Work Text:
*slurp* *plap* *giggle*
*slurp* *plap* *giggle*
*slurp* *plap* *giggle*
Greg, at the wheel of his van, glanced in the rear view mirror but couldn't tell what Steven and Connie were doing in the back, sitting close together, thick as thieves. As if they could tell he was looking, whatever those noises were stopped. When he returned his full attention to the road, they began again, until after a few seconds, curiosity and mild annoyance demanded he ask, "What are you two doing back there?"
"Um yooming mah heawwing pit on Connie," Steven answered, palm to his mouth and tongue out.
It took a minute to translate in Greg's head from tween to adult, but concern followed quickly after comprehension. "Oh, Connie. You're hurt? What happened?" The concern was accompanied by a frisson of discomforted fear. Steven and Connie were so close, and the Maheswarans tolerated Greg and Steven at best, in his estimation. If Connie had become injured on his watch, Steven might lose his friend. "Is...is it serious? Is everything okay?"
"It's nothing," Connie said, in an off-hand, nonchalant voice. "Just a scratch from sword practice."
*SKREEEEEEEECH!!*
"Whoa!" cried the kids, tumbling around Greg's "bedroom" as he stomped on the brakes and stopped the van right at the edge of Beach City.
"I'm sorry," Greg said, turning around to gape with wide eyes at the two children. "Did you say sword practice?" He flipped on the hazard lights without looking, glanced forward long enough to pull the van to the side of the road, and put it in park. "Maybe you two better explain to me why you're practicing anything with swords." In his mind's eye, the disapproving scowls of Dr. and Mr. Maheswaran were looming above him, glowering with accusation. He turned his seat around to face them.
"Pearl's training me to be a knight!" Connie piped brightly, sitting up to reveal a slash on her arm that was fading before Greg's eyes in a sparkle from his son's magic saliva. "I'm going to fight for Steven, protect him, and keep him safe on the field of battle. It is my honor and my duty!" By the end of her announcement, something in Connie's body language had changed from giggly pre-teen girl to serious -- too serious.
"Really..." Greg said, torn between fascinated and horrified. It could be worse, he supposed. Amethyst could be teaching her street brawling. "What made you decide that?" Greg glanced at his son, who was smiling, but in a way Greg recognized as falsely sincere. That would bear closer investigation too, but Connie getting injured while with Steven was still at the forefront of his thoughts.
"Steven's idea," Connie gestured to Steven, eyes starry. Steven laughed, half-heartedly and waved limply at her. "He said I was good with the sword, and well, when I said I wanted to help defend the earth if the Homeworld gems come back, Pearl said she wasn't that old when she started fighting with Rose."
Greg was silent for a minute. It had been almost twelve years now, and still the mention of Rose's name put a lump in his throat. If he spoke now, there'd be a catch in his voice. If he didn't blink, the tears were next. He simply nodded, waiting for the wave of grief to pass.
Connie took the silence as encouragement to continue as he'd hoped. "So we have been going to the sky arena and training! Steven's been blending me energy smoothies and making me lemonade, and I've been learning about the chivalrous code of the knight! That protecting my liege is serious, and that I must give everything I have to it!"
That sounded -- well, not terrible, but not good either if Connie needed healing sessions with Steven afterward. "Sounds like it means a lot to you," he mused. "That's great that you two are such tight friends that you want to fight together."
"No!" Connie snapped, seriously. "I. Protect. Him." Steven glanced out the van's back window, looking as if he wished he could shrink out of sight. "He's the one with the destiny. He is everything. I am nothing."
Greg sat back in his seat, seeing the intensity of Connie's gaze without her glasses. She never wore them anymore around Steven and family. "Pearl taught you that? That you're nothing?"
Connie nodded once, and glanced down at her arm, which had finished healing altogether. "Nothing matters but keeping him safe."
"That can't be right," Greg suggested gingerly. "What about school, your tennis and violin lessons? What about your future?" Greg had to admit that having a son with a magical destiny, and who was likely going to outlive him and
most of the human race was nerve-wracking sometimes, but at least it meant he didn't have to worry about mundane growing up things like broken arms or saving for college. It was obvious that Connie's parents took her future seriously. But she was suddenly willing to throw it away for an antiquated idea?
"Well, of course, those will be diversions if nothing ever comes up," Connie said dismissively, before glancing at the car's clock radio. "We better get me home before my parents start calling."
Greg reluctantly turned back to the wheel and got on the road again but now his mind was racing, and it was an effort to concentrate on the driving. Connie seemed completely at ease with this new training, and her knightly duties, but the way she said that Steven was everything and she, Connie, was nothing? That unsettled and rattled him. By the silence of his usually irrepressably gregarious son, Greg suspected he and Steven had that in common.
The rest of the way to the Mahaswarans' rental home, Connie chattered pensively about getting to the library on the weekend and checking out books on swordsmanship. Steven attempted to feign interest, and mostly succeeded by riffing on Lisa and Archimicarus from the book series they'd read together.
Greg and Steven walked Connie to the door, greeted her parents politely, and bid Connie goodbye until the next time -- the following afternoon. She gave Steven a smile and a secretive wink before the door closed.
Father and son walked back to the van together and got in. Greg waited until Steven was safely belted in and they were back on the road before suggesting they stop at Fish Stew Pizza for some father-son bonding time. "Whaddaya say, buddy?"
"Yeah," Steven piped, a little too eagerly, as if he were not ready to return to the house and face the Gems.
"Something on your mind?" Greg asked. "You've seemed kinda quiet."
