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Jasper hunched in the passenger seat as Steven drove them to their next wrestling match, her knees tucked to her chest as she scowled out the windshield. The car was silent save for the hum of the road flying underneath them.
Steven tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, head bobbing to an unheard tune, trying to ignore the palpable silence between them. His eyes flicked between Jasper and the road. The landscape passed in a green and brown blur and the road stretched on, empty, leaving the two of them alone with their thoughts.
At length Steven fished his phone from his pocket and unlocked it without looking. He poked Jasper in the shoulder with it.
“Hm?”
“Take this and open up myTunes. Put some music on.”
She squinted at the phone and spat out a stray hair that found its way into her mouth, fingers hovering over the screen. “It’s not doing anything.”
“You gotta touch the screen. It’s not holographic.”
She thumbed through his apps before finding the one he requested, then scrolled through his library. He fiddled with the ridges of the wheel and tried to make conversation. “Same thing happened when I got back from Homeworld. It’s hard to readjust to human technology.”
She just grunted in response. Steven fell silent as she finally settled on a song, the sounds of a violently plucked guitar filling the cabin. He flinched when the drums kicked in. A man’s hoarse voice soon joined them, crooning a dark, sad tune.
“I keep swinging my head through a swarm of bees ‘cause I… I want honey on my table…”
Steven recognized the song as the line repeated, but it’d been so long that he couldn’t place what came next. He tried to hum along as best he could, adding his own melodic voice to the throaty growl.
“But I never… get it right. No I never… get it right!”
He jerked the wheel when the singer roared the next few lines, enough to jostle the two of them but not enough to pose any danger. Steven settled back in his seat as Jasper snorted, propping her elbow on the window and grinning into her fist.
“I KEEP SWINGING MY HEAD THROUGH A SWARM OF BEES, CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY THEY’RE STINGING ME. AND I DO WHAT I WANT, DO WHAT I PLEASE, DO IT AGAIN ‘TILL I GOT WHAT I NEED.”
Steven frowned. “…What playlist is this from?”
“The one you named ‘Mom’.”
“RIP AND SMASH THROUGH THE HORNET’S NEST, CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND I DESERVE THE BEST? SO I DO WHAT I WANT, DO WHAT I PL-”
“Jasper, please turn that off.”
For once she didn’t argue, though he saw her leer out of the corner of his eye. He winced and settled in for an unpleasant drive, his stomach already turning on itself and making him squirm in his seat.
He couldn’t do this right now. They had been at each other’s throats all day, from her complaints booking the hotel room to arguing over what to pack. He had finally convinced her not to bring training boulders after an hour-long debate and threats of flattening his car with him in it. Then he turned pink and started yelling, and it was all a blur and he felt nauseous and jittery and angry-
The forest outside gave way to winter grass, brown and dead as a very distinctive electric guitar picked up.
“She’s got a smile it seems to me… Reminds me of childhood, memories.”
“Jasper, c’mon,” he pleaded. “Pick a different playlist.”
“Nah. I want to know why this one is in ‘Mom’.”
“Where everything was fresh as the bright blue sky-aih!”
“Jasper, seriously. Knock it off.”
“Oooh, oh, oh sweet child o’ mine. Woah, oh, oh sweet love of mine.”
Steven hissed through clenched teeth, a pink flush spreading from his cheeks to his fingertips. “Turn it off.”
Jasper smirked and tapped something else.
“If I could, begin to be… half of what you think of me-“
“Pick. A different. Playlist.”
Jasper postured as best she could in the cramped space, crossing her arms and holding the phone near the window as soft piano filtered through, not that he would’ve reached across her to grab it anyway.
“You’re never going to toughen up if you let stuff like this get to you.”
Steven felt the heat building at the corners of his eyes and he bit the inside of his lip hard enough to bleed, or would’ve, if he were fully human.
“Ugh, gross. Are you crying?” She leaned forward, craning her neck so she could see his face. He tried to turn away as best he could while keeping his eyes on the road.
“Need someone to hold you?”
“No!” he said, voice cracking at the end.
Jasper punched his shoulder as he sniffled, scrubbing at his face with his left sleeve. He winced, willing the tears away, knowing she’d just use this to needle at him until he was so full of holes that he fell apart.
