Steven breaks down why he'd been acting strange in the times leading up to his first breakdown.
...
The gems watched on with a sudden curiosity. Hearing that Steven would break down the more recent events, at least the ones before his kidnapping, caught their full undivided attention. None of the trio would deny that they weren't curious as to what led up to his breakdown aside from the main thing of his past trauma. As the room continued to stir about, making a multitude of shapes and colors, the group soon found themselves standing outside of Jasper's cave, with it's 'owner' and Steven becoming present soon after.
"So this is where it all technically started, if we don't count the beginning of the trauma itself. This wasn't too long after we started up Little Homeschool. We started helping gems find their place, but I still wanted to help everyone...which is why I went to Jasper."
As the memory began, the group watched the two characters talk. Over time, it began to turn into a full argument. Once Jasper threw out the idea of a fight, the trio of gems gasped at P-Steven's unhesitant agreeance. After he threw the first punch, the memory paused.
"Woah dude, I knew you wanted to help Jasper, even though I tried to tell you not to, but I don't think giving in to her like that was what either of you needed."
"Maybe not, but it did help me discover a few things, like the pink powers. This is where they first manifested. That, and it gave Jasper a chance to blow some steam off, so it kinda all worked out I guess.
With the memory continued, the group watched as the two began to fight. After sometime, Jasper had P-Steven pinned down, which led to the awakening of the pink abilities, which showed Steven's explanation.
As the fight, which was now tipped in P-Steven's favor, the group watched as it came to a close with a Jasper sized hole in the ground. After being told he could come back if he wished, P-Steven began to move back into town, which ended the memory.
"The fight probably wasn't the best idea in the long run, especially since it gave me an escape later on that should never have happened, but seeing Jasper interact like that was a pleasant surprise. I half expected her to just yell and ignore me, so again, I guess it was kinda a plus in a way."
Without much agreeance from the gems, who weren't sure what to think of the sudden change in behavior from the boy at the time as his pacifist ways normally didn't lead up to him starting the conflict. Without a sound, they watched as the next memory began to form. Soon enough, the group found themselves sitting within The Reef with P-Steven, P-Pearl, and Volleyball.
"So, this next one, Pearl knows about. This is when we tried helping Volleyball heal her cracks. After I learned that Pink Diamond caused the damage and not White...well, let's say I didn't take it too well."
As the short memory began, the group saw P-Pearl standing in front of a terrified Volleyball while P-Steven, now glowing pink, stood before them.
"STOP IT. I CAN'T DEAL WITH ONE MORE HORRIBLE THING SHE DID, OKAY. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT, I DON'T EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT. I JUST WANT TO FIX IT!"
As the group witnessed the sudden show of anger and power from the young man, the memory ended.
"Mom did so many horrible things in the past. Spinel, her big secret, Bismuth, it all just hurt to know that she did even more things, some that none of us even knew about. I overreacted though, and almost screwed things up again."
"Steven, it's alright. You weren't in a good state at the time and I'd hardly call what we learned from Volleyball comforting. I was just as upset at learning it too remember."
"Yeah, I know. That doesn't make it any better though. I lost control again, and it nearly cost you and her your gems...and this is still early on, before I really started to fall apart."
As he said this, the cloud room began to swirl yet again. With new colors and shapes, the group found themselves standing at a graduation for Little Homeschool, though the more the scene became made, the more wrong it appeared. As the attending group of individuals at the party appeared, each one seemed upset or frightened as they found themselves with a diamond dome, one that P-Steven had made due to him turning pink.
"I'm sure you guys heard about what happened here, but this just escalated everything still. The off colors were graduating and everyone was happy. Lars and the off colors were going back into space, Sadie and Shep were a thing, and the Suspects had broken up. Everything was changing and everyone was moving on with their lives, something I apparently couldn't handle. After a heard all of this, I reacted horribly and forced everyone to stay...along with almost killing them."
As if to show his point, the memory played and the group watched as the dome began to shrink down on the attendees.
"We would have all been finished if everyone couldn't have talked me out of my funk. But again, this just escalated things and helped lead up to worse things happening."
