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Connie used to blush when he held her hand or hugged her, but it didn’t last for very long. Just a few cute moments burned into his memory where his fingers laced between hers just because he felt like it, where to looked so shocked and happy.
He was a little disappointed when it stopped. Not that he wanted her to ever be nervous or embarrassed when he touched her, but he liked cute things. He liked cute Connie. But confident sword swinging sassy Connie was pretty great too.
So, when he got his growth spurt, he was overjoyed to get both. There was a few months when he was taller than her and he would slide his hand into hers and tease, “How’s the weather down there?”
And her faced burned, pouting, and she would retort, “I can’t hear you up there.”
He wasn’t sure why the blush was back. The time he grew at his birthday party there had been a lot of blushing, but that was because there was slow dancing, presents, stargazing. All of that stuff could have, maybe, just a tiny bit, been seen as romantic. So, who wouldn’t get all red and awkward when you were just maybe being romantic with your best friend?
But what was there to blush over when he threw an arm over her shoulder and said, “Yeah, this is a lot easier now that I’m tall.”
This was best friend stuff. Why was Connie making such a cute face with a squeaking voice as she quipped, “I’ll remember that when I’m back to outgrowing you.”
He laughed. “I could always be taller, you know.”
“I’ll wear heels.”
“Then I’ll wear heels.” He giggled. “I thought you said it was funny good that I was taller.”
She ducked out of his arm, saying quickly, “I came for sword lessons. Let’s get to it.”
He grinned. “Come on! You’re supposed to get me back!”
Pearl tsked her tongue at him and scolded quietly, “Quit that before you break her.”
He blinked. That was an actual scolding. But he was just acting the same as usual. Connie never minded jokes like that before. Connie didn’t care about hugs and she loved joking. So, when they were alone in the living room after his best friend had gone home for the day, he asked nervously, “What do you mean I’m going to break Connie?”
Pearl went to answer, but Amethyst leapt in before she could say a word.
“Your flirting, Ste-man,” Amethyst said with a giggle. “You’ve gotta turn it down. Or ask her out already.”
He flushed. “I’m not flirting. And I’m not ready to ask her out! I’m just doing all the normal best friend stuff.”
“Oh, Steven,” Pearl crooned, cupping his cheeks. “You suddenly look grown up, almost overnight. You’re getting plenty of time to adjust to Connie growing up. She isn’t. You’ve got to give her some time to adjust.”
“To what? Me being tall?”
Amethyst grinned. “To you being hot , dude. I mean, I don’t really get it, because fifteen year old boys aren’t my thing, but it looks like they’re Connie’s.” She cackled her messed with his hair as he flushed.
Hot. She thought he was hot. Steven’s body had never seemed to work with him. His growing and aging was weird. His shapeshifting was, well, a nightmare. Too many gems called him Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz and she, which didn’t do wonders for someone who firmly identified as he , even if he was a feminine one at times. He had never thought of himself as traditionally handsome.
But, apparently, someone did. He felt the smile spreading over his face. Someone thought he was handsome. Connie thought he was handsome.
“If I stop doing all that stuff now, won’t she know that I know that she thinks I’m cute?” He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. She liked him. She liked his weird body. Maybe it wasn’t actually that weird after all. “It’ll embarrass her more, right?”
Amethyst grinned. “Ooh, good point. If anything, you should turn it up. Really pretend there’s nothing weird going on.”
“No! No, Steven.” Pearl looked at him seriously. “You’ll torture the poor girl. Do not flirt with her more unless you intend to pursue a romantic relationship soon.”
He giggled. “I’m just going to act normal! If she’s not going to act like anything’s changed, I won’t either. Just regular jam buds.”
“But it isn’t regular jam buds,” Pearl said patiently, “because she obviously finds you attractive and - oh, by the stars, Steven!”
She put her hands on his shoulders with a grin, catching him before he floated up to the ceiling. He could feel himself blushing, but that didn’t stop the smile. The giddiness. Even Pearl thought Connie found him hot. Attractive. Maybe he was hot. Could other people find him hot? No, that couldn’t be right. But maybe if one person could it wouldn’t be too crazy. Because Connie was beautiful and she thought he was hot.
“Do not break Connie.”
