Twoie knew it was going to be a bad day the moment he woke up. The young man had struggled to fall asleep, and it felt like he'd only slept a couple of hours. He sighed as he covered his face with his pillow. Ever since he ended up in his past, he'd gotten used to sleeping on the couch. Don't even get him started on Rose's room. Twoie had had enough bad experiences in there that he'd rather suffer from the occasional backache than make it his room. He only slept there when he was staying up much longer than Steven so he wouldn't disturb him.
Speaking of Steven, Twoie could hear his younger self's voice from close by. What time was it? He uncovered his head from the pillow and blearily looked towards the source of the noise. 'Great… Looks like Pearl and Amethyst are fighting again…' Steven had his hands up as he tried to calm their argument, but it was clear it wasn't working.
"-ault. I keep telling you I'm not taking your stupid junk! Maybe you should pay more attention to the stuff you leave out around your waterfalls. It's been your waterfalls for years now!" Pearl looked incensed as she hugged some object close to her. It looked like some kind of a pink and blue stick.
"Oh, I doubt that! You took my stuff for decades, and I am definitely not careless enough to leave this out." Amethyst growled but stopped when Garnet put a hand on her shoulder. "Pearl, I know that means a lot to you, but you need to take their words into account. Both Steven and Amethyst are saying that items from your room fall into her room. I believe that this may be all one big misunderstanding."
Pearl looked betrayed. "W-well, maybe some past events were accidents but not this! There's no way I'd ever leave this out in my room. I keep it in my gem!" Amethyst scowled as she walked over to the fridge. "I don't know what to tell you, P. It wasn't me, and we all know you're not gonna admit it was you." Steven stared at him with hope in his eyes. 'Augh, do I really have to be the one to fix this?'
He sighed as he slowly sat up on the couch. "What's going on now?" Pearl still seemed salty even though she smiled at him in greeting. "Twoie! Good morning! Or should I say good almost afternoon now?" Was it really that late? "I'm sorry if we woke you. You remember how Amethyst used to take things from my rooms for her junk piles, right? I was only telling her that she needed to stop." Amethyst rolled her eyes.
"Alright, Pearl. I'm sure it was an accident. I remember a couple of times where your items fell into Amethyst's room via the waterfalls, and that's probably what happened this time too. It's not anyone's fault, and I think we should just drop it." Pearl sniffed and turned on her heel away from him. "Right. My precious gift from Rose Quartz just happened to fall into Amethyst's room. You don't need to pretend. I doubt you would understand how much this means to me."
Twoie saw red. How dare she? How dare she? Steven looked shocked as Pearl headed towards the temple. "You're right." She turned around in surprise. "I don't understand." His fists clenched in rage. "I don't understand because Pi- Rose was the worst!" The stick clattered to the ground. Every eye was on him.
"I don't understand how you worship the very ground she walks on because she's the reason I've had to fix so many horrible things!" The young man became enveloped in a pink glow. His breath came out in harsh, ragged gasps. Steven raised a hand out to Twoie, but Garnet shook her head at him. She gently pushed Steven towards the temple, making sure he was out of the way completely before addressing Twoie.
"What do you mean by 'Rose was the worst'?" Twoie raised his brow at Garnet until it dawned on him what he'd just said. The pink faded away. The young man ran a hand through his hair. "I mean… I can't say everything because you haven't learned about it yet, but let's just say the war caused so many problems for everyone. I didn't actually mean to bring it up at all. I'm sorry."
Garnet hummed and stepped forward. "By everyone, you mean…?" Twoie shook his head. "Sorry, Garnet. That would be saying too much." She nodded. "I understand, Twoie." She summoned her gauntlets. Steven and Twoie were startled at the action. Amethyst and Pearl nodded before summoning their own weapons as well. "W-what's going on?" Twoie backed up until the back of his knees hit the coffee table.
"We tried this the easy way, Twoie. Now we'll do this the hard way. What do you mean by everyone?" Garnet growled. Steven tried to push past the gems to defend Twoie, but Amethyst quickly picked him up by the waist. "Woah, Ste-man. You need to stay back. We need to interrogate this imposter." Pearl thrust her spear forward until it was almost touching his neck. He smacked it out of the way with his hand.
"What the hell is wrong with you guys? Why are you acting like this?" Pearl flashed him a smug smile. "We've been suspicious of you for a while, you Homeworld spy! But you just sold yourself out. The real Steven would never hate his mother."
Garnet stalked forward and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. She slammed him into the floorboards. His gasp of pain was drowned out by the splintering of the wooden planks. "Twoie! Guys, stop!" Steven screamed as he struggled in Amethyst's grasp.
"You can drop your disguise now, gem. You also gave yourself away when you turned pink. Human and human-gem hybrids can't change colors like that. Only gems have color schemes like that." The pink glow returned. "I'm not lying to you! I am Steven from the future!" He summoned his bubble and knocked Garnet off of him. He pushed himself to his feet, just in time to dodge a blow from Pearl's spear. Garnet threw a punch that he blocked with his bubbled fists.
