after the storm, the stars (Steven Universe Future)
Set immediately after the events of I Am My Monster. Steven and Connie head for home, and Steven begins to realize it's okay to be the one who needs help. 2700 words.
(Steven angst, family feels, Connverse cuteness, Connie is a BAMF. Just had to do it, folks.)
Steven ached all over. He’d never been this tired in his life.
He clung to Connie, his arms wrapped around her waist, his blanket slipping off of his shoulder as Lion walked them home across the ocean. The waves rippled under Lion’s vast pink paws, water rolling in, and out. Like the way Steven’s chest rose and fell, rose, and fell. He breathed deeply, the ocean air crisp and clean and light. The storm clouds that had gathered late in the afternoon were finally gone, and evening sunlight dappled the waves.
Steven rested his head against Connie’s shoulder, tears and snot smudging against her shirt. “I’m making a mess,” he mumbled. “Snot everywhere.”
She glanced back at him, giving him a watery smile. “Steven. You really think I care about that right now?”
He tried to take her question seriously; he opened his mouth to answer. But his head swam, everything inside it fuzzy mush and confusing half-memory --
He’s vast, as vast as everything hurting him, and finally he can’t hide anymore -- they’ll all see what he really is, the horrible thing he is underneath all the fake smiles --
He thrashes in the water, his rage and pain boiling the seas, his throat raw as he wails --
His family’s looks of fear and horror -- but then their arms tight around him -- their love, their tears, their comfort --
“Steven?”
“Huh?” He groaned, rubbing his head. They were nearly home. Except his home’s roof was in pieces and the Diamonds’ massive ship had toppled over in the sand beside it. Cracked trees littered the hillside accusingly. His gut twisted. “I did all that,” he whispered. “Didn’t I?”
Lion carried them across the sand, up the steps to the front door.
Connie slid off Lion, holding a hand up to help Steven down. She nodded, her eyes too bright. “Yeah. You must have been hurting so badly.”
I was.
I am.
But that was too hard to say. The broken sobs on the ocean waves still lurked just beneath the surface, ready to spill out again if he said the wrong thing, if he said too much. He blinked back fresh tears, trying to find something else to focus on.
He took her hand, carefully sliding down Lion’s side, clutching the blanket’s corners tightly in his other hand. “Uh -- where’d this come from, anyway?” he asked as he landed on the porch, twitching the blanket a little closer. It was an easier topic of conversation than… everything else.
“Pearl had it, stored in her gem,” Connie said simply. “When you -- came back to being you -- I guess your clothes didn’t make it. Which is fine!” She blushed, averting her eyes. “I mean, I -- I didn’t see everything.”
He blinked at her. Then, somehow, he giggled. Just a little. The sound was rusty in his throat, but it felt good. “You know I used to run around Beach City completely naked, back in the day?” He had no idea why the memory had come back to him now, but it had, and giggling was better than wallowing.
“What?” Connie squawked, squeezing his hand hard in her scandalization. “Steven! Like, when you were little?”
He pulled at his lower lip with his teeth. “Uh… when I was like ten or eleven? That’s little, right?”
“Steven, oh my gosh, you’re such a nudist.” She tapped him playfully on the arm and he blushed, ducking his head.
“Aw, come on, Connie, that was forever ago.”
But the light moment vanished, replaced by his own shrill voice echoing in his head. I’m not that kid anymore! He shivered in his blanket, and Connie’s face shifted immediately from silly to worried again.
“Come on, let’s get you inside and find some real clothes. Just, um, watch your step.” An understatement, given what he’d done to the house.
Steven nodded, turning and patting Lion on the cheek. Lion’s breath was a warm whuff against his hand. “You’re the best, Lion,” he whispered.
Lion rumbled, a bassy, gravelly sound that made Steven’s chest vibrate, the closest thing Lion could manage for a purr. Steven smiled tearfully at him. Lion had always been comforting before -- when Steven could get him to sit still, that was -- but the way he’d let Steven hold him as he cried… Steven didn’t have words for it. “You deserve all the Lion Lickers in the world,” he managed, and Lion licked his face, then took his leave.
Connie and Steven watched him leap down to the sand, then portal away. On the beach, the Diamonds had brought the others back from the Cluster’s hand. They all stood in a group talking to each other, the Diamonds sitting down to make it easier to speak with the Gems and Greg. Though Steven couldn’t see his dad or the Crystal Gems clearly, he could see the Diamonds’ giant faces, wearing mingled exhaustion and relief.
