Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The calming waves of the sea hit the shore as Spinel is laying down on the sand, playing with her blue crab friend who keeps snipping at her gloved fingers. Your cute little crabby tabby, Spinel thought as the crab snaps down on her finger, not really minding the pain, she shakes the crab gently like a wet noodle until Amethyst’s voice calling for in the distance made her flick the crab back into the sea.

“What’s up Amy?”, Spinel asks in a chipper tone, now standing and facing a worn-out Amethyst. “Garnet says we need you”, Amethyst replies in sighed relief as she lays herself down on the sand.

If Garnet needs me then it must be important, Spinel thought as she coils her arm around Amethyst’s waist and hoists her up on her shoulders. She proceeds to walk towards the beach house on the temple side while carrying Amethyst.

As soon as Spinel opens the door, she is greeted with a green puke of acid hurling right at her face. She easily sidesteps with a neutral blank expression as she states, “Corrupted Nephrites”, in a slightly annoyed tone.

The corrupted nephrite in question lunges at her but gets nonchalantly punched away by Spinel.

Better get these out of the house before Stevie gets home, Spinel thought before Pearl yells her name in effort while slicing another centipeetle. “Amethyst”, Spinel commands as soon as she gently drops amethyst standing.

“Yeah gotcha”, Amethyst replies while summoning her whip, Spinel goes to work, stretching her arms around the house in a quick slithering motion while angling her body above the center of the room to see better. When the last centipeetle gets coiled, she pulls them all to the center for Amethyst to tie them all up with her whip.

When Spinel got down, Garnet is already holding all of them with her gauntlet as Pearl slices all of them out in a swift motion. “So, where’s the mo-”, Spinel was about to ask but gets interjected by Steven walking in the room saying, “Hey guys! You won’t believe it, they stopped making cookie cats! But at least I have this freezer to remember them by”, Steven exclaims as he walks through the door, showing them his new cookie cat freezer.

Good thing we got him all those spare cookie cats before they sold out, Spinel thought, a small satisfied smile showing on her face. “Actually, you might have a few more than just that freezer to remember them by”, Spinel states with a knowing grin as she opens the refrigerator’s freezer.

“No way, it can’t be, where did you get these? I thought they stopped making them!”, Steven happily exclaims, dropping his cookie cat freezer on the sofa and taking a cookie cat from the freezer.

Pearl walks besides the freezer and closes it and says, “Well we heard that too, and since they’re your favorite”, with a smile. Amethyst jumps up the kitchen counter and interjects, “we went out and stole a bunch”, much to Pearl’s groan of annoyance.

“We went back and paid for them”, Pearl says slightly miffed while glaring to the side, her gaze slowly settles on Spinel and a light smile crosses her face as she sees Spinel dart a small smile her way and a shrug.

“The whole thing was my idea”, Garnet deadpans while unsummoning her gauntlets. “It was everyone’s idea”, Amethyst quickly adds in. “All that matters is that Steven is happy”, Pearl says with a satisfied smile matching Spinel.

“Oohhhhh! He's a frozen treat with an all-new taste! Cause he came to this planet from outer space! A refugee of an interstellar war! But now he's at your local grocery store! Cookie Cat! He's a pet for your tummy! Cookie Cat! He's super-duper yummy! Cookie Cat! He left his family behind! Cookie Caaaaat! Now available at Gurgens off Route 109!”, Steven sings with jovial glee.

The four crystal gems laugh at Steven’s antics, with Garnet and Spinel clapping an applause for him. He’s such a good singer, just like her, Spinel thought, “I can’t believe you did this, I’m gonna save these forever, right after I eat this one”, Steven says as he tears open the wrapping and adds, “hello old friend”, and takes a bite.

Steven revels in the taste as he chews and says, “so good, I like to eat the ears first”, Spinel’s relaxed eyes snaps open in attention, ice cream? Spinel thought and quickly dismisses it. “Uh Steven?” Amethyst asks to catch Steven’s attention as he shouts in excitement, “my gem!”.

“Quick, try and summon your weapon", Amethyst enthusiastically suggests. “I don’t know how”, Steven says in disappointment. The gem glow starts fading and Steven starts to panic jog in place, “ah! It’s fading! How do I make it come back!?”. Steven hurriedly says.

“Calm down Steven, breath, don’t force it”, Pearl says to a now shaking in place Steven while Spinel rubs away the cookie cat crumbles on his face. “Yeah, and try not to poop yourself either”, Amethyst adds in with a knowing grin, “please don’t”, Garnet respectfully requests.

Everyone sighs except for Spinel who is now washing her stained gloves, “Awe, I was really close that time, ‘puts cookie cat back into the wrapper’, can one of you just explain how to summon a weapon”, Steven states sadly which causes Pearl to raise her hand and provide, “oooh, I’ll go first!”, in an excited tone.

Steven puts the cookie cat back into the freezer and follows Pearl outside, Spinel finishes washing her hands as Amethyst asks her, “Hey Spinny, wanna go out and eat trash at the big donut?”, in a hopeful tone.

Spinel cringes a bit, remembering her early days of the 19th century, “Maybe we can do fish stew pizza? I hear they have a new special”, Spinel suggests with a smile suppressing her cringe.

“Awe your no fun, everything is food if you think about it, I’m a regular connoisseur myself”, Amethyst proudly state with a thumb on her chest. Spinel chuckles at that and replies, “I prefer good quality and edible food thank you”.

“Psshh, whatever girl, Garnet?”, Amethyst dismisses Spinel with a smile and asks Garnet who deadpans ‘no’.

____________________

Spinel is now back outside where she was laying in the sand, but now sitting cross leg and meditating. Reflecting on the day’s events and the corrupted nephrite they still have to capture, that is when she hears the familiar sloshing of sand from little feet.

She opens her eyes and asks, “Stevie, didn’t work out too well with the rest?”, in a gentle tone while she pats the sands beside her. “Yeah, Pearl says to work really hard but Amethysts says to not try at all? And then Garnet said to link up with the energies in the matters? I got lost”, Steven says while he sits besides her, fiddling with his half-eaten cookie cat in the wrapper.

“Hmmm, in a way their all right”, Spinel surmises, causing steven to turn his head to ask, “why’s that?”. Spinel coils her right arm around steven’s waist as she pulls him closer, saying with small smile while drawing on the sand, “Well, you don’t have to try so hard because it will come to you when it matters most”, Spinel proceeds to draw a little Steven with his belly button shining, a question mark marking where the weapon should be.

“Then you train really hard, but not too hard because you need breaks”, Spinel then draws another little Steven besides the first one, lifting comically large dumbbells, “And finally, ‘Spinel boops Steven’s nose’, you become strong enough”.

“Like you?”, Steven asks with stars in his eyes, Spinel only replying with a happy nod. “I hope it’s soon but until then at least I still got, cookie cat!”, Steven happily states, taking the half-eaten cookie cat and eating it with a satisfying mmm.

Spinel was about to look out into the calming waves of the shore but gets redirected by Steven’s belly gem shining again, revealing a pink rose crested circular shield. “Stevie it’s a shield…”, Spinel thinks out loud as Steven opens his eyes and yells, “oh what! I get a shield?! Oh yeah!”, and extends his limbs star like, causing the shield to fly off and drop into the ocean.

Spinel giggles at that saying, “gee Stevie, next time let’s work on your control”, both Steven and Spinel laugh at that but get interrupted by the ground shaking beneath them. “What was that?”, Steven asks, stars in his eyes as they turn around and see a giant corrupted nephrite.

“That would be the momma, stay behind me Steven”, Spinel says as she walks forward a couple of steps. How about we fight on even ground, yes? Spinel thought, she stretches her right arm towards the corrupted gem and slithers then coils.

With all her strength she pulls the creature down unto the sand, retracting her arm as she waits for the sand mist to clear. She doesn’t wait too long however as the corrupted creature sprays its green acid beam in an upward motion, giving Spinel enough time to dodge out of the way.

“Steven?!”, Spinel screams in concern, a feeling of dread tying a knot in her gem. “I’m okay!”, Spinel could hear Steven shout back in response, relieving the tension in her legs. As the sandy mist clears, she could now see the creature look down on her with its acid drool dripping.

“It’s just you and me now tough guy”, Spinel sarcastically jokes, preparing herself to spring into action the moment it moves. It lunges at her and she ducks from the near miss, she takes this opportunity to lunge back into a choke hold, with both her arms and feet coiling around the creature.

It thrashes around in her increasingly tight grip; she stretches her neck to get a good look at the creature with pity. I’m sorry I have to do this, just stay put till the rest of the gems arrive, Spinel thought, however, her musings get interrupted when the creature start flailing its head back and forth.

The agonizing searing pain from the acid burning her form as droplets from the creature’s mouth start to pelt her limbs. Come on Spinel hold it together, Spinel thought before succumbing to her wounds, dropping into the soothing moist sand.

Her vision was getting blurry now but she could not afford to be poofed, she awkwardly positions herself to face the creature with her limbs splayed, out of commission. Come on then, do your worst, at least Stevie’s safe, Spinel thought just as she could see the stream of green coming right at her.

Unblinking, a blur of a pink shirt crosses into her view, “get away from her!”, Steven yells, summoning his shield on command. Closing her eyes, she sighs to herself in relief, that’s my boy, Spinel thought just as she can hear Garnet command ‘gems, weapons’ to the rest of the gems.

She lays her head in the sand and hears Steven shuffling about, feeling his hand guiding her head unto his lap, “please don’t die Spinel”, Steven says, stifling a cry with a sniff. “Gems don’t die Stevie, we get poofed”, Spinel replies while struggling to wipe the tear off his face.

“You might have! That acid was highly corrosive! What were you thinking fighting it alone!?”, Pearl demands answers, only receiving a ‘Mmmm’ from Spinel as she looks at Garnet with a knowing look, Garnet replies with a ‘Mmmm’ of her own.

“See, Garnet gets me”, Spinel says, causing a hysterical laugh from Amethyst as Pearl ‘Ahs’ in annoyance. Steven takes a band aid from his pocket and places it on her face, the only part that is not injured.

Spinel smiles at Steven in appreciation when he said “there, now you just need a booboo buddy”. Unbeknownst to them except probably Garnet, she had planned this the moment the mother showed up, to give her little Stevie a nudge in the right direction.

Chapter Text

It is a slow day at the board walk, the golden sunset shimmering through the shop window as Spinel wipes the counter clean of ketchup stains and greasy oils. She sees Mr. Fryman walking towards the shop coming from the beach, “Hey Fryman, slow day today aye?”, Spinel says with a sly grin.

Mr. Fryman chuckles at Spinel’s upbeat work ethic, “Sure is Spinel, why don’t we close up shop and call it a day”, Mr. Fryman says. “Sure thing, boss”, Spinel says as she squats down to get the “we’re CLOSED” sign, “Hey Fryman, give me the bits!”, a familiar jovial tone enters her ears.

“Steven we’re closed”, Mr. Fryman says while cleaning out the fry oil for the day, “oh, what?” steven says from disappointment to surprise, “dock one large with extra bits from my pay, it’s on me Fryman”.

Spinel says as she emerges underneath and places the “we’re CLOSED” sign on the shop window, “okay, but you get to close up and refill the fry oil for tomorrow”, Mr. Fryman says as he walks inside the yellow door.

Spinel gives off an informal salute as the door closes, she turns around to say, “give me a few minutes you two”, with a smile. She starts to fry regular fries along with fry bits, one for her and Amethyst and the other one for Steven.

“Wow Spinel, I didn’t know you work for Mr. Fryman”, Steven says in curious wonderment. Amethyst snort chuckles as she adds in, “dude, she basically works all the jobs in beach city”.

“Eheheh, not all the jobs, just this one, fish stew pizza, funland arcade, and funland”, Spinel states as she finishes up frying with the new oil. She closes the frier’s lid and bags the fries into paper bags with the ‘citywalks fries’ logo on it.

“Okey-dokey, let’s go home”, Spinel says after locking the front door of the shop stand and handing the fry bits to steven and sharing her fries with Amethyst. “Ah sunset, my favorite time of day, the sun goes down and the second sun gets bigger and bigger in the sky”, Steven says all starry eyed.

Amethyst laughs while coughing up fry bits from her mouth, “Yeah that big odd second su-”, both Amethyst and Spinel gasps as they see the unopened red eye in the sky. “Oh no, what is that doing here”, Amethyst says in a calm but worried voice.

“What is it?”, Steven asks, still eating his bits. “It’s a red eye Stevie, come on, hold onto yer bits”, Spinel says as she gives Amethyst the regular fries she’s holding and then coils both her arms around each of them.

She lifts them up as she stretches her legs upward, taking long stretched out strides towards home while steven exclaims, “red eye? It’s going to infect us all!”, followed by Spinel deadpanning, “that’s pink eye Stevie”. “Garnet! Pearl!”, Amethyst calls out, causing both gems in question to turn and look at the trio.

“We saw, some of us are trying to protect humanity, where were you two?”, Pearl asks with an annoyed tone as Spinel settles both Steven, Amethyst and herself down. “Eating fry bits”, Amethyst replies, with Spinel quickly adding in, “Feeding them fries”.

Pearl groans while facepalming, Steven asking if he can see while already on the telescope. Spinel didn’t catch Stevie’s and Pearl’s conversation as she sees the red eye open and cringes with disgust.

“What are we going to do?”, Steven asks with concern, Garnet replying with, “The only thing powerful enough to destroy it is a light cannon that belonged to Rose Quartz”, shifting her glasses slightly.

“My mom?”, Steven asks but gets interjected by Amethyst. “If Rose were here, this would be so easy” Amethyst complains, “I know, but she’s not and the cannon is missing, we’ll have to find another solution”, Pearl says agreeing with Amethyst.

“If it belonged to my mom, I bet my dad knows where it is, he can help us save the day! Huh? Aye?” Steven states with excited glee. “Greg is… ‘Pearl glances at Spinel who looks at her with skepticism’ nice Steven, but I doubt Rose would entrust someone like ‘him’, ‘Pearl glances back at Spinel who only looks at her with more skepticism’, with such a powerful weapon”, Pearl finishes speaking.

“Your dad is kind of a mess steven”, Amethyst adds in plainly while putting her hand on his shoulder. “Amethyst!”, Spinel exclaims, slightly miffed. “I’m just sayin, even if she did leave it with him, he probably broke it, or lost it, or dropped it in the ocean by now”, Amethyst argues with a point.

“No way, he is a slob but he’s not careless, I mean Stevie turned out okay-ish?”, Spinel defends Greg with hand gestures. “That’s because you were there to look after both of them half of the time”, Pearl explains with a gesture to Steven.

“True”, Garnet adds in, “Ugh fine, let’s get this over with, let me try something”, Spinel says with exasperation, she takes a few steps forward and mock blows through her thumb to inflate it, sending it hurling towards the red eye with a resounding ‘boom’ on its red iris.

When her deflated fist finally retracts back to her, she begrudgingly states “not even a dent”, while examining her fist. She feels Steven tug at her red shirt as he wiggles his eyebrows with a ‘hmmm? Hmmm?’.

“Guys, me and Stevie are going to pay Greg a visit”, Spinel says, catching a glimpse of Amethyst as she gets hurled to the red eye. “uhh, we’re gonna go”, Steven says with a slight uncomfortable tone at the awkward situation.

“Okay good luck” Pearl manages to say as Spinel coils her arm around Steven’s waist and she stretches the both of them out of there. Spinel and Steven arrive at the ‘it’s a wash’ carwash station.

“Dad it’s me!”, Steven says as he pounds on the van door, no response. “Dad? Are you in there?”, Steven says, continuing in pounding the van door with no response. “Wake up! We have to save the world!” Steven exclaims as he rams the van door with his shoulder two times.

He gives up and looks at Spinel with her arms crossed but a patient smile waiting for him. “Here let me try”, Spinel says, steven stepping aside as she inflates her hand and gets ready to flick.

“Gregory D. Universe! You better be decent!”, Spinel exclaims and flicks the van door, making it wobble back and forth and sounding the car alarm. Greg bursts out of the van with a waffle iron in hand as he yells, “Who’s there?! I have a waffle iro-”.

But before he could finish his threat, Spinel already grabs the waffle iron out of his hand and throws it back into his van. “It’s me Greg, and your son”, Spinel says with a raised eyebrow and a smirk, it takes Greg a few seconds but he eventually stops the awful car alarm and replies.

“Steven? Spinel?”, in a confused tone, Steven runs to his dad and gives him a hug. “I almost waffled your faces, what are you doing up so late?”, Greg asks, Steven was about to answer but Spinel beat him to it.

“It’s barely passed an hour after closing time, sleeping on the job again Greg?”, Spinel answered a slight grin on her face and asked smugly. Greg blushes from the embarrassment and replies, “Oh, heh, it was a slow day in the car wash”.

“Anyway, what’s up? Does Fryman need help sound proofing again?”, Greg says while still hugging his son. “Nah, we need Rose’s light cannon, to destroy that thing”, Spinel answers his question while pointing at the red eye.

Greg turns his head to look and as if on cue, Amethyst flies towards it with a battle scream. “Wait, is that a magical thing? you told me not to get involved with magic stuff, it could be dangerous or interfere with what’s left of my hair”, Greg refutes quickly.

“Cool your jets Greg, it’s probably in your garage with the other junk you store in there, and when did ‘magic’ stuff stop you exactly? Hmmm?” Spinel says in a defusing tone, followed by a knowing tease at the last part.

“Heh, I don’t know about that but yeah, let’s drive over there”, Greg says with a slight blush at the tease, not fond of Spinel’s preferred way of travel. They arrive at U-Stor storage garages, “A magical storage unit!”, Steven excitedly yells while running ahead.

“Huh, not exactly but some would say there’s magic inside”, Greg says with a wink at his son, Spinel quickly adding in a knowing ‘mhmmm’ tease. Steven stares at both adults with a neutral face, “It’s just a shed I use to keep things that don’t fit in the van, if it’s anywhere, ‘Greg lifts open the garage door’, it will be in here”, revealing a bunch of boxes with stuff inside them.

Steven tries to adjust a couple boxes away but they fall and create a tiny box hole opening. “If I’m going in there, I’m gonna need some gear”, Steven states, he grabs a sock and a flashlight, making an improvised field helmet.

“Here I go”, Steven says excitedly, already going inside, “Good luck”, both Greg and Spinel say in reply. “So, how have you been?”, Spinel asks curiously with a sideward glance, “aahhm doing alright, with steven living with you, guys, I get more time to relax and focus on the car wash”, Greg replies while scratching the back of his head.

“Mmmm, I’m thinking of home-schooling Stevie, what do you think?”, Spinel asks Greg with a wondering tone. Greg ponders a bit with his finger on his chin and answers, “I think that would be great, what kind of home-schooling do you have in mind?”.

“I’m thinking online courses? There’s some pre-school and elementary ones he could finish in less than a week, he can skip nursery cause it’s basically optional in this state, and then have him start on some middle school ones”, Spinel answers with a small smile as she watches the orange electrical cord move around.

“So, is that why your still doing side jobs?”, Greg asks curiously which Spinel replies with, “You don’t happen to have a million dollars do you?”, in a teasing tone. “Heh, I wish”, Greg replies in a joking manner, the two adults laughing at that but gets interrupted by Steven.

“Do you golf?”, Steven asks curiously to his dad, “Eh, I like to think of myself as someone who would golf, eventually”, Greg says with a huge smile plastered on his face.

“Can you even golf?”, Spinel asks with a raised eyebrow and a playful smirk. “I can, will, eventually”, Greg says sounding resolute and then slightly blushing with embarrassment.

“Hey, there’s a bunch of copies of your old CDs!”, Steven exclaims, “heh, oh man, I couldn’t give those things away, you know before I ran the car wash, when I was a one-man band, I travelled the whole country”, Greg says fondly, glancing at Spinel who just smiles at him fondly too, recalling the memories as well.

“When I came to play a concert here in beach city no one showed up except-”, Greg continues the story but gets interjected by Steven, “Spinel as an Alligator”. “Yes, no, it was her and your mother”, Greg corrects which prompts Steven to laugh and say ‘I know’.

“And we we’re always together after that, until she gave up her physical form to bring you into the world, I don’t know what a magic lady like her ever saw in a plain ole dope like me”, Greg says with fondness, Spinel putting a hand on his side shoulder.

“Uh dad? I broke a photo”, Steven says guilty, prompting Greg to say “it’s okay buddy, if every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs” Greg says, making Spinel’s smile a happy one, it’s silly but that was always her favorite line, Spinel thought.

“I found it!”, broke her from her fond thoughts as she looks at Greg and says, “Step back”.

