A/N this is basically a shit fic based on the premise that steven never understood how illegal the gems are until Pearl admit to lacking citizenship and driving licence...and a hole lot of other things Steven doesn't know about yet.
"Pearl, can you come here for a moment? I want to talk to you!" Steven called, seeing Pearl walking out of the temple and into the house they built for him.
"Of course Steven what is it? Oh hi Connie!" She winked at the younger girl as she approached the couch, where Garnet and Amethyst were already sitting, or in Amethyst's case, laying. She had lazy placed her with her head in Garnet's lap and her legs on the armrest.
"Please just sit down on the couch" The young girl said seriously, tightening her grip of the pen and paper she was currently holding. She looked unusually serious and uptight, and Pearl quickly did as she said and settled on the unoccupied seat, Amethyst placing her legs in her lap once she'd gotten comfortable.
Pearl grumbled a little at this, unhappy that she got to have her legs on hers, but decided not to start a fight.
"In light of reason events, I need to ask you some questions." Steven stated theatrically, Connie writing down a few words in her note pad. Pearl glanced at her curiously. "Does any of you gems have a citizenship in the USA?"
Garnet shock her head. "No. Three persons can't share a citizenship." She stated seriously.
"Well, uh, as I said before...no. I don't." Pearl stuttered, feeling mildly embarrassed as Connie continued taking notes.
"What's a citizenship?" Amethyst asked, flipping over on her back lazily.
"It's proof that you belong to the population of a certain country." Connie explained, and Amethyst's eyes went wide.
"Ooooh, I got one of those for Cuba!" She said, laughing. "Man, those were some good times!"
At this, Garnet smiled slightly, absentmindedly patting Amethyst on the head a few times as to say 'good job'.
"Okay. Anyone else got any non-American citizenships?" Connie asked, brows furrowing as she wrote down something, and Steven looked at the expectantly.
"No...I don't believe so." Pearl said, and Garnet shock her head.
"No. No country allow three persons to share a citizenship." She stated in all seriousness.
"Okay, but… do any of you have a driving license?" Steven continued, already knowing the answer, but asking anyway.
"No. I'm not a citizen." Once again, Pearl felt flustered. It was not her fault she was an immortal being made of light. "But I do know how to drive. Greg taught me."
"I won't unfuse because of the DMV." Garnet added, stoic as always, though Steven could see her hands balling into fists, and was afraid he'd upset her.
"Amethyst?" Connie asked, glancing at Garnet before moving to stand on the other side of the sofa.
"On Cuba!" Amethyst grinned. "Cubans are awesome! I mean, dude, they speak Spanish there!"
Connie wrote it down, and Steven decided to continue with the next question. "Have you ever paid taxes?"
"Paid what? Dude, why should I pay humans money!?" Amethyst exclaimed, frustrated.
Garnet shock her head.
Pearl sight, annoyed. "Greg handle those. Everything is registered in his name. At the last he has a citizenship."
"So, you are illegal? But the house is not?" Steven asked, and Connie relaxed, slightly relieved. There was no way her parents were going to let her hang out in an illegally built house with tax-avoiders…
"Wait, is Steven a citizen? I mean, you get registered if you're born in a hospital but Steven wasn't, was he?"
Amethyst shrugged, and Garnet glanced at Pearl. Pearl sigh, tired. How come none of the other knew this? Even she had listened when Greg explained it.
"I think Greg did take him to get registered after he was born, which, by the way, happened in Greg's van." Pearl shuddered slightly at the thought.
"So, I will be able to get a driving license?" Steven asked, smiling, seemingly excited.
"Yes, when you come to the right age. Now, let's see about that citizenship." Pearl lit up her gem, sticking her hand into it and moving around her hand in there a while, before pulling out a paper.
"Is that it?" Connie asked, watching Pearl unroll it and looking at it. "Is it Steven's citizenship?"
"No, it's Amethyst's Cuban citizenship. When did it even get in my gem?" She glanced angrily at Amethyst, who smiled a mischievous smile.
"I put it in there when you fell asleep. Your gem space is open when you sleep!" Amethyst laughed, stopping immediately as she got the scroll on the head. "Ouch! Didn't have to throw it at me!"
"Who knows what more you've hidden in my gem! Now I'll have to clean out everything in there! Bet I'll find you're cuban driver's license while I'm at it!" Said sourly, clearly angered by the misuse of the space inside her gem.
"Nah, I got that here!" Amethyst exclaimed proudly, getting out a square piece of plastic from one of the pockets on her pants. "Look at it!"
"Uh..it says you're name is señor Ametista Cristal?" Connie asked uncertainly. "I'm not an expert in Spanish, I just know little from school that I learned before I started studying Hindi instead, but I think señor refers to a male?"
"Yeah, I am. I'm a dude, dude." Amethyst said, looking as though she was not seeing the problem.
"She does have a mustache in the picture." Garnet commented, certainly glancing at Connie from behind her visors. She was smiling, which was unusual for her, and seemed to be rather pleased. Steven got the feeling that it was Ruby who was very happy in there.
"But, that doesn't make her a male! You can't lie in official papers!" Connie exclaimed, clearly upset. She understood the gems couldn't register as citizens without lying about their age, since they were immortal, but their gender…
"Connie, just like our bodies, our gender is an illusion. Amethyst was not lying, because she is technically no gender." Pearl pointed out, feeling tired as usual. Amethyst never got why she had to chose one human gender, and Pearl had stopped trying to force her to. It was pointless, and she'd much rather criticise her mannerism than waste time at something that was never going to get better.
