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Connie spends the afternoon hidden away from her parents, holing herself away on the topmost floor of a cliff-side beach house.
She'd already emptied the remaining half of a gallon of ice cream; it now lies on the floor, the cardboard carton creating a small puddle of water on the carpet. Her book bag has been left against the bed’s leg; she’s currently surrounded by a thick science textbook, a workbook, several loose-leaf notebook pages, and is writing in a college-ruled notebook while laying across the calves of her friend. She grinds an uncapped highlighter between her teeth, twirls and repeatedly clicks a mechanical pencil with her thumb, swinging her feet in the air as her eyebrows draw together in growing concentration. Her motions bounce the bed and causes her friend to hit himself in the face as his hand was en route to his mouth with food.
Steven closes his eyes for a moment, blinks in unexpected shock, and asks, “Do you need help?”
Connie shushes him. “I almost got the answer,” she chastises around the highlighter, quickly scribbling notes and equations before it escapes her mind.
Steven wipes off the hummus between his eyebrows from the carrot hitting his forehead; sucks the hummus from his finger.
From what the duo can presume, the rest of the house is heavily preoccupied—that morning he had been instructed to go to his room and remain there until he’s called to come downstairs. Connie joined after, initially arriving after school to keep him company, figured that providing a welcomed distraction by good company is a good way to multitask while completing homework. However, after a conversation that resulted in a dare and then a need to prove him false, Connie has been spending the last sixty-two minutes organizing a collection of notes with citations and textbook pages to prove her point. Driven by her surging pride, she'd be damned if she would be proven wrong—even over a seemingly small proven and known fact. Her other motivation is her own curiosity to have the distinct details in the forefront of her mind instead of blanketing, generic knowledge.
“Platypus weren’t real. They don’t make any sense; they’re just another skeleton fossil that got mixed up,” is his argument and which he repeats for the umpteenth time, amazingly confident in himself compared to the last two years. She assumes that helping create Little Homeschool has been paying off in more ways. “You can’t prove me wrong,” he adds in a teasing singsong, flying another baby carrot into his mouth.
His stubbornness makes Connie grunt. “Oh, shut it.” She highlights a sentence in a paragraph within her biology textbook. “Evolution isn’t as simple as you may think. There’s the whole thing with genus and phylum and class…”
“All I’m saying is that it is impossible that there ever was a furry duck with a beaver’s tail that lived completely in the water. The same as with those dwarf needle-nosed birds—”
“Kiwi birds?” Connie raises an eyebrow.
“Yeah, sure. There’s no way those evolved from the same thing as normal birds. Just like those deers with fangs.”
“You say the same thing about the shovel-tusked mammoths but don’t bat an eye about dodo birds?”
“Dodo birds were real!” He defends, almost offended.
“Whatever. I’m about to prove you wrong, you dodo.” Connie smacks his waist, it being in arm’s reach, and she grins in good nature as he exaggeratedly recoils a bit, eyeing her.
She finishes writing the last few sentences in her notes, folds it neatly around its coiled wire spine, and hands it to him. As she waits for him to finish reading, Connie sits up at the bed's edge to stretch and then changes her position on the mattress to lay her head just below the crook of his arm.
Steven reads to where it's required to see some of her citations to pictures and asks for her textbook in order to search. Connie finds amusement watching his eyebrows draw together and his mouth part in that familiar yet amusing notion that he’s both discovering something new and being proven wrong.
She giggles aloud and Steven pouts.
She turns her attention to eavesdropping on the commotion she can faintly hear from downstairs: the voices of Amethyst and Greg are heard amongst clanging pots and pans. Amidst it, she hears Pearl’s hissed scolding as something was created imperfectly. By her guess, Connie assumes they are baking and preparing for Steven’s small birthday gathering.
From above Connie and still lying on the bed, her friend grunts. Looking up at his face, she sees that he’s growing nervous by the information.
“You ready to admit I’m right?” Connie smirks, smugly.
His response is a grumble and turns a page in her textbook to read a section.
“Take your time,” she teases further.
From downstairs, the refrigerator opens and closes by a heavy hand. She hears the faint sound of Ruby’s voice before it’s replaced as Garnet’s, and then the front door open and close at someone’s—Garnet’s—departure.