“Spinel!”, With one strong tug, she pulls out all of the stuff inside Greg’s garage, including the light cannon. “This thing could save the city, we’ve got to get it to the beach!”, Steven exclaims, looking at Spinel.

“Ride with your dad Stevie, I’ll get it to the beach really quick”, Spinel tells Steven, already wrapping her torso around it. Before Greg and Steven could speed off, Spinel inflates herself just enough to get her bearings while walking with the light cannon wedged in her torso.

With long careful strides over the city and boardwalk, Spinel reaches the rest of her comrades on the beach, “This time for sure”, Amethyst says, Garnet already primed to throw her again.

“Wait!”, Spinel yells to stop Garnet from throwing Amethyst again, “Don’t you guys know the definition of insanity?”, Spinel adds in as she gently places the light cannon on the beach and returns to her original form.

“Is that”, Amethyst says in a whisper, Pearl adding in, “He really had it” in an appreciative tone. “We’re saved!” Amethyst proclaims loudly, Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst jogs to where Spinel and the light cannon are.

“How do we activate it?”, Pearl asks with growing concern. “Don’t look at me, it was Rose’s”, Amethyst deflects. Garnet continues to stare at it with a neutral face while Spinel is thinking back on how Stevie found it.

That’s when it clicks and she whispers under her breath, “If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs”. The light cannon glowed again, confirming Spinel’s suspicions, “If every porkchop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs!”, Spinel shouts it this time, causing the light cannon to glow even brighter and start to form its barrel into a rose like shape.

The ramrod straight barrel drops and the sound of it whining telling Spinel that it’s going to fire, “Gems! Point it at the red eye now!”, Spinel orders, coiling her arm around the neck of the barrel to try and pull it up.

With the help of the rest of her comrades, they point the barrel at the red eye, “Guys!”, she could hear Stevie shouting in the background. “Steven! Stand back!”, she could hear Pearl warn Stevie.

“This is it!”, she could hear Amethyst yelp, “Brace yourselves”, she could hear garnet precaution them, the laser fires, with a split-second figure of Rose appearing in the laser as it blows apart the red eye into pieces, scattering the debris all over the ocean, causing big waves.

“Spinel! Steven! You guys just saved beach city!”, Amethyst cheers from on top the cannon. “Huh, is that so? I didn’t really notice”, Spinel says sarcastically with a huge ‘I was right’ grin on her face.

“How did you get it to work?”, Pearl asks Spinel dumbfounded, “It was Rose’s favorite saying that she picked from Greg, it’s how we found it inside his mess”, Spinel says with a soft fondness.

“That thing about porkrhines?”, Pearl asks, receiving a hand on her shoulder from Garnet, “hotdogs”, Garnet says. With Steven and Greg finally arriving to the group, Greg sheds a tear and wipes it as he says “Rose”, in a soft voice.

The waves hit their waistline and they laugh in amusement, another day saved thanks to Rose.

Chapter Text

In the heart shaped fields of a flower meadow, Spinel along with Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are fighting a giant bird. “That’s it, Spinel, keep it steady, Garnet now!”, Pearl commands, causing Garnet to launch herself with great speed in a collision course with the giant bird.

Garnet’s gauntleted punch connect to the bird’s chest but with no effect, merely absorbing it into its feathers along with Garnet. “Garnet!”, Pearl yelps with great distress, “Pearl, hand me two spears now!”, Spinel commands, Pearl quickly summoning her spears and giving it to Spinel who has stopped keeping the bird in place.

With two spears in hand and with the bird free from her grasps, it tries to fly away but quickly gets denied the aerial advantage by Spinel and Amethyst. Amethyst keeping it in place for just a few seconds using her whip to hold its legs, while Spinel springs up to clip its wings simultaneously.

“I’m not lettin ya get away bird brain”, Spinel thinks out loud as she lands safely on the ground. “What do we do now!?”, Amethyst asks with frantic yelling, “Amethyst go for its legs again, Pearl, wait for my signal”, Spinel commands, receiving determined nods from both.

The giant bird lunges its beak at them only for it to be strangled shut by Spinel with her torso, while her limbs hold its head in place, tying it into the ground. She waits for Amethyst to tie its legs in place with her whip, and with a ‘Pearl now!’, Pearl leaps to the sky and gracefully punctures the giant bird, poofing it.

“Ow”, Garnet deadpans after she faceplants on the soft green grass with flowers. “You can say that again, here let me”, Spinel offers, already positioning Garnet into an upright position while dusting off the feathers in her hairs.

“Thanks”, Garnet says to Spinel with a thumbs up, “No prob Garnet”, Spinel says, reciprocating the thumbs up with one of her own. “Amethyst! Leave that thing alone”, Pearl yells at Amethyst to drop the giant blue white egg she’s carrying.

“No way, my find my keep, besides you don’t even eat!”, Amethyst shouts back, defending her egg with her life. “Ugghh your impossible, Garnet, Spinel, help me out here”, Pearl requests, falling in deaf ears as Spinel walks toward something shiny that caught her eye.

Spinel could hear Garnet trying to diffuse the situation in the background, she sees the glint of a gem incased in something and pulls it out slowly. Revealing it to be the moon goddess statue, “guys! Stop bickering fer a minute and look at this”, Spinel silences her compatriots and shows them what’s she’s found.

Pearl is the first to freak out, hovering her hand over it while reminiscing about the lunar sea spire being an oasis for gems on earth. Without much luck for Pearl to convince Amethyst to leave the egg, they bring it with them, along with the moon goddess statue in Spinel’s hands.

They warp back home to find Steven doing math homework, well, doodling on math homework. “Guys! Your back! Did you bring me anything?”, Steven excitedly says while running to hug Spinel. “Hello Steven”, Garnet greets Steven, receiving a hug in response as Steven shifts from hugging Spinel to Garnet.

“Amethyst, we do not need that, it’s not going to fit in the fridge”, Pearl tries to reason with Amethyst. “What? I got this, I’m putting it in the other fridge”, Amethyst says, already opening the freezing horizontal freezer.

“Be sure to adjust the temperature, otherwise your egg is gonna freeze”, Spinel cautions Amethyst, receiving a ‘yeah yeah’, in response. Amethyst then proceeds to rave about all the egg dishes they can cook with it after placing it in the horizontal fridge and adjusting the temperature.

The knock on the door grabs their attention, Spinel walking towards the door to answer whoever’s knocking. “James”, Spinel says with a small smile after opening the door, “Spinel, uhm, package deliveries”, the man called James who is actually Jamie says awkwardly while tensely handing Spinel two brown packages.

Spinel wonders why she’s receiving two packages but figures that Steven must have ordered something online. Jamie continues to look at Spinel, sometimes glancing to the side and wiping his hands on his pants excessively.

“Want me to sign off on these? Barb usually wants those sigs”, Spinel asks with a patient smile, prompting Jamie to now look at Spinel eye to eye. “Yeah, thanks”, Jamie manages to say while hiding his blush under his strained smile, after a quick signature, Jamie finds the courage to ask.

“Do you want to have a second date this weekend? Maybe at the crab shack?”, while rubbing the back of his neck. Spinel’s small smile changes into an ‘oh’ expression as she cringes and bites her lip, “Sorry James, I’m busy on the weekends now, I’m having Stevie attend some online classes”.

Jamie’s face turns crestfallen and asks, “but it’s not a definite, no?”, hope still in his voice. Spinel was about to say yes but stops herself and thinks, I’m going to keep him waiting on me, no, I don’t want that.

“It’s a definite no James, it’s not you, it’s me, you’ll find the right gal in no time I’m sure”, Spinel offers in condolence to the man’s shattered heart who takes it in stride. “Aye, it’s okay, thanks for telling it to me straight”, Jamie hides his hurt well and tips his hat goodbye.

Spinel proceeds to walk back to the group who have now gathered, taking an appreciative glance at Steven’s handiwork. A future musician and artist, he’s so talented, Spinel thought fondly, “-but we can still save it with that statue”, Pearl says while pointing at the moon goddess statue that Spinel is carrying.

Steven turns around and exclaims, “uwah? That’s perfect!”, Pearl asking ‘what? Why?’ in the background. “Because, ‘Steven takes his package from Spinel’, I can help carry it for you guys, with this!” Steven says while he places his package on the floor, opens it and make sound effects with his mouth.

 Revealing a cheese burger backpack, “a hamburger?”, Pearl asks, getting an enthusiastic response from steven, “it’s a novelty back pack, shaped like a cheese burger! Awe I blew it, I was just gonna wear it one day and you guys would be like, ‘dang steven that’s so cool’, but this is obviously important gem business”, Steven says, Pearl shutting him down with.

“Yes, so you should let us take care of it”, Steven argues, “whaaat? I’m a gem”, lifting his shirt to show his gem. “But you still got a lot to learn”, Pearl points out condescendingly, “So let him come, it’ll be educational”, Amethyst argues in, looking up to Spinel who has a small smile, Pearl only sputtering an extended ‘eh’.

“Go pack up Stevie, I’ll hold on to it till you finish”, Spinel says, shifting the brown package to her other arm so she can use her one free arm to rub Steven’s hair. While Steven packs up, Spinel enters her temple room, a medium size cozy bedroom that mirrors the aesthetic of the beach house.

She sets down her package into the wooden table and opens it, revealing school textbooks for young children ages 6 to 14. There’s gonna be a lot of catching up to do but we’ll make it work, Spinel thought as she places the textbooks down.

She exits her room and joins the rest of the crystal gems on the warp pad, “Steven, let’s go!”, Pearl yells to Steven who yells back, “coming!”. As Steven stands with his back behind Spinel, Pearl asks, “woah Steven, did you bring your whole room?”.

Amethyst quickly adding in, “Back that thing up”, Spinel places the moon goddess statue inside Stevie’s cheese burger backpack and Garnet declares, “let’s warp”. Spinel wraps her arms around Steven and the gems all warp, Steven laughing and trying to float away but Spinel won’t let him.

They arrive at the lunar sea spire, with Steven being all star eyed at the wonder of the place, Spinel keeps a close eye one Steven, and by close eye it means one coiled arm around him at all times as a safety net.

They reach the edge of the Spire, Garnet stopping the group and explaining how the magic is preventing them to cross. Spinel tries to stretch an arm over, only for it to limp downwards, however, Steven has an idea.

He tells Pearl to summon her spear and to give it to Spinel, she takes it and wonders, what’s my boy up to? Steven then proceeds to wrap Spinel’s forearm around the spear’s handle and gives it to Garnet, who already understood his intention and says ‘I see’.

Garnet throws the spear to the whole in the arch of the entrance as Spinel’s arm coils once and the spear comes back around to stick on the wall. Steven then proceeds to take sweaters from his cheese burger backpack and gives it to the gems except Spinel.

Steven goes first, much to Pearl and Spinel’s worry but he ziplines to relative safety with ease, followed by a psyched-up Amethyst, then Garnet, and finally Pearl. Garnet grabs and holds on to Spinel’s arm as she goes for a running start and gets pulled down.

When Spinel gets hoisted up by Garnet, the group of gems and Steven continue inside the spire. With Pearl nitpicking every inch of the mess that is the current lunar sea spire, Pearl overreacts and slices a statue because of crystal shrimps which Spinel comments.

“Calm down Pear, it’s just crystal shrimps”, Which Pearl replies with a frantic, “there sharp and deadly!”, which makes Spinel and Steven laugh from the irony. They reach an infestation of crystal shrimps which prompts Pearl to plan their next move.

Steven tries to summon his shield on command to help clear the way but to no avail, instead he uses the bagels as a distraction and it works. Pearl is left dumbfounded and asks how he knew it would work, to which he replies “if I was a shrimp, that’s what I would do”.

Amethyst adding in, “You are a shrimp”, and Pearl stating, “I just want everyone to know, my plan would have also worked”. They reach the top of the staircase where a wall breaks and a flowing river of water blocks there way.

They all look to Steven for a solution from his cheese burger backpack, while chanting its name. Spinel nopes the situation entirely by stretching across with Steven wrapped around her arms, causing Amethyst to yell “boo!” in a disappointed tone.

With everyone across thanks to Spinel, they walk up the last remaining steps and see the moon goddess pedestal. “This is it, the moon goddess pedestal, and the moon is almost overhead, it’s not too late to save this piece of history!”, Pearl excitedly says.

“Steven, the statue”, Garnet says and Steven searches inside his backpack to find the moon goddess statue. Spinel smiles proudly and says, “Go on Stevie, you do the honors”, in a gentle tone.

Steven places the moon goddess statue on the pedestal and let’s go, the statue perking up and hovering upright on its pedestal. Steven steps back into Spinel’s side and clutches to the side of her baggy jeans.

“Don’t worry Stevie, nothing bad is going to happen”, Spinel whispers to Steven which makes his grip ease up. The moon shines its light unto the statue and it glows a bright white light before it spreads outward from its radius all over the spire.

Fixing the broken statues, walls, and bridges that allowed easy passage into the spire before. Steven looks around in amazement and tries to follow the light off the edge, but gets saved by Spinel’s safety arm around him.

Pearl wipes away a nostalgic tear as Amethyst yells “oh yeah! We should celebrate, I’m getting the egg!”. When Amethyst returns with the egg, Spinel already has her portable gas stove on and Pearl’s pan heated on top of it.

The group celebrates a mission complete on top of the spire, with Amethyst and Steven enjoying, omelets, quiches, and a big sunny side up to enjoy. Garnet eats too but in small bites while Pearl doesn’t eat or drink at all but still enjoys the company.

Spinel enjoys her strawberry flavored beer while she eats an omelet with the gems and Stevie, her family.

Chapter Text

The smell of crisp bacon pops from the skillet and slightly salted scrambled eggs waft into the air from the pan. “Everyone’s out”, Steven says while looking out the window, “mmhmm”, Spinel hums out as she flips a bacon strip.

“Do you think they’ll be back soon?”, Steven asks her as he goes back to sit on the sofa, “Garnet has a mission she wants to do alone, Amy and Pearl could be anywhere, somewhere”. Spinel plates the cooked breakfast and walks over to sit beside Steven on the sofa, handing him the breakfast.

“Eat up buttercup”, Spinel says with a small smile for Steven who receives the plate and take a big ole bite on the bacons and eggs. “Mmm! Thanks Spinel, you’re the best”, Steven says in between bites.

Spinel chuckles at that and retorts, “you won’t be saying that when we dive into this”, with glee that causes Steven to groan, slinking into a laying position on the sofa with the plate on his stomach.

The book in question is called ‘Quick Mafs 2+2=4’, a special children’s guide to math, my Stevie is very special, one could say even magical, Spinel thought fondly. “Okay Stevie, chapter one,

when you need to know how much,

you count your fingers one by one,

but I’m here to tell you of a better way that won’t take you till lunch,

it’s so easy even Amy can do it and we can play when were done!

So, stick with me Stevie and I’ll teach you the wonders of how to add!

It’s time to add, time to add,

Let’s start from 1 to 3 to 4!

It’s time to add, time to add,

Together it won’t be such a bore

It’s time to add, time to add,

The numbers to creates a sum! We’ll be done in no time because,

It’s time to add!

Spinel sings her Stevie a song about addition in which Steven happily sings along while doing his online course seatwork on math. Just after finishing the seatwork and finishing the song, Garnet warps in holding what looks like a purple paper with strange markings on it.

“Garnet! Your back!”, Steven excitedly yells as he hugs Garnet’s legs, “How did the mission go?”, Spinel asks while she tidy up Steven’s papers and takes his plate to the sink. “I have to burn this”, Garnet shows them the strange purple paper in all its creepy whispering glory.

“Cool!”, Steven says as he takes a picture of it with his phone, prompting Garnet to take it from him and say, “I have to burn this too”. After Garnet enters the burning room, Steven complains “No! My apps!”, and tries to open the door with his gem to no avail.

“Awe, don’t worry Stevie, I’ll buy you another one, and next time try not to take picture of anymore cursed objects”, Spinel says while she finishes washing the dishes. Amethyst bursts into the house saying, “Dumb police! Uh, your dumb!”, and fires her water gun at Spinel.

Splashing Spinel good with a stream of water from Amethyst’s water gun, “hahahaha, oh man, I totally got you, you should’ve seen the look on your face!”, Amethyst bellows while laughing.

“I’m sorry officer, but I think ‘you picked the wrong house fool!’”, Spinel exclaims with a shifting voice, while already shape shifting into a burly man and taking out her water gun from her gem and spraying Amethyst with water.

The two gems laugh at their antics with Amethyst replying, “Aye chill chill!”, playing along Spinel’s skit. Steven joins the fun too by running into the crossfire stream of water and laughing along to the jokes he doesn’t understand.

The fun is interrupted however with Pearl coming out of Amethyst’s room, “Hey that’s my door!”, Amethyst shouts while shape shifting back into her original form, followed by Spinel.

“Oh Amethyst, there you are, care to explain what one of my swords was doing in your room?”, Pearl asks in an insinuating tone. “Having a sword party”, Amethyst answers, not taking the question seriously.

“Oh please, you took it”, Pearl accuses Amethyst who argues, “I did not!”, prompting Pearl to say, “It’s fine, it’s in the past, I forgive you, ‘Amethyst groans’, also I cleaned up your awful awful mess, your welcome”, in an accomplished tone.

“You did what!? I have a system!”, Amethyst says while she rushes into her room to resort Pearl’s handiwork into her mess. “You shouldn’t clean up her mess Pearl, she likes it that way, plus your sword probably fell down your waterfall”, Spinel points out.

“Well, whether it did fall or she took it, it’s probably best for her to have something to do other than this”, Pearl says while gesturing to Spinel’s dripping wet attire. “It was a good water fight while it lasted, try to have fun sometime Pearl”, Spinel offers with a patient smile.

“Sometime, maybe”, Pearl says, reciprocating Spinel’s smile with her own as she walks into her room. “Soooo, let’s tackle your history and science next”, Spinel says with glee as she holds two textbooks titled, ‘History in rhymes’ and ‘Science with stickers’.

Spinel and Steven work through his seat works from both subject and more, taking the occasional console game breaks. After lunch Spinel leaves Steven in the capable supervision of Garnet and leaves for her shift at the board walk city fries stand.

After an uneventful day of serving unhealthy amounts of fries to people on the boardwalk, a well-paid Spinel walks/stretches home with fry bits for Steven. “I’m home!”, Spinel says with tired glee as she opens the door and enters.

“Welcome back!”, Steven exclaims in response, running to hug Spinel, “oof, did he do all of next week’s seatwork?”, Spinel asks Garnet who is sitting on the sofa. Garnet gives a nod in response with Pearl chiming in, “and all of next month!”.

“Wow, that’s half a semester done, here Stevie”, Spinel says and gives him the paper bag containing the fry bits. “Oh yeah! Fry bits! You’re the best mo- Spinel”, Steven says, Amethyst giving a knowing teasing snicker to Spinel’s way.

“Alright, I’m cooking dinner, and you better eat your vegetables this time mister”, Spinel says with a telling off finger as she goes to the kitchen to cook dinner. After feeding Steven, Amethyst and herself with sliced steak, spinach, and mashed potatoes on the side.

Spinel tucks Stevie in after he finishes his nightly routine, “Goodnight Stevie”, Spinel says and pecks Steven’s forehead. “’Yawn’, goodnight, Spinel…”, Steven manages to say before falling asleep quickly.

Spinel calls it a night and goes inside her temple room, turning on her computer to pass the scans for Steven’s half of the semester. At this rate, maybe I can have him attend in an actual school, Spinel thought as she uses her mouse to click.

After passing everything in order, she stretches her arms to grab a can of her favorite strawberry flavored beer from her cooler. After a sip, she places it to the side of her desk and grabs her black hoodie with the text ‘I EAT ALL YOUR BASES’ on the logo to wear.

She puts on a headset, adjusts her mic, charges her phone, cracks her knuckles and starts her nightly side job/hobby of streaming.

“Hey pals and gals!”

lisa_12: Hello!

pd8: Hi

firenice3: *thumbs up*

purplepuma1: play something wild!

kikilecious: do more chill streams

jennstar_18: make another makeup tutorial on your tubetube channel

bloodstone_16: why are you pink?

“I’m gonna continue my save in Colonization V purple puma, I will kikilecious when I defeat Germany, I don’t know what more I can milk outta makeup tutorial gig but I’ll try jennstar, and we’ve been over this, I’m a gem”, Spinel says into the mic.

The stream lasts the whole night, with some old and new viewers stopping by to watch or start a chat chain. She finally defeats Germany this time and wins the achievement ‘Colonizer Completionism’.

Her phone’s alarm rings, signaling to her that it’s early in the morning and she needs to cook breakfast for Steven. She takes her fully charged phone, put on her Funland work clothes and steps outside her temple door.

