Chapter Text
Steven ran as fast as any human could conceivably run. The howling wind seemed to carry the deluge straight against Steven’s body as he pushed forward to the only place he could take… take…
Jasper. The blood roaring in his ears sped up as he thought her name to himself. Jasper, the war-hardened combatant who cracked open his skull and tried to drag him to a foreign planet in a cage. The ex-soldier who, after spending months trapped at the bottom of the ocean in an abusive fusion, tried to hurt his three living maternal figures again. The vagrant who stubbornly refused any help that he offered her.
Steven slipped as his shoe caught on a gnarled branch, and as he fell face down into a ditch his hand unfurled to let the corpse of his mentor splay out in front of him. He cringed in shock and briefly considered lying in the mud forever. But the moment passed, and Steven moved to pick up the pieces.
A small part of Steven’s mind couldn’t help but find a bitter hint of irony in this situation. Years of searching for his identity, of trying desperately to disentangle himself his mother, until he finally discovered that he was entirely himself. And all it took was for half his soul to be ripped out of his body. Rose Quartz, a nurturing soul who fought for freedom and adored all walks of life. Pink Diamond, the progeny of a dictatorship who threw away her family to escape to her doomed colony. Both of them his mother, who would leave the weight of such a legacy on an infant. Once Steven’s identity was wrestled free of his mother’s countless lies, he could finally discover his own person. But what did that make him?
A murderer. Someone who kills one of the only people they have left because of a power trip. Steven felt a few hot tears slip down his face. He picked up the largest fragment. Even mom wouldn’t have shattered someone who was only trying to help her.
Hands shaking uncontrollably, Steven pushed through the mud to find the remaining fragments of Jasper. He made sure that he had all the pieces by fitting them together. Steven forced himself to ignore the fact that the gem had lost the faint internal light that all gems possessed. (Simply put, it looked dead.) Shoving the shards into his pocket, he hoisted himself up and continued to run.
As Steven approached the temple, the pit in his stomach somehow sank lower. What would the gems say? He knew how Garnet would react. Ruby and Sapphire hated Blue Diamond for being a shatterer, refusing to trust her for many months after the diamonds claimed to be Steven’s allies. Pearl was scarred out of shapeshifting for several millennia after pretending to shatter his mom. And Amethyst… well, she could distinguish right from wrong. No gem in their right mind wouldn’t be afraid of what him for what he did. Steven’s thoughts turned to Bismuth as he ran up the steps.
“Then you really are better than her,” Bismuth croaked. His hands clenched around Jasper’s gem with the same force that he used to keep his sword steady through Bismuth’s chest. And it stung more now that he knew her better. I’ve always told myself that I would’ve died if I hadn’t pushed back. But Bismuth’s a good person. She was always looking out for us. If 14-year old me could do something like that to someone like her, then maybe I’ve always been this fucked up.
A bolt of lightning ripped apart the sky and jolted Steven back to reality as he flung open the door. Just as he’d feared, Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were gathered in the living room. He tried to steady his breath as he kept his eyes pointed squarely ahead, heart beating faster as he ran. The three jolted up at his reappearance. Pearl and Amethyst shouted after him as he slid into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.
He twisted the dials over his bathtub as far as they could go. Please let this work. Steven reached to the mirror above his sink, grateful that the bathroom was too dark for him to clearly make out his reflection. Please work. He threw the cupboard open. Three bottles—gifts from the only family I might have left—were snatched off their pedestal and haphazardly dumped into the bathtub. Please work.
Steven didn’t bother trying to slow his breath again. Hyperventilating, he withdrew the shards from his pocket and braced himself to look at Jasper’s remains once more. Her gem’s brilliant orange glimmer was replaced by a matte off-yellow. Please work. Steven steadied his hand and put Jasper back together once more, and after clenching his hand to keep the fragments steady he submerged her.
Just one more traumatic event. I can deal with this, Jasper will come back and everything will be okay, just one more chance and I can apologize and fix everything again, so please, PLEASE, Jasper…
He didn’t realize that he was muttering to himself as he cried into the bathtub. The pink essence from his tears swirled into the white, blue, and yellow trails as the colors dissociated and diffused into each other. Steven slightly relaxed his grip and felt the water flow through his fingers—through Jasper—and waited with bated breath. Please work. The mantra in his head repeated incessantly. Please work.
But nothing happened. The familiar glow of a gem healing or regenerating its form was absent. Steven steeled himself and slowly opened his palm, hoping above all hope that Jasper would be intact, that she was just confused and wasn’t ready to come back after suffering such severe physical trauma by his hand. Instead, he watched Jasper’s dull fragments fall apart in the water and slowly drift to the surface.
Oh my God. I actually killed someone. Steven stumbled backwards and the blood rushed back into his face. I’m actually a murderer. Jasper’s gone and she’s not coming back. Time slowed and all the air he gulped down didn’t seem to be enough. I’ll never get to talk to her again or see her smile or drop by and see if everything’s alright. The banging and shouting from outside fuzzed out into static as his vision blurred with both tears and anxiety.