Beside her head, Steven’s heart beats loudly and uncertain; Connie’s right hand rests on his diaphragm. Instead of teasing him about his pulse giving him away, her attention drifts to the sliver of pink sparkling in the light from beneath his black t-shirt. With the familiarity of many years, her thumb gingerly lifts the hem of Steven’s shirt to reveal his pink gemstone.
He doesn’t falter from reading, completely unbothered.
Connie's fingertips trace the three healed scar lines trailing eight inches down to his gem-naval—the long scars caused by White Diamond’s gigantic, talon fingernails. The scars' skin is discolored, a tone that’s a shade darker than his natural and the edges of the scars are slightly wrinkled from the stretched, healed skin.
“Does it still hurt?” Her voice breaks the silence and by consequence, his concentration.
“Hm?”
Connie’s fingerpads press into the scars on his stomach.
“Oh.” He glances down at his gem, briefly at her, before turning back to her notes with a concentrated frown. “No. It hasn’t for years.”
“I know, but still…” It’s her turn to frown but this time it is out of a mixture of emotions—remembrance, helplessness, guilt, unaddressed anger in that moment of danger on Homeworld.
Steven looks away from her notes again, this time for good, reading her face. His spare hand finds hers, still tracing his scars and squeezes in comfort. Not a word is spoken but it’s known what he means to say: “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have done anything then. Don’t carry the responsibility on yourself.”
Connie wants to scoff at the irony, of his hypocrisy.
Or, as Steven has famously spoken over the years, his hand squeeze seems to say “Don’t worry about it.” With words, he’ll say it with nonchalance or a forced smile or like his scream those years ago hadn’t haunted her night and day for three weeks straight.
But today isn’t the day to discuss that, Connie decides, and holds her tongue. She instead gives his hand a brief returning squeeze.
Steven releases her hand to return flipping through her textbook to find the next cited illustration and diagram.
From downstairs, Connie hears Greg call out for something—for help, in defense of Amethyst’s teasing again, Connie isn’t able to decipher specifics. Steven huffs again, clearly engrossed in his reading as he flips to the second page of notes.
Connie uses his distraction to her advantage. And, glancing up at him, she stealthily places a testing finger on the gemstone again. It’s slightly cool to the touch and at room temperature. She’d forgotten the feel of the solid stone underhand, how alien it felt beside warm human skin.
Changing position, Connie sits up to rest her elbow on his stomach and cradling a cheek in a hand.
Behind her, Steven flips through her textbook and sounds out a scientific title under his breath.
Using two fingers now, she traces the circumference of his gem, marveling at where his skin begins to toughen and callus, and to its edge where the human tissue transforms to hard, glistening rock. To this day, she still marvels at it, the contrasts textures feeling very bizarre under hand.
In the few times she has done this as children, Steven would wiggle and convulse, roaring in laughter from the sensitivity. However, for this time, there is no such reaction. It could be due to his intense concentration or it was something he had grown out of, Connie thinks. Either way, she doesn't dare ask, in fear of breaking his concentration.
There is a grunt, a shuffle in his position as Connie’s index and middle finger encircles the edges of his gemstone. Once noticing its temperature warming, she flattens her palm on its surface, feeling each facet and the steadily rising heat from beneath. This does earn a small jolt, a faint gasp as his body bolts at attention.
“Hey, Steven?” She calls, still laying across his bed with a propped elbow. “How does this feel?”
He hesitates, squirming. “Um…”
“Does this still tickle?” Nails drag around the edge of his skin, the pads touching pink stone, nails against callused, sensitive skin.
He doesn’t answer.
Her nails clink against the gem’s surface. He flinches.
“Sorry.” She pulls her hand away. “Did that hurt?”
“Not,” he thinks, glancing off to the side, towards his bedroom door. “Not really.”
“‘Not really’ it hurts a little, or, ‘not really’ it doesn’t hurt at all?” Her hand slides back to the bed.
Steven thinks, his lips becoming a straight line and he squirms again. “‘Not really’ it doesn’t hurt...”
“Okay, that’s good. I got a little worried since you weren't laughing.” She turns back, inspecting the intricate way his skin transforms. “Seeing this is always so…”
“But—”
Connie looks over her shoulder. “But what?”
“It is actually…it feels slightly, uh, ticklish. Still.” He begins to blush as his gemstone warms more and gives off a soft glow. “It doesn’t feel as ticklish as, like, those years ago. But it does feel,” he pauses, searching for the right word. “Weird. Comforting.”
