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Chapter Text

"You actually came back."

Steven, Asteria Diamond, whatever the time-damned fates he's supposed to be called now, raises an eyebrow. "You offered."

The growl in her song is more reflexive than anything at this point. "Well, whatever. I'm not going to train you. You're a Diamond, not some runt off-color in need of bolstering."

"Is that a compliment buried under there?"

"It's a fact. Besides, didn't you inherit Her lackeys? Get one of those to play war with you, if you want it so bad."

"You said it yourself. I am a Diamond." He looks surprisingly unimpressed at the suggestion. "Maybe when I was little it would have worked, but not anymore. Sparring with most of the others is more of an exercise of restraint than anything else, these days." He leans back against a tree. "They make terrible fighting partners, anyway. They care too much about hurting me, even if they mostly can't anymore."

Anger at the well-intentioned respect of others.

Disappointment in one's own strength, and the weakness of others.

The beginnings of longing and the cold lonely cage of restraint.

It is strange to hear, this blatant discord, this flaw, from someone hailed as the literal Diamond's gift to Gemkind.

(It is far too familiar to take any satisfaction from.)

"It's frustrating, isn't it?" she blurts. "The power. The idea that if only you were a little faster, just a little better, it will make you strong." She finally steps off the roof of the cave, roughly landing to sit on one of her training rocks. "And then you are faster, and smarter, and better. And the world will look at you and call you strong."

She flexes her claws, her scars. His eyes (Her eyes, bright and tender like flowers, the eyes so soft and sad as they tenderly spoke 'My perfect Jasper' ) trail transfixed by the motion.

"But you are not strong," she trails, scratching at a horn. "You are alone. Just a pretty mantlepiece on everyone's altar where no one can touch you."

"Yeah," he trails in return. They look out at the distant, infant silhouette of Little Homeworld, pennant flags flaring proudly with Diamond colors. "Something like that."

Chapter Text

"Fight me."

He says it so abruptly, while still keeping the same politeness he always had. It's kind of impressive.

"What, is kicking me in the Gem your new 'good morning' now?"

"I'm asking you to fight me. I didn't say I would fight you."

Ugh, wordplay. If there's anything she doesn't miss about the old Eras, it's the fancy veiled words of the elite, layered with double and triple meanings. But hey, free punching bag. Who can say no to that?

=<>=

The thing about sparring with the little Diamond is that he doesn't break.

He does not flinch when she moves to him, or flexes her strength to lift a heavy object. Even other Quartzes would back away when she did her part of a lifting job, or a fight, but not this one. This one barely blinks because he can lift just the same as she does, if not more.

(This one could lift a terraforming injector at his weakest. She'd like to see that strength in person one day.)

Knows how to take a hit, too. Barely even bothers to dodge, most of the time, just tanks her blows like a solid wall, unmoved, while the ground craters around him. Jasper can respect that. She likes to see that in a Gem.

He gets creative about it, his shield bubbling around him at foreign shapes and angles, curling around his fist or cloaking him like a second skin. There's always a satisfying metallic ring whenever she strikes it. It's fun.

Which is probably why she doesn't notice the first time, when he lets one of her hits actually land. And another. Her last hit knocks him back into a tree. There's a tiredness in his eyes, and a small line of blood on him.

"We're done."

"I'm fine," he coughs. "I'll heal."

"Then fix yourself. We're still done."

"Aw, what? Why? I'm not even tired."

"Somehow I don't believe that. You look like shale."

"Wow", he snarks. "Tell me how you really feel."

"Just did." She sets him standing. "So why don't you tell me why you let me hit you, because you obviously did."

"I don't know. I felt like a needed a good punch."

"Not my grind, little Diamond."

His face screws up with mortified disgust. "Ew, no. Not like that. I mean-" he cuts off with the beginnings of a blush on his face. "No. Just- no. I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."

"That means it worked. Anyway." She soberly claps him on the shoulder. "Never use me to hurt yourself again."

"That's fair. Sorry." He makes to leave. "I can just go, if you want."

"I didn't say leave, tiny. We're just done for today. It was fun, before you got weird about it. Now help me put these colorful river rocks in the dirt so that grass stops growing on my territory."

"Aww, you remembered what grass was."

"Don't get cute."

Chapter Text

It wasn't particularly a surprise for Jasper to curl a claw to his jacket instead of bother with a hello, but it was a little bit of a shock to see her so close to civilization (if the farthest, last dregs of Little Homeworld construction could be called that). It was easy enough to follow her lead these days as she barely tugged him closer.

"You busy?" she growls.

"Afternoon to you too, Jasper," he chirps cheerfully. "Any reason you're dragging my body into the woods, or am I just going to have to accept my impending death?"

"I wouldn't shatter you, little Diamond. How would I ever clean the gore off my cave walls?"

"Call it abstract art," he bites flatly. "They'll never suspect a thing."

"Don't give me ideas." Jasper scratches at a stray green scale on her hand. "You're being distracting," she hisses. "Stop that. Anyway, I need..." she trails off into mumbles.

"Need what now?"

"Don't rush me!" she barks. It would be more scary if there wasn't a near blush on her face. "I need... your... help," she spits haltingly, dragging the last word like a curse. "There's stray dogs in my territory and they won't leave."

"Dogs? Can't you just shoo them away?"

"It doesn't work! They keep coming back when it rains in the night. You know Earth creatures! Make them go away."

=<>=

"Jasper, what am I looking at."

She points at the giant, flowering growth of moss trailing around the cave rocks. "Dogs. I keep tearing them off, but they just... grow back! On me. Everywhere. I hate it."

"Jasper that's not..." He almost laughs. "That's not what dogs are. Those aren't dogs. That's moss."

"Details," she mutters, picking at one of the flowers.

"We covered dogs in the Human Orientation. Did-" He pinches at his nose with a long humming sigh. "Did you duck out of your rehab classes after you were healed?"

"No..." 

He looks at her flatly.

Eventually she caves. "Too many people. Don't like it."

"Better almost three years late then never, I guess." He touches a hand to the moss. "This isn't a normal plant, anyway. This was one of Mo- one of... Pink Diamond's creations."

"This is... one of hers? " Jasper reaches out to it again, sinking a hand down along the greenery. "It's... soft."

"We can still get rid of it, if you want."

"No." Something considering and almost sad enters her eyes. "It can stay if it wants." One of her claws returns to curl on the collar of his jacket. "Tell me about the dog."

"Well first off you can stop calling it a dog. It was made using a type of flower called a purslane..."

Chapter Text

"You're leaking."

The runt barely bothers to dignify her with a response as another bloody trail of pink ichor comes out of his mouth. "-'sfine. I jus-" Another hacking cough. "Kinda' swallowed a rock is all." 

And it turns out he was right. A small, pebblish thing, sharp and flinty, somehow capable of doing more damage to the little Diamond than Jasper had done to him all day. Stars above. Taking the full brunt bite of a euhedral Quartz one moment and dying over pebbles the next. Nothing about him made any sense.

"You done, or are you going to leak to death in the woods?"

"If I bled out here..." he breathed, "The Crystal Gems would shatter you. So no. I am not going to die. I'll be fine. I just gotta..." he slumps back against a tree. "Just give me a minute."

He closes his eyes, either to gather himself or do some of that boring "sleep" to speed his healing. His scattered ichor shifts along the ground.

=<>=

"Hey. Tiny."

"Give me a minute..."

"Your gore is leaking dogs everywhere."

"What?" He bolts up to the scattered mess of cinquefoil newly grown upon the ground, petals bleeding from red to white. There's a movement in his hand.

He looks down to what used to be a pebble. It is now a suspiciously smooth, river-rock colored kabuto beetle, staring at him with it's tiny round eyes.

"Help me get rid of these dogs. Your fault, you clean it up." Jasper plucks a cinquefoil from the dirt, stuffing it in her mouth, letting out a surprised noise at the familiar sparkle that envelops her.

Wait.

In a very impulsive move that he will probably later blame Sten for, he follows suit and eats a flower against all reason. He feels the buzzing warmth of his own healing powers radiate from inside his throat.

What.

"So when did you start bleeding weird healing dogs?"

"Just now."

"Nothing about you makes any sense."

"Ugh, tell me about it."

Chapter Text

"You know the rules, tiny. No weapons except the ones that come out of our Gems."

"What, this?" He gestures at the hollow wooden thing strapped to his back. "This is a guitar. It's not a weapon."

"Then what is it for?" She eyes the delicate structure skeptically. "It's so fragile. It would make a poor tool."

"It's not a tool, it's an instrument." He looks flatly into the distance. "Which actually is a tool, now that I think about it. A tool for making music."

"Which you brought why?  Music has no place in our battlefield!"

"It can if you try hard enough. Also, I'm not here to fight today." He brings the guitar in front of himself, leaning at the mouth of the cave. "Not that it isn't nice to beat each other up, but if that's all we do around each other it's bound to get, I don't know... too tense."

"Hmm. Fair enough."

The little Diamond lays the contraption upright across his lap, grabbing it by the neck as he fiddles with it's metal buds.

It's pretty, Jasper supposes, in the way that Pearls were pretty, all thin and delicate. The wood is thin, ringed and red, it's empty face and long neck inlaid with pinkish nacre images of stray flowers.

It rings hollow in a satisfying choir against the frame, the way he makes it sing as he strikes the metal strings with his hands.

Wind rattles and whistles through the trees.

Her voice is more halting then she remembered it being.

Happy is the gem, who wants for nothing. Happy is... she stumbles at the surprise on his face, before stumbling on anyway. ...the liar. Happiness is itself desire... so long as the fire, getting weak, contained.

Her voice dies off.

It's stupid. Her singing was always too soft, too vibrating, hardly recognizable from the normal growl of her voice. It was unbecoming of a Quartz. But she looks back at his face and there's something like awe in the diamonds of his eyes as his hand strikes the strings a little stronger, drumming against the body of the instrument with the other.

Do you ever want, nothing at all?  her song finally bites. Do you ever want, nothing at all? 

I do, his lilting song answers. I do, I do...

I do, their song calls out into the sky, I do, I do.

Chapter Text

"Hey. Hey tiny."

"Mm." It's either a testament to their growing closeness, or his lack of preservation skills, that he doesn't startle to the sight of her face a few centimeters from his when he opens his eyes. Or maybe just being around Lion and Cat Steven, because getting in his face while he slept was a very cat thing to do. The idle batting at his face with her hands was pretty on-brand as well.

"Get up," she practically whines. "I don't want anyone else to see me out here."

"Mmmmmm."

He can't help the startled chirp jumping from his throat when she physically grabs the scruff of his shirt and starts hauling him like a dead body, but it's oddly cathartic to drag limply backwards along the dense texture of the ground.

"My dog is broken-"

"It's moss, not a dog-"

"-the dog is broken and I wanted to see if you can fix it."

"What do you mean?" he asks, voice catching as he drags against a rock.

"I don't know! It started peeling off the walls and now it's wriggling everywhere."

But of course, all good things come to an end. At least she sets him down by a tree instead of dropping him on the ground.

The problem is apparent enough when they make it to the cave itself. The moss has peeled off the outer roof of the cave and wriggled itself inside, barely hidden by a now tattered tarp entrance.

"Well... it does need sun. We should get the tarp out of the way-" Steven barely says the word before Jasper tears it down. "-alright then. That works too. That's fine." She looks... tense. She always does, but there's a difference between the tense of looking for a fight and whatever emotion this is. "You're really invested, huh."

"It's a good dog. It's quiet and gets rid of water and eats everything I don't like." 

"You made a friend..."

"Ugh, whatever. Don't grind my gem over it!" she barks, teeth snapping forward.

How sweet. 

It's a piece of moss, Sten.

It has feelings!

The feeling of eating us alive.

Oh hush, Vendan.

Blinking the dissonance out of his brain, Steven edges closer to the patch, idly noting how it seems more aware of him than before, moving with some kind of intent when he touches it. It turns itself over and oh woah mercy that's a really big dead spot.

All knotted. And scaley.

"Jasper, get the tarp over here. Let's drag it outside."

The dead spot doesn't look quite so dead out in the sun. It blends into the moss- or rather, the moss blends into it. It looks like stone. Steven looks back at the cave and sure enough, there's a subtle, mottled layer of rock on the roof of the cave, scraped away. Like it was trying to grow into something, but didn't have enough... raw materials?

"Weird. Do we need to feed it?"

"I think we do, actually."

He puts an overturned log to it, while Jasper roughly sacrifices on of her training rocks. The moss actually does take to it, a little, but can't quite seem to manage on its own. Steven licks at his own hand, hesitantly laying on the plant.

Nothing.

"I'm sorry, Jasper," is all Steven can say, and regardless of the fact that he's basically mourning a plant, he still means it. "I don't really know what Pink did to these plants, y'know? I guess it can't be helped."

"Mm. Whatever." Her tone is gruff, but she still looks away, eyes upward. "You tried, so- whatever. No big deal."

"It totally is. This is something you care about, I-" The moss shivers and pulses. "Oh, jeez. Get back!"

It winds in on itself, strangling the logs and rocks around it and crushing them, slithering into a ball with a familiar glow. 

One eye- golden, jewlish. And another.

It's... a snake. A python, really, far too large for its own good, big enough to strangle Jasper. Its skin is green, mossy, feathery, embedded with pink flowers, and its belly is smooth and earthen as stone.

"Oh great, unfeeling fate of the cold, dark universe, it evolved."

"Dog!"

The moss python, or rather, Dog, bristles happily as it cloaks around the both of them.

Jasper's happy, slightly manic laughter is just this side of contagious.

Chapter Text

It's almost frightening, to see the diamonds of his eyes reflect so harshly in the darkness.

Almost, because she is not afraid, because she's stronger than that, because he's oh-so painfully, pathetically, disdainfully careful about what he does and doesn't do, what he does and doesn't break.

But it is still, she supposes, eerie, the way firelight scatters the darkness of his eyes with gleaming shards of pink, to see the angular set of his pupils in such sharp relief.

She is used to the cadence of his steps, trained and strained herself to know it because his footfalls are light, airy, silent things and she hates that all it would take is a brief lapse in concentration for him to slip past her. (She does not think about what it means, that she spends stretches of time with Dog, on the roof of her dwelling, wondering if she can hear the Diamond's footsteps on the wind.)

His steps were not his own tonight. His steps were heavy, staggering things, with such a weight under them that she had half expected a stray corrupted Gem until he'd stumbled into her view, eyes wide, blind to the world. She raises no hand to help him. She never has. She simply watches him approach, and raises no protest as he sits across on the stray benched log, coincidentally well sized for him, that just so happens to lay across from her own.

She lets him speak, as she has before, as he has let her before. No politeness, no so sorry to bother you my Diamond, my Jasper. Right to the gritty, crusted dike of the matter, just how she likes it.

He speaks of petty things at first.

He speaks of humans. He speaks of friends. (They are weak, she thinks. Weak to fear him, weak to cage him, weak to think they could try.)

He speaks of anger. He speaks of fear. He speaks of power. The song of his voice rings, unfiltered and heady, and even his gem sings with discord, shining from under his stupid human cloth.