Only to find everyone gathered at the kitchen table early in the morning with Pearl being the one cooking, “good morning, guys, what’s this?”, Spinel asks and takes a seat next to a groggy Stevie still in his pajamas. “It’s a new tradition that Steven made called ‘together breakfast’”, Garnet replies to Spinel.

“Yeah… ‘yawn’, you wake up early everyday to make me breakfast, so I thought why not cook you breakfast”, Steven groggily says while wiping his eyes open. “Gems don’t sleep Steven, she was probably up all night streaming”, Pearl helpfully adds in while giving each gem and Steven a plate full.

“Yup!”, Amethyst answers enthusiastically, knowing that every night its true as she digs in, “Anyways, thanks Stevie, you’re the best”, Spinel says as she boops Steven’s nose, causing him to laugh.

Chapter Text

Spinel walks in the beach city boardwalk fry’s employee room and clocks in, taking a glance at one Ronaldo Fryman who is busy typing/scrolling through his phone. “Spinel! Good timing, this is my son Peedee, he’s taken an interest in the family business and I need you to show him the ropes, here wear this”, Mr. Fryman says and hands Spinel a red plaid pencil skirt with a yellow top that resembles fries.

“You two can be Frybo and Frygirl, attracting customers to our stand, and handing out free samples”, Mr. Fryman says enthusiastically. “Hooray”, Peedee says sarcastically, already inside the Frybo costume, Spinel takes her costume and speaks.

“I’ll be out in five”, Spinel goes inside the employee’s bathroom and changes from her regular Fryman work clothes to the new Frygirl costume. Fits snuggly on my body, neat, Spinel thinks as she pats her skirt one last time and leaves the bathroom.

Spinel takes the small tray of sample fries with ketchup and mustard on the side and walks out the back. As soon as she steps outside, she sees Peedee fighting for his life against the seagulls, “I’M NOT FRIES!”, Peedee exclaims as he swats the seagulls with his head piece to no avail.

Poor kid, let me just, Spinel thought while already coming to the rescue by flicking away the seagulls gently. “Thanks, uhm, Spinel”, Peedee says, slightly blushing from embarrassment as he puts his Frybo head piece back on.

“Don’t worry about it Peedee, if I was a seagull, I’d make that mistake too so don’t be too harsh on them”, Spinel jokes with a patient smile. Peedee chuckles at that and says, “eh, your probably right, and thanks again, for saving me”.

The two Frybo and Frygirl roam the board walk looking for new customers to attract to the shop. “Free samples! Get yer free samples! Only the best from the tastiest Fry shop in beach city!”, Spinel bellows as they continue to walk slowly.

“So uhm, Spinel, you don’t happen to be acutelypink are you?”, Peedee asks sounding hopeful through the mask. “Oh, I didn’t know I would meet a viewer irl so soon, yes I am”, Spinel answers while rubbing the back of her neck briefly.

“I found you through my brother actually, he watches your streams, he’s bloodstone by the way”, Peedee says sounding amused. “Ah! And you must be pd underscore 8”, Spinel guesses, putting two and two together.

“Yeah uhm, I didn’t know what else to put so I just shortened my username into two letters of my name plus my favorite number”, Peedee says while waving back at a little girl who’s waving at him.

They are interrupted by a frantic Pearl looking for something while holding a bubble containing blue gem shards. “Spinel! There you are, have you seen one of these gem shards laying around the boardwalk?”, Pearl asks Spinel.

“No Pearl I haven’t, have you checked inside the house? Should I help look with you?”, Spinel offers which Pearl shakes her head and says, “oh no no no, I’ve got this, your jobs are important and its only one shard, what’s the worst that can happen right”.

Pearl says not believing a single word she says, “Riiiight”, Spinel says with doubt which prompts Pearl to speak up, “well, I’m going to keep looking, call me if you find it”, Pearl walks away, leaving the two Frybo and Frygirl to themselves again.

“What was that all about?”, Peedee asks curiously, the two resuming their slow walk, “important gem business, she’s looking for a shard that can bring any fabric of clothing to life, it’s very dangerous, so if you see any walking clothes, tell me”, Spinel cautions Peedee.

Peedee ‘mmms’ in response and adds, “if that’s true, I want it to let this costume sell fries on its own”. Huh, that could work, but it would still be too dangerous, Spinel thought as she asks, “what made you interested in the family business Peedee? because I mean you’re still a kid, shouldn’t you enjoy your childhood just a little bit more?”.

“I know, I just mentioned it once to my dad to get his attention, but all he thinks about is getting me working in this stupid Frybo costume just like he did”, Peedee admits. But before Spinel could offer the boy her sympathies, they are besieged again by the same flock of seagulls.

Only this time they are after Spinel’s free sample tray, Spinel tries to flick them all one by one but they are too many and manage to knock some fries over the tray and into the boardwalk. After they had their fill, they start attacking Peedee in the Frybo costume, mistaking his mask to be actual fries again.

“Stop bothering us you feathered menaces!”, Spinel yells at the birds while shooing them gently. Only to be interrupted by her Stevie bumping into her. “Stevie? what are you doing here?”, Spinel asks her Stevie but gets interrupted by Mr. Fryman opening the door to the employee’s room saying.

“Augh, did the seagulls get you again Spinel? Come back inside to get more samples and don’t worry about it docking your paycheck”. “Stevie, Peedee, I’ll be back really quick, stay here”, Spinel says as she walks back inside the employee’s room.

After enduring Ronaldo’s incessant questions for and about her, Spinel finally gets a fresh batch of samples to give out to the locals and tourists alike. “Stevie, Peedee, I’m sorry that took so long, your brother can be a real handful?”, Spinel says but finds that both boys are gone.

She looks around while giving out free samples, looking everywhere until eventually catching up with Pearl. “Spinel! Did you somehow find my gem shard?”, Pearl asks but receives a shaken head in response, “No, have you seen Stevie or Peedee anywhere?”, Spinel asks receiving the same shaken head back.

 “I see, while we’re here, want to try some fries?”, Spinel asks with a smile but quickly faints as she hears a loud commotion coming from the fry shop. Both gems look at each other with determined looks and dash towards the source of the loud commotion.

They arrive at the scene to see a knocked-out Mr. Fryman on top of Stevie and Peedee, and what looks like a creepy, veiny, Frybo abomination born out of the shard. “Steven! Did you put my missing shard in that fry costume!?”, Pearl yells with concern, receiving a “yes!” from Steven.

“didn’t you hear what I said about the living armor and infantries, and many many deaths!?”, Pearl asks angrily, still with concern and still getting a “yes!” from Steven. “Oh, Steven”, both Pearl and Spinel say with exasperation.

Spinel readies herself into a fighting stance while Pearl summons her Spear, and uses it to propel herself unto a sideward table and then throw it into Frybo’s eye. Causing a stream of ketchup and mustard mixed together to hit Pearl right on her face.

Incapacitating her vision and popping the bubble containing the shards, “Pearl!”, Steven shouts with worry as he runs to her side. Spinel uses this opportunity to reposition Mr. Fryman and Peedee away from the shop and into the rest of the board walk.

Right on time, the possessed costume with the spear still lodged in its eye emerges from the shop entrance. “Watcha say we take this someplace else”, Spinel says cheerfully and punches the wall near the door, the fist ricocheting into Frybo’s face and landing him unto the beach.

Before it gets up, Spinel springs herself upwards to strike it with her fist above, but Frybo has other plans. Using the dripping mashed potatoes from its mouth, it pukes a stream at Spinel, causing her to get incapacitated by the sticky substance against the shop wall.

Spinel struggles to break free as Frybo nears her with its creepy presence, (probably to force feed her fries). “Go away”, Peedee weakly exclaims while using a flimsy broken wooden leg from a table as a weapon, “Peedee, stay back!”, Spinel warns the young lad but he doesn’t listen and continues.

“You are awful! I hate you! I’ve always hated you!”, Peedee shouts with tears in his eyes as he swings away without hitting anything. “Wait, you always hated Frybo?”, Mr. Fryman could be heard in the distance.

Fybo uses its tentacle like hair to snatch Peedee’s weapon away from him, causing him to stumble back unto the boardwalk wooden walkway. Spinel struggles even more to break free, screaming at the top of her lungs, “Peedee!”, as the costume inch ever so close towards the shaking boy.

But suddenly, one of Steven’s clothes, his pants save the day by kicking Frybo in the face making it step back. “Steven”, both Frymans say, causing a blinded Pearl to ask, “Where?”, in a frantic tone. Spinel sighs with relief and says, “Stevie, be careful!”.

Steven glances to spinel with an excited smile and says, “right”, shifting his view on Frybo again he says with a serious face, “Your move Frybo”, as he eats the cigar like fry between his mouth.

Frybo lunges at him, intent on feeding him fries, “Attack!”, Steven commands the rest of his clothe infantry. They punch, stomp, bite, and grab hold of Frybo as it struggles to fight back, Steven tries to land a punch in but gets smacked away, landing on his bum by Frybo.

As Frybo approaches Steven he says, “I didn’t want to do this, but you leave me no choice, underwear go!”. Steven’s last clothing, his underwear flies into Frybo’s last good eye, making it stumble back as Steven’s pants kick its shin and it falls down.

Steven capitalizes on the opportunity by getting on top of Frybo and yanking out the gem shard out from its mouth. “Oh, thank heavens”, Spinel sighs in relief, stopping in her struggle to break free and finally relaxing after the fight.

“Steven, are you alright?”, A still blinded Pearl asks while trying to get a sense for where she is, and ends up touching Mr. Frymans face. “I’m okay, as soon as I bare my butt, I knew he’d crack”, Steven says like he’s in one of those war movies they sometimes watched.

____________________

The fight lasted longer than expected, the sun already starting to exit from the horizon, Stevie’s clothes carry a small wooden boat containing Frybo unto the sea shore. “You were great Frybo, kids today just didn’t understand, and now, they never will”, Mr. Fryman says his eulogy to Fryboy with a broken heart.

“Weren’t people scared of it before he attacked them?”, Peal asks nonchalantly, earning her a shush from Steven. “It’s time to send him off”, Mr. Fryman says, lighting his gas lighter and setting Frybo ablaze.

Pearl pushes the small boat Frybo is in seaward while Spinel salutes, properly this time. “‘sigh’, as greasy in death as he was in life”, Mr. Fryman says his last words for Frybo, “dad, uhm, I’ll-, are you going to get another costume?”, Peedee asks his dad hesitantly.

“Nah I don’t need another Frybo, I’ve got, the Fry man”, Mr. Fryman says proudly to his son, hugging him with his one arm. Steven smiles back at Pearl and Spinel and says, “Pearl, Spinel, I think our work here is done”, in an accomplished tone and striking a superman pose.

“Put your clothes on Steven”, Pearl says evenly, still slightly annoyed, “and no cookie cats for a week”, Spinel chimes in, equally as annoyed but proud. “Nuuuu! Not my cookie cats! How can you do this to me!”, Steven exclaims to the sky, kneeling down with a tear.

“Because we love you Stevie, but you havta learn that your actions have consequences”, Spinel says while rubbing Stevie’s as he clutches it and groans inwardly. “Come on, let’s got home, I’ll at least cook your favorite for dinner to cheer you up”, Spinel says, causing Steven to perk up.

“Don’t you think one week is too short?”, Pearl curiously asks her while they walk home, “You do know that food has an expiration date right?”, Spinel ask with a sly grin. Pearl laughing awkwardly at herself with an embarrassed blush.

Chapter Text

The scent of Alfredo sauce fills the kitchen where Spinel is cooking lunch for Steven, Stevie should be done helping Greg right about now, Spinel thought. “Are you certain that letting me do Steven’s science project is beneficial to his education?”, Pearl asks from the kitchen counter.

Spinel turns off the stove and adds in the garganelli pasta, broccoli, and mushrooms into the pan and stirs it while she answers, “it’s just mixing baking soda with vinegar and other safe chemicals, I’d rather have him enjoying his childhood a bit more with his dad, plus do humans really need to make it into a project? I swear their education system are run by nutsos”, Spinel surmises.

“But I can teach him so much more from earth’s sciences than just this, like physics, aerodynamics, or engineering”, Pearl points out as she mixes another chemical and writes down her known observations on a sheet of paper.

“Maybe when he’s in high school or college, but right now, right now I just want him to be our adorable little Stevie, you’ll see, they grow up so fast”, Spinel says with soft fondness as she puts a lid on the skillet after getting a plate for herself.

Spinel takes a spoonful of pasta with sauce and mmms in satisfied delight from the sweet creamy texture of the sauce with a slight tangy after taste. “Is it really that enjoyable?”, Pearl asks with slight discomfort, “it is, want to try some? You don’t even have to swallow, just the taste”.

Spinel asks with a patient smile, prompting Pearl to ask “the taste? You can taste human food?”, in slight disbelief. “Yeah, it took a lot of trial and error with Greg but after a year or two after steven was born? I manage to completely mimic the human taste buds and sense of smell”, Spinel answers with slight pride in her accomplishment.

Pearl lets out a sad chuckle with a small smile as she says, “Rose would have loved to try that…”, in a melancholic tone. “Yeah, she would”, Spinel says matching Pearl’s tone and smile, “okay, I made up my mind, let me have it”, Pearl says with a ‘give me’ gesture from her hand.

Spinel smiles at that and taps her nose and mouth to remind Pearl of what she has to do, “right, how do I do, that”, Pearl asks an excited Spinel. But before she could explain the intricacies of mimicking human sensory biology for gems, Steven bursts into the house with Amethyst in tow.

“Pearl! Spinel! Teach me how to shape shift!”, Steven enthusiastically requests, “Stevie! What did I say yesterday?”, Spinel firmly reminds Steven. “I’m sorry Spinel, it won’t happen again, but can you? Please? Please?”, Steven apologizes and begs to be taught shape shifting.

“Yeah dudes, teach the little ste-boy to become a ste-man, arf arf arf arf arf”, Amethyst says while shape shifting from a seal pillow into an actual seal. Steven laughs at this and requests Amethyst to do more who happily obliges, shifting into a howling wolf, then into purple puma, then finally into a purple blue jay bird and landing on top of Stevie’s head.

“I don’t know Stevie, it could be dangerous with your organic body”, Spinel cautions, causing Steven to give her the puppy eyes which are super effective. “Okay okay, put those puppers away, Pearl, explain away”, Spinel says, prompting a curious Pearl to stand and start to explain shape shifting for gems.

“All gems have shape shift powers Steven, ‘projects holograms with her gem’ we can turn into objects, we can change parts of our bodies and we can hey!”, Pearl manages to before yelling at Amethyst who has shape shifted into her and slapping her own behind shouting.

“Womp! Womp!”, Steven interjects by saying, “I wanna try it all”, enthusiastically, “don’t bite off more than you can chew Steven”, Pearl manages to say before getting interrupted by amethyst again saying “Womp! Womp!”.

“I’ve had it with this, why can’t you be more civil like this”, Pearl says as she shapeshifts into amethyst with a purple suit, bow tie and monocle. “Dang, I look good, but why can’t you be less uptight like this?”, Amethyst says while shape shifting into Pearl wearing ripped jeans, denim jacket and black sunglasses.

The two gems keep arguing, prompting Spinel to hand Steven a plate full for lunch as she says, “here Stevie, why don’t you eat lunch first while you wait for those two too finish”. “Thanks Spinel, why don’t you teach me? You stretch all the time”, Steven asks Spinel who respond with.

“I would but I have a shift incoming, those two arguing Bettys over there will have to do”, Spinel says cheerily as she pecks Stevie’s forehead and heads inside her temple room to change into her work clothes.

Inside she lays in her bed a bit, scrolls through some messages in her group chats basically asking her to come play sometime. I’ll make some time in the near future I swear, Spinel thought as she types in replies along that train of thought.

After typing out her last reply, she sits right back up and stands to grab her work clothes from the dresser. She could just store these all in her gem but having a dresser in her room makes it a good habit that helps her sort out Stevie’s own clothes after laundry.

She puts on regular blue jeans that matches the Funland arcade employee polo shirt that Mr. Smiley made for her when she applied for the job. Turning off the lights inside her room, the action still unnecessary but she does it anyway, she leaves her room to be greeted by a bouncing Stevie.

“Check it out!”, Steven says as he shows the cat finger meowing that replaced his right pointer finger. “Pretty cool right Spinny?”, Amethyst says with glee, “Now that we know for certain that he can shapeshift, we can gradually let him try other basic gem abilities, like bubbling”, Pearl states.

Spinel tries to contain her composure, biting her lower lip while smiling and saying, “that’s great Stevie, you did so well”. “Buuut?”, Steven asks, already familiar with her tone to know there is a but coming.

“But did it hurt? Are you in any pain? Oh, I might need to start bringing you to a hospital for regular checkups”, Spinel blurts out her worries, kneeling to be in Stevie’s height while she cups his right hand and inspects the cat finger that rubs it’s face on her hands.

“Uh, chill it dude, he’s perfectly fine and enjoying life with his new little friend”, Amethyst nonchalantly says, trying to ease Spinel’s worries. Spinel takes a deep breath while putting her hands together like in a prayer and says, “I’m very proud of you Stevie, but-”.

Spinel manages to say before Steven finishes it for her, “be careful, I know, I know, and I will so can I show dad and my friends?”, Steven asks all starry eyed. Spinel gives a proud smile as she says, “go gettem kiddo, I left a sandwich in the fridge, don’t forget to eat your snack”, Steven quickly turns around and starts running outside, opening and closing the door gently this time.

“I hafta get to work, you two keep an eye on him”, Spinel says as she walks towards the door. “You worry too much Spinny, he’ll be fiiine, he’s steven, what’s the worst that can happen”, Amethyst says trying to assuage Spinel’s worry.

“Surprisingly I have to agree with Amethyst on this one, shape shifting is a safe fundamental ability to practice on”, Pearl agrees with Amethyst. Spinel turns her head to face the two gems in question with a sad smile and says, “I hope your right”, before opening and closing the door to leave.

___________________

At work in the token booth of Funland arcade, a worried Spinel scrolls through the internet with her phone. Looking up anything related to cats, humans turning into cats, human finger turning into a small cat, and etc.

“Hey lady! Get of your phone and give my kid some tokens”, A disgruntled man says, “I’m sorry sir, here’s your quarters”, Spinel apologizes while taking the kid’s money and giving her the equivalent quarters in exchange.

The father daughter duo leaves the booth, letting Spinel continue on her worried search through the internet in the hopes of understanding what’s happening to her Stevie’s finger.

“No no no, he’s not turning into a werewolf, ‘sigh’”, Spinel mutters in defeat, “Something bothering yah Spinel ole gal”, Mr. Smiley says, standing behind Spinel while overlooking her shoulder.

Spinel raises her head upward to meet Mr. Smiley’s gaze and replies, “Hey Harold, just trying to find out what might be wrong with Steven”, with a small smile. “Well, what happened? Did he get into an accident?”, Mr. Smiley asks, now looking through some folder cabinets.

“Nah, nothing like that, it’s a gem thing, he just discovered how to shape shift and I worry that because he’s human it might… I don’t know…”, Spinel explains in a defeated tone. “It sounds to me that you’re worrying too much, have a little faith in the boy, they do know how to deal with problems on their own you know”, Mr. Smiley advices.

“That’s what Pearl and Amethyst said, ‘sigh’ maybe your right, but I just can’t help it you know, it’s like-”, Spinel says but Mr. Smiley finishes for her. “Like instinct? Heh, now I don’t know what being a mother is like but I imagine that’s what being one is like”.

“Heh, I’m more of an aunt actually, his real mom passed away during- during childbirth”, Spinel clarifies, “I’m sorry to hear that, but what’s real is subjective, its Steven you should ask which one he views as his ‘real’ mom”, Mr. Smiley advices Spinel.

“Does that really matte-”, Spinel was about to ask but gets cut off by her phone ringing ‘alone together’. “This is Spinel speaking, uhuh, okay, I see, yes I’ll be right over”, Spinel says to the phone and hangs up.

“Sorry Harold, I hafta go, important gem business”, Spinel says with a small guilty smile, “ah don’t worry about it, without you here half the time, I’d have probably went crazy with no sleep, go save the world or whatever it is you gems do, I’ll watch both places for the rest of the afternoon”, Mr. Smiley offers with gratitude.

“Thanks Harold, you’re the best”, Spinel says, already stretching out of the booth while waving goodbye.

_____________________

Spinel arrives back home on the beach front, she stretches right over and onto the gem sloop, greeting Pearl and Garnet. “Okay I’m here, what’s this I hear about a living island?”, Spinel asks but her question doesn’t get answered because Amethyst arrives with a frantic Steven chasing after her.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!”, Steven could be heard running in the distance, which makes Spinel’s worried ears perk up. “Stevie!”, Spinel shouts as Amethyst climbs up aboard, “ahaha, come on! You can make it!”, Amethyst yells back to Steven, the sloop already moving slowly.

