February 14th, 1919
Rose was surrounded by school children, all smartly dressed in their school day uniforms. Every single hand was full of cards, candy, and flowers; everything colored in every shade of pink and red imaginable. Rose was completely in her element. She had been practically swarmed by humans, but she was all smiles and laughs.
Even from her perfect hiding nook behind the temple's hand, Pearl can hear a constant slew of little girls and boys asking Rose to be their valentine. She can't keep her scoff to herself. Next to her, Garnet nudged her shoulder gently.
"Be kind."
"I am being kind." Pearl hissed, pulling her knees to her chest. "I don't understand what all the fuss is about."
"It's a day about love." Garnet shrugged. "It's Rose."
"It's exactly that though. Humans' love is so ephemeral and instead of celebrating love every day, they choose just one day! How ridiculous is that."
Garnet merely clasped her hands together. "I like it. Humans love 'love' so much that they set aside a day to celebrate it."
"It's not even a historically accurate holiday!" Pearl grumbled. "Every year, we're practically immobilized by all these humans confessing their sudden undying love for Rose."
"I get a couple confessions too." Garnet added.
"Wha-! That isn't the point. We should be out working, helping humanity, but we're stuck here accepting silly, fake confessions that won't mean a thing tomorrow." Pearl stood up, stomping her feet. She could only barely see the top of Rose's boisterous curls, she could tell from their particular bounce that Rose must be laughing.
"A day full of fake love." Pearl spat, her gaze locked onto Rose's back. "I will never understand this stupid holiday."
…
February 14th, 20XX
"Dis…is an interesting chocolate Steven." Nanefua chuckled, watching him as he worked. "Does Amethyst love sprinkles and…pepperoni…and mayonnaise?"
"Yep!" Steven giggled, happily placing a few more slices of pepperoni encrusted with sprinkles onto the chocolate heart. "Do you have any cooking oil?"
"Uh…yes. Let me go get it." Nanefua hopped of the kitchen stool, hobbling to the pantry in Fish-Stew Pizza.
Steven gave Amethyst's chocolate heart a tiny kiss before replacing it in its plastic mold. Garnet's chocolate heart was next, he pulled it toward him and grabbed a handful of blueberries, strawberries, and sprinkles. When Nanefua returned with his syrup, Garnet's heart was nearly invisible under the hoard of fruit and sprinkles.
"Garnet must really like sprinkles." Nanefua chuckled, watching as with every tiny puff of Steven's breath, the hill of sprinkles rolled down their mountain. Steven nodded excitedly.
"I was gonna put ice-cream on because she likes ice cream, but then I thought how it would melt and Pearl doesn't like melty things cause then they get sticky." Steven squealed, gently drowning Amethyst's chocolate in canola oil.
"An' what about Pearl?" Nanefua asked.
"Pearl doesn't like to eat. One time Amethyst tried to make her eat a chili dog and she looked like she was gonna throw'd up." Steven looked over his work with a satisfied grin. "So, I'm just gonna make her a card and find some flowers."
"That's good. Do you want to put on the candy letters now?" Nanefua grabbed the tiny bag of sparkly pink letters and spilled them out on the counter.
"Yes! But I need your help cause I dunno how to spell 'Amethyst'."
…
St. Valentine's Day. It had come around once again. Pearl had, of course, crossed it off of Steven's calendar, but it had come anyway.
It was all so…unbecoming. Shamelessly flirting and confessing to ridiculous crushes and flings.
And of course, Rose had loved it.
Rose had relished in gift giving, kisses, hugs, sweets, and affection. Humans had always had more than enough to share. And Rose had always had a voracious appetite for it. Pearl always wondered, though she'd never admit it, that Rose was craving something more than just affection and acceptance. Rose had always fought for love and when she couldn't find it, she'd found other places to supply it to her.
Pearl often wondered if there would ever be enough love for Rose.
It wasn't the first Valentine's day that Pearl and the gems would watch go by without Rose. It wasn't the first that Steven would witness either. Pearl had done her best to ignore the holiday, in the hope that Steven would ignore it as well.
But of course, she had been dealing with Rose's son.
Steven had been gone for some time (in retrospect suspiciously long). Everyday building up to the day, he'd disappear for hours, coming back smelling like chocolate and covered in a suspicious amount of glitter.
They'd all been sitting in the living room. Garnet, for some reason, lying on the coffee table, with Amethyst parked underneath it. Pearl had been happy to do the dishes without Steven attempting to 'help', when Steven had burst in.