"Nnnnnnn...kiiiiiiinnnnnda," Steven admitted, reaching for Greg's "Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart" CD. They were at a red light; Greg plucked it away before Steven could slide it into the CD player.
"Well, I'm your dad, and you know I'm proud of you and I support you. I wanna do all I can to help you, Steven." Greg smiled hopefully. He knew that for the most part, Steven's life was already moving out of his league. His eleven year old son was riding magic warp pads into danger. Aliens were coming to threaten him. Greg had thought he was going to have a heart attack and orphan his son altogether on hearing about their harrowing adventure in orbit! Greg knew rationally that Steven was made of stronger stuff than the average American kid, but the idea of the danger looming in the obscure and unknown future still clasped a fist of ice around his heart. Why did you do this to me, Rose? It was times like this he fervently wished she could have found a way to stay and be Steven's mother...and his beloved. Her embrace would have been welcomed sorely for both of them just now, Greg suspected.
Steven looked up at his dad in the way boys all over the world look at their fathers -- with that youthful trust and admiration. Who knew how long that would last? Buck Dewey already was sullen anytime he had to be in the presence of his father. Greg knew he was just a never-was musician who eked out a laughable living running a car wash, but when his son's eyes were on him that way, he felt stronger, and remembered that alien gem magic or not, he had a duty to guide this boy -- his son -- as best he could. "So when you feel ready, you go ahead and tell me whatever you feel like talking about."
The sun was setting into the sea, and the world around the van was starting to turn that dusky color with sunset highlights. The tires of the van hummed against the road, and Steven stared out the window as they passed the Beach City sign again. "Pearl's teaching Connie, the sword. The sword part is cool, and Connie's really good. It's just ...some of the other stuff ... it's kinda freaking me out, Dad," he said.
"Why?" Greg glanced at the sign too, remembering Steven literally blowing the door off the van as they reached this spot only a few months earlier. His son was growing up so fast. Growing to become literally unstoppable. "It's not because she's a girl, and she's better at it than you." This wasn't even a question. The Gems were all female -- or at least, they preferred to be thought of as such. There was no one Steven admired more, Greg himself excepted.
"No, it's not that, of course not!" Steven shot his dad an amused look that indicated he expected his father knew full well that wasn't the case. "But ..." and now Steven became serious, "It's more like Connie has to stop being Connie and just be my knight. Pearl keeps telling her that I am everything and she is nothing."
They pulled into Fish Stew Pizza a little while after that pronouncement. Steven hadn't said anything else about it but he quite obviously remained troubled. Greg wasn't sure what to say, so he asked questions, hoping Steven could gather his thoughts better if he were answering Greg's inquiries.
That seemed to work. Steven gave Kiki their order, then launched into an explanation. It began as far back as the events leading to the crashed spaceship. Steven had not wanted to involve Connie in the dangers of his life. He'd tried to end their friendship, as painful as it had been to even consider it. Connie had called his bluff, and Steven had folded to his true feelings. "She told me, 'I want to be part of your universe'," Steven concluded, smiling reminiscently, eyes going distant and starry with affectionate remembrance.
"She's a good friend," Greg said quietly. He kept further thoughts on that to himself because they were still young. All kids dreamed of adventure, particularly in the summertime. Before the events Steven described, Greg might've worried that Connie, having a more traveled and more schooled life, might eventually drift away from Steven. But Steven began speaking again.
"I wanted to protect her," Steven said solemnly, fiddling with one of Nanafua's famous garlic twists. "Now she wants to protect me, without thinking of herself. She's human, dad. Like you. Not even half-human like me. She could get hurt!"
Greg's lips curled up into a smile around his straw. Rose's empathy, and an expression very much like ones she often wore when they were together. Oh, babe, I miss you. But Greg swallowed the sip of soda and the lonely longing, and asked a question of his son in return. "Does Connie know you worry about her getting hurt?"
Steven blinked as if that had not occurred to him. "Maybe?" he offered with a shrug. "She is really perceptive and smart. Sometimes it's like she knows what I'm thinking."
"Nobody knows what you're thinking unless you tell them," Greg said firmly, punctuating the remark with a flat palm on the table, setting the salt, pepper and parmesan shakers to jiggling noisily. "If you think Pearl's training is hurting Connie, or if you think Connie is allowing it to hurt her for the sake of being at your side -- you owe it to her and yourself to tell her honestly. She's your friend. She will understand."
Kiki brought them their pizza, and Steven raised the first slice to his mouth, taking a bite and chewing slowly, obviously also chewing over his father's advice.
"But what if she hates me for stopping her from doing something she loves?" he finally asked, plucking forlornly at a piece of pepperoni.
"Connie thinks you're the best thing since library books," Greg gusted, laughing as he went for a slice of his own. "She dances with you when dancing makes her shy around anyone else. She was willing to fight the ocean for you. You think a little disagreement is going to make her hate you? No way, Steven!"
"It wouldn't be our first disagreement," Steven said uncertainly. "We argued about the end of a book series she liked when I was grounded from TV. Maybe you're right."
"Of course I'm right. Trust your old man!" Greg took a big bite of pizza and chewed slowly, chewing things over in his own mind. He might have to have a conversation with Garnet. It sounded like Pearl's disdain for humans in general was informing her teaching methods. She often looked down on Greg and other humans as beneath her, and sometimes he even would go so far as to consider Pearl thought them disgusting, little better than bugs. She can look down on me if she wants; I can take it. But if she's warping this girl's mind out of some misguided desire to give Steven a protector... I think I need to talk to Garnet. For his son's sake, and for Connie's, that would have to be nipped in the bud. He had a feeling the tall, taciturn gem would listen to him.