not!” You interrupted him, high-pitched as you tried to hold back your tears “I love you, Han!” You wailed, face twisting in a crying frown “I love you, and even if I knew that you loved her, I was right there at your side at all times!” You said rather accusatorily, finger going to poke his chest “Say it! Tell me one damn time I wasn’t right there by your side! Tell me!” You demanded, tears flowing freely on your face.

    He opened his mouth but not a sound came out of it.

    “You can’t, right?!” You snorted, wiping your tears away “I was always there for you… I always found it inside me to go there and see how you looked at her with sparkling eyes instead of looking at me!” You grabbed his collar, though the grip was too loose to be even called a grip “And now you tell me that you can’t handle one rejection and go to my performance? One that you know how much it means to me?” You asked, narrowing your eyes at him.

  “Paris… I had no idea” He mumbled, eyes wavering to look at you.

  “It shouldn’t matter anyway… Are you going to go now because you pity me?” You scorned “You should go because you want to keep me with you, Han! Even though you had your problems with Y/N, I should still be your friend!” You let him go, hand going to press your eye “At least you could have come to talk to me… You could have said you wouldn’t be coming… You could have done something, you know? Anything. If you really cared about us”

  “I swear to God I didn’t have my mind in the right place, Paris” He took your hand in his, and you tried to ignore the fluttering that spread in your chest “I was too busy with all the stuff that is going on… I had to talk to my father, and I can’t really quit the team out of now—“

  “Wait- What?!” You gawked at him “You're going to quit the volleyball team?” You asked, taken aback by the revelation.

  “Didn’t Y/N tell you?” He asked surprised “I mean… I told her so I kinda assumed she would –“ You scoffed, poking your cheek with your tongue as you shook your hands to get away from his hold.

  “She wasn’t the one supposed to tell me about your life, though” You sighed “See? That’s what I’m talking about… You have classes with me, Han” You reminded him, looking at him as if you had no more expectations inside you “Couldn’t you tell me this? Is there anything else you expected her to tell me instead of actually looking for me to talk?” You sneered.

  “Well…” He let out a heavy sigh, looking at you uncertain “To tell you the truth, Paris… I’m kinda lost right now” He admitted, throwing you off for a second at the seriousness in his words “I never ever thought about actually getting out of the team, to be honest… I talked to Y/N and I realized a few things that made me want to try and pursue my own dreams instead of living to make other people happy”

  You didn’t notice it before but Han looked awful right now.

  He had messy hair that wasn’t really styled to look like this, and you figured he probably was getting less sleep than usual. The dark circles under his eyes were enough to confirm your suspicions. He seemed more tired as well, not only a lack of sleep thing but his shoulders were dropped and his eyes seemed to be filtering a lot of thoughts at once, narrowed and stern.

  “I want to be a musician” He paused, looking for your reaction but you couldn’t do anything else besides gasp in surprise “Yeah… I know it’s kinda unexpected if you consider I’m an athlete and all that…” He sighed once more, and you could swear that there was a shadow darkening his eyes “But that’s what I really love, and that’s what I want to do” He tried to offer you a small smile but failed, lips twisting in a weird grimace.

  “This is huge, Han” You admitted, reaching for his shoulder to give him some reassurance “I bet you have a lot to think about too…” You muttered, embarrassed at the number of things you just threw on his face out of nowhere.

  “Yeah… I mean, I told Y/N I was going to quit the team and I had already made my decision but…” He snorted “The truth is that I’m not really sure of what I should do, you know? I mean… I’ll pursue this dream. That’s what I want to do. But what about everything else?” You nodded, pursing your lips as you slid your hand through his arm to hold his hand.

  “It will take more time but you’ll eventually get there” You promised “You took some classes with me already, so you have some of those… I guess you’ll have to bear till the end of the semester to quit the team, right? But apart from that…” You tried to comfort him but he scoffed, shrugging.

  “Apart from that, I have an entirely uncertain future... I don’t know if it’ll go alright… I’m literally leaving behind an offer to play on a great team to pursue some silly dream and –“ You squeezed his hand, taking his other one into yours.

  “It’s not silly, Han… Isn’t that what you love?” You asked, trying to look into his eyes but he lowered his gaze “We’ll be here for you… You can take as many years as you need, if this means you’re going to be happy in the end, that’s what really matters” You placed your hand on his face, guiding him to look at you.

    “I wasn’t just avoiding you guys… I had to talk with my dad about a lot of stuff… Also, my mom is quite disappointed with my decision… I’m trying to put Minho in contact with the team that would hire me… I’m trying to get over my feelings for Y/N… I’m trying to figure out my whole future…” His voice faltered for a bit, and you shushed him, caressing his cheek before pulling him into a hug.

   “I get it… You’ve been through a lot” You mumbled, rubbing his back to soothe him “I just wished you had talked to us… We thought you were just wary because of the rejection…” You admitted, and he chuckled, hugging you back and resting his head on your shoulder.

  “Well… I mean, you’re not wrong” He laughed “I’m kinda embarrassed to talk to both of you… I mean- Well, it’s not exactly easy to act normal when you have been rejected” He pointed out, and you chortled at that, nodding.

  “Yeah, I know” You joked, and he seemed to realize that you had said you loved him not too long ago. He snapped away from your arms, straightening his back and clearing his throat as he glanced at you.

  “Sorry… I mean… I really like you bu—“ You laughed, waving your hand dismissively.

  “I’ve known for a long time that you don’t like me back” You reassured him “You don’t need to reject me or try to stay away from me” You rolled your eyes as you put your hands on your hips “Don’t make it one more thing to think about when you have so much going on” You arched your brow in a silent warning.

  “Sorry…” He smiled sheepishly at you, ducking his head into his shoulders.

  “That’s okay, I guess…” You sighed “I mean- I’m not happy about it but what can I do? Love is about sacrifice… I’ll have other performances in the future” You shrugged, though you couldn’t lie to yourself… You were hurt. You would have done it for him “I’d talk it through with Y/N, though… She’s really in the dark there and I won’t be your messenger” You warned him.

  “I know… I’ll try to talk to her and maybe… Maybe I can try to drop by?” He suggested unsurely.

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep” You forced a small smile, patting his shoulder before parting ways.

                                                         ////

  You should have asked him to come after all.

  You were the next ─ and finally the last ─ presentation for the night, and you couldn’t help but walk around with your guitar in your hands, playing some random notes in hopes to get calmer. The anxiety was creeping into your head little by little, and you couldn’t count how many times you had already tried to peek behind the curtains to see if they have already arrived. What if Han didn’t show up after all?

  Of course, you understood his situation now… He was overwhelmed by everything happening in his life at once, and you couldn’t really blame him if he didn’t show up. Or could you? No! You shouldn’t blame him! You had already learned your lesson with Y/N… You shouldn’t expect people to act like you… It was wrong.

  But missing your performance after all this time wasn’t really right either!

  Push away that thought! You ordered to yourself.

  It shouldn’t matter if he was going to be there or not… What was the difference? Would he play the song for you? So what you had changed the song to fit both of your stupid friends that couldn’t handle love like grown-ups?! It wasn’t their fault…

  Don’t push your standards on them! You reminded yourself.

  Love is about sacrifice!

  Sacrifice is about doing what is better for everyone else!

  Love is about sacrifice!

  If he showed up then it would be good! If he didn’t show up then it would be good too! He wasn’t in love with you. He wasn’t going to sacrifice for you. He didn’t have anything to do with the fact that you kept torturing yourself over and over again. He wasn’t in love with you. There was no need for him to prove anything. You can’t order people around. You should live your own life.

    What if he showed up just to talk to Y/N?

  Yeah… You could kinda let it go if he didn’t come at all but what if he came just to talk to her? What if he didn’t really care about you after all? That wasn’t the point… You had to be happy for them. If he came and talked it through with her and everything turned out to be okay… Then that was it. So what he didn’t do it for you? At least he did it for someone…

    That’s right.

    You loved both of them and they should be happy.

    If you love someone, you should behave properly, Paris… You reminded yourself, just like your mother told you for so many nights. You had to control your feelings and your urges and get to this stage and nail it. Han or no Han. You should act as if none of this really mattered to you.

    You did it before… It shouldn’t be too hard to do it tonight.

    The round of applause burst into your senses, getting you away from your thoughts for a moment and making you realize that the previous performance had already ended. You were the next one. You took a deep breath, hands shaking and sweating as you tried to hold onto your guitar firmly, making your way to the stage as soon as your name was announced.

    The lights blinded you for a second but you kept walking as if it was nothing, hearing the polite claps people offered you as you entered the stage. The creaking wood replaced the clapping soon enough, and as the silence settled all around the place, you sat on the woody stool, searching for your friends and family. Someone coughed quietly, breaking the silence once more, and you forced a smile for the audience.

    You spotted your mother and stepfather, as expected.

    You spotted Hyunjin and Y/N sitting side by side, as expected.

    You spotted the empty seat on Y/N’s side…

    As expected.

    You strummed the guitar, focusing your gaze on the strings before lifting your head to stare at the audience. The moment was partially broken by someone storming inside the place, making you snap your eyes at them even if you didn’t stop the song. The big foam glove caught your attention immediately, the “#1” prompting you to bit your lips to hold back your laughter.

    You watched as Han made his way ─ trying to be as discrete as possible but failing it greatly ─ to Y/N’s side, sitting down and raising his hand shyly for you to see. You smirked, lowering your gaze to the guitar to recompose yourself. The last thing you wanted was to laugh in the middle of the song and blew up your chances.

    “Why don’t you talk to each other?” You sang, lifting your head with a smile “Why don’t you talk to each other? Just give it a try” You roamed your eyes all around, confidence slowly making its way to your brain “Why don’t you talk about what happened?” You darted your eyes to Y/N and Han, staring at them as you sang the verse “I know you’re trying to avoid it but I don’t know why…”

   You caught the way they glanced at each other, shifting in their seats.

    “You might not believe it…” You strummed the strings, closing your eyes for a second “You might not believe it… But you got a lot in common… You really do” You offered them a small smile as you opened your eyes “You both love me and I love both of you” The chanting made you emotional for a second, but you tried your best not to choke.

   You watched as both of them looked at each other, eyes softening as they met one another. Y/N seemed to find amusing the glove he brought, glancing at it before chuckling, hand sliding to rest on top of Han’s. He seemed uncomfortable and yet relieved by the contact, ducking his head into his shoulders as he smiled at her, holding her hand before returning his gaze to you and shaking the glove.

    “I know you both need it… I know you both need it” You glanced at Hyunjin, smiling at him, happy to see Han and Y/N on a truce “Someone who knows what you’re going through…” You sang, noticing how his eyes seemed to harden for a second, fixing on their hands with a glint of something… A little bit off “You might not believe it…” Hyunjin raised his gaze to Y/N, watching her with longing eyes that almost made you gasp “You might not believe it… But you got a lot in common… You really do”

    You stared at him in wonder as he hesitated to take her hand.

    “You both love me and I love both of you…” He chickened out, placing his hand on his lap as he averted his eyes, looking into yours “You both love me and I love both… Of you” You finished, watching as he blushed under your gaze, clearly aware of his slip-up.

    There was no way in hell he didn’t like her…

                                                    ////

    Hyunjin was eavesdropping on their conversation.

    You shook your head in amusement as you got closer to him, studying his antics. You placed your hand on his shoulder, smiling as he yelped, snapping his head at you in a startled motion. He grimaced, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to trick you but ready to try it anyway.

  “I’m waiting for them to finish their talk…” He shrugged as if he didn’t care at all, and you hummed, nodding in acknowledgment.

    “Yeah… And you had to do it here where you could hear everything they’re saying” You pointed out, a knowing smile adorning your features. He sighed, looking at you unimpressed before scowling, mocking the way you talked.

   “Shh! They’re going to hear you” He nagged, hand going to cup your mouth as you laughed at his face “I was curious, okay?” You took his hand away from your mouth, snorting at his uneasiness.

    “Were you also curious to know how it felt to kiss her earlier?” You taunted, knowing far too well that the kiss was fake by now ─ as Y/N explained to you already ─ but enjoying seeing him flustered nevertheless.

   “I didn’t really kiss her… I had my thumb over her mouth…” He muttered, and you grinned at him as you nudged his side.

   “And I’m quite sure that you regret it by now” You mocked, watching as his face set aflame. You couldn’t believe that Hyunjin ─ the greatest fuckboy of all times ─ was blushing right in front of your eyes for the mere mention of a kiss “She totally swept you off of your feet” You mused, getting a scoff from him.

  “Will it make any difference if I tell you that I’m not into her?” He asked warily, and you shook your head “Whatever… Just keep your mouth shut as I did for you to Han” He asked you, glancing at you unsurely.

   “I can’t believe my ship is finally sailing!” You chirped, squeaking as you clasped your hands together.

   “You ship her with literally any male around” He pointed out.

   “That’s not true! I just shipped her with you and Chan!” You defended yourself, pouting. He threw a look, arching his brow in wonder before peeking at Han and Y/N. You followed his gaze, watching as Han positioned your guitar on his lap “How is it going? Did they make up?” You asked mindlessly.

   “They didn’t talk much…” He admitted, tilting his head “We talked for a while before Han decided to talk to her in private… We were wondering about that man who came to talk to you” He explained, “Was he really a producer?” He asked curiously, averting his eyes from them to look at you.

    “Oh! Yeah… Yeah, he was” You beamed at him “I got a record” He gasped, brows shooting up in pure bliss before he hugged you tight, laughing. You chuckled as you returned the hug, satisfied by the outcome of the night. You were hoping for it but you couldn’t be sure that someone would actually want you to record something.

    You were pretty proud of yourself, you wouldn’t going to lie.

   “This is awesome, Paris!” He chirped, holding your shoulders to take a better look at you “You did it!” He beamed “Oh my God… This is incredible!” You snorted, nudging him.

   “Shouldn’t we be silent so they won’t catch on us?” You reminded him, and he shrugged his shoulders, waving his hands dismissively.

   “Who cares?! This night is about you!” He pointed out “You got a record!” He giggled, and you laughed at his reaction. It was kinda cute the way he was beaming at something you conquered “What about your family?! Did you tell your mom?” He asked excitedly.

   “Yes! She’s really proud!” You giggled “We’re going to do something together tomorrow… After she saw Han hugging me… Well, she didn’t want to meddle” You felt your face burning, and this time Hyunjin smiled teasingly.

   “So cute” He cooed, and you pushed him lightly.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t keep teasing –“

  “If you ever find yourself stuck in the middle of the sea…I'll sail the world to find you” Han began to sang, playing the song on the guitar “If you ever find yourself lost in the dark and you can't see… I'll be the light to guide you” You saw him smiling at her, receiving a small smile back “We'll find out what we're made of… When we are called to help our friends in need…” You noticed how he stressed the word friends, trying to reassure her that he was going to get through his feelings somehow.

    You smiled fondly at the scene, watching him strumming the instrument and recalling the way he held you in his arms, squeezing you and engulfing your body in his warmth. He had slammed his body onto yours, twirling both of you once before burying his face in your shoulder, congratulating you over and over again.

  Even if he had come to talk to her, he was also there for you…

  “You can count on me like one, two, three! I'll be there… And I know when I need it, I can count on you like four, three, two! And you'll be there…” He widened his smile, looking directly at her “'Cause that's what friends are supposed to do, oh, yeah…” She giggled as he playfully howled to the next part, laughing.

   “Are you okay with this?” Hyunjin asked you stiffly, making you chuckle.

  “Yeah” You nodded “Why? Are you jealous?” You teased, and he scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “As if” He huffed but you noticed how he had that uneasy expression all over his face “This is so cheesy… I can’t believe she likes serenades and things like this” He grimaced, and you couldn’t help but laugh at him, placing your hand on his shoulder and giving him a reassuring squeeze.

  “You’re being bitter” You chuckled “Stop being creepy and let’s sit somewhere else and let them talk in peace… If you want to impress her like him, try and do a song for her” You rolled your eyes “Don’t pretend to be cool when you were literally blushing when I said you wanted to kiss her” You teased.

    “I’m not being bitter” He whined “If anything, I’m being too hot for this” He joked, and you chortled as both of you made your way to the closest bench.

    “Nice joke” You arched your brow to him, smirking “But if you keep being too hot for this, you may get burned” You warned, and his playful grin dissolved into a frown “She’s a good catch, and if I were you, I’d be more attentive… Maybe you should ask Chan for some advice…” You suggested, and Hyunjin seemed to think about it.

    The setting had been made…

    … Now you would have to convince Chan to play along with it.    

                                                       ////

Tagging List: This time I’m trying a new way to make my tag list. If you guys want to join, you don’t even need to ask/interact [my fellow shy beans], just click in this and DON’T INTERACT WITH THE POST, just “FOLLOW” it [Turn on the notifications for this post]. I’m not sure yet it’ll work but let’s see!

[fallen-stars-au]

Can’t Go Back

((Hey, I’m finally back!! I’m sorry for the wait- life is absolute chaos right now. I’m trying to work on things when I’m able to, though, and here we can finally pick back up from where we left off!! Thank you all so much for your patience. Love, Andi)) 

Steven is finally home, but... well, he shouldn't be for very long.

Right?

He has Diamond duties and is sure to be so behind on paperwork- plus the Diamonds are sure to be furious about what happened.

So he should get on back to Homeworld as quick as he can... right?

(Continue reading on Ao3 or below.) 

Prev | First | Next (TBC) 

           He was floating.

           Or… was he?

           It was hard to tell. He was definitely in the sky—the fresh air arguing with his messy curls in cool gusts of wind. So he had to be floating, surrounded by the violets of sunset that were steadily turning darker as he continued to move through it.

           He went up higher, surprised at the lack of clouds as the space around him turned to pitch black night with just the pinpricks of stars living so very far away to light the area. He was going too high… but it was so peaceful. And it had been so long since he’d been able to float with so little effort.

            A bright movement to his left caught in his peripherals, and he sharply turned to look. Two new, larger dots had appeared from nowhere and seemed to be moving. Shooting stars? Oh, that had to be beautiful from the ground especially. But they seemed a little too close to Earth for comfort. Maybe he should check for any expected showers and any possible dangers of them because these two really were rather close.

            Unless they weren’t actually stars? They did seem to be getting bigger quickly. And instead of all the different colors of fire, they were just pure white.

            He glanced down towards the Earth for a moment… but as he did a full, slow spin, there was no Earth to be seen. There was nothing but stars that suddenly all felt too… flat. Too white. He fumbled to turn himself back around towards the mysterious white dots and just as he got there, his arms were suddenly pinned to his sides and something took an iron grasp on him.

            Blindingly white fingers cuffed their way around his whole body as two deadly talons buried their way into his skin, and in no more seconds, he was ripped into two…

            And then he was falling. Earth came rushing back into view as he dropped like a rock towards it. There was nothing he could do—there was no stopping this—he couldn’t float, he couldn’t fly, no one to come help him—just hard ground racing towards him.

            He couldn’t even brace for impact because there was no bracing for this—

             Steven shot upright, panting hard as he lit up his lofted bedroom with vibrant pink. After a moment of flailing around somewhat in panic, it pretty quickly set in that his house completely silent and empty with only the waves crashing on the shore outside to keep him company.

            He was fine. He was safe. It was just another nightmare. Just another bad dream—he dealt with those all night, every night by now. What was one more?

            But after a few slow moments, reality started to settle in a tad more. He was… he was home. He was actually home. He wasn’t— He wasn’t on Homeworld. He wasn’t in the tower anymore.

            It took a few minutes for that fact to process and for Steven to comb through his recent memories to figure out how that had happened. After being trapped in there alone for however long he had been—he remembered the count was somewhere over two weeks—not very much had even registered in his mind anymore.

            He’d been in the tower… and then suddenly there was light. And then he was being moved—being carried. He had some vague memories of being taken care of by Lapis and Peridot and Pearl, but mostly he could just remember his dreams from however long he’d been sleeping for. None of which had been particularly good, but he’d decidedly had worse as well.

            After a few slow minutes, Steven pushed off his blanket and slowly hauled himself up out of his bed—heading straight over towards his dresser. However he’d gotten out of the tower, he knew it hadn’t been the full time the Diamonds had intended to keep him in there for. So while there was no way in the universe he was willingly going back into that tower to please them, there was surely some damage control that needed to be done.

            The glow of his skin faded out as he searched his drawer—settling on one of the easy, plain white shirts he’d begun wearing a couple years prior (it was a lot easier to replace them when he accidentally ripped through them- an occurrence which was thankfully much less often now as he’d learned to suppress the swelling issues) and a pair of jeans. His usual attire, but it was comfortable and easy. He grabbed a pair of socks as his eyes adjusted to just the moonlight streaming through his windows and headed for the stairs.

            As Steven made it down the first two steps, he froze at a familiar sound he hadn’t heard in a very long time.

            The house lit up a light blue for a moment as Pearl emerged from the Temple. Pearl-Pearl. Not the rejuvenated, overly-annoying version of Pearl he’d grown used to and tired of—even if she’d been poofed, she would never wear the outfit she had on now. She noticed him quickly, and Steven was stunned still again as she spoke up.

            “Steven! I’m so glad you’re finally awake—we’ve been so worried. Lapis and Peridot went over to Greg’s to check on Garnet and Amethyst. I’ll have to call and let them know you’re up.” Steven couldn’t help as tears of… relief? Joy? Probably some combination of the two? that started to well in the corners of his eyes. Pearl was back.

            A long moment of silence stretched as he processed the information, but he couldn’t help notice as Pearl’s expression changed from relief to confusion and slight concern.

            “Steven… Where are you going? We picked up some of your favorites to eat when we brought you home, and the shops are all closed this late.”

            That sobered Steven up. Was he still overjoyed to see and hear Pearl talk and look like herself? Of course. But… well… that meant she wouldn’t be happy with his answer either.

            “I was just… going to figure out how mad they are.” As the confusion visibly turned to disapproval, Steven was quick to try and explain. “You know how they get when they’re mad—especially White, and she’s the one who made me go there and I don’t want…” The tears were coming back again quickly as his voice faltered. All the horrific possibilities of what White could do if she tried. All the things she had done in anger already… He couldn’t risk it.

            Pearl’s approach was steady, but her expression was stern. Her own worries crept into her voice as she stopped at the bottom of the stairs, but her tone was still firm. “Steven, you need to rest. You were locked in there for far too long without sunlight and without actual Earth food.” She was growing angrier now, but Steven knew it wasn’t at him. “Forget what they want. If they insist on treating you like this then they frankly don’t deserve to spend any time with you at all. And if they want to start the war again over what we did, I’ll have more than a piece of my mind to give them.”

            It was too much. The relief and the joy of the version of Pearl he knew best and the only one he considered his family finally coming back, the swell of love he felt from just how much she genuinely cared about him (over the stupid worshipping he’d suffered through over the past year), the guttural fear and anxiety of the Diamonds and their reactions, the stress of not knowing how much work had surely piled up for him or what had gone wrong in his absence, and the deep resentment towards… well, towards all of Homeworld…

            The tears finally spilled over, and he practically jumped over the remaining few stairs. It took Pearl a stunned moment before she wrapped her arms back around Steven in return, but once they were there, she didn’t let go of him for hours as he cried—finally letting out so much he’d been piling up on himself without the gems, without his family, there to support him.

            He’d have to return to Homeworld at some point. Likely rather soon as well—if he didn’t go to them, they’d send someone for him eventually.

            But for now… Pearl was right. And he’d admit as much to her a thousand times and bear all the gloating such an admission brought as long as it meant she was back to her overbearing, fearless, rebellious, strict, motherly self.

[forlornmelody]

Sins of the Father

Rating: T (just a lot of angst, really.)

Fandom(s): Mass Effect

Ship: Femshep/Joker

Linkage: Ao3

Summary:  Cass Shepard isn't sure what hurts worse--knowing she's now a war criminal, or the man who made her the scapegoat.

Note:  This is the same Shepard who appears in Movie Night, and is mentioned in Masha, though you don't need to read those fics to understand what's happening in this one. You should DEFINITELY play the Arrival DLC though, cause major spoilers.

~*~*~*

Dr. Chawkwas has long gone to sleep when Cassandra Shepard collapses in her chair. She presses her forehead against the cold steel of her desk, waiting. Waiting to feel something, anything about what she has done. Maybe Cerberus made a mistake bringing her back. Or maybe Cerberus didn’t bring Cass Shepard back from the dead. Maybe they brought back a monster. 

Three Hundred Thousand. Gone. Cass remembers her first kill. A Batarian, then too. She doesn't know much about alien physiology, but there was something about the way that soldier looked at her, wide-eyed and shaken, told her that he was younger than her, still a kid, at least emotionally. And she shot him between all four eyes. 

The door whisks open, but Cass doesn't move. “Sorry, Doctor. I’ll just be a min--”

“Commander.” That voice jerks her awake. Hackett’s sudden arrival almost jerks her out of her chair and into attention. But then Cassandra Maria Shepard remembers what she found in the Shadow Broker’s files. 

“Admiral,” she drawls. “Or should I say, Dad?”

Whatever Hackett had planned to say died right there on his lips. “Excuse me?”

“When exactly were you planning on telling me?” Cass really should lower her voice, salute--something, but she figures in light of her recent sins, insubordination will be low on the list. “Before or after they line me up for the firing squad?”

Steven Hackett does something Cass long judged physically impossible--he removes his hat. His officer persona--his poker face comes off with it. For once, her father looks tired, exhausted even. “They’re not going to execute you, Cassandra.”

“Then why the fuck are you here? This is a shitty time for a family reunion.”

Hackett grimaces, and he flops into Dr. Chawkwa’s chair like it’s a recliner. It’s then Cass realizes she’s never seen him sitting down. “Hannah and I agreed it was best not to tell you.”

“Best for who?” The crew out in the mess turn their heads. Cass has never really bothered to check how soundproof the SR2 is. Right now, she doesn’t care who hears. “Cause it fucking sucked growing up without a dad.” Cass paces like a wild animal caught in a cage. “Fuck, I hardly had a mom either. Raised by my tías planetside whenever she was deployed.”

Exhausted as he is, there’s still a bit of the admiral in his steel eyes. “The Alliance needed us. A scandal only would have--”

Cass snorts. “Of course. Sacrifice my childhood, who cares? The motherfucking Milky Way is at stake. Gotta raise me for my life as a sacrificial lamb, right, Dad?”

Hackett rubs his face, sighing. “Cassandra. I’m doing what I can for you. Please just cooperate with the authorities and we’ll sort this out.”

“Did you know about the relay?”

“Goodbye, Cassandra.” Hackett pauses by the door, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. One foot points at her and the other towards the exit. Almost as if he’s considering offering a hug. 

Cassandra doesn’t even turn to look--just watching him through her peripheral. The door hisses shut behind him. It’s only when the tears drop on her hands that Cass realizes she’s crying. 

----

“Commander?” Joker’s voice sounds like it’s coming through water. “Shepard?” Cass looks at the display case without seeing it. Without seeing anything, really. “Cass? Shit. I’m coming up. EDI, take the helm.” 

The com screeches off and Cass jumps a little in her seat. How long had she been sitting there? How did she even get up here? Last thing she remembers, Cass was sitting in the med bay. She checks the time on her omni-tool. Hackett’s visit was two hours ago. How did she lose so much time?

“Cass?” Joker leans against the foyer wall between the elevator and the cabin proper.

She stands and feels pins and needles in her feet. Joker guides her to the bed and holds her like she’s the fragile one. Wrapping her arms around him, Cass feels like she’s dreaming. Like none of this is really happening. Her lips form words but nothing comes out. Maybe she is dreaming. Maybe this is all one long nightmare. 

“Talk to me, Cass. Please.”

Cass would give anything to feel, to be present in this moment. She squeezes Joker as tight as she dares. Anything to ground herself, to be herself. To be there for the man she...oh god. “Stay?” she manages, quietly. 

“Sure.” Joker pulls back eyeing her with his eyebrows scrunched. He’s been through so much lately. Because of her. He watched her get spaced. Watched the crew get abducted by the Collectors. Watched her toss a colossal asteroid at a mass relay and-- Setting his hat on the table, Joker runs his fingertips back against his buzz cut. He helps her get her boots off, and then lies with her across the sheets. “You still with me, Cass?” 