His power has grown stronger in such a short time. He has become weaker.

Oh, she saw the signs of it- from the first day, the day when that fledgling shadow of a Diamond had first beaten her, he had already shown signs of a pitiful thing waiting to inevitably unravel under its own strength.

Painful. Pitiful. Pathetic. Entirely, uncomfortably familiar.

She respects his power, however disappointingly rare as she gets to see it. She respects that unlike everyone else, he cannot crack under the weight of her strength.

But right now he is weak. Weak to the world's fear, weak to his own. He will not crack under the weight of her strength, but he may soon crack under his own.

Diamonds can be so brittle, after all.

Chapter Text

Lesson one- stop smiling.

Lesson two- shut up.

It's surprising how well he listens. Or... perhaps not. Perhaps even the Diamonds cannot help the natural tendency of Gems to instruction and submissiveness. He takes to the harsh order she imposes upon him like clay in her hands.

She punches a tree, he punches a tree. He punches it wrong, of course. A decent try, one that accomplishes the task, but still fundamentally wrong. This, too, is unsurprising. His primary combat instructor had been a Pearl, after all.

To her credit, The Renegade Pearl had been a nightmare on the battlefield. Her frail form danced across the stage of war like a feral, silent mirage, cutting down anything that dared approach the radius of her beloved master. And Jasper can see a Pearl's bearing in the little Diamond's movements, granting him a grace and fluidity he would not have attained on his own.

But a Pearl, in the end, is just a Pearl. A Pearl knows devotion- and from devotion, it may learn tenacity. But it will never know power. None of his retainers would. The Garnet has strength, but it is a strategic, bursting form of it, tempered by the passivity of her Sapphire gem. And the Amethyst? An ingenious fighter- supposedly the best shapeshifter Gemkind has ever had. But she lacks the fundamental strength and programming of a proper Quartz.

So of course, Jasper will have to fix it herself. A chaste kiss will do, just a quick patch of code to correct the placement of his hands. He accepts it with a simple, fluttering blink.

She's surprised he even knew how to accept code patching. He had mentioned once, perhaps more bitterly than he intended, how much those Gems had suppressed from him, in an attempt to let him grow as "human" as possible. A misguided effort to follow the wishes of a dead Gem. At least the Pearl, once an attendant to a Diamond, had been able to educate him with some semblance to the Gem standard of propriety in time for him to take his seat on the throne.

Weak. All of them weak. Taking a Diamond and reducing it to a fearful shadow of itself.

That's fine.

(It's not.)

She can work with that. They can be as weak as they like. Jasper will simply have to be stronger than them.

She breaks a tree, and watches the Diamond follow suit.

His next strike is perfect.

Chapter Text

Gems had always been so tiring to be around. Jasper never knew why it was that way for her. She simply learned her limits and stayed away from everyone else.

He was different. 

She didn't feel that strain around him, even if his softness had annoyed her. Even as his smile had enraged her, because it had no place in battle, because something so soft, so kind, it was only destined to be crushed under the heels of war. 

Stop singing. Stop laughing. Stop smiling.

Stop giving the world ways to destroy you.

There's something to be said about unprogrammed Gems, the ones born out of the ground with only the barest instinct and physicality of their castes. They make excellent learners through mimicry, far superior to a normal Gem.

All he needs is something to follow. She will be his model.

It works better than she could ever have hoped. She sees his face blank and smooth like stone. She sees his hair flare wild like a soldier. She sees his demeanor and stature shift to that of an euhedral Quartz.

There is a foreign emotion rising in her gem as she sees him demolish a rock with nothing but his own body, and she thinks it might be pride.

He has not smiled or spoken in three days. He stares blankly at her from the strange shelter he has built on her territory. Dog slithers around him and there is not a single spark of acknowledgement on his face.

There is a foreign emotion rising in her gem as she feels his hollow eyes bore through her from across the darkness, entirely unrecognizable, and she thinks it might be sadness.

She only knows it is not regret.

She will not regret this. Whatever she has done to him, she will not regret it. She cannot regret this.

I will not let this world destroy you. Even if it means I must do it myself.

Chapter Text

She hears him laugh, a hoarse, hysterical song that flees from his mouth a caged animal. He chases after that feeling, crazed like freedom, and their mad, joyous zeal preys upon each other like starved Kindergartens.

(I can't move.) 

The walls close in.

(No, wait. Stop. Please.)

This is wrong.

The sky that falls. The mounting pressure like chains, like the weight of an ocean forcing it's way past her eyes, down her throat-

(I can't breathe.)

(I can't move.) 

The walls close in.

(No, wait. Stop. Please.)

This is wrong.

The sky that falls. The mounting pressure like chains, like the weight of an ocean forcing it's way past her eyes, down her throat-

(I can't breathe.)

I can't move.

No, wait. Stop. Please.

I can't breathe.

I can't move.

This is wrong.

I can't breathe.

The sky that falls. The mounting pressure like chains, like the weight of an ocean forcing it's way past her eyes, down her throat-

The sky that falls. The mounting pressure like chains, like the weight of an ocean forcing it's way past her eyes, down her throat-

This is wrong.

Stop. Please.

Help. Help.

I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

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Į̷̧̛̗̯̲͎̗̖̣͇̻͈̖̜̗̯͓̪͕͖̱̞̖͔̹̘̪̠̣̩͈͇̮̭̩̰̟͎̤̱̤̯͕̟͖̣̙̤̹̠͍̮̼̯̬͚͚͔̞̠͙̝̜͇̩͑͛̽͆͋͗̽̈́͑̈́͌͊͐̈̈̽͜͜ͅͅͅ ̷̨̨̡̨͉͍͙̜̗͚̯̬͚͕̤̻̦̬̼̥̭̤̮̣̖̼̜̟̳̦̹̱̯̲̩̳͇̤̥̮̗͎̈͜͜͜C̸̛̛̠̦͍̄̑͂̆͐̈́͑́͒̍͂̎̽͋̀̈̐́͆̈́̌̋̊͒͌̇̏́̈́̾͋͑͛̌̽̆͂̓̈́̅̽̎͊̆̑̽̎̆̎̋̎̀͑͘̕͝͠Ą̶̧̧̢̨̡̨̨͈̹̜͚͈̗͙̣̣̼͇̺̟͍̖̗͙̙̥̘̰̟̟̟̣̺̮̘̯̦͔̺̭͇̫̖̼̎̎̋͊̃͒̎̓͛̔̊̒̌̈́̈̆̈̅̈́̊̄̏̊̈́̀̉͒́̄͐̓̆̈̀͆̑̇̅͌͐͊̒̈̒̐͘̕̚̚͝͝͠N̵̛̛͎̫̞͊̽̏͗̆̄̌͆͊̍͛̿͆̑̌̓̐̎̆̓̌͑̃̈́̔̓͘̚̚͠͠͝'̸̢̢͈̬̟̘̣̮̤̭̖̱͖̬͈̭͓̝͈͉̻̐̚͠ͅT̶̢̡̡̨̧̡̡̛̫͔̥̫̻̻̝̻̲͉͉̬̟̦̣̮͈̱͎̝̙̭̠͇̩̝̥̣̼̘̼̖͍̥̟͍̍̆̐̓̿̈͌͛͑̄̇̾̈́̔̈́̒̓͐̀͑̈́́̎̄̍̃̐̒͊̈́̀̿͑̔͒͑͒̃͌͛́̃̉̓̎̓̄̾͂̐̇̃̓̓̋͊̕̚̕͘̕̕̚̚͘͠ ̸̡̧̨̢̡̡̡̡͇̪̦̳͖͓͎͉͉̞̯͖̦̲̼̰͚̫̤̪̼̻̱̪̖̺̙̬̩̺̲̞̘͚̰̭͙̤̮̰̱͕̥̰̼͔̦͖̞̖̞̗̲͉̝̓̄̄̒̿̽̏͋̈́̊̽̎̃̒̂̋̅͊̒̅̓̓͐̈́̃͛̂̅̾́̉̿͒̌͐̋͊̃͂̑̎̾͋̍̕̚̚͝͠͝͝͝ͅB̶̡̨̨̡̡̢̹̭̬̪̪̩͚̳̺̯̹̺̦̱͓̖͚̥̹̱̦̬̲̘͖̣̺͉͔͚̠̼̻̮̼̝͍͔̜̗̹͉̺͖̞̼̟̯̖͕͇̪͙̗̼͑͒̇͊̍͆̚̕̕͜͜͝ͅR̴̨̨̡̢̨̧̧̛̰̬̩͖̣͕͚̥͇̻̲͖͈͉̰͚̠̳̺̣̜͚̠͖͓͉͈̲͕͈͓̭̪̘̤̟͖̗͓̱̩͍͓͖̝̜̲̰̝̝̞͓̙̮̭̰̹̮͋͛̈̋̇̔̓͆̋͌̓̋̎̉̈́̋͑̈́͌͋̽̈̌̎̋̀̕͘͜͜͜͝͝ͅͅE̸̢̧̛̲̝͇̼̻̠̖̖̳̝̯͔͈̼̫̤͉͍̘͔̱͙̲͎̫̊͐͑̾̈́̄̽̉̇̌̇͋̾͐͐͆̓̿̂͊̽͂̂̄̅̀̽͗́̽̊͂̓̏̓͘͝͝Ą̵̧̢̛̟̙̪̼̗̭͎͖͈̥̺̝̮̲͇͂͊̈̓̋̊́̇͆̔̐́̐̓̀́͋̓̿̎̀̈̀̒̄̑͑̿̈́͆̊̎̒̐̋̈̆̈́̈́͌̈́̃́̌̚̕͜͝͠͠͝͝͠͝͝ͅT̵̨̨̢̢̨̡̧̨̙̫̺̻̬͍͉̖̪͙͔͖̤̤̠͉͍̣̰̝͇̩̞̻̱̠̟̟̞̣̥̩̝̖̙̲̤̙͍͔̭͙̖̺̰̘̱̻̽̾̒̅̉͛̈́̇̈̀̅̽͘̕͜͜͠͠͝͠͠ͅͅḨ̷̡̧̨̡̢̡̧̨̛̹͕̦̳̪̻̼̭̣͉͓̟̭͔̙̮͎̪̟͉̩͎͖̳͕̯̫͇̺̳̱͍̦̱̪̖͍̼̣̲͚̪̟̘͎̞̠̲͉̯̘͚͈̠͎̙͙̺͒̽̂͒̑̌̋ͅͅͅȨ̶̛͈̳͚̗͕̥̥͇̩̣̟̦͚͎͙͍̼͖͍͕͇̙̜̹̮̟̳̥͆̍̈́͆̍͐̒͂ͅ

Chapter Text

She did not see it. (She probably couldn't bear it if she did.)

She had only heard.

Something had happened. Something unspeakable.

A Diamond, a Diamond, corrupted in front of all their eyes.

(She wonders if she had part in this. She thinks of soft smile and gentle song, sanded away with every blow she forced him to take, every blow she forced him to give in turn, and knows.)

It doesn't matter. None of it matters. Her Diamond had been hurt, badly hurt, and in this one instance, she could help. Not with hugs or kisses or pity. She didn't do pity- she suspected she probably never could. She knew that. He did too. She could help because she would understand.

She knew corruption. She knew fear. She knew despair. She knew strength, and rage, and breaking under the force of it. She knows what it is the drive the mind to its own extinction.

Who among his Crystal Gems, among the Diamonds, among all Gemkind, would understand this more than her?

...

They would not let her see him. This, too, she understands. Old battle lines die hard, after all.

The dwarf Amethyst most vocal of all. The runt, in one of her angrier moments, had even claimed that he refused to see her.

Jasper knew it was not true. She knew because she lingered, and heard his song, tenous and weak, ask who was at the door. He had never even known she was there. But she had turned and left without much protest, because it would do no good to cause any further... distress.

And so because he was her Diamond, and it was not him who had turned her away, she merely kept watch from a distance.

His retainers kept a near constant orbit around him now. It was not unwise- she remembers the hazy state of mind that chased the heels of corruption, bouts of exhaustion and clouded senses. She can see it in the sudden tired sway his steps would sometimes take, the tidal blankness that would enter his eyes.

He steps grew stronger every day, and their orbit became less and less until it was merely his warp animal that clung to his side. Perhaps he had grown strong enough again to tell them to stop.

Don't follow me. You too, Jasper.

Patrolling the borders of Little Homeworld to keep it safe for him was not following him.

Gathering scraps of debris when other Gems were gone on break was not following him.

Walking up to his Bismuth and silently offering her strength to fix the broken city was not following him.

It was simply following.

=<>=

And then he left.

He left with a thousand parting gifts, leaving a tide of tears and well wishes in his wake.

They had seen each other then. She offered no tears, and he offered no gifts.

In some way, she was glad. A gift would be a severance, a goodbye she never asked for. And he was always so soft about treating everyone fairly.

If he left her without a gift, it would only mean he would have to come back with one.

Chapter Text

This 3rd era was one of strange discovery. A miniature renaissance of even the most inane knowledge.

With all of the Diamonds out in space together, their pet project of establishing a proper supply of Diamond fountains has led to some odd new inventions.

Blended Diamond's ichor. The properties of each undiluted esence could be blended in different ways. Put in springs, drunk, turned to clouds. (Some foolhardy Gems were even putting it into food.) it was certainly an... interesting trend.

Already, Gems across the empire were developing their own blends and preferences. That Crystal Gem Peridot, she heard, had a particularly dangerous yellow-pink blend she swore by, able to drive the dullest Gem to manic productivity- with a chance of later forcibly dissipating their forms from the compounded stress.

She gives a harsh, sardonic snort at the memory, startling Dog's wrapped perch around her shoulders.

She has her own preference, of course- yellow-white. Something to sharpen her senses, a keen awareness of the living presence around her.

(She does not admit that perhaps, there is one particular presence she may be searching for. One set of footsteps, dancing deceptively light upon the earth, as though he walked on air.)

There. A presence. A Gem. A Gem in the woods, slowly making it's way toward her.

There was only one other Gem who knew how to find this place.

She keeps Dog steady on her shoulders and leaps off the cave roof. Dog coils its head, gold diamonded eyes fixes upon the treeline, flowers blooming from its mossy back inquisitively.

He emerges from the shadows, riding his warp animal, wordlessly dismounting in the middle distance between her cave and the forest.

He is changed.

A vest, pyrope red, around his white shirt that just barely puffs around its end at his elbows. Pink pants and white boots, the diamond opening on his belly that lets his gem catch the light.

His form is a pale blush pink, his hair curling into its new colors like the crown of a rose as he stands, taller than he once was before. (A Pink Diamond, inverted.)

His dark tunneled eyes are exactly how he left her.

Jasper flexes her claws.

.....

"How could you leave me?" she headbutts into his shield.

"How could you kneel to me?" his scream clashes back, pushing her into a rock.

"You," she kicks at his bubbled hand, "are My Diamond!"

"You can't just make me," he punches into her jaw," into your Diamond!"

"What! Am I just not good enough for you?" she dashes into his side.

"I'm not good enough," he pushes back with a flying shield, "for you!"