Spinel uses her right arm to stretch out to her Stevie and coil it around his waist, pulling him forward and onboard. As soon as steven boards the boat and sits down in the center, everyone gasps at the sight of all his fingers that are now cats.

“Stevie! What’s going on!?”, Spinel asks frantically, hovering her hands around the cat fingers that keep meowing. “Uhhhh, it’s nothing! I just turned all my fingers into cats!”, Steven says, earning a snort from Amethyst who receives a glare from Spinel.

“This! This is not just nothing! I knew I was right to be worried, Ugh! I blame you two for this”, Spinel states with worry and slight anger at the two gems in question. “Eh, that’s fair”, Amethyst says plainly, earning her an annoyed ‘ugghhh’ from Spinel.

“I didn’t think he would make more, just stay calm Steven, we’ll figure this out right?”, Pearl states with worry just like Spinel as she looks to Spinel and Garnet for an answer. “Okay, okay, let’s stop arguing and focus on Stevie, can you change them back to normal human fingers?”, Spinel asks.

“I can try, ‘soft grunt of effort’”, Steven says with slight worry but is grateful that the gems are here to help him through this. But it takes a turn for the worse as both his hands disappear and become individual cat heads.

“Oh dang…”, Amethyst whispers in shock, Pearl eeps a small yelp of panic, Spinel bites her lower lip with worry and pulls on both her ponytails. “Ah! What do I do!?”, A scared Steven asks, “It’s spreading like a disease! We have to help him now!”, Pearl screams in the top of her lungs.

True to her observation, the cats on his body multiply, sprouting all over his body as he starts to lose control of some of his limbs. “Garnet!?”, Spinel looks to Garnet who is about to do something but is stopped when they arrive at the living island.

“I’m sorry Spinel, but we have a larger problem to deal with”, Garnet states and is right, the living island that looks like a giant turtle with a mask bellows. “AAHh! Fine! Let’s finish this quickly, you two, stay here and help Steven”, Spinel orders while summoning her weapon, a simple bow staff with a crystal tip.

“Batter up!”, Spinel yells out while swinging her bow staff with Garnet on it, launching her towards the turtle monster as she punches it with her gauntlets. Spinel uses her bow staff and stretches it to propel herself upwards from the boat.

Retracting it to its original form, she points the crystal tip downwards and uses her body to wrap around her bow staff. Using her arms, she grabs the side of the island near the turtle’s neck and propels herself straight to its nape.

With a guttural scream, the bow staff pierces its intended target but its not quite enough. “Garnet! Finish it!”, Spinel yells to Garnet while landing on the island itself, because of the second strike, Garnet was already propelled upwards when it struck, so she lets gravity do its work and poof.

The giant masked turtle monster poofs and the island sends big waves outward as it drops. Spinel gets up from the seashore sandy beach and sees the gem sloop coming to dock, “Spinel! Hahahaha”, Steven could be heard laughing and calling out her name, and to her surprise, no more cats.

Spinel embraces Steven in a tight hug as she says, “oh thank heavens you’re okay, and your back to normal, how did you it?”, Spinel asks which Amethyst supplies the answer to, “it turns out, Steven’s cats hate water, so when you and Garnet poofed that giant thing, a big enough wave crashed into the gem sloop and threw him overboard, and the rest is history”.

“What she means is we saved Steven from drowning, and discovered after getting him out from the water that he’s cats started to disappear, so we made him swim a few laps with Amethyst of course”, Pearl helpfully adds in.

Spinel laughs at that, her worries already disappearing like the cats, “So that explains why he’s wet”. Spinel takes out a spare shirt and underwear from her gem but realizes that she forgot to add pants to the list of things to pack inside her gem.

“Do you have a change of pants for Stevie, Pearl?”, Spinel asks Pearl who replies with a smile saying, “of course I do, it pays off to always be prepared”. Spinel gratefully receives the pants saying, “come here Stevie, let’s change your clothes before you get a cold”.

Before Steven could answer, a loud bam and crash could be heard in the distance with Garnet shouting, “Gems!”. “We’ll leave Steven with you so the two of us can help Garnet”, Pearl states already summoning her spear and running off, “Later Spinny”, Amethyst mocks salute two fingers and runs along as well.

“I’m sorry about the cat fingers, I didn’t know they would try and take over my body”, Steven says while being helped by Spinel change. “You don’t have to apologize Stevie, it’s no one’s fault really, it was just the heat of the moment, despite what you think, we don’t really know what happens when you use your powers, so always, always come to us for help, okay?”, Spinel says with a smile.

“Okay”, Steven says matching Spinel’s smile and feeling the assurance that no matter what happens, she’ll be around to help him through whatever gem ability he gets.

Chapter Text

“I don’t think they are earthquakes, they’re too frequent”, Pearl says to the rest of the gems as they are walking home. A bicycle drives in front of them and drops from the lack of a rider, Steven following its previous path, “hey look, steven’s got a bike, where you going Steven?”, Amethyst asks.

“Just out for a ride”, Steven answers looking a bit tense, “in the sand?”, Pearl adds another curious question in, receiving a “yup”, from Steven. Spinel smiles and thinks to herself, who are you trying to impress with that bike Stevie?

“Let’s all watch what Steven’s up to from inside the house, all sneaky beaky like”, Amethyst suggests, using her hands like she’s hiding in cover. “You watch too much tubetube Amethyst”, Pearl says with crossed arms, “hey! I don’t see you complaining over Spinny’s twatch streams”, Amethyst argues back.

“That’s because it’s a part of her job, she explained it to me”, Pearl argues back feeling smug, “come on guys let’s stop arguing, I only make around fifty dollars a month from it anyways, it’s not that much”, Spinel diffuses the growing argument.

“Everything you do is important Spinel, remember that”, Garnet adds in, receiving a happy shrug from Spinel. The group of gems enter the beach house and look out from the window to witness Steven go up and try to talk to a girl, only to fall and sit on his bike and run away screaming.

Steven enters the beach house and leans on the screen door panting from the escape, “what up?”, Steven asks, fainting enthusiasm. “Who were you talking too?”, Pearl asks in a curious tone, causing Steven to reply, “huh?”, with Garnet adding in, “that girl”, to clarify.

“You saw? She’s just a girl I know, except she doesn’t know me, we’ve never talked”, Steven says looking down. “Awe Stevie, is that why you took out your bike? To impress her?”, Spinel asks in an encouraging tone.

“Yeah, but it didn’t work out how I imagined it would”, Steven says slightly embarrassed and less sad than before, “‘gasp’, you like her!”, Amethyst says while smooshing Steven’s face with her hands. “Uh, I like everyone”, Steven says while gently pushing Amethyst off.

“‘gasp’, let’s set up a play date, I’ll write up an invitation and work out a schedule, ‘gasp,’, oh we have to find out her favorite kind of tea”, Pearl starts to ramble on with glee. “No, just talk to her”, Garnet states plainly, “okay, but you guys can’t watch this time, it’ll mess up my funky flow”, Steven requests firmly.

“Funky flow?”, Pearl and Amethyst ask dumbfounded, “He means his boyish charms, ‘tugs at steven’s face cheeks’, go get him tiger”, Spinel says teasingly. “We won’t watch”, Garnet says while adjusting her shades, “alright”, Steven says with determination, glee and embarrassment.

He runs to the fridge to get something and runs back out saying “nothing”, to Amethyst’s question. “I’m gonna handle some human related business, you guys got this little earthquake problem of ours?”, Spinel ask while walking to her temple door, receiving encouraging yeses from her comrades.

She sits down on her work table that she uses for trying out new hobbies like, knitting, woodworking, and taking care of her bonsai. Hey Jade, I’m sorry for the lack of attention, I promise to give you a haircut after this, Spinel thought as she takes a letter and opens it to read.

Hello Spinel,

Thank you for the continued letters and pictures you sent us about our grandson Steven, we are still in the Bahamas but we promise to visit as soon as we can. In this letter is the last of the documents you need to complete Steven’s birth certificate, healthcare, child insurance and a little something for his education and fun.

Thank you for taking care of our boy, you and your relatives are welcome to use anything inside the barn southwest of beach city where my relatives used to stay in. I don’t know what kind of life our Gregory lived but I hope you’ll look out for him too, despite his eccentricities, he is a good man.

Sincerely,

Mr. and Mrs. DeMayo

Spinel takes the documents out from the letter, the cabinet and seals them inside a brown envelope, she then takes a breath for a job well done and takes out her phone to text a known friend.

189-555-3119

Rick, it’s me, I’ve got all of the documents ready, meet me at our usual

Come on I keep telling you it’s Ricky, and I gotcha, I’ll be there waiting

Spinel places her phone down and thinks to herself, okay, with this, Stevie can start having a normal life when he turns eighteen, but for now, for now I’ll focus on getting him into a good school.

She dons on some casual jeans, leather boots, and a grey inconspicuous hoodie, she ties her hair into a single ponytail and wear a stylish black cap on top to match her jeans. She pockets her phone and proceeds to leave her temple room, turning off the lights as she goes.

It takes a long while to reach the state of Keystone by bus, it’s already afternoon by the time she reaches the Keystone motel. “Took you a while this time, slowing down in your old age?”, Rick, an average joe rocking a three-day stubble, jokes to Spinel.

“Oh, haha Ricky, real original, some of us working people don’t have cars”, Spinel responds sarcastically with a smirk as she hands him the brown envelope. He places the brown envelope inside his leather jacket and pulls out another one to give to Spinel.

“Heh, alien warriors work? But I get it, you’ve got a kid to take care of, here, everything he needs when he turns eighteen, all legal from yours truly”, Rick jokes receiving an unamused look from Spinel as he back pedals and gives her what she asked him for.

“Thanks Ricky, keep on doing the good work, I don’t need to babysit you again do I?”, Spinel thanks Rick and inserts an inside joke between them for payback. He blushes slightly and shakes his head and answers, “Never going to let me live that one down huh”, with a knowing grin.

“Never for your entire lifetime”, Spinel winks at him as he waves goodbye to her, enters his car and drives away. Spinel was about to go home by bus again until she receives a call from Harold, “Harold? What’s up? Uhuh, I see, I’m on my way just keep them where you can see them”, Spinel says into the phone.

She pockets her phone and the brown envelope then runs at full speed back to beach city, sometimes propelling herself even faster. She reaches beach city boardwalk’s Funland and looks for Harold, finding him operating a ride called the Appalanchian.

“Hey Harold, where’s Stevie and his new friend?”, Spinel asks while standing outside the operating booth. “I left them by the employee break room, I only needed to tell him you were coming to make him give up on impressing his girl, what’s up with that bubble anyways?”, Harold says, causing Spinel to chuckle to herself.

“I told him not to do anything stupid on his own if he gets new powers, I better go see for myself”, Spinel says and walks off towards the break room. ‘Sigh’, he’s growing up so fast, getting himself a girl and summoning Rose’s bubble in one day, Spinel thought to herself.

She arrives to see Steven and his new girl friend talking and laughing inside a pink bubble that Harold mentioned. “Hey Stevie, you gonna introduce me? And tell me how you summoned yer bubble?”, Spinel asks with a small smile.

“Spinel! Oh, Connie this is Spinel, one of the crystal gems I mentioned, Spinel this is Connie”, Steven introduces the both of them with glee. “Hi”, Connie says shyly with a small wave, “Heya Connie, so, you really can’t unsummon this thing, Stevie?”, Spinel asks to clarify while squatting.

“No, I tried after I managed to summon it to save both me and Connie from a falling rock from the temple but, I haven’t had much luck”, Steven says sadly with a guilty smile. Spinel tries her best not give away her slight panic from hearing a boulder almost killed them as she replies.

“Great job Stevie, I’ll talk to Pearl about fixing the temple statue later, how about we get out of here, it’s a little too crowded for me to pull out the solution for yer bubble problem”, Spinel manages to say without letting Steven know of her panic.

The three of them walk out of Funland and unto the beach below it, “Okay-dokey, this looks like a good spot”, Spinel says with a small smile as she pulls out a strange glowing pink curved triangular blade that is as tall as her with no hilt.

“Woah”, both kids say in unison amazements, Steven adding in, “what’s that”, with curious glee. “Oh this? This is just a relic from the past, but it does have what we need”, Spinel says somberly and takes a fighting stance to prepare a long-winded slice.

Steven and Connie ducks down and braces for the hit, only for Spinel to stop mid-way and just tap the bubble with the blade’s tip to pop it. “Woah! How did it do that?”, Steven asks with stars in his eyes, “mmm, it was made special by an old friend, it can cut through any gem summoned weapon, like the Excalibur of myth”.

Spinel re-stores the blade into her gem and finally takes off the hood from her head to reveal her entire face. “‘gasp’! Are you acutelypink?”, Connie asks with genuine surprise while covering her mouth with her hands.

But before Spinel could answer, a loud roar followed by an intense shake cuts off their conversation. I giant corrupted gem in the form of a transparent light red worm monster emerges from the sea and lunges at Spinel who stops it with her gloved hands.

“‘grunt’, Steven! Get yerselves to safety, now!”, Spinel orders, Steven quickly takes Connie’s hand and runs away to safety. The worm pushes Spinel back slightly, the sand parting away from the force of her leg’s effort.

“Take a step back!”, Spinel yells out loudly, kneeing the poor creature upwards, giving her time to summon her bow staff. She jumps up to match the worm and stretches her weapon’s girth, using gravity to give the dazed creature a decent bonk to the head and poofing it.

As she lands and unsummons her weapon, she hears the rest of her comrades come to her aid. “Spinel! Where’s the ‘worm monster’ that Steven called us for”, Pearl asks with concern, earning her a chuckle from Spinel as she says, “Already took care of it, where’s Stevie and Connie?”, Spinel asks but already got her answer in the form of a surprise hug from Steven.

“That was incredible!”, Connie exclaims, Spinel seeing that she has a glowing bracelet now, thinks to herself, huh, so that’s what he was keeping it for. “Yeah! The crystal gems are always incredible”, Steven adds in, Spinel smiling sadly at that.

“So, are you going to introduce us?”, Amethyst asks in a teasing tone as she puts her hand on Steven’s shoulder “Steven was so excited to meet you, right Steven”, Pearl adds in with interested glee, “Hey! Don’t mess with his funky flow”, Garnet warns the two gems in question as she picks them up.

“Funky flow?”, Connie asks innocently while Steven hides his embarrassment, “Don’t be late for dinner Stevie, are you joining us Connie?”, Spinel says while walking away but stops to ask that question, “No thanks Mrs. Spinel, that’s alright, my mom is cooking dinner tonight”, Connie refuses politely.

“Just Spinel kid, I ain’t a married gem”, Spinel clarifies with a smirk that causes Connie to blush slightly from the embarrassment of assuming.

Chapter Text

Two weeks ago

“Get ready Steven, this is going to be intense”, Garnet says with a small smile, “I’m ready!”, Steven replies with excitement. Pearl and Amethyst board a teacup together while Garnet and Steven share one as well, Spinel opts out on riding since she has ridden it countless time before during her break times.

“Hey Harold, not going to ride the teacups of doom? I can operate it for you if you like, free of charge”, Spinel offers with a smirk. “Ahah, you? Offer work for free? What happened to Spinel and what did you do to replace her”, Harold says with amused skepticism.

“Oh, come on, am I really that of a penny pincher?”, Spinel asks fainting innocence while batting her eyelashes all cute like. “Yes”, Harold deadpans, both gem and human stare at each other for a good couple of seconds before bursting out laughing.

Just as Spinel opens her eyes from the laughing fit, she sees Steven on a collision course with Harold. Using her arm like rope, she catches Steven’s waist midair and pulls him towards her into a hug.

 “Steven! What has gotten into you? Why did you jump off the ride?”, Spinel asks frantically while fussing over Steven, and looking for any sign of injury? Before Spinel could react, a motion sick Steven pukes on her blue jean jacket.

“Awe Stevie, no more teacup rides in the future”, Spinel coos while rubbing Steven’s back in a circular motion. Making him heave a second time, but into a trash can instead of her jean jacket again.

Spinel takes of her jean jacket and puts it inside her gem, revealing a white tank top inserted into her semi ripped blue jeans. The rest of the gems got off from the teacup ride and heads to where Spinel and Steven are, “you okay Ste-man?”, Amethyst asks with slight concern.

“Yeah, I’m sorry about jumping in the first place, I just, I just had to get off you know?”, Steven apologizes and explains why. “Just don’t do it again Steven”, Garnet says while adjusting her shades, “yes, you are very lucky Spinel was there to catch you from breaking something”, Pearl chimes in.

Now

“Pay attention Steven, this is going to be your first serious mission, you need to be ready”, Garnet says, “Yes! I’m ready! I’m so ready!”, Steven replies with enthusiastic glee, “Steven come on, you’re going to make yourself sick, why did you bring that?”, Pearl scolds Steven, rotating the boy and getting hit in the face by his ukulele

“I don’t know! I was excited, and it- it’s mine and I like it”, Steven explains quickly as his ukulele starts to drift upward and away. “Well tone it down, we wouldn’t want a repeat of barf city”, Spinel jokes with a smile as she stretches her arm to grab the boy’s instrument, giving it back to him in his arms.

They finish warping to strawberry fields, once the place of death, destruction and war for gem and human kind, but now just a field of strawberries. The gems plus Steven walk through the field, Pearl gushing, “unbelievable, this was once a gem battlefield, now its wild strawberries as far as the eye can see, ohhh that’s what I love about the earth, maybe this will be a light mission after all”.

“Maybe not”, Garnet states after Pearl bumps into her to see a huge inverse pyramid temple, “yikes, reminds me of that tubetube video of two guys exploring a temple to find loot, it did not end well for the other guy”, Spinel comments with a small smile until it turned into a somber tone.

The temple door opens after Garnet place a small pyramid key into its hole, “Woah!”, Steven says with amazement. They enter and stop at the entrance, Steven adding in another, “Woah! Woah! Steven’s the best, why thank you temple”, as it echoes into the temple’s chamber.

“You’re a doof”, Amethyst correctly observes, entering further in, Spinel could not help but see the giant carved mural of the war. What was the point, Rose? It didn’t even work in the end, we lost so many, killed ourselves for freedom, and at the end, who’s left to enjoy it? Me? Garnet? Pearl? ‘sigh’, Spinel thought bleakly.

“Hey what’s this thing? It’s like a cool floaty triangle thing”, Steven asks, getting Spinel out of her thoughts. “Well, whatever it is, you probably shouldn’t touch it”, Pearl cautions steven without even look at him.

“Stevie”, Spinel chides in, lightly admonishing Steven from doing whatever he was going to do. “Okay”, Steven says sadly disappointed but gets his finger away from the triangle thing he mentioned.

“Can we go now? There’s nothing here”, Amethyst asks with boredom, “No, we have to solve this temple and bubble the gem controlling it”, Garnet says plainly. “But there’s nothing here to solve, just some weird pictures on the walls”, Amethyst argues.

Pearl goes on a rant to Amethyst about the importance of gem history and the war, “So, Garnet, see any way we can solve this mystery?”, Spinel asks Garnet. “Mmm, that, once we turn it, there’s no going back”, Garnet says while pointing at what Steven was touching earlier.

“Okay, I’ll get Stevie out of here then we can-”, Spinel was about to escort Steven out while carrying him like a cat until. “No, if we want to solve this mystery, Steven has to come”, Garnet says, making Spinel even worried as she puts him down, “Yeah! I want to solve the mystery!”, Steven exclaims with glee.

They gather around the small floating pyramid as Garnet asks, “Ready?”, receiving nods form everyone, Steven does the honors and flips it which makes them fall into the hole at the ceiling. They land with ease and safety as they see the room lit up with torches in what looks like a circular central chamber full of doors.

“Still like the tubetube video you watched Spinny?”, Amethyst asks with slight concern as to where they have landed. “This looks less fun and creepier than in the video”, Spinel answers with a forced smile to assure Steven.

“Creepy aside, Steven and I will stay right here, where it seems to be safe, while you guys go solve the mystery to this place”, Pearl says with Spinel nodding in agreement with her, “awe”, Steven says in disappointment.

“Steven goes with me”, Garnet says, finally out of her musing, “Garnet”, Spinel asks with suspicion. “It’ll be alright Spinel, I’ll keep him safe, I promise”, Garnet says while lightly squeezing Spinel’s shoulder in assurance with her right hand.

Spinel’s expression softens in defeat, knowing that Garnet has a good reason for what she does, but it doesn’t make it feel any better. “Okay, okay”, Spinel says resolute turning into a whisper, with Garnet replying with a “mmm”.