“Dunno.” Is she crying again? Cass doesn't need to look up at the skylight to know the Normandy’s still flying. The universe is still moving and she’s frozen in time. 

“So, uh. This is probably the worst timing, but your mom called.”

“Nng.” Cass burrows her head in the crook between Joker’s neck and shoulder.”

“You...wanna talk about it?”

“Nng.”

“I’m not going to make you do anything, Cass. But it wouldn’t hurt, right?”

Cass mumbles into his shirt. 

“What?”

“Hackett’s my dad.”

Joker’s arms flop off of her like she’s made of melted butter. “What?”

“Liara told me.” She sniffles, wiping her runny nose with the back of her hand. Joker belatedly hands her a tissue from the nightstand. “Shadowbroker stuff, y’know?”

Joker’s brows scrunch just a little bit tighter. “Cass?” he says slowly, “what happened on Aratoht?”

Cass flops against the mattress, watching the stars above, waiting for the panic attack that doesn’t come. Maybe she’s too exhausted to panic? “You saw the meteor hit the relay.”

“Well, yeah. Kinda hard to miss. But why the hell were you there?”

Her limbs shake with her rage. “Daddy sent me. After his ‘old friend.’ I have no fucking clue if she actually was his friend, or just some rogue agent, or if she was his fucking mistress for all I know.”

“Damn. What happened to her?” Joker lies on his side, carefully, as always, and combs the damp hair from her eyes with his fingers. 

“She’s--was indoctrinated. They all were.”

“Fuck.”

Cass swallows hard. “Yeah. Maybe if they weren’t…. maybe I would’ve warned the Batarians in time--”

“Cass.” Joker cups her face. “Look at me.” She does so, reluctantly. “There were 300,000 of them, give or take. How the hell were they gonna evacuate?”

“At least I would have tried!!”

“Cass…”

And then her com rings. Cass growns and stuffs her face into her pillow. 

“Shepard.” EDI says neutrally. “Captain Hannah Shepard is insistent that you answer her call. Her words are “I will dry dock this ship if you don’t answer in 30 seconds.”

Cass drags herself out of bed and over to her desk chair. “Mom,” she snaps when she answers the call.

“Cassandra--”

“You should’ve fucking told me.” Cass hangs up before her mother can answer. 

[idontknowijuststartedsomething]

Gravity, Ghosts, and Gems

Part 3/???

The New Kids

Part 3

Steven could see his answer did little to reassure or calm his trembling roommate. “Hey, I’m still me. A-And I’m not going to hurt you! I just..... Let’s just talk.”

“So, how did you get white hair and a cool jumpsuit?” Steven tried to talk to Danny more casually, as he could see his panic from their shared dream had not gone away.

“Well, to understand you would first have to know my parents are ghost hunters. Or ghost scientists they never really make it clear.”

“Wait, like spooky horror movie dead people ghosts?”

“Yeah.”

“Wait ghosts are real?!”

“Yes” Danny’s voice was growing more annoyed.

“I’ve gotta tell Sadie” Steven whispered to himself, stars in his eyes.

“What?”

“Uhhhh nothing. Continue.”

“So yeah my parents study ghosts. And for years they’d been working on a portal to the ghost world. They wanted to prove to everyone that they weren’t crazy, and they also just wanted to learn everything about ghosts.” Danny became less tense as he told his story. He’s had to keep it a secret for so long that now telling anyone felt like a major relief. “So after like years they finally got it into working order. Except it didn’t turn on. No matter what they tried it just wouldn’t go. They were really bummed and got discouraged for a while, but me and my friends still wanted to check it out.”

Steven listened intently as Danny told him about the accident. Sam, Tucker, the jumpsuit, the flash. Everything just sounded so painful. Part of Steven just wanted to reach out and hug Danny, but Steven restrained himself because he knew they weren’t there yet. After all Danny probably still though Steven was a big scary pink lady. So Steven just kept listening as Danny told him everything. About Vlad. About his parents hunting him. About Danielle. About his older self. By the time Danny had gotten to him revealing himself to his folks, Steven was ready to cry. Steven could never imagine how much pain Danny had gone through. And yet he could see it vividly. He could see it in his own life story, stretched out over years and galaxies, and only now being properly dealt with between him and his therapist.

“So yeah, I’m half ghost and I protect the world. Well mostly my town but you get the point. And nobody knows but my family and friends. And I guess you, now. So what’s your story. Did your parents make a portal that fused you with some pink lady?” Danny had said that jokingly, but Steven’s emotions were still weird, both from hearing Danny’s story and now having to tell his own.

“Well, I’m half gem, so I’m kinda like you, but my gem powers didn’t come from an accident. You see, my mom was a gem who...”

“Wait, wait, wait. What are gems? I know you have that thing on your stomach but like, what does it do?”

“Ok so now I have to go way back. Gems are an alien species whose physical forms are just projections from their gemstone. All gems have one, and they can all do different things. Some gems also come together to make...”

“Wait back up. You’re saying you’re..... an alien?”

“Well technically half alien on my mom’s side. But I’ve spent my whole life here on earth.”

“So aliens actually exist?” Danny could barley process what he was hearing. Every NASA scientist he had looked up to was wrong. All of their data and calculations were disproven by the mere existence of this kid standing infront of him. Could he be the first junior astronaut to make contact with alien life?

Danny could tell that Steven was waiting for him to stop being confused. His look said it all. So Danny put back on the chill persona he had had before and let Steven continue. He was gripped by the rich tapestry Steven had woven with his words. A rebellious princess(that’s who the big pink lady was), a secret taken to the grave, a war for the fate of the planet, a tale of love found and love lost. All to produce the spunky little kid who was Steven Universe. He told Danny about his similar face offs with villians of his own kind. About the new family he found along the way and how he saved two planets with love. Steven told Danny a bit about his breakdown following Homeworld’s reconstruction, but left it very vague. He mentioned that he hurt Jasper and that he reached his breaking point and blew up in front of his family. But he just left it at that. At least for now, Danny didn’t need to know about the monster that terrorized Beach City. At least for now, Danny could see him as kind of normal.

“So that’s basically it. And then I wanted to experience life outside of gem stuff. So I got in my car and started exploring and being more human. And then I found this job offer online and though it would be a good experience for me, and so here we are.”

“That’s wild.” Danny said, reacting to Steven’s life story. “And that’s kinda what happened to me to. I wanted to get away from ghosts and stuff for a bit. I found this job offer and my parents assured me that they could take care of any ghost business in town, so I packed some stuff and flew here last night.”

“That explains why you were so tired today!”

“Yeah. Even at 112 mph, Illinois to Oregon is a long trip. And I was carrying a bunch of my stuff and had to avoid any major city areas.”

They both laughed, their defenses completely down, as they recognized a trust between them that hadn’t been there before. Neither of them had got entirely comfortable when Steven remembered another thing he had noticed earlier.

“Did you see the room of that Dipper kid who lives here? His walls were covered with conspiracy and supernatural related stuff.”

“Yeah. I was able to recognize part of my parents in that kid.” At that thought Danny came to a realization. “Which means we probably shouldn’t tell him about any of this.”

“Yeah.” Steven agreed. “He’s either gonna want to ask us a million questions...”

“Or strap us down to a table and rip us apart molecule by molecule.” The tone of the room got considerably darker, as Danny realized what ‘being like his parents’ actually meant. They both sat silently for a few moments, neither knowing how to respond. Finally, Steven spoke.

“So no one finds about about us? At least until we know we can trust them. Like be 100% certain that they’re gonna be cool with us” Steven was trying to stear the conversation into a more hopeful direction, and it kinda worked.

“Yeah” Danny answered, lifting is head, a slightl smile now returning to his face. “Besides, is not like there’s evil ghost or aliens running around here. In Gravity Falls. So we should have no problem keeping our powers on the down low.”

“Yeah” Steven laughed. “Everything seems normal here. What do we have to worry about?” With that, both decided to finally go to sleep, secure in the knowledge that nothing weird happens in Gravity Falls.

Right?

[captainillogical]

Distant Lands Ch.17

Stranded on a planet with toxic conditions and nothing but the clothes on your back, your only means of survival lies within the gem that got you here in the first place.

Spinel/Reader

collab with my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants​

You're frozen. It's as if all your muscles and your brain decided to stop functioning altogether. You had so, so much to say to her, and yet you can't seem to form any words.

Her face hasn't changed - it's only been hours since you've seen her, but she's already been through several weeks without you. Without anyone. Her eyes study your face, roaming over your features and hair as if she’s looking at a ghost.

“Yeah,” Is all you can manage to say, still out of breath as you try to think of anything, anything to say to her. “I-”

"You’ve been alive?” She asks - cutting you off, voice full of disbelief, and the tired relief that you had seen in her eyes suddenly changes to something else.

“Spinel, I-”

“You’ve been alive this entire time?” She asks again, voice cracking. She blinks, and you see small tears forming in her eyes. Your stomach drops. Oh god, she can't be thinking..

"Yes, and no. Let me explain," You try, calmy, as panic starts to flood your brain.

"You.." She trails off, and you watch her face as she goes through several series of emotions - coming to some kind of conclusion in her mind. She blinks again, leaving her eyes closed for a second to steady herself, and when she opens her eyes again to look at you, her expression changes to one you haven’t seen on her in what feels like a very long time. "You left me here."

"Not intentionally!" You reply, horrified at her words. "Believe me, they took-"

"So you knew?" Her voice wavers, underlying anger in her tone. 

"You're not letting me explain myself!" You feel like you're about to throw up, this isn't how you wanted anything to go.

"What's there to EXPLAIN when all the facts are here, huh, Y/N?" She's shaking a little, and you can see the pent up frustration in her form. "You disappeared on me, letting me think you were dead FOR WEEKS, I-" She chokes on her words, balling her fist. 

"Spinel, I didn't DISAPPEAR," You say, taking a couple steps towards her, and reach towards her shaking fist to grasp it. "I'm trying to tell you that-" She suddenly grabs your wrist to stop you from touching her, and you feel your eyes widen in shock.

"I CAME SO CLOSE TO-" The sound of rapid footsteps interrupts her, and she whips her head over to the staircase.

"DON'T YOU TOUCH HER." You hear Steven angrily shout from behind you, and you freeze in place. This cannot be happening.

"Steven, wait-" 

"Y/N get away from her, now." You hear him materializing his shield in his hands.

"Universe." Spinel spits out with distaste, and drops your wrist like dead weight. "Of course you'd show up."

"Couldn't kill her the first time, so you're trying to finish her off now!?" He exclaims, rushing up to your side with his shield up. You're so mortified that you're speechless.

Spinel lowers her eyes to the teen, facial expression bordering on dangerous as she lifts her shaking fist. "Ya' wanna say that aga-"

"STOP!!!" You scream, because this is about to go very wrong, very quickly if you don't put a stop to it. "BOTH OF YOU."

"Y/N-"

"Steven, I need you to leave." You say bluntly, nerves blurring the edges of your vision. Steven angrily whips his face to yours.

"No, I don't trust her to-"

"To what, exactly, Universe? What do ya’ think I’m gonna do?” She interrupts him, face absolutely twisted with quiet anger.

"You said you trusted me. You're only making this worse." You look at him, as he's eye level with you. You're trying to be calm. "I'll meet you at the ship in a couple minutes."

"Yeah, I trust YOU. NOT HER." He says, pointing to Spinel aggravatedly. "And I'm not leaving until we're all leaving."

You want to scream. You literally have like, no choice in this. 

"I'm not going anywhere." Spinel says, and you turn to look at her. She's got her face angrily fixed on Steven's. 

"Fine with me." Steven retorts. You give him a particular look before turning back to Spinel.

"Spinel.." It comes out of you half-broken - this isn't what you wanted to happen at all. She looks over to you as she hears your voice. 

"I wanted you to come home with me." And maybe when you say it, it comes out small, and sort of pathetic sounding. Her tense shoulders visibly deflate a little at that, and her eyes look at you vulnerably - she looks like she wants to say so much, but won't because of the other presence standing in the room.

"I.." She looks back over to Steven, and lets out a small sigh. 

"I wasn't going to take no for an answer." You say, and when her eyes meet yours again, the emotion you feel behind her gaze makes you want to hug her desperately. 

But you have a feeling that it would be best saved for a time where Steven wasn't also present. You also need to talk to him alone, but.. god. This is all too much for you, honestly. You know you’re barely hanging on by a thread here, but you’re trying your hardest to save your meltdown for when you’re alone. You haven’t had a chance to er.. really think about everything that’s happened to you in the last two to three days.

Steven clears his throat. “Can we go?”

“Let me explain everything on the way back home?” You say, still looking at Spinel and not even regarding Steven. “It’s a.. lot.”

She looks at you hesitantly, body language stiff as all hell with a scowl on her lips.

“Fine.” She says curtly, with a shrug. 

Steven de-materializes his shield in hand, and turns around to head back down the staircase behind him. You move to follow him - but not before looking back at Spinel, who’s standing there awkwardly.

She opens her mouth to say something, but upon seeing Steven stop on the staircase to glance back at you two she closes it abruptly - brushing past you instead. You wish so badly to be able to stop time to talk to her right now, just the two of you. But you know that you’ll have time - all the time you need after this, and you’ll be safe and at home. You just hope she doesn’t hate you.

-

She mainly sticks pretty close to you as the three of you walk back in near silence. In any other circumstance you’d joke with her that she’s becoming clingy, but her body language is unlike how you’ve ever really seen her. She’s uncomfortable and angry, that much you can tell just by knowing her. There's also nervousness as well. She’s not keen on walking anywhere near Steven, understandably.. You don’t know how you’re going to get past this second impression they now have of each other, but you should probably sort that before he tries telling the others some kind of.. misunderstanding. This doesn’t need to be even more complicated.

“Before we get to the others, Steven..” You say, glancing at him while walking briskly. You will not miss the jungle here, or any of this planet. He turns his face towards you.

“Yeah?” He answers. You feel Spinel’s arm brush against yours.

“What you saw back there wasn’t an altercation. You just walked up at like, the worst possible moment. Spinel wouldn’t lay a hand on me, I want to make this clear.” You see her take a small glance at you -  she seems to be almost surprised at your words.

“Yeah, I came to that conclusion about five minutes ago.” He says, glancing at you. “If she really wanted to she would’ve tried attacking us by now - before we got back to the gems, you know, because tactically she’d have the advantage.”

“I would’ve done it up on the Spire, actually.” She speaks up from beside you. 

"Hey, what. Don't say that." You retort. "I'm trying to defend you, here."

She gives you a noncommittal shrug. “It’s not like I was gonna hurt anyone.”

"I know that, Spinel. It's just, none of them do." 

"Well, we're pretty close to the ship now." Steven interjects, and you can see the pink of the ship through the trees. Finally. "Anything left here that you need to grab before we go?"

"I grabbed the only thing that mattered, I'm good. Let's just get outta here." You say, and you can see Spinel sparing a glance at your face.

"This planet doesn't seem that bad, honestly." Steven says casually, looking up at the night sky. You can see the others waiting outside the ship now, and they're all looking in your direction.

"You weren't stuck here for a month." You retort. 

"Fair point." He says, and by the time you get over to the others you're already calming down your nerves about the other gems and Spinel. You hope no more misunderstandings happen. It's weird, how all this has gone down. You were honestly hoping that you'd get a better chance at an introduction, but this is kind of on par for your life at this point.

"Y'all ready?" Amethyst half yells out, hand on her hip in a relaxed pose. "Pearl's got the ship on standby."

"Please." You say tiredly. Garnet nods at you, turning around and stepping inside the ship. The rest of them walk in, and you turn to see Spinel standing there hesitantly, looking at the entrance. 

"You're coming, right?" You ask her.

"Yeah.. it's just been a while, seeing this thing up close." She says, looking up at the entirety of the height of the ship.

"It's just this once, if it makes you feel any better." You take a long last look at the planet around you, and flip the sky off. It makes you feel a weird sense of accomplishment. Fuck these moons, fuck this sun, fuck this whole place. "Better than being stuck here."

"You're right on that." She says, brushing past you and entering the ship, you trailing right behind her. 

You hear the doors hiss shut behind you.

-

"So." Garnet says, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at you. Pearl's typing something on the console in front of her.

"Uh, yeah.." You glance over to Spinel, who looks completely out of place beside you. "Let's start over. This is Spinel."

"We know that, dingus." Amethyst chuckles.

"Yeah, well, there's no more murder plot, so let's clear that off the table." You reply, feeling a lot of relief drain from your body as you see you've left Golgotha's atmosphere entirely.

"For her, maybe." Pearl pipes in, not even turning around. "There's still always gonna be others out there that want to kill Steven."

"She doesn't seem like she's consumed by anger anymore, regardless." Garnet says calmly, leaning on the wall behind her casually.

"I'm right here." She looks over to them irritably.

"Well, you already know who I am." Steven looks over to her, eyes trailing to the gem on her chest. "For the record, I'm really, really sorry about what my mom did to you. Y/N told us all about it."

"It's.. fine." She says with a shrug, face thoughtful as she regards him. She still seems a little off to you, but it's not like you can just pull her aside and talk with her. "I've had some time to think it over, and while I maybe would've done things a bit differently, that's in the past now."

"Wow, if only Pearl could've got over her that quickly." 

"Amethyst!" Pearl squawks from the computer, face whipping around - expression wholly offended.

"...and I'm Garnet." Garnet says with a little smile, and you feel like smacking your face against the side of the ship to escape this. 

There's utter silence for a beat or two, and you can see Steven's face trying to not laugh at that as he pulls a hand up to rub at his forehead. You hear a small snort off to your side, and you whip your head over to Spinel, who's shaking a little trying to keep in laughter. You feel something like relief blossom inside you.

"You guys are ridiculous. Of course she'd keep you as friends." She says, and strangely enough, there's no bitterness in her tone like you'd expect. 

"Normally I'd be insulted by that, but I'll take it as a compliment." Amethyst grins at Spinel. "But enough about us. I wanna hear about what you guys did on this planet for that long without killing each other."

"We were mainly concerned with trying to find a way off, actually. That, and exploring the mystery of the disappearance of those previous gems." Spinel replies.

"We wouldn't have had to find a way off if you hadn't destroyed the warp pad in the first place, but, I digress." You hear your voice ring out throughout this ship’s main control room.

"I wouldn't have had to destroy the warp pad if I wasn't watching my live bait try to escape me." She whips her face to you, narrowing her eyes a little.

"Don't call me live bait, you ass! And if you were a smarter gem, you would've realized that humans can't even use the warp pad by themselves." You retort. "You played yourself."

"How was I supposed to know that?" She scoffs. "Tech goes through many changes after a few thousand years!"

"Wow, you guys really get along." Amethyst chuckles, watching the both of you in amusement. 

"I would like to hear more about what you guys found on the surface, actually." Pearl brings a finger to her lip in question. "You mentioned the existence of the gem eater earlier, but how did you two not realise it was there sooner? Did it not make any noise? Considering the condition you were in when we picked you up, I’d figure it would’ve made itself obvious.."

"It was pretty quiet, actually.. aside from those quakes.." You trail off, realizing something. "Spinel, remember that night on the hill?"

She looks at you for a second, as if she doesn't understand what you're saying, and then you see her eyes light up when she understands what exactly you're implying.

"Oh god, and that day in the kindergarten." She replies, putting a hand to her mouth in slight shock. 

"And you wanted to go in! Remember!?" Jesus christ, you're never going to doubt your gut instinct ever again. You both could've died then.

"Well, I'm glad your stubbornness really paid off there." She crosses her arms, sighing. "Otherwise, well.. you know. Anyway, before anything else, you said you'd explain what happened before.. and I haven't even gotten an explanation as to why you're pink."

You feel yourself choke for a second, almost forgetting what you look like now. "Right. I've been trying to get there. It's a lot to take in. What did you last remember?"

"Before that thing went flying off the cliff? Only that you had said the air was affecting me."

"Yeah, you have no idea. Made you completely useless, Spinel. I'm pretty sure it was some kinda pheromone to lure gems in."

"Huh, it did smell kinda weird.." She furrows her eyebrows, clearly thinking. "I hate that I was sort of right about it being a monster."

"You guys had no other clues?" Steven asks.

"No, as I said, the data logs were pretty corrupted."

"Yeah we were basically sitting blind, there." Spinel confirms, looking around at everyone. "I tried to restore it, but wasn't very lucky."

"Anyway, we walked into its nest, Spinel. You almost got me killed several times in there. That thing was blind and stupid like a bull, probably from sitting down there for thousands of years.."

"..and we brought dinner right to it." She stares at you, blinking.

"Yup." You say.

"We're so stupid." She shakes her head in disbelief.

"You’re telling me. How do you think I felt when I realized where we were standing?” You sigh. “All the injectors were piled in there as well. The thing probably drank from them like some kinda fucked up juice box, ugh, it was awful. And the worst part was, I had to realize by myself that it ate all those missing gems, and that’s why the cave walls were so sparkly. Grinded gems into wall paste, how fucked up is that?”

Spinel looks at you, brows drawn forward in horror as everything you just said sets in.

“It grinded them into dust?” Amethyst chimes in, voice full of disgust.

“That’s pretty terrible.” Garnet shakes her head slowly. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that alone.”

“You saved my life.” Spinel stares at you, expression almost strange.

“Twice.” You reply. “I’m going to have nightmares for that.”

"So when I came to, that's when you, er-" She stumbles on her words, getting this weird look in her eyes as she rips her gaze from yours. "-pushed me, and it slid off the cliff."

"It fell to its death?” Pearl looks at you, perplexed. “With a wound that size, I was expecting you to tell us something a little more.. dramatic than that.”

“Look, it was coming very fast, and I had to think quickly. I just wasn’t expecting the tail end of it to whip around and pierce me like a kabob, you know?” You say, and Steven gives you a funny look.

“Y/N, don’t ever say it like that again, it’s too soon.” He shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Today has really been taking its toll on me.”

“You’re telling me.” You return the look Steven gives you, a bit more flatly. “Regardless, after that Spinel tried taking me back to the Spire, but I was bleeding so much that I made her stop to set me down before I bled out.”

“And that’s where we found you, dying.” He sighs, and you can see how tired he is. “I’m still kind of shaken up about it.”

“Ehh, buddy, she’s fine.” Amethyst says casually, putting her hands on her hips in a resting position. Steven gives her a pained face.

“She died. I thought she wasn’t going to wake up, it’s not li-”

“Wait.” Spinel interjects, her face looking distraught. “What do you mean she died, she-” She abruptly stops herself, silence ringing out around the room as she moves into your personal space - grabbing your shirt to lift up and look at the scar on your stomach.

“-SPINEL!” You hiss out, slapping her hands down and pulling your shirt back. She isn’t phased though, and her face is utterly confused.

“Why does..”

“I have healing powers.” Steven says bluntly. Spinel’s eyes trail back up to yours, and she’s got this look in her eye you can’t quite place.

“You would’ve died.” She says it almost quietly, like she’s trying to wrap her head around it.

“I did die, Spinel.” You watch her eyes as they waver between yours, and you can see one of her hands trembling.

“But you still sent me to get those supplies.. was.. was I gonna come back to your b-”

“Let’s not dwell on all the ‘what if’s’ today.” You say, stopping her from going down that particular thought path, unable to honestly even think about that. You’d rather not spontaneously burst into tears right here, right now, in front of everyone. “Hm.. I haven’t actually told any of you this, but..”

Steven looks at you - like he’s worried you’re going to die right now on the spot you’re standing in.

“Before I woke up, earlier.. I had this really, really fucking weird dream. Steven, I think I saw your mom? Her voice sounded a bit like the one from your tape - you know the one. And I was in this endless pink field? It was fucking weird.”

Steven stares at you.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You ask him, feeling a little odd.

“Was there a tree on a hill?” He asks you back, face unchanging.

“Uh.” You say. “Yeah?”

“Huh.” He makes a face, perturbed. “Maybe I should ask Lars about that when we get back.”

“Why?” You blink at him.

“Because that wasn’t a dream, and I think you spoke to my mom. Which is weird.” 

“Okay, I’m not even gonna ask what that’s all about, because I wanna know why you guys keep actin’ like all this just happened in the last day.” Spinel spits out in frustration, looking like she’s about to start pacing.

“It did.” Pearl speaks up from over by the console, turning her face to look at Spinel. “We didn’t realize it at the time when we came to pick up Y/N, but that planet you decided to warp to, Golgotha? It runs at a much faster time on the surface.”

“What.” Spinel asks, more confused now than ever. “What does that mean?” 

“For the rest of us, you only came to attack Steven and kidnap Y/N just this morning.” Pearl says, brows drawn curiously. “You poofed Amethyst, and she took her sweet time coming back earlier.”

“Hey!” Amethyst throws a glare at Pearl several feet away.

Spinel looks off to the side, suddenly quiet and unmoving.

“I last saw you just a few hours ago, so everything is still fresh in my mind..” You trail off, watching her. You think she’s having a difficult time processing this.

“Y/N went a little crazy there when she found out about it actually, and demanded that we come get you immediately. I haven’t seen her like that in a loooong time, haha.” Steven says with a half-hearted laugh, trying to lighten the mood.

“She even threatened to steal a ship to come get you if we didn't.” You feel a little like Garnet is implying something with the way she says that, but you ignore it. Or maybe it’s because you can tell when she’s trying to hide a smile.

Spinel lifts her face slightly - eyes trailing over to yours, settling there. The room isn’t cold, far from it actually -  you’re pretty warm, and yet you feel goosebumps on your arms. Her gaze lingers there, giving you a long hard look. You know her enough by now to be able to tell that she’s hiding a lot of emotion for some reason, but you can see it in the way she looks at you softly. Your heart hurts. You want to hug her.

“So you.. didn’t just forget about me there.” She says, and it comes out hesitant and quiet. Her eyes are still locked with yours.

“No. I would never.” You hear yourself say with a shake of your head, and you mean it. She looks like she’s about to say something but stops herself - taking in a breath instead, and tearing her eyes away from yours as you see a swell of emotion in her gaze.

“Soooooo. Not to ruin a moment, but like, but where is Spinel going to stay? I really can’t wait to go home and pass out and stuff, today has kinda blown, not gonna lie.” Amethyst says casually, blowing a piece of her hair out of her face.

“Oh, you’re right.” Steven crosses his arms, chewing his lip in thought. “I hadn’t thought of that. She can stay on the couch tonight, and I’ll go talk to Bismuth and the others about getting her a place to live in. That is, if she wants to be on Earth.”

Spinel looks over to Steven, slightly confused. “What’s my other option?”

“You could go back to Homeworld.” He offers.

“I think I’ll stay on Earth for a while. I’ve got a couple things I’d like to do.” She replies with minimal thought to it, looking right at you. You feel a little like the others seem to notice this, and you feel a bit self conscious about it. 

“A lot of gems came over to Earth once they got the freedom to. I think you’ll like it.” Steven says, a small smile forming on his lips.

“Yeah Earth’s alright.” Amethyst shrugs.

“Y/N told me a bit about Little Homeworld, back on Golgotha.” Spinel says. “Said you had quite a few classes.”

“Did she now?” Steven eyes you with a slight grin, making you nervous. “I knew she was proud of it, even if she acted like helping me plan some of the classes was a chore.”

“I sooo did not.” You reply to him, offended.

“We’ll be back on Earth in five minutes, by the way.” Pearl taps on the console in front of her.

“You totally did! Anyway, Spinel, there’s a few I have in mind that you might find yourself benefitting from, if you want any suggestions.” You feel like Steven’s about to pull out one of the pamphlets, so you put a hand up to stop him.

“We can sort out the fine details later, I’m too tired to think about all of this right now,” You say with a sigh, utterly exhausted. You think you deserve some sleep after all of this.

“She’s right, we have time.” Steven stretches his arms over his head and yawns loudly. “And I’m utterly beat from today. If this could not happen again for a while, that’d be great.” Spinel gives him a small guilty face at that.

“Yeah, you know anyone else that Pink pissed off?” Amethyst says bluntly.

“Amethyst.” You nearly spit out. “You can’t just ask that.”

“What, it’s a valid question.” She shrugs, rolling her eyes. 

You hear Spinel stifle a snort, and when Steven starts to chuckle the rest of them start to laugh, giggles filling the ship’s main deck. 

