Summary: Bismuth helps Steven get ready for her first show; Connie documents.

Note: Takes place a while before the second chapter. Connie hasn't gone off to college yet and Steven has yet to confess her love. Also this is an AU wherein Bismuth didn't get rebubbled.

Thanks to the amazing wordbending for the prompt!


"Steven, give me your phone," Connie requests, without for a second taking her eyes off her own, which is pointed, incidentally, directly at Steven's face.

Steven laughs (a little too animatedly – it causes Bismuth to tug her hair by accident). "Why do you need two phones?"

"Double the filming angles, Steven!"

"Why are you even filming this, you said you were just taking pictures," Steven says, futilely attempting to fight off her blush.

"Your grandchildren are going to want to see what a dork their superstar grandma was on her first real show," Connie explains patiently. "I can't disappoint your hypothetical grandchildren, Steven."

"Ha!" Bismuth barks. "I'll support that." She steals Steven's phone and materializes her own out of her gem, and hands them both to Connie. "Triple the angles," she says with a wink.

Steven is momentarily transfixed by the way Connie's teeth slightly dent her lower lip as she bites it while trying to juggle three phones, then shakes herself out of it. "Bismuth, how much longer is my hair gonna take?"

"Not as long as it would if you keep moving around," Bismuth says mildly, her fingers gliding gentle and firm through Steven's curls.

Steven sighs deeply. She's too jittery to sit still! "Being a celebrity is hard work."

The sound of the fake phone shutter rings several times. "Don't worry, I'm capturing your artistic anguish as we speak," Connie reassures her. Steven feels so lucky to have her in this moment. (Every other moment, too, but this one especially).

It takes several more minutes of work on Bismuth's part, and doubtlessly dozens of pictures courtesy of Connie's three phones, but eventually Bismuth steps back, dusting off her hands in satisfaction.

"Ah, you look beautiful," says Bismuth, somewhere between admiring and smug. "I'm great with human hair. Who knew!"

Steven stares at her piles and piles of dark brown ringlets in the mirror, glitter dusted and soft and fluffy; at the tiny pastel stars Bismuth carefully drew on her face. "I look like Mom," she murmurs.

Connie puts down two thirds of her phones to free one hand; suddenly there are five cold fingers threaded in between Steven's. Steven rubs whatever she can reach with her thumb. She'd prefer for Connie to never be cold.

"How you feeling, little friend?" Bismuth asks her, placing a heavy comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Really pop star-like," Steven replies, takes a deep breath, grins. "I like all the, uh, stars."

"That's good, cuz I've got some more for you." Bismuth places an open palm against her chest, draws something out of her gem and closes her hand around it. "I made you a little something."

She holds her arm out and opens her fist. In her hand are two star-shaped earrings, gleaming a strange metallic rainbow, like soap bubbles in sunlight.

Steven picks them out of her palm and holds them closer to her face. They're cool and mesmerizing and very obviously Bismuth's. She puts them on and beams.

Bismuth beams back. "Yeah?" she asks.

Steven nods emphatically. "Yeah."

"Good," Bismuth says, winks. "Aaand, that's not all," she adds, pressing her hand to her gem again, pulling out something a little bigger this time. It's a long strip of colorful, shimmering fabric; she pulls and pulls until her arm is extended all the way; she gives it a tug and it breaks free. It flutters down to dangle limp and dazzling from Bismuth's splayed fingers, and Steven stares at what turns out to be a stunningly detailed handmade dress.

Steven gasps. "Bismuth! You sew?"

Bismuth hums. "Took a while to figure it out," she says, waving her hand, causing the dress to glimmer in the light. "Not exactly the same principles as smelting. Got some help from a certain mechanical genius of both our acquaintance. Now I can do this." She holds up her other hand and wiggles her fingers; they turn to eye-stinging light for a second before settling into the shape of a perfectly constructed sewing machine. Bismuth flexes her arm and the needle buzzes.

Steven laughs in delight; Connie gawks. "Cool," Connie whispers.

"As a rock," Bismuth says with a wink, and hands Steven the dress.

Steven giggles and rubs her thumbs over the material of the dress Bismuth made for her, just for her, with her hands, taking the time to learn an entirely new skill to be able to make it. She can feel the itch of the beginning of tears in her eyes and nose. She sniffs, and Connie turns to her sharply, as she so often just somehow does when Steven might need her to.

"Steven," Connie says, quiet and warm; she always makes her name sound so beautiful. She lays her hand over Steven's, clenched in the soft, bright, wonderful material of the dress.

Bismuth wraps her arms around Connie and Steven both, and hugs them slightly off the ground. "Hey, hey, hey," she says, and sniffles too. "It's not that bad, for a first attempt."

All three of them are sniffling now, a little bit; Steven has the absolute most sentimental family.

"Wait, hold on," says Connie. She rubs roughly at her eyes, squeezes her arm out of Bismuth's embrace, fishes out her phone, and takes a selfie. "A true journalist never lays down her camera."

Bismuth puts them down and chuckles. "That's dedication." She nods approvingly at Connie and raises her chin at Steven. "Well? Gonna try it on?"

Connie gives Steven's wrist a quick squeeze as she retreats to the bathroom to change.

Steven's hands are a bit jumpy, and she needs to try several times to get the button on her jeans open. It's not her first dress, or the first gift Bismuth's given her, or the first time she's felt really, really pretty; but it's the first time all of those things were combined together, and she's going to perform at her first show outside Beach City, and that's altogether first-y enough for her.

Steven steps out of her jeans and slides on her dress and closes her eyes for a moment, thinks of calm things: Connie's hands and Garnet's smirk and sticky fresh donuts. She opens her eyes again and looks at herself in the bathroom mirror.

It's like this: she looks beautiful, and fun, and warm, and happy, and she does look like her mom, but it doesn't feel sad or scary at all.

The dress is sewn from multicolored strings and threaded through with thin strands of metal, giving the same strangely muted yet glimmering rainbow effect as the earrings. It's all so ridiculously Bismuth, but also comfortably Steven. It feels a bit like wearing a one-armed hug. It's just a happy sort of dress.

When Steven steps out of the bathroom, Connie makes a funny, high-pitched noise, then immediately claps a hand over her mouth. It's not enough to hide her grin, though. Steven beams at her. Bismuth is standing with a hand on her hip, eyes shiny.

"So?" she prompts. "How're you feeling now?"

"Like the prettiest pride flag on two legs," says Steven. Connie snorts behind her hand.

Bismuth shrugs and wipes her eyes and says, "I'll take it."

Steven can't stop bouncing and wriggling in her seat on the drive over to the venue. She rubs the fabric of her dress between thumb and forefinger, feeling the solidity of the metal threads sliding inside the material, excited and distracted and a little hyper. But Connie is in the seat next to her, flashing her equally excited smiles and taking a truly silly amount of pictures, and it is entirely impossible, frankly, for this show to be anything but good and happy and fine.