“Really? Awesome!”, Steven exclaims with stars in his eyes, “but remember, this is a serious mission”, Garnet reminds Steven. “Understood, serious Steven! Spinel can you put me down? I need to be standing unless it doesn’t work, serious Steven! Activate!”, Steven exclaims seriously and marches on towards one of the doors with Garnet.

“But this could be the teacups all over again”, Pearl tries to reason out, “Hey! I put that behind me, and I have this!”, Steven says while showing the paper bag he got from Spinel. I hope it’s not like the teacups, I don’t want to clean this jean jacket again, Spinel thought as she watches them leave.

The rest of the crystal gems go on their separate ways, entering a temple door of their choosing. Spinel breezes through three room of trap tiles, clearing a jump, and a normal hallway, “What the fu-”, Spinel manages to say before a freaked-out Pearl and Amethyst bombard her with questions.

She couldn’t understand it, the door where she entered is where Pearl exited, but when she asked about the traps, she says it was full of arrows she needed to dodge. This just doesn’t make any sense, Spinel thought with growing concern for Steven, beginning to regret allowing him to come in the first place.

They all go in again, encountering hot lava, freezing blizzards, boulders, poison gas, living statues, and more in each room she goes through. I need to figure this out fast, I can’t let Stevie stay here anymore, it ain’t safe, Spinel thought with conviction.

She figures there’s a pattern since it’s always three rooms before going back into the central room again. She just can’t figure out how it’s happening and why, and if she missed something inside those rooms.

She sees Garnet and Steven this time when she leaves the third room and exhales with relief to see him without a speck of injury or shredded clothes. “Stevie!”, Spinel calls out to Steven as she embraces him in a coiling hug, Steven reciprocating in return.

“Garnet! There you are! The doors and rooms here make no sense, they all bring you back here, ‘get me out of here! Amethyst exclaims frantically in the background’, there are sixteen doors and we entered from the northeast, and went into three consecutive rooms in a straight line, but arrived back here in the southernmost door, which can only mean, well, I don’t know what it means, I- this is a death trap!”.

Pearl explains with fear, as at the end of her explanation, a frozen amethyst inside an ice cube gets slidden out by the room, with Pearl trying to get her out of it with her spear. “What, what do we do!?”, Steven asks with fearful concern now.

“We go back in, again, and again, and again, and again”, Garnet says plainly, earning the full ire of Spinel now. “Nu uh! No way, he is staying right here where it’s safe.”, Spinel says, now hugging steven in more coils.

“I can’t!”, Steven exclaims with outstretched arms, breaking free from Spinel’s hug. “It’s okay”, Garnet says to Steven, but she’s actually looking at Spinel directly. “No, no it’s not, I wanted to do this so bad, but now I feel like I’m going to throw up, this is just like the teacups!”, Steven admits loudly.

Spinel already opening the paper bag for him if he needs to heave this time, “wait! Wait Spinel, what if this is just like the teacups, that’s why we’re getting so lost, that’s why I’m feeling so sick, all the rooms are spinning us around so we end up here”, Steven says in a dazed eureka moment.

If that’s true then how do we get off this ride just like Stevie did back then? Spinel thought, seeing Garnet walk off and start punching the center floor. “Garnet? What are you-”, Spinel manages to say before Garnet finished with her floor demolition, sending them down below?

Spinel reacts on instinct and pulls Steven into another hug as she lands on one of the spinning platforms with relative ease. “Woah”, Steven says with wonder, Pearl proceeds to reexplain what Steven already figured out, blushing at Garnet’s comment.

“‘Gasp’, Spinel, I need to get off the ride now”, Steven says with a smile, Spinel sees what he means and replies. “Hold on tight”, Steven nodding and hugging spinel even tighter like a baby ape, she uncoils her arms around Steven and carefully swings towards the gem in the middle.

Using the spinning triangles around it as an anchor point, the duo reaches the gem in question as Steven pulls it out. Causing everything to stop spinning as it glows yellow, everything following in it’s wake as the temple explodes.

The smoke settles as Spinel sees that both she and Steven are covered in strawberry juice, at least it’s not puke, this time, Spinel thought with relief. Steven stands up from Spinel’s embrace and starts celebrating his first successful mission while dancing with the gem, Spinel still laying down against said strawberries.

“Sorry for doubting you, when it comes to Steven, I just lose it sometimes”, Spinel admits to Garnet who outstretches her arm for Spinel to hold on to, to stand up. “Mmm, I noticed, but when it comes to Steven, his unpredictability is what helped save the day”, Garnet says while adjusting her shades.

Spinel smiles at Garnet as they both look at Steven who is now being chased by white butterflies, “he’s something special isn’t he?”, Spinel asks in a whisper while letting a butterfly land on her finger.

“Yes”, Garnet says plainly, a small smile crossing her face as he looks from Steven and to the butterfly on Spinel’s hand.

Chapter Text

“How could you possibly think punching a blood polyp was a good idea? Look at all the gunk you got on me!”, Pearl lectures Amethyst while flicking off polyp gunk off her arm. “How was I supposed to know they pop!?”, Amethyst argues back.

“You're always putting us in danger with your little outbursts! Ugh, you are just, so, childish!”, Pearl exclaims while pointing a finger at Amethyst. “Yeah, yeah. And don't forget reckless, vulgar, loud mouth. And that's just what makes me so awesome! Right, Garnet?!”, Amethyst argues back, seeking back up from Garnet.

“Amethyst, you are a Crystal Gem. You need to act like it.”, Garnet says instead, with Pearl crossing her arms in support. “Spinny?”, Amethyst tries to seek help from Spinel, “Amethyst, I trained you, so I don’t have a problem with how you fight, but, ‘gestures to her long sleeve shirt she’s wearing full of gunk, and to Steven who is also full of gunk’, friendly fire Amethyst, friendly fire”.

Spinel says with disappointment instead of scolding, “fine”, Amethyst says and walks off into her temple room. “I think we really got through to her, right Garnet? Spinel?”, Pearl asks with certainty, receiving a groan from Garnet as they walk out and a ‘oh really?’ look from Spinel.

“Come on Stevie, let’s get you washed up”, Spinel says as they walk into the bathroom. Spinel helps Steven out of his gunk and stores his clothes in the laundry basket to be washed later. “Aren’t you going to wash up too?”, Stevie asks while he sits in the bathtub full of water and soap.

“I just have to change clothes Stevie, gems don’t have skin for this gunk to stick on, well not right now for me”, Spinel explains to Stevie as she takes off her long sleeve and reveals her gem to a curious Steven.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just make clothes out of light just like Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl do?”, Steven asks with a smile, making Spinel’s head turn and face him. Her expression turns from slight shock to soft sadness as she says.

“Mmm, it would be easier but, I like it this way, makes me feel comfortable”, Spinel says as she absentmindedly traces her inverted triangular gem. “I get that, I wear clothes all the time and they are super comfortable!”, Steven says happily.

“Alright come on, enough chit chatting, you’ll get all pruned if you stay too long”, Spinel says as she gets another long sleeve shirt out from her gem to wear. She takes the laundry basket and sets out to do this batch now, after the rest of the afternoon was spent for Steven’s online courses, they do their nightly routine of dinner, washing up, and tucking him into bed.

“Spinel? What did you mean by ‘you trained’ Amethyst?”, Steven asks while being tucked in. “Well, when she was first found by us, she didn’t know a lot about who she was supposed to be or of anything really, and since we were, short staffed, we had to go out on missions a lot back then, so, I took it upon myself to look after her until she could stand up with her own two feet you know?”, Spinel says with a smile.

“Will you train me too?”, Steven asks with stars in his eyes, “when you get the hang of summoning your shield, good night kiddo”, Spinel says with a chuckle as she pecks his forehead and gives his hair a good ruffle.

____________________

In the span of a couple of days, Spinel began to notice something different about Steven and Amethyst. Not that she wasn’t glad they were getting along because she wants them to get along but, she can’t help feel they are hiding something from her.

And it doesn’t help that she’s been seeing more and more tiger noses, prop money, and a regular order of Margarino on Stevie’s online purchases. What finally clued her in was when she was changing the sheets on Stevie’s bed, only to find a written backstory about a character named.

‘Tiger Millionaire’, that’s when it clicked and she said, “Amethyst”, in a ‘I knew it’ tone.

____________________

At a warehouse relatively close to the crystal temple, Spinel is waiting with crossed arms and ticking foot for the two-night owls to arrive.

“-at this rate we’ll definitely get the tag team be-”, Steven manages to say before seeing Spinel waiting for them. “Busted, let me handle this Steven, Spinny this is not what you think I-”, Amethyst manages to whisper to Steven as she prepares to talk her way out of this one but Spinel was not having it this time.

“Don’t Spinny me Amethyst, what were you thinking having him participate in underground wrestling!?”, Spinel asks Amethyst loudly. “He could have gotten hurt, or worse, tsk, now I seriously need to have him get a checked at the hospital”, Spinel adds in with her fingers on her chin.

“Stop! It wasn’t Amethyst’s fault, I followed her that night when you guys argued, I asked her to let me join in her fun too, it was my idea, she didn’t even allow me at first because she knew you would react this way, I just wanted to not be so babied anymore”, Steven admits guilty.

Spinel could feel her gem tie in a billion knots, he’s growing up so fast, she thought, “Stevie I-”, she manages to say as she tries to reach out to him but finds herself awkwardly recoiling back, should I even reach out? Am I babying him by being here right now? she asked herself internally.

She could hear Amethyst say ‘dude’, in the background but the rest is lost on her as she pulls herself inwardly, stroking her left arm awkwardly as she overthinks. But none of that matters as she feels Steven’s warm hug as she hears the comfort of.

“But I still really need you, and I would love it if you watch me be Tiger Millionaire on the ring, and I promise not to get hurt, Amethyst does all the fighting anyways”, Steven says in a soft whisper, almost pleading, as he hugs her warmly, Spinel reciprocating with a hug of her own.

“Whatcha say Spinny? Going to watch me duke it out like old times? Heh, please don’t tell Garnet and Pearl”, Amethyst says cautiously, and jokes, while quickly adding that last bit.

“‘sigh’, fine, but I’m going to be attending every match Stevie has”, Spinel says, “eh, that’s fair”, Amethyst says with a smirk. “Does that mean I still get to be Tiger Millionaire!?”, Steven says with hopeful eyes, “yes, Stevie, I’ll try to be less overprotective, but no promises I can keep it up”, Spinel says with a small smile.

The wrestling match for Steven actually goes well for Spinel, she wonders if this is what human caretakers feel when they watch their ‘kid’ do something well. Not until Steven wastes good drinks for his ‘act’ as he calls it, she cringes at the bad memories, and cringes even more when Steven slapped some poor shmuck’s drink away.

She can’t help but feel bad and want to protect Steven from all of this, but he said to not baby him so much, so she opts to talk about this with him later. They arrive back home, Spinel tucking a sad Steven into bed and hoping that sleep will help him feel better in the morning.

____________________

“Spinel, Am I the cruelest creature on the planet?”, a sad Steven asks still in his undies, “is this about what happened that night?”, Spinel asks softly, sitting beside him and putting his hand on his back in a comforting gesture.

“Yeah…”, Steven answers guiltily, “awe Stevie, I wish you didn’t do it in the first place but you can’t-, you can’t let your act become reality, it’s just not in your nature to be cruel, because you’re my sweet little angel boy”, Spinel coos to Steven in an encouraging tone.

“I messed up, didn’t I? ugh”, Steven asks with disappointment as he buries his face in his hands. “You did Stevie, but what matters now is what you do to next, you can’t change the past but you can decide now, do you keep being cruel? Or be better instead?”, Spinel asks in a comforting tone as she squeezes Steven in a one-sided hug.

“Better, I want to be better”, Steven answers with a small smile as he looks at Spinel, “heh, that’s the spirit, come on, breakfast is gonna get cold, I made bacon this time”, Spinel says with a grin as Steven perks up a bit and exclaims ‘yes!’.

___________________

It was the final match for the tag team belt, Harold is having the time of his life being the referee, and those pair of burly fit men are a sight for sore eyes. The match was about to start until Pearl and Garnet show up at the last second and lands inside the ring.

Oh no, Spinel thought with concern, “Pearl? Uh, Garnet?”, Steven manages to blurt out with anxiety. “What are you doing?!”, Amethyst asks with a hint of shame, “What are we doing? What is this?!”, Pearl asks with annoyance as she shows them something on paper.

“I thought we could use some promotion”, Oh Stevie, Spinel thought, Spinel uses her stretching ability to take Harold’s mic and try to defuse the situation. “Okay guys, let’s just stay calm and reasonable”, Spinel says into the mic as she gets herself in between Amethyst and Garnet.

“Spinel!? Not you too, I can't believe you've been sneaking off to this... this circus of... violence! And you! Using your Gem powers on humans?!”, Pearl says with shock, and pointing at Amethyst. “Not helping Pearl”, Spinel aggressively whispers back to Pearl.

“It's not enough that you're on my case all the time, you have to ruin this for me too?!”, Amethyst says to Garnet and Pearl angrily, not even minding Spinel being in between. “We're not here to fight!”, Pearl says reasonably, trying to defuse the situation now.

“Spinel, Steven, Amethyst”, Garnet says while taking a step, “What?!”, Amethyst asks angrily, “Go back to the temple”, Garnet orders. “I don’t wanna!”, Amethyst bellows, pushing Garnet away a few feet while making Spinel take a step back and the crowd gasp in anticipation.

“Stay out of this Spinny!”, Amethyst angrily requests to Spinel as she continues to walk forward, “Garnet, Amethyst, don’t do this, not here, and not in front of Steven”, Spinel asks firmly as she places herself between the crossfire of both gems again.

Not listening to her request, both gems raise their arms to strike at each other, using her natural flexibility and combat knowledge. She slithers each arm around the striking arms of Garnet and Amethyst and immobilizes their legs with two of her own.

Making them lay on the ring as her arms continue to coil around each gem’s one free arm left. “Let’s just hug it out alright?”, Spinel says with a strained smile. “Spinny!”, Amethyst bellows in embarrassment and anger as she frees her other arm and pulls Spinel off of them, throwing her outside the warehouse.

She lands on the sand on her nightly leggings with short jeans, "damnit Amethyst", Spinel thought out loud with slight annoyance. She quickly dusts herself off and springs back into the ring, just in time to stop Garnet’s punch on Amethyst as Spinel uses both her arms to grab each gem’s legs.

Jumping up to the support beam up top, she drags them along, sweeping them off their feet and letting them dangle and think about what they’ve done. But they still won’t stop despite the unfavorable position and winds up their fists to strike each other again.

Until, “Wait! I want to tell you Purple Puma's backstory. He was the wildest cat in the jungle, so wild, the other cats couldn't take it. So, she, I mean he, went to look for somewhere he fit in, somewhere with other people who felt misunderstood”, Steven interjects, Spinel slowly lowering them to their feet.

“That's why we're all here. To be wild and free, and body slam each other, and wear cool costumes, and make up nicknames and uh... so can't we just have this? Can't we just wrestle?”, Steven asks Garnet who picks up Steven’s mic after his speech.

“No!”, Garnet says, making everyone gasp again, “Because we are... the Notorious O-Order of... Wrestling Haters”, Garnet says while gesturing to Pearl to come up with something to add, Spinel smiles to herself as she thinks, such dorks, while stretching back down to her seat.

Spinel watches the rest of the match go in deep contemplation, I need to talk to them about this after, why can’t they just get along. After the match, she carries a tuckered-out Stevie on her shoulders as they all head home, that talk will have to wait for now.

Chapter Text

Spinel and the rest of the crystal gems are walking through the desert with Steven tagging along because he insisted to participate in this mission. In the spirit of not babying him, Spinel allowed him to come, but after a few minutes of walking, it became clear to her what she needed to do.

“Is this the thing? The place?”, A sweating Steven asks from on top of Spinel’s shoulders, “Yes, Steven, the power in the structures have turned aimless”, Garnet explains. Steven shifts away the umbrella Spinel is holding with his hand to see better; Spinel could hear Amethyst and Pearl bickering but at least not arguing.

Suddenly a roar is heard out of nowhere, “What was that?!”, Steven asks, slightly increasing his grip on Spinel’s forehead while looking around. They couldn’t still be around, right? Spinel thought to herself, “Let's go!”, Amethyst says, already running ahead, “It'll be best if Steven stays here”, Garnet says, glancing at Spinel who begrudgingly nods.

Spinel takes Steven off her shoulders and places him on the desert sand, giving him the umbrella and a sealed water bottle. “But I wanna come!”, Steven tries to puppy eyes Spinel but she’s immune by now, “Not this time, you’ll get a heatstroke before you can even run one mile, so drink up buttercup”, Spinel tells Steven off with a gentle voice and boops his nose.

“We’ll be quick Steven”, Pearl adds in as she waves goodbye to Steven, “but what if something eats me?!”, Steven tries to reason out so he can come. “Do not worry, wet one, there's nothing out here that can harm you, see you soon”, Garnet says while wiping away his sweat from his face, receiving an ‘okay’ from Steven.

With the help of Garnet, the Crystal Gems finds the temple they are looking for, it’s a tall and fortified structure that is built like a shifting maze. Amethyst insists on pairing up with Spinel which leaves Garnet with Pearl as they enter.

“Hey Spinny?”, Amethyst asks hesitantly while walking with Spinel deeper into the maze-like corridors and hallways. “Yeah Amy?”, Spinel asks while giving amethyst a ‘why are you being so awkward’ glance.

“I’m sorry again about what happened that night, I know we all talked about it but I still wanted to do it with only you and me around, you know?”, Amethyst apologizes again, earning her a chuckle and a neck hug from Spinel who replies, “just control your temper next time okay? Talking it out should always be our first choice”, with a soft voice.

“Yeah, yeah!”, Amethyst says in contemplation then in acceptance, The duo stretch and shape shift their way around the confusing paths. Until Amethyst saw something shine, Spinel gives her a boost up on her shoulders and they finally get face to face with the desert glass.

Amethyst uses her whip to snatch it and everything start to fall apart, a mountain of sand falls on them but since their gems, they don’t need to breath. They dust themselves off and head back to where Steven is.

“Amethyst, bubble it away”, Pearl scolds Amethyst, “No, quit being jealous, Pearl, my kill, my keep”, Amethyst smugly points out while playing with the desert glass “I'm not jealous, just be careful, if you drop it on the sand, it'll rebuild everything!”, Pearl reasons out and tries to snatch it from Amethyst, she fails.

“Amy, if you’re not gonna send it to the burning room, then at least put it in a bubble”, Spinel suggests to Amethyst firmly, who looks at Pearl with huge smirk on her face as she replies to Spinel with, “okay I will”, making Pearl groan out with frustration.

As soon as Amethyst encased it in a bubble, the shrill voice of Pearl saying, “Steven! What is that?! What are you doing?!”, as she summons her weapon. The rest of the gems following except Spinel who stands there dumbfounded.

I thought they would have died years ago; did she save one of them? Spinel thought, trying to figure out what this all meant. Soon the rest of the crystal gems unsummon their weapons as Amethyst and Pearl kept bickering about the desert glass.

“Let's go, Steven”, Garnet says plainly as she walks off following the bickering duo, “Okay, give me a sec, hey Lion, I gotta go, I had a lot of fun, I feel like you really get me, Shhhh... This is already too hard for the both of us”, Steven finishes his tearful goodbye with Lion as he takes Spinel’s hand and they walk home following the rest of the gems.

____________________

“Amy, make sure Stevie finishes his seatwork, Garnet and Pearl are out so that leaves you”, Spinel reminds Amethyst, receiving a ‘yeah, yeah, gotcha’, from her. She heads over to her shift at fish stew pizza and enters from the employee’s door, “Spinel, there you are, I need you to help my mom with the cooking again, Jenny will take care of the deliveries for now, we need more hands-on deck”, Kofi, her boss orders.

“Aye aye, bossman”, Spinel says, giving him an informal salute, after getting an apron from the kitchen, she sets out to help Nanafua, the restaurant’s oldest cook and mother to senior boss man himself.

“Hey Nanafua, boss man told me to help you this time”, Spinel says with a small smile as she takes out more ingredients and starts making more pizza. “Just call him Kofi, he has a big enough head as it is”, Nanafua jokes as she cleans out another fish.

“Heh, I guess but then his head would deflate, ‘deflating noises’”, Spinel jokes which made both of them laugh now. As Spinel helps Nanafua, she feels her phone keep buzzing in her jean’s pocket, probably Amethyst sending me messages, I’ll check them later, Spinel thought as she keeps her focus.

After the orders stop piling in, Nanafua tells Spinel to take a break and look at those messages that kept buzzing while they worked. She goes to the bathroom to get some privacy and wash her hands, and sees.