You sigh, unable to stop the small smile that’s starting to spread across your face. 

Maybe things will be okay.

-

By the time you get off the ship and the rest of them have dispersed into their rooms to rest, it leaves just you, Spinel and Steven in the living room together. 

“The bathroom’s right there if you need it for some reason, just let me go grab my spare blankets for you realll quick.” Steven points to the bathroom door as he walks over to the utility closet, pulling out his favorite spares. “I don’t know if you sleep, a lot of gems don’t. Pearl doesn’t, and Garnet’s more of a.. meditator. But the couch is comfy enough until we can get you your own place tomorrow.”

“You guys are doing too much for me, and it’s honestly more than I deserve.” Spinel says, watching him as he walks back over, setting the blankets down on the nearest couch cushion.

“Hey, don’t say that. If I had that attitude for all other gems that tried to kill me, I wouldn’t be friends with Bismuth, Peridot and Lapis. And er, Pearl in some cases too..” He trails off, furrowing his eyebrows in thought. He shakes his head, as if to clear it. “Anyway, I wanted to apologize for earlier. I might’ve rushed into thinking the worst possible thing immediately, and that’s unfair to you, Spinel.”

“I..” She looks kind of speechless, like she wasn’t expecting that from him at all. “Well, it’s not like I gave you any reason to think anything else from me. You don’t need to be sorry.”

“I don’t like leaving things unsaid.” He replies with a grin. “I’m going to go pass out before my body does it for me, right here. Try not to be loud if you get curious and explore my house, I’ll be sleeping over there.” He points to his loft bed, a single eyebrow raised. “Peridot’s woken me enough times in the middle of a deep sleep, my body’s reaction is to just start throwing things at noise now.”

“Yeah, he’s thrown things at me when I’ve accidentally tripped going to the bathroom.” You say with disdain, giving him a face.

“Blame Peridot!” He grins, turning around to walk up his stairs. “Anyway, goodnight you two! And Y/N I swear to god you better get some sleep. You guys can talk in the morning.” He shoots one last glare at you before you see him disappear into his covers.

You look over to Spinel, and she’s already over by the couch. The house is quiet now, moonlight coming in through the windows, early morning approaching probably in another hour or so. She sits down, looking out of the window towards the ocean. You watch her dark silhouette and you feel some kind of weight lift from your shoulders, taking comfort in the fact that she’s right here, and she’s safe. She seems almost small here in Steven’s living room, and you wonder how this is the same angry, violent gem you met weeks ago. 

Yesterday, technically. You don’t want to think about that anymore.

You stand there unmoving, tired. She looks back over you, and you feel all the energy drain out of your body, shoulders sagging. You take a deep breath, letting the air drain out of your lungs slowly. 

You want to say something. 

Anything. 

You stare at each other. She blinks, and you can see her pupils trail over the details of your face as if she’s trying to memorize it. She opens her mouth slightly, clearly she’s trying to say something - but she closes her mouth instead. She looks away, momentarily, and you can see that she’s looking over in Steven’s direction. 

Her gem shines in the dark of the room, and your eyes want to stay fixated on it. 

She looks back over to you - taking a deep breath and exhaling it ever so slowly, chest moving with it.

“Y/N.” She says, very quietly, and you can see her wringing her hands nervously. You can hear your own heart beating in your ears. Your heart and brain are screaming at each other right now, but you can’t hear the words.

“I’m going to sleep.” You say, turning around to go to your room like some kind of fucking idiot.

[mysticdoodles]

Powerful lines from Spinel that hit harder the more you watch

So I’m sure this has probably been done already BUT I’ve been having too many feelings about this movie and especially about this precious new gem so I absolutely have to gush. After watching the movie the first time through, there’s a lot of double meanings to Spinel’s lines that really make her come to life. Obviously this won’t include everything because then I might as well just link the entire dang movie. These lines are the ones that I’ve just found myself thinking about more and more as the days go by since my first watching of the film.

Spoiler alert, most of these are going to be coming from Other Friends (but that’s no big surprise).

!!-SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT, DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MOVIE YET-!!

1. “I’ve got a new style, and a few new TOYS.”

Spinel’s introduction is very well framed in a lot of ways, with her slamming down on the injector and backlit by the pink poison glow, but the dialogue is what really hit me. With the context that Pink Diamond abandoned her because Pink eventually grew bored and tired of Spinel, this line in particular struck me as very pointed. Coupled with the slam of her palm against the giant instrument of death, it speaks volumes about how Pink Diamond saw the things that she valued as hers, as well as how Spinel sees herself. Pink had tossed her aside like an unwanted doll - now SHE gets to be the one with fancy new toys, tossing aside her old self just like Pink did.

2. “Yeah yeah, I’ve heard. I’ve had your little message to the universe ON LOOP!”

Pretty blatant in context, but the more you think about it, the sadder it gets. Spinel stood in the garden for six millennia, loyal and faithful to Pink all along, praying she’d return. Instead, all Spinel gets in response is some happy message to the universe from a galaxy-wide intercom that tells her Pink Diamond lived a happy life without her. That everything else was so much better for Pink with her forgotten. That Pink made new friends. Hearing this broke her heart, and traumatized her. Yet she listened over and over to the same message - hoping it would change? Trying to deny it, and see if it wasn’t true? She had the fulfilling relationship she was denied shoved in her face over and over, until she finally gets angry enough to go vent her fury.

3. “[...] where Pink Diamond spends the rest of her days on this NOWHERE PLANET, with a bunch- of- NOBODIES!”

Pink had her own private garden; built just for her, as we know the other diamonds have no taste at all in preserving or keeping organic life. And in the efforts of the Diamond Authority to keep Pink happy, they also gave her Spinel, a gem specifically designed to be a top-of-the-line Best Friend.

And yet despite all of Spinel’s quirky and goofy nature, she was never enough for Pink. The garden, for all its beauty and catering to Pink’s desires, was never enough either. Pink traded her personal playground and ultimate playmate for a planet that was doomed to be colonized and destroyed, and for a- as she puts it- “menagerie” of gems that aren’t particularly special at all. An ‘overcooked’ Amethyst soldier, a Pearl created to be a servant rather than a friend, and a fusion that by Diamond law had been outlawed in Spinel’s time. Spinel was left in her special garden to rot, in exchange for what she views as nothing but a downgrade.

4. “What did she say about me, what did she say? What did you do without me, what did you do? Did you play games without me, what did you play? Did you think all this time that I wouldn’t find out about you?”

These are all the things that ran through Spinel’s head after finding out she’d been left behind for good. That surely Pink Diamond gossiped to her brand new friends about the one she left behind. That surely Pink included her brand new friends in every game she wanted to play that Spinel couldn’t be a part of. That surely everyone involved with Pink Diamond MUST have known about her, and chose to leave her behind. It’s her rationalization for her actions - her excuse to beat on complete strangers for the actions of one person that ruined her life.

5. “Who am I? Who am I?? What are you even saying?”

This is the moment where it hits home for Spinel - that Pink didn’t even talk to other gems about her. Spinel was so unimportant to Pink that she never even crossed her mind or came up in conversation. You can see the moment where shock takes over, and is bulldozed by even greater rage.

All those years, all that waiting, and Pink never once intended on returning, or even so much as acknowledge the existence of her previous ““best friend.””

6. “I’m the loser of the game you didn’t know you were playing!”

Aside from being probably my favorite line in the whole song, this one stuck with me for a good while. It took me until approx. the 54th loop of Other Friends to realize Spinel is being completely literal as well as metaphorical. The reason she stayed in the garden was because- to her- she WAS playing a game with Pink! A game that, by the shallow rules Pink herself set, Spinel has lost. Spinel broke the rules and moved from where Pink told her to stay, and Steven is, for all intents and purposes, what remains of Pink Diamond. He really didn’t know of this false game, none of the Crystal Gems did.

But this hit even harder in the emotional sense - Spinel lost the game long before she moved from her spot in the garden. She lost the minute Pink decided Spinel was better off forgotten on a rock in space than by her side, because her loyalty was wasted on Pink. In Spinel’s steadfast adoration of Pink, she never realized the truth until it was far too late, and she feels all the more foolish for it.

7. “Let’s play another game, this time I get to win! Lives on the line- winner takes all- ready or not, let’s BEGIN!”

Not only is this Spinel’s statement that she’s taking control back by FORCE - that SHE is now the one who gets to pick the games, and as a result, affect the lives of those she “plays” with (just like Pink) - but it’s also a very subtle admission of how this feels. Deep down in the depths of her mind, this isn’t just a mission to cause hurt in turn for the hurt she received, but also a potential suicide mission.

Sure, she might have a good chance of killing ALL of Pink Diamond’s precious new besties; with her fancy new “toys” of a jumbo-sized colony injector full of poison and a factory-reset device for gems, she stands to take out quite a few important Crystal Gems AND the Earth that stole Pink from her, before finishing what she started. But Spinel also acknowledges later in the film that Steven is respected as a legendary savior of the galaxy. She’s playing hardball with powerful figures, and she knows it. That’s WHY she went the extra effort to get such strong equipment before even showing up to the party - Steven and the Crystal Gems were a legitimate threat, who could have easily defeated or even shattered her. And for Spinel, who waited for thousands of years in what I can only describe as emotional torture in solitary confinement, shattering would be preferable to her than one more second of living in that torment.

8. “[We’re going] back, to where I never left.”

Physically leaving the garden never made her problems go away, like how Pink seemed to do with everything she grew bored of. Despite being on Earth, in this ‘new place to play’ and surrounded by gems she’d never met that she could make friends with, even Rejuvenated to be back to how she was supposed to be right out of the kindergarten, she can’t escape the damage done by Pink abandoning her. She’s unable to find happiness yet, haunted by Pink’s actions and decision to discard her. In Spinel’s mind, she’s standing in that garden. Still waiting for Pink. Still waiting for someone, anyone, to come and be her friend.

9. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

This has stopped being a game for Spinel. Attacking and hurting the people she blames for her life being ruined is no longer fun, and doesn’t make her feel better anymore. She’s losing whatever twisted enjoyment she was getting from the one small goal she set for herself to keep moving forward - revenge. So from this point onward, she’s determined to finish things - that maybe actually doing the deed and being done with it would finally make the pain go away.

10. “Why do I want to hurt you so badly? I’m supposed to be your friend... I just want to be your friend...”

Striking out from her anger and pain, Spinel finally recognizes that harming others isn’t going to change how she feels. The pain isn’t disappearing. She’s falling farther and farther from what she truly wants to be. In her heart, she DOESN’T want to harm others, and realizes that she’s lost control of herself and her actions.

And it’s her final plea to Pink Diamond, who she can never get back. That’s all she ever wanted from Pink, and in the end, was it really that much to ask?

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas: Songbird, Part 2

Also on AO3! 

Link to Part 1 

TL;DR: 

Izuku has a powerful quirk: he can give powers to the people around him based on the different songs he sings. Unfortunately, everyone else really wants that quirk and are willing to kidnap him to get it. 

Songbirds sing even when the music stops.

Hello I’m redefining Izuku’s quirk for the sake of more dramatic powers: Most songs are general power-ups (everyone in auditory range), others are personal power-ups (only the person singing). Both only affect those who hear them, unless the effect is 100% intrinsic. Izuku uses a lot of general power-ups because he’s helpful like that. Each song can only be used once per day.

Examples: A song that creates a forcefield will only be a barrier to those who hear it, but a strength increase is a strength increase no matter which way you slice it.

anyway! day 1 of class is ok bc izuku and bakugo head to school together, and its honestly a miracle he didn't get kidnapped again

anyway, he meets iida and is fucking floored when he apologises for yelling at him. uraraka calls him the "boy with the singing quirk" and hes pretty happy. bakugo is grudgingly pleased izuku has friends and sits down, izuku following suit. shinsou is half asleep at his desk and seems to have been there the whole time

aizawa does his little spiel, quirk assessment happens yadda-yadda. izuku looks so chill on the outside but the kid is freaking the fuck out internally

he's coming second in the test, aizawa still erases his quirk, more of an example to the class because he assumed izuku wouldnt lose his shit. he didn't - at least externally

from this we also find out izuku has a kind of internal metronome because he suddenly has no internal 'beat' when his quirk is erased. his hearing gets substantially worse too.

which serves to freak him the fuck out because he feels off balance and like hes had cotton stuffed in his ears

anyway, yeets the ball, all is good, bakugo glares fucking daggers at aizawa for singling out izuku and izuku tries not to dissociate

battle trial is nothing special, but bakugo just fucking,,, turns his hearing aids off so izukus quirk doesnt work on him

its a blessing and a curse because it leaves izuku free to use most personal powerups, but honestly bakugo wants a nice fight more than he wants to win so thats fine with him

izuku wins, but only just, izuku gives uraraka a speed up through the comm link, iida who was Not ready for that, loses

USJ

Bakugo and Izuku sing Stronger than You and kick ass for a solid while before the song runs out and the nomu hits them into the lake. Izuku, with a broken leg and the beginnings of a concussion, has to drag a semi-conscious Bakugo to shore and let me tell you they both almost drown like 8 times. Izuku helps All Might by singing Anything (Hedly), which functions honestly like a big Ol’ Plus Ultra to anyone believing in what they are doing. (It starts working on Shigiraki after the Stain arc, but before then he was acting without purpose)

Sports festival!

All Might and Izuku are basically dad and son in this universe too, so, despite the dissimilar quirks, Todoroki still calls out Izuku to fight. Because Todoroki is the son of Endeavour and privy to a little more heroics insider info than he really should be, he also knows how often Izuku deals with villains. In an attempt to piss off the eternally nice and collected boy enough to give him a fight he can piss off Endeavour with, he calls him a damsel in distress.

Izuku is fuming and Bakugo has to basically hold onto his forearm to stop him from clocking Todoroki right in the jaw, but lord is Bakugo also pissed. Todoroki, for a second, realises he may have fucked up.

Todoroki wins the first event, Izuku is pretty middling. Like he's top 10? But he didn’t make a major impact. But the guy sees Monoma and gets an Idea

“HI SO – I know you hate class 1A, and really there is something to be said for the way our school is trying to pit 2 classes of children against each other like a bitter blood feud - BUT I have an idea that could be 100% ridiculous and if you want 1B to make an impact, please work with me. I need to shove something in Todoroki’s face.”

“… I’m listening.”

The general idea is Izuku’s songs have a different effect when sung in a duet, some are only practical in duet form: IE, stronger than you is a dodge boost alone, but in a duet is a massive power boost to the two singing it. So what if two people with Izuku’s quirk sung a duet? Chaos, probably.

Monoma agrees because one of the only things he likes more than 1 upping 1A is quirk based tomfoolery. The team ends up consisting of Izuku, Monoma, Kendo and Uraraka. Kendo and Uraraka, with the use of Uraraka’s quirk, carry both Izuku and Monoma – the better you sing, the better the quirk works.

Its lucky Monoma knows most of the songs Izuku brings up as ideas, and adds some suggestions of his own. If the other two know the song it's not a bad idea to join in, but its not the end of the world if they don’t.

The list of songs they have on standby and their effect when sung by two people with the Songbird Quirk

Two Player Game - Be More Chill: It forms both a connection between the people singing it, allowing them to anticipate the other's movements and creates a semi-translucent double of each singer that mimics their movements with a half second delay, aka: each punch you throw hits twice.

Family – Mother Mother: Creates a kinda forcefield that hovers just above the body. The stronger the bond between the singers, the stronger the shield – good thing Uraraka and Kendo know that one.

Hurry Hurry – Airtraffic Controllers: Slows down your perception of time, giving the appearance of superhuman reflexes. With the addition of a partner, it also grants superspeed.

We don’t get tired, we get even – Pat the Bunny: The more energy you’ve used up, the more energy you get back when singing this song + a proportional increase in general ability.

Doubt Comes In – Hadestown: Anyone who hears it quickly loses the ability to fight other people, including the singers.

The Greatest Show – The Greatest Showman: In addition to the normal effect of drawing attention to the point you can’t look away, singers get a ‘moon jump’ ability.

Turn the Lights Off – Tally Hall: Makes the area pitch black and gives the singers monstrous forms with plenty of claws and eyes.

How they use these is up to your imagination, but they end having taken the 10’000’000 point band from Todoroki. Bakugo, the only person with a decent understanding of Izuku’s quirk, just turned off his hearing aids and told his team to block their ears when weird shit started to happen. They came second, Todoroki third and Shinsou’s team fourth.

Uraraka gets to the second round bc Bakugo fights Monoma in the first round and jesus that fight is hilarious because its just Monoma – while using Bakugo’s quirk too – insisting that Izuku has abandoned class 1A for class 1B and Bakugo getting progressively more done with this boy’s shit.

Izuku and Bakugo + Todoroki and Iida are the semi finalists. Izuku and Bakugo are mostly just like “Thank fuck I’ve been talking to so many god damn weirdos today please can we just have a normal fight”. Izuku wins, j u u s t. (Izuku and Bakugo have a pretty 50/50 win loss ratio going on in this AU)

Todoroki vs Izuku is the final round of the whole thing, Todoroki told him about Endeavour, Izuku is pissed that no one looks at him and sees him, they only see his quirk (other than like, 6 people at this point). So he gets where Todoroki is coming from but holy shit hes doing literally just that. The main song Izuku uses for that round is Escapism – Steven Universe which makes him intangible (other than like his feet so he doesn’t go through the floor like Mirio). He’s trying to get the vibe across to Todoroki that he is free of his blood. He stops singing just to scream that at him, which is really what loses him the round. He's not intangible anymore, so he has no way to dodge the fire that comes at him. But he's pretty happy anyway.

Stain Arc!

Izuku’s hero name is Lyre!

Izuku doesn’t intern with Gran, but he does visit the guy with him. All Might hasn’t given his quirk to anyone else because the only suitable person he can see is Izuku, but Izuku basically can’t say no to him so he’s having a crisis. Izuku just thinks he’s there to visit All Mights old mentor and shoot the shit, which is really what they do.

Gran basically just ends up telling him “Kid aint a wallflower, he’ll tell you to fuck off if he doesn’t want it. All Might decides to ask Izuku about it after everything is over.

Izuku ends up interning with Endeavour, along with Todoroki. He never ended up yelling at endeavour, even though he hates the guy. Shouto encouraged him to take the offer bc, 1, Endeavour literally never gives out internship offers and 2, it’d be more fun because that way he doesn’t need to deal with his dad’s bullshit alone.

Endeavour is like “Oh it’s the kidnap kid, your quirk is neat.” And izuku is smiling through gritted teeth like “Th Anks SiRr”

So, starts pretty normal, then the winged Nomu steals Izuku right off the ground. Izuku just says “I’ll be fine! Just keep doing what you're doing, I’ll get myself down.” Endeavour just shrugs like “Ok, I give you permission to defend yourself.” While Todoroki is screaming internally because his new friend is literally being flown away

So the Nomu that was once a really good friend of Izuku’s (not that izuku is aware of that) literally just dumps him somewhere else and leaves. Izuku is confused, really confused, so he starts walking his way back to where he was before he hears a familiar voice.

Guess who it’s Iida, with a serial killer standing right over him. Izuku panics and goes straight into Turn the Lights Off. Without Monoma it only makes it dark, but it’ll have to do.

Thing is: he has a key problem. By virtue of the fact he’s singing, Stain can always hear him. Izuku’s only advantage is that he can see Stain but stain can’t see him, and the darkness means Stain moves more cautiously.

Anyway, in the artificial darkness, he can send a longer text anyway.

Midoriya [7:31PM] stain – [Location Pin Dropped]

So a lot of people, All Might and Aizawa included, f r e a k o u t. Todoroki goes running, Endeavour sends sidekicks with him because he saw his son, normally deadpan, almost chocking on panic as he mutters “Midoriya found Stain.”

Endeavour very much wants to also get Stain but the Nomu are Very Pressing Right Now, so there isn’t much he can do other than try and hurry the fuck up. Torino is kicking around because he could mostly, trying to get a glimpse of All Might’s kid in action, ends up having to kick villain ass. He's not that concerned until he remembers “OH SHIT TOSHI’S BOY”. When he finds Endeavour the man, a little panicked for Endeavour’s standards, yells at him to go to the address bc his son and intern are fighting the fucking hero killer.

Gran Doesn’t think he’s moved so fast since he kicked All for One in the face with Nana 25 odd years ago.

So Stain is kinda pissed bc suddenly he can’t see and someone is singing. He goes to stab Iida but,,, he ain't there anymore, and the singing is fading away. He figures “oh well, lemme get native” the singing changes to a different song. Very quickly he can see, but the singing boy, still singing is rocketing towards him and rapidly changing form.

Monster – dodie: Literally shifts Izuku into a monster. Stain suddenly realises that this is Songbird, talk of the underground, most wanted quirk by villains and quirk traffickers everywhere. This kid, target of villains everywhere, has put himself in their sights just to try and help people.

He thinks maybe Songbird might be one of the good ones.

Oh, an aside? People calling him Songbird sets off hella panic attacks because the only people who do that are people actively trying to kidnap him. And that’s what stain is calling him.

His monster form wavers and he tries to sing through tears and hitching breaths and Stain smiles because he's still curled around Native with his claws out.

Todoroki gets there first and helps defend Iida, Izuku is fighting to keep stain away from Native. The pros are on the way, Izuku is fading fast. Endeavour has been training them hard so he's exhausted and freaking the fuck out, while someone waves swords in his face.

Stain gets him, he loses the monster form. This doesn’t help Izuku’s panic, because now he can’t move and he’s felt this before along with grabbing hands, and dark vans and ropes around his wrists praying someone knew where he was going so someone might know to come for him when he doesn’t get home.

Todoroki sees that and he doesn’t know what to do. Izuku is panicking – the boy who seemed so put together and on top of things s falling apart at the seams. Iida feels horrible. He just wants to go to his friend he's never seen that distraught before.

Todoroki does the only thing he can think of. He sings.

He was never into music before, be after the sports festival he learnt Escapism -the song Izuku sang to him – and singing it back to him is the only thing he can think of doing.

It helps. It really helps, because if there was one thing that never happened when Izuku was taken – it was singing. He calms down just enough to breathe, which is all he needs to do.

The quirk wears off and Izuku throws himself at Stain, the words to Thunder by Imagine Dragons already pouring from his lips and electricity pouring from himself. If Stain touches him, he's toast, even if its via a sword. Izuku just has to avoid thrown weapons.

Izuku gets a hit, the quirk wears off Iida, who rushes in to stop Izuku from taking a throwing knife to the arm. The three of them knock out Stain just as the heroes skid into the alley. Izuku lets out a sob and crumples to the ground, Iida and Todoroki rushing over to him. They both honestly look like they’d bite anyone who got too close. Gran calls All Might who starts hightailing his way over there – Aizawa is also breaking a few traffic laws to reach his pack of injured kids.

They don’t get there in time. Shirigaki, furious that the hero killer went against him, orders Kurogiri to get Izuku. They take Iida and Todoroki for good measure. The heroes watch in horror as the children they were meant to protect vanish under their noses.

Headlines the next day: “UA sports festival finalists defeat Hero Killer – only to be taken by Villains seconds later.”

[we-dragons]

|Bakugou x Reader| It’s not a Quirk! Part 1

Boom!!

   The earth beneath me shook and cracked, I try to get away but forget that my wing is broken, as swirling green vortex pulls me in.“Stay back!” I Shout through the com piece in my ear and charge the villain. “Valiant!” some one shouts from behind me but I cant see them, I’m already dragging the my foe into the green pool.

   There is screaming and thrashing in the green tunnel until my back crashes against the green wall sending extra pain and possibly more broken bones in my wings as we are separated, sent tumbling through what seems to be a void. I’m corrected when my back hits against concrete under an archway, my head leans enough to the side I see a building in the shape of an H before I black out.

                           }----------------------------------------------------{

“We don’t know where she came from, the students say she fell out of a green circle. None of test can identify what kind of quirk she has, as far as we know she was attacked and the students who found her brought her here to heal.” an elderly voice sound the room in a quiet hushed tone. “I even took her blood to run some test myself and I found something odd. Though it is human, it’s nothing like ours it’s just...changed.” Foot  steps head over to me though I am conscious I don’t make a move keeping my eyes closed.

    A curtain moves and the very same foot steps recede back to their place. “What was more confusing after an hour of being in the room here she had completely healed, I didn’t even use my quirk on her. My first thought was that she had more than one quirk, but after looking at this I don’t know.”

‘An hour’ I think. ‘It usually takes half that time, must have been serious.’

     I move my self quietly as possibly, looking at my surroundings. It’s a large nurse’s office and with a balcony on the side opposite of the people. Seeing that I’m still in costume I make my way over to the opening. My hand just touching the glass door being as careful as I can be.‘I need to get out here.’ “Ms. Recovery Girl I’m her to check up on the girl Bakugou and Kirishima brought...in.” The eyes of a very tired man looks over at me through the place the curtain didn’t cover.

'Shit!'

      I throw the window open the glass shatters on the impact with the wall. I unfurl my wings and jump no hesitating I only get a few feet away from the balcony when something attached to my ankle. I look down and the tired man's hair rises and his eyes glow.

"Erase her quirk!" A man with blonde hair that stood up like a cockatoo’s feathers shouts.

"That's what I'm doing!"

“Then why isn’t it working?”

      I don't give them enough time to consider any other options, pulling a sharp feather from back to cut the thing on my ankle. Before I could a sharp pain ripples through me and green sparks ripple on my skin. I was pulled back into the room crash landing into the. I writhe on the floor in so much pain I can barely scream. Suddenly my pain vanishes and I'm glowing, my sudden realization to the old woman with an inhuman extension of her lips on my cheek. The man from before wraps what I see now to be his scarf around my whole body keeping me in place.

   The old woman pulls a green shard from my back, she points a nagging finger at me.

“Young lady, I make it a point to heal people on a regular basis, but you heal your self but don’t even see feel the very I have been pulling out of you for the past hour.” She walks over to a box that lays near the bed i was in dropping the shard, it clinked the sound sending shivers down my spine.

“Who are you?” The tired man asks me tugging slightly on the scarf.

“They call me Valiant I work with the X-Men I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I jumped into vortex to stop a dangerous mutant, I was injured in the last fight I was in and was not prepared to face him. And then I landed here, where ever this,” I gesture to the my surroundings “is, I’m guessing somewhere in Asia. Now I’m going to go down the list stop me when hit the mark. Burma, Cambodia, China, , Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan.”

“That’s the one!” The blonde man shouts.

“Thanks,” I turn my attention back to the dark haired man before me. “I answered your questions and more can I be permitted to leave?”

“Your name is Valiant?”

“It’s more of a nom de plume,” I look at the small old lady “Like her’s isn’t Recovery girl I presume.”

The Recovery Girl laughs and pats the tired man’s shoulder.

“let her go Aizawa, I think that’s enough let her go. We can have Nezu talk with her, but before that can I ask for your real name?”

“Y/N, Y/N L/N.”

                          }----------------------------------------------------{

    I stare at this creature, shock coursing in through my body. The principle Nezu had picked apart my answers and I gave him what he wanted to know he simply nodded and asked to look over my stuff. When recovery Girl brought in my clothes he pulled out a black leather trench coat with the signature of shinny black permanent gloss that was the X-men uniform. Then he pulled out my sliver rapier a dragon is connects the blade and the hilt, the tail and the wings form the knuckle and inner guard.

“Your hero where you are from?” Nezu asks me looking over my things. “I guessing that your probably from a different universe, seeing from what you explained. Because we don’t have a group called the X-Men nor did we find records of your birth.”

“I don’t doubt it my uncle said he’s traveled to different ones but he’s always had a way to get back. I don’t know what I am going to do here maybe use the shards to go back, or my uncle comes to get me, Hopefully not before i can track down Armann.“ The mouse creature nods looking at the teachers (as I found out after their introduction telling me about what they do and where I am) and then me, a smile appears on his face.

“I have decided what you should do while we help you track down this Armann. But first we need to get you and American hero license so your caught up with everyone else.” He picks up a phone starting to dial a number.

“What’s happening?” I stare at Nezu as he puts up his paw taking the teachers with him and walks out the door leaving me in awkward silence, comes in fifteen minutes later and hands a manilla envelope to me.