Just as soon as it appeared, the memory disappeared as the room quickly swirled to make the next one.
"I won't show them, but there were a couple more incidents before this next one. My new 'obsession' with gardening being the first. Everyone was leaving and changing and I brought myself to keep up the garden. Once Cactus Steven was made, I vented off my thoughts into him more often then I should have, which led to his outbreak and 'attack' on us. The other thing that happened was my proposal to Connie. Ruby and Sapphire seemed to think it best, but she rejected me in the end. I know now that it wasn't exactly a no, but I took it hard at the time because I thought she was the escape I needed from these growing thoughts and issues."
"Steven, why didn't you just come to us for help?" asked Garnet. "These problems continued, but you felt that you needed to handle them yourself."
"It's exactly like that Garnet. I thought I could handle them myself. After all, I helped all of you out with your issues, so why would this be any different? And to be fair, I did try to ask for help, just not the right kind. I did ask Ruby and Sapphire for advice, remember? That was what led me to even attempt the proposal at all. You both gave me pretty much the same answer, so I thought it must have been the right one."
"Well, those two love birds aren't exactly the best for that sort of advice." said Amethyst.
"Anyway, after that, I thought I could still handle it and that everything was fine, though I suppose I didn't believe that I could burden you guys with it at all. After all, it was my issue and the advice from those two didn't help much, so I didn't really have faith in trying it again."
"While what Ruby and Sapphire told you might not have been the best course of action, that doesn't mean you should have avoided us. You helped us, yes, but that doesn't mean you can do the same for you. You were able to approach our problems and talk with us, but you can't use that same method on yourself."
"Garnet's right. This is something that should have been addressed with someone else. You continued damaging yourself because of it Steven...something we would have seen coming if we paid a bit more attention." noted Pearl.
"I know, your both right. It just didn't feel right at the time you know. I did kinda figure out the issue though through someone else." As he said this, the room had finished it's next design, placing the group within a doctor's office. Soon after, Dr. Maheswaran and Steven, who was in a hospital gown, appeared. "Connie's mom was able to see me and I didn't think it could hurt to have some medical advice."
As the memory began to play, the gems watched as the doctor described what she believed to be the issue, which was Steven's past trauma interacting with his gem powers. She explained how the pink form was a sort of defense mechanism as his body had grown used to being danger so much that it believed everything to be dangerous. With this, the memory once again ended and began to swirl about.
"What she said then makes sense now. I can see now that I do need some help, which is part of the reason I'm talking with you guys, other threats and consequences aside. To hear it all at the time, it just increased my sense of everything going wrong. It just continued to lead me towards a breakdown, and what comes next, didn't exactly help either."
As he said this, the room set the scene at Jasper's cave. While the orange gem seem unchanged as she brought a few boulders back, the trio gasped at the sudden appearance of the buff Steven they saw at the temple.
"After I crashed Dad's van and left you guys during our talk, I ended up going to Jasper's cave. Guess I was right when I thought you wouldn't look there. I went to her to hideout for sometime, but she insisted that all I needed was to embrace the power. Without many other options, I gave it a try, which led...to this."
As the memory played, the group watched as the buff P-Steven challenged Jasper to a rematch. As the two fought and took their battle further into the woods, the trio saw how much Steven's time with Jasper changed him, as they saw him often chuckling and laughing during the fight as if he were enjoying it. Soon, he began to gain the upper hand. As if to display his new strength, P-Steven trapped Jasper with a few diamond barriers. As he floated above her position, he made a large spiked barrier, which glitched somewhat in the memory. However, it continued to resume on, despite the slight interference.
"Your right Jasper. I have been holding back" P-Steven said suddenly as small diamond's pupils appeared. As he sent the barrier down, causing a few more glitches in the memory as the impact occurred, Amethyst flinched as she began to remember what Jasper had said to her before they all departed for Homeworld during Black's uprising.
'This is the hole where I was shown true strength and power...this hole nearly became my grave'. Amethyst could still hear those haunting words as if they just happened. Seeing how the crater was made in real time didn't help her feel any better about it either.