"You don't get to say that! "

His song rings high and desperate. "I shattered you! "

"I CHOSE YOU!"

Her song, it's clicking, clashing strikes rolling like a static, roars its echo into the sky.

They stand apart, chests heaving, gems ringing with discord.

"I," her song breaks, "chose you."

"I chose," she calls across their battlefield, "to fight you. I chose," she stands up straight, "to train you."

She closes the distance with a fiery dash, and he raises his shield again just in time for her to strike it.

"I CHOSE TO TRAIN YOU!" she punctuates with every strike. "I CHOSE TO FIGHT YOU! I CHOSE TO LET YOU STAY! I CHOSE TO BOW TO YOU! I CHOSE EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY I SPENT WITH YOU! I!" she strikes, letting the ring of his shield echo into the mountains, "CHOSE! YOU!"

"I-"

"You..." her song growls, "were the first and only choice I ever made for myself. Every moment I salute you, every moment I bow to you, I chose for myself."

His shield finally breaks, shattered into nothingness. She stands over him... and kneels, just close enough to kiss the top of his head.

Just close enough to see him wade through the song she has sent for his mind and can never say, the discordant line of code, the anger-joy-sadness-pride-trust that she has known, knowing him.

"I am a selfish, old, broken Quartz. I will only let you choose what that will mean to you. But you don't get to decide if you're good enough for me. I make that choice, and my choice is to stand at your side... My Diamond."

Something shines in his eyes, and he laughs.

A bubbling, gasping, ringing laugh as he hides his eyes in his hand, and it edges on the threat of tears.

"Jasper. My Jasper." He smiles, full of regret and softness and acceptance as he takes her hand and truly, finally understands. "You're wonderful."

Chapter Text

"How good are you at building things?" he asks one day.

"Could be better, could be worse. Why?"

"Just a pet project of mine. Could use an extra hand."

"Can we bring Dog?"

He laughs. "If you can wrangle it."

Which she can, obviously, because her will is indomitable and Dog is good. He gives a few gentle clicks at his warp creature. It stands gracefully in his direction and bows, its mane fluttering with unseen wind. Her Diamond turns to her, and extends his hand.

It's a cold, burying sensation, a paradox simultaneous, both sinking down into water and breaking its surface.

They rise to an endless meadow of long, pale grass. Just before them is a hill, upon which nested a spindling, white timbered tree, scattered with pink leaves.

"What is this place?"

"It's Lion. Or, well..." he looks out into the distance, at another hill, another tree, broad and pointed. "Any organic creature too touched by my powers. Anyone that dies as I heal them. See there?" he points at the distant tree. "If I took you over there, we would exit through Lars' head, out in space."

Wormholes. Inter-dimensional wormholes, their gates the resurrected dead.

He doesn't seem to know what to add to that, either.

"Chill out here for a bit? I'll be back." With that, he sinks back down, swallowed by the grass. There's the slightest rolling breeze, like breathing, as though the very space around her was alive.

There are tall stalks hidden amongst the grass, no less pink then everything else, their flowers a strange gallery of a thousand foreign faces, like birds. Some of them drift, petals on the wind, and Jasper swears some of them blink back at her with beady eyes, wings propelling them all around her.

There's a movement underfoot, and she sees that some grass is not rooted at all- she sees insectoid creatures, shining and dappled like river stones, their backs laden with tall fronds. She sees dark lizards with white feathers and crystals on their backs. She sees cabachon smooth beetles with wide curling horns, not unlike the one her Diamond had once made by accident, launching themselves off the blades of pink flora into the mercy of the swirling gradient of a cerise sky, under the watchful eyes of a forever distant sun.

"I'm back!" he chirps, bobbing out of the grass again. Dog startles at the sudden reappearance with a hiss, it's mossy back rattling with displeasure. Her Diamond doesn't quite rise to the surface, still half submerged under the rolling current, his hand extended again.

They re-emerge to a blank expanse of clouds.

"We're inside the Temple now. This is R- uh, my room."

"Festive."

"Oh, you have no idea." He stands straight, song ringing clear and assertive. "Retrieve inventory."

Some clouds condense into a white gem pedestal, the palm of its hand bearing a pink nazar with a flaring diamond pupil. He toggles through the veritable army of things that halo around them, smiling slightly as he found what he wanted.

=<>=

Some distance from the treed hills, they build a house.

It's barely better then a shrine, but in the endless dream of day, it is enough. It seems to float above the grass, as though only tethered to the ground by the Diamond colored pennant flags rooting it there. It has a small porch, surrounded by painted cobblestones, with a white stele heralding it's front with that same pink nazar and flaring diamond pupil as before.

And old Gem totem, just over her height, stands to its side, headed by some monstrous bird form with flaring wings, based by a six armed fusion with a Jasper's gem on its nose.

.....

It's a simple enough task. Stand inside the meadow and wait for him to resurface with whatever he had, and then chuck the things in whatever direction she felt like. Landmarking the infinite expanse, as he put it.

Rocks, carved with forgotten Sapphire's prophecies and old hieroglyphs.

Ruby sized totems, in Diamonds' colors, laid with nacre. These she lays more gently, their gaping mouths and moving registers clicking and whistling in the rolling currents.

Ribbons and baubles, to nestle and hang among the trees, each one uniquely made.

Lanterns, with all manner of animals drawn upon them. Light, airy things that never landed when she threw them, simply floating under the backdrop of impossibly large, forever distant clouds.

A tall spindling thing- a dark pink tailcoat that could only fit a Pearl, over a white dress shirt with black shining buttons. It's large blue bowtie sat proudly. It was worn by a wooden cross, white gloves flapping uselessly. It's round white head smiled wide and toothy like the cookies the Diamond was so fond of, its tiny, sightless bead eyes shining at her under large painted brows and a silly, feathered, pink top hat.

Gifts, she realizes. They're gifts, made by Gem hands. Tributes to their Diamond.

Laid to rest here, in his most secret of places, so they could never come to harm. 

They rest for a short while afterward, watching lanterns pass overhead, and flowers like birds fly by into a cerise sky.

Chapter Text

"Steven?"

He turns back and looks at her.

"Where do you go when you wander off?"

"Well, you know." He backtracks, leaning next to the doorframe. "It's different every time. Depends on the job, y'know?"

"There's Diamond business and then there's drifting. Like, I'm pretty sure I've seen you just walk into the woods like a cryptid."

"It's nothing like that," he snickers. "I just visit Jasper sometimes."

"You-"

-but it's not like I actually went through with it! I only actually shattered Jasper!

"-visit... her?"

"Oh, yeah, lots!" He has a bit of a smile on his face. "She's actually okay to hang out with? We're friends- I think."

Liar, Connie thinks, when his eyes get that uneven squint, distorted by sudden subtle slant of his smile, just a bit too wide.

"What do you guys even do?"

"Eh. Same old, same old. Most of the time we train, sometimes we just chill. I've taken her on jobs a few times, too."

"And she just... lets you hang out."

"Yeah? She acts like she doesn't, but when I don't visit sometimes she's the one who-"

He stops.

"Connie..." He tilts his head at her. "...is something wrong?"

"It's nothing- it's probably nothing, it's just..." God, she's gonna sound so petty. "...you've disappeared for days in the woods. With her."

"Well, yeah. It'd be weird for me to just disappear into the woods all alone."

"And that's not weird to you? Being alone with her for days on end?"

"Should it be?"

"A bit, yeah! "

He blinks slowly. He leans off of his perch on the wall and sits down next to her. "Talk to me."

"I-" her words catch in her throat. "I'm just... worried, is all. The first time you hung out with her, you disappeared with for 3 days straight and shattered her."

His smile is awkward. "Does it help to know that wasn't actually the first time I hung out with Jasper?" He almost laughs, a short, glitched sound. "It probably doesn't, huh? But that's why when I ran, I ran to her." He turns away with an almost guilty look. "She's never anything less than brutally honest with me. Even with things I don't like to think about, things I can't think about. Sometimes... sometimes I need that."

He isn't deflecting or defending or running from Connie's questions. She doesn't know why she thought he might. 

He finally gives up his smile. "This really is bothering you, isn't it?"

"No." She puffs her cheeks and lets out a sputtering sigh. "Yes. I mean-" She puts her hands up. "I don't- I don't wanna say you can't be friends, or you shouldn't, it's just... please think about what this looks like, Steven. I hardly know anything about your relationship with her. I'm not saying I don't trust you- I do. I just... kind of don't trust Jasper."

She can already imagine what he'd say.

It's not like that, she's a good person, really, she's changed, it's the least I can do after what I've done to her

"I should introduce the two of you."

What. "What?"

"Yeah!" he smiles. "I think you could get along."

He smiles, soft and hopeful, like he actually believes it.

It makes her want to believe it, too.

She remembers seeing Jasper at the edge of the woods, looking out at Little Homeworld- at Steven, with an expression that was almost fond.

She thinks that maybe the two of them might already have something in common.

Chapter Text

"And we can't just walk to her place why ?"

"She doesn't live in Little Homeworld-"

"Still? "

"-and I'm pretty sure she's staying fast on the No One Must Ever Know Where I Live rule." He is an arm around her shoulder, he is the hands entwined in both her own, and they are a sweeping arc in the sky- past Little Homeworld and into the woods, landing among the trees. "It's better if we go the rest of the way on foot, give her some proper warning," he adds to her unspoken question.

It's a nice stretch of woods. A beautiful place to be, as leaves cast dappled shadows overhead, walking beside his leisurely, weightless gallop of steps.

But as they wander further on, the trees... the trees.

The trees are scored with scratches and breaks, filled over with moss and wildflower. The ground is gouged uneven, with rocky craters and humanoid holes.

The clearing is a harsh radius of torn, trampled earth centered around the axis of a cave.

The cave entrance is walled off with a door of flaglike curtains- hamsa nested with pink nazar, a flaring black diamond pupil in its center.

"That's new."

"Eh, not really," he corrects. "I've seen symbols like that out in the colonies." The ensuing tangent about Diamond iconography would be right up her alley on literally any other day and time, but she can't quite bring herself to listen.

Something feels wrong. A hair-raising sensation on the back of her neck, the gut feeling of being watched-

She grabs Jasper's outstretched arm and flings the larger Gem over her shoulder.

Jasper lays there for a moment, and laughs.

Steven raises an unimpressed brow. "Thank you, my Jasper, for attacking our guest."

"My guest, my turf, my rules." She stands up with a strong chuff. "This one's got a good head. You'll keep worthy company yet."

"Anyway," Steven cuts over the Gem's teasing smirk, "Jasper, Connie Maheswaran. Connie, Euhedral Riband Jasper Facet-B81 Kite-815."

"So how are we doing this?" Connie asks.

"I-" Steven's face smooths out. "I didn't think that far. Uhhhhh...." He looks at Jasper's cave, then back to Connie. "The cave roof might be the safest vantage point-"

"Safest? "

The laugh of his song trails awkwardly. "Yeah, we get... intense? I don't want you to get caught in the crossfire."

After floating her up to her perch, he pauses.

"You know- you know I'd never hurt you."

"Steven, what are you-"

"I just-" His mouth twists, song catching on some foreign note. "Nevermind," he finally settles. His smile is tired, but it isn't quite a lie. "It's nothing."

.....

His song rings measured, clipped, clinical. "Dodge match, closed arena, lesson 2."

Jasper offers no retort, lowering her stance. She sweeps her foot in front of herself along the ground, ending with a strong stomp that scatters a harsh ring of dust around her.

Steven sweeps his own, opposite foot in front of him, dragging it back into place with a forceful click of his heels.

Jasper throws back her head and charges.

It's a dance almost, the way her sparring with Pearl would get, those moments when it stopped being about the fight and morphed into a matter of flow, of movement, of synchronicity. 

Weaving, hovering, leaping around eachother in binary axis, blows that ghost yet never quite land. And even when they do...

One of Jasper's punches clips Steven across the jaw. His body leans languidly into the momentum whirls around in a burst of unnatural speed, knocking out Jasper's legs with his own. She leaps and scrambles over lost balance like an animal, and the dance continues.

Eventually, Jasper loses. She loses as a Jasper-shaped crater in the ground, and takes Steven's offered hand while leaving it.

The slight smile on her face, of course, quickly leaves when he repairs the ground, and grasses start growing out of it.

"STOP!" she stomps on the grass, "HELPING! THE GRASS!"

"If we don't let the grasses come back, we'll run out of ground, y'know."

Jasper's groan is a litany of harsh, rolling clicks. "Make it moss or something. At least moss is less annoying than grass."

The responding laughter of his song curls and grows the grass like defiance.

.....

He lies asleep on Lion's side, his gem lazily taking in the light of the day. A large mossy python coils loosely at his legs, the flowers on its back opened to face the sun.

"You love him," Connie states. It's not a question.

"Do you? "

"Yes."

"There's your answer."

"Even though he might not love you the same way?"

Jasper's laugh is a low rumble that does not echo in any physical sense, but it echoes in Connie's brain all the same.

"I offer my presence, and he accepts it as he wishes." Jasper lays back, propped up by her elbows. "I have chosen him as my Diamond, and he honors that choice. That's all I could want." Wolfish, golden eyes bore into her. "He was worried about this, you know."

"About what?"

"That you would see him this way. That you would see how he uses his strength with me and be afraid." A rattling hiss of air falls through Jasper's broad, blunt fangs. "He cares too much about what people think. You most of all."

"He's talked about me with you?"

"More recently. Singing your praises left and right. I'm pretty sure he wants us to make nice."

"I'm not scared of you-"

"Good."

"-or Steven. I never was. I guess..." She nervously grips the handle of her sword. "...I was worried, is all. The last time I met you, you were literally trying to kill the both of us. He'd said you changed, and I believed him- but like you said. He cares too much, sometimes. I had to make sure."

Jasper hums long and slow to her words. "A wise choice. I would have done the same in your position."

"Someone has to."

And Jasper smiles, sharp and carved across her face with too many teeth. "I think you and I will get along just fine, knife pet."

"Not if you keep calling me knife pet, we won't."

"Whatever you say, knife knight. We're in this mission together."

"And what mission is that?"

Jasper tilts her head in Steven's direction.

Oh.

"I guess we are." Connie lets her sword rest at her side, and lays back with Jasper, her eyes tracking the ribbony clouds. "There's worse people to share missions with, I suppose."

"Like who?" the Gem snorts.

"Amethyst," Connie immediately retorts.

"The runt? I thought you Crystal Gems got along like real pals."

"Ugh, don't even get me started, Amethyst is terrible at duo missions-"

Chapter Text

"This is a bit farther out then usual."

"I don't want them to know where I live."

"Uh, who's them, Jasper?"

"Them."

Out on the side of the hill are five Rubies. Five very familiar Rubies.

She catches the trapped look in his eyes. "You know them?"

"Well-"

How does one politely say I threw them out an airlock into the cold vacuum of space and one tried to kill me twice without starting a fight?

"-a bit, yeah." There's a high sigh in the back of his throat. "From the War."

She draws out a considering hum. "Well if they want to be in my squadron, they're going to have to deal with it."

"Your... squadron."