“Inside you’ll find your license, and ID, a rule book on American hero’s everything, your situation has been handled by the US president. She knows you apparently and was ready to send all this over.”

“What do you mean she knows me.”

“Her name is Morgana Blessing.” My eyes widen a fraction.

“So you know her as well, that’s good you can tell me about it later but now we have to get you ready.” Nezu is scooting me out the door and down the hall my box of clothes in hand.

“Getting ready for what?“ I ask just barely keeping up with him.

“Starting tomorrow you are joining the class 1-A, as an exchange student to UA high. Ms.Blessing is your caretaker and your quirk is deity, you’ll explain nothing about it and the rest of the hero’s will help you in your search with Armann, at least till you get a way home.”

                         }----------------------------------------------------{

I was shoved through quick tests and put in a dorm room where I have been for the past 3 hours.

“Morgana Blessing is alive, Strange will be pleased to hear that.”

Morgana went missing two years ago we meet often and she was like an aunt to me. Her and Steven Strange are like family to me, along with being a mutant because of some of my abilities I was sent to learn in the New York sanctum which is where I met the two. On one day she went into a realm portal and never came back. I sigh putting my wings away since I wasn’t going to fly anywhere and set the alarm for the time I need to rise tomorrow.

                         }----------------------------------------------------{ 

I stand in front of a classroom next to the tired man Aizawa who gives me a curt nod to introduce my self. I take a quick glance at the people in the classroom.

“My name is Y/N L/M, I’m from a hero school in Minnesota, my quirk is called Deity and my hero name is Valiant . I hope I can get to know you all better.”

“Your that girl me and Bakugou found!  The one from that green circle!” A boy with very red hair jumps out of his seat. Before I explain Aizawa jumps in standing slightly in the way.

“She was fighting a villain with a teleport quirk on her way here, any more questions will have to wait till lunch.” He turns to me. “Since we already changed the seating arrangement we have one seat open in front of your classmate Bakugou and behind Ashido.” He nods again this time to the middle of the classroom where two people rose their hands. I move to sit down in the seat, I see the eyes of every one in the room watching me. But what caught me were the eyes of the blonde who was glaring at me so hard I could swear they’re burning holes in me. I take my seat and all eyes go to Aizawa as he begins his lesson.

                            }----------------------------------------------------{ 

When it’s lunch time I’m stopped before I leave the classroom with my lunch card. MIna, Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero and Bakugou (I had learned their names from Mina while we were doing a small group assignment in class) form a group around my desk. MIna is the first to do anything and drags me to the lunch room claiming I need a guide around the school despite my protests. She forces me between her self and Bakugou. MIna went on asking questions that I tried my best answer properly.

“Why the fuck Is your quirk called Deity?” a gruff voice comes from my right. I face Bakugou who is glaring at me and stabbing his food.

“Oh my god I completely forgot to ask about that!” MIna gasps holding a hand to her face.

“I can basically have the abilities to manipulate and create.”

“Cool all I can do is harden my skin.” Kirishima said.

“I shoot tape from my elbows.”

“I’m acidic!” MIna giggles.

“I’m just electric.”

My eyes move to Bakugou who tsks and groans.

“My Quirk is Explosion.”

The rest of lunch was me asking and answering a few questions, then we went back to class, at the end of class however Mina decided she wanted to see my abilities in action so we we change and head to the training grounds of the school.

“Alright everyone pick a string so that we have sparing partners.” MIna holds her out gripping onto one of the ends, everyone follows suit me being the last to grab one. when she lets go of the hand holding the bunched up strings my eyes follow it and find it’s connected to Bakugou’s end. Bakugou is smirking, sparking happening in his in the hand not holding the string.

“Now we’ll see what that quirk of yours does extra.”

[billcpher111fics]

Stress Baking

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AO3

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Patton sighed heavily as he mixed up another batch of brownies, he had been baking all morning and it was only noon. The house was filled with the wonderful scent of freshly baked goods that had taken hours of his time. Cookies and brownies and cupcakes, even a few tiered cakes, filled the kitchen counters and on cooling racks, just waiting to be topped with sweet icing and sprinkles with a few other finishing touches. 

He knew he should have stopped baking a while ago, no one in the imagination is going to be able to eat all of these before they go stale but he couldn't. He had been so stressed lately. So tired.

Thomas's boyfriend had recently broken up with him, they were on good terms but it still hurt. Thomas was preparing to audition for a few musicals that he couldn't pick between. Steven Universe had just ended, Patton and Emile cried when that happened. 

Patton was just emotionally exhausted and stressed. And baking was probably his only healthy way of destressing. He used to try to repress all of his negative emotions and try to make himself seem perfectly happy all the time and. He didn't even know it was bad till the DWIT video when he learned what repression was. His boyfriends had been a big help with getting him to open up about all of those icky emotions he refused to acknowledge before.

He had another coping mechanism that was... Less than pleasant. It's hard to describe and it only happened a few times now. 6, maybe 7 times... He would be sitting in his room or somewhere secluded, stressed, and suddenly things started to feel like nothing was even real. Like he was looking out at himself from another person's perspective. It would scare him so he would try to grab onto something, anything to stabilize himself but he could move too far, everything felt like it was floating away, so he grabbed onto his forearms. He would hold on as tightly as he could as everything else seemed to fade away.

He couldn't really feel much pain when he was like this so he didn't notice that the clawing and gripping onto his skin had started to make himself bleed. A lot. Well, Patton wasn't sure how much he bled but it looked like a lot. He probably wouldn't even have noticed it was happening if Virgil added walked in. It was fuzzy but he thinks he heard Virgil scream. The Logan was there. Then Roman. And someone was bandaging his arms. And the next thing he knew he was waking up on the couch being cuddled and taken care of by his wonderful boyfriends. Logan had told him he was disassociating. He didn't even know it had a name till then.

So, yeah. It was best he sticks to baking.

He didn't really feel like talking about his feelings at the moment anyway. He couldn't even if he wanted to. Roman was either in his room or off adventuring in the imagination. Virgil was probably in his room, listening to his pg13 music or watching Netflix on his phone. And Logan was most likely doing something important and Patton didn't want to bother him. But the kitchen was starting to get to quiet for him. He needed something. Some noise or music. Something to fill the silence.

He grabbed his phone and put his headphones in and pressed shuffle on his music app a few times, trying to find a good song that could help him relax. After a moment he found something that might work. It was Austin Weber's cover of Mama Mia, the ABBA song. Or, at least, Patton thinks it's from ABBA. He wasn't too sure about that.

He continued to make the brownies as he hummed along to the song and soon he began to sing along. Now, he didn't sing to often and his voice was definitely nothing compared to Romans, but he was an ok singer. At least he thought he was ok.

"I've been cheated by you since I don't know when

So I made up my mind, it must come to an end

Look at me now, will I ever learn?

I don't know how, but I suddenly lose control

There's a fire inside my soul"

He pored the brownies into the pan and stuck them in the oven as he went to frost a previous batch of cupcakes.

"Just one look and I can hear a bell ring

One more look and I forget everything, Woah"

He swayed his hips to the tune.

"Mamma mia, here I go again

My my, how can I resist you?

Mamma mia, does it show again?

My my, just how much I've missed you

Yes, I've been brokenhearted

Blue since the day we parted

Why, why did I ever let you go?

Mamma mia, now I really know

My my, I could never let you go"

He put the chocolate icing into a piping bag and filled another bag with crofters, planning to fill a few of the cupcakes with the tasty jam.

"I've been angry and sad about things that you do

I can't count all the times that I've told you we're through

And when you go, when you slam the door

I think you know that you won't be away too long

You know that I'm not that strong"

He continued to sing as way his hips as he began to fill a few batches of cupcakes with the jam the ice them with the chocolate icing. Half of all the cupcakes were going to be filled with crofters with chocolate icing and a strawberry on top.

"Just one look and I can hear a bell ring

One more look and I forget everything, Woah"

And the other half was going to be filled with crofters and have a whipped cream-based frosting with a strawberry on top.

"Mamma mia, here I go again

My my, how can I resist you?

Mamma mia, does it show again?

My my, just how much I've missed you

Yes, I've been brokenhearted

Blue since the day we parted

Why, why did I ever let you go?

Mamma mia, even if I say

Bye bye, leave me now or never

Mamma mia, it's a game we play

Bye bye doesn't mean forever"

The brownies were going to have a chocolate drizzle on half and a caramel drizzle on the rest. Or maybe he should also have them dipped in chocolate? Maybe. The cookies, all chocolate shipped were definitely going to be chocolate dipped. Only half of each cookie. It will look cute and taste even better!

"Mamma mia, here I go again

My my, how can I resist you?

Mamma mia, does it show again?

My my, just how much I've missed you

Yes, I've been brokenhearted

Blue since the day we parted

Why, why did I ever let you go?

Mamma mia, now I really know

My my, I could never let you go"

He finished frosting and filling half of the half chocolate ones so he was a quarter of the way done with the cupcakes. This was going to be a lot of work. But he had started to feel quite relaxed already. Maybe he should sing more. It really seemed to help. Patton took off his headphones and immediately jumped as he heard clapping behind him. He swung around to see his boyfriends standing in the kitchen door, watching him. "Magnífico! That was Amazing my dear!" Roman cheered.

"It was definitely better than pricey's screeching," 

"Hey!"

"Joking, Ro. But that was pretty good, Pat." Virgil said.

"I concur with Roman and Virgil's previous statements. Your singing was more than adequate. And I see you've been quite busy." Logan said as he looked around the kitchen and seeing the plethora of baked goods. "Is everything alright Love?" He asked, knowing about Patton's reactions to stress.

Patton, still embarrassed for being caught, hesitantly answered, "Everythings alright, Lo Lo dear. Just a bit of stress. Nothing I can't handle." He said.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Virgil asked as he moved to hug Patton.

"No," Patton said, "Not right now, Virg. I'm alright."

"Would you like us to help you ice all of these?" Roman asked, looking over the many baked goods that needed to be toped, knowing that it would be too much for Patton alone.

"You don't have to!" Patton insisted. It was his mess after all. He could take care of it on his own.

"We insist," Logan said, "It would be ridiculous and unproductive to have you do this alone. Just think of it as a bonding time." He said.

"Yeah, just tell us what needs what," Virgil said.

Patton was hesitant, not wanting to drag them into his mess but he knew they weren't just going to back down, "Alright," He smiled. "Virgil, could you help me finish icing the cupcakes over here," he gestured to the cupcakes that were topped with chocolate frosting, "Roman, could you grab that piping bag full of jam and start filling the cupcakes over there?" He pointed at the Cupcakes that were to be toped with the Wiped cream frosting. "And after those are filled could you ice them, Lo?"

"Is there any chance I could fill them?" Logan asked.

"No, dear, sorry. Youll just eat the jam." Patton said.

"And he won't??" Logan said, pointing an accusatory finger at Roman, who in turn gasped dramatically.

Patton hummed, "Good point. Virgil, could you fill the cupcakes while Roman and Logan help me ice these? Afterward well move to the brownies." Virgil laughed while Roman and Logan pouted.

It took them a few hours but they ended up getting all of the sweets iced and decorated. "What are we going to do with all of these?" Virgil asked staring out at the sea of bake goods.

"Well... I was thinking of giving a few to Deceit and Remus. But that would still leave us with so many" Patton said.

"What if we gave a few to Thomas?" Logan said.

"Knocking a few from the number of deserts we have here isn't going to do squat Lo," Virgil said as he grabbed a cookie that was half dripped if a fudge drizzle. "These are amazing, Pat. You truly the best baker here." He said munching on the cookie.

"What if we take them to the mindscape?" Roman askes.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Roman begin, "Between me and Remus, the mindscape has two large kingdoms and a bunch of people. We could give some to Deceit and Remus, Give a few to Thomas and his friends, Keep some for ourselves, and sell the rest in the mindscape! Problem solved! Everyone gets some and no food is wasted!" Roman said.

Logan looked amazed, "That is probably the single smartest thing you have ever said."

"Hey!"

"I agree with logan!" Patton said, "Well except the 'single smartest thing' part, I'm sure you've said other smart things, Love. But that was a brilliant idea of yours!" Patton said, kissing Romans cheak.

"Why of course!" He blushed, "A prince as magnificent as I must be able to cume up with such things! What kind of prince would I be otherwise!"

"Does anyone else smell burning?" Virgil asked.

The others looked around confused till their eyes landed on the oven. "On no!" Patton yelped, "The brownies!"

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 80, Part 1

AHAHAHAHAH ITS HERE ITS QUEER ITS TIME TO FEAAAAAAAR. RIFTS HYPE TRAIN HAS ARRIVED AND LEFT THE STATION EITHER YOU ON OR YOU AINT NOW LETS GO IDK WHAT THE HELL IM TALKING ABOUT LETS JUST GOOOOOOO

Previous: https://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/619687513045483520/universe-falls-chapter-79

***

Chapter 80, Part 1: Rifts

LOMC GRFSX KB SEAJS XZJNHBVE NZ EHBXPU FVUK GHP UVAX LQM BIN VT OGLAR'E PJHNVE TSWF ESY EDH GFFTWQ SWWE 

Steven wasn’t sure when he’d voyaged out into the forest. The last thing he remembered, he’d been tucking himself in for the night, Lion taking up more than half the bed as he curled up right beside him. Upon bidding one final good night to the Gems as they went back into the temple, Steven had thought he had let himself drift off into a good night’s sleep, awash in the dulled, peaceful, calming chorus of crickets chirping and gentle breezes wafting through the trees just outside his window. 

And yet, he wasn’t. Because instead, he now found himself deep in the forest, so deep, in fact, that he couldn’t see any of the usual landmarks that told he was near the temple or the shack. To make matters even worse, it was still night, a pitch black one at that, with no stars or moon peeking through the dense tree canopy above him to guide his way home. Steven paused for a moment, taking in just how eerily silent the woods seemed to be as well, the air dead and surprisingly brisk, a far cry from the comfortable warmth he knew a summer night like this should have carried. The dense darkness and the deafening silence were both enough to unnerve the young Gem on their own, but it was only as that silence was broken by the briefest bout of soft sound somewhere in the distance that his heartbeat slowly started to pick up. 

“Uh… h-hello?” Steven called, his own voice echoing against the tall trees all around him. “Is… is anybody there…?”

He received no answer, at least not a direct one. Somewhere far away in the forest, that unknown noise rang out again, one that almost seemed to be some kind of laughter. Steven couldn’t quite make out who or what it was coming from, but he decided to follow it nonetheless in the hopes of figuring out what exactly was going on. So he forged a path through the trees, feeling his way through them more than anything else given how immensely dark the forest was. And yet, that darkness was soon brightened just a bit by a sparse spot of light peeking through the woods up ahead, one that just so happened to be in the same direction the faint laughter he kept hearing, which was growing louder, and clearer, the closer he wandered to it. 

Yet, the moment that laugh finally became clear enough for him to tell exactly who it belonged to, Steven suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes were wide as he took in a sharp, startled gasp, and without even taking a second to think, he darted behind the nearest tree, hoping that the dream demon didn’t already know he was there. 

However, at least as far as he knew, it seemed as though he had been found out without even realizing it. “Come on out, kid!” Bill called, his triangular form large, bright, and looming as he passed by the tree Steven was taking refuge behind. “You can’t hide from me forever!”

Steven shuddered as he pressed tighter against the side of the tree, not needing to even think twice about why Bill was apparently on the hunt for him. He placed a protective hand against his gemstone, which was still tucked away under his shirt--out of sight, but still there, still ready for the dream demon’s taking nonetheless. It was an unspoken fear, but a very potent one, cemented at the back of his mind, ever since his frightful dream encounter with Bill weeks ago. And it seemed as though the dream demon still refused to let up as he’d finally come back to collect. 

“You know, running is just a waste of time, something you fleshbags are already running pretty short on by default!” Bill quipped, his shrill voice echoing throughout the forest how as it carried it’s usually teasing tune. “But yours will be even shorter when I’m through with you! If you want, you can go ahead and feel free to thank me for going to all the trouble to finally put you out of your misery!”

Steven didn’t dare respond to this cruel round of threats as he instead focused on remaining as quiet as possible, desperately hoping that Bill would eventually get tired of looking for him and leave. Even so, he was ready to summon his shield, his bubble, and anything else he had at his disposal in the event the demon did manage to spot him, even if he wasn’t sure any of them would actually be able to fend him off. Still, nothing could have prepared the young Gem for the violent explosion that rattled the entire area, nearly knocking him off his feet entirely. 

“Aha! Found ya!” Bill chimed in the immediate aftermath of his destructive attack. Steven gasped, a protective bubble surrounding him in an instant, yet surprisingly, the dream demon didn’t come into view as he still seemed to be somewhere else in the forest entirely. “Yeesh, I gotta hand it to you, you sure are resilient! After several back to back nights of this, I thought our ongoing game of cat-and-mouse here would have you way past your breaking point by now, Pine Tree!”

“P-Pine Tree…?” Steven whispered with a start, initially baffled until the realization struck him like a wave of frigid water. He had been wrong from the very start. Bill wasn’t here looking for him at all; instead, he was looking for‒ “Dipper!” 

His voice rang much louder than he had meant it to but Steven hardly cared. Without hesitation, he left the safety of his hiding spot behind, plowing through the forest as fast as his legs could carry him as he took up the very same search Bill was on, though for an entirely different reason instead. Every now and then, he happened to catch a glimpse of the dream demon himself through the sparse gaps in the trees, but thankfully Bill still hadn’t taken any interest in him whatsoever. Instead, his attention seemed to be solely devoted to finding Dipper, just as Steven’s now was as well. 

Another explosion tore through the forest, one that did succeed in tripping Steven up as several trees toppled haphazardly around him. He narrowly avoided being crushed by one of them thanks to a well-timed shield cover, though as he glanced up amidst the debris, he finally caught his first glimpse of who both him and Bill had been searching for. 

Dipper had been completely displaced by the dream demon’s most recent blast, his own hiding spot completely torn apart, leaving him lying disoriented on the ground, completely out in the open. He quickly regathered his bearings, however, especially as Bill came to hover high before him, bright blue flames licking over both his outstretched hands. 

“Give it up already, Pine Tree!” the demon goaded twistedly, clearly taking pleasure in the torment he was doling out. “We both know that no matter where you run or how hard you try to block me out or fight back, you’ll never be able to really escape me. Put up as many magical barriers, swing around as many swords as you want, none of that matters at the end of the day! All that really matters is that I’m finally gonna give our puppet show the grand finale it’s always deserved!”

Without any sort of sword to defend himself with, the most Dipper could do was seize up in fear, his eyes wide in terror and his entire body visibly shaking with untold fear. Amidst that fear, he was paralyzed, completely incapable of so much as even uttering a single word of opposition or plea for mercy to the demon as he raised his flaming hands to destroy him. Unable to run, unable to hide, unable to fight back, unable to do anything else but helplessly await whatever devastating end Bill had in store for him. 

Until… 

“Dipper!” 

The sudden shout alone was enough to catch Dipper off guard as he tore his terrified gaze away from Bill to see who was rushing to his aid, completely out of nowhere. “S-Steven?!” 

There was no time for Steven to say anything even if he wanted to. Instead, he slid into the open space between Bill and Dipper, summoning a massive shield to protect them both from the demon’s fiery onslaught. Yet even that wasn’t enough to stop it, for as Bill unleashed the full force of his deadly attack, it obliterated the shield on impact‒

Before doing the same to Steven and Dipper themselves. 

Steven bolted upright with a tight, alarmed cry, his blankets tossed aside as Lion abruptly flinched awake alongside him. For a moment, the young Gem was unable to focus on nothing else other than his own sharp, panicked breathing, which steadily began to slow down as he took in the familiar sight of his bedroom loft around him. 

“T-that was just… a dream…?” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his hair. With a tired sigh, Steven flopped back down onto his bed, lying still for a moment as he let Lion casually lick the thin layer of sweat off his forehead. Even so, his brow furrowed in confusion as he stared up at the dark ceiling above him, his thoughts swirling in his head as he tried to make sense of what he’d just seen. “Wait…” he mused aloud, partially to Lion, though mostly to himself. “That… didn’t feel like it was my dream… I… I think it might have been… Dipper’s!”

The young Gem gasped, suddenly sitting up once more, much to his pink pet’s aggravation. “That’s right! Mabel did say he was having nightmares about Bill again… But… I… I didn’t think they were…” Steven trailed off, absently covering his hand with his mouth as worry welled up in his eyes. The dream he’d just unintentionally slipped into had been one fueled by raw, pure, visceral fear, fear that Steven had been able to feel just as powerfully as Dipper likely had, fear he had probably been feeling for several nights in a row now. 

“I-I have to do something…” Steven whispered to himself as he lay back down. All the while knowing that nobody, especially not one of his closest friends, should have to contend with such horrific torment night after night. And certainly not from the very dream demon who had already put him through so much strife in the waking world to begin with. “I have to help him…”

“Have a great time on your vacation, Connie!” Mabel chimed as her, Dipper, and Steven video-chattered with her from their spot on the shack’s porch. “Bring back lots of souvenirs and cute, weird Japanese snacks!”

“Yeah, and don’t forget to call us every day to tell us about all the cool stuff you’re seeing,” Steven added with a smile. 

“Well, I would do that, but there’s… a pretty significant time difference over in Tokyo,” Connie chuckled. “I don’t wanna wake you guys up in the middle of the night while I’m just starting my day.”

“Yeah, as much as we’d love to hear from you, please don’t do that,” Dipper replied with an amused grin. 

“I’ll make sure to fill you all in on everything once I get home,” Connie assured. “I just hope this trip won’t be too boring. My mom’s dead set on making it about ‘cultural enrichment’ and historical education. But all I really want to do is find a cute little bookshop/bubble tea cat cafe and spend a whole day reading as many manga as I can get my hands on.”

“Oo, the bubble tea cat part sounds like my idea of a good time!” Mabel quipped excitedly. “By the way, what’s a manga?”

Connie was about to explain, though she was cut off as the airport speaker rang out with a boarding announcement. “Oh! That’s our flight!” she exclaimed, grabbing her carry-on bag as she headed to the gate. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll see you guys when I get back next week. Try not to get into too much trouble without me, ok?”

“It’s sort of hard to promise something like that around here…” Dipper noted knowingly. 

“But we’ll try,” Steven said, offering her a warm wave. Connie returned that wave with another round of brief, fond farewells for her friends just before she hung up to embark on her Japanese journey. 

“Aw man, Connie’s so lucky!” Mabel let out a wistful sigh as soon as the call was over. “I wish we could go somewhere new and exciting too!”

“Uh, Mabel? Did you forget that Gravity Falls technically is new to you and I?” Dipper inquired with a bit of a wry smirk. “I know it might feel like home sometimes, but we don’t actually live here, you know.”

“Yeah, and something exciting is always happening around here almost every day!” Steven added enthusiastically. “It might not always be a good kind of exciting, but it’s still exciting all the same.”

“Oh, you guys know what I mean!” Mabel huffed. “We should go somewhere that’s super way out there, somewhere nobody’s ever been before! Or at least somewhere no one’s been to before and came back to talk about.”

“Sounds ‘dangerous’,” Dipper chuckled easily. “Have any place like that in mind?”

“Of course I do!” Mabel proclaimed, though her confidence was quick to fall off. “Uh… we can go to… hm…”

Before she could think on the matter any further, however, a gruff, irritated shout rang out from inside the shack. “Mabel! Get in here!” Stan called, clearly annoyed. “Someone--who may or may not be me--left the fridge open and your dumb pig got into the bacon!”

“Waddles, no!” Mabel gasped, horrified as she hopped up to hurry inside. “That’s cannibalism! Think of your adorable pig brethren!”

“Yeesh, you think she would have trained Waddles better with all the time she spends with him,” Dipper remarked, still wearing a light, almost deceptively calm‒at least as far as Steven was concerned‒grin. 

“Heh, yeah…” Steven’s own steady smile finally fell. Even so, he was glad to have a moment or two alone with Dipper, knowing that this would be a much easier discussion to have between just the two of them. “Uh… hey, Dipper? Did… did you sleep ok last night?”

Dipper paused, clearly caught off guard by the question. “Uh… yeah?” he lied, still holding onto a smile, albeit a smaller, more uncertain one now. “Why do you ask?”

“W-well, I just…” Steven hesitated, not really knowing how to proceed, though he still tried to do so as gently as possible all the same. “I heard you were having nightmares about, uh… well, Bill, a-and I was just wondering if you were ok…”

“Ugh, seriously?” Dipper groaned, rolling his eyes. “Does Mabel have to tell everyone about the kind of dreams she thinks I’m having? A-anyway, I… might have had a few Bill-related dreams lately, b-but they’re nothing serious. Definitely not anything worth worrying about, so yeah. I’m fine.”

“...That’s not what I saw last night…” Steven muttered apprehensively as he glanced away. 

“Last night?” Dipper turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “What happened last…” He trailed off, his eyes widening in realization as he happened to recall the finer details of a nightmare he’d just as rather have forgotten entirely. “Wait… t-that nightmare last night… Steven, was… was that really you that showed up in it?”

The young Gem nodded, not really taking stock of the hints of appalled disbelief starting to show up in Dipper’s expression. “I guess I must have used my powers to get into your dreams somehow, b-but that’s ok, because-”

“O-ok?” Dipper interrupted rather harshly. “What makes you think just… breaking into my dreams without my permission is anywhere close to ok? Do you even realize just how much of an invasion of privacy that is?!”

“Oh, w-well, I’m sorry,” Steven frowned, genuinely apologetic. “It wasn’t like I was trying to do it. It just sort of, well, happened. I-I still don’t really know how these new dream powers work, but don’t worry! I’ll figure them out, and once I do, then maybe I can use them to help you fight Bill out of your dreams once and for all!”

Despite this spirited, kindly offer, Dipper flinched, his already agitated expression growing even more intense at this. “No,” he said simply, standing up before walking off toward the nearby woods. 

“What?” Steven also stood, completely baffled as he began trailing after Dipper. “But… why not? Don’t you want Bill to stop showing up in your dreams every night?”

“O-of course I do, Steven, but… it’s not that big of a deal!” Dipper glanced over his shoulder, perturbed. “I don’t need you to use your dream powers, or any of your other powers for that matter, to get rid of him; I can do it on my own.”

A part of the young Gem knew he should have just left it there, taken Dipper’s word for it and moved on. But another, much louder, much more persistent part of him refused to let a friend’s obvious need for assistance and support go unanswered. “B-but… I want to help you!” he implored, grabbing his hand to stop him as he reached the outer edge of the woods. 

Even so, Dipper was quick to pull that hand away. “I don’t want--I don’t need your help,” he said, feigning calm despite the hints of clear frustration lying underneath it. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not!” Steven protested, following after him as he began to make his way through the woods once more. ��You always say that you’re fine, but I don't think you really are, Dipper! I was there in your dream last night, I could see what was happening. I could feel just how scared you were! I’m scared of Bill too after everything he’s done, b-but I know that we’re strong enough to stand up to him as long as we stick together!”

“You don’t know that!” Dipper countered as he ventured into the forest with no real set destination in mind. Because really, all he was trying to do was get away from a conversation that, by all accounts, Steven was refusing to let him escape so easily. “Nobody knows that! The only thing we do know is what Bill’s capable of, and it’s not something you can just stand up to and expect to survive against!”

“But we have before!” Steven argued firmly. “And we can again. We’ve always found a way to stop Bill by working together; so what makes stopping him in your dreams any different?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?!” Dipper shot back, sending another bitter glare over his shoulder. “My problem isn’t with Bill right now, Steven. My problem is with you!”

Steven froze, faltering almost as if those words had physically struck him. Which really, they might as well have from how much they hurt on mere contact alone. “W-what… what do you mean?” he dared to ask, almost afraid of the answer. 

“Well, gee, why don’t we start with how you just burst into my dreams completely uninvited,” Dipper began crossly, still pressing on ahead into the woods. “And then you act like that’s not even a big deal, when it is! I already have enough problems with Bill running around and ruining my dreams each night; the last thing I want is someone else doing it too.”

“B-but this would be different! It wouldn’t be anything like what Bill’s been doing. Like I said, I’d be going into your dreams to help you, if you would just let me!”

“Well, I’m not going to. Why can’t you just accept that already and drop it?”

