Chapter Text
“You think of me as some angel, but I’m not that kid anymore!” Steven heaved.
“I’m a fraud.” He dropped heavily to his hands and knees, his shaky breaths tripping over themselves. He squeezed his eyes shut so they wouldn’t fill with angry tears.
“I’m a monster.”
Pain. Sudden and severe. Steven let out a scream as his body was pulled in all directions. A monster. A monster! His voice sang, outward or inward he couldn’t tell. The pain moved to his back and he distantly heard the sound of fabric ripping mix with his wails. No… not right… He gurgled. It suddenly subsided and Steven took in a gasping breath.
A monster… What’s a monster… And then, for a precious moment, it was quiet. He shuddered silently on all fours.
“Steven…?” a wonderful, awful, beautiful voice rang out, soft and scared. Connie. He looked toward her. Tears stood in her honey brown eyes.
A monster, his voice whispered, is you.
Then it laughed. A chuckle at first, then a gurgle, then it resounded through his skull like a bell, each gong ringing louder, and louder, and louder, until it screeched, “I AM!! I’M A MONSTER!”
The screech faded into a scream as the pain returned, more brutal than before. It was all over his skin this time, like fire ants were pulling and pushing and ripping him to form. Only, he seemed to get slightly smaller; he felt the spikes on his back recede, and he seemed to be shrinking to his normal size. Then the fire moved to his gem.
It started to swing forward.
A scraping, pulling, twisting agony exploded in not just his gut, but everywhere. His hands flailed, trying and failing to find a place to hold, and his throat burned with his screams. Do something do nothing DO SOMETHING! This was wrong. Everything was wrong. He clawed like a wild animal at his gem, but it only clawed at his insides in return. He let out a guttural roar of anguish. DO SOMETHING! DO NOTHING! MONSTER! “MONSTER!!!”
Everything stopped.
The pain washed away like letters in the sand.
Steven let out a wheezing cough though his panting breaths. Red splattered onto the hardwood. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
As soon as the thought entered his mind his hands flew to his gem. He breathed heavily as he stared down at it. It was now a right-side-up diamond.
Everything was wrong.
…
No.
…
Everything was right.
Steven drew in a deep breath in, and out, relaxed his face, and smiled. He got up and looked around.
The house was a wreck. The warp pad was covered in a pile of wood and rubble, glass shards covered the ground like glitter, sparkling in the setting sun, and—
Four gems sat peacefully on the ground. Two to his right, and two to his left. He blinked at them.
“S-Steven?”
A smile played on his lips. He loved that angelic voice. He turned toward her, arms open wide.
“Connie!”
She didn’t run into them. Instead, she took a slow step backward.
“Shtew-ball?” Whispered the other human, “Are you… okay?”
Steven’s eyes twitched, resolutely ever leaving Connie’s.
“Yeah, you’re… different,” she said hesitantly.
“I am?” Steven surveyed himself, looking down to see a whirlwind of black fabric. “Oh hey! I got a glowup!” He gave a little spin, and a cape whipped out behind him. “Huh!” He laughed. “Nice.”
“Yeah…” Connie began, “and you’re not pink anymore. Well, except for your eyes…”
“Really?” Steven grabbed a piece of broken glass from the floor. “You’re right!” He gasped, using his other hand to feel over his cheeks and pull down an eyelid. His skin and hair were the correct colors, tan and black, and, delightedly, so were his eyes- neon pink with black, diamond-shaped pupils.
When he was done surveying he dropped the glass unceremoniously. “Well,” He beamed, turning back to Connie, “time to get to work!” He walked cheerily over to Amethyst's gem and bubbled it.
Steven heard a hesitant step behind him. “Steven, why don’t we just calm down for a second and talk about this? We don’t need to go around bubbling people!” The other human chucked nervously.
“Yeah Steven,” Connie whimpered, “what's going on? What do you mean ‘get to work’?”
His back to her, Steven paused. He snorted amusedly. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.” He whipped toward her suddenly, and she stumbled back into the other human who caught her under the arms. “I basically spelled it out for you while I was that blubbering mess!” He laughed with a crazed expression, throwing out his arms and taking a step toward her.
“Steven back off! You’re scaring her!” The other human whined. Steven’s smile fell as he locked eyes with him, and he could practically feel the human’s throat go dry.
He was sick of his voice.
“Shut.” Steven clenched one fist and jagged pink chains wrapped around one of the human’s arms and whipped him to the side as Connie cried out. He fell onto his knees with a pained yelp, and Steven annoyingly felt an uncomfortable pang in his gut before the chains continued to slither down the human’s other arm and anchor that in place too, “Up.” Steven clenched the other fist and a similar, magenta, ribbon-like material slunk up the whimpering human and wrapped itself tightly around his mouth, finally silencing his pathetic cries.