Instead of answering him, she barks out to the group. "Up! Our Diamond is joining us today! You better be at your best or be fit to shatter for it!"

At that glowing encouragement, they all scamper to attention, though their salutes to him are slightly uneasy.

They are afraid.

"Don't salute me if you don't mean it," he offers gently.

It's Doc who speaks up first. Even in this Era, they still defer to her. "You're just," she chokes on a chirping break in her song with a stifled cringe, "taller than before. And. Pinker."

Bigger and stronger and scarier.

"I suppose I've grown," he concedes awkwardly.

For a short while, no one says anything.

"WELP!" Steven's song finally bursts. "This is painfully awkward for all of us, so I guess I'll bite the pebble first." He takes a deep breath...

"I'm sorry."

Their faces twist with shock.

"It was war." He looks down at the ground. "It was war, but even still, I treated you terribly. I lied to you, I tricked you, I threw you away to the worst possible fate imaginable. Even if we were on opposite sides, you didn't deserve to be treated like that. I should have dealt with you better, I should have been better. The fact that I'm your Diamond now doesn't change that, so-"

He kneels down at the Rubies' level.

"I'm sorry. You don't have to forgive me for what happened between us- not now, not ever." His eyes search the ground below him, like there was some secret answer buried there. "But it won't ever happen again."

Doc's eyes twitch uncomfortably behind her visor. "Ain't nothin' to forgive," she grumbles.

"Like you said," Navy's cloyingly sweet song trills, "it was war. We all acted as our sides demanded of us, is all."

Eyeball's good eye bunches up with the force of her twisted mouth, poised to speak, but the thought seems to die as quickly as it came, leaving her in an angry looking silence.

Jasper allows one (1) moment of peace before losing her patience and scattering the maudlin group with a well placed boulder.

Or two.

Or ten.

At which point it takes all of three minutes for the whole affair to devolve into field of fire, craters, and one rock tosser's cruelly amused laughter.

Chapter Text

"Cheap," she growls, watching two Aquamarines fuse together at the last second to gang up on a Nephrite.

They are watching a match at the Sky Arena. It's a different training, to watch other Gems fighting, but it's a good different. Analyzing the movements of others is always a good habit to keep, and if it's a little satisfying to watch the amateur mistakes of others, to see the fond amusement in his eyes as she tears apart people's poor form, no one has to know.

But now, at her cruel little snicker, her moment of cataclasis watching that fusion be broken apart with a well placed kick in the gem, his gaze is more thoughtful.

"You really..." he sighs, almost dropping the matter entirely.

"Cut to the vein of it already."

"It's just-" he looks back at the match. It's already over- one Aquamarine is on the ground, being helped up by the hand of the victorious Nephrite, while the other Aquamarine looks on, the picture of a chagrined but graceful loser. "You really hate fusion, huh?"

She almost wants to say yes. She's said it before, it would be easy to say it again.

But the considering, sober look on his face, it gives her pause.

"I don't… hate fusion. I only think that too many use it improperly. As a crutch that weakens the individual parts instead of strengthening them."

"Do you think I'm a crutch?"

What. "What?"

"I'm a fusion myself, you know. 'Half human' in the most literal way possible." He doesn't even look at her as he says it, turning over a stray piece of chipped rock in his hands. "A construct of human components and Pink Diamond's gem, made into something new. We were born fused. For so long, we never realized we were anything else."

This new truth is not yet world-shattering, the way it had been the day she found the shattered shards of Pink Diamond, the way thousands of years later she found out that the war of her entire life was a lie.

But it is, perhaps, world changing.

=<>=

"Are you able to unfuse?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever unfused?"

"Yes."

"How?"

They'd never talked about it, after that day he'd first told her. But there's something suddenly insistent in her song now.

He looks down at his own hands, not bothering to stop the way they reach for eachother.

"We were forced apart. White Diamond, she- she didn't believe us when we said that we weren't Pink Diamond, and she..." He can't help the way his arms snake around his middle, around his gem. "She..."

"...she tore your gem out."

He almost doesn't continue after that.

"We can't really unfuse. Not willingly. Not normally. It was... it was like being shattered, almost. Missing pieces unable to do anything except try to find eachother. We tore apart the ship for her trouble."

"Is it like a withdrawal or something?"

"Not really. It's like... have you ever seen a twin?"

"A crystal twin?" She thinks about it for a moment. "Once. They didn't last very long. The kindergarteners tried to separate them, but it only shattered them."

"It's like that. We can unfuse, but that doesn't mean we should. It's not... safe."

"Huh."

"What? No tirade about how I'm weakened by my human meat prison or something?"

A hissing chuff. "You grew strong enough to give White Diamond a run for her gem. You're clearly doing something right." There's a falsely cruel tilt to her smile, even then. "Even if nothing about you makes a damn mote of sense."

"Wow, thanks."

"You're welcome." She backs away from her leaning perch against the rock with a sharp cracking tilt of her necks. "Now punch me like you mean it."

"Don't I always?"

Chapter Text

The Diamond, apparently, is quite used to being thrown around.

It's not surprising, really. He had been raised as a Quartz, with all the casual roughness that implied, and he was hardly one to turn away someone's affection. This led to a Gem who went about his day quite used to being hugged, tackled, picked up, and twirled around on a regular basis.

Which in turn, encourages some Gems to be... enthusiastic with said affections. Which leads to the very unfortunate habit of five Rubies that tackle him whenever he sits in on their training. Frankly, Jasper is outraged. It's absolutely undignified. Absolutely unbecoming of her squadron.

It's not like the idea of stranger Gems being so touchy with him makes her uneasy with some wary emotion she has decided to neither place or name.

At least 4ND has the decorum to hold back. Just a very deliberate, mutual arm hold and a pointed squint from her one good eye.

Ruby Facet-1F4 Tetragon-4ND is an alright one. As difficult as her admiration could be to sift past (as all admiration was), she was a soldier. An old soldier, just as Jasper was. They had both seen war. They had both seen the war.

She'd even the cursed luck to see Pink Diamond's end, right in front of her eye.

Poor flecks, the both of them. Even now, still reeling from the leftovers of a dead Diamond's lie.

Considering everything, Ruby's doing better than expected.

(She could have turned out like Jasper, after all.)

Even if she isn't the traditional leader of this haphazard crew, her experience is valuable in wrangling the others, or translating Jasper's teachings to a smaller size. 

A good, honest soldier. Jasper can respect that.

Could stand to lose the girlfriend, though.

"Uncoordinated," chirps the bored, high song of an Aquamarine. "That throw was sloppy."

"These ain't exactly throwing knives, y'know!" the Ruby barks.

"You're throwing them wrong," the flighty thing drawls, as though she were relaying orders to a particularly slow Pebble. "Your blades are unbalanced, so you should be gripping them from the lighter end." At Ruby's confused glare, she rolls her eyes. "The blade, you cloudy cut of rock."

The Ruby skeptically takes out her next knife, gripping it by the blade and tossing it with perhaps a little too much prejudice. The blade sinks into the marked tree like. What was the human expression her Diamond has used?

Butter. A hot knife through butter. The dinky little chisel knife had sailed the air with surprising grace and sunk into the tree like a hot knife through butter. Though perhaps butter knives did not possess the same hearty thwack of a good and proper fighting knife loud enough to make everyone pause in their drills.

"That was a strong one," she concedes, and the Aquamarine rolls her eyes at the way 4ND practically swells at the praise.

"Well you clearly don't need my help," the little blue gem scoffs, hovering away on her tiny wings. "I'm leaving. Come find me when you're done being boring with your boulder boxers."

As she disappears in the direction of Little Homeworld, four identical teasing faces all turn back on one knife wielding Ruby.

"What!"

"You like her!"

"Ew, no!" she growls defensively.

"If she was so 'ew', why do you fuse with her all the time, huh?"

"You like her!"

"You wuv her!"

"Looking to put some water wings on ya?"

"It's not like that!"

"Aw, look, Ruby's all defensive about her gemfriend-"

"SHE'S NOT MY GEMFRIEND!" she spits, sparks flying out of her mouth. "She's my- pragmatic fusion partner!"

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Jasper snorts.

And Ruby is left an indignant, incoherently flushed flurry of angry, stomping smoke, surrounded by a chorus of four immature, teasing songs.

The rising din is absolutely irritating. Unprofessional. Unbecoming of her squadron.

Strange how Jasper doesn't try to stop them at all.

Chapter Text

"Whatever happened to your sword?"

He doesn't quite look up from the tuning of his guitar. "I don't have a sword."

"Not your sword. Her sword. I would have thought they trained you with it, seeing as how they wanted you to become her shadow."

"Oh." At that, he does look up, just a bit, paused in thought. "Blue Diamond shattered it, in the last days of the war."

"You couldn't repair it?"

"I never used it much anyway. I gave it to Connie to be her first sword, and then Bismuth made her a new one after it shattered. There was never much a reason to repair it."

Dog's head leans into her hands. "You could have used it yourself."

He stops plucking at the strings.

"I couldn't."

"They did not train you how?"

"It's not that. It's not that I don't know how to use it. It's just-" His arms drape over the red wood of the instrument, as though he were hugging it. "I'd be better at it than I like."

"Is that so bad?"

"I don't know." His static sigh is long, high, almost strained. One hand curls like it clutched the hilt of a sword. "I could hold it, and I could fight with it, but- I-" There's a break in his song. "Whenever I held it, I could see the war."

A pause. A long, heavy pause.

"You remember the war."

It is not a question.

"I remember everything."

There's something sharp in her eyes, now- sharp and cruel and almost fragile. "How."

"Pink Diamond is Rose Quartz is Steven Universe." His eyes trail the sky, the song of his voice a toneless, ringing, rising tide of sound, and she wonders if she is hearing not the voice of her Diamond, per se, but… something else. Someone else. Not her Diamond, but a piece of him. "Pink Diamond is Steven Universe. But Steven Universe is not Pink Diamond. It might not make much sense, but it's the only way I can describe it."

Pink Diamond is Steven Universe. Steven Universe is not Pink Diamond. Almost as if...

...as if the old Diamond was simply a piece. Nothing more than piece and past of a larger, all encompassing whole.

"Makes sense to me."

"Oh thank the stars." A wheezing puff of air leaves him, and he is suddenly entirely himself again. "I was scared it'd come off wrong and you'd like, deck me in the face or something."

"I'm offended. My punches come only from the deepest wells of devotion that I reserve for you."

"Aw." He presses a kiss to her free hand, the sunlight warmth of his power trailing lazily up her arm. "I love you too, Jasper."

"Sentiment," she hisses, her claws flexing distastefully at the phantom sensation. "Disgusting. Do it again."

Chapter Text

They don't keep track.

At this level of power, it's not about winning or losing. There's not really any winning or losing at all. More... mutually exhausted stalemates. Whenever someone did win, it was usually from some other external factor. Boredom, pre-existing exhaustion, a wandering mind, a sudden rule change. Not a true victory.

This time was different.

This time she had well and truly won.

He laid there amidst the company of the grass and his hard-parted defeat, gem ringing with the giddy exhaustion of a fighter's high, and he laughs.

His breathless laugh is a bubbling, rolling, peal of deep-set song, its invasive contagion taking root in her mind with his dizzy vertigo.

Her own world seems to spin in turn with the laughter the foreign presence coaxes out of her as she starts to sink down with him.

A achingly familiar terrifying light rings and rises somewhere in her gem, and his and-

What

What is

What is this

What is this-

I'm sorry, we didn't mean to-

I'm sorry, that was inappropriate, we only-

No, no. Don't apologize.

And she looks down at her hands.

Long and thin, with curling black talons. Six hands and six arms like hers and nothing else.

The long, serpentine body, the whiplash tail and the flaring, feathered fan behind it.

Like a peacock, almost.

If a peacock had but a single feather, do mind your metaphors, Sten.

And she has

four dark, glossy horns curling forward and framing a face, flat like a mask, like the hinge of a door and not a single eye.

But for the sun-gleam orange eyes

Diamonds. Diamond eyes, her Diamond's eyes-

Yet the golden gleam is yours-

carved along her jaw.

She yawns, a gaping large thing unhinging the mask of her face and sparking fire in every breath.

And it-

Why does-

How does-

I'm sorry

I'm so sorry

...

Why doesn't it hurt?

...

...

Why doesn't it hurt?

Oh, Jasper.

"It- it doesn't hurt."

A giddy, disbelieving laugh, and this broken song that sounds like grief.

"It doesn't hurt."

But strange, it's different from the others.

It feels like-

It feel like

twisting her owlish neck to see the world around her, and despite herself, she is beautiful.

She is red and gold and pink and orange, she is all the colors of the dawn and the cerise sky.

Carnelian sings, her song the very choir of the stars

and

she

flies.

Chapter Text

Biscuit

Hey, are you home

It doesn't look like youre in your room or anything

if you don't come out in 5 mins im going feral

Connie sighs as she checks her phone again. It really wasn't like Steven to ignore her. Either he forgot his phone or... something happened...

She shivers at a non-existent cold, trying not to think about a Steven dead on a cold white floor, a Steven saying I love you as the sky tears itself apart to take him away from her, a Steven who doesn't even have the strength left to scream as a tower of crystal lattices and inverts on itself expontentially from out of his spine-

She slaps herself sharply across the face. She doesn't have time to think about this right now. She doesn't have time to think about it ever. If she wants to stop worrying she has to get off her ass and do something about it.

Lion.

Right on cue, a large pink snout chuffs at the window.

"Hey there, boy. Do you know where Steven is?"

Lion simply bows his head low enough for her to climb on.

…..

This is

This is

This is

Impossible to describe.

We can fly. We can fly!

Could you expect anything less when

all the sky is an ocean, and the smallest movement that propels her forward for she is

power and strength

and beautiful

just as gods and monsters are one and the same, and we were

the very stars, unchained.

Wild, unhindered, and

free.

Finally, finally free.

This power, unknowable, that always sang within you

and your mind was a spear that dove down to the deepest fathom of our Gem and pulled

uncertain, unknowing of what I'd find

But who could have known. Who could have known

even you, who could have known of the starheart that was under your skin?

Mine or yours?

Yours or mine?

What is yours and what is mine?

...I don't know.

What is yours and what is mine? Is there yours or mine at all?

I couldn't say,

I can't

recall.

Does it matter?

I don't remember

anything else.

Anyone

else.