Steven bristled at this, his own frustration quickly rising, despite his best efforts to remain patient, even if that patience was steadily starting to wear thin. “Why can’t you just accept that you need help?! Why do you always think you have to do everything on your own? You have so many people who are there for you: Mabel, your uncles, the Gems, me! Why don’t you ever just let us help you?!”

“Why won’t you just take no for an answer!?” Dipper retorted bitterly. “You always, always do this. You always act like you know what’s best for everyone, but you don’t, especially not for me!”

“I never said that! I just want to-”

“Want to what?” Dipper interrupted, pausing as he turned to face the young Gem, his expression completely livid. “Fix me like you try to fix everything else?! Face it, Steven, there are some things you just can’t fix!”

For the briefest of moments, Steven hesitated, pain taking a place in his expression alongside anger. Because now, despite his best efforts to set things right, it seemed as though he inadvertently had torn open an all-new rift, one between him and Dipper and their close friendship. A rift he wasn’t sure he’d be so able to easily heal with words alone. “W-well, that doesn’t mean I can’t try,” he persisted stubbornly, foolishly even. That small part of him practically begged him to stop, to call it quits before that rift tore itself open even wider. But for some inane reason, he kept this argument going, knowing the solution Dipper kept refusing was one they both truly needed to fix that rift, and so much more along with it. 

“You should stop trying,” Dipper refuted, his tone icy as he turned away again. “Because every time you try, things always seem to get worse.”

“T-that’s not true. You aren’t-”

“Oh, it isn’t? Then why don’t we talk about Grunkle Stan and how you just up and stole his body like it was nothing!” Dipper accused, finally bringing to light a point of contention he’d somehow managed to remain silent on for weeks now. But now, there was no hiding the dread and discomfort that series of events had initially brought him, not anymore. 

“I-I didn’t steal it!” Steven exclaimed defensively. “It was an accident, I-”

“Yeah, sure another accident,” Dipper scoffed. “You know, Steven, you sure do happen to have a whole lot of powers you don’t know how to control and just keep accidentally using. But even if it was an accident, you still stayed in his body all day anyway just so you and Mabel could go through with another one of your big “get along plans”, which didn’t even work! The whole thing was pointless, just one big waste of time, but who even knows where Stan was during the whole thing! For all we know, he could have been stuck in the mindscape, just like I was when Bill possessed me!”

“D-Dipper…” Steven choked, his eyes wide with realization. He had known from the start that what had happened that day had bothered him, though he had never been able to figure out exactly why, not until now at least. Really, the answer was so clear, so obvious that he should have seen it from the start, he should have known, he should have at least thought twice about going through with that plan, if just for Dipper’s sake alone. But he hadn’t. And in doing so, the young Gem realized, he had already started tearing that rift between them, even weeks before now. “I… I didn’t-”

“You didn’t think,” Dipper scowled, his hands curled up into tight fists at his sides. “You never do! The only things you do actually think about are your plans to try to ‘fix’ people so they’ll be good and nice and perfect like you! So what happens when you decide I’m not good enough and you want to fix me like you tried to fix Stan and Ford? Are you gonna try and take over my body too?!”

“Of course not!” Steven firmly asserted, knowing just how much that would have hurt Dipper after everything Bill had already done. “You know I wouldn’t! Not unless-”

“Not unless you found a good reason to, right?” Dipper countered rigidly. “Well, it wouldn’t be very hard for you to find one, Steven. Seeing as how you just love to use your powers to get people to do what you want. Just like-”

Dipper suddenly cut himself off, his shoulders hitching as he finally stopped in the middle of an open clearing. By now, both boys were pretty far out in the forest, but that was just about the last thing on either of their minds. Steven slowly reached a hand out to skim Dipper’s shoulder, desperately trying to fight back the hot tears that were already welling up in his eyes. “L-like… who?” he asked, his voice soft and shaking all the while. 

Dipper sighed, not really wanting to voice what he was about to say aloud at all. And yet, as angry, as outraged as he was by the young Gem’s sheer audacity and stubbornness, he found that he couldn’t hold it back, no matter how hard he tried. “Like Bill, Steven!” he shouted, slapping his hand away as he spun around to face him. “You’re just like Bill!”

At that exact moment, time seemed to grind to a complete halt for Steven. His pressing tears finally fell through a heavy, choked-up sob, his hand slowly falling to his side as he took an absent step backward. He hardly even looked at Dipper, or anything else at all, as his thoughts reeled wildly out of control from this simple, yet brutal accusation alone, one that came from one of his best and closest friends, of all people. “N-no…” he stammered softly, shaking his head as tears continued to stream down his cheeks. “I… I’m...” he trailed off, unable to even finish the claim that he wasn’t. Because the simple thought that it was somehow true, that he was just as much of a manipulative monster as Bill Cipher was so horrifying, so chilling, and so incredibly fitting that Steven quickly found himself crumbling under the immense, devastating weight of it all. “H-how… how could you-”

“What? You really think it’s that hard of a comparison to make?” Dipper asked harshly, refusing to let Steven’s tears sway him this time. “Think about it; you’ve both got weird dream powers, you can both possess people, heck, you can even float like he can!”

As soon as Steven heard this, his tears stalled completely, his grief turning to something much sharper over the paper-thin similarities Dipper had pointed out. “That--no,” he said shortly, succinctly as the first hints of frustration began to fill in his expression. “That’s not fair, Dipper! Those are just my powers, they aren’t who I am! I would never do any of the things Bill’s done, I would never hurt you like he has! You can trust me, you know you can!”

Dipper hesitated at this earnest appeal, wanting so much to believe it. And yet, just when he was on the verge of accepting it, an all-too-familiar mantra rang through his head, just as clear as it always did: “Trust no one.” 

No one… not even his very best friend. 

“Sorry,” he said quietly, coldly as he turned his back on Steven once more. “But I can’t.”

Steven was unable to hold back another sob at this, one that heaved heavily out of him as he watched Dipper swiftly, silently walk away from him. As he watched the growing rift between them finally tear them apart entirely. “Dipper, w-wait,” Steven reached out in an effort to stop him, desperate to find a way to fix what had just been broken. “I-”

Before he could even get another word out, their entire argument was abruptly brought to a grinding halt as a bright flash of noisy light rippled across the surrounding forest. Both boys were completely caught off guard by it as they shielded themselves against its blinding might, though as it faded away just as quickly as it had appeared. Only to leave something very unsettling behind in its place. 

As Steven and Dipper opened their eyes once more, they both immediately saw it: a small, yet vibrantly glowing orb of multicolored light, hovering above the ground as its shape shifted, ebbing and flowing almost constantly before them. “W-what is that…?” Steven asked, his eyes wide as he stared at the orb, captivated by it. 

“I… don’t know…” Dipper shook his head, eyeing it distrustfully. “It almost looks like… that rift Great Uncle Ford told us about…”

Steven gasped, alarmed as he noticed the striking similarity this orb had to the rift too. A similarity that unnerved him deeply when he remembered exactly who was hoping to get his hands on the original. “What are you doing?” Dipper asked him as he took his first few steps toward it. 

“I’m gonna bubble it,” Steven glanced back over his shoulder as he continued approaching the light. 

“What? No, Steven, don’t touch it!” Dipper warned incredulously. “We have no idea what that thing even is!”

“Well, Mr. Ford and the Gems might. Once I bubble it, we can take it back to them and see what they think.”

“No, we should just leave it alone and get out of here.”

“But it’s ok,” Steven assured as he reached out toward the orb to secure it in a bubble. “I’ve got this.”

Dipper let out a disgruntled scoff as he essentially received yet another reminder of just how often Steven refused to simply listen. “No, you don-”

At that very moment, just as the young Gem’s hands began to surround the orb, it exploded in yet another burst of incredible light. The force of it alone was enough to knock Steven back, sending him crashing into Dipper before they both hit the ground hard. They had no time to recover, however, as they looked back to where the light had been… only to find what could only be described as a portal instead. 

Said portal was sizable, filled in with a strange sort of spacelike expanse that seemed to be changing colors continually. Under different circumstances, it might have been mesmerizing; if it hadn’t gained an immense, almost suction-like gale-force wind to go along with its radiance. Its magnetic force immediately began to pull the nearest thing toward it, which just so happened to be Steven. The young Gem let out a startled cry as he was pulled off its feet, the rushing gale dragging him toward the portal completely against his will. His attempts at grounding himself all failed as he steadily neared the unknown void ahead, and he was only briefly slowed as Dipper latched onto his arm, his feet planted firmly on the ground as he tried to hold him back. Their former fight was all but forgotten in such a frantic, fearful moment, even as they tried to cling onto each other for dear life. An effort that ended up being all for naught as Dipper ended up ultimately losing his footing against the strength of the portal’s pull, just as Steven had before him. 

And from there, it only took a matter of seconds before both boys, completely unable to save themselves and bereft of anyone else who could, were fully forced into the portal just before it closed itself up and disappeared completely. A portal that led to a place that couldn’t be described as anything other than an absolute nightmare. 

The sheer force of passing through the portal had been enough to knock both Steven and Dipper out, though they both happened to begin to reemerge into consciousness at roughly the same time. Things were quite bleary as they awakened, though the first thing either of them noticed was that they almost seemed to be floating adrift in the air. Or rather, as they discovered upon fully opening their eyes, adrift in what appeared to be space itself. 

Dipper took in a sharp, startled gasp as soon as he spotted the endless expanse of stars below, above, and all around him and Steven, an expanse they somehow hung amid without any gravity weighing on either of them to speak of. Likewise, Steven also aptly panicked, quickly glancing around their apparently empty surroundings, which kept on swirling with senseless colors and unknown sound and silence all at the same time. “W-what… where are we?!” Dipper asked, shuddering as his own voice echoed across the dense void all around them. 

“I-I don’t know…” Steven shook his head, turning his attention to Dipper. “Are you ok?”

“...Yeah,” Dipper answered, glaring away from the young Gem to show he was still quite upset with him. “I’d be better if you hadn’t messed with that thing in the woods. Who knows where we are now…”

“W-well, look on the bright side,” Steven ventured a small, hopeful smile. “At least we can both breathe! I-I guess that rules out outer space, huh?”

“Wow, we can breathe,” Dipper rolled his eyes. “The absolute bare-minimum for surviving. What a great upside you found to us being totally trapped in some sort of completely empty void!”

“Well, at least I‒look out!” Steven exclaimed, rushing in closer to Dipper to surround them both in a timely bubble. Mere seconds later a bizarre, horrifying creature, composed of a large, wide, single eyeball held aloft with its wide set of bat wings, crashed squarely into the bubble, followed by several more of the same flock. The monsters clamored against the sturdy surface, trying to break through it to attack the frightened boys inside, though upon finding that it wouldn’t give, they soon moved on to look for some other sort of prey instead. Steven didn’t get a chance to drop his bubble however, for right after the eye-bats had left, something else struck it instead. This time, it was an asteroid, one that shattered upon brutally hitting the bubble, sending it reeling wildly through the starry, unstable expanse. Both boys were knocked into each other several times over as their bubble speed through the void, though they still saw no relief as gravity, or the lack thereof, turned its head on both of them completely. They had apparently got caught up in some sort of strange, unseen current, one that forcefully flipped them upside down, pressing them both against the top of the bubble. Steven tried his best to right them once more, though gravity soon switched its course against them once more, abruptly shoving them to the side several times over. The unpredictable current tossed the bubble about violently, and all the while, Steven and Dipper were helpless to stop it, only staying together amidst it all thanks to the bubble they were both encased in. 

Eventually, finally, the bubble floated to a gradual stop, still completely lost amidst the vast tide of multicolored space surrounding it. Needless to say that Steven and Dipper were equally shaken by such a harrowing experience, to the point that the young Gem hesitated in bringing his protective bubble down just in case anything else beset them out of nowhere. “W-well…” Steven said breathlessly, nervously as he lingered close to Dipper. “Whatever this place is, I guess it’s not as empty as it looks…”

“You have no idea how right you are, kid!”

At the mere sound of this unmistakable voice alone, a spark of fear, so sharp and so intense it might as well have been lighting, struck Dipper and Steven alike. That fear only grew as a harsh, golden light fell upon them, one that only offered all the more telling evidence about exactly who had happened upon them. 

“B-Bill!” Steven gasped, a shield already formed over his arm as he spun around to face the demon. 

Sure enough, Bill hovered large and dominating above them, his single eye practically gleaming with twisted delight as he offered the young Gem a wave of greeting. “That’s the name, don’t wear it out! Lookie what the interdimensional tear in the fabric of reality dragged in! It’s Rosebud and Pine Tree! My two favorite Mystery Twerps, paying me a visit on my own turf! To what do I owe the pleasure of having you boys in my neck of the woods for a change instead of the other way around?”

“W-wait… y-your… what?” Steven asked, his voice trembling even amidst his confusion. 

Bill hardly offered him any answer however as he’d instead set his sights on Dipper, who hadn’t even tried to so much as even glance back at the dream demon. Instead, he’d kept his back turned, his arms wrapped tightly around himself as he tried to block out his presence altogether. “I-it’s just a dream, he’s not actually here,” Dipper whispered to himself, his eyes tightly shut to block out the terrified tears starting to well up in them over his usual nighttime tormentor. “It’s a-another nightmare, it always is, he’s not real, he’s not real, he’s NOT-”

“Oh, yeah, sorry to break it ya, but I’m as real as it gets!” In an instant, Bill had scaled himself down, teleporting to appear directly in front of Dipper. On a knee-jerk reaction alone, he let out a tight, frightened cry, flinching back through the open air only for Steven to catch him with a protective, secure grip on his arm. “You know, Pine Tree, ignoring people is rude, especially when you’re the one barged into someone else’s dimension completely unannounced!” 

“L-Leave him alone!” Steven protested, still holding onto Dipper, who by now, had more or less completely shut down. He choked out a small, scared sob, but he said nothing, his hand flinching over his shoulder to grab a sword he didn’t even have on him. No sword, no means of defense, nothing he could do to stop Bill from turning his constant nightmares into a horrible reality. 

“Aw, c’mon, Rosebud, don’t be such a prude,” Bill scoffed, floating a quick circle around the boys. “Besides, seeing as how we’re in my own digs here, I think I’m entitled to do whatever I want. And that includes having a little fun with poor Pine Tree there!”

At this, Steven fully threw himself between Bill and Dipper, upholding his shield as he prepared to fend off any surprise attacks the demon might throw their way. “Wait,” he began, trying to make sense of everything. “So… this place is… your home?”

“You got it, kid! Well, at least it’s home for right now,” Bill quipped, flying high above both of them as he resumed his earlier massive size to take a seat on the levitating gilded throne he’d just conjured up. Behind him, a horde of shadowy, monstrous silhouettes appeared out of nowhere, their crimson eyes all peering curiously down on the terrified pair of humans below them. “Welcome to the Nightmare Realm, boys! Hope you enjoy your stay! Don’t worry, the locals are as friendly as they come! Aren’t we, fellas?”

The crowd of obscured demons surrounding Bill chimed in at this, letting out a rowdy chorus of demented, mallicious laughter that was every bit as sadistic as the dream demon’s own. Yet despite their twisted levity, Bill was quick to put an end to it with a mere dismissive wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, as much as I know you guys would love to tear these two puny punks to shreds and make an entire gourmet meal out of their innards, I’m afraid I have some… unfinished business to attend to with the kids first,” he remarked to his henchmen, sending the newly disappointed crowd off to whatever part of the Nightmare Realm they’d crawled out of. “That’s right, run along and get a good seat to watch the show from. Because oh boy,” Bill turned his full attention back to Steven and Dipper, his eye burning with his iconic blue fire as he set his sights solely on them. “What a show we’re about to have here…”

Steven took in a hitched, panicked breath at this, briefly casting a glance back at Dipper behind him, only to find that he was more or less hyperventilating, the weight of the grave situation they’d now found themselves in crushing him more and more with each passing second. And even though he was immensely afraid at the moment himself, the young Gem was determined to do his best to try to carry that weight for the both of them where Dipper couldn’t. “L-look,” he addressed Bill as calmly as he possibly could. “We don’t know how we ended up here, but-”

“Oh, you don’t?” Bill interrupted, leaping off his throne as it vanished into thin air. “Really? I thought it was beyond obvious if you take two seconds to think about that pretty little rift ol’ Sixer’s been trying to lock up nice and tight away from me!”

“The rift…” Steven repeated with a small gasp of realization. “S-so, that thing in the forest really did have something to do with it?”

“Sure did!” Bill confirmed. “Looks like Fordsy’s nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is. Ya see, kids, he might have the rift itself contained for now, but it’s still a highly unstable drop of paradoxical, trans-dimensional energy that’s being kept safe only by some dumb, glorified snowglobe. You really think something like that is gonna keep that rift from letting loose some unexpected… side effects as long as it stays in your dimension?”

“S-side effects…?” Dipper dared to speak up, his curiosity getting the better of him, even amidst his own persistent panic. 

“Hey, look who finally got his voice back!” Bill teased callously. “I was starting to think you’d gone mute on me, Pine Tree. Anyway, yessiree! A whole boatload of side effects, but the main one is that it’s wearing down the walls between dimensions, just like Sixer’s portal did back when it was up and running. And the longer that rift chips away at those walls, the more chances you have for random wormholes to pop up all over the place! And you wanna know where all those wormholes just so happen to lead…?”

The boys exchanged an uneasy glance, both of them quite alarmed by what the dream demon was implying through this explanation alone, especially when they considered it was the very means through which they’d found themselves here to begin with. “Uh… h-here?” Steven guessed anxiously. 

“Ding ding ding! We have a winner!” Bill chimed as a noisy mess of game show lights and sound effects blared dramatically behind him. “You’re really using your noggin today, huh, Rosebud? I guess there’s a first for everything! Though I gotta admit, I wasn’t actually expecting one of those mini-portals to actually pull anything through it at all, but can you imagine my surprise when it did! And you kids, of all the meatskins it could have picked out there? Right as I was in the middle of sitting here, watching you two have a grand old time duking it out--which was hilarious by the way? Well, I guess you could say that today is my lucky day!”

Both boys bristled at the demon’s cutting remarks, though even so, they chose to mostly ignore them as Dipper nervously piped up with another horrific thought that had just occurred to him. “W-wait… so… if these portals between h-here and Earth just keep… showing up… why haven’t you just g-gone through any of them?” he asked shakily, trying and failing not to show just how frightened he really was. “T-that is what you want, right? T-to get into our dimension a-and take it over?”

Bill’s usually cheery tune quickly changed at this, his triangular form turning blood red as he glared down at Dipper in particular. “Oh, Pine Tree, you always know just the right questions to ask to PUSH MY BUTTONS!” he shouted, suddenly furious as the Nightmare Realm rumbled all around him. “You really think that I would even hesitate to leap through one of those portals into your dimension if I could? Problem is, I CAN’T! I’m still bound to this STUPID WASTELAND OF A DIMENSION! Or…” Bill seemed to calm somewhat at this, much to the boys’ shared relief.  “At least I am until I get my hands on that rift… You kids wouldn’t wouldn’t happen to know someone who’d be able to help me out with that little problem, would you?”

“No,” Dipper said almost immediately, resolve starting to replace his fear as he sent a steady, stern glare Bill’s way. “You can do whatever you want to us, but we will never ever give you that rift!”

Steven couldn’t help but look over at Dipper with a small smile at this, glad to see his usual bravery making a return, even in the face of undoubtedly his greatest fear. “That’s right!” Steven solidly, boldly agreed. “We made a promise to protect it from you, and that’s exactly what we’re gonna do!”

While both boys expected Bill’s more than infamous temper to flare up over their brazen resistance, he instead reacted in the complete opposite way instead. He laughed. “Oh, you boys are a real RIOT!” he chortled as madly as ever, his crimson pallor returning to its usual garish yellow. “You two really think I’m gonna try and swipe that rift from you?! What, do you think I’m some kind of idiot like Sixer is?! He’s got you kids so brainwashed into hoarding that thing away from me to the point that you’d probably rather die than hand it over to me. Which can be arranged, easily, of course, but still, let’s just say I’ve got… another pawn in mind when it comes to that rift. Besides, why waste time with that when I can make an even better use of this opportunity to get something else I’ve been after instead....?”

Steven took in a sharp, involuntary gasp at this, his eyes wide as he instantly gripped the gemstone on his navel, even if it was currently covered by his shirt. Bill picked up on his obvious alarm almost instantly, yet he simply brushed the young Gem’s palpable fear off with a callous scoff. “Geez, calm down, Rosebud, I wasn’t talking about that rock on your gut,” he remarked, rolling his eye. “The universe doesn’t revolve around you, ya know, even if your last name might have you thinking otherwise. But, relax! I don’t have my sights set on your gem this time around. At least not yet, anyway.”

“Oh…” Steven let out a sigh of relief, though he did notice Dipper tense up beside him in light of this new uncertainty. “W-well, if you don’t need anything from us, t-then maybe you could just… I-I don’t know, let us go ho-”

“No can do, Rosebud!” Bill interrupted succinctly. “I can’t just open up one of those tiny tears in reality myself, as much as I’d love to just so I could slip through it too. Didn’t ya hear the part about how they open up randomly? For all you know, you could be stuck here for what would be days, maybe even weeks in your dimension!”

Needless to say that upon hearing this news, both boys’ hearts practically dropped to their stomachs. The mere thought of being trapped here, in this chaotic, lawless, mess of a dimension with no one but Bill Cipher, of all beings, and his band of malicious, blood-thirsty demons to keep them company was just about the most terrifying, horrific thing for either of them, a thought so unbearable they could scarcely even comprehend it. Yet for as dreadful as it all was, it seemed as though it was all-too-true all the same. 

“Oh, now don’t worry!” Bill quipped, taking twisted pleasure in the boys’ obvious panic over their plight. “I have the perfect plan in mind to keep you kids entertained during your stay here. See, lately I’ve been thinking, doing that whole self-reflection thing you humans try and usually fail miserably at. I’ve made some pretty outstanding deals these past few months, deals that could have landed me with everything I need to take over your dimension in one fell swoop. But every single time I got close, you know who was always there to stop me?”

Neither of the boys had a chance to answer this question, one they already largely knew the answer to. Because in an instant, the dream demon’s eye flooded with golden light, practically becoming a bright spotlight that shined down directly upon them both. “That’s right! You two! Along with any combination of the Crystal Chumps and/or Shooting Star and Sword Swinger, but what’s consistent is that every time one of my plans falls through, you boys are always in the mix somehow. The time I snuck into Stan’s mind, when I took your body for a test drive, Pine Tree-” Dipper seized up with yet another burst of potent fear upon hearing this casual reminder of something that deeply haunted him even still, though even so, Bill hardly seemed to notice as he continued his list. “But the straw that broke the camel’s back was when you two personally split my fusion with Greenie up! Pyrite had enough power and potential to crush those Crystal Chumps to dust, but somebody just had to help someone else run a sword through them, DIDN’T YOU?!” 

Despite the dream demon’s severe tone, Steven spoke up, prompted by all of the wavering courage he really had in the face of such clear fury. “Y-yes, we did,” he professed firmly, evenly. “We stopped you each of those times because you were trying to hurt our friends! Our home! We had to do something to help them!”

Upon hearing this earnest argument, Bill simply narrowed his eye at the young Gem in particular, visibly annoyed by such a resistant claim. “Well, if you care so much about your friends, where are they to help you now?” he asked knowingly, piercingly before his tone picked back up into its usually playfulness once more. “It’s a shame none of them even know you kids are here; they’re really gonna miss out on something special here. See Rosebud, Pine Tree, we’re about to play a little game here. The name of that game is REVENGE.” At this, bright bursts of blue fire ignited over both of the demon’s palms, his single eye sparking with violent, malicious intent as he glared down at both of the defenseless boys before him hatefully. “And this time, the winner takes IT ALL!” 

Without wasting another second on small talk, Bill began his attack, launching both his flames at the boys in full speed. Steven rushed to move his shield in front of both himself and Dipper, expanding it as wide as he possibly could to block the devastating strike. While it succeeded in fending the fire off, the sheer force of the blow was enough to send them both flying back across the vast expanse of the Nightmare Realm. The unexpected flight fortunately seemed to put them out of Bill’s reach, though unfortunately it wasn’t for very long. As the pair finally floated to a gradual, gravity-free stop, the demon suddenly teleported directly behind them, sizing his form up to tower over them as he prepared to grab them both. The most Steven could do to stop him was form another bubble around himself and Dipper, though Bill just as easily swiped the bubble itself up, tossing it up as if it were nothing more than a mere plaything. 

“Ohoho! Way to spice things up, Rosebud!” Bill quipped as he casually juggled the bubble, ignoring the boys’ shared cries of protest as they were roughly tossed about inside it. “Let’s play ball!” At this, the demon threw the bubble up high, forcing some sort of gravity upon it to bring it back down as he pulled a nail-covered bat into existence out of thin air. He used that bat to strike the bubble squarely, sending it soaring across the starry void once more with both Steven and Dipper inside, helpless to even try to stop it. “Iiiiiiits outta here! A home run hit! And the crowd goes wild!” 

Sure enough, Bill’s horde of demonic friends erupted into a hearty round of cheers from wherever unknown corner of the Nightmare Realm they were watching from. While the dream demon eagerly soaked up their praise, he missed the boys’ bubble as it flew far out of his sight, ultimately crashing hard into a stationary asteroid that ended up popping it completely. Without anything to safely contain them, Steven and Dipper hit the asteroid themselves, though thankfully the bubble had cushioned the brunt of what would have otherwise been a brutal blow. Even so, they still they both rolled hard across the large rock, inevitably falling back into the open space behind it, much worse for wear considering the substantial cuts and bruises they had sustained. The only upside amidst this harrowing situation was that there now seemed to be some actual distance between them and Bill, though they were both more than well aware that the dream demon could just as easily bridge that distance to kickstart his barrage of twisted violence all over again. 

“T-that was… a-a lot…” Steven said breathlessly, pressing against the side of the asteroid. He stole a weary glance over at Dipper, only to find a noticeably bleeding cut torn across his face, which itself was engulfed in nothing less than immense, inescapable terror. “Oh!” the young Gem gasped, quickly licking his hand. “Here, let me-”

“Don’t,” Dipper’s expression turned harsh at this as he pushed Steven’s hand and the healing spit covering it away. “There’s no point. W-we’re not… we can’t... “ He trailed off, pulling his knees to his chest in a tight hug as he let out an anguished sob. “T-there’s no way either of us have a chance at surviving here, not for long, n-not against… him.”

“W-what? No,” Steven countered immediately, racing to figure out some way to comfort Dipper, despite how despondent he was himself over their dire straits. “W-we’ll figure something out, I know we can. L-like I said earlier, we’ve stopped Bill before, so-”

“We’ve never stopped him by ourselves!” Dipper cut him off sharply. “We’ve always had Mabel or Connie or the Gems to help us! And what’s more is we’ve never had to fight him here, on his home turf! He has a physical form here! He doesn’t need to possess or fuse with someone anymore! He’s free to do whatever he wants to us and if you think he might go easy on us then you’re wrong!”

“W-well, maybe can outrun him somehow,” Steven ventured anxiously. “Then we can wait for another one of those portals to open up and… Um… Oh, I know! O-once the Gems and your uncles notice we’re gone, maybe they’ll go looking for us and-”

“And what, Steven? You heard what Bill said! Nobody even knows we’re here!” Dipper argued intensely, hot tears streaming down his cheeks. “No one is coming to save us… S-so stop doing that thing you always do where you act like everything is going to turn out alright in the end, because it’s not, not this time. Don’t you get it, Steven?” He buried his face in his hands, choking out another mournful, miserable whimper as he admitted the only thing he knew to be absolutely certain now. “W-we… we’re going to die here…”

At this, Dipper more or less completely lost himself to his grief, grief over a present that was about to painfully be cut short, over a future he’d never get to have. Both brought to a violent conclusion by the very demon he’d always feared would end them. Steven nearly victim to that same grief too, especially when he considered just how right Dipper really was. No one knew where they were, no one was going to come to their rescue. The chances of another portal leading back to their own dimension opening up were completely unknown, and the possibility of them even surviving long enough to reach it against a complete and utter sadist like Bill was genuinely low to none. All in all, it really didn’t seem like either of them would survive this ordeal, perhaps the gravest, most immediate danger either of them had ever been thrust into before.