“Comforting?”
“Like—”
He tries to think of an appropriate comparison. His thought process is ruined as a crash sounds from downstairs. In reflex, Steven bolts in a sitting position, notes and Connie forgotten, readying to fly from his bed to the stair's railing. What stops him is Connie forcing her weight against him by her hand to his chest. His gem is no longer glowing or warm, returning to cold stone.
“You're supposed to relax today, remember?” she grins. “Besides, weren't you told to stay in your room until Pearl called you?”
Greg's voice rises to his bedroom—and judging by his tone, he is growing irritated and frantic. Steven sniffs and catches a whiff of something baking in the oven.
He relaxes back onto his elbows.
“They can survive a whole day without Ambassador Universe aiding them,” she grins still.
It takes a few moments but he eventually listens, relaxing to lie flat on his back across his comforter. “I suppose you're right.” He reaches for her textbook again.
“I know,” she jokes, her grin widening at his complimentary chuckle.
In the recent years but specifically after returning from space camp, Connie's self-confidence has risen tremendously—and it is beginning to show.
Connie isn't certain how long they lied in silence together—or how long she was lost in her head, fighting to not drift off to sleep—until her sight drifts to his gem-naval and she asks, still intrigued. “Do you want me to keep going?”
Steven doesn’t answer but this time she does notice a faint glow beginning from within his core as if in response.
“This book is a bunch of lies,” he replies instead. “There's no way orca whales are in any way related to wolves.”
Connie laughs and corrects him: “A very distant ancestor.”
“Lies,” Steven denies, chuckling. He isn't entirely serious.
Running on childhood familiarity and years’ worth of comfort, Connie continues her observation of his gem. Lightly scratches a thumb's nail on the hardened skin of the millimeters surrounding Steven's core, it starting to softly glow again. Her free hand searches for her own belly button from above her shirt. She counts the crown faucets of his gemstone and doesn't pay attention to notice the reddening of his ears that is spreading to his neck.
Connie’s palm presses flat against the heating surface of his gemstone and Steven shutters violently. Its glow brightens and it is warming.
“It’s like a pleasurable massage. Slightly ticklish but kind of not,” he says when Connie requests an clarification. “It’s, like, calming.”
“So do you want me to keep going?” With her palm still against its crown, she outstretches her fingers to drag her nails down the soft then callused skin to his core, his gem.
Steven shivers again. Mumbles, “Oh, wow!” Then nods.
White lines are left after her nails. “I think you need to wear more lotion.”
Not thinking his mumble is anything other than from him reading, Connie continues on. She kicks her legs in the air as the pads of her hands flutters against the scars left by White Diamond, massage into the short, faint stretch marks on his side and peeking out from beneath the hem of his shirt. She tugs the shirt back down, covering the scars and stretch marks again. The back of her hand brushes against his gem and it is now sharing his skin's temperature.
Fingers circle atop the gemstone, her thumb into star facets at its center and Steven’s breathing slows and deepens. She taps her nails, half on his gem and half on his skin, as she scrolls through her cellphone. When he sniffles a snicker, she thinks nothing of it. As his blush reaches his neck, she finally glances up and chuckles and reminds him to “Breathe. If you keep holding in your laughs, you’ll get the hiccups again.”
Turning back to her phone, Connie asks about the other Gems. “Hey, have you... Is it—do the gems of the other...Crystal Gems change temperature? Or is this something that's unique to you?” The hand cradling her cheeks balls into a fist. “I always wanted to ask.”
Steven is tense beneath her, like he is trying to hold in his breath and his words. “I, uh, I dunno.” He exhales a gust of air. “Never asked. It's not something I really thought—no one really touches each other's gems, or, like, long enough to—besides Garnet's, because, you know, her hands.” He inhales sharply as the pads of her fingers draw slow, small circles across his core. “Uh, Connie?” His body begins to quiver.
“Yeah?” She isn't looking away from searching the internet on her cellphone.
Behind her, Steven has dropped the textbook to lay across his face, it still opened.
Her circles increase in speed and Steven's stomach muscles tighten, his abdomen giving a slight jerk. “C-Connie?”
His gem doesn't glow a blinding light but it does get noticeably brighter. It heats to be above his outer body temperature.
She doesn’t know how much time passes until she looks up from her phone—probably because she’s ready to complete the rest of her homework, probably because she wonders what is taking him so long to read two pages of notes, or because of his alarming silence save for the occasional full-body shake.