Her sunrise eyes look up to the sky, seeing a light so humble and small

ẃ̸̢̮̲̥̙̝͈̣͓̩͉̾̎̇͗͌̓̓͗̓͠͝ͅͅḝ̴̡̩̬̻͚͎̳̹̦̘͚̆͑̋͗̿͒̕͝'̸̯̭͔̥̬͔̹̥̺̯͎̯̺̓̽͆̆͌͊̋͊͛͜v̸̢͚̠͖̿̋̑͗̋͌̕͠͝e̵̢̞̣͙̯̘̳̻̻̼̓͝͝ ̶̣̫̉̈ę̷̫̳̜͕͇̩̰̙̦͈̒͋̾̐́̍͂̇̔̊̈́̈́a̶̢̧͓͓̤̼̪̬̜̥̠͈̔̓̆̕t̶̟͚̼̕e̷̛̲̘̰̩͎̣͑͑͊̀͝n̴͍̜͖̞̝̳̻͎̂̑͊̐̔̂́̾͌̓ͅ ̷̥̤͊̉̈̓̆̊̈́̌̍̔̂̋̈́͌͠b̵͔̾̆͒͒͒͘i̸̛̛̖̜̳̜̦̝̳͔̘̗̞̇̓̋̾̽̋̾̐̅̈̆ģ̷̩̩͙̠̗̱͓̫̹̪̤̉g̴̡̥̭̮̜̦͉̫̞̦͕͒͊̚ȅ̴̢̡̢̖̣͙͇̼̯̱̦̪̯͈͝r̸̢̯͚͙̗͕͈͉̲̬͍̫̩̖̤̆̏̏

and lets it live, if only to feed the star under her skin.

…..

The deep woods give way to the mountains and she looks up to the sky and sees the shape that flies in front of the sun.

A stout, serpentine body gracefully swims in the air, her six limbs trailing artfully behind them like a seal. The flaring, peacockish fan of her tail propels the direction of their arc with languid, powerful strokes.

(Good god, she looks as big as Steven's memory of Malachite.)

She look like a corrupted gem, almost, but no corruption would ever be this big. She must be a fusion of some uncorrupted gems. Connie presses her fingers to her mouth to set off a sharp, hawk-screech whistle.

Molten eyes pin her with thin reptilian diamonds and a tidal wave of orchestral song before the Gem dives, careening toward her like some terrible bird of prey, talons outstretched as it lands in front of her.

She is striped and dappled with all the colors of the dawn, her face an eyeless mask covered in spidery eyespots. Her only true eyes, resting under her mouth, are ringed with white and spotted black, like a tiger's face. Her four curling horns carry a soft, gentle sheen, and the flare of her fanned tail is vibrant like a fiery glaring eye. Her hair is curling, cloudy, rose gold.

She is a chimera of individually beautiful features molded together like the clay of a blind artist, and though she is beautiful, it is in a visceral, grotesque way- the way insects and poison things are beautiful.

"Hello, my love," growls a low, layered, tender trill of song. The word my echoes near endlessly against her mind.

"Hey..." It's hard to think past the psychic weight this Gem emits, but if there's any perks to dating a Diamond, it's building up some mental resistance. "I don't think we've met before."

"I've met you."

"Well I haven't met you," she insists, sidestepping a large, white hand that hung over her head. "So why don't you introduce yourself."

"I am Carnelian, love."

"It's nice to meet you, Carnelian. You're very pretty."

Carnelian's pleased purr rumbles like thunder.

"But can I have Steven and Jasper back? They can't do their jobs if they're too busy being you."

And the Gem's song is suddenly very small. "I don't want to leave..."

"It's been like ten hours I Swear to fuck if you don't let eachother go I'm stabbing y'all until you do."

At that, Carnelian's large molten eyes shift pink, the Gem collapsing into a flash of light.

Jasper recovers first. "He says not to stab anyone," she mutters gruffly.

"You can tell me yourself, Steven." Connie looks back to where he stands. There's a blank, tunneled look in his eyes as he sways on his feet. "Uh. Steven. You okay there?"

His only coherent comment is the bubbling hysteria that flies out of his throat before he pitches backwards and falls.

"Oh shit." Connie rushes forward, unable to quite catch him in time but just fast enough to keep him from knocking his head against the ground. "Come on. Talk to me."

"F̵͈͖̔͐o̴̳͐̾ū̸͉͔͘r̴̦̫̰̄ ̶̝̗̂̽̔g̷͎͉̃y̷̢̺̑̋r̸̢̾ṣ̸̫̜͂ ̵͖̹͝p̶̲͒ą̴̯̏͘s̸̳̅ṭ̶̆͊,̶̞̻̟̅̆ ̴̘Ì̵̱̳̳ ̴̺̬͌͜͠w̵̹͈̜͒̈́̅ă̸̳͇s̵͇̪̍͜ ̶̝̙̥̈́̿̈́t̵̤̪̼̔̀h̸̩̱̒̚e̴̜̩̜͐͝ ̷̡͓̤̽͐̕ḍ̷̢̦̎̚e̷͕̕a̸̟͈̯̔̆̚ṯ̶͝h̵̗͗̐̚ ̵̟͓͊̆̕o̸͇̜͙̚f̶̞̑̽ ̷̢̯͗͠ṯ̸̙͕̆͝h̸̥̬̄̑̉ë̸̟́ ̴̦͐͜s̴̱̱t̴̜̆a̵͎̫̓͠r̵̪̚ ̴̜͊͠t̵̥͙͌͒ḧ̶͊́͜ͅa̸̼͗̅t̸͓̘̉͝ ̶͙̤̦̃̂͌m̶̬͉͘ą̷̳͚̔d̴̖̹͌͝e̵̡̒ ̵̢̦̩͘m̴̹̬̈͝ë̶̥̱́͘ ̴̒͊ͅâ̴̫̖͑s̵̗͈͚̈͘ ̶̫̋̐Ǐ̴̢̜̫̓̌ ̸̨̖͚̋͑a̵͔̼̽ͅt̷̝͘̕ȩ̸̲̟̑ ̴͓̗̋̕i̵͈͉͐̄t̵̩́͘ ̸̞͔͖̈́̆͘ạ̵̫͝l̵̦̞͌̂̾ȉ̷̬̦͔v̶̢̰̬͊e̷͉̿͆́ ̴͚͚̋ȁ̸̢̻͝ͅn̸̬͇͌ḍ̶̱̈ ̶̛͖̼̝̑i̶̓̓͝ͅt̸̩̝͓͌ ̷̛̥̘̈́͠ḅ̸̐͋̎u̶̼̹̩͂̑ŗ̷̫̅̔n̵̡̡̾͂s̷̙̲̗̐͛ ̶̛̯̻̞͆ư̴̺̟̼n̸̺̠͙̈́̉̆d̵͖̄̑ệ̵͖͗̿r̴͓̟̲̽̈́ ̸̨͍̣̆̚m̷̡̜̼̂̇y̶͎̹̲̓ ̸͕̗͊̀ş̷̗̣̎͋k̶̢̪̫͒̒͗ĩ̶̜̰̲̑n̵͇͎̱̏̉̔ ̵̙̈́̉͛ȅ̵̼̤͗v̷̢̦̼̄͒̔ȩ̶͎̠̕ň̸̞̦̙͊ ̸͖͙̜̓n̸̮͠ô̸̧̿̕w̷͙..."

"Close enough." He tiredly babbles into her chest in run-on gemsong, and she takes it in stride. "You seem to be doing. Weirdly okay, considering Steven's half of the aftermath." 

Jasper takes a step back, and Connie realizes that maybe that last statement sounds like a thinly veiled accusation. "I mean," she backtracks, "are you okay?"

"I'm- fine." She scratches at her scars. "Better than fine." She flexes her claws experimentally. "Feels more like a fighter's high more than anything."

"Fighter's high. What, like an adrenaline rush or something?" She looks back down at Steven. The faint pink glow behind his eyes, the humming song and shine of his gem. Her hand against his neck as she cradles his head, she feels his pulse, normally a slow, distant drum, is now almost humanly detectable, sharp and tidal.

Fighter's high, indeed.

It makes a sort of sense. Jasper by her own admission is someone who doesn't bother to restrain herself. Perpetual maximum effort. Combined with a Diamond's power... it must have driven him to go pink. To overclock.

And now ten hours later, he's so overclocked he can't even stand.

"Is he-" Jasper takes a half-step forward but stops, like she's afraid to go closer. "Did I-"

"He'll be fine. He just needs to rest." She whistles, and Lion ambles back towards them, kneeling just enough for Connie to haul Steven up on Lion's back before she follows suit. She makes to leave, but...

God damn it, if only Jasper didn't look so worried.

Connie sighs.

"Get on. My parents are out of town today. We'll wait it out at my house."

"Not the Temple?"

"Steven would probably freak out if he woke up like this there. He'll feel safer at my house, and it'll be a lot easier if you're there when I tell him what happened, because I'm betting he's only going to remember like half of this. So come with us?"

With one last, hesitant glance at Steven, Jasper breathes a long, slow hiss takes her hand.

Chapter Text

Jasper has never been in a human house before. She's never even been to a human city.

She's not quite ready or willing to... deal with all the eccentricities of their society. Like Gems, humans were as a whole... draining to be around. There were so few beings in this universe that were not.

But now is not the time for discomfort. Besides- the dwelling, as the knight said, is empty at the moment. There is no one here but the two of them, the gate creature, and the Diamond himself.

The rambling, delirious tilt of his whispered song echoes through the hollow halls.

"Steven." The knight gently shakes him awake, or as awake as he can be in this state. "Come on, let's get you to the couch."

"Shouldn't we move him to a bed?"

"If he gets worse, we'll have to move him again. It'll be quicker this way. Plus the space is more open here. More room for everyone."

"Oh."

The couch is set low enough that moving him involves less carrying and more gently shoving him off the gate creature's back, and Jasper's not sure whether to be comforted or concerned by how little he protests the rude treatment.

Two guards across from eachother. Standing alone.

She should say something.

She doesn't, until she does.

"I would've expected you to be more angry."

"With you? " The knight closes her eyes in thought, a considering hum in her throat. "I won't lie, I'm pretty mad about this. But when I think about it, I'm not mad at you, per se. This was the first time you fused with eachother. You had no way of knowing the potential... consequences or being together like this."

"Nonetheless, it was beyond reckless of me. To be fused to a Diamond, my Diamond no less... I should have anticipated that I could have destabilized his power."

"It was pretty reckless of you," the knight concedes. "But there was no precendent for this, so I'm not going to blame you for what happened. This is just the kind of bullshit that happens when you deal with Steven's level of power."

"I didn't-"

It is unbecoming of her, to hesitate. But the foundation of what she has built with her Diamond is to destroy all pretenses. Perhaps it is only fair to extend that sincerity to the one in front of her- the senior guard, his chosen, his first knight. She hisses an impatient sigh.

"-I don't like to see him like this. I don't like that I had any part in this."

And for the first time, the knight smiles- really smiles, at her. "He'll be fine. I've known him for years- I know the ins and outs of his power about as well as Steven himself does. He just needs to rest. It'll just take time."

And all that's left is the waiting game.

One hand still half draped on the gate creature, his song settles ever so slightly, the ring of his gem less pronounced. It is steady, but almost agonizingly slow progress, the occasional blind flicker of his still glowing eyes as he winds down from his overclock.

It is mere hours- barely a breath in the millenia that she has been alive. It is still all too long.

"Connie..."

This sudden interruption peaks out of the dwale in his song, a rare spark of lucidity, and his eyes are almost focused now, if still a little cloudy.

"Connie, when was the last time you ate? " he whispers, a frown settling on his face as he looks at his knight.

And the knight's laugh is a short, despairing thing. "God, of course that's the first thing you notice."

For his part, the Diamond doesn't let up in his tired worry, pushing weakly at her chest. "Eat something, damn it. I'll be here when you get back."

The knight lets out a long, relieved sigh. "Alright. You want anything?" Their Diamond lets out some vague, non-assenting hum, pushing even more. "Okay, okay. I'm going, mom. Try not to die while I'm gone."

As she leaves, his hand drops limply over the edge of couch, and he slowly closes his eyes, like he'd fallen asleep.

"Jasper."

His eyes were still closed. Was he... calling out to her in his sleep? Was that a thing humans did?

"Jasper, please, I can hear the ring of your gem all the way over here."

His eyes are still closed as she draws near, but he turns his head just slightly towards her.

"I'm not asleep," he mutters tiredly, "but my eyes are still overclocked. Had to stop using them for a bit. Are you alright?"

"You're hardly in a position to be asking me that."

"And yet here we are," he almost laughs. "And I'll ask again. Are you alright?"

"Still in good fighting form. Certainly better off than you."

"I'll keep that in mind for next time, then."

"Next-" No. Absolutely not. He did not just insinuate that- "-you can't seriously be considering repeating this."

"Carnelian was stable and powerful. I can think of situations where she'd be useful."

"You turning useless for the next several hours mitigates most of the utility, I would think."

"Only means we gotta make it count."

"How can you be so insistent on defending her!" Jasper growls. "We were- I-"

And his hand suddenly lunges for her, tenting along her face, palm hovered over her gem. His eyes are open again, just barely.

"Don't you start," his song growls. 

It's a bit hard to speak with his hand hovered like that. "Start what."

"You were about to say something painfully loyal and self-chiding, weren't you?"

"Well I-"

"Don't. We were both idiots about it. If you want to blame yourself, you'll have to blame me just as hard. One-for-one deal here."

Well damn.

He takes her silence with a long, drawn hum. "Yeah, that's what I thought." His hand drops from her face, eyes closing again. "Besides, it was nice, for a while. We just gotta… be smarter about it next time, is all..."

Next time. 

Not something to be avoided, or ignored, or forgotten. A silently accepted, perhaps even welcome, inevitability. 

"Next time, huh? I guess that doesn't sound so bad, when you put it like that."

His only answer is the easy breathing of having fallen back asleep.

Chapter Text

Rose Quartz is watching them again today.

They aren't allowed to call her Rose Quartz anymore, though. If the records were true, there had never been a Rose Quartz at all.

(They mourned her for five thousand years and she'd been there all along.)

But this, this... Asteria Diamond, neither Pink Diamond nor Rose Quartz, but something else entirely. Something beyond even Diamond.

Some nagging part of her mind whispers with paranoia, insists that it is all a lie. That lost to the cold eternity of space, this Gem had called herself Rose Quartz.

Another, more cynic slant whispers that yes, they had been lost to the cold eternity of space, and there had been a despairing edge to "Rose Quartz's" laugh all too reminiscent of a tired soldier indulging a irreparably cracked comrade for one last time.

Asteria leans languid amongst the trees with her gate thrall by her side. Ruby remembers the jagged break of Jasper's stripes, the old soldier's reverent voice that sang that this Diamond's power was so unchained that it bled life into the very earth it walked upon, that it could take even the shattered and make them unbroken, and she suddenly would rather look anywhere else.

She had been small once, barely even a Gem- small enough that Ruby could have dared to rend the gem from out of her belly (and dare she did).

But like those humans Rose Quartz had started wars for, this gem has grown. She's tall like the lie that Rose Quartz had tried to be, broad enough to rival a Topaz.

She has taken change upon her hands and forced it into the very heart of Homeworld. She has stolen the soul of Gemkind from under them and twisted it in strange, frightening geometries.

But Ruby walks the Earth. She sees the easy smiles on the faces of Gems, the soft flags of diamond colors floating in the sky. The air rings with gentle song the way it has not in millennia, perhaps ever.

Does it matter then, what lies lived and died to bring them here?

Does it matter then, the distant, egnimatic tilt of Asteria's smile, Diamond or otherwise?

Ruby growls, a static, chirruping sound, and drives her knife into another rock.

"That was a pretty clean cut that time," carries a soft trill of song. "You've been getting better at this."

Ruby doesn't quite stop the vague, upward quirk of her mouth at the idle praise.