“Uh huh,” he said distantly, barely listening. “Got it, Pearl.”
Steven grabbed his guitar that night and headed out for a jam session. Sadie and the cool kids liked to invite him to their chill practices, the ones where they messed around and fiddled with different choreography and just played around for new sounds. And then, towards the end of the night, some of them would drink and smoke (away from him, since he wasn't interested in any of that) and come back much buzzier and sillier and chattier. They talked about a lot of things Steven had considered very grown up, which they all seemed to consider very chill and teenage, and he often felt too young to be there.
But tonight he had something to talk about that fit the general conversation. "So, what would you guys do if you found out that someone thought you were hot?"
There were gasps and eager giggles from the girls while, Buck and Sour Cream nodded along with the excitement. Sadie grabbed his hand. "Oh my gosh! Steven! Did Connie confess?"
He flushed. "Who said it was Connie?" Everyone in the circle stared, and he sighed. “Yeah, okay. It’s about Connie. But it’s weird! Pearl and Amethyst are pretty sure she likes me and she thinks that I'm flirting with her."
"How come?" Sadie asked, grinning. "Do you think she's hot? Did you call her hot? Steven! Did you ask her out on a date?"
"No! I'm busy. I don't have time to..." He shook his head and mumbled, "No. We've got to be friends right now. We're both busy."
"Okay," Sadie said, bouncing a little. "What happened?"
"I don't know! Normal stuff. We're just joking around and teasing each other, but she started blushing all the time. Pearl and Amethyst say it's because she thinks I'm hot.” Saying it out loud, in front of so many older, more confident, experienced people suddenly sent his self-esteem plummeting. It seemed so ridiculous now. “But she probably doesn't. I don't think anyone would-"
"Nooooo!" Jenny gasped, throwing up her hands. "Steven, no. Baby. Sweetie. You're so hot. You're beautiful. Very soft. A cherub. You love yourself, baby boy."
He laughed nervously. "Uh, is she okay?"
"She's a happy drunk," Buck explained. "She's fine."
Jenny knelt in front of him. "Okay, so we're going to figure out how to seduce your girlfriend. What's she like? She's the sword nerd, right? Steven, get her a sword."
He laughed. "She already has a sword!"
"Swords are like rings, Steven. You're always happy to get another sword. I bet your moms have a million swords from all their lovers."
Steven thought of Pearl and blinked. "Huh. Well. Yeah, but I'm not trying to sed…” Even the denial of that was too embarrassing to say out loud. He laughed again. “I'm not trying to get a girlfriend. Besides, Pearl said I needed to stop flirting because I'm gonna break her."
"Hollon, hollon, hollon," Jenny said, speaking so fast her words slurred together. "You said that Pearl said that you've got to tone it down? So you wouldn't embarrass her?"
He laughed nervously. "Uh, yeah. I guess I've been flirting by mistake?"
"Oh, okay, that's dumb," she said. "Steven, you - alright. Hold on. Steven, you are not responsible for other people's feelings, okay? Like, if Connie feels like the flirting is too much, she can ask you to stop, right? And obviously you stop if she asks. But it's not your job to look inside your friend's head and figure out what she's comfortable with. Pearl's just wrong."
"I don't know," Steven mumbled. "I wouldn't like it if someone was making me uncomfortable."
Her eyes narrowed, despite Buck’s claim that she was a happy drunk. "Has she stopped holding your hand or hugging or whatever it is you guys do?"
"No."
"So she's not doing anything different except blushing, you're not doing anything different, so what's supposed to be the problem?" Jenny insisted.
He made a nervous noise, trying to search for a reason. He ignored the first ones that popped up - thoughts of being too much of a burden, being a bother, that there was a chance that if it was true they would have to talk about it, and they’d have to talk about how he wasn’t good enough to be with her right now. Those weren’t reasons he could say. Instead, he tried, "If she was a girl that I just met-"
"No. She's not," Jenny said firmly. "She's your best friend. You have been best friends for years. If you're worried, just ask if she's okay! You don't need to guess what her feelings are. You don't have to make decisions for her."
"So what should I do?"
"Someone thinks you're cute. Enjoy it! You're sixteen. Cut your hair. Get some new clothes.” She bounced a curl and gave his pink jacket a tug. “Figure out who you are and what makes you feel good and what makes you love yourself."