“Mr. Universe!” Connie cried, rushing toward him only to be stopped by a jagged pink wall. “Steven, stop it!” She cried, looking toward him with angry, teary eyes. “Let him go!”
“Now that the distraction’s been taken care of,” Steven said, plastering a pleasant smile back on his face and brushing away the nonexistent wrinkles in his shirt, “why don’t we get back to the subject at hand? I thought you would’ve figured out the answer but— oh well.”
Connie pounded on the wall. “Steven, don't ignore me!” She fumed, turning toward him. “Let me in! Let him go!”
“It’s pretty simple, actually. I just want everyone to repay me for everything I’ve done for them.”
“Steven!”
“For example, I got hurt for them, by them,”
“Steven Universe!”
“I’ve risked my life more times than I can count for them,”
“Steven, please!”
“I even gave up being a king for them.”
Connie rushed at him with the cutest war cry he’d ever heard. He laughed, then pink chains suddenly halted her affront by grabbing her wrists. Her eyes went wide, and before she could even think to react they wrenched her to her knees by fastening themselves to the floor at her sides.
Steven squatted down in front of her, frowning at her squirming and angry protests. He’d hoped she’d be more cooperative. Nonetheless, he grabbed her chin not ungently, whispering, “Connie.” He felt her flinch, then her throat bob as he locked eyes with her. “Can’t you see? I’m collecting,” he breathed. “I’m collecting everything they owe me. Their comfort, their lives,” and he couldn’t help the smile that slithered onto his face at his next words, “their power.
It’s finally my time, finally my turn,” he grinned. “I’m going to rule, Connie,” he whispered giddily. “I’m going to rule everything. Everyone!” He let go of her and flung out his hand at the last word. He stood, and he was smiling ear to ear now as he looked down at her, breathless with joy. “And you could join me.”
Connie was looking down as the chains disintegrated, and she rubbed her wrists. “Steven…” she said, still looking at the floor, Steven’s stomach did a somersault. Oh! He so hoped she would say yes! Say yes say yes say YES! She lifted her face, and a thousand butterflies set off in his gut.
“What’s wrong with you?” She whispered, tears leaving shiny trails down her cheeks.
Steven’s smile faded. He looked away from her and let out a chuckle. “No no no, you misunderstand,” he growled. He suddenly turned back to her and crouched down again face-to-face with a dazzling smile. “Everything’s right.”
The pretty thing looked frightened! “I-… I don’t-”
“I don’t expect you to understand right away,” Steven said, waving his hand as if to wave away her worry. “Though I did hope you would’ve,” he sighed, bringing his hand to his chin. “It would make things so much easier,” he grinned as he booped her on the nose. “Well, you win some you lose some,” he shrugged as he rose and bubbled Connie in a jagged sphere, ignoring her angry screams and protests as she banged on the side of it. Waving a hand to make the pink chains that were still holding the other human fasten his hands behind his back, Steven decided, wisely, to keep the gag, and quickly bubbled him as well, then Pearl’s gem, and Garnet’s gems.
On second thought, he shrank Connie’s bubble a tad, just so that she had to sit down, and then the older human’s so that he only barely had room to curl up inside. He nodded. Much easier to transport that way.
Where to go… Well, pretty much the only piece of real estate in Beach City that was remotely available was the cliff. “That’ll work,” he mused. And he would be literally above everyone else in the town and Little Homeworld! How perfectly symbolic!
He bubbled all the bubbles in one large bubble (say that ten times fast!), then jumped. Even Pearl would be proud of his landing A prima ballerina would be impressed by his landing on the soft, green, freckled-with-wildflowers grass. He looked around ponderingly. Well, that awful lighthouse will have to be the first thing to go.
His bubble(s?) bobbed alongside him as he wandered inside. “Ronaldo? Are you in here?” He called. There was no answer. “Hm. I guess not then,” he said as he made his way back out. “Good,” he laughed, “that would’ve been a liiiiitle awkward."
He raised his hands and a massive, pink, faceted wall rose up in front of the lighthouse. In the same motion he thrust his hands forward and swiped the lighthouse completely off of the cliff with a deafening crunch. He heard it land a moment later as it crashed into the beach house below.
He lowered his hands, and the wall disintegrated. “Perfect!” He beamed. “A fresh start!” He looked at it proudly for a moment, then slowly let his face drop into a concentrated stare. He took a deep breath in, then cracked his neck and his hands as he let it out.
“Alright, now for the hard part.”
He raised his hands again.