Why, Pearl wondered, was it that her, who had interacted the very least with humans, that knew the most of human law?
"Okay but uh… did you find Steven's citizenship? Do you have it?" Connie asked, more curious than anyone to actually see it.
"Yeah, let's see it, P!" Amethyst agreed, grinning.
"Well it would be easier if you didn't put junk in here!" She groaned, digging around until she found another scroll. "I think this is it."
"letmeseeletmeseeletmesee!" Steven exclaimed, snatching it from Pearl and unrolling it. "This is not my citizenship!"
"What?" Pearl squawked, honestly upset over the current of all she has to sit through the painstaking process of explaining in what ways she, Garnet and Amethyst was/wasn't legal, and now she couldn't find Steven's birth certificate.
"Pearl, it's in the burning rom, not your gem. We bubbled it so we wouldn't lose it, remember?" Garnet inquired, for some reason choosing not to reveal this crucial piece of information until it fitted her. Pearl sight, face palmed.
" I do remember that!" Pearl sigh, and Amethyst gave her another shit-eating grin, telling her that she right now wanted to mock her for her apparently not-so perfect memory right then, but waiting for the right moment.
"Let's go check it out!" She cheered, throwing her hands in the air, encouraging the situation to get out of hand.
"Yes! I wanna see it! I bet it'll be as awesome!" Steven cheered, too, applauding excitedly.
"Not as awesome as Amethyst's Cuban one!" Connie inquired, still pretty riled up anyway. This had started in a serious note, but it was turning out to be a lot of fun.
"Let's just go to the burning room." Pearl answered, and Garnet gave her a shit-eating grin as well. Ruby was clearly mocking her, but Pearl knew she was overpowered, all the others being on Garnet's side, and said nothing.
As they stepped into the burning room, Garnet immediately went to the left corner of the room and started sorting through a cluster of bubbles which were clearly not containing gems. The bubbles came in a multitude of colors, such as purple, blue, green, pink, maroon, white and orange, and seemed to contain anything and everything, ranging from comic books to to oil paintings and foods that should have gone bad long ago.
"Mi torta!" Give me!" Amethyst reached for a purple bubble containing a thick sandwich, and Garnet pushed it towards her effortlessly. As soon as Amethyst got hold of the bubble, she poofed it to access the sandwich, which she stuck into her mouth without chewing.
"But that's not a tortoise! It's a sandwich!" Steven protested.
"Dude, it's...gmph...Spanish! Told you I'm...gulph...they speak it on...argh...Cuba!" Amethyst replied, crumbs falling out of her mouth and onto the floor.
"Amethyst! Could you at least not cover the floor in crumbs?" Pearl complained, bringing out a broom from her gem and starting to clean the floor. "This is terrible!"
"Garnet did you find it?" Connie asked Garnet, who were still sifting through most of the bubbles, deliberately ignoring Pearl and her clearly OCD behaviour, knowing very well that there was very little anyone could do that would help, seeing as she had probably had this obsession problems for thousands of years, and that Pearl probably didn't know what OCD was, anyway.
"There's over five hundred bubbles in this section alone" Garnet answered, sounding unusually excited as her arms dug around among the bubbles. "But I think this is it!"
With One last, powerful yank of her arm, Garnet pulled out a purple bubble with a few rolled up documents inside. Popping the bubble, Garnet dropped the documents in Steve's outstretched hand, after which Steven immediately unrolled them.
"Hey! It is my citizenship!" Steven exclaimed happily, wavering around with the documents while Connie tried to read over his shoulder.
"Steven hold still!" She complained, grabbing the documents from the excited boy in order for them to stay still enough to be readable. After a moment, her face twisted in confusion. "Hey, why is Steven middle name Pearl?"
Everyone stared back at her in horror. Pearl dropped the broom, and Amethyst dropped the bag of Chaaps she had gotten from somewhere. Garnet looked like she was going to unfuse on the spot.
Then, slowly turned to look at Pearl.
"You didn't do this P, did you?" She looked terrified, pleading, and Pearl shock her head.
"I promise I didn't!" She squawked, getting defensive and moving away from the group. "Don't look at me like I did something wrong, I would never ever do that! Why do you think I would want him to have my name!?"
Garnet moved forwards, quiet and stoic, stretching out a hand to put on Pearl's shoulder. Pearl quickly avoided it and moved further away, scared. "G-Garnet….please! I didn't do it!"
"I know. It was Rose. " Her voice was still neutral, but the meaning of her words sent everyone into a new wave of panic and loud protests.
"What the fuck man?!" Amethyst exclaimed, Pearl hitting her over the head hard. "Ow, that hurts P!"
"Language! Think of Steven!"' She chided.
"Oh yeah? Fight me!" Amethyst growled back, and, in all honest, Pearl looked just about ready to do that, baring her teeth and even lighting up her gem, threatening to get out her spear.
"GUYS!" Steven screamed suddenly, and everyone stopped, looking at him-he looked terrified. "WHy are you freaking out?! I'M named PEARL!"
"I think Steven's going to have to legally change his name…" Connie pointed out.
"OF COURSE I HAVE TO IT'S STEVEN PEARL QUARTZ UNIVERSE!"