Amy

Hey spinny your little steeman finished all his seatwork so were taking a nap with the desert glass

Uh spinny? that lion steven was playing with is back should i shoo it away?

False alarm it just wanted to play with steven ill send pics

(Various pics of Steven trying to play catch with the lion, trying to play tag with it, some selfies of Amethyst and Steven, and a close up on its nose).

Steven wants to show it around so were going to visit where your working at for the man see you soon xoxo

Do not bring it inside, also, did you send the desert glass into the burning room?

Were here! also yeah got bored with it so i sent it back after the selfies

Spinel sighs with relief; it means a lot to her that Amethyst listens to what she says sometimes. The trick is to not make it feel like it’s her fault but instead her responsibility, plus it helps to know that deep down, she doesn’t really want to disappoint the people she cares about.

She exits the bathroom to find Stevie raving about the pink lion he has for a best friend, while Amethyst is in deep thought for a specific pizza combo. “Go outside and see for yourselves”, Steven says with smug glee, gasps of amazement could be heard outside from Kiki, Ronaldo, and onion.

Steven follows in tow too keep bragging about the lion, is that lion really hers? I mean the color scheme matches obviously but could she actually had resurrected it? Spinel thought as she watches Steven leave.

“Hey Amy, watcha want? We got those specials I was talking about”, Spinel suggests with a smile, sliding into the cashier counter “heh, never knew customer service makes you smile like that”. Amethyst says which catches Spinel off guard and tries to play it off saying, “this is just my customer service face, I gotta be an ‘appealing’ face for customers”.

“True ‘shrug’, now ‘rubs hands together’ can I replace cheese with mustard and have the pizza sauce mixed with squeezed jalapeños and hot sauce packets?”, Amethyst asks with a big grin on her face.

Spinel chuckles at that, Amethyst has always been a culinary adventurer but sometimes it crosses the line of inedibility. “Do not let Stevie have any of it”, Spinel reminds Amethyst who replies, “yeah, yeah, so you’ll make it?”, in a hopeful voice.

“You’ll make Nanafua cry but I never heard her back down from a challenge”, Spinel says with a wink and adds, “I’ll have it out in a few minutes, is Stevie going to get his usual?”. “Heh, large and extra fishy, don’t worry, it’s mostly for the lion”, Amethyst reassures Spinel.

After Amethyst got her two orders and surprisingly pays (stolen money), Spinel leans on the counter and watches Stevie outside feeding the lion. “I guess it doesn’t hurt for him to have a friend slash pet, but I should teach him responsibility for that thing”, Spinel whispers to herself in thought.

Chapter Text

In a damp and cold cave somewhere in the alps, the crystal gems along with steven are cave diving inside to find a corrupted gem. Spinel made sure to pack anything Steven needed in case they got caved in, and made sure he wore heavy cotton fabrics with boots.

They reach the edge of what looked like a battle arena straight out of one of Spinel’s video games, and there it stood, with spikes on its circular back, supported by its many tentacles. “Spinel, I need a boost”, Garnet requests. Spinel asks Pearl and Amethyst to hold her arms while she stretched her back against the wall.

With her feet coiled into springs and aimed at the creature she says, “ready when you are Garnet”. Garnet summons her gauntlets and uses her one hand to hold herself by the edge’s slanted perch and plants her feet on Spinel’s springs.

As soon as she let go of her grip on the edge of the drop, Spinel’s legs uncoil at the speed of sound, launching Garnet straight at the corrupted creature. Creating a resounding crack on its shell, but not poofing it yet, she back flips off of it and faces the creature’s dazed and enraged outburst of its tentacles.

Garnet swatting each tentacle with ease and finishing it with spike fist right into its mouth at the center of it’s underbelly. With the gem bubbled safely, Garnet walks back to an amazed group of spectators, especially a certain starry-eyed boy.

“Wow! She's so fast, Garnet, you're amazing! How'd you even do that?”, Steven asks gleefully while running around Garnet. “Just like old times?”, Spinel asks with a nostalgic grin, receiving a small smile from Garnet who answers, “just like old times”.

“Look! The little ones didn't explode, they're drilling away!”, Pearl exclaims as she points at the little drill like creatures drill away down below. “I got it!”, Amethyst bellows as she dives head first into a small hole, Spinel getting her out as Amethyst adds, “I swallowed a rock”.

“Let them go, they're just parasites, if they want to be a problem, they'll have to answer to me.”, Garnet states as she sends the bubbled gem back to the temple.

____________________

After a smooth successful mission like that, it should be celebrated, that’s why Steven has the bright idea to take the gems to hangout with him at Funland arcade. “We all worked so hard, we deserve a reward, and since I finished all my course work, I finally have free time!”, Steven says with jovial glee.

“Sounds like you have something in mind”, Pearl says in an inquiring tone with a smile, Steven starts giggling and dancing, and says, “I'm taking you guys to the best place in Beach City! Funland arcade!”.

Spinel couldn’t help but smile at Stevie’s thoughtfulness, “Oh yeah! High score! High score!”, Amethyst chants while looking at Spinel who just chuckles. The last time the gems visited Funland arcade together was when Rose was still around, and the place still felt nostalgic after every shift.

With Amethyst’s excitement, the group’s first stop is ‘Alien Invasion Defender!’, an arcade game with model blaster guns to shoot with at virtual invading aliens on screen. “Don’t you think this is a bit too barbaric?”, Pearl inquired as Amethyst and Spinel enjoyed themselves, speed running through levels in the game with practiced ease.

“Come on P! What’s not to love? Plus, it trains the reflexes, right Garnet?”, Amethyst says without taking her focus off the screen. Garnet ‘mmms’ in response with a nod as Pearl adds in, “Well, I prefer a little more precision and hand coordination with these games”.

After Spinel and Amethyst set a new high score on their go to arcade game, its Pearl’s turn to show them how its done. ‘More & More Speed’ is the game Pearl chooses, after trying out all the racing games before, this high skilled racing game stood out as one of her favorites when it comes to playing in Funland arcade.

“Watch and learn Steven, this is how you race without ever needing to use the brakes”, Pearl says in a confident smirk. Showcasing just how skilled she is at every technique in racing ever invented and ones she developed herself, Amethyst comments “show off” and Pearl’s smug grin only grew.

The tickets only grew with each game they played, Garnet flicked the ‘Punch Buddy’ with her pointer finger and the score boards broke with nines all around. Amethyst insisted on climbing on top the skeeball machine to cheat but Spinel had a better idea, a loophole.

Using her stretching and shapeshifting abilities, she formed a tube-like path for Amethyst to slide the skeeballs in. Each throwing slide into the tube guaranteeing that it enters the one-hundred-point hole at the end of the machine every time.

Steven giggled with glee at their antics while Garnet shifted her shades and Pearl tells them that this was not a good idea. But oh, it was, not only was it discreet, but made it looked like Amethyst was actually playing the game fairly.

After they finished exploiting the skeeball machine, they had more than enough tickets to buy whatever they wanted at the booth. They stopped for one more game however, a game which they could all play, ‘Teens of Rage’.

Garnet picked a character with shades, Amethyst picked the purple wolf, Pearl picked the princess, and Spinel picked the mask apple bandit man. With their characters selected, the free for all commenced with Garnet leading because of her foresight.

Along the match, Pearl and Amethyst entered a mutual understanding to work together to try and at least take a life out of Garnet’s character. But with Spinel in the mix, it proved difficult to do so without getting flanked by the sneaky bandit character.

As the intense button smashing match continued for all the gems, Steven joyously cheered each gem to win. After a long battle of wits and combos, Garnet and Spinel are the only characters left standing, an avid pro gamer (self-proclaimed) vs someone with really good foresight.

Fists, kicks, and assortments of combos were exchanged, with Pearl cheering on for Garnet while Amethyst cheers for Spinel. Steven is practically bouncing with excitement, enraptured at such skills of combat via virtual arcade machine.

Until Spinel made a huge incorrect misstep with her character which was what Garnet was waiting for. After the torrent of combos landed on Spinel’s character, the game over screen flashed and Garnet is the victor.

“Oh man! I thought Spinny had that”, Amethyst says while slapping her knee, “ah yes, well, everyone has their bad day”, Pearl says in an encouraging tone. To which Spinel shrugs happily and says, “gg Garnet, one of the best fights we’ve had in a while”, to Garnet.

Garnet looks to Spinel with a small smile on her face as she replies, “gg”, which made Spinel smile even more, she’s known Garnet to be as someone with only a few words to say, but hearing her use one of the terms she’s picked up over the years living with humans, it warms her gem that her fellow comrades care to even entertain the usage of them.

“Alright! That was so cool! Let’s cash in these tickets and get something awesome!”, Steven says, already taking the pile of tickets to the booth where Mr. Smiley is waiting for them. “Hey there Steven, that’s an awful lot of tickets”, Mr. Smiley says while he takes the tickets and starts feeding them to the ticket counter.

“Yeah! The gems played and showed me their skills at the art of arcade fun!”, Steven proudly says while putting his hands up in the air. “Having family fun, now that’s what I like to hear”, Mr. Smiley says to Steven and looks up to glance at Spinel with the gems bantering with each other.

After the final number stopped on the counter, Mr. Smiley asks Steven, “you’ve got 5000 tickets kid, anything in mind?”. Steven shows him a knowing smirk as he knew exactly what he wanted, “oh I have something in mind alright”.

The crystal gems and Steven were now walking home through the board walk, with Steven clutching the prize he exchanged all those tickets for. “I could have bought you the console Stevie”, Spinel says with a playful smirk, “no, I had to get it, earning it through feats of arcade wisdom, skill, and knowledge made it so much more rewarding”, Steven replies while rubbing his cheeks on his prize.

“I agree”, Garnet says plainly with a satisfied small smile, this peaceful walk back home is cut short however, as the parasites that Garnet mentioned returned. “Gems! Weapons!”, Garnet bellowed after the first one emerged, and soon, they were fighting an entire swarm of them.

Chapter Text

It was an early end to her shifts, there was less people around the board walk today and thus, leaving all of her shifts without customers. So just before lunch she clocks out and takes a pizza home for Stevie.

There must be a decrease of tourists coming in because of all the attacks recently, maybe it’ll come back around when summer comes. Spinel thought as she nears the beach front of their temple’s seaside beach house, hearing Steven ask loudly.

“Guys! Guys! What is Opal? Spinel!”, Stevie gleefully yells the last part as he goes in for a hug with Spinel. She reciprocates with a one-handed hug of her own while her other hand holds the pizza box.

“Heya Stevie, looks like you guys had fun, you hungry? I’ve got pizza”, Spinel asks in a slight jovial tone, glancing up to Pearl and Amethyst who seem to be eyeing each other bitterly, before settling back her gaze on Steven who replies honestly with a.

“Yeah! Oh right, pizza- wait I got to wash my hands first”, Stevie says while grabbing the box before stopping himself from opening it and sprinting back up inside. Spinel watches Steven all the way inside and then shifts her gaze towards the two gems and asks.

“Are you two alright?”, Spinel’s genuine question caught them off guard, Pearl trying to hide her blush of embarrassment with an explanation, “Oh, ahaha, Opal just came up in conversation and we had a slight disagreement”, Pearl says with a hand gesture to Amethyst.

“Oh, so that’s what this is all about, I thought you two figured this out already?”, Spinel asked inquisitively while rubbing her chin. “We kinda did, but also kinda did not, since things change, and she can’t understand the difference between everyday life and actual combat!”.

Amethyst says sarcastically at first with hands clasped together, slowly turning more argumentative while unclasping her hands, and then yelling loudly at Pearl. The yelled at gem puts her hands on her ears to block out the yell and then replies with snark.

“That argument would hold true if you weren’t so reckless and a mess in combat as well!”, Pearl snarks with her signature shrill voice. The two gems continue to argue incoherently now as words start to overlap each other, Spinel has had enough of this and decides to break it up before it escalates even further.

“Okaaay- you two need to work this out between yourselves alright? But for now, let’s agree to disagree before weapons start clashing, Pearl, I expect you to lead the conversation, and Amethyst, don’t shut yourself out like last time, use words and not insults, okay? Okay, let’s go back inside before Stevie finishes all the pizza”, Spinel says with a mix of authority, jovialness, and sincerity.

Disputes between fellow comrades in the battlefield isn’t something new to Spinel, but she figures that these two’s issues stem from something else entirely than just Opal. The two gems relent for now as they follow Spinel back up to the beach house where Steven is waiting for them.

As the three gems enter, they see Steven munching on a pizza slice in the kitchen counter, Steven tries to turn and greet them but his focus is redirected when Garnet warps in. “mmspm- ‘gulp’, Garnet! Ooh! Ooh! Did you bring me anything?” Steven says as he leaves his chair and greets Garnet.

Garnet gives him a smooth oval rock which makes Steven say with glee, “Whoa, a rock! Thanks, Garnet”. “So, was your mission a success?”, Pearl asks in a hopeful tone while taking a step forward to Garnet.

“I have located the Geode Beetles of Heaven and Earth. We should split up to retrieve them”, Garnet says evenly. “Well, I'm going with not Pearl”, Amethyst states while munching on some pizza in the back with Steven.

“Well, that's perfect because I don't want to go with grammatically incorrect people anyway”, Pearl snarks in a gentle tone. “Is her talking about me?”, Steven asks after gulping down a pizza slice which Spinel lightly scolds, “Stevie, chew your food”.

“You three go together, Spinel and I will go together”, Garnet states clearly, inciting a “what! Why?”, from both Pearl and Amethyst. “The Earth Beetle's at the bottom of the boiling lava lake, and it’ll go quicker with Malaya’s help, you’ll find the Heaven Beetle at the top of the Sky Spire”, Garnet says and nods at Spinel.

Spinel clutches the rock she took from Stevie for assurance, she could see the logic; Steven would be safer going with Pearl and Amethyst to the sky spire than with her at a lava lake surrounded by active volcano. But it still doesn’t dissuade her worries, her thoughts are interrupted when Steven asks with curiosity.

“Woah! What is Malaya!?”, while looking expectantly at her to answer his burning question about Garnet’s casual reference of their fusion. “She’s just like Opal Stevie but instead of Amethyst and Pearl fusing, it would be me and Garnet”, Spinel explains.

“Can I come? I want to see you two form Malaya!”, Steven asks with stars in his eyes but gets shot down by Spinel. “No can-do Stevie, I don’t want my favorite popsicle to melt, you’ll be safer with Amethyst and Pearl”, Spinel teases Steven by pinching his cheeks, the boy giggling from both the comment and the pinching.

“You mean boring-er”, Amethyst complains, “you mean more boring”, Pearl corrects her, “So, you agree with me”, Amethyst says with a smug smile, “Ugh! Come on, you two, let’s go”, Pearl huffs and goes to the warp pad, with Steven and Amethyst following close behind.

“Steven, be sure to keep the harmony”, Garnet says to Steven who is on their way to warp, “No problem, today's going to be all about harmooooon-”, Steven says but doesn’t get to finish his sentence as he, Pearl and Amethyst warp away. “Be safe…”, Spinel whispers to herself.

____________________

Spinel and Garnet warp in a dreary place, filled with black soot and ash from the lingering active volcanoes around. It is here where an old friend resided a long time ago, but today the two gems are visiting for a different reason.

“Spinel, before we fuse and head out, I want to ask you about Steven’s lion”, Garnet says as she takes a step forward and turn to face Spinel. “Mmmmm, I have questions too, I thought Rose’s lion pack had died of old age but, one survived and is now pink?” Spinel says in contemplation and asks rhetorically.

“Mmmmm, Rose had always took a liking to earth’s creatures, perhaps she saved one with her healing tears”, Garnet suggests to Spinel who nods in agreement. As early as Spinel remembers arriving on earth, the first change she noticed was Rose’s compassion for the planet.

“I’ll keep an eye on Lion and Stevie, I’d ask Pearl and Amethyst but they seem busy nowadays, so, ready to boogie?”, Spinel asks with a smirk to Garnet who reciprocates with a small grin of her own.

“Ready”, Garnet says as their gems glow to indicate they are ready to fuse, Spinel opens with a tip tap of her feet as she glides towards Garnet with expressive arms and a smile. Garnet responds with a seductive waltz of her own and smoothly makes a show of her gems on her hands.

In a morph of pure white light, the two performing gems finish their dance in gentle sway, the colors of candy pink, cherry tomato, and deep pink come into view. So does their two pair of arms, wide hips, and stocky plantigrade legs.

Malaya uses one of her hands to brush up slightly within her line of sight and summons diving goggles that fit on her four purple eyes. their luscious lip’s part into a wide smile while she stretches out her arms in a cartoonish way while sighing in exaggerate relief.

“Ahhh, it feels good to finally be free! ‘Leans into nothing in particular and whispers’ Garnet and Spinel rarely fuse as it is but where are my manners, introductions are in order! Malaya Garnet at your service, Malaya for short, Mals or Mally if your Opal ‘wink’”

They look out in the distance and whistles, “Hot damn, I got my work cut out for me, everything’s a raging cesspool of hot molten death, good thing I’m lava proof!”, She backs up for a running start and jumps at the edge of the lava lake as they take a swan dive into the center.

With four arms and powerful kicks, Malaya is able to reach the bottom of the lake quickly where the molten lava stops in a perfect line in every direction. They do a quick roll to adjust their positioning mid air as they fall from the lava’s grip on them and land on solid ground.

They don’t have time to admire the earth beetle’s temple however, because standing in their way is a giant dragon with no wings. It roars at them, spilling their fiery spit everywhere, “Leave it to the two idiots who had the bright idea in fusing and making me fight against a dragon in an ‘enclosed’ space”.

They sigh in mock disappointment while doing air quotes, the magical dragon creature lunges at them to take a bite but finds only air as Malaya jumps upwards and out of the way. “I mean seriously, would it kill you two too take me to an open field once in a while? Geez”.

They continue to argue with themselves while summoning Garnet’s gauntlet and landing a smashing blow on top of the dragon’s head. “You hear me in there? Take me somewhere I can run next time!”, “alright, alright we will, please focus on the dragon!”.

They do a backflip off the dragon and punches its snout, making it tumble back in a stunned motion. Malaya smirks and says “good”, then summons spinel’s staff, it shrank to half its size then they toss it parallel to the ground close to their right waist as they use the gauntlet to make it fuse and spin.

Creating a one-handed war hammer, catching it with their hands, they can’t help but feel that its incomplete. Having recovered from the blow, the dragon is now on its feet and ready to lunge again, not giving it a chance to do so, they lunge first and aim at its neck, putting enough force in a single point to make the dull hammer cleave the dragon’s head in two.

Expecting it to poof when they land, they unsummon their weapon while they watch the dragon’s head slam into the dark brown wall and fall on the ground. As they land on their feet and witness the head poof, it took them by surprise to see that the body was still standing.

It surprises them even more when two heads reformed from where they cleaved it, “you have got to be kidding me, woe is me who thought the hydra to be a dragon”, Malaya deadpans with a frown as they summon a war hammer in each hand.

As the hydra roars, Malaya focuses on the hydra’s gem on its chest, with a quick plan brewing to finish this fight quickly. Running straight for its gem, the two heads of the hydra lunge for them, first the left head which they swat towards their left flank and then the right head which they swat towards their right flank.

Before the separated heads can regroup, Malaya throws their axes at each neck of the hydra to give her a second or so to close the distance. The stagger proves to be enough as Malay uses her four hands to penetrate the hydras form and scoop its gem out of its chest with a mighty pull.

The hydra screams its death cry and poofs, leaving Malaya to bubble its gem and send it back to the burning room. With their weapons unsummoning in the distance, they slowly walk then reach the earth beetle’s temple and unfused.

“So, when will we let them ‘frolic’ around an open field next time?”, Spinel asks Garnet who is taking the earth beetle from its temple and placing it in a summoned plastic container. “Next week, or maybe next month”, Garnet replies.

Spinel hums in agreement and receives the plastic container from Garnet, both gems walk out through a magical door in the wall and trek back to the warp pad. After hearing Stevie’s tale of adventure with Amethyst and Pearl, Spinel almost had a heart attack which she mentally reminds herself to have Amethyst and Pearl brush up on human fragility.

Chapter Text

The silent hum of Spinel’s computer offers her a pleasant distraction from the current meeting taking place about her Stevie. These online teachers, some with prominent university connections, just won’t let up about Stevie skipping a few grades to enter college sooner.

Who knew he had such an affinity with anything scholastic, with the right incentives of course, but she can’t let him advance that far. He needs to enter a real school and meet kids his age, even if he’s a little short for a thirteen-year-old, Spinel is sure his cuteness will work in his favor.