Sadie stared. "Wow. That's... That's really good advice, Jenny."
"Why are you surprised? I can give good advice sometimes." She grinned. "Especially when it comes to finding yourself. Remember when I was Goth for a year so no one would think I was Kiki?"
"That was rad," Sour Cream mumbled.
"The jam group has spoken," Buck said. "Steven should enjoy being hot."
He laughed and put a hand to his flaming face. "Oh, gees. You guys are too nice."
Sadie ruffled his hair. "You deserve it, Steven."
Steven wanted to talk with Connie right away. It was the right thing to do, to talk things out. It’s how they did everything. But, like always, another message came in. Another mission. Another emergency, and he dragged himself to the warp pad and canceled all his plans for the next two weeks so he could be the diamond he was supposed to be.
At night, he thought about Earth. He thought a lot about Connie, but it wasn’t really just about Connie. Yeah, he thought about flirting and dates and other stuff that made his heart flutter and palms sweat, but so much of it was just living life. The idea of coming home after a normal school day, or a normal work day, and sitting on the couch with her felt as whimsical as the shapes he saw in clouds, as graspable as smoke in a bonfire.
“Hey Garnet,” he murmured, under the stars of another world. “How long do you think Sapphire would wait for Ruby, if you had to break up?”
“Always,” she said, her voice as unquestioning as ever.
Steven swallowed. “Is it right to ask someone to wait?”
“If you aren’t hiding an order in them, bad questions are rare.”
He grinned. “You’re one to talk.”
Garnet rested a hand on his head, murmuring softly, “It won’t be forever, Steven. Everything ends. Even this.”
He closed his eyes, and let his throat tighten as he dreamed about warping home every day at four, with plenty of time to plan dinner. There was a scream in the darkness, and it twisted away like leaves in a hurricane.
Eventually he came back to Earth, and everything was fine. He was fine.
He took Connie out for donuts and sat on a bench with her, when they finally had the chance. He decided it would be right to ask her about this sort of thing before going too far with it. Not because he thought it was bad or anything, but because last time he wasn’t honest about his feelings she had run off with Lion because he ripped her heart in two and that had ripped his own heart in two and everything had been a nightmare for several weeks.
So. Honesty.
"I just wanted to check that I haven't been too weird since I got... Tall." Steven cleared his throat, feeling a blush creep up on him. "Because Pearl was worried I might be making you uncomfortable."
"Because you're tall?" Connie said, face screwing up with thought. Gosh, she was cute, but it was much less cute when he was trying to be subtle. "Oh! Because of the height difference in training. Yeah, the leverage has been weird on flips, but I'll get the hang of it."
"No, uh, outside of training." He cleared his throat. Okay, he needed to be a little less hinting and a little more blunt. Connie wasn't great at subtle when it came to romance. She was more of a hammer of affection, slamming him with lines like ‘I want to be part of your universe’ and promising to trade her life for his. "If you need me to hold your hand or hug you less. You know. Because of my growth spurt."
She stared for a while longer, then suddenly snapped, her face lighting up with discovery. "I get it." Oh, thank the stars. "You're being coy. Steven, I have no idea what you're talking about. Could you be direct?"
He took a deep breath, emotions split between enamored and frustrated. "Okay. You'll tell me if I ever make you uncomfortable, right? You know you can always tell me anything like that."
"Of course. And you can do the same." She smiled, but it faded a little. "I'm not... I'm not going to go silent on you again, Steven. I'm really sorry I did last time."
"But I-"
She held up a hand. "I know. You hurt me a lot, but you apologized, and if I had been a little braver none of it would have gone on for so long. If I’d just told you how I felt on the beach instead of running away, it might not have happened to begin with. I promise to tell you if I'm feeling bad from now on."
He beamed, and he knew he probably shouldn't have said it, not when everything was so weird and changing, but it was what he felt and he couldn't hold it back. "I love you."
She looked away as she flushed, her eyes focused on her chocolate donut. "Love you too, jam bud."
Connie was never very good at saying the l-word. Even now, the word love was much quieter, barely whispered compared to the rest of it. They were best friends, and he knew a lot of best friends didn't say I love you all the time, that a lot of people saved it for romance. He was pretty sure Connie would have been one of those people, for anyone else. He never expected her to say it back.