As the memory still glitched slightly, it ended, leaving the group in a stunned silence as the room began to return to it's normal appearance. As the trio looked over to Steven, they noticed he had begun to breakdown again as some tears had begun to form and fall. Noticing their concern, he quickly began to recompose himself.
"S-sorry guys. Still haven't quite accepted that one yet. But you see what I mean. Everything just seemed to lead up to something worse, and this was one of the last straws. I rushed home in a desperate scramble, hoping that I could fix the shattering. I don't even want to imagine what would have happened if I hadn't been able to fix her...but from here, this just made me think of myself as more of a monster. I couldn't help anymore, I shattered Jasper, and I just seemed to be making things worse. Even after I fixed her, things still fell apart. I won't show it because I don't want to risk another breakdown on my part, but after she was healed, I ran to Homeworld in a desperate hope that the diamonds could fix me. All I did there though was almost shatter White as I had a bit of a panic attack in dealing with her. From there, I came home and everything just fell apart. Soon after, you guys all came together to try and help me, but I felt like I was cornered and that you shouldn't be burdened with my problems. I didn't want to face them anymore, and as you guys saw, everything just kind of came crashing down all at once."
"Steven, your reactions with each of these events might not have been great, but you can't hardly blame yourself here. You were doing what you felt necessary, what you know. You help people, you always have, and this led to you believing you couldn't trust us or anyone with your problems. You tried to get help, even if a little, but everyone you went to just didn't seem to know exactly what to do to help."
"Yeah man. Honestly, I'd still put more of the fault on us. All that time of you struggling and hurting, and we didn't try to do anything until it was too late. Heck, we didn't try to follow you to Homeworld, we never thought to look at Jasper's cave, we didn't do a lot of things that we should have. We let you go about with this as if it was meant to be handled alone, but it's not. You need help Steven...even still now."
"I know. That's why I showed this to you guys. Putting the alternative of what would happen if I didn't aside, all this just proves that now that you guys know everything, you can help me with my current state."
"While that might be true Steven, I think we'll need sometime to think about everything here. You showed us a lot of things today, many of which we would never have known if you didn't show us. I'm assuming that's everything though?"
"Yeah...that's pretty much it. Everything else that comes after or that I didn't show here, at least one of you know about already or it wasn't too major in that I feel like it needed showcased here. Plus, you guys pretty much know everything that came after. I broke, you brought me back, then we started all that stuff with Black Diamond, which you guys know of the worst of it. After I was kidnapped and tortured into submission, he started integrating me into the ranks. After sometime, he started sending me on missions to gather gems, which eventually led to you guys catching up with me on the moon base."
"Well, after everything you shown us here plus with everything we know, I think I speak for us all when I say we need sometime to process it, if that's alright." said Pearl.
"Oh...yeah, that's fine. Probably for the best anyway, it was getting kinda late in the day when I left earlier. Just hope that I'll be able to sleep tonight..."
"I have a feeling that you'll be good for tonight Steven." said Garnet as she flashed her visor.
"Heh, alright then. Thanks guys. Seriously, I'm glad I was able to show you all and talk about some the more pressing events...especially the one with White."
As the group shared a chill of discomfort from the thought, they each moved out of the room. After catching up with Greg, who had woken up sometime after they began their journey down memory lane, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful as the gems thought over the info they now knew. As the day came to an end, Steven went to lay down for the night, with high hopes that he had said enough to both avoid any further issues with sleep, and to allow the gems to give him the help he needs.
...
So, here we are. The end is near for this series. Thinking one or two more chapters total. Hopefully the gems can give him the help the boi needs.
After this fic is done, I'll be focusing on the next one, which is the crossover I've started that I mentioned in the last chapter. Plus, I think I'll update Control again here soon. Thought of another what if I'd like to explore, so expect that one here soon.
Ain't got much to say today. Kinda tired to be honest lol. Sleep last night was eh, so I'm kinda dragging today, but the show must go on. Glad I was able to get this one out still regardless.
Thanks guys for the continued support. Hope everyone's still enjoying the fic and I hope to see y'all in chapter 13, where we see just how the gems plan on helping Steeb.