And yet… 

Despite even those impossible, insurmountable odds, Steven refused to give up. At least not yet. 

“Dipper,” he began, his tone slow and purposeful as he came to float directly in front of Dipper. He resisted his attempts at grabbing his hands at first, but eventually folded, allowing the young Gem to see all of the strife and dread that had claimed his expression quite some time ago. “I… I know this seems really bad, but… I still think we have a chance. A-and I think, deep down, you feel the same way too.”

Dipper let out a tight, exhausted sigh, shaking his head hopelessly. “S-steven, I…”

“You can’t give up,” Steven implored, gripping his hands tightly. “We can’t give up. I… I think I have an idea…” He paused for a moment, allowing that idea, however risky it might have been, to solidify inside his mind before proposing it to Dipper. “I know someone who might be able to stand a chance against Bill, e-even if we can’t on our own. The only thing is… I-I need you to trust me…”

Before Dipper even had a chance to consider this offer, Bill’s voice suddenly rang out across the surrounding section of the Nightmare Realm, a clear sign that he was on the hunt for his victims once more. “Oh, Pine Tree! Rosebud!” he called, his tone deceptively bright and friendly. “Come on out! You don’t wanna call it quits already, do you? Not when the game’s only just begun…”

“Dipper, please,” Steven practically begged, pulling his hands out of Dipper’s, though his pleading sights stayed set on him. “I-I know you’re probably still mad at me, a-and I’m sorry, but right now, I need you. I-I… I can’t do this without you! We can’t do this without each other! So please…” This time, it was the young Gem who let out a small, nervous sob, consumed by worry. Though even still, that worry had almost nothing to do with the possibility of Bill finding them at all. “Just… trust me again… Just this once… please…”

For what seemed like ages, Dipper said nothing, making not a single move to respond to either accept or reject the young Gem’s tearful appeal. His mind was racing with far too many thoughts at once, his upheaved emotions tossing him in a wild sea of shock, fear, anger, and grief. But amidst that sea, amidst the tide of chaos that threatened to swallow him up completely, was Steven. Steven, who had thoughtlessly invaded his dreams just like Bill himself had done so many times before. Steven, who so very often thought only of himself under the guise of trying to help others. Steven, who had inadvertently been the reason why they’d ended up in this potentially fatal disaster in the first place. 

Steven… who was always there to offer him a comforting smile and a kind word when he needed it most. Steven, who was always more than ready to throw himself in the line of fire if it meant protecting his friends, including him, even after he’d screamed and yelled and practically torn their friendship apart. Steven, who was asking for something as simple as his trust, who was extending out a hand to him in the hopes that he’d take it, so that they could at least try to survive, try to get through this together. 

And, in spite of everything else going on around him and inside him, that was a hand Dipper slowly but surely found himself taking. 

“Alright, kids, hide-and-seek time is over!” Bill shouted, growing impatient as he continued combing through the surrounding asteroid field. “I mean it, Rosebud, Pine Tree, you two twerps better get out here where I can pummel you into oblivion NOW or else I’m gonna-” The dream demon was succinctly cut off as a sudden, lightning-fast projectile sped at him from behind, slicing through one of his arms to the point that it managed to cut it off completely, catching him off guard in the process. “WHAT?!” 

Bill’s eye drifted to his backside, the rest of his features following suit so he could properly see where this sudden attack had come from. Only to be met with a sight, or rather, a fusion, that even he hadn’t been expecting. 

“You called?” Stepper grinned, looking up at the dream demon with a new sense of determination. He stood tall and unflinching atop the asteroid his halves had just been hiding behind, his shield journal already formed over his lower palms with a new shield summoned over it, ready to fly just as the first one had. And all the while, he couldn’t help but take some level in pride in just how genuinely surprised Bill seemed to be by his timely attack, his hope starting to rise as he realized that, with the respective strengths of his halves combined, he might just have a chance after all. 

Bill, however, didn’t see things quite the same way. His bafflement only seemed to last for a moment as he quickly recovered from the fusion’s attack, regenerating his arm easily and immediately. And as he did, all sense of shock seemed to disappear as he let out a loud, mocking laugh instead. “Oh, now this? THIS is a REAL riot right here!” he cackled almost madly, much to Stepper’s confusion. “And I thought Rose Star was hilarious, but you, Pine Bud? You take RIDICULOUS to a whole new level!”

Stepper let out a harsh scoff at this, his own confidence getting the better of him as he fired off just as punchy of a comeback to the dream demon himself. “I-I’ll tell you what’s ridiculous,” he began, trying his best to recover from how his voice had briefly cracked in fear at the start. “Using a nail bat to knock a to kids across an entire dimension. Seriously, did the bat even need to have nails in it? That was just overkill if you ask me.”

Bill’s amusement quickly shifted into a sharpened glare at this. “Oh, what, do you think you’re some kind of comedian now, Rose Tree? You really are funny if you think fusing is gonna save you now. You know, I’m surprised you two were even able to fuse at all what with you being at each others’ throats and all. Guess it goes to show just how far you boys are willing to go when you’re really desperate.”

Stepper’s bravado quickly shifted in annoyance at this reminder, a reminder of the still palpable tension still lingering between both of his halves, even if he had chosen to ignore that tension for now to maintain his fusion. “Shut up,” he hissed, waiting no time in launching his next shield at the demon. This one had the addition of spikes barbing its edges, and though Stepper had aimed it directly for Bill’s eye, the demon managed to teleport out of its path just before it could hit him. Instead, he retaliated, reappearing just behind the fusion and firing off a powerful laser blast from his eye to obliterate the asteroid Stepper was standing on upon impact. Fortunately, he’d managed to jump off it back into the gravity-free air, taking advantage of the momentum he gained to send several smaller shield-projectiles Bill’s way. The demon was able to deflect most of these easily, though Stepper managed to manipulate a few of them to change their course so they’d crash into Bill from behind, each of them exploding upon impact. 

“Ow!” Bill shouted, quite perturbed by the surprisingly potent attack. “Rose Tree!”

“What’s the matter, Bill?” Stepper taunted, perhaps a bit too brazenly, as he took up a perch on another nearby asteroid. “Aren’t used to someone who can actually keep up with your ‘game’?”

“Ha! You WISH you could keep up with me, Pine Bud!” Bill shouted manically, scorching blue flames bursting from both his hands. As he launched them at the fusion, Stepper deflected them with a large, well-cast shield from his journal, one that not only seemed to dispel the fire but deflect it as well. All four of his arms were put to work upholding it, his gem, birthmark, and journal alike bursting with powerful light as he shoved that shield hard back at Bill. As drenched in his own flames as the shield already was, the demon was unprepared for the full force of it striking him as heavily as it did, and his genuinely pained, outraged shout echoed across the Nightmare Realm as he was swiftly thrown back through it. 

In light of such a momentous, successful blow, Stepper himself was quite stunned, looking to his shield journal with apt amazement. He had always known, from the very first time he’d been formed, that it was a strange, unique, special weapon, one that contained powers that even he didn’t hold all of the answers to yet. It had served him well before in taking down Peridot’s unwanted robinoids months ago, but now, was there indeed a chance, however small, that it might just be enough to help him take on Bill Cipher himself? 

“W-we could do this…” Stepper said to himself, his halves conversing with a sense of rising hope and excitement. “We could win this! Maybe… maybe we could even do more than just win; maybe we could even stop Bill for good! After all,” he grinned as he looked afar off in the distance to where Bill was still being forced back thanks to his own shield’s strength. “He’s not invincible here. Y-you really think we could beat him? If we stay together like this? I think so.” He laughed in spite of himself, his upper arms wrapping around themselves in a steadying, affectionate, assuring hug, both of his halves in perfect harmony when it came to this daring endeavor. “O-ok. Then let’s do it. And while we’re at it,” he paused, allowing his shield journal to float before him, placing his lower hands under it as its pages flipped rapidly on their own accord. “Let’s see what this thing can really do.”

By now, Bill had recovered from Stepper’s last attack, rushing across the wide span of the Nightmare Realm in a matter of mere seconds to strike back. “You know, Rose Tree, you’re really starting to GET ON MY NERVES!” he yelled, his form flashing bright red as he appeared massive and intimidating before the fusion. “I think it's high time someone TORE YOU TWO APART!” 

In an instant, the dream demon lashed out, hoping to grab ahold on the fusion to do exactly that, literally. Still, Stepper was ready for him, for right as Bill’s hands reached for him, he called upon another bubble. This one, however, was quite a bit different, for as soon as the dream demon so much as touched it, he retracted his hands with a startled yelp of pain. 

“Whoa…” Stepper gasped, looking over the newfound spikes he’d somehow formed on the outer surface of his bubble. “Cool! Oo! I can think of something even cooler.” At this, the fusion flipped through the earlier pages of his journal, landing on one depicting a familiar sword that had recently been lost to the depths of the lake. But with just a bit of magic, it had the chance to be reclaimed in some way, and for Stepper, that was far better than nothing. 

“You must think you have a whole bunch of nifty tricks up all four of your sleeves, dontcha, Rose Tree?” Bill asked, clearly annoyed at this point as his eye flashed a violent red. “Well SO DO I!”

Stepper finished pulling a conjured, pinkened version of the Sword of Seasons out of the shield journal just in time to use it to slice through the first of several heavy waves of successive, destructive energy Bill sent his way. As one set of his arms continued deflecting these attacks, his other arms took up a shield, which he positioned protectively in front of himself to stem the onslaught completely. From there, Stepper kept his pace rapid, tossing the shield at Bill full force and landing a successful strike to his eye this time. While the dream demon was distracted with recovering from such a painful blow, Stepper rushed forward, leaping off his asteroid perch with his sword raised high, though just before he could bring it down on Bill, the demon disappeared out of his reach once more. Bill reappeared somewhere behind him, absolutely livid, though Stepper still didn’t back down. Instead, he formed another shield under his feet, using it as a launch pad to jump off to do so he could propel himself in Bill’s direction, swinging his sword out broadly as he did. The dream demon attempted to fend him off with a rapid fire series of flame bursts, but a large and sturdy shield was more than enough to protect the fusion from them. And for quite awhile, that was how the battle flowed; Bill and Stepper, both doling out strong, heavy attacks aimed for each other, none of which really did much damage thanks to the steady line of defense and stamina both had on their sides. 

Stepper did manage to briefly break that flow, however, by swiftly working to put some tactical distance between himself and Bill so he could have time to plan his next move. He distracted the dream demon with another series of small seeker shields before he leapt onto the nearest asteroid, looking through his shield journal for anything else that might be useful. “Come on, we’ve got him on the ropes,” he muttered both to himself and the magical tome floating in front of him. “Give me something really good this time.” As if it was answering the fusion’s request, the journal flashed with vibrant light once more before its flipping pages landed on two in particular, one within each different half of the journal as the pages between them stood up perfectly straight. And printed upon those two pages was a plan that Stepper could and readily did hope was more than enough to finally put this arduous fight to an end once and for all. “Perfect!” he grinned, determined to give that plan a try. Or rather, to give his component halves a try. 

“You know, Pine Bud,” Bill’s entire form was as he began to approach the fusion hotly. “I’m getting REAL sick of you and that stupid book of yours! You’re almost more of a pain while you’re fused than you two are on your own!”

“Oh, really?” Stepper asked, smirking as he let his journal drop low toward his feet. “I don’t know if I’d be too sure of that if I were you…”With a simple flourish of his upper hands, the fusion conjured up his next method of attack from the two open pages of the shield journal. And from those pages, solid, yet still clearly holographic life-sized doubles of both Steven and Dipper appeared, pigmented pink and blue respectively as they stood, already armed with a shield and a sword from the start. Through the journal, Stepper was in full command of these copies of his halves as he pointed them at their target, and without skipping a beat, both doubles lunged for the dream demon, ready to attack. While Bill worked in taking down the first set, Stepper worked on creating several more in quick succession, sending each of them the demon’s way as he amassed an army essentially composed of himself. The copies, while not the most sturdy, were plentiful as they attacked Bill essentially in a haphazard swarm, beating their swords and shields away at him even as the demon retaliated by destroying as many of them as quickly as he could. Still, Stepper kept them coming, his hopes steadily rising as he watched his duplicates begin to overwhelm Bill while he waited for just the opening he needed to finally win this deadly brawl.

And yet, despite those hopes, it was an opening that never came. 

“ENOUGH!” Bill suddenly shouted, unleashing a powerful wave of energy to dissipate all of the boys’ clones. The blast also knocked Stepper back hard, preventing him from conjuring up anymore as the shield journal fell away from him before disappearing completely. “You sure have shown off that you’ve got some pretty sharp thorns to ya, Rose Tree,” Bill continued angrily, his hands glowing with an entirely new type of dangerous power. “Well, why don’t I take the time to show you MINE? Fair warning: they’re at least a MILLION TIMES SHARPER THAN YOURS!” 

Stepper gasped, quickly righting himself to float upright, though he didn’t get much of a chance to summon his shield journal again before something sharp latched onto one of his lower arms. The same thing happened to his other arms in short order, and from there it didn’t take Stepper long to see what it was: long, thick black vines, covered in tiny, yet razor-sharp thorns that had already begun to cut deep into his skin. Despite his efforts to pull himself out of them, their grip only grew tighter, worsening as even more vines began latching onto his legs, snaking their way up his torso, his chest, over his neck, even all the way up to his face until he was essentially covered with them. Then, to make matters worse, the vines themselves began to pull against him, stretching all four of his arms and his legs out wide to the point that he felt as though his limbs were going to be ripped clean out of their sockets. And yet, despite his involuntary cry of agony the sting of the thorns in particular managed to draw out of him, Bill simply let out a smug, triumphant, amused laugh at the fusion’s clear misery. 

“Ah, now THAT’S more like it!” he remarked blithely, even as Stepper voiced another protesting, pained shout. “You know, I really gotta hand it to ya, Rose Tree, you’re putting up way more of a fight than I ever would have imagined out of a soft, baby-faced fusion like you. Too bad that fight ends right here. Playtime is over, boys! Which means now, the fun can REALLY begin…”

Despite this alarming threat, Stepper noticed that the vine latched onto one of his upper arms was finally starting to loosen. He wasted no time in pulling free from it, calling upon a small shield that he swiftly used to cut through the rest of them, pulling them off his body and just as quickly licking one of his hands to heal as many of the wounds they’d left him with as he could. He wasn’t able to take care of too many of them, however, before Bill caught him off guard with a heavy burst of flame. Stepper barely had time to react by throwing up a last-minute shield, though even still, that did little to stop the attack from shoving him back as he took most of the brutal brunt of the blow. This time, however, he didn’t simply continue reeling back through open space; instead he landed hard against something solid, a sideways surface that seemed to possess its own gravity as he landed upon it. 

“W-what…?” Stepper breathed, slowly starting to pick himself up off the new ground, only to be completely baffled by what surrounded him. He found himself on a massive, twisted structure, a mess of colors and shapes and stairs and floors and pillars, each of which was turned and twisted in a completely different direction. As bewildered as he was by this incomprehensible new setting, he didn’t get a chance to try to make sense of it before Bill suddenly appeared before him once more, scaled down dramatically to the point that he was now even smaller than the fusion himself. 

“Welcome to the Quadrangle of Qonfusion, boys! My favorite hangout in the entire Nightmare Realm! I’d give you the grand tour, but you won’t really be needing one since its  is about to become your GRAVE!”

Stepper took a wide step back away from the demon at this, all four of his hands clenched into tight, anxious fists as he tried to maintain his previously calm composure. “G-grave?” he repeated, doing his best to inject an air of cockiness into his tone. “B-but I thought you’d want me alive. I do still have Steven’s‒my gem after all.”

“Ohh don’t you worry about that, Pine Bud!” Bill retorted easily as he resumed his larger size once more. “I’ll make sure to pry that gem outta Rosebud’s cold, dead corpse before I toss that and Pine Tree’s into the endless empty abyss that acts as this dimension’s garbage dump! All I gotta do is rip you to pieces first and everything else will fall perfectly into place!”

At this, the dream demon conjured up his cane out of thin air and took a broad swing right at the fusion as blue flames ignited over the entire length of it. Stepper thankfully hat the wits about him to leap out of its path, deciding his best option was to retreat for now, if only for the sake of gaining a moment to reclaim his own weapon once more. So he rushed into the nearest hallway, getting himself out of Bill’s immediate range as he looked for some sort of refuge. As he ran, he let his gem do the work in bringing forth his shield journal once more, though it nearly fell out of his grasp entirely as gravity suddenly shifted sharply on him. Stepper let out a startled cry as he fell upward onto a set of upside down stairs, forced to reorient himself entirely as his lower set of arms clung onto his journal for dear life. The only positive seemed to be that Bill apparently hadn’t noticed as he glided through the hallway the fusion had just been in, still gripping his flaming cane as he casually called out to the prey he was hunting. 

“You know, it’s pretty sad, Pine Bud,” Bill remarked with no sympathy in his tone whatsoever. “Even if everyone back in your dimension knew where you were and what was happening to you, chances are they wouldn’t even care. I mean, it’s not like anybody even wants either of you around to begin with, right?”

Stepper made sure not to respond to this, knowing that this was likely just a dirty, underhanded tactic to get him to reveal himself. And yet, his silence was soon broken as he heard a new voice entirely ring out not too far away from him.

“Dipper? Steven?’

The fusion gasped, immediately rising to his feet to look to the silhouette standing within the darkness of the doorway in front of him. “N-no…” he stammered, eyes wide with disbelief as he took a small step closer. “I-it can’t be. You’re not supposed to be here!”

“...Neither are you.”

Stepper faltered as the obscured figure finally became clear, tears welling up in his eyes as he reached out toward her. “M-Mabel…”

“Why?” Mabel cut him off, her tone and expression alike uncharacteristically harsh and cold. “Why do you guys keep leaving me behind?”

“...W-what?” Stepper asked, genuinely confused amidst his grief. 

“Every single time you guys fuse, I’m always the one who gets left out!” Mabel accused bitterly. “And even when you’re not fused, you’re always off doing more important things with me, like you think I can’t handle them! Like I’m too stupid and silly to be a part of things! Like I said,” Tears were welling up in her eyes by this point, tears that the fusion mirrored as he stared at her in disbelief. “You’re always leaving me behind, Dipper…”

“N-no…” the fusion shook his head, distraught. “Mabel, of course I don’t think that, I don’t-“

“You always leave me out too, you know.” Stepper flinched, recognizing this new voice instantly. A palpable burst of dread coursed through him as he watched Connie step out of the same doorway Mabel had come from as she came to stand alongside her.  “What, am I not a part of the team too? Do I just not matter to either of you!?”

Stepper paused, dumbstruck as he desperately tried to search for the words to counteract these cruel claims. “Connie, I-”

“Even when we are a part of your disasters, things always go wrong.” As if out of nowhere, Pacifica suddenly stepped in to join Mabel and Connie’s rigid round of allegations. “You always put everyone in danger with your stupid mysteries-”

“And all of that dumb Gem stuff,” Connie added, her toine just as icy. “Maybe we’d all just be better off if you never came back at all. 

“Maybe…” Mabel began, seeming to hesitate for a moment before delivering her remorseless verdict. “Maybe it would just be better if you both left us all behind for good.”

“N-no,” Stepper countered tearfully, taking another small step toward the trio. Toward the people his halves cared so much about even if they weren’t currently giving that care back in return. “I would never, I-I don’t… I’m not going to leave any of you behind, ever. I promise!”

All three of the girls were silent at this, their expressions darkening as they began to turn away from the fusion entirely. Pacifica and Connie soon returned back into the empty doorway they had come out of, but Mabel still lingered behind for one final spiteful statement. “...You already have.”

A small, yet poignant sob escaped Stepper at this, and as Mabel disappeared into the same darkness Connie and Pacifica had, he didn’t hesitate to chase after all three of them. “W-wait!” he called, desperate to reach them, desperate to see if what they’d said to him was actually the truth. And desperately hoping all the while, that it wasn’t.

He passed through the doorway, into a dark, relatively short hallway where gravity turned on him once more, essentially forcing him to walk along the wall until he emerged on the other side of it. What met him was a narrow straight-away, though much to his alarm, none of the girls were anywhere in sight. He panicked, ready to call out for them to find them, to make sure they were alright and unharmed in this dangerous, practically deadly place. Yet before he could, another familiar voice happened to sound out from somewhere behind him. 

“Where do you two think you’re going?” Startled, Stepper turned to see none other than Stan, his arms crossed as he leaned against the doorway the fusion had just come out of. 

“G-Grunkle Pines?” Stepper asked, confused and anxious, especially at just how calm yet callous the conman seemed to be. “W-what are you doing h-”

“You know,” Stan cut him off, his tone and expression both dry as he began to approach the fusion. “This whole wacko world is pretty twisted. But I’d say it’s the perfect place for two freakshow kids fused into an even bigger, four-armed freakshow, wouldn’t you?”

Stepper shuddered, inching back nervously as the conman continued to approach him almost threateningly. “W-wh… why would you say that…?” 

“Cause it’s obvious, kid,” Stan sneered haughtily as he came to stop directly in front of the fusion. “In fact, since you seem to fit right in, why don’t you just stay here?”

Before Stepper even had a chance to react, Stan suddenly reached out and shoved him clean over the edge of the walkway they were both on. The fusion was unable to keep himself from falling over side of it, though as he lost his footing, gravity pulled him in yet another direction, this time hard to his left. He plummeted for what seemed like ages before landing hard against a wide, level floor, one lined with towering pillars on either side of it. However, he just so happened to land exactly on one of his lower arms, which took the brunt of the blow with a spark of excruciating pain accompanied by an audible snap. Stepper was unable to hold back an agonized scream as he cradled his clearly broken arm, though even amidst the tears still brimming in his eyes he did his best to reach the damaged limb up to his mouth. The moment he so much as gently kissed it, instant relief overwhelmed his senses, the brutal break completely repaired by the healing magic he thankfully still had, even while fused, as though the injury had never even happened at all. 

“You can’t just magically heal everything and make it all better.” 

“Even when you’re together, you’re nowhere near strong enough to save anyone.”

“Not even yourselves.”

Stepper already knew the Gems were coming before they even stepped into his field of vision based on these judgemental, cruel remarks alone. Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl alike all looked down at him as he remained on his spot on the ground, already dreading what else they’d have to say to him after everything he’d heard thus far. 

“Why don’t you just give up already, man?” Amethyst began, rolling her eyes at him. “You really think you’re gonna last long here? Quit kidding yourselves.”

“Maybe if you were half the Gem Rose was, you might have had a chance,” Pearl remarked with an ire-filled scowl. “To think that she gave everything up for you, Steven, and then you go and fuse with a simple human just to make yourself even weaker? Disgusting.”

“You’re not a stable fusion,” Garnet added, her tone hollow and cold. “And even if you were, it wouldn’t matter. That’s not enough to save you and it’s not enough to make us, or anyone else, want you. We never did to begin with.”

Stepper jolted at this, his breathing shuddering as he slowly pulled himself to stand. Something wasn’t right here, he knew that much, yet for as strange as these encounters all seemed, his emotions were still managing to work against him all the same. “N-no, that’s not true,” he asserted as firmly as he possibly could, counteracting his fears and grief with memories of just how much the Gems, how much Stan, how much Pacifica, Connie, and Mabel all really cared for him. For both of them. “I… I know it’s not. You said-”

“They were lying.” Stepper froze as the Gems parted ways for Ford to approach, the goldenish gleam reflecting from his glasses obscuring his eyes as he stared at the fusion piercingly. “Everyone does around you, just to keep you two from wasting our time by falling apart. Such fragile, futile things you boys are. It was foolish of me to think I could think I could trust either of you with anything, much less something as important as the rift. Tell me, boys. How do you expect to protect it when you can’t even protect yourselves?”

Stepper shook his head, wanting to argue, wanting to protest these malicious claims, but the words just wouldn’t come. The author and the Gems all continued to glare at him expectantly, saying nothing more though the disdain on each of their faces was perfectly clear. And under the crushing weight of that disdain, Stepper found himself hard-pressed to even try to bear it. 

So he turned, hoping to run, hoping to escape from his own doubts, his own fears, his own shortcomings and faults, as mounting and plentiful as they all were. Yet before he could take so much as a single step, he was stopped by yet another familiar figure, about the very last person, or Gem rather, he could have ever expected to see. 

“Oh, Steven…” Rose Quartz said, her voice every bit the same as he remembered it being from her tape. Yet instead of the gentle kindness and love that had filled it there, the only things emanating from her tone now was bitterness and scorn. “What a disappointment you turned out to be. I had hoped you would have followed in my footsteps to protect the Earth in my absence. But in the end, it looks like your little friend was right.” A sinister, twisted grin filled the pink Gem’s features, especially as Stepper essentially cowered before her in tears and terror. “You really are just… like… ME!”

Suddenly, “Rose’s” eyes flashed yellow, her pupils thin, perfect slits to match Bill’s telltale demented laughter coming out of her mouth. In a sudden flash of blinding light, the pink Gem was gone as the dream demon resumed his usual form, his sadistic masquerade coming to an end as he took a wicked sense of delight in just how shaken the fusion was by it all. 

“N-no,” Stepper breathed tightly, all four of his hands curled into tight, shaking fists. “No! T-that’s not… W-what I said, I-I didn’t mean that!”

“That’s not what I overheard, Pine Bud,” Bill corrected, playing out the offending scene on his flat form. And sure enough, there was Dipper, his tone livid and dead-serious as he shouted at Steven relentlessly. “Like Bill, Steven! You’re just like Bill!”

Stepper wavered at this, half of him practically drowning in guilt over words he desperately wished he could take back. Words he wished with every fiber of his being that he’d never even foolishly, thoughtlessly said in the first place. His gemstone and his birthmark suddenly flashed, conveying that remorse between both of his halves, though it did little to stem the rising tide of anger he could feel against his own regretful grief. “I-I’m sorry!” he begged himself, his upper arms embracing himself tightly as his lower hand remained curled into unyielding fists. “Please, I need you to understand! I was just mad! I-I wasn’t thinking! I just-”

“Sounds to me like Pine Tree is just trying to save his own skin, as usual,” Bill interrupted, casually floating around the distracted, distraught fusion. “You know, Rosebud, he did say he didn’t want your help to begin with, so why even bother? With friends as crummy and ungrateful as he is, you might as well not even have any! In fact, maybe you should just cut him loose completely. You’d sure save yourself a lot of time and effort in trying to fix what’s way past broken if you did!”

By now, Stepper was all but consumed by panic, tears streaking heavily down his face as he continued his painful plea to his other half, who had gone all but silent amidst all this. “I… I’m so, so sorry…” he repeated once more, half of him hating himself for the momentous mistake he’d made. “I said so many horrible things to you, I… m-maybe you should just break things off with me…” He sobbed, softly, sadly as he hung his head in shame as the faintest of white, unfusing lights began to enshroud him. “It’s what I deserve at this point…” 

“No, you don’t.” 

The fusion gasped as he suddenly read his own thoughts, his gem and birthmark both aglow as his other half finally said something to him. He led the way as well as he began wiping his tears, steadying both of them as he guided their shared form to stand once more. “I don’t want to break away from you,” he said aloud, his tone earnest and kind. “Our friendship means so much to me. You mean so much to me! And besides,” He turned his attention to Bill, who was clearly caught off guard by Stepper’s sudden change of demeanor, especially as the fusion stared him down brazenly. “I never leave my friends behind. When someone is in trouble, I help them, no matter what they’ve said or done. And that’s how I know-” His shield journal appeared above his lower arms at this, its pages blazing with bright, powerful light as he readied himself to get right back into the fray. “I am NOTHING like you!” 

Stepper didn’t even give Bill a chance to get a single word in edgewise out as he launched a series of fast-paced shields at the dream demon, several of which landed in full-force. The fusion didn’t hold anything back as he kept his attacks coming, hoping to somehow overwhelm Bill before he could pull any more twisted tricks on him. Sure enough, it seemed as though he might soon get a chance to do just that as he ended up forcing Bill over the edge of the platform they were both on completely. The dream demon crashed down into another one of the Quadrangle’s countless staircases while Stepper remained high above him, his journal hovering above his palm as he stood tall and firm and ready to fight together.

