Chapter Text
Rain pelted down on the roof of the beach house, thunder rumbling distantly and waves crashing angrily into the shore. It was one of those nights, where you wished you could just curl up underneath the covers and pretend that it didn't feel like the world was ending.
Steven had gotten good at that in his sixteen years. Thinking the world was going to end, that is. His therapist called it catastrophizing - and she didn't think it was funny when he told his anecdote about transforming into a cat-steven blob. That had been CATastrophic, for sure.
Apparently humor was a coping mechanism, too.
Awesome.
He couldn't stop thinking about Jasper. How he'd lost control that day on the hill, how he'd- he couldn't even think the word. How he'd SHATTERED her. How close he had been to hurting White Diamond. How he'd practically destroyed half the town as a giant pink gem monster.
Stars, it didn't feel real.
It had been months. Steven had started therapy, he'd visited Connie many a time at her college dorm, he'd traveled up and down the coast, just exploring and figuring himself out. But tonight, with the wind whipping and the rain coming down with a vengeance, he was glad to be back in his old bedroom.
The gems had been ecstatic when Steven had made the decision to come home to visit, and he had to admit that he had been pretty excited, too. Greg had insisted that he sleep in his old room. "Your old man can stand a couple nights on the couch," he'd assured him. "Don't worry."
But Steven DID worry. He worried about everything. That's what he was doing now, when he was supposed to be sleeping. Freaking out about things that had already happened, things he had done, things he'd said. About having killed someone. About how terrible that was, how terrible HE was, how he was becoming just like a Diamond, just like HER! And if he was just like HER, then all he'd been fighting for, the diplomacy, Era 3, little homeschool - it was bad! He was a FRAUD! He was evil and he was a fraud! He'd somehow tricked Connie into liking him, right? A shatterer, a liar, a TERRIBLE person. He'd tricked them all-
Steven was spiraling, he knew it. He could tell. Sometimes, all the worries blended together so fast that he couldn't pick out what was anxiety, guilt, or fear. It all just felt like one big blob.
"Enough." The teenager whispered out loud, staring at his ceiling. He peeked over at his Cookie Cat alarm clock, momentarily cringing at the fact that he still even used something so childish.
1:34 AM.
He rolled back over and glanced at his phone. Seventeen unread texts. Mostly from Connie, he noticed absently.
Steven had been trying to keep in touch with her. Really, he had been. But the video calls had been few and far between these last few weeks, and something about hearing about her friends and her fun outings made his skin all prickly and his head swim with something like jealousy - and then guilt for that jealousy.
But he'd never been good at ignoring Connie before, but he was getting good at it now. He knew it was kind of an asshole move, but he'd just respond every so often with a heart reaction or a thumbs up emoji. Their long conversations had turned into "ily" and "ok", slowly but surely.
Steven padded quietly down the stairs and toward the bathroom. He rustled through the medicine cabinet, looking for something to help him sleep. It had been easier when he was a child, when Pearl could just brew him a cup of tea and speak to him soothingly, or he could crawl into the van next to his dad and listen to him quietly play guitar until he fell back asleep. But he wasn't a child anymore.
Steven fiddled with the bottle of medication, silently cursing at his inability to pry open the child lock. The bright colored packaging and the rainbow lettering of 'GET SOME ZZZZZZZZZs!" stared back at him as he swallowed five of the capsules. Absently, Steven looked at the bottle. What was the recommended dosage of this, anyway? Two? Did it even matter?
Somewhere, in a dark, locked up part of his mind, Steven ruminated on Jasper again. He looked at the bathtub, thinking about how he had sobbed, hunched over the porcelain, begging the powers that be to bring her back to life. Thank the stars she had come back. He didn't think he'd be able to live with himself if she hadn't. Heck, he could barely live with himself as is.
Steven stared at himself in the bathroom mirror, noting how sunken his eyes were and how his face seemed to drop like it had forgotten how to smile. The longer he looked, the more uneasy he felt. The more unsure he was about whoever was staring back at him. He looked at his phone.
1:58 AM.
He paused momentarily in the kitchen doorway, still holding the bottle of sleeping pills. He smiled weakly despite himself, seeing his father's slumped figure sprawled across three-fourths of the couch. He was snoring, his arm draped over his eyes and his mouth hanging wide open.
Steven just wanted to sleep. He paced the kitchen for a few minutes, reading and re-reading the label on the back of the pill bottle.
Users should not operate large machinery or engage in complex tasks after taking the recommended dosage of this product; this product is not a prescribed medication for prolonged bouts of insomnia, sleepwalking, nightmares, or sleep paralysis. May cause increased restlessness or paranoia if taken with alcohol, or at a higher than recommended dose. Use with care..
He was feeling drowsy, but it was the buzzing kind of drowsy that he almost chased.
No, Steven, he scolded himself. C'mon, now. You took too many of these already, you're going to pass out soon anyway. You need to sleep.
But that darker part of his brain, the scheming, itching, strange part that he was able to tuck away during the daytime, when he wasn't so tired and upset, persisted.
Steven's mind wandered. He thought of Jasper again, how she must have felt. Just the thought of it, of what he was capable of, made him want to be sick. Oh Lord, he was getting squeamish over blinking.
The prickly stomach pain that overtook him was a welcome distraction, and he could feel the way his muscles ached. He opened the bottle and shook out another few pills, not even counting. Without thinking, Steven swallowed them with a slight gag and the hedonistic need to feel all fuzzy and blurry again. He felt like he was floating, but it wasn't exactly pleasant. His head rang, and he could feel the bleary cloud of dissociation that overtook him.
Eventually the pill bottle was placed unceremoniously down on the table, and it was only then that Steven was aware of how heavy he had been breathing. The clock above the fridge ticked quietly.
2:14 AM.
He wasn't thinking about Jasper or the Diamonds hardly at all now, right? That was the point. Eyes heavy, vision blurring, his stomach hurt too much to lie down.
A wave of nausea overtook Steven, and he keeled over and vomited into the sink.