Chapter Text
Ah yes, because after you've spent years of your life building up trauma, fixing your dead mother's mistakes, being held accountable for the pain of people you don't even know the name of, and being a universal figure of peace at 16, you want to turn into an angry cat every Tuesday night. If Steven didn't know better, he would have said he is a werewolf that particularly despises Tuesdays, but, alas, a werewolf isn't real - a human-gem hybrid who turned into a minature tarasque once a week, though? Yeah, sure.
For drama, he never bothered telling the gems, something about not wanting to bother them? Hell, he didn't even tell his girlfriend and she knew, like, most of his trauma! Jeepers, he was being secretive about this. The only person who did know? Spinel. She knew everything, from your mother's relationship history to what you did last night. Also, she was kind of an interdimentional god? She would always talk about the 'fandom' and obsess over the latest erotica. Or was it that au where she works at a cheese place and commits arson on a day to day basis? Eh, same thing.
Anyway, on to the plot, Steven supposed. The night before, an angry cat had broken into fish stew pizza, ate their whole stock, bit everyone in their sleep, and proceeded to regurgitate the fish in the middle of the Big Donut. Of course, only one person apart from him knew who the cat actually was, but she was too invested in the drama to tell anyone. Who doesn't love a non-beta fic written by a 14 year old with the same imagination as a Riverdale plot writer and a playlist consisting of the most random bullshit from each of the 69 corners of the earth? Not you, apparently.
Now, since this cat had been destroying everything, they had a security camera in place. The whole of Beach City had gathered around to watch it like a public hanging, but the only thing that showed up was Onion breaking into the pizza place, t-posing for 4 hours and 20 minutes, then leaving without eating anything (not that sneople even eat human food). No sign of the cat at all, until- "Oh my gosh, conveniently for the cat, a seagull flew through the window Onion broke and accidentally disabled the camera footage for the rest of the night-" Ronaldo said, "I must put this on my Keep Beach City Weird discord server!" He opened the server then saw the literal chaos pouring out of it and swiped the app away. "On to my Tumblr blog then-" He ignored the naked anime hunks on his feed and opened Create New Blog. He then proceeded to copy and paste this fic under his own name but Author didn't complain because Author is too tired to give one rn.
...
"I don't understand! I thought we had all the corrupted gems!" Pearl shrieked as she paced by the kitchen.
"Yeah, well, maybe it's just an angry cat, like everyone says it is?"
"A cat, no matter how angry, could never do that damage!"
"Wanna bet?" Amethyst bit back, shifting her form into the persian cat she so often took on and stood her fur on end, hissing loudly before ramming herself into a window, effectively smashing it and throwing herself out.
"AMETHYST!" Bird mum shrieked, "I TOLD YOU NO MORE BREAKING WINDOWS!" And she dove out of the broken window, presumably to chase after the purple gem.
Steven stood in the corner of the room watching this go down. He let out a tired sigh and walked up to the mirror, licking his hand and watch it heal itself. This is unimportant and not foreshadowing for later on in the fic.
Why did Pearl always have to be so loud? He already had a splitting headache (he would often get these after the 'corruption nights'), and her shrieking like the bird she is just made it ten times worse.
"Steven." Oh he knew that voice. "When did you last have a shower?"
He turned around to see a familiar blue gem standing with her arms crossed, chin lifted in a rather accusatory manner, with the short green goblin that follow hers around almost constantly perched on her shoulders, probably so she could be tall for accusation purposes.
"Err..." He swallowed. Showers had been a lot harder lately, not just because he had a total lack of energy and ability to perform any self care, but also because cats really didn't like water. "...This morning?"
"..."
The two fully gems turned to look at eachother for several seconds before Lapis spoke in a low tone, "I don't believe it."
Steven went stiff. Shit.
A huge ball of water formed in the room. "Bath. Time." fUCK-
The anime battle that followed is too powerful for this fic (over 9000 blabla~) and so instead I shall just tell you that it ended with Steven tangled in a coat hanger, courtesy of Peri, and was found by Pearl half drowned as Lapis chanted "MAY HE BE CLEANSED" over and over whilst trapping him in a sphere of water.
"My baby!" Pearl had screeched at the sight.
"mY bAbY!" Peridot had mimicked.
Channeling the power of a thousand or more birds of varying species (the most notable a bearded vulture because i really like them pls check them out), Pearl leapt over the green goblin and stabbed the water witch with her trident.
"Poseidon quivers before her!" Peridot screeched, earning her a "frICK OFF" from Pearl because Bird Mum does not condone swearing.
Pearl picked up Steven and rested him gently on the bed. "Steven.. Are you okay?"
With a groan, the boy in question opened his eyes, "Pearl...?"
"Yes, Steven, I'm here."
"...Where is Amethyst?"
*INSERT FLASHBACKS TO A PURPLE CAT BEING THROWN IN A BIN HERE*
"Don't worry, Steven, I took care of her for you."
He let out a groan and sat upright, looking around, before spotting a certain green gem. "Peridot?" She was too busy screaming at a blue gemstone on the floor to 'reform already'. "You know you can get her to reform faster by fusing with her?" But author did not give the Lapidot fans the fusion they wanted.
Instead, Peridot screeched back at the hybrid "NO CONSCIOUSNESS, NO CONSENT!" before scooping Lapis Lazuli's gem up and running off into the distance. Steven sighed, getting up onto his feet before turning around and bumping right into Pearl, who he had hoenstly forgotten existed. "Sorry Pearl, it's just you are easily forgotten about!"
"I forgive you, Steven. Afterall, I'm only one of the main characters of the show :)"
"Wha-"
"Don't worry about it^^." She patted his head and walked off.
"I just wanted to know how she spoke emoticons out loud." Steven murmured to himself, kicking the ground, his flip flop folding back under the force and his foot effectively slamming into the wooden flooring, "FFFFffffff... fffliiiipppp..." Afterall, it is a kids show.
Steven was going to go downstairs, maybe even outside if he felt adventurous enough, but, you know, screw it. He fell back onto his bed and squeezed his eyes closed right as a boom of a door slanming open echoed throughout the house.