“Guess we still got some more of that wimp to beat out of you. You know, if you had’ve just let me bring the-“
“Why are you such a horrible person?”
Steven whiteknuckled the steering wheel in the resulting silence, his body glowing pink but his vehicle unharmed. The singer cried out in the awkward quiet, their soft voice now strained with emotion. “I’ve always thought, I might be bad, now I’m sure that it’s true-“
Jasper shut the music off and stared at him, jaw slack. He wanted to hide away from her piercing stare, but instead he took her silence as an opportunity to continue, unconsciously speeding up on the lonely road as his frenetic feelings came to light.
“I really thought we could be friends, Jasper. I, I wanted to spend more time with you. I was so happy the first time we fused. I thought that, heh, maybe we were making some headway! Maybe, maybe I wouldn’t have to be scared of you all the time, because maybe if we were friends I wouldn’t have to worry about you trying to kill me or my family anymore.”
He took a breath and shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye, not bothering to wipe away the tears cutting tracks down his face. “Isn’t that a pretty messed up reason to try and make friends with someone? So I’ll stop having nightmares about you hurting me?!” Steven’s voice steadily rose in pitch and volume as he babbled.
“I haven’t done that since-”
“Shut up.”
She did. Steven returned his gaze to the road and loosened his hold on the wheel just long enough to shift into a higher gear. He returned his hand the depression he had squeezed into it.
“And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I was trying to make friends with you for some ulterior motive. I’m sorry I can’t get over you beating me unconscious and poofing Garnet and making that, that nightmare fusion Malachite. I’m sorry I see your face when I fall asleep. I’m sorry that every time I try to fight back against you, I watch you corrupt and die while you scream about my mom killing your diamond.”
He took a shuddering breath. When he spoke again, his voice took on a hollow quality.
“You know sometimes I dream that we’re Malachite instead of Selenite? I dream about corrupting while we’re like that. That we’re stuck together, forever, and nobody will help us because I should’ve known better than to fuse with you. You want to hurt them for it and but I won’t let you, so instead we just go in the ocean and drown forever, but we can’t drown because we’re gems.”
Jasper shuddered and edged away from him, jostled as he took turns entirely too fast. Emotion crept back into his voice.
“But, I still wanted to spend time with you even after all of that. Because I think you can really do something with your life.”
“Steven-“
Steven choked out a sob and slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “You were right. I do need help… I know I messed up by treating you like you needed me when I don’t have my own shit together. I’m sorry, I really am, but why are you so… mean? What is wrong with you?!”
His shoulders shook. “I’m not doing well, Jasper. I am so afraid all the time. What you said about needing my friends, how I’m nothing without them? You were right! You were right, Jasper, and everyone’s been leaving me for bigger and better things. I want to be happy for them but I can’t, because I’m so scared that I won’t have anything left.”
He sucked in a breath and rested his head against his seat. “And I figured that you knew what that was like. You said it yourself, you’re a soldier without a war, nobody to serve. I want to be kind to you. I want to understand you. I’ve always wanted to understand you and I hoped that, I don’t know, we could work through this together?”
He turned to stare at her with bright pink eyes, his face truly raw and vulnerable for the first time she’d ever seen. “So why do you keep hurting me?”
Jasper had backed herself into the corner as best she could. Her eyes flicked between his and the windshield. “I…”
“WHY?!”
“Steven, the road!”
He turned his shoulder to her and slammed the brakes. The stench of burning rubber suffocated them as the Dondai screeched to a halt, the engine stalling at the end and sending a shudder through the entire vehicle. They sat in the resulting silence, Steven hunched over the wheel and breathing hard.
“Get out,” he whispered when she refused to answer.
“What?”
“GET! OUT!”
Jasper met his gaze for a split second before she complied, dropping his phone on the floorboards in her haste. Steven was already restarting the car and shifting into first gear as she shut the door. The Dondai tore off down the road, the engine revving louder as he sped away towards the hotel.
Steven looked in the mirror just once before Jasper disappeared over the horizon.
Steven arrived at the hotel an hour later and parked a good distance away from the entrance. He was young and strong, after all. There were people not so fortunate that needed the closer spots.
Once parked, Steven wiped the mess from his face and gave himself a once-over in the mirror. Satisfied that he looked tired instead of on the tail end of a meltdown, he strolled into the lobby with a leaden step and a false smile. He stepped up to the front desk where a very pretty, thin lady tapped on a computer.