But for him, she said it. Whispered and blushing and looking away, but she did. And she thought he was pretty. Steven hooked his leg around the leg of the bench, and did his best not to float off. Everything was in the clear. He could try all kinds of weird stuff and she would tell him if it ever got to be too much.
It took months to try things out. He was busy, and visits with Connie took place scattered between his hectic missions and her packed schedule. School and Little Homeworld and tennis and swords and so many things that she just smiled and laughed when he tried to plug it into his phone. A million little things. One big thing.
It was fine. They always found a way.
He started with outfits. He usually got his clothes from his dad’s old merch, and exploring there ends with him looking like a rocker in a wild colored dress and combat boots. It was too wild a look without makeup, so he tried doing it up so his face looks like a sunset - all reds, yellows and oranges. That ended with Connie gushing over his outfit, confessing dreams of wanting to look like a punk rocker herself, and a night of them doing wild stage makeup.
It didn’t make him feel attractive, but it did make him feel confident. Connie didn’t have a lot of makeup in her home, so it was one of the few places he could actually teach her something. Besides that, Connie could always sweep away weird thoughts about his body. Her boundless enthusiasm was too contagious for him to feel anything else.
He tried for attractive again, this time more masculine. Raiding Greg’s storage got him some torn up black jeans covered in chains and a leather jacket over a black star shirt. When Connie saw him this time, he was met with nothing but confusion. Her first thought was cosplay. Her next guess was him as an extra in Sadie’s show.
“Maybe I just wanna wear something cool,” he said.
She hummed, looking him over. “I don’t know. You just don’t look like you’re you .”
Steven pouted. “Maybe this is a new me.”
Connie shook her head. “You don’t look comfortable or happy. It looks like a costume.”
“Isn’t that how you figure out what you like?” he asked her.
“I don’t think so.” She wrinkled her nose. “When Mom let me pick out my own clothes, I got a lot of different stuff, but all of it was stuff I liked. I went to the store and I got stuff that made me happy to wear, not stuff that I thought would make me look cool.”
He raised an eyebrow.
She sighed. “Okay, I got some heels I can’t ever wear because they make my feet hurt and I can’t run in them, but it was mostly just stuff I liked and some mistakes! You might not like everything you try in the long run, but you should try on stuff that you want to try. Don’t do it for anyone else. You like casual stuff, right? Try casual. Comfy. You .”
Steven asked his dad to take him shopping, and they got a lot. He went comfortable, mostly. He got jeans that fit a little better, sitting nicely on his hips without hanging off or cutting in. He got a few button downs, a little breathless when he caught himself in the mirror with the sleeves half rolled up and the shirt falling just so. He knew it was the lights and the mirror conspiring to make him buy more clothes, but he really felt like a model for a moment. Handsome.
He grabbed t-shirts and jackets and shorts and swimsuits, but he was so excited by the button down and jeans that he spent every day after his shopping trip in them, waiting for Connie to drop by. It was a risky game, hoping she would come around without scheduling it. He could have gone to see her, but that felt too active. Too greedy for her attention and a space in her busy life. He wanted her to see him, to be able to act like this was casual and not a giddy, thrilling, finding himself moment.
His gamble paid off, because she did come by. When she saw him, she flushed. “Uh, fancy day?”
“Just trying something new.” He grinned. “What do you think?”
“It suits you.”
“It’s more of a blouse.”
She laughed too long at his stupid joke, and he spent the rest of the day looking at her from the corner of his eye. He was pretty sure she was looking him over more than normal, but he couldn’t say for sure. It felt nice, and she didn’t ask him to stop, which was a relief. Even if the button downs weren’t every day shirts, he liked them. He liked eyeing himself in the mirror and thinking that, maybe, people on the street might take a second look at the confident, handsome guy he was in the mirror.
Connie liking the shirts too was just a bonus.
“Steven.” Garnet stood in front of him. “I had a talk with Connie.”
Uh oh. He gulped. “Yeah?”
“She’s not sure if you’re flirting with her,” she said.
He laughed. “I think that makes two of us. I mean, it’s just clothes. It’s not like I’m doing anything.”
“No, you’re not.” Garnet adjusted her visor with a little smile. “But you could be.”