Chapter Text

Sometimes when the Diamond visits, he doesn't do anything at all. Hardly a word out of him, just leans against his gate creature and falls asleep.

It's so weird.

To see him close his eyes, slump over, and just... stop.

Fascinating, in a morbid sort of way. But still jarring.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Sleeping."

"I do need to sleep. Part of the whole human bit."

"Well I get that," she chuffs. "I just don't understand what it's for."

"Oh." he takes her question with a slow blink. "Well, for organic creatures, it accomplishes rest. Provides a time frame to repair the body, conserve and recover lost energy. But also it's like..." he narrows his eyes as he tries to find the words. "...a mental recalibration thing. That's what I do with it, these days."

"Recalibration?"

"Like letting a machine reboot itself so it can keep running properly. Smoothing out the program, letting things settle, checking if things work the way they should. A little troubleshooting on the side."

Considering all the processing he has to undergo on a daily basis... it makes a sort of sense. "And then your body shuts down so that there's no interference in the process."

"Yeah, that's about right."

"What does it feel like? Sleeping."

"Uhh…" His song hovers over his thoughts. "It's more of an absence of feeling then anything. Like you said, body shuts down, so all the input kind of just doesn't exist. Even the sense of time is just gone. But sometimes you... dream? Because all the different bits of your brain are being randomly activated and deactivated, so your mind confuses it for sensory input and just gives you these... they're almost like memories. Or weird, mixed up movies made up of random bits of your thoughts, knowledge, and memories all jumbled together in a big old soup."

She just looks flatly back at him. "Sounds fake, but okay."

"Wow, rude."

"And also horrifying. Kind of sounds like being dissipated."

He lets out a short breath of laughter. "I can't even say you're wrong. I guess it is a little like that. A little less... painfully violent, though."

"Hmm."

"If you're gonna hound me about it, you may as well try it. Gems can sleep, y'know. You can even get the same sort of calibration work in."

"...Would I dream?"

He tilts his head as he looks back at her. "You might. You might not. It's a bit of a gamble, honestly. Not exactly something that can be consciously controlled."

Wow. Every added word describing this "sleeping" thing is just sequentially more and more horrifying. Intriguing, but horrifying.

"Is it-" she really shouldn't be hesitating, but hesitate she does, "-is it possible to have... bad dreams?"

"When you sleep... your mind wanders. You can't control the direction it goes. Sometimes, if you've had a bad day, or you're stressed, or something weighs on you, your mind can... linger on it, through your dreams."

The implication is clear enough. "You have bad dreams."

"Sometimes, yes." A rolling flex in his claws. "I've got a lot of bad memories."

"...the War."

"Among other things."

"And yet you subject yourself to this almost every night," she frowns.

There's a resigned, almost sad tilt in his perpetual smile. "I don't exactly have a choice. Besides," he awkwardly blunders on, "it's not- it doesn't happen every time. Not as much as it used to. And... it helps, to not be alone."

Oh.

With that thought, she unceremoniously picks him up from under his arms, and as always, he resigns himself to being handled.

"Jasper, where am I going?"

"Inside. If you're going to sleep, you shouldn't be in such a vulnerable position."

"Didn't you kick me out of your cave the one time I tried to get in?"

"Details," she hisses.

"Thanks, I love you too."

"Go back to sleep."

Chapter Text

Jasper doesn't like to have anyone hold her hands.

Her hands are her first tool, her first weapon, her first line of defense. To be held at her hands is to be vulnerable, restrained. The concept leaves her... uneasy.

She remembers the chains that burned at her wrists with the weight of an entire ocean, and shudders.

She remembers the sharp flex of Lapis' claws as she pulled Jasper further down into their minds, and steps away from the fountain.

She remembers pleading upon her knees as she took Lapis' hands, the fear in the other Gem's eyes.

She remembers a delicate offered hand that gave only hatred and cages and lies, and resolves to never take another's hand ever again.

=<>=

His hands are wandering things.

He wanders the bark of trees, the petal of flowers, the grit of sea and sand.

He ghosts along old stones. White claws trace the written song of old prophecies, and derelict monuments flare to life under his fingertips.

He wanders the blade of a well-forged sword. He wanders the dust of the murals of war, and she knows now the look on his face is not distant mourning, but remembrance.

He hooks appraisingly against the thread of fabrics offered for his inspection. He traces tenderly on the face of a shaking Calcite as he patches her gem.

His claws snag at the stray branches caught by her horns. Fingers run idly along the rare curling strand of her hair. A thumb follows the arcing scar of green along her knuckles. 

He kneels down among the flowers in his garden, and as he turns towards her, offers his hand.

She reaches out. In his grasp he closes her hand and turns it over, and when she opens it, there is a flower in her palm- the wild, flaring bloom of a green and orange striped rose.

His eyes catch the honest shock on her face from the little trick and his song rings with laughter.

Chapter Text

Bluebird Azurite sips at a blue-white blend of ambrosia. In her small hands, the obsidian-worthy salt shot glass is practically a mug.

I did it.

What?

She almost unfuses then, a shocked look crossing her eyes.

When? When did this happen?

Oh, just a few days back.

You didn't tell me?

She scoffs to herself.

You were busy with your boulder boxers.

Well, yeah. It's. My Job.

You know this was more important.

Is it?

She stills.

...What.

Does it even still matter anymore?

Of course it does! Stars, what have they been filling your brain with?

I can think for myself, y'know.

And yet my point still stands.

I have... practical concerns.

Our theory has holes. Always has.

Most theories do.

Considering the current plan, it might be one hole too many, don't you think?

...You're having doubts, aren't you?

...Yeah.

That's alright.

She goes for a refill of her blend.

Doubt is good. Doubt creates questions, and questions lead to truth.

That's how we got here anyway.

...

That's what this is about. It's about the truth.

We don't need to be right. We just have to know.

I think we deserve that, at least.

Besides, it'll be a happy accident to be proven wrong. We'd be erasing Gemkind's doubts once and for all.

They don't have doubts. That's the problem.

We'd be doing them a favor either way.

...Fine. I'll do it. I'll play my part. If only to prove you wrong.

That's all I can ask for, Ruby.

She swirls the cup in her hands.

To knowledge, I guess.

She downs the last of her drink, and spreads her wings.

One last flight?

I'd like that.

Chapter Text

White is the ichor of mind.

White is thought, structure, order. Memory and idea.

White is clarity.

Yellow is the ichor of body.

Yellow is power, strength, movement. Energy and form.

Yellow is vigor.

Blue is the ichor of will.

Blue is joy, grief, sadness. Drive and anger.

Blue is passions.

Pink is the ichor of life.

The spark, the breath, the soul. Instinct and self.

Pink is vitality.

...

Pink is death.

For if pink is the anchor of life, so too it shall be the anchor of death.

It is the color in your eyes as you crawl from the earth, and it shall be the last one you ever see.

It shall burn before your eyes whenever you lose your form, until it finally blinds you for the final time, when you shatter and join the cerise sky.

Such is fate. Such is life. Such is death.

From the thinnest flake of mica to the deepest, hardest stone, all are made one under the cerise sky.

Chapter Text

The Rubies had greeted him with an even more enthusiastic collective tackle than usual, climbing and clambering all over him before Jasper barked them back into formation.

They were having some kind of... focus test? Formation test? He can't quite remember at the moment... a bit strange, he's sure he remembers Jasper talking about it just earlier...

Besides! It wasn't his test. Rather, he was the test.

His task was to simply go about his daily business in Little Homeworld, while the Rubies were supposed to find the balance between being close enough to maintain a watchful radius and far enough away to remain unobstructive. Jasper, naturally, stayed right by his side.

=<>=

"How are they doing so far?"

"Not bad for a first time," she rumbles back. "But they're too focused on you. They aren't maintaining enough awareness of your surroundings."

"They could take shifts of different focus."

"Don't give them the easy way out. I want to see if they can figure it out for themselves."

"Hmm." There's a weariness behind his eyes as he almost leans on her shoulder.

"Do you need to rest?"

"No, no, I... I'm alright. I've just got this weird headache is all. It should pass."

=<>=

(But it doesn't. His song is halting and slow in his mouth, and everything is just too bright. Everything feels so slow, and there's this strange sound ringing, rising in his skull.)

=<>=

The familiar rushing whistle of the warp pad is broken by the harsh sound that cuts out of her Diamond's throat, the flash of light that sparks from his eyes.

Jasper stops the warp. 

"Something's wrong, I..." She catalogues the high, ragged breaths that escape him. The tremor of his hands. The odd dance of his eyes "...I..."

His timbre of his song distorts on itself, twisted with a low, strained sound as he sways on his feet. He barely raises his eyes to look up at her.

"Jasper-"

That's the last note out of him before his grip on her arm seizes,

he finally pitches backward, and 

he falls.

Chapter Text

"No, no, no, no, no-"

"What happened?"

"What's wrong with him?"

What... what did. Did something happen?

"What is this? Is this part of the test-"

...the... test, yes, there was a... what was...

"NO YOU CLOD, OF COURSE IT'S NOT!"

Jas-Ja-Jas...

=<>=

"...Jasper? "

"My Diamond!" Let it never be said that Jasper was ever a clinging or even affectionate Gem, but on the stars. When she heard his song just barely surface again, she'd clasped his hand.

He turns to the touch, and seems oddly surprised to find her gaze. "Jasper," he breathlessly laughs. "My Jasper..."

"I'm here. Can you stand?"

There's a static hum in his throat, and oh no, don't look so confused, don't you dare- "...What..."

And there it is. Damn it-

The gem. His gem, is he-

She almost regrets trying to look. He's always been cagey about his gem (deservedly so) and now is no different. Her hand barely skirts the border of the stone and he practically seizes at the touch- the haunted look that breaks through his eyes then is almost lucid, his claws curling painfully into her form. But they know for sure now that his gem is not cracked.

She does not know if this is a good thing.

=<>=

-the ringing in his ears that feels like the rejuvenator all over again, but it can't be, it isn't,

but it is

and he can feel every break he's ever had in his body all over again, all at once-

=<>=

He's laughing.

"You we-we-were ri-ght," his song pitches hysterically, "you really c-can see the cerise sky when..." his eyes start to drift. "...when you..."

Before she can even think about what she's doing, she slaps him right on the neck. "HEY!" 

Like a switch, his eyes flare back into terrifying, terrified focus. "Jasper." A high, shuddering trill escapes him. "I-I-I-"

"You listen to me, you are not dying, you will be fine, and I will find whoever did this to you and I will break them."

"No, no, please..." He weakly grabs at her arm. "Please, don't-"

"You're in no condition to be giving any orders here-"

"-what's going on? Is everything alright?"

Oh, shatter me now. There's a crowd. Damn it. How many Gems caught this Diamond-damned scene-

"Hey!" shouts the lead Ruby. "Step off!"

"Don't get any closer!"

"No crowding!"

"Keep walking!"

The Rubies. They're doing crowd control. While she was too tunneled on the edge of her panic (it was a test, it was only a test, he was supposed to be safe, this shouldn't be happening but it is) they had properly assessed the situation and kept the onlookers away.

Stars, the Rubies are handling this better than she is right now. A bitter laugh flies out of her mouth.

"Is' 'lright..." his song haltingly moves to reassure just a step too late, " 'm fine, 'ts fine, we're... we're alright..."

No. No, none of this, you stop it now.

Without a word of warning, she stands, only passingly grateful that she had the past presence of mind to at least half shield his body from prying eyes with her cloak.

"What are you doing?" calls a Ruby.

"We can't help him. I'm going to find someone who can."

"What should we do?"

"I can't take him on the warp pads without risking hurting him more. You need to go ahead of me and tell them what you know."

"Where?"

"Where else? THE DIAMOND-DAMN OBSIDIAN TEMPLE! MOVE!"

As they disappear in the warp stream, she braces her Diamond's body against her chest, braces herself for the anvil she's about to put her gem on, and runs.

Chapter Text

Greg is tangentially aware that the house he currently lives in is less a house and more of a homey office front. There's an unabashed open door policy and there is literally a live portal just. Right there. Very 24-hour office vibes. That's just how it is in the homestead of Aliens Who Lack Sleep Cycles.

But outside of planned events, Gems don't really show up at the Temple. Garnet had paraphrased it as... what was it. The Obsidian Temple was essentially, in human terms, a holy site. In no small part because two different Diamonds have both lived there over the course of thousands of years. So while Gems were perfectly capable of visiting, they weren't exactly keen to go stomping around on sacred ground without cause.

Which makes it a bit odd to see five Rubies clamber out of the warp.

He awkwardly takes a sip at his coffee, wondering which pair of eyes he's supposed to be looking at.

For a hot minute, no one really says anything, so he might as well bite the bullet. "So- Rubies, huh?"

Which is apparently just the magic words to get the ball rolling, seeing as how they promptly all flare back to life. They organize themselves with something vaguely resembling military bearing, arms halfway to an unsure salute. (That'd been happening more and more often as of late. Gems just weren't quite sure how they were supposed to treat a human who'd been in the favor of two Diamonds- three, if he counted Blue).

The visor one takes the lead. "We need to speak to the Crystal Gems." There's something strained in her song. "Urgently."

He'd best be staying out of this one then. He takes out his phone and gives a quick text to Pearl. "You're still gonna have to wait for a few minutes. They're a bit far out from the nearest warp pad. Is this all of you, or are we expecting more?"

"There's. Two more."

"More Rubies?"

"A Jasper. And-" there's a bit of hesitation on her face, and he's realizing that she's probably internally debating his clearance level. "Asteria Diamond."

Steven. "What happened."

"We- we're not sure."

"It was all so sudden."

"We didn't know what to do, so we had to bring it back to you."

"He's... hurt. We're not sure how."

"We couldn't bring him on the warp pad, so she's bringing him here on foot."

Corrupted Gems can't warp properly. Shut up, brain.

He doesn't have time to panic, or break down, or run away. He's done quite enough of that to last a lifetime and then some. "How long?"

"We're not sure."

The waiting game. Fun. He gets to sit here along the kitchen island and wait for some stranger he's never met in his life to barge in carrying his son's body-

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Not going down that road. There's a god damn mini-crisis happening, and the last thing these Gems need is an inconsolable, panicking mess of a human on their hands.

The Rubies are still standing, but a bit shakily now. Like a bunch of scared kids wondering when their dad's gonna come home, and Greg realizes that's kind of what it is. The Diamonds are more than leaders, more than even gods. The Gems are like... their kids. Steven's kids. 

"Do y'all want something to drink?"

One Ruby narrows her eyes. "Is this... some kind of ritual thing?"

"Nah. But it looks like you're having a pretty bad time right now. Helps to have something warm, y'know?"

"Oh."

"I guess."

"Better than setting ourselves on fire, I suppose."

"Like one of those hot cider things..."

With a tired sigh, he opens the cupboard. "Wanna pick out your cups?"

He's rewarded with a teary chorus of "Okay."

Chapter Text

There's a pounding sound echoing through the board of the house.

"HEY!" calls a harsh, clicking song. "SOMEONE OPEN THIS DOOR BEFORE I BREAK WHATEVER'S BEHIND IT!"

