Dreams of Cookie Cats and gem birthday parties were dancing in happy Steven's head, a smile spread across his face. His dream felt so real, he could almost feel the breaths of all of his friends as they surrounded him and sang songs with him. Actually, that seemed to be the one part that felt real, oddly enough. Slowly, even in his dream, he began to have a sneaking suspicion that something was going on in reality that he wasn't made aware of before. So, to make sure he wasn't going crazy, he slowly began to open his eyes. A scream almost left his mouth, only for it to be silenced by the tiny hands belonging to the people surrounding him.
It was the Ruby Squad, and they had definitely been watching him sleep for way longer than he felt their presence, seeing as how they seemed quite comfortable on his bed.
Before he could try and say something, or try and move away, Eyeball whispered to him, "Please don't scream, we're not here to capture you- we want you to help us learn something."
Slowly, they uncovered his mouth, and Steven nervously asked in a hushed tone, "W-what do you want to know?"
They grew quite embarrassed and awkward about answering this, but soon Doc replied: "We want to learn about what those two Gems were doing, the Sapphire and the Ruby."
With a confused tone, Leggy asked, "Aren't we all Rubies?"
"Of course we are! Not all Rubies are on the same side!" Army shot back, intimidating Leggy into staying quiet.
Not wanting to dwell on that topic, Steven asked, "Do you mean how they were hugging and being all, um, intimate with each other?"
"Um, yes, that," Doc responded quickly. "We observed that they have been more successful in accomplishing their goals than we have, and we feel like it must be connected to how they act together."
"Ah yes, they are so cute together! It's a shame they're filthy traitors or else I'd love to spend time with them~" Navy gushed, creeping Steven out with how happily she said that.
Trying to be as delicate as possible, Steven replied, "I-I don't think there's as big of a connection as you guys think."
"Don't try and trick us! We know enough about lovey-dovey stuff to know the effect it has on Gems- it causes them to do unbelievable things, so clearly it must give them some strange power! And if you don't teach us, then... I-I don't know what we'll do!" Army threatened.
Before that last sentence, he was going to explain that love doesn't actually make you strong, but just gives you the motivation to do things you'd never imagine doing; however, something about that vague threat convinced him to play along and hope they'd leave once he taught them a few things. Besides, it wasn't like they were asking him to shatter someone- all he had to do was demonstrate stuff he already liked doing!
"A-alright, I can teach you, but you have to promise you'll leave after you learn everything I promised you would," He replied, smiling to show he was sincere.
All of the Rubies in front of him nodded, with Leggy needing reminded of what they were nodding about via a whisper from Doc.
He soon climbed out of his bed and stood in front of the Rubies, who were lined up in a way that looked like they were going to go up one at a time so they could all be able to learn from him up close. That was a good system, actually, with what he planned.
"Okay, first thing's first- how about some hugging?" He asked, spreading his arms apart wide.
"...what is hugging?" Leggy asked with confusion.
Doc then commented, "For the first time, I actually agree with you, I have no idea what he's talking about."
"Oh, here, I'll show you!" He replied before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around the one at the front, who happened to be Doc.
At first, Doc panicked, trying to find a way to escape from this hold. However, she soon found herself enjoying it because of how warm Steven felt, and she began to return the hug with a smile.
This made Steven happy, but the fact that Doc then began to hug him way tighter than he just did, and his face grew red at the fact that he had these Rubies staring at him with such interest over him getting hugged.
"Y-yep, you got the hang of it...!" He squealed before Doc let go of him, and he nearly forgot that the rest of the Rubies were still eager to give and get one.
He was a boy of his word, though, so he went over to the next person in line- Leggy- and gave her a big hug, and for whatever reason, Leggy seemed to be caught off guard.
However, he was caught off guard himself after she began hugging tighter, nuzzling her head against his shoulder and rubbing his back a bit.
"Aw wow, I kind of want to hug her now," Navy whispered, blushing a bit as she watched Steven awkwardly receive this hug.
