This takes places immediately after An Indirect Kiss, while Steven is talking with Connie. I got inspired by the implications of Steven gradually feeling like he's not one of the Gems after all, and wondered how it might look for them to be afraid of him feeling that way, and Amethyst provided a good view point.
Apologies for any spoilers, if any!
Disclaimer: I do not own Steven Universe or any copyrighted intellectual properties used here; this is a work of entertainment without any monetary gain.
Amethyst doesn't say much for a long time after they get home; she still gently twitches and jerks unpredictably, like a puppet still pulled on phantom strings. She curls up against the window, curled up tight, and she is looking out there, watching Steven leave hunched over and curled a lot like she is.
Leaving to go play or talk or pretend at married talks with Connie.
She doesn't really know how she feels about that. It's a funny thought. Not good funny. Weird funny, and the bad kind.
She's not used to not knowing, feeling her insides shift and twist until she feels a little bit like humans get sick, and a lot of time she can't find words for what she wants to say but here and now she can think that it doesn't feel good thinking about Steven getting scared and nervous and so upset (and a quiet kind, the bad kind, the very worst kind of upset and maybe that's the only reason Pearl didn't see it and cut it down before it got bad, because she likes to imagine herself as a surgeon but she can't operate when she doesn't know there's a problem), and, and-
And leaving the Gems, to go talk to someone else. Like he doesn't trust them, or, or he's scared of the Gems or what they might say.
The thought stops her cold. Stops her silent. Stops here dead.
Dead like dust in graves. Dead like the memory of Gems-that-might-have-been, floating in their bubbles and crazy with corruption. Dead like the memories of Rose they obsess over sometimes, rising up now and then when Pearl acts like Steven is Rose come back and the awful way she gets twisted up when it's obvious that he is Steven and Rose is gone, lost, faded, dead.
Amethyst doesn't brood. But she is good at staring at the wall and feeling awful, little nightmare scenes playing across her head. She'd never talk about it, but she has nightmares sometimes, while she's awake. Bad things play across her imagination and she sees them instead of what's around her.
A lot of these nightmares involve Steven gone. Now, she has nightmares about one day he just walks out the door and never comes back and hides away if they see him out in the world.
His face had a seed inside. It screamed about fear, feeling not like them at all anymore.
She huddles up more. She doesn't know what to say, what to think.
She curls up tighter. Soundlessly, her limbs start to fuse into her knees and chest. She looks like a ball, a tiny purple ball wreathed in white, shrinking away from the world under its own weight.
Amethyst doesn't cry. She's not sure she knows how. But she thinks about Steven being gone, about him with Connie because its easier to be happy with humans than happy with Gems, and her mind hurts trying to figure out what they're doing wrong and how to fix it and why the one time she could think of things to say to stop him feeling awful about himself, they came out wrong and he couldn't understand.
Amethyst made a very small, faint sound.
She wondered if it was possible to crack on the inside.
Wondered if Steven was cracking and they didn't know it.