She Watched You
A Steven Universe One-shot
A/N: Please note that this contains one-sided PearlRose and one-sided Pearlmethyst. I decided to write this because I apparently need to do more character studies, so have one on Amethyst. It's also past midnight and I probably should be sleeping right now, so any grammar mistakes I will blame on that.
She watched you.
Carefully, quietly, when she thought you wouldn't noticed. She watched you fight, graceful, like a ballerina. She watched you listen intently to every word the beautiful leader spoke, watched you do everything she said. Even when she was fighting at your side, she watched you. She would never admit it, never in a million years, but she thought you were beautiful and strong.
She saw you struggle with the anxiety of thinking they were coming back. She was a bit awkward at it, but she comforted you, knowing that was what probably was needed. She became an expert at shapeshifting so she could morph into smaller, cuddlier shapes that would provide better ways for you to relax.
She did everything she could for you, because she admired you. She became a little bit jealous of the one you were really in love with. She would sometimes daydream about you looking at her the way you did the leader. She knew your beauty and your strengths, though you were insecure about them.
Figuring you out was easier than having to sort through her own feelings.
She watched you.
She watched you grow accustomed to Earth life, watched you begin to smile and laugh more. She was so happy when you started giving her attention, even though you treated her like a sister instead of something more. But she knew how in love you were with Rose, so she could live with it. As long as you were happy.
She would do anything for you in that period of time. She loved how graceful you were, how kindly you treated her and the other members of the team. She felt like she could watch you for hours.
She watched you.
She watched you become jealous and bitter, watched you start retreating more and doing the craziest things to get the leader's attention when it started waning for the sake of the new human in town. She wanted to talk to you, to snap you out of it.
She wanted to tell you how she felt, but that was a little difficult when even she didn't know. She'd been pushing the feelings back for too long to bring them out when it truly mattered.
She watched you.
She watched you break.
She watched you cry and shut everyone out.
She watched you lose the one you loved the most.
She wanted to help you. But you never let her. You would scream at her when she tried, and that hurt her more than any wound ever could. She wanted to hold you and make you feel better, but she was too small and insignificant to you.
She just quietly stood in your shadow, trying to work up the courage to say something that would get through the thick layers of grief. Trying to be better for you so she wouldn't have to try herself.
She realized she was being treated poorly. And so she gave up, albeit very reluctantly. There was just nothing she could do to help you, no matter how badly she wanted to.
She distracted herself by trying to play with the new squirming human, but it was hard. You were broken, and she could still see you out of the corner of her eye. Your room was close enough to hers that you could hear her breaking down in the middle of the night after Steven had been sent to bed.
She stayed quiet.
She grew bitter and angry and she learned to hate herself.
But still, she watched.
She watched you.