Steven was so consumed in his panic that he doesn’t notice that Amethyst’s shapeshifted arm had slithered under the door and reached up to turn the handle. Light flooded into the bathroom and the three Crystal Gems rushed to him.
“Steven!” Pearl cried out on the verge of tears as she gripped his arm. “We were so worried about you. Where have you been?”
“You can’t just disappear like that, especially with how you’ve been acting lately,” Garnet said, dropping her visor and crouching to Steven’s level. “I’m sorry for pushing you earlier. I didn’t realize how much you were hurting.”
“Garnet’s right,” Pearl continued. “We’re sorry, Steven. It’s just that you haven’t been talking to as much recently and we were worried for your safety.” She buried her head into his sleeve.
When Steven jerked his head up to meet Garnet’s eyes, she suddenly realized that something was very wrong. She couldn’t tell if there was too much or too little in Steven’s eyes, and she noticed that the four of them were crouching in a puddle of water, and that the puddle of water gleamed iridescent colors as it overflowed from the bathtub, and that Amethyst hadn’t said a word. Garnet ran through a thousand possible futures, none of which lead to this moment in the bathroom.
“What is… who is… is that…” Amethyst tried to say. Her eyes snapped to Steven who, after looking toward Amethyst after she started to speak, could only respond by averting his gaze once more.
Amethyst gingerly reached forward—she refused to believe what she saw unless she could feel it—and stroked her hand through the water. Her hand lifted something unnaturally splintered and jagged. She leaned forward and, upon closer inspection, gasped and immediately dropped the fragment of her dead sister back into the water. She looked to Steven again for answers.
“What is that?” Garnet demanded. She had to know what was going on so she could help Steven.
“J-jasper,” Amethyst finally choked out. “It’s Jasper! Someone killed Jasper!”
Pearl lifted her head from Steven’s shoulder after hearing Amethyst. “Jasper was shattered?” She grew even more concerned about Steven. Someone so young shouldn’t have to witness something so horrid. “Oh. My. Stars. How could something like this happen?”
“Steven. You have to tell us what happened. Who did this? Where are they?” Garnet said urgently, ignoring her better judgement to just leave Steven alone.
“C’mon Steven, we just want to help you!” Amethyst said with a ring of desperation in her voice. She swallowed her fear. “Whoever… whatever did this… they’re going to pay!”
Steven couldn’t take it anymore. He was being ripped apart by the fear of being hated by the three he loved so dearly and the fear of destroying them as he destroyed Jasper by trying to push them away. Hands were tugging him from all directions, three different shouts melding together to drill his immense guilt deeper into his being. He just couldn’t do it anymore, and as he dropped to the floor his body responded the only way he knew how.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGHH!” Steven screamed all too hoarsely.
The three gems flinched as Steven screamed. But it wasn’t a diamond scream interlaced with destructive power. It was a human scream. The kind of scream that almost sounded like a whine, that communicated the kind of raw, visceral pain that someone experiences as a part of their spirit is slowly crushed to death. Steven legs trembled as he tried to escape only for him to stay in place.
“I DID IT! I KILLED JASPER!” Steven said between panicked gasps of air. “I DID IT BECAUSE I’M A HORRIBLE PERSON AND IT’S ALL MY FAULT THAT SHE’S DEAD!”
“Y-you—” Pearl started. Several strangled noises escaped her throat as she tried to process what he just said. If gems needed to breathe, Pearl would have passed out by now.
Garnet was completely frozen. Ruby and Sapphire didn’t want to weather this alone but also couldn’t handle being together. They couldn’t have heard correctly. This couldn’t be real.
Amethyst shook off Steven’s words and jumped forward to embrace him. “I don’t care what happened, man! We just need to relax. It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay,” Amethyst started to repeat.
But Steven lurched upright and shoved Amethyst away, both instinctively in self-defense and in disgust at himself for daring to deserve such kindness. A new disturbing thought popped into Steven’s head. He had come close to murdering his own father just three days before when the same kind of anger that he felt at Jasper clouded his mind and made him lose control of the van. If he had the capacity to kill his father, how would the gems be safe? A meager burst of energy found its way into his legs as he quickly dragged himself upright and started toward the exit.
“N-no…” Steven said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Stay away from me…”
This seemed to bring Pearl out of her stupor. She refused to understand what was happening but she knew that she would not let him out of her sight again. She lunged forward and grabbed Steven, crying out to him in a plea for him to stay.
“Steven! You can’t just leave us like that again,” Pearl said. “I have no idea what’s going on but we have to stick together. Everyone wants to help you. Aren’t we your family?”
Family. Steven thought to himself as lied on the floor, once again too weak to move. His quick breaths and subsequent lack of oxygen were taking a toll on his body. Someone like me would really kill their family. I guess I really am worse than my mom. And he was out like a light.