When Leggy ended the hug, she smiled and told Steven, "T-thanks for teaching me that."
He smiled and gave a thumbs up, and before he could ask who wanted to go next, Army immediately ran over and wrapped her arms around her and lifted him up while giving him a big squeeze.
"Hah, I win!" Army exclaimed as she hugged him tighter somehow and nuzzled against him, treating hugging and cuddling like some kind of competition.
"Y-yeah you did!" He replied as he felt the air being squeezed out of him, hoping she would end the hug soon so he could get some air in.
When Army finally put him down, he was happy- both because he could get some air in, and because she seemed pretty happy to have given him such a big hug. He was surprised to then see that the two Rubies who had not yet given or received a hug (Navy and Eyeball) were both fighting over who would hug him next.
"I deserve to hug him next, obviously!" Navy told her, "as I am the sweetest!"
"As if, that's just a trick to get people to trust you! At least I'm actually honest, I deserve the hug before you," Eyeball remarked.
"How dare you! That is completely-" Navy began rebutting before Steven ran in to intervene.
Quickly, Steven assured them, "If you can't decide who hugs me first, you could just both hug me at the same time!"
They both looked at him in confusion, and Eyeball asked, "How can two people hug one person?"
He couldn't help but chuckle. "It's easy- one of you hugs from one side, and the other hugs from the other side!"
To test out his claim, Navy went first and hugged him from the front, covering his face with her hair and lifting him up slightly to be dramatic. Then, Eyeball put her arms around him and hugged him from the back, and he felt completely immobile with two pairs of cute Ruby arms wrapped around his front and back. Combined with the fact that the two were cuddling against him rather intimately made him quite red.
"It is nice to hug someone with someone else! In fact... everyone, hug Steven with us!" Navy exclaimed, and before Steven could interject, everyone ran over to add to the giant hug.
He felt nearly overwhelmed by the increased warmth, and all the arms wrapping around him. Suddenly, there was a bright glow that blinded him, and when he opened his eyes, he saw they had all fused into a giant Ruby to make it easier to give him one giant hug, essentially using him as a little hug toy.
When they unfused, they all made sure to quickly catch him so he wouldn't hit the ground and get hurt.
"O-oh thanks," Steven chuckled. "S-so what's next for you to learn?"
"Obviously, it's that, um, lip... thing," Doc replied quickly, losing the confidence in her voice after two seconds.
Finding her lack of knowledge on what kissing was a little amusing, Steven informed her quickly, "You're thinking of kissing, you press lips together with someone you like and pucker them- it can be as long as you want, and some people even use tongue, although I've never done it like that... or really ever, actually..."
While Steven came to the realization that he was yet to kiss someone on the lips intimately, Leggy asked, "What does puckering your lips mean?"
It seemed that none of the Rubies had a remark, so clearly none of them knew what it meant; although Steven knew it would be awkward, he had to show them exactly what it was, so he came over to the closest Ruby- which just so happened to be Army- and took a deep breath.
"So puckering your lips is just this," He began before doing just that, and then putting his hands on Army's shoulders and pulling her closer to kiss her on the lips, her eyes wide with shock.
Soon, she began to kiss back, following in his example. It didn't stay so casual for long though, for as soon she had her arms around him, kissing him in a way he never imagined being kissed; he didn't even picture Connie being like this, at least not yet.
Steven had no words to express the feelings he had right now about the fact that his first kiss was with someone who fought him multiple times that he sent into space.
When the kiss broke off, he was blushing heavily, and quickly got his breath back before asking, "D-did you like that?"
"...yes," Army replied after a moment, not out of needing to think of the answer, but just from needing to process what happened first; they had bright pink blush spread across their face, showing she felt a similar way... although clearly wasn't in as much disbelief as Steven.
He almost forgot he needed to do this with the rest of them until Navy promptly grabbed his hand and asked, "Can we do it next?"
"U-uh, y-yeah," Steven muttered, feeling like with all of this kissing happening so quickly, he might get so overwhelmed he'd faint.