“Everyone’s going to want to talk to me, aren't they,” he said softly. “Do you think I’m in trouble?”
Connie opened the front door, which immediately fell off its hinges. She shrugged as if the door was a problem for another day, and led him inside with her hand still firmly clasping his. “Not trouble. Just… they feel terrible for not helping you way sooner. And for hurting you in the first place.” A flash of anger crossed her face. “And if you ask me, they should feel bad. They were supposed to be the grownups, you know? Not you. Not me, either.” She sighed.
He followed her up the stairs, his damp feet sticking to the wood with a schlop, schlop sound. He carefully avoided looking at the gaping hole in the roof, though what he could see out of the corner of his eye made his heart race.
He turned his attention back to what Connie had said. Her words rattled him. He’d taken responsibility for so much, for so long, that it was genuinely bizarre to think of the fact that technically, he was still a teenager. And teenagers weren’t supposed to be in charge.
“Huh. I -- that makes sense, I guess. Never thought of it like that.” He finally let go of her hand to collapse on his bed, swaddled in the blue blanket, shivering more than ever. He closed his eyes, the exhaustion catching up to him again.
“How do you feel now?” Connie asked. He could hear her rummaging around in his dresser, drawers creaking.
“Sore everywhere,” he admitted. “Like, bones, skin, gem, everything. And my head hurts, and my eyes feel all puffy, and my nose is stuffed up. From all the crying, I guess. But… I… I think I needed it. The crying, I mean.” He scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand. “That sounds so weird.”
“Not to me.” Connie sat down on the edge of the bed and he opened his eyes. She had his pajamas in her lap, and she was grinning crookedly at him. “I’m a teenage girl. If you think I don’t know how important a good cry can be, you have another thing coming, mister. Sure, stupid hormones are probably to blame sometimes, but like, I get it.” She gazed at him. “It’s just, you… you have so much to cry about. Do you remember the Sky Arena?”
A long beat. He’d almost gotten Stevonnie -- Connie -- killed, all because of his own stupid feelings that he couldn’t bear to face. “Of course,” he said carefully.
“It was so hard for you then, too,” said Connie, looking away, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “You hadn’t even told me about what happened with Bismuth. Or with Eyeball. You thought you had to just pretend it didn’t happen. Like if you pretended you were fine, you really would be.”
He nodded, his hand half over his face, his eyes burning again. “I guess that’s my specialty,” he tried to joke, but the words hung between them, too true to be funny.
“I think it’s time to find a new Steven specialty,” said Connie, leaning over and kissing him on the forehead. “Like, a Steven self-care power. You can do it! It’s just gonna take practice, like all your other powers.”
She dropped the pajamas in his lap, letting out a long breath. “Come on, you should probably get out of that wet blanket. I’ll meet you downstairs?”
“Sure,” he said. There was so much more he wanted to say, apologies and explanations and worried questions like do you still love me and are we really jam buds forever, but he forced himself to sit up instead. He watched her head downstairs, wondering if he was really safe to leave alone.
He stared down at his pajamas. He got to his feet creakily and tried kissing the back of his hand, hoping his healing powers would take care of his exhaustion and the bone-deep ache. But his body felt just the same after the kiss, and he sighed. Figures. Healing powers didn’t work on emotional injury. He let the blanket fall and carefully got into his pajamas, wincing when he moved wrong.
More trauma. How much cortisol did I use this time?
He tied the drawstring on his pajama pants, his fingers fumbling. Maybe he could ask Connie to talk with her mom again. He remembered the concern in Dr. Maheswaran’s eyes, the weight of her firm but supportive hand on his shoulder. Maybe she would know what to do.
He turned to head down the stairs, but a flash of movement caught his eye. He turned, startled, but it was just himself in the mirror.
Steven reached out, touching the mirror’s cool glass. His reflection reached towards him, looking mostly like a normal human teenager. Except that there were big circles under his eyes, puffy red ones; his dark hair had tangled curls twisting in every direction; and his face looked both like a scared little kid’s and a weary old man’s.
But there were no pink diamond pupils staring back at him. No pink glow humming in his bulging hands. No monstrous claws ripping their way out of his flesh. And that was something, wasn’t it?
“I’m Steven,” he whispered. “Just Steven.”
I’m a mons--
“No, no --”
He wrapped his arms around himself, willing himself to stay small, to stay Steven, to stay human. He panted with the effort, his shoulders shaking as he squeezed his eyes shut.
How am I supposed to live if I always feel like I’m about to die?