Amethyst backed out of the room with Steven to make sure he didn't get hurt in the crossfire. Pearl sent several lasers at Twoie, some burned through his jacket, leaving burn marks, but most he managed to reflect into the floor with his shield. "I'm so fucking sick of you not listening to me!" He kicked Pearl's spear out of her hand. The gem gasped in pain at the contact with her wrist, and Garnet could feel a tide of fury wash over her. Nobody hurt her family and got away with it. She sent several gauntlet rockets at Twoie, who raised a bubble in his defense. Steven watched in horror as the smokescreen from the blasts provided the perfect cover for Garnet to slip in for a sucker punch. Twoie's bubble went down just as Garnet breached the smoke. "STOP!"
Crack!
Twoie screamed in agonizing pain. Everyone froze in shock at the sound. Steven wriggled out of Amethyst's limp hold and rushed over to Twoie. The young man dropped to his knees as his hands hovered over his cracked gem. Pearl let her spear fade away as she stared at him in shock. "W-why isn't her form disappearing? You damaged her gem! She should be unstable now!" Garnet dissipated her visor. All three eyes scanned Twoie as Steven tried to calm him.
Twoie was shaking all over. He made a pained noise every time Steven tried to touch him. He coughed. Blood splattered on his and Steven's hands. Amethyst took a shaky step forward. "Guys, I hate to tell you this, but gems don't bleed…"
Twoie let out a low whine. Everyone flinched. "It hurts…" Steven watched in agony as tears welled up in Twoie's eyes. He coughed again. Steven tried to lick his hand but was startled when Twoie staggered to his feet. Now that he was standing, Garnet could see the result of her attack. There was a large spider-web crack on the face of the quartz. The biggest crack split the gem right down the middle, with many smaller cracks branching off. "Please…" Steven could feel tears streaming down his cheeks.
"I'm trying, Twoie! You have to let me touch you! I can't heal you otherwise!" Twoie shook his head. "Stars, it hurts! It hurts so much!" He scrambled backward, pained groans showing how much moving was hurting him. Steven tried to follow him but backed off when Twoie tried to summon a bubble. It popped almost immediately, sending him stumbling against the front door. "Twoie! You've gotta stop walking around!" Steven licked his hand and finally got close enough to slap it against Twoie's arm. Another bubble stopped him.
"Let me heal you!" Twoie looked him in the eyes, and Steven finally realized why Twoie kept resisting him. His eyes were glazed over in fear and pain. It was like he couldn't see him. Maybe Twoie didn't see him. The young man had made no acknowledgment that he understood Steven was trying to help him. Garnet quickly launched forward just as Twoie summoned a shield. She managed to drag him out of the way as the shield went flying and slammed into the ground where Steven was standing seconds ago.
"He's hallucinating from the crack in his gem. He doesn't know what's going on right now." Steven smacked her hand off of himself. "I don't care! You guys are the reason he's like this in the first place! I've gotta help him!" Steven turned to Twoie only to see him gone. "What?" The front door swayed in the wind. Steven ran out onto the porch and looked wildly around. However, he couldn't spot any sign of him on the beach. No footprints, no blood trail, nothing.
The Crystal Gems stepped out from behind him. Pearl scrunched the tail end of her ribbon in worry. "Where could he have gone? It's not like he could use his powers right now! We have to find him so that we can fix him." Steven could feel his rage boiling over. "Fix him? You want to fix him?" He rounded on them. "You're the reason his gem needs to be fixed in the first place. Why didn't you just tell him why you wanted to know more?" They flinched. He was right. "You never stopped to think for one second that you could've just explained why you were suspicious? You guys always jump to violence when you don't understand things. You did that with Lapis, you did that with Peridot, and now you did it with Twoie!"
Steven pushed past them and started walking down the stairs. "I'm leaving to go look for Twoie. Why don't you go find something else to attack now that he's gone." Amethyst raised her hand to place on Steven's shoulder but flinched when he smacked it away. It was obvious that Steven wanted nothing to do with them right now. "Please tell Twoie we are sorry. For everything." Steven made no acknowledgment of Garnet's words. He continued facing away from them until he could hear them quietly retreat into the temple. Steven walked down the steps and scanned the beach again. It didn't matter to him that they realized they were wrong.
That didn't make up for the fact that his older brother was out there somewhere, cracked and in pain, and Steven didn't have a clue where to start looking. He was about to walk down from the hill to search around the statue pieces when he noticed blood droplets on the stairs. 'It looks like… it goes on behind me?' He whipped around. Under the house were several bushes that were fairly large and overgrown. He peered through them to see Twoie, lying mostly hidden amidst the leaves. He wasn't moving. Oh, stars no… "Twoie?" No response. "Twoie?!"
Steven quickly hopped over the bushes and knelt by Twoie's side. He could feel tears prickling his eyes as he bent to press an ear to Twoie's chest. There! A faint heartbeat. Steven let out a relieved sob as he sat up again. Oh, thank stars. He noticed Twoie's body start to shimmer, and his gem lit up in a bright glow. Steven lifted Twoie's shirt to see the multiple cracks healing. "Huh. I guess I do have healing tears."
Although Twoie was now healed from his injuries. The young man did not wake up. Steven tried shaking him, but after a couple of seconds of no response, he figured it was useless. There was no way Twoie was waking up after the stress of what he went through. Steven looked out at the water from where he sat. Now that Twoie was healed, what should he do next? He had some thinking to do.