“Um, hi. I’m checking in for Steven Universe? I called ahead…”
“Sure thing. One second.” The lady turned in her office chair and pulled a file out of the cabinet behind her. “Can I get some ID?”
“Oh, uh, sure.”
Steven pulled his wallet out and gave her his driver’s license. He had no idea how his father managed that without having a birth certificate or any other documents. She took it and checked it against the file, smiling.
“Oh, are you the wrestler for the show tomorrow? You seem kinda young.”
He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah… my partner and I got separated. She should be here later but she, uh, she left her wallet at home. Can she still get a keycard?”
“Our policy is that all reservations must show ID.”
“But the room is in my name, right? What if I say it’s ok? I promise she’s impossible to mistake for anyone else. She’s eight feet tall and orange.”
The receptionist raised an eyebrow. Too drained to keep up the cheerful pretense, Steven let his smile fall and his shoulders sag. Maybe this stranger would take pity on him, just this once. He let the years of exhaustion creep into his voice as he begged. “Please.”
The lady glanced around, then sighed. She nodded and handed him his keycard. “Ok. Your room is on the second floor on the left. I’ll make sure your roommate is taken care of.”
“Thank you,” he whispered, then scurried off to get their things. If she noticed his eyes were puffy, she didn’t comment.
Steven tore his shirt off and headed for the restroom as soon as he got in the door, his pajamas tucked under his arm. He set up his things in the bathroom and sighed as he kicked his jeans off, grateful to be free after several nights sleeping in them. Once bare, Steven turned the heat up high, slipped inside and let the scalding water run over his shoulders. He pressed his head against the wall and let it flow over him, filling the ache in his chest with a different kind of pain.
He focused on the water, willing himself not to think about this horrible day any longer, wishing the memories would flow away just like the sweat and grime disappearing down the drain.
He wondered where it all went as he lathered himself. Did his filth go on to poison ecosystems? Did his baggage spill over onto everyone else even when he showered?
Steven dragged himself out and toweled off, squeezing as much water from his hair as he could. He looked around helplessly for a place to put the used towels, eventually sighing and settling for tossing them on the floor. He slipped on his pajamas as he got ready for bed, groaning as the soft fabric soothed his skin.
He flopped into bed once decent, grateful for a proper place to rest instead of a car seat or a bare rock. He gave himself a moment to drink in the smell of the oddly sterile hotel linens. Quiet buzzing filled his head and he settled into a rhythm of deep breaths, letting his mind go blank as he focused on the pulse of his blood.
Once his jitters finally died down, Steven shimmied to the edge of the bed and pulled his phone and charger from his bag.
He winced and closed myTunes. Steven shook his head to clear the pink stain on his skin and flipped through his notifications – a new comment on one of his TubeTube videos, several emails from newsletters he was too polite to ask to be taken off the mailing list. Mundane things, human things. He curled around his phone with his back to the door and tried not to think of Jasper.
His eyes shot open when she let herself in.
His phone read 2:00am and the frantic buzz of another presence filled his head, knowing she stood in the doorway. He saw the shadow she cast from the hallway light just before he squeezed his eyes shut. How long had she been walking? Was she angry? When did he fall asleep? How did he just sleep while he left her out there to walk? And why was she just standing by the door?
Steven bit back a shriek when he heard her sigh far closer than expected. The carpet muffled her footsteps as she shifted, getting closer and closer to him. His heart thudded in his chest as she finally came to a stop and then just stood there, breathing softly. He risked cracking an eye and saw the shadow of her hand over his head.
A dozen scenarios ran through his mind and he couldn’t stop the pink flush from overtaking his body. He was too strong now for her to realistically kill him, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying. He saw her hand coming down on his neck and yanking him from the bed, throwing him through the wall. Her fist slamming down on the side of his head, knocking him unconscious and leaving him at her mercy. His arm bent past the breaking point as she wrenched him around and shoved his face into the pillows until he snapped and ran or turned and hit her back.
Too scared to move, he laid there as she patted his shoulder twice.
“I’m sorry.”
Steven’s thoughts ground to a halt, replaying the last few seconds. Jasper, much louder now, stepped away from his bed and closed the bathroom door behind her. Steven didn’t dare to breathe until he heard the water start.