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“You’re right, Jasper… I have been holding back.”
It feels good.
The power coursing through his veins, the size and sharpness of the energy spikes he has made, the shock in Jasper’s eyes. It all feels so good.
Steven has been scared of what he could do ever since he found out he was a diamond- that colossal, overbearing title weighing him down like a boulder.
He controlled himself, holding back his strength and his skill so he wouldn’t have to think about the power he had seen Blue, Yellow and White exhibit, wouldn’t have to think about that potential resting under his own skin.
He doesn’t have to hold back anymore, doesn’t have be sorry for what he is. He can be strong, he can fast, he can be angry.
He never realised just how much anger there was, buried under the fear and the panic.
It feels good to get it out. Literally, pushing it away and watching it strike out against the world around him.
There is no shame anymore, just a buzzing thrill of triumph and the bone-deep knowledge that whatever else he is, he is powerful.
And more than anything else, that feels good.
The clouds of dust get blown away by a cool breeze and Steven’s grin grows when he sees the crater of impact his attack left behind. Trees uprooted, piles of blown-back dirt, broken rocks.
What he doesn’t see is Jasper.
“Hey,” His voice sounds like thunder in his own ears, “Jasper?”
There’s no trail of drag or limping footprints leading away from the hole in the earth.
“Did I poof you?”
He drifts down slowly, that smile still plastered on his face.
“Well, well, so much for being tougher than everyone else huh?” He laughs, “Poor wittle Jasper isn’t as big and bad as she thinks, is she?”
He lands at the edge of the crater and slides down into it, scanning the ground for her gem.
“Guess this means I win our fight. Try not to feel too bad… but you did ask for-“
Starlight glints off a sliver of orange and for one last gloating moment, Steven thinks the rest of the gem is just hidden under the soil- fitting, considering how much Jasper hates her planet of birth.
He reaches down to pluck it out and his taunt dies on his lips as his fingers close around it.
It’s too small.
Far, far too small, and sharp, jagged at the edges.
Steven doesn’t know when his body returns to its normal state- when all the faux muscles, poofy hair and pinkness fade away into nothing, and he is left kneeling in the dirt with a corpse in his hands.
Maybe it’s when he digs through the rest of the crater, guided by some alien instinct that can sense where the other pieces of Jasper lie on the ground.
Maybe it’s as he obsessively counts the shards, cobbling them together like a macabre jigsaw.
Maybe it’s as the countless attempts to heal her back to life with spit leave him with only inert rock and a dry mouth.
He’s cold.
He’s so cold from the inside-out, there’s a nauseating numbness radiating from his core as the realization of what he has done washes over him like ice-water.
Jasper was someone he feared from the moment they met. She hurt his family. She hurt him. She kept hurting people every chance she had. Even as he grew and she hid herself in a dark, lonely cave, any pity he felt for her was always tempered by that acrid fear.
And now she’s dead.
Was she afraid in those last moments? When she knew she trapped? When she saw the sharp-tipped spikes aimed directly at her gem?
He vomits, at some point. A foul bile spilling out onto his shoes. The acidic smell snaps him out of his spiraling thoughts just long enough to move, climbing out of the crater cradling Jasper’s remains.
He doesn’t remember walking back to the temple. Did he run all the way out of the forest? Slow down reality and super-speed his way home? That might explain why he can’t seem to breathe properly.
His panic has shifted from a mindless buzz to a thread of an idea and clings onto it with keen desperation.
There’s enough diamond essence in the bathroom, he’s sure, he’ll use all of it if he has to. He’ll bleed himself dry into the bathtub if that will fix this. He has brought back a human from death, surely a gem shouldn’t be too much harder.
But Lars wasn’t shattered.
The word -even thinking the word- makes him pause right at the foot of the stairs.
It was always such a big word, spoken with fear. Shattering was the ultimate boundary, a definitive evil.
A line that even Rose Quartz for all her other sins, would not cross.
When he thinks that, Steven wants to laugh. He wants to scream. He wants to throw up again.
He doesn’t do any of that. Instead he thinks about how in the world he is going to sneak Jasper’s body past Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl. The lights are on and he can hear their voices raised in worry.
Now, they’re worried. A ripple of bitterness flows through him before he refocuses.
He’ll just run past. They probably won’t follow him into the bathroom.
Probably.
He’ll stuff a towel under the door, so Amethyst doesn’t try sidle under.
He’ll dump Blue, Yellow and White’s essence into the bath and add his own.
And then Jasper will be okay.
She has to be okay.
He refuses to consider any other possibility. She can’t not be okay.
He can’t be her murderer.
He just can’t.
If it doesn’t work-
Steven tries to shut off his brain, tries to just put one foot in front of the other as he runs up the stairs and shoves the hand holding Jasper’s shattered gem into his pocket.
It has to work. She has to live again.
The house’s lights are piercingly bright and the gems’ voices are loud with surprise. He barrels past them, focused on the door to the bathroom.
Focused only on healing, on fixing this.
He is good at fixing things, isn’t he?
He has to be, it’s all he has.
Jasper said he was strong, he was powerful and he was to be feared.
Standing at his sink and not daring to look at his reflection, there are only two options.
He either fixes Jasper-
Or he proves her right.