Navy was clearly very observant, as she immediately grabbed his other hand as well before leaning in and giving him the kiss first. And not only did she kiss him quickly, she did it with passion, and decided to see how he'd react to her slipping her tongue in.
When she pulled away from the kiss twelve seconds later, she saw his reaction in full: complete and utter confusion, shock, and embarrassment.
"Eheheh, I'm a very quick learner I suppose," Navy giggled before casually pushing Steven to another Ruby for him to enjoy more kisses with, with it being Leggy.
He could tell that Leggy was quite a bit anxious about doing this, and not just because her default emotion was confusion; she was blushing madly before anything even happened, and she had no idea how to start.
"T-they seemed so good at it, I don't want to mess up and embarrass myself," Leggy muttered in admittance.
He was still in disbelief that he had to comfort a Homeworld Gem about how well they would do in kissing him, but he sighed and assured her, "You'll do fine, it's not like I judge people based on kissing skill- I'm barely that good, so I don't have room to judge."
She smiled a bit, comforted now, before leaning over and giving a quick kiss on his lips before hiding her immense blush with her hands. Although Leggy was embarrassed, he could tell she wasn't ashamed of that.
"Alright, who next, Eyeball or Doc? Or do you want to kiss me at the same time?" Steven asked half-jokingly before seeing that the two of them were staring right at him in a way he could only describe asenamored.
The two stepped over to him with excited looks before pulling him over so they could both give him long kisses, at first just going for one cheek for each, before they began kissing him on the lips three seconds at a time. It was the longest series of kisses he's ever received, even receiving some tongue in a way he never expected to for a while. When the two Rubies stopped, all of them were filled with a sense of amazement and endearment that he never saw from Homeworld Gems before.
"S-so, um... if the lesson is done, then I suppose-" He began stuttering before being cut off by an excited Ruby leader.
"I-I think I we should arrange to do this every other day, or week, or every week, or..." Doc began offering, not used to being so nervous to say something like this, since they usually were very well worded. "...um, anything that works for you we can do, but I think we all agree that we'd benefit from this happening more often."
Steven was surprised but chuckled, "W-well if you guys befriended us, you could stay here and do it way more often!"
The thought intrigued many but Army quickly replied, "It's a nice thought, but no- the Crystal Gems would attack us on sight, and there's no way they'd just forgive us because we kissed and hugged you; plus, we may greatly enjoy being close with you, but we are not ready to form a friendship with the rest of them."
"Y-yeah, that's understandable... i-if you really want to do this, we can do it every weekend, since I tend to have a lot of free time. But you have to promise not to tell the Diamonds about us, and to not attack us anymore!" Steven reminded her, secretly excited that he was able to both get one of the Crystal Gems's foes to ease up a bit and form five new friendships, very close ones at that.
Immediately, they all nodded with grins with Doc replying, "Yep, you got a deal! Sooo, before we leave, we have something we want to do."
"Ah, what's that? As long as it doesn't hurt me, go ahead," Steven replied before being surprised by what they did next.
All five of the Rubies proceeded to fuse together into the Giant Ruby again to pick him up, but this time instead of hugging him, they planted a gigantic kiss on his face. When they put him down, his face was dripping with the Giant Ruby's spit, but the Rubies clearly did not care when they went back to their regular selves.
"T-that's gonna take a while to wash out," He commented before waving goodbye to the Rubies as they left, and he'd never get used to how they all smiled at him as they headed out, blowing kisses at him flirtaciously.
Their deal went off smoothly, and for every weekend after that, the Rubies came at night without waking up the Crystal Gems and went to wake up Steven to do their hug-and-kiss session. Sure, it wore him out giving so many hugs and kisses like that, and it made every hug he gave to anyone besides a Ruby feel awkward, but it's a fair price to pay for less attacks. Plus, he found it quite cute how the Rubies seemed to like him, although he knew that once he got older it would only grow more awkward.