"Is that the Jasper?"

"Yeah..."

"Oh boy. Hold up, I'm comin'." He gets up, and mercifully his hands are only shaking a little when he opens the door to... oh jeez. She's like a Quartz, but bigger. She has to duck her head to even make it past the doorframe, and manages to make his son look almost small in her arms. 

Don't think about it. Don't think about it.

"Where do I put him?"

And now he's been mistaken for someone who knows what he's doing. Which means he may as well act like it.

The couch? Easier to move, easier access. More vulnerable, more exposed. We'd have to deal with potential crowding and all the possible traffic. Having him out here in the open would give everyone more anxiety. More open space, though.

Not my room. He's looks kind of out of it- being in his old room is gonna freak him out. Damn it. We really need some kind of panic room for things like this.

"Put him on the couch," he grudgingly mumbles. "Help me dress him down."

The vest, the tie, the boots- removing these little things doesn't necessarily improve the situation, but they sure as hell don't make it worse. Saves time for if they have to remove anything else down the line, and Steven might breathe just a bit easier. It's doing something.

"How long has he been like this?"

"I don't know," Jasper half growls. "He mentioned some kind of headache early today, but that was what he noticed. The onset could have been at any point."

Wait a- "Headaches? And you said his song was funny?"

"Swaying on his feet, too. Giggling like he was ichored out of his mind."

Oh, this better not be what I think it is. He raises Steven's head.

"D-d-d-d-dddda-ad..."

"I know, I know," is all Greg can hum in response to the glitching loop of his son's words. "Just lemme look." 

He unbuttons Steven's shirt just enough to pull down the collar, and sometimes Greg hates to be right. There's an odd, stupidly familiar, triangular object clamped on the base of Steven's neck.

God-damn it, not this shit again.

"Somebody get Bismuth."

"Um," a Ruby stutters, "which Bismuth-"

"Bismuth Facet-J24 Hopper-D37A! The colonial overseer! Tell her it's a 93-C 41-A!" He's got no place on Gemkind's chain, but his voice brokers no argument. "Now!"

The big Quartz moves to stand. "I'll do it." She turns a harsh eye to the Rubies. "You will keep watch. You will answer whatever questions they ask and commit to whatever task they give you for this situation. Understood?"

She's answered with five shaking but determined salutes.

=<>=

What was...

He- there-

Something's wrong...

I-I-I-I-I-

Why- why can't

There was something, I-

I-I-I-I-I-I-I c-c-an't

Where-where-where

Please, I-I-I d-d-d-d-d-d

What- what was...

H-h-he-e-el-p...

Wait. No, no, no, where-

Where is...

"Jasper," he distantly hears himself gasp. "Jasper, wh-w-where..."

"Hey, hey." A hand (worn callused hands from carpentry and car washes and guitars) glides against his hair. "It's okay. She'll be back."

Dad?

D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-ddddda...

"....a-a-ad..."

"I'm here, I'm here."

"It-t-t it hur-ts…"

"I know, I know. Hang in there, you two. Bismuth'll be here soon. I think Pearl might have called Connie, too."

C-c

Connie Connie Connie

My-my-my-

"No, no, nonono…"

"Hey, hey, hey." Something brushes against his face. "Don't cry."

Oh. Is that what's happening? Weird, it doesn't feel like anything...

"Don-don't-t don't c'll C-onnie, she's's's's got sch-c-chool…"

"Steven... it's afternoon. On a Friday. She doesn't have school to worry about."

C-cannot-re-re-re-call shortt-t-term rec-c-cal-l n-not fo-und, I-I-I

I-I-I-I-I-

"-I think I need to sleep..."

"That's okay. You rest. I'll still be here when you wake up."

=<>=

I did this.

I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. This wasn't supposed to happen, I don't-

I don't understand what went wrong. I didn't mean to- you weren't supposed to- I-

...

Ȋ̶̮̱̱̫͓̥͉̦̰̝̗̖͕͉̔̈́̉̃̔̚͝'̴̺̣̳̘̣̃̌̇̄͒̄̉̆͝͠ͅm̶̡̧̡̛͓̦̱̺̣͊̋̀̂̅͛̕͝ ̵̡̰̲̠͙̘̬̟̱͔̫̩̍̈́͒̌͘ͅs̴̬̈́̋ơ̷̳̽̄̀͐̈̿͆̆̓́̔͝r̴̟̙͈̜̼͓̒r̵̨̡̨̼͙͉̭͙̫͇̳̱͙̈́̈̈́̑͆͊̽̚͜y̶̰̍̔̃̅̋̓͌̾̌̀̌ͅͅ.̶̬͉̜̤̝̝͈̤̘̋͗̔̄̃̂̑̂̌̔͗͝͝͝

Chapter Text

"I have no idea what I'm looking at."

"But-" Connie's question is interrupted by a vague incoherent note of sound surfacing from Steven's song. She shushes him with a brief squeeze of his hand. "Isn't this just a crowd capture card like last time?"

"Well," Peridot adjusts her glasses, "this one's clearly been attached for far longer than the previous one. And the symptoms are worse. I don't know if it's just because of time, or something else. I mean, look at him." She gestures anxiously to the shaking twitch of his brow, the cold cloth laid on his forehead. "He's clearly in pain, and running some kind of fever now, too. And according to our witnesses, the symptomatic onset occurred far more gradually."

Bismuth shines a light down his gem, sparing a caustic glance for the round and its unbudging perch on his neck. "The damn thing looks different, too. I can't recognize this kind of round from any model known. It's probably been modded somehow. We're not looking a rogue device- we're looking at an illegally modified weapon likely used to commit a deliberate attack."

"But who would-"

The warp flares to life again.

"Steven!"

Pearl's despaired cry cuts across the temporary silence of the house. No one yet has the presence of mind to stop her sprint that practically vaults over the table toward him.

No one yet has the presence of mind to stop the way she reaches out and cradles his head against herself. She is only doing what everyone else is too paralyzed to do.

"My baby, my baby..." She runs her thin hand against his curls, and even as the tears well in her eyes, not a single one falls. She will not admit defeat, not yet. "Oh, my baby..."

She takes in the collective presence of the room, form stilling with a cruel sort of calm as she lays her eyes on Jasper. "You."

Jasper, for her part, looks only mildly uncomfortable. "Let him go-"

And Pearl hisses at her, a subtle, rattling sound punctuated by the wide flex of her needled fangs, claws almost digging into Steven's clothes as she reflexively clutches him closer.

But Jasper only spares her eyes for Steven himself. "You'll hurt him. Let go."

She doesn't, but Pearl relaxes her claws at least, readjusting the cold cloth that she'd inadvertently jostled from Steven's head, mechanically petting at his hair. "Who did this." Her eyes are hollow and her song is murder.

"Who would do this?" Amethyst barks. "He's- they-" the drum of her song rolls into a drawn, angry growl. "Why would anyone do this?"

"It's possible," Garnet levelly drones, "that whoever did this did not realize they would hurt him."

Panicked, saddened, anxious- Greg has been many things these past few hours. But this is the first time he's hit angry. "You're telling me this is an accident? "

"It makes sense," Bismuth sighs. "Even if Gems kind of get that Steven's more than just Gem, it's not like it's common knowledge that he can't lose his form. Stars, he might not have even been the intended target!"

"But if he was, why would anyone want to poof him in the first place?"

"I'm not sure," Garnet admits. "But for now..." 

She defuses.

"For now," Sapphire continues, "we can't worry about the motive. Not yet. We need to find them first. I will stay to help monitor his condition."

Ruby points to the other, younger Rubies. "You lot. You're coming with me back to Little Homeworld. Either we find the original device, or the Gem that did it. We can't risk getting experimental, not with Steven on the line."

Bismuth nods. "On my authority, you can go public if you have to. We need as many eyes as quickly as possible. If it was a laid trap, we can't risk anyone else getting caught in it."

"And the Diamonds? Do we tell them?"

"...No." Bismuth takes a long, slow breath. "No, I don't think we will. We leave that to Steven. We shouldn't take the decision out of his hands unless we absolutely have to."

Ruby nods. "AIGHT! GEMS! MOVE OUT!"

Six Rubies march to the warp pad. The last one lays her one good eye back on Steven, an odd shine that almost looks like tears, and disappears into the light along with the rest.

Chapter Text

They never do find a full device, in the end.

Eventually, they drop the matter. With a stern warning to Little Homeworld to keep an eye out for a rogue crowd capture device, they cut their losses and start searching for the perpetrator.

"Ugh, are you seriously out working again? Already?"

"Yes."

"I thought you had a test today!" Aquamarine flutters annoyedly. "Did you really mix up your own schedule over something like this? Now, of all times? Honestly."

"We did have the test."

"Then where is it."

Ruby whirls around to look back at her.

"The gem." Aquamarine rolls her eyes. "Her gem! Well? Where we right or not?"

"We didn't get to see it."

"What?" Aquamarine almost drops a little out of the sky for her trouble, wings flaring with shock. "Was the round a dud?"

"No."

"What, did you just forget to go through with it, you-" She doesn't get to finish her scold before Ruby drags her out of the air. She falls to the ground with a sharp cry. "Hey! That hurt, I-" 

Ruby's knife points right at her gem.

"You did something."

"To- to the capture card? Well, yes! I- you know she doesn't work like a normal Gem, we had to be sure it would dissipate her-"

"What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO! "

"Stop, stop, stop it," she tugs at Ruby's hold on her wrist, "Gems are going to see-"

"Of course that's what you care about." Ruby laughs, cruel and desperate. "You don't care what happens to you, or me, or anybody, as long as you get to be right."

"Have you lost your gem? You'll get us both-"

"I DON'T CARE! YOU WERE WRONG! YOU WERE WRONG! YOU WERE WRONG, I KNEW YOU WERE WRONG, BUT I LISTENED TO YOU ANYWAY!"

"You're- you've gone absolutely mad! "

"No more mad than you, for what you PUT ME THROUGH! WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!"

As Ruby lunges forward, Aquamarine finally tugs away, wings gearing up to fly again. 

She never makes it.

A whip curls around her throat as she flies away and her desperate speed is the garrote that breaks her body. Aquamarine's gem falls into the waiting hand of NV3, the gem on her own belly flashing cruelly as her whip returns to her.

"You all saw that," NV3 smiles, but her song shakes just so slightly. "She would have gotten away. She did it to herself."

Not one Ruby disagrees with her.

"But she didn't." The Crystal Gem Ruby turns and smiles, all pointed grit and broad fangs, and Ruby Facet-1F4 Tetragon-4ND feels an old soldier's angered song spit into her one good eye. "And neither will you, Ruby."

Chapter Text

"I can't believe he'd hid something like this from us! Being with Jasper again? We all know what happened the last time they were with eachother!"

"But he didn't hide it. He just... never told us."

"Steven isn't a child anymore. He does not need to tell us everything."

"...It still sucks."

"I still don't understand why he didn't tell us."

"Tch. Probably 'cause he knew we'd freak out like this."

A silence.

"...He kind of doesn't trust us anymore, huh?"

"That's not true!"

"I don't mean doesn't trust us doesn't trust us, I mean- like..."

"...he trusts us, but not as his parents. Not anymore."

"..."

"We never were good at it, were we."

"We really weren't."

"We shouldn't be dwelling on this. He'll be fine. He just needs a little time."

A silence.

"We all knew that when he came back to us, things would not be the same as it was before. That things shouldn't be the same as before."

"I know… it still sucks."

"But... what if he never trusts us again the way he used to?"

"Steven's trust is not a prize to be won. It isn't something he has to give to us. But we should always try to be worthy of it."

"I suppose you're right."

=<>=

"Hey."

Amethyst kneels down next to Jasper's seated perch on the floor and takes out two deer antlers. She bites into one, and gives the other to Jasper.

"What-" Jasper turns the branching object over in her hands. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"Chew on it."

"Why?"

"It's better than grinding our own teeth while we wait and do nothing."

Jasper looks at the tangle of bone and hesitantly bites down.

=<>=

"Sapphire..."

"Hello, Steven."

"What're you... 's Ruby..."

"We're alright, Steven. Try to rest."

"...okay..."

=<>=

"Help."

Connie looks back to Jasper. The Quartz's hand is weakly, gently grasped in Steven's.

"I'm trapped." Jasper, for her part, looks a bit anxious. "How do I leave?"

"You don't."

"This is a very impractical position. Poorly defensible."

"Die then."

=<>=

His son's hand tiredly trails on Greg's arm, lingering on the faded redness of his flashburn, a distant look under half-lidded eyes.

"I should fix that..."

"You're in no state to be fixing anything at the moment, son."

"...you shouln' haft' deal with that... I could fix it..."

"Don't you worry about me right now."

"...I should... you should... you... you deserve nice things..."

"You do, too, y'know."

Chapter Text

/command file retrieval access memory reboot one

FILE NAME: Pink Diamond Facet-WD3 Pavillion-2

[This song no longer exists.]

/command run sightreading notation data reboot one

No disharmony found.

/command file retrieval access memory reboot two

FILE NAME: P̸̨̛͓̌̾̾̐̋̋͗͂̂̑͒͠͝i̵̢͎͙̤͚͕͎̩̩̍̅͂͜͝ͅn̸̪͍͈̪̰̪̬̜̱͝ḵ̶̡̳̟̙̥̜̫̘̳͋̔̉̊͗̀́̋̊ͅͅ ̴̧̲̃́̂͌̉D̷̺̫̹̔̔̓͐͗̈́̄̾̒͐̚í̷̗͈̟͚̩̬̜͎͂͂́̊̄͋̒̋̄͜͜a̵̎̈́̑͊̓͒̐͊̋͝͝͠͠ͅͅm̷̢̙̺̋̓̐ǫ̸̧̨̛̖̠̹̹͎̼͎͔̟̈̾̿̏͛̿͆̾͜͝n̷̨̧̦̖̖̩̗̤͓̳̣̋̓̈́͛̍͒̄͝ͅd̴̘̙̤̦̞̱͈̯̦̹͎͔̫̓̇̃͛̕͜͜ ̶̪͈͚̬̫͙̪͖͖̆͐̿̏̐̔̅̽̍̉͗͂̚̕͜͜͝ͅF̸̛̛͈̊̒̐́͌͌̑͛̚͠a̶̡̟̯̣̠͙̭̳̘͉͆̊̉͆̌̿̈́̅͑̔̚͜ć̴̨̡̛̝̬̪̻̖͎̰͊̒̇͆͋̍͆̚͠͠e̴͈̎͐̇͆̋̇͌̃̑̈́̂̈́͘t̴͖͚̬̑͘-̵̮̉̓̃͆͌̓̌͌W̵͔͕̱͍̜̬̘͆̓͐͐̐͛͠Ď̸̡̊̎̿̚͝͠3̴̼͙̝̠̪̟̘̙̥̺̱̰͚͉̈́͌͝ ̴̧̪͍̮͉̦̘͈̗̩̝̄ͅP̴̧̲͎̭̙͇͇͍͍͇̱̞̼̯͔̀̋̓̏̈́̄̅̆̉̅͘̕͝á̴̢̧͓͖̳̰͔̮̭̫̑̋̈̂̔̋̂̅̅̚ͅv̴̧͉͕͙͖̜̙̬̜̄̇̒ì̸̜̯̓́̌͗̋͛̉l̴̢̛͕̫̬̲̘̝̩̝̋̑̍̈́̃͂̔͗͝l̷̛̝̭̓̃̽̓̈͂͐͛̉̆̒͛͘ͅī̷͖͙̏̾͑̋͗̽̇̑̂̚̚͝͝ͅo̵̧̬̘̜͕͒̈́̐̍̄͠n̵̙̼̖̙̰͓̫̰̩̬̺̖̆̓̏̓͐͐-̸̧̧̩͈̺̬̤̞̾̍̀̈́̐͂͂̚͜2̷̢̢̛̭̬̺͈̟̗̟͙̹̥͎̑́͝ [ROSE QUARTZ]

[This song no longer exists.]