“Really?” Steven grinned, tension uncoiling from his belly now that the most reasonable member of the team was onboard.
“I have some ideas,” she said. Then, very seriously, “We can’t tell Pearl.”
Steven found Garnet frequently requesting his help in lifting heavy objects when Connie was over. Garnet was suddenly losing butter knives she never used under the fridge, so Steven could casually tug it up and Connie could snatch it out from underneath. The fusion was interested in seeing how many times Steven could overhead press a boulder, or how far he could throw a rock the size of his head, but only when Connie finally had a gap in her schedule.
The girl couldn’t seem to figure out what to do. At first, she tried to make conversation, but (in an overwhelming ego boost) her train of thought would seem to trail off. She switched tactics then, (in an even bigger ego boost) and talked eagerly about his strength, how he had improved over the years, how much she admired and was proud of how far he had come. He had to keep thinking of snakes wishing for arms to balance the joy and keep himself from floating off.
Garnet also seemed to suddenly have an extensive set list for Steven, frequently shoving a guitar or ukulele into his hands and demanding he play pretty romantic riffs. This was a different kind of ego boost, but a wonderful one nevertheless, as Connie would watch him play so adoringly he could forget self-confidence was ever an issue in the first place. It wasn’t the kind of feeling that lingered, just a lightheaded rush that made him feel like he must be doing something right, if someone could love him that much.
When Garnet asked him to sing something, that was apparently a little too much for Connie to take. She never had any troubles with his normal songs, happy to watch him sing about anything that was going on in his life or silly pop music. But the second he started a ballad everything turned tense.
Steven wouldn’t look at her while singing, of course, just sneak glances, but when he sang something romantic he could feel how she stared. Every glance at her proved it. And, if he ever looked a little too long, Connie would realize she was staring and suddenly have a text message to attend to, sprinting out the door with a flustered look.
He tried not to feel incredibly guilty about how amazing it felt to affect her so much. Neither worked.
“Steven,” Connie began, after somehow finding the strength to stay through an entire romantic song, “I’ve been wondering, um… Have you been reading romance novels lately?”
He felt a nervous giggle bubbling up and gulped it down. Guess that was over with. It had been fun while it lasted. “Not really. Why?”
“Because you…” She started, and he stared at her, ready for her to really let him have it. Any second now she was going to accuse him of being a flirt or a tease or something, and he wasn’t even sure how he was going to deny it. He wasn’t sure how he could explain what he was doing, or why he was doing it, other than the humiliating fact that having someone like him for him was intoxicating.
But Connie just blushed, and it never came. “Never mind. It’s probably my imagination. I don’t really get romance. I... I should probably get going.”
He rushed off to find someone to talk to, and slammed into Amethyst. An explanation of everything tumbled out, Amethyst watching with mirth slowly spreading across her features, until Steven burst, “I don’t know if she’s figured it out! I don’t know if I’ve figured it out! I mean, she’s got to know, right?”
She put her hands on his shoulder. “Steven, if Connie started winking at you after making jokes, or wearing loads of pretty clothes and makeup and telling you about romance books she read, what would you think?”
“That’s different!” he argued. “I know it’d really look like she was flirting, but I don’t think Connie would ever like me like- oh. ”
She clicked her tongue. “There you go, bud. She probably knows, but she doesn’t know , you know?”
He groaned. “I just want to feel handsome.”
“I’ve been to clubs and stuff, dude. I get it. Enjoy yourself. But, you know, if Connie’s brain melted I’d find it hilarious, so… maybe go with Pearl or Garnet on this one.”
He crossed his arms. “Okay, Pearl thinks that I should do some with chivalry courting thing from Medieval Times, and I’m pretty sure Garnet ships us like book characters. You’re kind of the most mature one here.”
“Oof,” she said, eyes wide. Her hands clapped down on his shoulders. “You’re screwed, Ste-man. Good luck.”
Months slid by.
Are you busy? I’m busy. Are you out? I’m out. If only things meshed up. If only things would settle. But it’s got to be over some day, doesn’t it? It can’t go on forever.
How long did the last war go on for? Thousands of years.
How long did your mom go to school, do her residency, stay so busy? She still is. Life is busy. If you want a good career, everything is busy.