From downstairs, Amethyst hollers a question: if Steven still likes strawberries.
He calls back his answer. His voice noticeably shakes.
But when Connie does finally look up from her phone’s screen, Steven is no longer reading from her notes—her textbook has slid from his face to reveal that he’s spaced out, wearing a weak grin with his bottom lip between his teeth and a woozy, glazed-over stare at the ceiling.
He wets his lips and starts to holler back something about whipped cream and vanilla extract, at the same time Connie speaks, only for him.
“Earth to Steven!” She stops her lazy motions and it snaps him back to the present, turning to her, and he coughs out a few giggles. “Where’d you go?”
“I was just,” he pauses, hesitates, his blush diminishing. Then he spits out, “Daydreaming.” It's a lie, partially. “I was really distracted. I didn’t mean to—”
She finds his reactions amusing.
He tries to explain, now all too aware of the absence of her touch. “It felt like...like...” His blush returning to its intensity. He gestures in the air wildly, not creating any particular picture.
But Connie’s hand drifts a little too low by accident as she sits up fully, drifting too close to the top hem of his jeans and she thinks about his intense blush and the engrossed, concentrated expression he wore, and she indirectly connects them with an imagined implication, and then she yanks away and she’s angry.
“Those metal head-massage thing,” he wants to say but Connie beats him to having the floor, and he never really says it aloud.
“It felt like—like—like that? Ugh!” she yells, disgusted, in disbelief. “You—are you—were you serious? What the hell—!” She’s enraged.
It takes a moment for Steven to get on the same mental track and understand, and when he does, three seconds later, he’s just as taken off guard.
“What? No!” He sits up from the mattress. “That isn’t what it was like! It doesn’t even feel exactly the same!” He hears what he had just said and he's mortified. Yanking his shirt down, he feeling emotionally violated and is blushing for an entirely different reason.
Connie still doesn’t appear convinced and has scooted to the edge of the bed, far from him.
“Then what the hell was with that face?”
“My face?”
She glares, believing he's metaphorically pulling her leg again.
“I was thinking—thinking about—!” He is too flustered to form words so he scrambles for his phone. Opens a text message. He’d received a picture from Peedee of a dish that, according to the caption, was purchased by Garnet. “It did feel good—what I was mainly focused on. It did feel nice—like a really good distracting massage. Like a massage behind your knee. But I was also thinking about this.”
He leans across the short distance to hand his phone to Connie and watches with relief as she visibly calms. His pulse is still hammering in his chest and he knows his blush isn't going to lessen for a while.
“We only have this twice every year, starting since last year,” Steven explains, staring at his bedroom door, as if he's expecting for someone to barge in at any moment. “I haven’t had it since I lived with Dad and adding strawberries will make it, um, better.” A hand raises to cover half of his face. “Now I feel this was stupid...”
It has definitely changed the air between them and for the rest of the time they’re to wait, the two sit on opposite ends of the bed. But given time, they are soon laughing about it within the coming three weeks, but this evening's physical boundary is never touched again physically or in discussion.
Later that same afternoon, Steven is called to come downstairs by Pearl. Connie packs her bookbag and brings it with her, preparing to leave as soon as she finishes with the celebration for Steven's birthday.
Minutes into receiving her slice of cake, Connie blurts out as a lightbulb of a memory clicks on in her head.
“Now that I think about it, you have the same face when you get massages. Remember in April when you spent twenty minutes in that massage chair? You had the same expression before you started to get tired and fell asleep.” Connie speaks so incredibly nonchalant at the table over slices of homemade birthday cake.
Steven's fork gets stuck, freezing in motion before it could be removed from his mouth. He stares at the half-eaten slice of cake on his plate—in shock, in alarm, in embarrassment. He doesn't have the words to rebuttal with and just turns to stare at Connie with the fork still hanging from his mouth.
But she's instead focused on separating all of the purple frosting from the cake and onto her fork. “My mistake, I guess.” She shrugs and chuckles in embarrassment, meaning nothing behind it.
But the damage has already unintentionally been done.
And to his dismay, his father butts in by asking, none the wiser, “What face?”
If Steven were to answer, the day would dissolve into a clusterfuck of humiliation and reluctant conceding and it would be awful.
He wishes to deflate like a balloon and blow away.