Steven had always wanted to fly.
He had had hundreds of dreams where his body is lighter than the air and he's speeding through the clouds. The crystal gems below him, oohing and ahhing at his awesomeness.
Garnet praising him about how big of a boy he had become and that he's certainly old enough now to join them on missions. Pearl is so delighted she starts to cry and she lets him play on the warp pad. Amethyst realizes how cool he is and lets him hang out with her after his bedtime – in the temple! Daddy stops looking so scared when they talk about missions and magic and gem stuff.
In his dreams it had been wonderful… nothing like it is right now.
The thing he'd never been told about flying, not in any movies, cartoons, or stories, was how scary it felt when you fell.
He isn't sure if he's screaming. The first awful slash, which erupted the beach and every occupant on it, had knocked the scream right out of him. The second swing, the one accompanied by the Crystal Gems' arrival and Pearl's ragged scream, sends him truly flying.
"STEVEN!"
He zooms upward, the beach growing smaller and smaller. The air is cold, the sun burns the back of his back. He thinks he may have graced a cloud before he starts to fall. He doesn't fall for very long. The terrifying thrill of flight ends as suddenly as it starts.
It's nothing like his dream.
The monster swallows him whole.
…
"STEVEN!" Pearl shrieked, momentarily frozen as they watch the little boy shoot into the sky, the colossal gem monster opening its massive mouth and snapping him from the air.
Garnet speeds down the beach, moving so quickly that she's a blur. Pearl and Amethyst aren't far behind her. The gem monster has to be nearly twenty feet tall, but Garnet ascends it's back in a few seconds.
She brings her gauntlets down again and again, her attempt to break the beast's skin proving futile. There's a desperation tingeing every pounding punch she delivers, her usual cool demeanor abandoned. She can't keep herself on its slanted back for much longer so she thrusts herself off; sending it stumbling forward with the force.
"Amethyst! Pearl!" Garnet called, managing to catch both of her comrades' hands in midair. There's no time to dance or focus – but even in their panicked haze a flash of light floods the little beach and they are no more.
Alexandrite emerges with a war cry, all six of her hands balled into fists. Where Garnet's fists do nothing, Alexandrite's cleave. Six arms working in perfect unison – one clenches the creature's gem, applying a humongous pressure that causes a fissure to erupt among the symmetrical facets and two others gently cup a quivering lump, bringing it tight to her middle.
The gem monster implodes, the reverberating explosion sends a massive wave rushing outward from Alexandrite's feet. She stumbles, all her strength sapped as she comes to. She has the mind, or someone within the amalgamation of her mind, has the mind to bubble the gem and send it off to the temple. After that she can't contain herself any longer.
And in a flash of light, Alexandrite disappears.
And they fall.
Garnet curls herself into a ball, her arms locked tightly around the boy in her arms. When she slams into the ground, the wind is knocked out of her and she skids to the edge of the shore. Her limbs splay out around her uncontrollably – exhaustion pounding in her gems.
"Steven?" Pearl's voice is breathy and she struggles to right her own spindly limbs so that she can move closer. "I-Is he…?"
Garnet sits up, uncharacteristically shaky. Steven fingers are digging painfully into her skin, he's saturated in monster goo. With practiced, albeit unsteady hands, Pearl worked to remove the sticky substance.
"Amethyst?" Garnet watched Amethyst's limp, seemingly lifeless form give a gigantic sigh before sticking up a sandy thumbs-up. Steven sticks his head up only after Pearl's removed the brunt of the goo, he's gasping as if he's just come up for air.
Garnet's visor slips down the bridge of her nose, all three of her eyes intently watching Steven's. Steven's dark eyes are so wide and watery, that's she can easily see herself in them.
"Steven?" Garnet keeps her voice low and soft, as if it might shatter the tepid moment they're sharing. "Are you okay?"
Steven only stared back, still panting heavily. Garnet waits, Pearl impatiently by her side – the subsequent fluttering Pearl's adopted both stress and exhaustion based.
When Steven finally untangles his thoughts, the flood of tears in his eyes that had sat on the precipice of falling, dribbled down his pale cheeks. A high, keening whine started in the back of his throat until it became a sob.
"Oh goodness!" Pearl fretted nervously, struggling to get to her feet. "We need to get back to the house to make sure he wasn't injured."
Garnet doesn't get to respond. Steven had started to cry for his father, his voice wretchedly laced with hysteria. It's a quality that's so uncomfortably foreign that for a moment it doesn't sound like Steven at all.
Any dredge of exhaustion that had laden every inch of her form, is extinguished with the torrent of panic flooding Steven's voice. She pulls strength from a reservoir she wasn't aware she possessed and stands on wobbly feet, Steven still sobbing in her burning arms.
"We need to get Greg."
A/N: Something went wrong with this chapter so I'm trying to re-upload it. Hopefully it doesn't become a bunch of nonsense again. Sorry if it suddenly disappeared, but it was practically unreadable.
FULL OF ANGST CHAPTER.