It was fine.
Every goodbye was just a hello waiting to happen, right?
When they were together, all of it was locked away, carefully tucked out of sight. Everything was winking and smiling and sarcasm. Normal teens. Normal life.
But they were so rarely together.
“Steven!” Pearl squawked, arms crossed with the most mom expression on her face. Steven winced, fresh off the teleport pad from another clingy meeting with the Diamonds, into the very unclingy conversation with Pearl.
“Hey, Pearl. How are you?”
“Do you know the conversation I’ve just had with Connie?” she demanded. “I hope she’s seeing things, because I cannot believe what I’m hearing. We did not raise you to shamelessly flirt. You haven’t even begun the process of courting. You haven’t talked to her parents about when an acceptable time to begin dating, you haven’t offered any gifts, I doubt you even have a handkerchief to-”
Steven groaned. “Pearl! That’s not even how you date now! You just ask someone if they want to.”
“I’m aware, Steven. I’ve had many modern dates. I assumed you were more interested in a classical romance.” She raised an eyebrow. “Clearly, you are not. What have you been doing with your hair?”
He felt his lips twitching up. “Okay, that one barely counts.”
“ What have you been doing , Steven?”
Steven had practiced it in the mirror, mimicking cute boys online and combining it with his own comfortable movements. He slid a hand through his hair, ducking his head forward at the same time. He looked at her from under his lashes, cocking his head to get the best angle, then slowly ran his hand over his neck. “I’m just brushing back my hair, see?”
She scowled. “That is obscenely flirtatious.”
“I don’t know about that,” he mumbled. “I just know it makes her stare a lot.”
“Because it is obscenely flirtatious, Steven!”
“You call everything I do around Connie obscenely flirtatious!” he said, throwing up his arms.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Correct! You always seem to be looking for things on high shelves. You always suggest going swimming when Connie comes over. You sprawl out on the couch like no one taught you how to sit properly. Connie is a mess of feelings and she doesn’t understand why it’s suddenly so strange to be around you.”
“She could ask me,” Steven pointed out. “She promised she would.”
Pearl sighed, closing her eyes. “Well, that’s what I told her - that she should talk to you. I still think you should just be forward and ask her out.”
He thought of meetings with the Diamonds, missions across planets, everything he pushed away to savor blissful moments with Connie on Earth. He thought about making that harder, about trying to make their relationship something deeper and more complicated without being able to give her any more of his time. Steven shook his head. “I can’t right now. Not until I’m done with the empire.”
Pearl’s expression softened. “But you want to.”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe if things were different, but they aren’t. It’s just something nice, Pearl. She’ll tell me if it isn’t nice. She promised.”
“Alright. She’s in the shower at the moment. She’s staying for dinner.” Pearl ruffled his curls. “I’m sorry I doubted you. I know what it’s like to be trapped by circumstances beyond your control. I should have known you only ever had good intent.”
He did have good intent, but that didn’t mean he was being fair about any of this. That didn’t mean he got to hide behind a layer of “Can’t I just be happy for once?” and flirt and charm without meaning any of it. It had to come out. And then it had to end.
Steven waited for her on the patio, ears listening for the sound of her shoulder to end. She smiled as she saw him. He decided to go Amethyst’s route. Connie had always been as subtle as a hammer when it came to romance, so he would be too. He stepped up close to her, the directness of it enough to make his hands a little shaky and his heart unsteady in his chest. He swept his hair back, just in the way she always got the most flustered by, and ducking his head forward meant his face got dangerously close to hers, romantically close. He thought about coyly biting his lip, but that was something Steven wasn’t sure he could ever pull off, no matter how cute it made the boys online look. Instead, he dropped his voice low and rumbly, and said, "Missed you."
And was immediately glad he didn't go any further, because Connie gasped out loud, suddenly turning away without a word of response. He shouldn't have been so giddy, especially when he was being so cowardly and not telling her outright. It was mean to be so excited, but he really couldn't get enough of it. Handsome. Pretty. Attractive. Something, it didn't matter what. He still couldn’t believe he could pull it off on purpose, whenever he wanted.