He tore himself away from the mirror, practically tripping over himself to get down the stairs. Don’t be alone, don’t be alone. Though it wasn’t like that had helped him before, had it --
He drew himself up at the bottom of the staircase, still breathing hard.
Connie and Greg and the Gems were waiting for him, just like before, when he’d -- exploded -- but the air itself felt different. His breathing slowed as he registered the difference, the fear receding with each breath he took. He blinked in surprise, trying to figure out what it was.
The charge that had laid heavy in the house for weeks was gone; he hadn’t realized how thick fear, and anger, and shame could feel. There was just a clean breeze blowing in through the hole in the roof and the broken front door, the soft sound of distant waves, and the tiredness in his bones looked like it had found a home on everyone else’s shoulders.
He sagged against the wall, swallowing, lifting one hand. “Hey, guys.”
His dad broke away from Connie and the Gems, giving Steven a warm smile despite his red-rimmed eyes. “Hey, Schtu-ball.” Greg wrapped him in a fierce and crushing hug, and Steven leaned into it, resting his head on his dad’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
Steven tried to speak past the sudden lump in his throat. “Tired, mostly. Um, a little embarrassed. Mostly really, really sorry.”
“Steven…” The hug tightened even more. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
“But Dad, I scared everyone -- I could have hurt someone -- more than I already have --” He choked, and then he was crying again: not the heaving, heartbroken sobs from before, but something quieter, an echo of the pain he’d felt then. He sniffed, trying to stop himself.
Greg didn’t seem to mind. “I love you, Steven.” The tears kept coming, but his dad kept talking, his voice soft and gentle and safe. “We all love you. We love you when you’re happy, or mad, or sad -- even when you make mistakes. The same way you’ve always loved us through our mistakes,” Greg murmured into his ear. “We love you, no matter what.”
The tears slowed. Even when you make mistakes. He’d told them all of it, finally. His hatred for White. What he’d done to Jasper. Asking Connie to marry him. It was all out in the open. He trembled.
“What -- what do we do now?” he asked thickly.
“We help you, kiddo,” said Greg, and this time his voice cracked, too. Steven pulled back to see tears shining in Greg’s eyes. “Like we should have been doing all along.” He cupped Steven’s face with his hand, wiping away Steven’s tears with his thumb while ignoring his own. “The Gems and I, we messed up, and we hurt you. And we’re so sorry. We should have protected you.”
Steven nodded, not trusting himself to speak again without more tears. But there was something new blooming in his chest, something fragile beneath the exhaustion and the sadness. It almost felt like relief.
Greg leaned his forehead in to touch Steven’s. “But we’re gonna find a way through this, as a family. I called Dr. Maheswaran while Lion was bringing you home. We have some options to get you started with a therapist, and we’re gonna do everything we can to help you. All of us.” He raised his voice slightly. “Right, guys?”
Steven looked past Greg, catching the eyes of the Gems. Garnet smiled gently at him, raising her hands and forming them into a heart. Pearl laid a hand over her chest, her eyes kind as she held his gaze. Amethyst gave him a teary but determined thumbs up.
And beside them was Connie, her face shining. She was still here, his best friend, even after all the ways he’d messed up. She grinned hopefully at him. “I talked to my folks. They said I can spend the night -- I mean, on the couch, of course.” She winked at him, and he managed to grin back, the feeling of relief now dizzying.
They really do still love me.
Steven glanced up, catching sight of the hole in the roof. This time he didn’t look away, even though shame roiled in his belly, even though his heart rate sped up. But as he looked, he realized that through the destruction, through the pain, he could see the first evening stars beginning to rise. It’d been weeks, maybe months since he’d really appreciated the stars. Ages since he’d noticed the simple beauty of them seen from Earth. Ages since he’d remembered the beauty of the stars seen from the human point of view.
Steven grabbed the throw blanket from the sofa, spreading it down on the floor beneath the hole in the roof. “You know, you can get a pretty good view of the stars from here,” he said. “Do… you guys wanna watch them with me?”
“Of course,” said Garnet.
They all got down on the floor, a pile of humans and Gems huddled close together. Steven and Connie held hands while Pearl pointed out star systems. Garnet predicted every shooting star. Greg brought up song ideas, and Amethyst made up fake constellations, each ruder than the last.
If sometimes Steven got teary again, the others didn’t mind. Sometimes they talked about it, with soothing voices and questions they didn’t push him to answer; sometimes Steven just felt a hand on his shoulder, or a gentle pat of his cheek, and that was enough to help him quiet down again. He was with his family, which was all that really mattered.
And the night air flowing through the house was crisp, and clear, and light.
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