“Try whatever you want,” he said, his tone bold and unflinching as he met the bitter glare Bill was sending his way evenly. This time, it was easy to find the bravery to do so, bravery that had been easily found amidst the unshakable bond that he had been formed through, a bond that refused to be broken so easily. “But you can’t tear us apart!”

Despite the fusion’s brazen verve and steady determination, Bill wasn’t about to back down that quickly either. “Oh, you boys wanna BET?!” he practically screamed as he flew back up to Stepper’s level. He still towered over the fusion in size, but Stepper kept his wits about him as he called upon yet another series of shields to throw at a moment’s notice. “If you twerps won’t come undone the easy way, then I guess we’ll just have to do this THE HARD WAY!”

At this, Stepper let one of his shields fly, though Bill was quick to knock it away. However, as the fusion was distracted by prepping his next move, he failed to notice the dream demon implement one of his earlier tactics until it was too late. Instead, Stepper suddenly found himself yanked back hard as thick, thorny vines secured themselves around each of his wrists once more. They didn’t entangle him this time, though they did secure themselves around each of his limbs as they began to pull him back toward the center of the platform he was on. Stepper did his best to resist their heavy hold, though they refused to give, even as they eventually ended up dragging him down and restraining him against the ground. Even still, the fusion pulled against them as the vines essentially locked his back against the floor, more appearing in turn to further tie him down as Bill appeared floating high above him. 

“You just couldn’t make this simple for me, could ya, Rose Tree?” the dream demon asked, twirling his cane as he looked down at the fusion with disdain. “All I wanted was a nice, hearty helping of revenge, but you had to go and be stubborn. Why is that not surprising? Neither Pine Tree or Rosebud know when to quit. So why should I expect anything different out of their fusion?”

“T-that’s right,” Stepper retorted assertively, despite the rather vulnerable position he now found himself in. “We don’t know when to quit. And we won’t quit, not until we’ve found a way to stop you from hurting the people we care about once and for all!”

Bill instantly let loose a haughty laugh at this, his tone clearly mocking as he leaned against his cane and looked down at Stepper incredulously. “Stop me? YOU actually thought you could stop ME?! Give me a break, kid! Without all your fancy powers keeping you going, you would have been dead from the start! In fact…” Bill paused, repositioning his cane in a way the fusion didn’t quite understand, at least at first. “Why don’t we just nip that problem in the Pine Bud, if you catch my drift…?” Stepper didn’t answer, his eyes widening with sudden alarm as he realized the demon’s cane, awash in bright blue fire, was now hovering directly over him. 

Or rather, directly over his exposed gem.

“It’s a shame I gotta do this to ya, Rose Tree, really, it is!” Bill remarked easily, nonchalantly even, despite the horrific act he was about to commit. “Especially since I promised one of my favorite clients I’d hand that rock on your gut over to them in pristine, perfect, pretty condition. But, I’m sure they’ll understand if there’s a little collateral damage. After all, you know what they say: every deal has a loophole…” 

Stepper only had time to let out the smallest of horrified gasps before it happened. And when it did, it was so quick yet agonizingly slow, all at the same time. Because in an instant, Bill’s cane came down, its tip sharpened to a deadly point as it rushed right for the fusion’s gemstone. 

And, it struck it squarely, with a piercing, sickening crack. 

Shock. That was first, his mouth open, poised for a scream that never came. His back lurched upward involuntarily, the gem on his stomach pierced completely. Fortunately, the cane didn’t dig any deeper than its surface, but that was all it needed to do. For as it retracted away from him and left his gem behind, everything instantly got so much worse. 

Pain. That was what came next, so immense and so incredible that it was a wonder he didn’t fall apart completely from it. It washed over him in waves, each more horrific than the last. It blinded him, deafened him, chased away every thought, ever feeling, everything until there was nothing left at all but pain, pain, pain, pain. 

Cracks. They soon followed, spreading out across his skin in jagged, uneven, unruly pink lines. They glowed brightly against him, casting an inhuman, incomprehensible pallor upon his otherwise largely human appearance. Yet all the while, they soundly mimicked the very same sizable crack that had been so viciously torn across his gemstone, which itself was flashing in bright, erratic alarm. 

He didn’t dare try to move, his body in far too much anguish to even make the attempt if he wanted to. His thoughts were every bit as much of a mess as his body was, disjointed and jumbled and nonsensical as they clashed against each other violently. He lay in a haze, not even noticing as the vines finally pulled themselves away to free up his languished limbs. In fact, he didn’t even react at all as Bill teleported to hover, much smaller now, directly in front of his face. 

“Knock, knock! Earth to Rose Tree!” the demon quipped as cheerfully as ever, knocking a hand against the fusion’s already pounding head. “You still in there? You can’t die on me yet, that would ruin all the fun!”

Stepper didn’t answer, largely since he was completely incapable of doing so. Instead, he lay still, his breathing hoarse and shallow as tears began welling up in his eyes, which themselves were struggling to stay open at all as a bitter chill overtook his immobile body. His thoughts continued beating into each other, overlapping as they burst to life and burnt out almost simultaneously. None of them made any sort of sense, though a few did stand out against the empty void of madness he could feel himself slowly slipping into. 

Hurts. Heal. Have to heal. 

He let out a shuddering breath, prompted into motion by this thought, by the promise that this pain would and could come to an end in just a mere matter of seconds. Bill fortunately slipped out of his frame of vision, strangely allowing him to attempt to sit up. The effort alone was agonizing, his arms shaking violently and his head lolling down despite his best attempts at keeping it up. A small, sharp cough escaped him as he fully sat up, his body wracked by it as his lower hands curled themselves around his damaged gemstone in the hopes of shielding it from any further harm. One of his upper hands slowly drifted to his mouth, and he sloppily spit on it, though the bright red blood that came out along with it wasn’t lost on him. Still, he ignored it to move that hand down to his gemstone, lightly skimming it with his fingertips to let the supposedly healing liquid settle over it. And then, he waited. And waited. 

And waited. 

“W-what…?” he finally spoke, his voice soft and broken to the point that it sounded less like his own and more of that of his two halves. “Why… isn’t it…”

“Oh, did ya not know, Pine Bud?” Bill chimed in somewhere behind him. “Whenever a Gem gets all cracked up like yourself, their powers tend to go on the fritz. Looks like I was right before. Your healing spit really can’t fix everything…”

For what seemed like ages, the most Stepper could do was stare down at his gemstone and the wide, gaping rift torn across its surface in disbelief and despair. His breathing harshened, his body tensed, and as panic overtook him, he found himself unable to keep himself from falling into another hacking fit once more. He coughed into his hand this time, and when he finally was able to stop and pull it away, he wasn’t very surprised to find it covered in his own warm blood.

“Ohohoh, now isn’t this interesting!?” Bill remarked, apparently intrigued as he scaled his size down enough so he could take a casual seat atop the fusion’s hat. “I’ve seen plenty of space rocks get cracked in my time, but I’ve never seen it happen to one attached to a human before! Much less a mostly-human fusion! Isn’t this exciting? You really are a trailblazer, Rose Tree!”

Stepper still didn’t respond to Bill directly, largely since he couldn’t care less about what he was saying. Instead, he let out a loud, anguished scream, his upper arms wrapping tightly around himself as his lower set still gently cradled his damaged gem. And all the while, his thoughts continued rumbling, rattling, like a brutal thunderstorm wreaking havoc across his already ruined mind. 

Hurts! Can’t heal! Need to heal! Can’t! 

Can’t heal… Cracked… Broken…

Fade… fading… Die… Die? Dying…

“Still, you oughta consider yourself lucky, Pine Bud,” Bill continued, hardly caring about the light starting to fade from the fusion’s eyes as he coughed out yet another bout of blood. “Any other space rock would have shattered on the spot after taking a hit like that! I guess you’re pretty fortunate to be saddled with one of the toughest ones there is, Rose Tree.”

Can’t die… Stepper’s thoughts continued to consume him, beating him between a tide of hope and grief all at once. Home… Need to go home… Can’t go home… Lost… Trapped… Alone… With him…

The absolute misery that came along with such a horrific thought swiftly started to overwhelm the fusion, his sobs coming out in tight, anxious bursts. Certainly, he’d never be able to go home, not like this. He’d never be able to see their friends or family again, not that they even wanted to see him in the first place. He was going to die here, no doubt, a slow, agonizing painful end at the hands of a cruel, careless demon who was more than happy to watch that end play out in full. 

But maybe...

Trapped here… With each other… with you! Need… need to… save you… Need… to unfuse…

Another sharp cry escaped the fusion at this, particularly as a familiar white, unfusing light suddenly covered his form, with only the pink scars strewn across him shining through it. Bill drifted away from Stepper so he could observe with eager, sadistic delight as the fusion began to fall apart at the seams, just as he’d anticipated. Just as he’d planned. 

And yet… 

No! Can’t unfuse! No… please…. Need to unfuse… You’ll die… YOU’ll die! Stay together… Stay… like this… to save you…

Slowly but surely, the light began to fade from the fusion, his form still remaining intact, as largely broken and battered as that form currently was. Tears remained in his eyes, though this time, they carried a different emotion from despair entirely. Especially as his aching heart rang with confusion and determination alike. 

Why…? You know why… 

Despite his gem’s powers being severely limited thanks to the damage it had sustained, there was one thing it was still able to do. It flashed softly as his birthmark did the same, all of his focus going into repeating one single, simple statement that spoke volumes at a moment such as this. 

“Our friendship means so much to me! You mean so much to me!”

“Y-you… stayed with me…” Stepper said to himself, aloud this time. And even though his voice was weak and wavering, it was still filled with warmth and resolve to not let his other half suffer through this unbearable anguish alone. “S-so I’m staying with you…”

Despite the heavy crack torn across his gem, despite those cracks spreading out across his entire body, despite the pain still pervading his every sense, the fusion couldn’t help but smile, a few of his tears falling as he maintained his comforting embrace. Bill, however, was far from moved by his sheer determination, stubbornness even, to stay together. 

“Are you two serious right now?!” he asked hotly, his form flashing a bright, warning shade of angry red. “You know what’ll happen to both of you if you stay like this? You’ll DIE!” 

Stepper was surprisingly calm, even despite his poor condition, as he simply shook his head. “I-I… I’ll be fine…” he whispered, more to himself than to the demon. “We’ll be fine… a-as long as we’re… together…” 

“No, you WON’T!” Bill shouted back, completely livid as massive, deadly flames surrounded both of his hands. “All it would take is one more hit and you’re over, finished, through! SHATTERED!” 

The fusion paused, his thoughts slowly starting to become more focused as he looked up at the demon defiantly. “B-but… that’s not what you want…” he asked, his voice still shaking from the palpable pain coursing through him. Still, he chose to ignore that pain the best he could in the thought of turning the tide of this terrible situation in his favor. “M-my gem isn’t any good to you i-if it’s shattered… I-I bet your ‘client’ d-doesn’t want you h-handing them a bunch of b-broken shards… R-right?” 

For perhaps the first time ever, Bill seemed to be at a complete loss for words. His singular eye stared down at the fusion, wide and unreadable as he remained strangely silent for quite some time. All the while, Stepper returned his gaze evenly, hoping that calling the dream demon’s bluff would somehow work, though to what extent, he had no idea. 

When Bill finally did say something, his tone was surprisingly easygoing as his towering form diminished and his color changed back to its normal shade of yellow. “Well, gee, Pine Bud, you sure do have a swell point there. So instead of going to extremes, why don’t we try something a bit more… civil instead?”

In an instant, the entire Quadrangle of Qonfusion disappeared; either that or Bill had teleported them somewhere away from it. But what surprised Stepper even more was that the piercing pain tearing away at his entire form seemed to come to an abrupt, grinding halt. Instead, it was replaced by a baffling sense of numbness, though it was something the fusion couldn’t help but be grateful for, at least until he happened to glance down at his gemstone. By all accounts, the stone was still just as cracked as it had been before, the same pink cracks still deeply marring his skin as he looked over all four of his arms. And yet, those cracks brought him not a single trace of the agony he’d known only seconds ago, as his movements were free and uninhibited once more. 

“What…?” he asked, his voice singular once more as opposed to disjointed to that of his halves’ as it had previously been. “How did-”

“Feeling better, Rose Tree?” Bill chimed as he appeared before the confused fusion. “You should be! I went ahead and put a little momentary pause on all that unbearable agony you were probably going through. Mostly since I need you to actually be coherent for the little chat I want to have with you…”

“Chat?” Stepper eyed the dream demon distrustfully. “About what?”

“Boy, am I glad you asked!” With a snap of his fingers, Bill suddenly conjured up a stately desk for him to sit behind, essentially forcing Stepper to do the same as he magically pulled up a chair for him on its other side. As bewildered as the fusion was by this bizarre turn of events in general, Bill continued, his manner strangely calm and collected, a stark contrast to the violent fury he’d displayed just moments ago. “You see, Rose Tree, after all that hubbub, I just came up with a much easier way to smooth things over here. All we’d need to do is broker a little deal and-”

“No,” Stepper said immediately, hotly as his upper hands slammed down onto the desk. “If you think for one second that you can rope me into another one of your stupid deals, then you can just forget it. I would NEVER make another deal with you, not after-”

“Yeah, yeah, Pine Bud, we’re all more than well aware about just how much I ‘traumatized’ you before,” Bill rolled his eye as he reclined back into his seat. “But just hear me out. With that crack on your gut, the chances of you lasting long are pretty low, even if I don’t decide I just wanna wipe you outta existence out of sheer annoyance alone. Humans in particular don’t tend to do too well here‒most of the ones who’ve ever gotten stuck here in the ol’ N.R. either ended up starving to death or spiraling into insanity in a matter of days! And as fun as that would be to watch happen to you, Rose Tree, I think we can reach a compromise that might just be able to get you back home instead!”

“W-wait… before, you said you can’t get me back to our dimension,” Stepper remarked dismissively, though he couldn’t deny the brief bout of hope that filled him all the same. “...Can you?”

“As far as you know, I can,” Bill retorted easily. “See, even if I can’t open up one of those reality tears or go to your dimension from the Nightmare Realm myself, that doesn’t mean I can’t send things that are from that dimension back to it with a little bit of… concentration. And hey, you just so happen to fall under the category of things that are from your dimension, kid! And you’re super lucky too, Pine Bud, ‘cause I’m willing to offer you the bargain of a lifetime! A one-way ticket back to your own dimension, in exchange for one tiny, simple thing that’s so trivial and unimportant, I bet you won’t even notice that it’s gone!”

“Let me guess,” Stepper said dryly, knowing this sounded far too familiar for comfort. “My gem?”

“Nope! Not this time!” 

The fusion blinked, genuinely surprised at this as he made another uncertain, anxious assumption. “M-my body? You want to possess my--our body, don’t you?”

“Nah, I’m not much on taking fusions for a spin,” the demon said flippantly. “They’re always too much to contend with in the headspace. Takes all the fun out of possession, if you ask me!”

By now, Stepper was becoming more and more unsettled as he tried to think of what else he had that Bill could possibly want from him. But ultimately, he couldn’t come up with anything. At least not anything that the demon hadn’t tried to or already had taken from him in the past. “S-so… what do you want then?”

If the dream demon could have smiled, he certainly would have been now as he leaned in across the desk toward the uneasy fusion before him. “What I want is something only you can give me, Rose Tree…” he began darkly, ominously even. “And that something is... that fancy-schmancy journal of yours!”

As Bill’s tone turned light and chipper once more, Stepper balked, dumbfounded as he tried to make sense of this unexpected twist. “My… my shield journal?” he asked, one of his lower hands absently drifting down toward his gem, though he made no move to summon the weapon. “What would… why would you want that?”

“Aw, what? It’s a rare read, one of a kind, really!” Bill explained, conjuring up an illusion of a book in question in the middle of the desk. “Plus, it just so happens to be filled with all sorts of juicy tidbits about two of my favorite twerps in the entire multiverse. Can ya really blame me for wanting a copy of my own?”

“That’s not why you want it, and both you and I know that,” Stepper scoffed harshly. “Everything that’s in my journal, I’m sure you already know. You do make it your mission to poke around in other peoples’ business all the time, after all. So stop lying for a change and tell me why you’re really after it.”

“Come on, Pine Bud, you know my talent for lying is one of my best qualities!” the dream demon taunted playfully. “But fine, if you really want the boring old truth, here it is: I just wanna see you lose your prized, precious weapon for good.”

“W-wait…” Stepper paused, a heavy wave of dread washing over him. “S-so… if I give my journal to you then… then I won’t-”

“Nope! You won’t be able to summon it ever again!” Bill confirmed mirthfully. “No more special shield tossing for you, Rose Tree! Guess that would make you a fusion without a weapon, a fundamentally useless one at that! Then again, you wouldn’t be the only one considering Sword Bud is a thing. Still, if you wanna get back home, then all you gotta do is kiss that journal goodbye. Forever! Sounds like a small price to pay to see your friends and family again and NOT die a slow, painful death in a literal nightmare dimension, dontcha think?”

Stepper faltered, unsure of what to say to this awful proposal and everything it entailed. “I… I need time to think…” he muttered, more to himself than to Bill. 

“Hey, take all the time you want, Pine Bud!” Bill surprisingly agreed, spinning around in his chair to give the fusion some “privacy”. “Just keep in mind, time’s not something you really have on your side anymore, not with that crack on your gem set to tear you apart at any given second!”

Stepper sighed, glaring in the demon’s direction disdainfully before stealing a glance down at his own aforementioned gemstone. The crack torn across it was just as prominent and damming as ever, looking so misplaced and wrong against something that was so familiar and fond to him. “What do we do…?” he whispered to himself, lightly tracing a finger over the crevice on the stone. “We can’t trust him, you know we can’t! I do know, but… what other choice do we have? W-we… we’ll keep fighting him! We’ve lasted against him this long, we can-” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “We can what? We’re cracked! We won’t last long like this, even if we do stay together… We can’t heal ourselves… But… m-maybe… if we go home… The Gems might be able to find a way to help us.”

He rubbed his temples, frustrated and distraught at the impossible position he’d found himself in. “B-but… our journal,” he countered morosely. “Never being able to summon it again is… I know, I don’t like it either. Our journal is one of my favorite things about us. But… you’re more important to me than any book… A-and I’d rather lose that book forever then lose you forever…” For what felt like the millionth time since he’d been pulled into the Nightmare Realm, he could feel tears finding a place in his eyes once more as his upper arms held onto him lightly. “...Same here…” he said softly, yet sadly all the same. “So… we’re doing this…? I don’t want to, but… if we don’t have any other choice…”

“You DON’T!” Bill suddenly interrupted, spinning back around to face the fusion. “So, since your mind’s all made up, let’s get to summoning that journal for the last time so we can really seal this deal, huh?”

Stepper was quick to meet the demon’s callous remarks with a stern glare, wanting to make sure that he knew exactly what he was getting himself into here. “The only thing you want is my shield journal,” he began firmly. “That’s it, right? Nothing more along with it? No strings attached?”

“None at all, Rose Tree!” Bill assured evenly, extending a blue flame-covered hand for him to shake. “All you gotta do is fork over that journal and you’ll be home before you know it! I promise.”

“Tch, as if your promises ever even mean anything,” Stepper deadpanned crossly. “But… if all I stand to lose is my shield journal for a chance to go home and get as far away from you as possible, then…” He sighed, already regretting this decision and already anticipating that it would go horribly wrong somehow. But even then, he thought, whatever was about to happen had to be at least somewhat better than the alternative of being trapped here with Bill forever. “I’ll take it.”

With this, Stepper solidly shook the dream demon’s flame-engulfed hand, essentially sealing both the deal and his own fate, whatever that fate without his journal was about to be. “Great!” Bill quipped excitedly as he pulled his hand away. “I knew we’d be able to work something out, Pine Bud. Now… pay up.”

“...C-can I even summon my journal like this…?” Stepper wondered, nervously glancing down at his damaged gem once more. “I can’t heal, so-”

“Yeesh, kid, you worry too much!” Bill rebuffed impatiently. “You’re cracked, not shattered! Some of your powers are still bound to work. Just give it a try and see!”

Stepper scowled at the dream demon, but even so, he did as he said, positioning his lower set of hands just below his gem. He took in a deep, steadying breath, closing his eyes in the hopes that this would still somehow work. And though it took a moment of deep concentration, sure enough it did, as his gem, even as cracked as it currently was, began to take on a gentle, familiar sort of glow. From that glow, his shield journal emerged, though from the very start it was glitching in and out of existence in reaction to the damage he had sustained. Unable to float on its own, the book fell out of the air, though fortunately he managed to narrowly catch it in his lower set of arms. 

As he pulled it up closer to him, Stepper couldn’t help but frown, even as the journal began to stabilize in his grip. Though it had taken him time to learn to appreciate his weapon when he’d first fused, by now, he’d come to realize just how special and unique his shield journal really was. It was powerful, it was versatile, but even more than that, it was reflective of him, of his halves and who they were, both together and apart. And yet, here he was, ready to give it all away without a chance at ever getting it back. It was a heartbreaking decision, but a necessary one. One that both of his halves knew they had to make if they ever hoped to save each other. 

“Alright, Rose Tree,” Bill remarked, already extending a hand out to retrieve the book. “Hand it over.”

Stepper sighed, resigning himself to that decision as he pulled his sights away from the journal to stare Bill down brazenly. And, with his movements slow and steady, the fusion lifted his shield journal up, offering it to the dream demon as he prepared to part ways with it permanently. 

Without skipping a single beat, Bill swiftly snatched the journal away from Stepper. The effect was immediate, for as soon as the shield journal left his hands, the fusion took in a sharp gasp, his former agony returning in full force as his gem, birthmark, and cracks strewn across his skin all flashed a vibrant, garish pink. As that flash died down every bit as quickly, his eyes began to roll back in his head, one of his hands involuntarily reaching out toward the journal that Bill had already taken away from him. But that hand fell away as the fusion drifted off into a deep, unconscious void, lost to his pain and perhaps, to something else entirely. 

“Well, that takes care of that!” Bill concluded brightly, sending the fusion’s journal away with a mere snap of his fingers. “Now, all we need is a…” At that exact moment, the Nightmare Realm itself rippled with a sudden, forign energy, one that tore open a rift in the dimension’s already chaotic plane. A rift that happened to form into a portal not too far away from where the dream demon happened to be floating. “Aha! Perfect timing!” 

Bill quickly pulled Stepper’s limp, listless form toward the newly-created portal, one that, sure enough, led right to the very dimension the fusion was from. “Looks like you’re getting your ticket home after all, Rose Tree!” the dream demon quipped, shaking the unconscious fusion roughly. “Ohoho!” Bill’s interest peaked as he stole another brief glance through the portal beside him. “And you’ll even get your own welcoming party too! How nice!”

This ‘welcoming party’ was, in truth, more of a search party, one composed of the Gems and Mabel as they all frantically combed through the woods for none other than Steven and Dipper themselves. It was a search that had been ongoing for quite some time now, and after several restless nights of the boys’ mysterious absence, stress and exhaustion was weighing heavily upon them all as their relatively fruitless effort continued. 

“I just don’t understand!” Pearl huffed, exasperated as she peered around yet another tree. “How did they just… completely disappear without a trace?! Nothing about this makes any sense!”

“You sure your future vision hasn’t seen anything about where they’re at, G?” Amethyst asked, looking to Garnet almost pleadingly. 

The Gem leader took pause at this, adjusting her shades before letting out a disappointed sigh. “No,” she reported tiredly. “Nothing.”

“B-But they’ve been gone for three days now!” Mabel explained, her tone deeply fretful. The growing bags under her eyes were telling of the fact that she hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep since the boys had vanished, and by all accounts, she had no intentions of even trying to get any until they were safe and found. “Steven and Dipper wouldn’t just… leave without telling anyone! Something must have happened to them! We’ve gotta find them, please!”

“Don’t worry,” Garnet assured, placing a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We’re not going to stop looking until we do. No matter how far we have to go, we’ll-”

“Actually, Fuse Box, you won’t have to go that far to find ‘em…”

The entire group let out a shared, startled gasp upon hearing this all-too familiar voice echo through the nearby forest. It instantly drew their attention to the surprising portal torn near a tree just a ways ahead of them, and floating within the void it contained was none other than Bill Cipher himself. 

“Y-you!” Pearl shouted as her, Garnet, and Amethyst all swiftly summoned their weapons. “What are you doing here?!”

“Yeah, get lost, chump!” Amethyst yelled just as bitterly, ready to lash out with her whip at a moment’s notice. 

“We have no time to deal with you right now, Bill,” Garnet added rigidly, her gauntlets curled into tight fists. “We have something much more important we need to take care of.”

“Oh really?” the demon retorted casually. “You mean you don’t have any time… for him?”

Another heavy round of shock, one even stronger and piercing than the last, ran through the group as Bill suddenly hoisted a certain, unconscious four-armed figure up for them all to see. “S-Stepper!” Mabel cried, tears already springing up in her eyes. She didn’t hesitate to try to rush to him, though Amethyst made sure to hold her back just before she could. “W-what is he… h-how did he get-”

“How’d he get here? To the cozy little corner of the multiverse I call home? Great question, Shooting Star!” Bill piped up. “Ya see, poor Pine Tree and Rosebud here tumbled through a randomly-occurring interdimensional tear, just like this one right here! Ohoho boy, if you all could have only SEEN the look of sheer terror on their faces when they realized where they were! What a pair of spineless little-”

“Quiet!” Pearl snapped hotly, angrily tossing her spear, which struck the tree just above where the portal hung. “What did you do to them, you monster?!”

“I didn’t do much of anything to them,” the demon remarked with faux innocence. “Well, aside from put them in their place for being dumb enough to think they could stand up to me, of course. But I’ve had my fun with Rose Tree here, and better yet, I’ve gotten what I wanted outta him, so I think I’ll just do you all a solid and toss him back over to you. Free of charge!”

“W-what… what do you mean you got what you wanted out of him…?” Mabel asked, frightened by the sheer vagueness of that statement alone. 

“Wouldn’t YOU like to know, kid,” Bill scoffed, rolling his eye. “Still, I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough. Or not. Doesn’t really matter to me if you do either way. Anyway here, take your empty-headed Pine Bud back.” Without much warning at all, the demon suddenly threw Stepper forward, sending him tumbling through the portal and back into his own dimension with little effort or care at all. Though Amethyst, Pearl, and Mabel all gasped in shared surprise at his sudden return, Garnet was the first to react, rushing in to catch the comatose fusion before he could hit the ground. 

“Cipher!” the Gem leader shouted furiously as she glared up at the portal before her. 

“Good to see you all again too!” Bill replied, offering the group a cheerful wave as said portal began to seal itself back up. “I have a feeling it won’t be long before the next time we meet up. Maybe we’ll do lunch! But until then, remember: I’ll be WATCHING you!” 

The dream demon let out another insane, sadistic laugh that echoed through the woods even after the portal itself was gone. Amethyst and Pearl leapt forward in an attempt to keep it from closing so they could properly attack Bill, but their chance was gone before they could even try it. 

“Ugh! I hate that guy!” Amethyst groaned, severely annoyed as her whip disappeared. 

“It’s safe to say we all do by this point…” Pearl agreed just as disdainfully. “B-but, let’s look on the bright side: at least we… ‘found’ Steven and Dipper!”

A sudden gasp from Garnet cut through this small bout of relief entirely as she got a chance to properly look over the limp fusion lying in her arms. “N-no…” she whispered, her visor disappearing to reveal the tears welling up in all three of her eyes. 

“G-Garnet….?” Mabel took a cautious step forward. “I-is… is he ok?”

By now, Pearl and Amethyst had caught onto what had Garnet so distraught, and likewise, their panic was just as palpable. The white Gem collapsed to her knees, tears finding a place in her eyes as well as she moved a trembling hand to cover her mouth. The purple Gem was absolutely shaken, though she still managed to rush over to Mabel, hoping to pull her away before she could see what had truly become of her brother and best friend. 

“Uh, h-hey, Mabel!” she exclaimed, throwing on a forced smile as she turned the girl around. “Why don’t we, um… h-head back to the shack a-and tell Stan and Ford the good news?”