"HAPPEH VALENTINES'S DAY!" Steven practically screeched, suddenly attached to Pearl's leg after tackling Garnet's foot and toppling the coffee table on top Amethyst.
"Steven! We use our inside voices in your room!" Pearl hissed, struggling to turn off the faucet and detach Steven from her leg.
"I made you a card a-and flower a-and-!"
"Steeeeven." Pearl groaned disapprovingly. "I told you that silly holiday is a waste of our time. It only exists because two men were murdered."
"Harsh, Pearlie" Amethyst groaned as Garnet lifted her from the, now, broken table. "I want some Valentine love, Ste-man!"
"Yay!" Steven tackled her back onto the floor and handed her something that looked and smelled absolutely disgusting.
"Whooaaa, chocolate and pepperoni! I love this flavor combo." Amethyst shoved whatever is was into her mouth in one gulp. "Ahh, dude."
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Steven cheered, kissing Amethyst's cheek. "Blegh, you taste bad." He hopped up, scurrying over to Garnet and climbing into her arms. Garnet was already grinning.
Traitor. Pearl scoffed internally, turning back to the sink. She listened to their revelry with a frown. He sounded so much like Rose. She had started scrubbing at another plate when Steven attached himself to her leg again.
"Happy Valentine's Day." He whispered into her thigh.
"Steven." Pearl sighed, drying her hands. "I told you that day is a waste of our time."
"It's not a waste of time." Steven grinned, still happily not listening. "It's all about love. How can love be a waste of time?"
"I just told you it's not about love-."
"Here Pearl, read your card!" Steven hopped, sprinkling glitter and sprinkles all over the floor.
"I just cleaned this floor." Pearl sighed, squatting down. "If I accept your card will you let me finish cleaning?"
"YAY!" Steven cheered, slapping a dainty rose bouquet into Pearl's face.
"Thank you." Pearl delicately removed petals from mouth, finally accepting the card with only the tips of her fingers. "There, I've accepted it, now may I plea-."
"You gotta read it, silly." Steven giggled, settling himself in Pearl's lap. "You're an adult so you know how to read."
Pearl never understood Steven's logic, he operated similarly to Rose in that likeness.
"I'm reading!" Pearl hastily opened the card, spilling more glitter onto the floor and herself. "Steeeeeven, I've never allowed you to own this much glitter in your life! Where did you even get this?"
"Kiki and Jenny! Hurry!"
"Okay, okay." Pearl sighed, pinching her nose. In very un-Steven like cursive read:
Dear Pearl,
I love you cause you're very tall
I love you cause your hair is pretty
I love you cause your nose is pointy
I love you more than cookie-cats and candy
Will you be my valentine?
Love, Your Steven
"Do ya like it Pearl?" Steven shimmied. "I know you don't like silly stuff like this, but I still think it's a good day to tell everyone how much you love 'em."
Pearl hummed. She did like it. While it was incredibly messy, and sticky, it was Steven through-and-through.
"Steven, I already know that you love me, and I don't need you to tell me, specifically, any more so than today." Pearl reasoned, standing up with Steven in her arms.
"I know that." Steven chirped, smearing glitter on her cheeks. "But today love is special. I get to do something special for you. It's like a birthday, but for love. We don't have to be valentines if it's too silly for you."
Pearl sighed. "What does 'being my valentine' even mean?"
"Oh! I know! I know!" Steven wiggled. "It means that I'm asking you to love me forever. We'll love each other for a whole lifetime and then some. Tomorrow, we'll love each other more and more. And then next year, we'll remember the first time we asked one another and celebrate with candy and chocolate and glitter and cards! That's what Nanefua said!"
Pearl laughed, her eyes suddenly wet. With Rose, Valentine's day had been about receiving love. Always. Rose had never thought much more about it than that. Pearl had assumed that Steven would follow in Rose's footsteps. She had been ready to battle illogical bouts of jealously as Steven rushed to receive love away from the real people who loved him.
With Steven, more often that she liked to admit, she ended up being wrong.
"Yes." Pearl whispered, inevitably covering them both in a large amount of glitter with a squishy hug. "Will you be mine?"
"Of course!"
A/N:Happy Valentine's Day! Or Happy Singleness Awareness Day!
This is kinda rushed, so if it sounds/feels weird (or the grammar bad is), it's because I scrapped the original story I was working on this whole week and reworked the whole thing in a couple of hours. I now have a headache and will retreat into my cave of perpetual Singleness and Writing.
As always, thanks for reading and reviewing!