Chapter Text
Connie’s dream was full of colors. Like someone had taken a rainbow and stretched it across the sky, had dyed the ground in it’s swirling colors.
Connie was running without purpose, neither chasing nor being chased, just running to feel the wind in her hair, the soft ground under her feet. She laughed as she jumped as high as she could and flew through the sky.
But suddenly she broke through the sky and it shattered. All around her were the broken shards of the sky falling quickly to the ground. They rained around her like a broken stained glass window and suddenly Connie knew that they were the shards of gems.
Connie began to fall, plummeting downward to hard ground and jagged edges that would cut her to ribbons. She flung her arms out and kicked her legs, trying desperately to grab onto something, anything to save her from her fall.
Her hand latched onto something. It was cool, but gave like flesh.
Connie desperately latched onto it, pulling herself up and grabbing onto the flesh with her other hand. It was only when both of her hands were latched onto the skin that she looked up.
It wasn’t Steven. Connie knew this for sure. Whoever’s arm she was currently hanging from wasn’t Steven’s. But they looked like Steven.
They were still, hovering in air with their skin and hair a dull pale color, arms out to their sides and palms facing upward. Their face was in a smile even while pink tears fell from their diamond eyes.
Connie was dangling from one of their palms, her full weight being supported by the single arm. She managed to struggle herself onto this stranger, curling a leg around the arm and dragging herself onto their shoulders.
She looked out across the landscape. Everything had turned to black sky and white sand with glittering chunks of shattered gems doting the ground. There was a bright white shining light that seemed to come from behind her, but Connie knew not to turn around.
Connie waved a hand in front of not Steven’s face, they didn’t seem to respond, staying cool and still underneath of her, but Connie knew that they had focused on her.
“Come on. It’s not good here. There isn’t anyone left, so we need to leave.”
The body didn’t shift beneath her, but she felt something give all the same.
Where can I go? There isn’t anywhere her light doesn’t touch.
Connie frowned. Light? What did the light have to do with anything?
“Have you tried? I mean, the dark up there seems to be pretty lightless.” Connie pointed up.
I . . . I don’t want to go alone.
Connie nodded, being alone was really scary. “Then don’t go alone!”
No one can go with me, they’re already shattered.
“Well, I’m here aren’t I? I can go with you.”
The body under her suddenly moved, the arm she was sitting on twisting underneath of her and Connie gave a shriek of fear before suddenly being gathered up in significantly warmer arms. The color had returned to this not Steven and the smile had fallen off. They didn’t look happy, and they didn’t look scared. But they focused on Connie so hard. The diamonds in their eyes seeming to try and cut her.
“But will you be mine?”
Connie woke up.
The buzz of the T.V. was gentle in the silence, and the breathing of the body on her legs was easy to hear above it.
Connie pulled her hand out of Steven’s messy curls and gently stretched her spine from where it had been oddly bent over the arm of the couch.
Connie looked to where she had last seen King.
And there they were, sitting up straight and unmoving, but with closed eyes and a rhythmic breathing.
It was still a surprise to see them sleeping in public, such an act being a sign of vulnerability to a human. But to the gems that made up his court it was treated no different than any other task that he did. King seemed to find themselves safer while unconscious than any other time.
Connie supposes that it makes a strange kind of sense. The diamonds wanted to change their mind, and when they were asleep their mind was unreachable. A diamond had little concern about a physical attack being done, and Connie knew from experience that King would go from zero to one hundred if woken up by anything but the gentle touch of their pearls.
Connie settled her body, Steven grumbling a little as he nuzzled into the couch and got a firmer grip on her legs. Connie gave her boy a smile before refocusing on his double across the room.
It must have been their dream that touched hers. Connie wasn’t quite sure about what it all meant, but the pose that they had been in, even as the rest of the dream goes fuzzy from her waking mind, paints a bad picture.
Connie knew that those other diamonds from his universe had done some unforgivable things to him. She had been able to get some of their court to drop some hints that led to some horrible realizations. The starburst of scar tissue around their gems telling of many repeated removal attempts. The pink that stayed in their hair hinting of extreme stress, and their inability to speak of any memory before their pearls point toward brain damage. Their pink skin . . .
Connie had nightmares about Steven’s human half falling to the ground and gasping for breath before going silent and still. If Connie hadn’t been there that first time, and with how slow gem Steven had been walking . . .
. . . it’s not out of the question that maybe his body wouldn’t have survived until it refused. And brain death is something that can be healed, but the memories lost can’t be retrieved.
Add all of this to the fact that King told them that they have had Green and Red for at least seven of their years . . .
It’s not surprising that they had nightmares.
But Connie wasn’t sure how to comfort them. They weren’t used to touch, and to wake them up without a pearl here to calm them down wouldn’t be a good idea. Not to mention that Steven was holding her quite firmly to the couch. She didn’t want to wake him either. The stress of dealing with the two different groups of gems while trying not to step on any toes was exhausting him. He needed the sleep.
But if there was one thing that gems had taught her, it was that music was the ultimate way to connect to another gem. Even the ones who didn’t like it couldn’t help but join in on the singing.
She didn’t like to sing, especially not when Steven wasn’t there to take the spot light, but her boy was asleep, and King had shown that he could sleep through screaming matches between Pearls’.
But singing always helps Steven have good dreams, and maybe this is a way that they are similar?
Connie couldn’t help but feel foolish as she began to hum a few bars, coming up with some lyrics on the fly.
“Go to sleep bright child. The universe is quiet. Dim the lights, close your eyes. The sun has turned away for a while.” Connie finger combed Steven’s hair as he nuzzled into her legs again sighing heavily.
Connie continued to hum a few bars, singing the same lines over and over again as she began to doze off, very purposely not looking over to where King sat.
When she fell asleep again, she was floating in space. She saw two broken mirrors facing each other. They each showed King and Steven. They were lonely and busted in the glass and that would just not do.
Connie reached into the glass, grabbing each boy by the wrists and dragged them to her, they both seemed to be startled, but Steven gathered her up in his arms immediately and pressed her into King.
King was shocked, but seemed to instinctively hold onto her, and they all floated in the dark expanse for space for the rest of the night.