/command run sightreading notation data reboot two

ERROR.

Memory files 1970-1990 AD not found. 

Memory file August 15, 1990 found.

Memory files 1990-1999 AD not found.

[This set of non-malignant notation errors were catalogued in the last sightreading. No new disharmony found.]

/command file retrieval access memory extant programs reboot three

WARNING: EXTANT PROGRAM. ACCESS CODE REQUIRED.

[title- ̷̨̟͙͓͕̮͈̻͔̓̆̍̀͗̍̚ͅ ̴͎̞̞̣̙̫̼͔͈͙̖͌̾̐̊͗̽͐͝ ̶̻̹̱͍̠̘̜̋͆͛̋͜͠ ̷̛̣͕̱̫͇͚̪͕̠̐̃̽̒̀̒̍̕ ̸̢͉̪͓̰̰͖͊͜ͅ ̷̧̧̠͕̼̣̺̪͎͚̊̅͊̕ ̸̤̠̃͛̄͒ ̴̧̨͈͈̲̤͔̻̖̠̥̜̝̒̏̆͜͜ ̵̛̖̯̭̼̻̺̖̑͆̐͛̅̂̀͊̽̈́͑̂̉͝ ̵̨̢̠̰̻̪͇̰̮̭̯͕̯̂͊̉̃͛̔̈͑͌ ̷̛̗̲̩̻̪̘̪͗̀̾͊̇̿̈̇̾͐͊͜͠͠ ̴̨͉͚̝̳̙̺̮̘̠̮̖͗́̀͊͗̀͘͠ͅ ̷̡̡̛̹̙̪͔̹̩͎̺̈́̏̒̀̂̎̿͒̂ ̷̧͎͙̘̦͔͇̗̟͚̣̓̈́̇́̈́̍͆̀̅̿̔͘̚͜͜͝ ̸͇̺̘̽ ̴̡̨̻̘̝̣̻͍̱͇͚̩͛̋͊̆́̆͋̅̌͋͛͂̈̎̚ ̷̡̛̙̬̲̘͍͙̩͔̎̊̐͑̍͑̌̄̀͌̕̕ ̷͎̜̜͔͉̟̑̄ ̶̪̫̟͖̈́̾̉̂ ̶̱͗͌̃͋̎̄̎͝ ̴̡̡̛̛̲̲̹̥̪͖͉͇̜̟̖̳͙̍̌̆̿̈́̅͝ ̴̲͙̜̜̙͓͓̣̖̰͇̎͘͜ͅ ̸̪̱̱͇͓͔̳̫̳̬̪̊̏͘ ̶̭͔̭̭̮̲͚̪͇̟̮̟̺̺̻̿ ̵̦̹̞͍̘̠̠͔̺̺͊̊͒̊̇͐̔͂͆͘͘ ̴͇̲̈́̈́̇̃͝ ̷͈͇̟̗͖̤͇̈́̌̋̍̌̕͝ͅͅ ̸̧̛͓̻̰̲͇̻͎͙̈́̇͑͋̍̀̉̐̆͊̿͆͒ ̴̛͍̼̍̂̽͒̾̒̋̚͝ͅ ̶̞͆͑ ̴̧̭̘̝͕͇͔̣̗̰̬͉̹͙̓̉̇̈́̔̿͊̍̍̚ ̴̧̪̺͚̐̉̑̊͐ͅ ̶̯͉͂͊̊͂͌̔̉͛̚͠ ̷̛͓͎̰͊̿̓̏̌̍͌̂͂̾̃̊͠͝ ̴̧̨̺̮͖͈̫̪͇̊̈̿̔́̈́̓͠ͅͅ ̴̨͖̖͎̻̮̹̝̠̻͓͛̆͝͠ ̵̢̨̬͎̻͈̣̘̆̓-endtitle]

ACCESS CODE ACCEPTED.

FILE NAME: Paragon Diamond Facet-PD1 Pavillion-1A

FILE NAME: Integrated Matrix Program Facet-PD1 Pavillion-1B

[These extant songs must run simultaneously. Do not separate them.]

[They are brothers. Do not separate them.]

/command run full sightreading integratedmatrixprogramfacetpd1pavillion1b

No disharmony found.

/command run full sightreading paragondiamondfacetpd1pavillion1a

DISHARMONY FOUND.

[This program encountered a critical disharmony due to incompatibility with foreign song and engaged emergency shutdown to prevent further damage.]

/command tune paragondiamondfacetpd1pavillion1a

...TUNING...

...TUNING...

Disharmony resolved.

/command harmonize all programs

...HARMONIZING...

...HARMONIZING...

All programs re-harmonized.

Run programs?

/command run extant programs

...RUNNING ALL PROGRAMS...

...RUNNING ALL PROGRAMS...

Chapter Text

Steven bolts up with a seizing twist of coughs, hands clutching at his neck where the capture card used to be.

"Woah! Easy there, deep cut!" Bismuth reaches a steadying hand towards him. "You alright?"

He flinches violently from the near touch, practically clipping out of existence with a burst of overclocked speed and backing further down the couch. His eyes are vibrant pink, and the diamonds of his eyes glow white, chest heaving with ragged breaths.

=<>=

I

I am

I am?

I- I am

I AM- I AM ROSE QUARTZ? I AM ROSE QUARTZ I AM ROSE QUARTZ I AM ROSE QUARTZ I AM

No No No No No No No No No I-

I- I- I- I-

I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I- I am-

"Steven? Will you look at me?"

Steven?

Steven Quartz Universe

Steven Steven Steven Ste-St-St-St-

...I am Steven Universe.

...

I am Steven Universe.

I am...

=<>=

He falls into Connie's arms.

"It's okay," she soothes. "it's okay. It's over."

"Connie," his song gasps, shaking. "Connie, Connie, My Connie..."

"I'm here," she whispers. "I'm here, I'm here."

His voice soon slips past any human coherency, but she knows her name no matter how he says it, and his song whispers it over and over, a halting triplet of violins as the glow in his eyes slowly dies.

The shake of his hands, his song, slowly subsiding as he falls to sleep- not the fevered, twitching stillness that had been his past day, but real, true rest.

He is tired and worn- but he is here, himself, and so irrefutably alive. For the first time in what must have been ages, the room starts to breathe again.

Thank the stars.

Chapter Text

"So you stole one of the recovered crowd captures, and modified one of the card rounds? To dissipate my form."

The Ruby and Aquamarine have the sense to look a little guilty, at least.

"All because you didn't believe what we said about Pink Diamond. What the Diamonds had said about Pink Diamond."

"I didn't-" Ruby stops when she looks up at him. "We didn't- we didn't want to hurt anyone. We just wanted to know the truth. To see it with our own eyes."

"Tell me," his song rings so terrifyingly even, "what is the one thing a Gem cannot change in their form?"

"Their gem."

"Other than that, Ruby."

"The eyes. A Gem cannot change the nature of their eyes."

"My Gems." He leans forward in her seat. Pink light scatters over tunnel dark Diamond's eyes. "Am I a liar?"

For a while, no one says anything. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's guilt. Maybe it's the last dregs of stubborn pride.

He leans back. A long, purring sigh leaves him then, and he lays his brow on his hands.

He is not angry. He is not upset, or betrayed, or even confused. More than any possible scold or disappointment in his tone, more than anything- he just looks kind of tired, and maybe that hurts more than anything he could have said or done.

"Shatter me."

His eyes snap towards Aquamarine from under his hands.

"I plead guilty to theft. I plead guilty to the illegal possession and modification of tools of war. I plead guilty to conspiracy, and I plead guilty," her song breaks, "to treason. For these crimes against the Empire, for the betrayal of my fellow Gem, for the betrayal of my Diamonds, I plead guilty and accept my sentence of shattering- under the sole condition that my co-conspirator be spared."

Ruby's good eye widens.

"She had no part in my plans," Aquamarine continues with a calm she clearly does not feel. "In the end, she was only my messenger."

"No, no, no!" Ruby turns to the still, impassive shock of the Diamond's face. "Shatter me, if you've got to! I was the one who brought this on you! I was the one who did this to you! I-"

"Is that an order, Ruby Facet-1F4 Tetragon-4ND?"

Her song dies, afraid.

His hand drags tiredly on his face- he makes no effort to hide the weariness of his eyes, the lingering tremor on his fingers. "I will not shatter you," he whispers.

"...What?"

"Why?"

"Gemkind has seen quite enough loss." Weary, old eyes stare right through them. "I have seen quite enough loss. I will put no Gem to end by my hand, not if I can help it."

"You can't seriously be considering letting us walk away from this."

"You can't seriously be granting us mercy."

"This? This is..."

He laughs, almost- or at least the arborted sound that flies from his throat can be called some mockery of the concept.

"...this is not mercy." A face stilled, a song struck dull. "You will live with what you've done. You will live with your mistakes. You will live in this settlement that you hate, in this planet you hate, with the jobs you took to destroy me, and you will know what you have done. You will know, and I will know, and so will everyone in this house. You will live with the fact that we will all know, and we will never forget it. You will live with the trust you have broken, and you will have no choice to try and hope you will ever be worthy of it again. Maybe one day you will be. Maybe never. You'll have to live with that, too."

And he smiles. There is neither joy or forgiveness. Not even vindication. If anything, he almost looks a little sad.

"Do you call that my mercy?"

"No," Ruby concedes as she looks away. "I guess not."

"Some might still consider it more than we deserve," Aquamarine wavers nervously.

"Maybe. But that's not your choice to make." He claps his hands on the table. "Now get out of my house."

Chapter Text

Biscuit

hey can you come over

my parent's aren't home

parents

fuckkking grammar

Are you okay?

dads visiting his sister

moms having overtime at the hospital

I just

I don't wanna be alone write now

right

FUCK

Do you need a Lion HugTM?

I need you

OK

"Hey." He stands there on the driveway, looking up at her window, a half-smile on his face. "You wanna open the door, or am I coming in through the window?"

"I'm too lazy to open the door." She gestures through the open window. "Get up here."

It's less of a hop, or even a climb, more of a vague, lazy float upwards that slowly arcs through her window. Lion is nowhere in sight.

"Oh my god, you took me seriously when I said just you."

"Do you-" his hand points back outside, "-do you want me to go get Lion? I can still call him over-"

"No! No, it's... it's fine. Did you just walk all the way over here?"

He rubs at his neck (at the place where the round stuck itself in him. Don't think about it.) "Kind of? More of a run, really. You know that's not much of an issue for me anymore."

"Oh, right. I keep forgetting you've got the pink zoomies now."

"Zoomies?" his song laughs. "What am I, a cat?"

"Yes," she hisses with retort. "My big, dumb, oversized cat." She takes his hands, fingers sliding up to his wrists, and she kisses him.

She feels the surprised clicking hum that echoes down into her throat, the giddy crackle of phosphene behind her eyes. The confusion of tidal orchestral song pouring into her mind, swirling around her brazenness, her searching, the feeling she knows and refuses to name called desperation.

And she feels it, just barely. The inhumanly distant and slow thunder of his heart. Always just out of reach. (Too far out of reach.)

"Connie," he gasps as she pulls away. "Connie, what are you d-d-d-d-"

She grabs for his neck and kisses him there, distantly aware of how his song unravels into incoherent layers of sound in response.

Here, right under his jaw- his pulse is stronger here, almost human under her hands.

Alive.

"I-I-I-"

"Please, I just-" Her hands trail down his arms, stopping to trap him by his wrists. "Please."

His dark eyes search her face and god damn it, of course he gets it, he always does, he always sees right through everything, the way his face softens, his hands reaching out to her wrists in turn.

"Hey," his song trills, all soft and sweet and how dare he act so fucking understanding right now, "I'm here. I'm still here."

"You better be. Better not fucking die on me."

"You know neither of us ever plan to." His claws trace idle patterns along her hands, following the patterns her human eyes cannot see. "We aren't going anywhere. We're sticking around until you're absolutely sick of it."

She chokes out a laugh. "I know," She murmurs into the crook of his neck. "I just- I need- I need you alive."

"I'm here," he whispers. "Whatever you need, I'm here."

She pulls him down by his wrists and kisses him again, and again, until his heartbeat sings into her hands- distant, strong, alive, alive, alive.

Chapter Text

"You're leaving again."

"Yes." They are standing at the summit. The thin mountain air quietly whistles around them. "You know," he muses, "you can kind of see Little Homeworld from here."

He's right, sort of. The odd sprawling town and all its lights look barely big enough to fit in her hands.

"How long will you be gone?" She has no bite left in her song, not for him.

"I don't know," he sighs. "A few months, at most. I'll be back by midwinter for sure."

Her hum rolls and growls, low in her throat. "Drifting again?"

"Not quite. The song of the colonies calls to me, and I must answer." His smile is not quite sad, but there is something... contemplative there. "This place is our home. But I cannot chain myself here forever, not when my Gems are scattered among the stars."

"Shame," her song growls. "I was almost looking forward to putting you into my squadron's winter training."

"Give your Rubies a break every once in a while," he laughs. "It'll be the first time they see snow."

"What else am I going to do while you're gone?"

"Come with me."

"What?"

"Come with me." He looks almost shyly up at her. "The Crystal Gems have their own assignments, and Connie's got school to worry about. I'll need a guard."

"We both know you can protect yourself."

"Maybe I just want to be with you, that's all."

 
"Sentiment." She leans back against the tree and scoffs. "Save it for the others when they cry over you again."

 
"I've already said goodbye to everyone else."

He stands. The city is too far away to spare its light for them. His eyes are tunneled as always, and in fledgling dark of the night she sees the stars fall and die in the diamonds there.

Midwinter, he says. It is already autumn. Even here, at the highest summit of her forest, the trees cannot escape the passage of time. Leaves fall fire red on the wind, the beautiful violent death throes of strange insensate beings that tear themselves apart year after year in the name of survival. She will never not be in awe of it.

Leaves fall fire red on the wind, dancing with the flower petal of his aura, a night painted all the colors of the dawn and cerise sky. (She will never not be in awe.)

And he smiles at her.

"Come with me."

He offers no pleas, no last parting gifts. She offers no thanks, no well-wishes, platitudes. Not one of them says a single goodbye.

He only offers his hand, and she reaches out to take it.