Poking, poking, and poking again. Spinel was spending her time poking at her best friend's cheek as he slept. It was already morning, and he still wasn't up, and she took time out of her day to visit the son of a diamond.

"Steven. Steeeeven. Steeeeeeveeeeeen." She whispers softly, she was still polite enough not to outright shake the boy awake. "Steven, hey, hey Steven wake up." She continues before she sighs with a pout.

Spinel pulls away and crosses her arms, taking a look around the room. Her twin ponytails twitching up and down as she takes a look at the changes since she's last been there. The TV was new, it was flatter and a bit bigger than before. Maybe she can find that show from before again.

Then again it might not be on, she's still not very knowledgeable when it comes to the runtime of shows. Something about companies making money by showing kids garbage. At least that's what Amethyst says, when asking Steven, he just shrugs and says he doesn't really care.

That wouldn't do, because that means Steven doesn't care much about entertainment, and if Spinel was one thing it was entertaining. Suffice to say, she took that personally, both as an insult and as a challenge.

Though her human was getting better at taking it easy, taking breaks, and relaxing, it still seems like he has a long way to go.

She meant her friend. Her human friend. Not that Steven was her human per se, but if he doesn't mind calling her that then she certainly could-

A quick shake of her head cleared away those thoughts, though it did nothing to prevent the small blush on her cheeks.

Maybe she needs some distraction as well. It would be rude to just turn on the TV as Steven was sleeping. Was there anything else she could look at?

She really shouldn't be snooping around his room but…

Well, she's already slept with Steven before, he probably wouldn't mind. Hmm, she still needs to thank him for that probably. She appreciates what he did when she had that nightmare that one time.

And so she went and looked around, bending over every nook and cranny and stretching her eye into a few spaces to get a better look at the contents. There are a ton of books however she noticed. Well, she was never the biggest fan of reading, but then again she's never read anything before on account of existing in a garden out in space for thousands of years that she needed plenty of therapy and physical contact and basic decency and empathy and care to really overcome and she probably still needed a lot more time to deal with and most possibly never be able to recover from.

What was her point? Right, books and reading.

She grabbed the nearest one that looked interesting. One with a little yellow creature with big cute eyes and floppy ears. "Marley and Me, huh?" She murmurs in curiosity. Well, time to crack it open and take a read.

She regrets everything soon after.

Steven wasn't sure what he expected when he woke up that morning. Maybe he would take a shower and get dressed for a brand-new day? Or even treat himself to a morning donut for some extra energy for his daily walk towards Little Homeworld?

What he didn't expect, was to be woken up as a pink missile attached herself to his arm and shaking with tears. While he's long since been used to the gem waking him up on the morning of her visits to waste as little time as possible in having fun, at least in her words.

This was a first in a long while where the usually energetic girl would be trying not to bawl as she pressed her face into his sleeve.

And so, he simply wraps his other arm around Spinel's waist, and quietly asked what was wrong. Only to be met with incomprehensible crying and muttering. Then she looks up at him.

Stars, it was like looking at sadness incarnate. The type where you felt you had no choice but to do everything in your power to make the person feel better at any cost. Bright pink doe-like eyes that just seem to shine even brighter through the wetness of her tears, nearly blown out from unknown grief and teardrops leaking down past her cheeks as they try their best not to close and risk more falling out.

He couldn't help it if he had to look away, it was just too much for the half-gem, but at least it gave some insight to Spinel's troubles; a book a bit to the side with the title "Marley and Me".

Yeah, that would do it. He remembers that he wouldn't stop crying when he first read that book so long ago. Especially when there were so many dog-focused shows and pieces of media.

For now, he has to take on the role of the mature one in their strange little duo as he comforts the stretchy gem in his arms. Yawning in-between soothing words while he assures Spinel that it was just a story.

While also conveniently failing to mention it was based on a true story.

"Hey, Spinel, it's alright. It's alright. It's okay." Steven whispers, "Come on, why don't we go out today? You can walk with me to Little Homeworld and we can find something fun to do? Is that alright?"

The poor girl sniffles a bit more into his sleeve before ultimately nodding, muttering small words of apologies before sitting up properly. Only to be met with a smile and a chuckle as Steven reaches out and pets in-between her pigtails. He'd be lying if he said he didn't enjoy her blush as he did as opposed to her tears.

She was more like him than he thought. A shame the two didn't meet far earlier and under better circumstances. Things could have been different, and maybe things could have been better.

But for what it's worth, he was glad to have Spinel here now. Morning wake-up calls and all.