The only bad thing he could manage feel was the frustration of not being able to ask her how she felt (and, of course, not being able to just tell her why he was doing all this in the first place). Was her heart pounding? Chest tightening? Did she have to look away because it was hard to breathe, like all the romance books said? Did she want to kiss him? It was hard to fathom that she would want to kiss him, but that only made him want to ask her more.
Steven was grinning. He should stop. He definitely shouldn't say what he wanted to say, and he shouldn't say it in that slow drawl that always seemed to get her blushing. "What's wrong? Didn't you miss me too? I thought I'd get a hug." Oops. Too late. It was already out there. In that voice. He really was going to break her. Maybe he shouldn't have-
She was looking at him fiercely all of a sudden. Oh? Did she- "You're teasing me on purpose!" Yup. It took sixty pages of wedding cake and a marriage for Connie to understand romance, or him purring roughly five inches away from her face in the most romantic voice he could muster.
It was what he wanted to happen, but he flushed anyway. "Wait! It's not teasing. I'm just trying to figure out-"
Connie was grinning, which was a relief. She wasn’t mad at all. Her hand rapped on his chest "I thought I was going crazy! It was you ! Why have you been so weird?”
"I don't know.” He giggled. “I, um, I'm trying to figure some stuff out."
"What stuff?" She pushed him playfully.
"How to, uh, like my body?" He cleared his throat awkwardly as the giggles dried up. "How to think of myself as attractive?"
"Oh." She dropped her hand from his shoulder, and went to lean on the patio railing.
"It's been about me, not you. I haven't been trying to tease you," he added quickly as he came up behind her. But a touch of guilt gnawed at him, and it only seemed fair. Steven winced and admitted, "I liked all your reactions. They made me feel nice."
She laughed a little, letting her hair fall over her face. "Well, this is way better than me just being weird. You wanted me to react."
"I don’t feel bad about all of it. But, uh, I'm sorry about the songs," Steven said softly. "I don't know what I was thinking. Garnet said... It doesn't matter. You were really obviously uncomfortable and I was being a jerk. I mean, you ran away, like, five times and I did it anyway. I know you don't like me like that. You've probably been trying to figure out how to tell me you don't -"
A hand slammed over his mouth, and he stared into Connie’s wide, panicked eyes. "I can't figure out romance! Steven, I'm sorry! It's not that I don't like you! But I've been trying to figure out how to be romantic and no one can give me a straight answer!"
He pulled her hand down from his mouth. "What do you mean? You just do what feels right."
"What does that mean?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes.
He shook his head, laughing a little. “It means you do what feels right!”
"That's what everyone says! Oh, just do what feels right. Romance can be playing video games on the couch or a walk on the beach. So what... What is it? What makes something friendly and something romantic?” She started pacing, arms crossed over her chest as she ranted. “I've been on queer forums asking for the difference between a queerplatonic relationship and an asexual romantic relationship and everyone has a different answer! Sex I get. Flirting I get. I have done months of research, Steven, and no one knows what romance is!"
He grinned a little. "Did you ask Garnet?"
"Of course I asked Garnet!" she shouted, spinning to face him. "She’s the first one I asked! What do you think she said?"
"You just do-"
"You just do what feels right!" she raged. "Like two months of color coded notes means nothing!"
"Notes?"
"Yes! Notebooks and tabs in my books and fanfiction and bookmarked forums and it's apparently just whatever you want it to be." She threw up her hands.
"Well, yeah." He giggled. "That's what's so-"
"But it's not!" she said, and something in her voice went from funny and mad to broken and scared, and his laughter stopped short. "There's something different and I don't know what it is. There's nights where we watch movies and eat popcorn and we're friends. And there's nights where we watch movies and eat popcorn and we're something else! And when there's something else I have all these feelings and I don't know what to do so I run away. And whenever I run away you get hurt! And maybe if I could figure this out I'd stop hurting you and we could go back to normal but I can't, Steven!
“You’re off in space all the time! And I’m busy all the time. We never see each other and the few times we do, I mean, sometimes it’s just flirting and it’s great! And then sometimes I think that… I think that we’re nearly a real couple and it’s serious and romantic, but I don’t know what that means. And now you're here and you're feeling awful and you think I don't like you and... And if I could just figure out what being romantic is, maybe I could fix this and stop ruining the little bit of time we have together."
His eyes stung as he caught her hand, tugging her closer. "Connie, you know all those feelings that make you run away?"