“Miss Spinel, surely you must understand that your boy is gifted, young he may be but with the right professors and work ethic, he’ll earn a master’s degree in no time”, The female professor from Delmarva State University said with zeal and genuine optimism for her young boy.

“I appreciate the offers professors, but as I had said, his father and I have already talked about this situation prior to this meeting, and we both agreed that it’s better for Stevi- en’s growth that he interacts with peers his own age. Because despite his intelligence, he, values being social more than being intelligent”, Spinel said again for the, never mind, she has lost count, in a professional manner.

“Very well miss Spinel, we will see Steven when he enrolls for college”, the female professor said with a smile but clearly disappointed in her tone. “Thank you for being patient and understanding professors, good day”, Spinel says with a victory smirk.

“You mean when young Mr. Universe enrolls here for college”, a male professor from MIT chides with mirth. “Keep day dreaming Mark, good day miss Spinel”, the female professor snicker in response and Spinel can’t help but smile at their bickering as she ends the video meeting.

She lets out a heavy sigh of relief as she leans into her comfortable office chair and unties her bun to let it all fall down. She shimmies out of her female blazer to reveal a white tank top underneath, she puts on her favorite hoodie and relaxes.

Being all prim and proper is Pearl’s thing but she can pretend pretty well for these kinds of meetings. After the bird eating incident, Amethyst and Pearl talked after, she doesn’t know when and where but she doubts it’s going to end there, she appreciates them trying thou, small steps.

Since Pearl’s small steps include trying to make Amethyst clean her room and throw out whatever awful smell is in the temple that reaches her room, ‘win-win’ she said. Spinel launches Grid and is about to queue a casual game of Dinkum when she’s interrupted by Steven, knocking then barging into her room which she finds endearing that he’d knock first before the inevitable shoulder meets air.

“Oof, Spinel! You have to come with me, it’s a matter of greatest importance!”, Steven said with urgency as he regains his stand and drags Spinel outside her room and into the beach house lawn. “Alright Stevie, what’s gotten into you?”, Spinel says with a barely contained smile.

“We’re celebrating your birthdays! Ta da!”, Stevie shows me what he has been up to this morning, party decorations, balloons, party hats, and in the middle are Pearl and Garnet standing in between Amethyst, who is sitting on a throne with Stevie’s birthday crown and cape.

Spinel sees the nervous wringing of hands from Pearl, probably appreciates the idea of birthdays but haven’t gotten interested in the custom. Amethyst is just plain chilling, after they found her out in the kindergarten, Spinel asked what day she emerged and backtracked it to a date, they celebrate it as her birthday every year by themselves or with the crystal gems.

Garnet is stoic as ever, there is however a small smirk in her façade, before Spinel could reply to Steven after her observations, he sings,

“It might as well be your birthday, so why don't we have a party? Even if your age isn't real and your body's an illusion”.

After giggling at her boy’s antics, she uses this opportunity to talk to the gems while Steven is busy trying to make Lion wear a party hat properly. “Your majesty”, Spinel playfully mocks Amethyst who replies, “peasant”, in the same tone.

After the two chuckled at their antic, Spinel addresses Pearl about her distress and she admits that while she still doesn’t find the point for birthdays, she at least wants to try the adult version of it, which got a snicker from Amethyst at what she was implying.

“Wow P, I think little Ste-man is too young for that”, Amethyst states with mirth. Pearl blushes heavily on that and quickly defends herself with, “I- I didn’t mean that kind of birthday, though I am certainly old enough to indulge, I was simply referring to a less childish celebration and more-”.

“Refine?”, Spinel finishes Pearl’s sentence while keeping her eye on Steven and Lion. “I think the word she’s looking for is, sophisticated”, Garnet adds in. “Tomato toh-mah-tow, we still got to change little Ste-man’s mind, he got a plan and everything all figured out”, Amethyst chides in.

“Let’s play along for now, I’ll break it to him gently”, Spinel said with warmth while Stevie runs towards them with a bat and a piñata. After Amethyst successfully and precisely ruptured a hole underneath the piñata, she proceeds to eat most of the candy, wrappers included.

“Hey Stevie”, Spinel calls out to Steven in a jovial way, even if he does want to be more grown up, she can’t help herself in viewing him as that little bundle of joy years ago. “Spinel! Let’s get ready for Pearl’s party, I have this great picnic spot in mind overlooking beach city!”, Steven happily explains his methodical planning.

“That’s great, buuuuuut, would you mind if I add some improvements for Pearl and Garnet’s party?”, Spinel asks while squatting with both hands on her knees. “Improvements? Pearl and Garnet’s? What did you have in mind? Wait, I can show you my detailed plan! Just a second!”, Steven beamed with the brightest smile and ran back to the house.

When he came back with his detailed plan, Spinel can’t help but be proud of him while looking through his notes and small scribbles on bond paper. It’s just like how Greg and her celebrates his birthday with jokes and a comedy skit and kazoo racers, she should have figured it out when he pulled out the piñata.

After clearly explaining to Stevie her improvements, it just made steven even more excited than he already is. Doubling down by adding food caterers, hiring Sour Cream for the music, and hiring a company known as “Party Helpers Inc.” to help with the decorations that he’ll be responsible for picking.

That also means seating arrangement and inviting almost half of beach city’s residents, Steven continues to browse the catalogue while Spinel makes some calls. They reach “It’s a Wash” and Steven invites his dad which he happily accepts, he agrees to drive them to the Maheswaran’s residence in downtown suburbs.

After an eventful introduction between two families, in which Connie’s parents mistakenly think that Spinel and Greg are Steven’s parents, and married. The two share a look and a smirk which they just rolled with it, Stevie isn’t too eager to correct them and is genuinely enjoying himself.

With an exchange of contacts, and Connie being allowed to tag along since the Maheswaran’s are attending Greg and Spinel’s aunts’ birthday party. “Oh, my, cheese sticks! That was intense, I thought we’d get found out for sure”, Connie sighs in relief with the breath she was holding.

“Why’d you two played along? Miss Spinel’s not married”, Connie inquires to which Greg replies nonchalantly that, “It happened a lot when Steven grew up, I’d try to explain this and that about my wife but, in the end, we decided it’s best to just let it be for strangers, what matters most is close family and friends knowing”, Greg wisely states.

Spinel thinks that it must have finally sink in about telling his family, or in this case, her telling his family about Steven to secure his future. They argued about it for hours, but in the end, Greg resigned himself to fate, nothing much he can do about it now, and plus it was for his son, what kind of dad would he be if he took that away from Steven.

“Heh, still browsing stewball?” Greg happily rubs his son’s hair to which he gets a “Mhmm, Connie come help me with this”, from Steven while not taking his eyes off his cellphone. Before Spinel could enter Greg’s van however, she spots Rick just outside his muscle car, looking inconspicuous.

“You three go on ahead, I have some business to take care off, don’t worry, I won’t miss the party. Stevie, make sure everything goes smoothly, watch out for Amethyst, she’ll eat all the food in seconds, and make sure you two have fun, okay, stay safe”, Spinel motherly said and leans out of the driver’s side window.

She watches the van drive away after getting goodbyes from everyone and just as the van turns the corner of the street, she heads for Ricky. “So soon? Somebody’s getting clingy, be careful, it might ruin your tough guy act”, Spinel jokes which earns some chuckles out of him.

“Har har Spinel, just here to show you what’s new, orders from the top and all that, you know how it goes. ‘Reveals crystal gem necklace and unequips it from his neck’, here, ‘gives it to Spinel’, what do you think?”, Rick asks in a serious tone.

Spinel glares at him with so much rage as she asks, “Is it sentient?”, Rick takes a breath to steady himself and answers a flat out, “No, it’s inanimate, and no we didn’t start gem production back up, with irrefutable proof of the process doing undoable damage to the planet, the big wigs upstairs told the people downstairs to adhere the strict mandate of no hurting earth-chan, heh, take a guess as to what they used as a substitute”, Rick explains, his joke flying over Spinel’s head because she’s less rage and just pissed now.

After taking a really long breath and congratulating herself in not knocking his teeth out, she examines the gem, the structure is similar to an Amethyst’s gem. But instead of being purple, it’s faded pink with slight translucent blood red freckles in the gem.

“If it is sentient, it would have woken up when your big wigs completed in making it, so congrats, what can it do exactly?”, Spinel asks with much more mirth now and less discomfort. Rick gestures to hand it over and summons a sword from the thing when she gave it back, faded pink with blood red freckles over the gleam of the blade.

“Oh wow, now you just need to be somewhat indestructible and you could go a round or two with me”, Spinel playfully gestures to the sword. “I’ll pass, thanks, it’s like one of those dimensional backpacks in comics, I can put things inside and pull them out with ease, as long as I focus, but the only thing that came with the thing is this ‘lifts sword up and unsummons it’”.

“So, what’s the substitute?”, Spinel deadpans, “Human blood, specifically my blood, it’s why I can summon a weapon like you guys can cause its-”, Rick explains and gets cut off with, “linked with you”, Spinel stares at him like he’s crazy and adds, “you’re all lunatics”.

Rick continues, “Yeah, turns out they bogged it all down to one key ingredient, life essence, and human blood is chock full of life essence, doesn’t work with two or more people’s blood though”

Rick equips it on his neck and tuck it under his dress shirt where his jacket is zipped up on, and adds, “Well, that was it, they’re all calling it revolutionary, but honestly, it seems more like a convenient back pack than anything revolutionary”.

“Heh, I hear you, just don’t expect to become superman with that thing, at best you could be batman, at worst, a killable Deadpool”, Spinel advices Rick as he enters his car and starts his engine.

“I’ll warn that boys and girls back home, don’t expect them all to follow it though, you know how they can be ‘wink’”, Rick replies chuckling. “Ugh, don’t remind me, I’ve got my hands full with one, and now, two, see you around Rick, don’t be a stranger”, Spinel says and waves him goodbye as she watches his car drive off into the distance.

____________________

Spinel arrives back to the party fashionably early, Garnet is holding Amethyst like a cat to prevent her from going feral on the caterers while Pearl instructs the Party Helpers where to set up the decorations, tables, and a makeshift stage.

Beside her is a well-built wall of a man wearing a faded pink shirt similar to “Stevie?”, Spinel calls out to the man hoping to be wrong but instead proven to be right. Stevie smiles widely and runs long strides towards her while carrying a clip board and is that a stubble?

“Stevie? What- what happened? Did you do this? Are you okay?”, Spinel fusses over Steven lifting his arm, his shirt to look at his gem, and his now grown-up body. “Spinel, ‘chuckle’, I’m fine, totally fine, I just figured I needed some growing up to do, I can’t stay a kid forever”, Steven explains.

“But- but not this soon, your only thirteen for goodness’ sake!”, Spinel argues, getting more and more worried by the second. “Steven! Your thirteen?!”, Connie could be heard a few feet away where she’s sitting with Greg folding table napkins and setting cutlery to help.

“Yeah?!”, Steven looks to Connie to answer, then turns his focus back to Spinel who is staring him down with the look that means he’s in trouble. “Look, it’s not that bad, it actually works in my favor considering that I’m going off to college real soon”, Steven admits to knowing about that.

Spinel breaks her stare to pinch the bridge of her nose and says, “Steven, I turned that down this morning, and the days before that too, you’re too young to go to college, and no I don’t mean it in a condescending I know what’s best for you reason because, mentally, you’re not ready, you need to learn some of those social cues and how to interact with normal average kids your age.

And least of all the pressures of college life and interacting with young adult peers, which you are not, yet… Steven, you’re still a teenager, please, at least enjoy it first before you grow up, you wouldn’t want to leave your new friend Connie behind, right?” Spinel advices Steven firmly.

During her rant, Steven had shifted back to being a teenager wearing an oversized shirt while covering his pimples. “I didn’t really think that far ahead, I’m sorry”, Stevie apologizes shyly, to which Spinel hugs him with a coil and speaks.

“Oh Stevie, you didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just your powers reacting to your state of mind right now, you’ve got so much left to experience, so many big things and little things left to enjoy, in my years of observing and experiencing humanity, childhood is the most important time of your species short existence.

Your sweet and considerate, and the best kid I’ve had the pleasure of mothering, except Amethyst, she’s always going to be a child”, Spinel ends her life advice with a joke and notices that she’s hugging kid Steven now, her Stevie, “I am pretty great”, Steven smiles at Spinel with a single tear in his eye which Spinel wipes away.

____________________

The party is a huge hit with the beach city locals plus the Maheswaran’s and Connie, everyone’s having a great time all around, enjoying the drinks, the food, the music. For the kids in attendance, kazoo racers and Greg in a clown costume seems to be doing the trick.

“So, Steven’s thirteen”, Connie surprises Spinel with the deadpan statement, “yeah, Stevie’s thirteen, too young for you kid?”, Spinel teases Connie. Who hides her blush and yells through the music, her exasperate, “He’s a full year older than me! So no, he’s the too old for me, thanks”.

Connie pouts which make Spinel chuckles and rub, and pat her hair with endearment and advices, “it’s not the end of the world kiddo, and too bad, I guess you’ll be missing out”. Connie blushes even more and uses her hair to hide, she calms herself down and states.

“Okay, enough, you’ve had your fun, ‘puts hand on forehead’, you’re more embarrassing than my mom”, Connie ends that topic while Spinel chuckles and says, “it’s a parent thing, you’ll understand when your older and have kids of your own”, and drinks her strawberry cocktail.

“This must have costed a fortune”, Connie gestures to the raging rave of people on the dancefloor, “two amazing loopholes of human society kid, Interest and generational inheritance”, Spinel smirks while taking another chug, leaving Connie speechless at the genius of its illegal nature.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and girls! It’s time for the main event of the night! A dance battle between my two aunts ‘wink’, Pearl and Amethyst! Winner takes all, place your votes at the end of each dance!”, Steven says on stage with a mic.

Connie explains to Spinel that Steven came up with the idea to end their dispute about who will clean Amethyst’s room. At the end of the party, everyone came to know that Pearl can drop it like its hot, since majority voted for her and Amethyst finally gets to clean out her own room for once.

Chapter Text

It’s early in the morning, really early in the morning, the crystal gems are walking towards the moss garden pit. Today is the day of the year that they bloom and since Rose is no longer around to tend to the moss, Spinel took it upon herself to tend to it every year, sometimes bringing some of the crystal gems along with her.

The walk is peaceful, Stevie is still sleepy from waking up so early but he had insisted to come along, so Spinel obliged and woke him up bright and early before the sunrise. With a yawn from Stevie and Amethyst, the crystal gems arrive at the check point, where a fair skinned, blonde woman with bright green eyes is guarding the moss pit.

“Good morning agent Hannah, the early morning shift treating you well I hope?”, Pearl asks with a smile when they arrived. Hannah stands up straight from whatever she was reading on her phone and salutes Pearl, “Ma’am! Goo- good morning!”, Hannah nervously greets who she views as seniors to her.

“Pfft- real smooth P, don’t stress girl, we’ll be in and out before you know it”, Amethyst reassures the woman who smiles in response. “If- if you can scan your ids over here, I would greatly appreciate it”, Hannah gestures towards the government owned scanner for the gate.

The crystal gems use their government issued ids they keep in their gems to enter, upon passing through the gate, Spinel notices something. “Hannah, is that a new necklace and a quiver at your hip?”, Spinel asks even though she knows the answer.

“Oh, it’s just for the weapon I summon, it’s not really that great really”, Hannah answers shyly, that got Amethyst excited, Pearl curious, and Steven beaming. Spinel told them about the recent developments from the human's research and development after last week's party, and they were really curious as to how it works.

Leaving the rest of the group to bug Hannah about her weapon, Spinel stepped to the edge of the water, the moss inching ever so slightly towards her. “Need any help?”, Garnet asks from behind Spinel, “you’re not gonna take a look?”, Spinel asks still looking at the moss.

“I can see where it’s going”, Garnet jokes while adjusting her shades, the joke going right over Spinel’s head because she can’t always tell with Garnet’s monotone way of joking. “I thought you’d be too mad to help”, Spinel states, earning a ‘mmm’ from Garnet.

“Wait, did you just make a joke?”, Spinel asks, earning another ‘mmm’ from Garnet, “‘sigh’, I still don’t regret it by the way”, Spinel confirms for Garnet. “You made a good point, ‘Spinel finally faces Garnet’, and I don’t regret it either”, Garnet says with a smirk.

It makes Spinel chuckle, reminiscing about the early days when Steven was born, “not much to regret, you socked me pretty good right here”, Spinel replies with mirth as she made a kissy face and point to her cheek.

That got a rare chuckle out of Garnet that’s just as precious as all the smiles Stevie beams at her for every day. After tending to the moss as Malaya and setting most of the moss at the cliff’s edge, the sunrise broke through and the crystal gems get to experience once again, the beauty of earth.

____________________

After an uneventful shift at the Funland Arcade, Spinel is coming home early in the afternoon, the sun is still in the horizon and starting to set. She gets a call from Priyanka out of of the blue and accepts the call, turns out she’s asking if Spinel could tutor Connie today and make it a weekly thing.

Spinel accepts, telling Priyanka straight that she doesn’t need to pay and that it’s free, Spinel asks when they’ll be arriving and sees that Connie is already waiting outside of the house. Spinel says her goodbyes to Priyanka and that Connie arrived safely.

“Hey Connie, ready to learn? Or not learn, either way you get free time”, Spinel asks with a small tired smile. “I’m ready to learn! About you! And gems! Gem culture, and ‘gasp’, did you guys shape our history?”, Connie excitedly rambles.

Spinel only gives her a knowing grin which just excites the little ball of curiosity even more, after getting comfortable in the living room with snacks, Connie stares at spinel with curious intensity while sitting on her knees facing Spinel, the likes of which rivals her own little Stevie.

“‘Chuckle’, ask away kid”, Spinel said while leaned back on the couch. “‘deep breath’, did you ever get mistaken as a goddess?”, Connie asks, “Yes, I got mistaken as Aphrodite once, when we were living in ancient Greece and Rome, Garnet as Hercules that one time she went out on solo missions on her own, and Pearl as Athena”, Spinel answers.

This back and fort answering continued until a call from Hannah to let Spinel know about where her Stevie is and what he and his friends are up to, this gives Spinel and Connie a chance for a snack break.

Turns out he’s out with the cool kids of the city, since Jenny and Hannah are around and the moss is taken care of, the kids are free to swim in the lake. After a productive day of Connie asking a lot of questions about gem kind and gem history slash human history.

Stevie comes home with free pizza courtesy of Jenny for showing them a good time at the moss pit lake. A week later Steven would be grounded for making Spinel do most the clean up from Onion’s madness with Pearl’s replicator wand.

Garnet wanted to just destroy it so the mess can just magically disappear, but Spinel figures that the usefulness of the artifact far outweigh the cleanup. With a little help from Connie, Steven, Amethyst, Pearl, and sometimes Garnet, they were able to clean up the boardwalk in a week, just enough time to unground Steven.

Chapter Text

“It was you! You were the one who killed my brother. Cursing me to fight alone forever!”, Laying on her belly on Steven’s bed, head poking between Pearl and Garnet, Spinel watched lonely blade with Stevie and the rest of the Crystal Gems during a pleasant evening rain.

“Oh, Lonely Blade, you so lonely”, Steven said while laid belly-down on top of Garnet's hair.

“You think you can defeat me? The President of the Shadow Samurai Government?!”, the janitor continued as he unsheathes a hidden sword in his mop.

“What?! The janitor is the evil samurai president?! That's bananas!”, Steven exclaimed, genuinely surprised of the turn of events.

“Oh, come on, it was so obvious. He's been mopping in the background of every fight scene.” Pearl complained and showed Steven the movie cover box and continues, “Look, here he is on the cover of the box”.

“Oh yeah”, Steven accepted the explanation and Spinel giggled a little at his antics.

“For my honor and for my brother! I will strike you down!”, Lonely blade proclaimed, unsheathing and joining his two swords together, “Boomerang Blade!”, He screamed and threw the combined swords at the Janitor.

The janitor leaps upwards and thrusts down his blade screaming, “Piercing Shadow of a Thousand... Screams!”.

“Go, Lonely, go! Do the Boomerang Blade again!”, Steven cheered.

“Oh, come on, this is ridiculous. Just look at their form, this is nothing like real sword fighting.”, Pearl complained again, earning shushes from Garnet and Amethyst while Spinel just assures Pearl with a shoulder squeeze and a nod to continue watching despite its fancy liberties in subverting physics.

“It's just a movie, Pearl”, Steven laughed and eats a handful of popcorn.

“Well, if you ever want to see a demonstration of proper sword techniques, I'd be happy to show you”, Pearl offered still slightly miffed about the movies portrayal of sword fighting but Steven puts his hand on Pearl's head, staring excitedly at her to show her, “Now?”.