“No!” Mabel protested, pulling herself away. “I-I want to see him!” None of the Gems were really able to stop her as she rushed to Stepper’s side, though the moment she caught sight of his gem, she practically fell ill. “H-his… his gem…” she began, a sob slipping out as she knelt down beside him. “I-it’s…”

“Cracked…” Garnet finished, her tone awash in grief. 

“AUGH!” Amethyst suddenly shouted, absolutely infuriated as she slammed her fist against the nearest tree. “He did this to them, that stupid triangle piece of-”

“AMETHYST!” Pearl cut her off just in time. 

Meanwhile, Mabel placed a gentle, shaking hand against the unconscious fusion’s arm, noticing the jagged pink lines torn across it, only adding to just how disheveled and damaged he looked overall between his torn and tattered clothes and countless scratches and scrapes. “D-Dipper… Steven…” she whispered, her heart aching as she noticed the traces of pain in his otherwise empty expression. “S-Stepper…”

At this, the fusion suddenly began to stir, much to everyone’s surprise, especially as he let out a soft, exhausted groan. “M-Mabel…?” he spoke, his voice his own yet still so broken in an entirely different way all the same. 

“Stepper!” Mabel and the Gems all exclaimed in unison as they began to crowd around him. At least until Garnet put a swift stop to it. 

“Give him some space,” she ordered her teammates, looking down at the fusion in her arms earnestly as he addressed her. 

“G-Garnet… i-is… is that… you?” he asked, clearly agonized by the effort alone as he remained limp in her hold. 

“Yes,” Garnet couldn’t help but smile, overwhelmed with relief to see that he was still alive at all after what he’d been through. “Stepper, y-you… your gem is badly damaged. But don’t worry. We’re going to take care of you.”

Stepper didn’t respond, his eyes bleary as he tried and failed to focus on the Gem leader. His thoughts were all a distant haze, enshrouded by the immense, unending pain that he felt like he had been drowning in for ages now. So instead, he let his eyes slowly slip shut once more, content to let Mabel and the Gems do whatever they could to help, even if he didn’t know how he’d ended up among them to begin with. 

“C-can’t he just heal himself?!” Mabel asked, frantic. “Stepper, just use your healing powers on your gem and-”

“M-Mabel, he’s… cra--damaged,” Pearl interjected, shuddering even as she spoke the horrific word. “His powers probably aren’t working right. W-well have to help him some other way.”

“We’ll take him to Rose’s fountain,” Garnet concluded, her tone firm as her shades appeared once more. Slowly and carefully, she stood with Stepper still in her arms, carrying his languid form as comfortably as she could. “It’s waters should be able to fix his gem. In the meantime, Amethyst, go get Stan and Ford and bring them there. They need to know what happened to Dipper.”

“Right,” Amethyst nodded, not even hesitating to turn and rush back through the forest toward the shack. At the same time, Garnet, Pearl, and Mabel wasted no time in setting off as well, marching swiftly through the woods to get back to the temple as fast as possible. Despite Garnet’s steady pace, Mabel did her best to keep up with her, if only so she could keep a comforting hold on one of Stepper’s lower hands all the while. 

“I-it’s ok, Ste-bro,” she whispered to him tearfully, trying to muster a smile even if he couldn’t currently see it. “You’re gonna be o-ok… We’ll fix you right up, you’ll see. I-I promise.”

For his part, Stepper could barely even hear her, much less the anxious conversation stirring up between Garnet and Pearl along the way. He only briefly caught bits and pieces of it; the word “cracked” in particular came up over and over again, though given his current condition that was hardly surprising. Largely, Stepper spent the bulk of their brisk trip back to the temple wavering in and out of consciousness, steeped in dull, familiar agony all the while. Yet strangely, he happened to find some comfort amidst that agony: the brief, blurry flashes of war, sunlight sparkling through the trees high above him, the secure, safe hold Garnet had on him as she held him close in a protective carry, the soft, gentle grip Mabel made sure to keep his hand within, one that he wished he could return, even if he didn’t have the strength for it. 

After what seemed like years, the group finally burst into the temple, making a beeline for the warp pad. Stepper didn’t register its activation, nor was he aware for anything at all until they arrived at a familiar, serene setting. 

The air around Rose’s iconic fountain was always warm and sweet, smelling of the pink blossoms that flourished all around it. That beauty was lost on the group as they ran toward it however, their purpose grim and their hopes high that its waters could somehow work another miracle, just as it had so many before. There was no deliberation as Garnet reached the fountain first, repositioning Stepper before she gently, carefully lowered him down into its sparkling, rejuvenating water, allowing him to sink into it until it covered his cracked gemstone completely. 

For a moment, the most any of them could do was wait. The fountain’s waters grew still, the fusion floating within them just as still too, at least until a warm, radiant light began to surround him. Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst all watched with wide, wondering eyes as that light became practically blinding, and even still they were kept waiting as it slowly faded away. At least until Stepper splashed up out of the fountain’s waters with a startled, heavy gasp. 

“Stepper!” Mabel cried, rushing for him immediately. Before the fusion even had time to properly orient himself, she barreled into him, knocking him back into the water with a tight, elated hug. “I-I’m so glad you’re ok! Don’t ever scare me like that again!”

“M-Mabel,” Stepper couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle as he returned her embrace. “I’m glad to see you too.”

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re alright!” Pearl chimed in as her and Garnet remained at the edge of the fountain. “You’re-” She stopped short, her relief whiplashing right back into alarm as Stepper began to climb out of the fountain himself. “I-it… it can’t be… Y-you… you’re gem i-is still…”

Stepper’s stunned gasp filled in the blanks as he looked down to the gemstone, only to find that, sure enough, it was every bit as cracked as it had been before. And even more than that, it was strangely duller somehow, its usual bright pink muted to a very noticeable degree. While most of the cracks scarring his skin had disappeared, a few still remained, mostly all congregated around the gemstone itself as they retained the same sort of dull pink pallor. “W-what…?” he asked, quite frightened as one of his lower arms reached for the damaged stone. “B-but how…?”

“T-this should have worked!” Mabel exclaimed, distraught as she took in the sight of the stone herself. “It should have healed you! Why didn’t it work!?”

“Stepper,” Garnet interjected, her tone surprisingly steady as she approached the fusion. “Your gem is still cracked, but you appear to be fine. Tell us you’re feeling.”

“Um, w-well… I-I feel fine now,” Stepper shrugged, though his tone was honest all the same. And it was true, all of the pain that had prevailed his senses disappeared the moment his gem so much as touched the fountain’s healing waters. “But… my gem… w-what happened to it…?”

Garnet, Pearl, and Mabel exchanged a confused, concerned glance at this, though the white Gem was ultimately the one to speak up to it. “Y-you mean… you don’t remember?”

Stepper shook his head, his brow furrowing in thought as he tried to think about how his gem might have been so severely damaged, though in the end, nothing came to him. “That’s… troubling…” Garnet remarked, though she didn’t bother explaining any further. At least not at the moment. “Still, even if you feel fine, Stepper, you should unfuse so we can see how each of you are doing on your own.”

Now it was Stepper’s turn to be confused as he looked to the Gem leader as if what she’d just said was the most baffling thing he’d ever heard. Which, at least to him, it was. “Unfuse?” he repeated, raising an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Uh, you know, unfuse?” Mabel repeated with a ghost of a smile. “As much as we love having you around, Stepper, we should probably check on Steven and Dipper too.”

A beat of silence that felt like it lasted ages passed at this, with only the fountain’s flowing water filling it in. And all the while, Stepper’s expression was awash in bewilderment, his eyes wide and unknowing as he voiced a simple question that sent shockwaves out the moment it was asked. 

“Who?”

Next: 

[honestlyhufflepuff]

The Sleep and Secrets Between Them

Jam Week Day 3: Sleep. Summary: The events of “Escapism” and moments thereafter from Connie’s perspective. Yes, there’s angst, but hopefully that makes the moments of fluff and closeness all the sweeter. Word count: 2038.

***

They slept as much as they could in the tower. It helped fight off the boredom, the aching hunger, and the despair. The air was stagnant and hot, and the floor hard and unforgiving. There were no sweet Pebbles who made the last room they stayed in feel so much like home. The two of them cycled between sleeping tangled in each other’s arms for some source of softness and comfort and sleeping on the concrete alone to avoid the sweat and heat of the other.

Steven being able to astrally project was the only hope they had of rescue, which is why she so willingly offered her lap as a pillow. She started regretting this sooner than she’d hoped, her legs aching against the hard floor under Steven’s weight. He remained eerily still in his slumber. His breathing came so soft that she placed her hand in front of his lips several times to ensure he was still alive. The earth was an unfathomable distance away, and Connie wondered what would happen to them if he couldn’t find help, or if he couldn’t find his way back to his body.

She shook her head violently, rejecting all the grim possible outcomes of their situation. She had to continually choose to believe in Steven. Dwelling on the alternatives was not productive.

Hours passed, and still Steven slept. Connie’s eyelids grew heavy, and several times her head snapped up before she almost fell forward on top of him with exhaustion.

She picked up Steven’s hand and dropped it a couple of times. It always landed heavy and limp, with no indication of stirring. She nodded, confident she wouldn’t wake him, and slid her hands under each arm. With a few heaving pulls, she got him close enough to the wall that she could rest against it. She lowered his head to the floor and attempted to stand to stretch her legs.

Connie buckled on her knees immediately, wincing as pins and needles shot through her awakening blood vessels.  She limped and stomped around the room, cursing under her breath, until she regained sensation in her limbs. She paced around the lengths of her prison, hating that all she could do was wait while her passed out best friend relied on his iffy psychic powers for their rescue. Her stomach roared at her and her throat burned for moisture. Serial murderers got more humane living conditions than this on earth.

“Stupid space-nazi bitches,” she muttered to herself.

It felt like a warranted situation to cuss in, being in prison and all. Despite that, she couldn’t shake the feeling that her mom could hear her from light-years away.

With a sigh, she resigned to sit back down and wait for Steven to return.

Leaning against the wall, she pulled his head back into her lap, making sure to sit with her legs to the side so they wouldn’t lose feeling as easily this time. She stroked his cheek, feeling a very faint island of stubble on otherwise baby-smooth skin. She straightened his pink clothes, which had gotten bunched and rumpled when she moved him over to her. She marveled at how naturally he donned the outfit and role of his late mother like it was just what he was supposed to do.

“Steven,” she croaked, clearing her parched throat, “I know you’re sorry for leaving me behind, back when you tried to go and sacrifice yourself, but I know you’d probably do it again if you knew I wouldn’t get pissed at you. You always want to shield everyone to the point that you try to do all the dangerous stuff alone while you leave them behind.”

Curls of hair stuck to his forehead, and she wiped them away. “I know you regret bringing me with you because you don’t want me to get hurt. But I chose to come here, because the earth is my home, too. I couldn’t stand to live in a bubble while you did all the hard things; I’d rather die. I might die. But if I do, it was my choice.

“If we don’t make it out of here- or if I don’t- I want you to know that it isn’t your fault. I want you to know that I’m ok with you making me like Lars, if you can, because I want to continue to fight for my planet for as long as I can.

She swallowed the lump of tears in her throat, not wanting to get dehydrated anymore than she could help it.

“I know your mind is back on earth, and I hope everything is going ok there, but I hope some part of you can still hear me. Because I want you to know that…” she let out a shaky exhale, looking for any sign of awareness in his face.

“I want you to know that I love you, Steven.” Despite her best efforts, a few tears finally spilled down her cheeks, “I know sometimes you think I don’t like you the same way you like me because I don’t care about marriage and romance that much, but I do. I love you so much that all those things that seem stupid and gross in romance stories seem beautiful and sweet when I see them through your eyes,” she choked out a laugh and wiped her face, “I hope someday I have the guts to tell you all this stuff when your consciousness is at least on the same planet as me.”

She leaned over his face and opened one of his eyelids, staring at his black pupil fully dilated and still. As she let his eye slide closed again, she pressed her lips gently against his forehead before sitting back up.

“You can’t hear me at all,” she said with a sigh, “That just means I’ll have to survive. Because you deserve to know. I’ll find a way to tell you when we’re back on earth.”

Connie leaned back and sleep overtook her in almost the same moment that she closed her eyes.

She woke what only seemed minutes later, but it must have been several hours judging from the low light outside. The nights were a little cooler on Homeworld, making snuggling more tolerable. She sighed against the softness of Steven’s bosom, and smiled as she felt his arms tighten around her. Then she realized that if he was holding her, that meant he was no longer in her lap. She bolted upright, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“You’re awake! You’re back! Steven, what happened?”

“Hey, Connie,” he said with a tired smile, “I found Bismuth and Dad. I hope they’re gonna be able to come.”

“And? What else? Details, Universe!”

“Details-” he scrunched up his face, “I think I possessed a watermelon person? And I think I died.”

“You-” Connie withdrew her hands from him, “you died?”

“Yeah,” he looked away from her, “I don’t really want to talk about it anymore, if that’s ok with you. It was kind of a weird experience.”

“Of course, that’s ok! I’m just glad you’re here.”

“What about you? Get into any trouble without me?” He offered her an attempt at a playful smile.

“I, um…”

She thought of her gushing monologue to his uninhabited body before and tried to think of how to say it now that his wide eyes were looking back at hers.

“Yeah?” Prompted Steven.

Connie couldn’t bring herself to tell him, because then it would sound like a goodbye, and she was not about to have any goodbyes in that damned, musty tower.

“Oh, you know, I just kind of dozed off,” she said.

“Heh,” his shoulders slumped, “yeah, I guess there isn’t much else to do.”

Conversation had always flowed easily between them. They used to relish every allowance to have a sleepover or stay up late into the night talking and goofing off.

It was a different dynamic in the tower, though. They had a few good conversations, and even a few sparse moments of laughter, but their interaction became more and more minimal as the heat from the next day crept into the dank room. They slept as much as they possibly could, and even when sleep didn’t come, they often pretended to be asleep as the thirst was making them both too groggy and irritable to attempt anymore interaction than necessary.

After they were released from the tower by Blue, Connie figured the most traumatic part of the journey was behind them, but then she watched Steven’s gem get ripped from his body. She carried him, right in front of White, who could crush her dead at any second with her pinky nail.

He almost died right there in her arms, and even after he reunited with his pink side, and after the gems were released from White’s power, there was still an unspoken seriousness between Connie and Steven that hadn’t been there before. It was only perceptible in the most quiet moments.

When they got back to earth, Connie insisted on still being able to sleep with Steven for a month straight. Her parents protested, saying it was “hardly appropriate,” but once Pearl informed them that she could keep watch since she didn’t need sleep, they seemed placated.

When the gems all wanted an account of how they won White over, Steven told a doctored version of the story where he used his shield to block her attack and talk to her, with no inclusion of the gem removal.

Whenever Connie began to grow uncomfortable with him telling that version of the story, he met her eyes with a knowing stare, communicating the gems couldn’t know what White did if there was any hope of peace and trust between them and the Diamonds. He wouldn’t even talk about it with Connie, insisting that it “didn’t matter” how he was affected by it because the outcome was a happy ending with everyone fine.

So, none of the adults in their lives knew the full reason why Connie insisted on sleeping next to Steven. None of them knew why he thrashed in his sleep almost every night until she calmed him. None of them knew why he raised his shield every time he was mildly startled.

Eventually, Steven had to go back to Homeworld, because the Diamonds lauded him as the Savior that had to teach them how to be better in order to not have an oppressive caste system that harvested entire planets.

Connie knew she couldn’t go with him that time, unless she just intended on dropping out of high school. Her parents wouldn’t be ok with that, but neither would she. She didn’t want to abandon her academic ambitions, her family, and her friends at school to go spend years on a planet that regarded her as little more than a “pet” at best, and someone to be discarded or imprisoned at worst.

It was odd, getting used to sleeping alone again when she’d grown so protective over Steven. She found herself waking up in the night clutching for him, as she dreamed of White’s inky talons ripping through her blankets after them.

Connie eventually got some counseling, and the dreams lessened until they hardly happened at all.

Still, she looked forward to the nights when Steven would warp into her room and wordlessly nuzzle against her under the covers, making her especially relieved her parents deemed her mature enough to have a lock on her door. Steven was always so tired the nights he came. Even when he tried to stay up to talk with her, his sentences would trail into incomplete mumbles until he fell asleep minutes later. She wondered how much sleep he was getting on the nights he didn’t come.

She noticed little changes in those quiet nights. More indications of facial hair. Broader shoulders. Longer limbs. A year after their events in the tower, he went from looking like an eight-year-old to a kid nearly his actual age. Now that he was no longer expected to be someone he wasn’t, he was finally growing.

She could sleep better knowing that.

[fallen-gravity]

Change

All of Steven’s talk in the new pair of episode about how he’s afraid of being left behind and all this change being too overwhelming for him put the idea in my head that he could probably benefit from talking to Spinel a lot after the mess that was Prickly Pair, and I couldn’t let go of it until I wrote a fic about it. 

Summary:  Steven needs to talk to somebody, and he's quickly realizing that he's running out of options. 

AO3:

Or under the cut:

You’ve reached Connie Maheswaran, leave a message!

Beep.

…

You’ve reached Connie-

Beep.

....

You’ve reached Connie Maheswaran, leave a message!

“Hey, Connie” Steven murmurs, leaning back against the hood of the Dondai. “I guess I probably should leave a message. I just wanted to talk. It’s nothing serious,” he lies through his teeth, “I just...wanted to talk to you. It’s been a while, and I, uh, just wanted to see how things were going. Call me when you can. Don’t mind all the missed calls. I’m fine.” He pauses for a moment, gazing up at the twinkling stars. “I love you.” 

Beep. 

Steven clicks his phone off, and places his phone face down on his chest. He rests his hands behind his head and contemplates what he could possibly do now. 

Connie was his only resort. Lars already left, he can’t talk to Sadie after that embarrassing fiasco at the graduation ceremony, his poor dad’s already been through enough with Bluebird, and the gems wouldn’t understand. If he went to them he’s sure they’d just pat him on the head and try to tell him how proud they are, or try to offer some sort of advice of how to fix it.  Yeah, well, this time he can’t fix it. Maybe he doesn’t even want to fix it.

Who else is there to go to? If he can’t worry his dad or Connie, and the gems won’t be any help, where else could he go for help? It’s not like he can go to the barn anymore, since it got merged with Little Homeworld.

Actual Homeworld? Now there’s a thought. The Diamonds would love to have him, sure, but what help would they be? If Blue finds out that he’s feeling sad then she’s just going to start crying, and then everyone else on Homeworld is going to start crying, Yellow’s probably just going to try to “solve” everything with violence, and White’s probably going to turn it into another excuse to bring up the offer to live on Homeworld again. It’s a miracle Spinel survived living in the palace with them for more than ten minutes.

Wait a minute.

“Spinel!”  Steven thinks out loud. “Spinel would understand!”

He slides off the car’s hood and climbs into the driver’s seat. He starts the car, ejects Shep’s cassette tape before it can start playing, and makes his way back to Beach City. It’s ironic, really. One moment he’s singing praises about the wonders of change to Spinel, and the next he’s going to her because he can’t cope with change himself. He might as well warp in raising a huge white flag over his head. 

The lights are on in the house when his car pulls up, but word must’ve gotten around that the graduation after party was cancelled without him needing to say it, because there’s no other cars on the beach or any music coming from the house. That’s good. The less people home, the easier it’ll be to sneak out.

“Hey buddy,” Amethyst waves hello from the couch as he comes in, seated in the middle beside Garnet and Pearl. “Nobody saw where you went after the ceremony, you okay? You...want anything to eat?” 

Steven shakes his head as he hangs his jacket up on a hook. “I filled up on cake, thanks”

Pearl’s the next to speak up. “Would you like some tea? I know how tiring planning these things can be”

“No thanks” Steven replies, and fakes a yawn, stretching his arms above his head. “I think I’m just going to try getting some sleep. I’ll see you guys in the morning”. Without waiting for them to reply, he begins heading up the stairs towards his room, until he’s stopped halfway by the sound of Garnet calling his name. He freezes up. Oh no, did I get caught? Is she going to make me stay? Is she going to make me talk to her instead?

He turns to her, expecting to see her with her visor removed and ready to give him a long, powerful speech about family always being there for you, or something. But she’s not. She’s just standing there, one hand on the railing of the stairs. She’s looking at him, but her visor renders her expression unreadable. 

“Have a good night, Steven” she says, and nods very subtly at him. The gesture makes him smile, and he disappears up the stairs. He opens the door to his balcony as quietly as he can, and sneaks into the dome without closing the door behind him to make as little noise as he possibly can. He tentatively steps onto the warp pad, takes a deep breath, and warps away to Homeworld. Now all he needs to do is try to find a way to get Spinel away from the diamonds long enough to talk to her alone without them noticing. 

Not that they’d even mind, anyway, but Steven always has to take things the hard way, doesn’t he. He materializes into the palace, and before he has even a fraction of a second to look around- 

“Well, well, well!” Spinel shouts from Pink’s old throne. “Look what the warp pad dragged in!” She stretches her legs into springs, and projects herself off of the headrest to land beside him. “Mister Savior of the Universe himself!” 

“Hi Spinel”

“What are ya doin’ here? This some top secret diamond meeting I don’t know about? I can go grab ‘em for ya”  She’s about to leave, but Steven grabs her by the wrist before she can so as much take a single step away. 

“N-no, Spinel, that won’t be necessary. I’m here to see you.”

She blinks, and turns to look around her to make sure there’s nobody else in the room. “Me?” 

Steven nods. “Yes, you.”

Her expression changes from a blank stare to a face-splitting grin between one blink and another. “Well, why didn’t ya say so!” She snaps her fingers, and winds an arm around him and uses her other to spring them onto White’s throne. “What brings you out to see lil’ ol me? Didja miss me or something?” 

Steven frowns. “I’m not here to play games, Spinel”

“Oh.”  Her arm holding Steven in place deflates, and she sits down, dangling her legs over the edge. “Then what do you need me for?” She raises an eyebrow at him. “It doesn’t have anything to do with another injector, does it? Because it’s not mine this time”

Steven sighs, and sits down on White’s throne as well. “I just...wanted to talk” 

“Oh, well, then I’m all ears!” She stretches her hand into a megaphone and places it against the side of her head where her ear would be. “What’s on yer mind?” 

Steven twiddles with his thumbs and kicks his feet back and forth. “Everything”. 

“You’re gonna have to be more specific than that, Universe”

“I’m being serious!” he throws his arms into the air. “Everything! Everything is happening so quickly! I just got Lars back, we’ve barely had any time to talk since I’ve been running the school, and now he’s leaving again, Sadie and the Suspects broke up, Connie’s thinking about applying to a college halfway across the country, and I’m really proud of her and wish her nothing but the best  because she deserves the best, but I miss her, I miss talking to her, I miss going on dates with her, but she’s so busy studying that I’ve been seeing less and less of her since fall, and don’t even get me started on the gems, they think they know everything about me just because they’ve raised me my entire life, but-”

He’s suddenly cut off by the sound of Spinel laughing hysterically. Steven blushes heavily, and turns to her to see her wiping tears from her eyes. 

“Wow,” she bellows, barely trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. “Talk about irony” 

“Huh? What’s so funny?” Steven’s voice squeaks in embarrassment.

“You.” She replies, wiping tears from her eyes. “You sang this big inspirational number to me about changing for good this, and change is for the best that, and all that talk about how you need to embrace the bad change before you can earn the good, and now you’re coming to me about it?” 

Steven blinks. “I...don’t think I ever said that last part”

“Eh, you implied it” Spinel shrugs. “I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you’ve been through all of this dramatic change before and came out of it just fine, why is this any different?” 

Well that’s a pretty stupid question. “Didn’t you hear anything I said?” Steven scoffs. “It’s different because all of my friends are changing. They’re all moving on with their lives. I don’t have that option”

Spinel shrugs. “Well, why don’t you?” 

“Why don’t I what?”

“Why don’t you have that option?”

Steven blinks. “I don’t follow”. 

Spinel snorts. “You’re the one who told me that nobody could change how I felt except me, right? By that very same logic you told me, isn’t that true about you? Nobody can change how you feel either, Universe. If everyone is moving too fast for you, it isn’t up to them to tell you what pace you should be moving at. It’s not up to them how you work through your feelings about processing all this stuff”. 

“That...doesn’t seem like very sound advice coming from someone who tried to ‘process’ her feelings by trying to kill the earth”

“That’s not my point! My point is that I came to my senses on my own terms. I burnt myself out on anger and then I let myself begin to move on. If I’d forced myself to move on earlier, I neva’ would’ve stopped being angry. I coulda’ taken it out on the diamonds if I wasn’t careful.” She snorts, and takes a small step closer to him and places a hand on his shoulder. “The point is that I know betta than most what it feels like when everyone’s moving on without ya. S’matter of fact, I probably know betta than everyone what that’s like. And I also know that if you don’t take things at your own pace, or if you just leave things the way are, you’ll end up in a much worse place. If I’d left things be, I’d still be stuck in that gemforsaken garden, and if I hadn’t burnt myself out and let the planet die, I’d just be stuck on a dead Earth. If ya keep forcing yourself to change to keep up with your friends, you’re just gonna end up stuck somewhere too”. 

...She does have a point, but…

“What about my friends? I’m just supposed to...let them go? I just have to sit around and watch them move on without me?” 

“Well, have they let you go yet?”

“What do you mean? Lars just left for space the other day.”

Spinel shakes her head. “I mean, your friends who are leaving, did they say goodbye? Did they let you know they were leaving?” 

“Well, yeah, but-” 

“Then they haven’t left you behind. Pink never said goodbye to me, Steven. She never told me where she was going. This Lars person, whoever he is, telling you he’s going to space, that’s more than Pink ever told me about Earth. I may not know as much as I think I do about friendship, Steven, but friends come back. Look at you,” she gestures vaguely towards him with a hand. “I left with the diamonds seemingly “forever”, and you still came back.” She smirks. “And I’m guessing this Connie girl was the one I saw talking to you on Earth? She couldn’t keep her hands off of you, Universe, I wouldn’t worry about her ever leaving you behind, even if she does move halfway across the galaxy or whatever it was you said to me”.

Steven blushes. “Country”, he corrects. 

“Whatever. Point is, Universe, if your friends really are your friends, then they won’t leave you behind when they go through some big exciting change. They’ll take you with them, even if it’s only in spirit” 

Steven snorts.  “And since when are you such an expert on friendship?” 

Spinel smiles upon catching onto the playful nature of his tone, and reaches into her pocket and pulls out a diamond communication device. She smiles at it, fiddling with it in her hands. “As much as you say they’re hard to get along with, my time with the diamonds really has given me a new perspective on friendship.” She offers the communication device out to him, and he takes it from her. “They gave this to me when we got back from Earth. They told me that if I ever got lonely all I’d need to do was twist this device in my hands and they’d be there for me, no matter where they were in the galaxy.” 

She takes it back from him. “They taught me to love again, Steven. They taught me that if someone loves you, they aren’t going to run out on you. If they’re going too fast for you, they’ll slow down and wait for you to catch up so they can walk beside you”. 

Steven laughs. “I’m starting to think they taught you more than I know, Spinel” 

She laughs. “Me? More knowledgeable than Steven Universe, best friend of the galaxy?”  She brings a hand to her gem. “I’m honored”. 

Steven laughs again, but before he can say anything else, his phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He pulls it out, and Spinel stretches her head over his shoulder to read the caller I.D. on the screen. 

Connie.

“See? What’d I tell ya?” she grins at him, and gives him thumbs up. He rolls his eyes at her, and leaps from White’s throne and gently floats to the ground so he can have a bit more privacy. 

“Hello?”

“Steven?” Connie’s panicked voice replies. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry I missed your calls, I was going to call back as soon as I finished studying for the night, and then my parents took me out for a movie and I forgot, and-”

Steven chuckles. “Woah, whoa, Connie. It’s okay. Everything’s okay” he says, and begins to head towards the warp pad to go back home where the reception is decidedly better.  Just as he’s about to warp back out, he turns around to face White’s throne one last time. Spinel, still standing where she had been moments ago, stretches an arm into the air to wave goodbye. 

“Actually,” Steven admits as the warp stream begins to encompass him. “Everything’s not okay.”