"I'm familiar," she said miserably.
"It's that. That's the romantic part," he explained. "What makes them happen is different for everyone. And you can't always figure out why it happens. Sometimes you just... You love people like that. And that's it."
She swallowed, the sound a loud as a gunshot in the silence he left behind. "I can't... I can't work through that stuff if we're not together. I could do other stuff. Physical stuff."
He squeezed her hand. "I can't start kissing you if I'm not going to see you all the time. Having it and then losing it…” The thought of it was enough to lose a tear, thinking of being alone on a mission and wondering if this was the time that she couldn’t take it, if this was the distance that finally snapped the relationship in half. “It’s too much.”
She squeezed his hand back. "I don't want anyone else."
"Me neither." He smiled, oddly relieved and giddy. "So, we'll wait for each other."
She beamed. "Yeah. We'll wait. And, while we’re waiting…” She put her hands on his cheeks and squished. “ Why are you doing everything you can to make me freak out? What was that hair thing? I thought you were about to kiss me, Steven!”
"I like your reactions, remember? They're cute," he said. This was so much harder to say out loud, and his cheeks were burning, but he had to be fair. " You're cute."
"What's cute about it?" she retorted. "I get all shaky and I don't know how to breathe like a normal person. I get all sweaty and gross. I stare like an idiot. I can feel how bad I'm blushing! You're telling me that's cute?"
He could feel his grin coming back, and he gripped the porch railing as he tried not to float again. He tried not to get so excited that she liked him. He tried not to think about how pretty she was when she was passionate like this. And he tried very, very hard not to think about how strong her reaction was to all those little things, and how easy it would be if he had the confidence to go further. If he had the time. He managed to keep it down to a smile. "It makes me feel handsome. I think it's really sweet."
“You feel…” She made another little noise, so many emotions flashing across her face as she stared up at him. Finally, she blurted, "Of course you're handsome! You didn't know already?"
His heart beat against his ribs, palms feeling sweaty. Oh, gees. Is this what she felt every time he was trying to look good? His voice cracked. "No! That's what I've been figuring out!"
"I could've just told you!" she squeaked. “You haven’t been fair. I haven’t had the chance to do it back!"
"I mean, you could’ve whenever you wanted to.” He cleared his throat, wondering what flirtatious Connie would look like. “D’you want to? You know, now that we know for sure what we want.”
She giggled. “We'd be flirting, Steven. On purpose . I guess to feel good about ourselves and for fun. If you’re going to, I’m going to."
His stomach fluttered. "Flirting sounds fun."
"It's only playing," she agreed nervously. "It's not serious. Because we’re both very…"
"We’re too busy for anything other than playing," he agreed.
"Then maybe I could try. How'd you learn to do it?" she asked. And then, in a very Connie way, considered the question herself and answered, "There’s got to be a book."
"I just tried a bunch of different stuff to see what felt good. Practiced in the mirror."
She looked skeptical. "I think I can find some resources online."
“If you say so." Steven laughed, then dropped her hand, looking out at the ocean. "So… you really like the way I look?"
She looked so confused, and rattled off compliments like they were facts. "Of course. Always. You were cute and soft and friendly as a kid. You were an adorable baby. You can pull off practically any outfit. Now you're still all friendly and soft, but stronger. Less cute and more handsome. Attractiveness is subjective, but having a symmetrical and balanced face is key, and you've definitely got one."
Without comment, just habit, her hand grabbed high on his arm, holding him steady so he wouldn't fly off into the sky. He grinned down at her, heart full of light. "Yeah, this is way better then trying to do it on my own. I should have just asked you in the first place."
"Nothing like open communication!" she chirped happily. "I'll tell you you're handsome whenever you want, Steven. Just maybe not in public.” She winced. “And definitely not in front of my parents. I don’t need to have that conversation again."
"And I'll tell you you're beautiful." She choked as she blushed again, and Steven giggled as she dropped his arm and let him float away. He laughed, tumbling upwards. "Wait, no! It's going to take at least ten minutes to get down!"
"Bye!" She waved, watching him go. After a moment's hesitation, she winked and said, "I'll just be enjoying the view."
Heat burned his cheeks. Well, make that fifteen minutes.