____________________

The Crystal Gems plus Stevie move a large open area with tiled ground and marble obelisks lining both sides of the arena. The place is surrounded by low hanging clouds that create the illusion of waves from the sea gracing its ragged shores.

“Alright, in order to give a proper demonstration, I'm going to need a sparring partner”, Pearl stated while holding two swords, Stevie tries to raise his hand to be that sparring partner, but Garnet immediately lowers it, much to Spinel’s silent relief.

But that relief immediately went away after Pearl calls to Spinel, “Luckily, we have the perfect candidate, right Spinel?”. Her left hand twitched while her right gripped the edge of her seat at the mention of actual combat.

Pearl seems so distant, holding the second sword’s handle towards her with an encouraging smile. Spinel knows it's for the best, after successfully coming along missions to stop corrupted gems a few hundred years back, the Crystal Gems, including Rose, had encouraged her to spar from time to time.

And each time she refused, or in the rarer cases where she accepted, almost got poofed because she froze mid strike. “Uhhhh P? How bout we spar instead, oooh! Or with Garnet”, Amethyst suggested, leaning on her cloud with a concerned look towards Spinel.

“Thank you for the offer, Amethyst, but as much fun it would be for me, it wouldn’t be educational for Steven, and Garnet prefers to punch rather than wield the blade”, Pearl helpfully explained, “True”, Garnet added.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she glanced at Stevie and gave him a reassuring smile before replying, “It’s fine guys, I can handle it, for Stevie, I mean it’s gotta be educational”, and gesturing to Pearl to toss her the blade which Spinel gracefully wields.

“Cooool! Go Pearl! Go Spinel!”, Stevie cheered, “Ah, geez”, Amethyst sighed worriedly while lying back on her small cloud. “Go easy on me Pearl, you know I ain’t that good with swords”, Spinel grinned nervously and stood in a combat stance with the blade behind her, ready for a long sweep as she lowered her center mass.

“I’m not holding back Spinel, you have to face this eventually”, Pearl stated with conviction and softness. Spinel grumbles in irritation at Pearl but mostly at herself, she’s a crystal gem warrior damnit and her blade is shaking slightly in her grip while her left hand is clenched tightly for assurance in herself.

It's just a spar, it's just a spar, it's just a spar, Spinel thought to herself before Pearl lunged at her and blocked it with practiced ease. Spinel might not prefer the sword, but she had experience with it, honestly, she had experience with every type of weapon but only one she mastered with deadly efficiency and destruction.

Pushing Pearl off their clinch, both gems backed off each other, Spinel taking the high ground on one of the broken pillars. She would have made a reference but she’s too focused on not fighting Pearl to say them, currently she had the advantage, if Pearl wanted to lunge, she would be open to Spinel’s counterattack and disarm.

Pearl knows this from the previous sparring sessions they had, out of everyone in the crystal gems, Pearl was the only one who got close to making Spinel strike again. Rose would just block all the time while Garnet couldn’t even hit Spinel since she’d just dodge or get hit on purpose since blunt force attacks hardly work on her.

And in Pearl’s case, Spinel would wait for that opportune moment to disarm Pearl, it is both humiliating as it is impressive. Which is why she wouldn’t lunge, no, Pearl would scale it, running upwards with the pillar as her steppingstone, she rapidly ascended towards Spinel to thrust.

Only to meet air as Spinel front flipped off the top of the pillar to land springily on the ground, it only took Pearl a split second to lunge again at Spinel who was mid Spring on her landing. Forcing her to block again and be the one this time to be pushed off the clinch.

Spinel parried, blocked and parried again while biting her bottom lip in anxiousness and repeating her mantra. Every fiber of her being screamed to strike back but she declines it the satisfaction, forcing herself in a defensive stance while also letting the countless counters and kill shots pass her by.

Despite the situation, Spinel compromises with herself and sweeps Pearl off her feet with her legs while in a clinch. Taking the opportunity, she launches herself unto another pillar sitting while Pearl swiftly recovered from the fall with a back flip kick.

“Come on Pearl, I think you made your point, Stevie has definitely been shown your awesome and real sword techniques”, Spinel bartered while Pearl only sighed, “Spinel, sooner or later you have to face this, what if this was an actual battle? You’d get yourself killed!”.

You don’t see me trying to sort your shit out, you did that yourself, Spinel thought angrily and fought back the retort. What Pearl said was true to a degree, but home world is gone, there’s now war to fight anymore, no more gems to kill, she can stay as a pacifist as long as she wanted damnit.

“I told you to leave it be Pearl, I’ll fight serious when I’m seriously needed, otherwise just let me be!”, Spinel screamed and plunged the sword into the ground. Burying it deep enough to make her kneel in front of it while panting out her frustration at Pearl and herself.

She hears Pearl sigh sadly in front of her and feel her reassuring hand on her shoulder, “I can take care of myself Pearl”, Spinel huffed. “I know, and I’m sorry but I- I just want to see you… Ready”, Spinel scoffed at that mentally, she knows Pearl meant to see her back to her old self but that version of her is long dead, “I’m always ready”, Spinel whispered.

“Woohoo! Yay, Pearl and Spinel!”, Stevie cheered and run in circles around them, making the tense and awkward situation diffuse while Spinel giggled at her Stevie’s antics. Steven continued to cheer while asking Pearl questions about sword fighting, making Pearl hand Steven the sword as she guides his strikes with her hands.

“You okay Spinny?”, Amethyst asked and offers a hand to Spinel who takes it and stands up, “yeah, you know Pearl, stubborn as always, I think I got through to her though”. Amethyst playfully scoffs, “yeah right, she’ll probably try again next year”, Spinel giggles at that and Garnet adds, “Pearl worries about you, we worry about you, I know your stance in fighting other gems but at least protect yourself properly from the monsters, it would ease our worries from you dying from acid”.

“That was one time, and you knew what that was all about”, Spinel sighed, prompting Garnet to shift her sunglasses to gaze on Spinel with her three eyes, “the point still stands”. With another groan, Amethyst bursts out laughing at Spinel being Garneted.

____________________

“Spinel? What did you mean. about fighting seriously, back at the arena?”, Stevie yawned while Spinel tucked him in for the night. Spinel sighs, not really wanting to get into this right now but also because she can’t stand the puppy eyes, he’s throwing her way.

“Alright, alright, put those away I’ll tell ya, long ago when your mom was still alive, she and I along with Pearl fought in a war. A lot of gems died in that war and most of them because of me, and even in the end when we did win and guaranteed peace, it came with a cost that made everything we fought so hard for be in vain, I was in a dark place at that time, I still am honestly… But I vowed to myself to never fight again. Naturally it didn’t last, I had to compromise but it’s hard you know? To fight off an addiction as strong as… yeah… so I don’t fight if I can, words are stronger than violence ya know, oh golly, I didn’t mean to rant Stevie, this is all in the past anyways, you have nothing to worry about alright, now off to dreamland you go, ya still have some activities tomorrow to complete”, Steven groaned, making Spinel giggle at his pout.

“Goodnight, Spinel”, Steven yawned sleepily, making Spinel realize that hopefully Stevie didn’t catch all that she said. “Good night, Steven”, Spinel cooed as she kissed his forehead goodnight and gently brushed the curly locks of his hair before she tries to get some sleep herself after the tiring sparring ordeal.

Chapter Text

“Run that by me again Amethyst”, Spinel sighed while giving Amethyst a deadpan stare while both gems have their elbows on the counter in fish stew’s pizza. “Come on Spinny, how many times do I have to repeat myself”, Amethyst complained and slowly slid off the counter.

“As many times as we have to until I get the full story, so what happened”, Spinel asked again, never breaking line of sight with Amethyst as Spinel leans over the counter. “I know something happened between them getting to the movies and lion taking them there so fess up”, Spinel added.

Spinel has been trying to get the full story from Amethyst since her Stevie lied to her quite obviously about what happened during the movies. Maybe it's time to buy that parents’ guide: dealing with teenagers’ book that she found while browsing Ebuy.

Amethyst groaned but started again with her retelling.

____________________

One week ago.

“Keep it still Amethyst!”, Pearl yelled while trying to thrust at a particularly slithery foe, “I’m trying!”, Amethyst snarked and slams the creatures to the other side with her whip, followed by a quick debilitating punch from Garnet that poofs it.

She wastes no time in coiling her whip around the last one and sending it as close as possible at Pearl just to spite her a little bit. “Amethyst!”, Pearl yelped, barely dodging it and finishing it off, “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop trying to bludgeon me against the creatures we fight!”.

“Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop squawking at me all the time!”, Amethyst retorts, making an indignant Pearl stutter out, “squa- I don’t- what do you me-”. Garnet calmly cuts them both off, “enough, sort this among yourselves later, but you two will not show this kind of behavior in front of Spinel, she already thinks you two have made some progress so let’s keep it that way”.

Amethyst sighs at this, “ugh Garnet, we are making progress, it’s just how we are, we’re like oil and peanut butter, we just don’t mix”.

“Oil and water you mean”, Pearl corrected, “see, it’s just our dynamic, we don’t mean nothing by it right P?”, Amethyst grins at Pearl prompting her to roll her eyes in agreement. “I see, well then were here, lets warp”, Garnet stated, Pearl, Amethyst, and Garnet warp back to the temple to see Steven and Connie waiting for them at the kitchen counter while Spinel packs food in the cheeseburger backpack.

____________________

“Skip to the part where Lion teleports, I know you three didn’t arrive at the movies, where did the three of you go Amethyst”, Spinel glared at Amethyst with the power only a mother could smite, much to Spinel’s incessant denial of it.

Amethyst groans again, she swears she’s a good liar but somehow in some way Spinel just knows your lying, Amethyst would call it mom instincts but there’s something more to it that she can’t pinpoint, a sort of cultivated experience that she would love to know how Spinel acquired.

With a final groan, Amethyst continues.

____________________

Amethyst silently burps inside the backpack; she ate her part of the deal with Spinny and some of Steven and Connie’s share of snacks. They’ve stopped somewhere but she doesn’t know where, the two adorkable nerds are talking about some magical gem place, wait.

Discreetly using her shapeshifting powers, she peaks an eye to take a look outside her cheeseburger backpack domain to see a cavern. One with a bright pink pedestal on it which immediately makes her think of Rose.

Ste-man decides to put his hand on the pedestal and gets stuck in place, what a doof, she thought while tuning out the conversation until in a swish, a dozen swords propped up from the ground. Okay, this is getting interesting, she deduced, and the mystery keeps adding as more stuff gets featured, armor, THREE FREAKING LIGHT CANNONS!?, axes, weird lady with a bunch of balls, and a big penny, yup, she was asking Spinel about this place when Steven eventually gets found out but until then his secret is safe with her if he goes that route.

____________________

Spinel sighs wearily, “you can ask me about it after I finish- wait, did Stevie trip the security bot?”, Amethyst fidgeted just barely out of human perception, Spinel’s got her now. “uhhhhh- security bot? what security bot? there was no security bot, I don’t know what you’re talking about”, Amethyst tried to smile innocently.

Spinel just gives her a deadpan stare with a raised eyebrow, silently saying really, that would make you question your life choices. “Okay we did, I mean he did, but it all went fine, I was this close to stepping in, but he handled it like a champ, both of em did”, Amethyst admitted.

Spinel barely contained her chuckle and sighs, “thank you for telling me the truth Amy, was it really that hard?”. “Yes and- ughh, you punked me, didn’t you? That thing was not a security bot”, Amethyst realized.

“Training bot actually, against gems that have elemental powers”, Spinel confirmed and leaned away from the table, Amethyst doing the same. “You’ve got to take me there sometime, was that your secret gem cave? Ooooh! Was that the other half of your collection?”, Amethyst asked excitedly.

Spinel looks wistful when she answers, “Rose’s actually, I’m just continuing it in my own way”. Amethyst gives a look that says she sorry but before she could offer her comforting words to Spinel, Garnet crash lands unto the roof of the building.

Making a swift exit to see the extent of the damage, Garnet is seen lodged between the sign of the shop, making a big dent on top of the roof. “At least it’s a small town, need any help Garnet”, Spinel inquired, Garnet drops down and answers, “I’m fine”.

“This place is wrecked, give me one down low”, Amethyst laughed, and Garnet obliged by giving Amethyst one downlow. “My sign! My roof! My sidewalk! My shop! What is the meaning of this!?”, Kofi demanded but before Spinel could answer, her Stevie barreled into her leg to give her a hug.

“Spinel! Garnet are you okay?”, Steven asked with concern, “I’m fine Steven”, Garnet answered again with Kiki saying hi to steven besides Spinel, “Garnet! The puffer fish is still at the beach”, Pearl reported worriedly. “Let’s regroup back at the temple, Amethyst, Spinel?”, Garnet inquired, “I’ll handle this first, see you guys back at the temple”.

The rest of the crystal gems minus Spinel and Steven jump away back to base before Spinel could even drop her hand from indicating the wrecked shop, Boss man was about to complain again but Spinel stepped in before he can really wind himself up.

“I’ll handle it boss man, just got to make a call to my repair guys, I swear they make miracles”, Spinel assured the now grumpy boss man. “Fine, but I don’t know why you associate with those animals Spinel, you are such a nice woman, with a son no less, you need to protect Steven from those dangers”, Kofi told on her.

Making Spinel clutch her hands while smiling tightly, before she could politely tell him off to not describe her family that way, again, ever. Steven steps in to defend them which makes her gem swell with pride at her little Stevie, “They're not animals! They're the Crystal Gems, and they protect humanity from monsters and red eyes, and they save the world!”.

“What my Stevie said is true Kofi, the classified truth, and I’d appreciate if you do not refer to my family as animals again, ever”, Spinel clarified with a polite diplomatic smile with her eyes closed. Kofi coughed and cleared his throat, it’s obvious from the silent glares the other three women behind him are sending him that he’s made a mistake.

“I apologize about the remark, but what I said after is true, they are a danger to Steven”, Kofi apologized professionally. Spinel sighs and looks conflicted, out of anyone in the crystal gems, boss man should be saying that to her, not them.

Deciding to ignore Stevie’s defense of the crystal gems again, she takes her phone out of her jeans’ pocket and dial The Boys repair service. “The Boys here, what do you need repaired”, a man with a slight British accent answered with a statement rather than a question.

“Billy, I need a sign repaired, a roof too, and hopefully this sidewalk”, Spinel states in a no-nonsense business voice. “Great, anything else? Maybe I can get you a smoothie while I’m at it?”, Billy humored her which honestly made her chuckle, internally.

“Haha, just get here, Beach city, fish stew pizza, you know the drill, contact my accountant when you boys finish, hopefully early”, Spinel deadpanned. “Hopefully not, I got more stamina than that, boss”, Billy humored her again and this time she hung up, honestly, she walked into that one.

“They’ll be here in a few hours, they work fast, as long as you feed them, gotta deal with this monster situation, see you tomorrow boss man”, Spinel said jovially back to normal and adds, “come on Stevie, let’s take care of that monster puffer fish before it becomes anymore big of a problem than it already is”.

____________________

Spinel sat at her desk with her pc booting up, after tucking her Stevie in with a more than usual clingy lion at his bedside, she can’t wait to unwind after dealing with that annoying corrupted puffer fish, she sighs wistfully, even corrupted they still look rounder than an average fusion.

Running Grid and Harmony, she hits up Amethyst, the only person currently awake tonight to play Left Alive with, that she knows, and the two other randos that will inevitably fill in her team for the night.

Playing Left Alive with mods felt oddly therapeutic for Spinel, she had read of immersion therapy before but didn’t think it would work until she tried it. At first, she thought something must be wrong with humans for immersing themselves in the experience that they are avoiding so that they do not get triggered.

But she can admit when she’s wrong, she can press her fight button all night and still be in control at the end of it. She’d never try it in real life combat thou, and even if its success was confirmed from Pearl’s latest attempts at maintaining her combat readiness, she would never try and confirm its effectiveness in real life combat.

Halfway into the campaign and thankfully in a saferoom, Pearl comes into Amethyst’s room talking about something happening with Steven and Lion and that immediately set alarm bells off in Spinel’s mind, without missing a beat, she exits the game, turns of her computer and leaves her room to find Steven.

She spots Lion’s tail poking out near the window and sighs in relief that hopefully Stevie’s just outside. She takes a step to go and see if Steven is okay when the temple door opens and Pearl regards her, “and he keeps sleeping on- oh, Spinel, thank goodness that you’re here, as I was telling them, Lion keeps sleeping on Steven’s face, But Steven doesn't want me watching him anymore, so one of you three has to do it.”, Pearl said and continued talking about it to them.

Spinel groans quietly and gives a nod to Amethyst and Garnet that she’ll be going ahead to look for Steven while they occupy Pearl. She loves Pearl to bits, but Steven doesn’t need to be watched, she’s one door away for diamond's sake and her door is always open for anyone including Steven.

Pearl will be Pearl, she muses and arrives outside of the big donut where the sand trail ends, lion waiting patiently outside the shop all but confirmed it for her. She strides inside with purpose and pointedly ignores the mohawk boy that she vaguely remembers working here and squeezes an ear inside the employee break room to listen in and-

Rose, and Greg, talking, her first instinct is to open the door to look inside and see Rose alive, but she stops at the knob and remembers that Rose’s gone. She sighs wearily again, this night is getting worse and worse as her sadness knows no bounds, she decides to wait for Stevie outside the shop with Lion.

It took a few minutes of waiting but Stevie finally exits the shop, tears and all, she can only imagine how he must be feeling. “Come on Stevie, lets tuck you in for the night, and you mister are leaving him alone or so help me you are sleeping outside”, Spinel coaxed Steven with a gentle voice before warning Lion with a stern one, getting a non-committal roar in reply.

Tucking in her boy again, she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask anything, and doesn’t pester him about it, if he wants to tell her then he’ll tell her when he’s ready. “Spinel?”, Steven hesitantly asked, “Yes Stevie?”, Spinel answered without pausing with the nightly ritual.

“I’m sorry about not going to you guys, with Lion I mean”, Steven apologized, “it’s okay Stevie, I’m not mad, just disappointed, and I’m not gonna ground you but you have to understand, magic stuff is dangerous, you and Connie should always tell me what happens when it comes to magic stuff, always you hear me?” Spinel gently stated without breaking her pleading eyes to her Stevie.

Steven bites at his lower lip in contemplation, he’s a smart boy so he knows that she knows and isn’t grounding him, she just needs to know. “There is something, with Lion I mean, nothing dangerous just, did mom ever have the ability to create other worlds?”, Steven inquired which made Spinel raise a questioning eyebrow.

Heal and resurrect living beings, yes, create worlds with life from scratch, nope, so she wonders why her Stevie is asking her that specific ability that Rose doesn’t have. “Not that I know of Stevie, she could do a lot of things like heal the injured, the cracked, but I haven’t seen her create an entire world full of people”, Spinel answered.

“No, no, no, I mean like… an inventory! In a video game you’d have an inventory to store your stuff in right, did she ever have that kind of ability in the form of a Lion?”, Steven clarified. Spinel is stumped for a moment then it hit her, Lion is some kind of inventory?

“Okay, show me then, I didn’t know Rose had this kind of ability before, although you are half human so its plenty possible that this is a new kind of ability from you specifically”, Spinel hypothesized but Steven disagrees, “No, it was her stuff in there, she had to have had it too”.

“Okay, okay, how about we look into this tomorrow and we sleep it off for tonight, I feel like there’s gonna be a revelation or something when we solve this mystery tomorrow and I’d rather you have your energy okay?”, Spinel suggested in a soft tone while patting Steven’s hair, making the sleepy boy sleepier than he already is, making him drowsily accept the suggestion and go back to sleep to catch the slumber Lion stole.

Spinel was tense throughout the rest of the campaign, she can’t stop thinking of the implications, she respected Rose enough to not snoop through her shit but what if there were secrets even she and Pearl didn’t know, what if it was herself all over again.

She didn’t believe Pearl the first time she blurted it out during one of their arguments during the war, but Rose forgot her. Really forgot her, and if it wasn’t for Pearl digging for more recruits for their cause, she would have been stuck in that garden till this day, she dreaded to imagine that happening to someone else.

“Spinny! I’m dying out here, get mister jerks a lot off of me!”, Amethyst’s strong plead cut through her heavy thoughts and with practiced ease, a sniper flick killed Amethyst’s captor. “Thanks, now what’s been bothering you girl? You’ve been zoning out a lot more than usual and it never took you that long to save my ass, what’s on your mind?”, Amethyst inquired.

“Let’s just say that I’m not looking forward to tomorrow”, Spinel sighed, “it is tomorrow”, Amethyst laughed.

“I know”, Spinel groaned.