I don't know what possessed me to continue this, but here it is. It follows a few hours after the first chapter.
Vertical bars ( | | | ) denote that Stevonnie's constituent parts have switched up doing the talking, though they just appear to be talking to themself.
***FFN LINE BREAKS AREN'T WORKING RIGHT NOW***
Dr. Priyanka Maheswaran does not often question her intelligence. She couldn't have been stupid, to have made it through medical school. Granted, it had somehow slipped her
notice that her daughter was running around for a year fighting magical creatures, but it wasn't like she could have anticipated her daughter's involvement in such things. On the other hand, it took her far too long- until about two weeks ago, in fact- to accept that Steven Universe was Connie's boyfriend.
Doug had been having suspicions over the past year and a half, but she hadn't been convinced until The Gems invited the Maheswarans over for an end-of-summer cookout on the beach. It went quite well, up until a few dozen gem creatures arrived to crash the party.
Most of them focused on the Gems themselves, but a particularly large one had gone after the civilians.
Steven and Connie had sprung into action then, drawing its attention and striking back with ferocity.
It had been like a dance. They barely spoke to one another, but the awareness that they had, both of the enemy and each other, the way Steven's defense and Connie's offense weaved around and through each other. It pointed toward something that couldn't be entirely platonic anymore.
And now that she is convinced, she can't help but see it in so many other places she'd taken for granted.
He was already a regular dinner guest at the Maheswaran household, usually at her daughter's invitation, but in the past few months, he had taken to requesting to eat with them. After dinner, he and Connie would laugh and play and cuddle in the living room. Discuss and analyze books and other media together (she was glad Steven was at least as interested in books as he was in Connie). At one point, Steven even convinced Pearl to come over for Connie's fencing lessons.
But now, if there were a question as to the nature of their relationship, this would be the answer.
The children had been silent in Connie's room for the past few hours, and she'd checked in on them, but decided not to open the door any further once she'd heard the light snoring. Connie didn't have that issue, thankfully, so she made the reasonable assumption that both of them were napping. Which was good, if odd. It had taken Doug until their third year of marriage before he was comfortable being around her when she was having her monthly issues (was that a pun? Dear Ganesha Steven was rubbing off on her!).
Greg had to leave suddenly- important business had come up with his car wash- but serendipitously enough, Steven's... pet had decided to roar it's way over and begun napping in the sunlight of her front yard.
She's halfway through some chore or other when she hears something entirely new.
Connie is giggling. Not her usual laugh, like she would after a ridiculous pun or wild story. This is deeper. Huskier. Not anything that would come out of Connie's mouth under normal circumstances. With her and Steven alone in her room , there are few such circumstances that would serve as an explanation. Doug had warned her that no matter how much she trusted Steven, there would be a point where leaving the door open wouldn't matter. Apparently that point had been reached.
She makes her way up the stairs, calling out for Connie, and gets the exact response she expected: suspicious whispers.
But as she gets through the door, she doesn't see two young adults sheepishly trying not to make it look like they were discovering one another.
There is a stranger in Connie's bed. She doesn't focus too deeply at the features, but she doesn't feel the need to. She's too tall. The hair isn't right, the skin tone too light.
There is a stone where her navel should be.
A Gem. A rogue Gem has kidnapped them.
"What have you done with the children?"
Who knows what weird powers this one could have? Who cares? Her daughter, and the boy she is coming to consider consider a son, are at stake. She stalks over to the bed, grabs the assailant by the collar, and shakes her.
"Tell me where my daughter is!"
The Gem's eyes change. Fearful, still, but now in a way with which Dr. Maheswaran is intimately familiar.
She remembers those eyes peeking up at her during thunderstorms. Reading half a dozen books at midnight until they closed in peaceful slumber.
This is Connie, but... not.
The Gem begins to glow, a bright pink she has come to associate with Steven, and she lets go. The light dissipates, and then Connie is there, kneeling on the bed, Steven cowering behind her.
Dr. Maheswaran is flabbergasted. "Steven. Connie. You were? But, I thought..."
The dinner. All those years ago, that first dinner, where Greg had shown up with his six-armed, two-mouthed, fifty-foot-tall date. That was really three Gems. That became the one tall Gem again.
Steven had done that, with her daughter.
He could do that? With humans?
"How?"
"I... don't really know," Connie admits. "Probably because Steven's half-human."
"And that Gem... she was... the two of you?"
She should have realized it; that Gem had been dressed very much like Steven, now that she's able to look back at the situation with ten seconds' hindsight.
"Well, Stevonnie's more of a they , but even then... fusion is more than that. I think Steven could explain it better."
Connie turns to Steven, who is still hiding behind her. And a lot smaller than he should be. And while he is missing the attempt at a mustache and sideburns that Connie can't convince him to shave, the fact that he looks even younger than he did when she'd first met him kind of ruins the effect.
"I'm sorry Dr. Maheswaran." His voice is higher, tears running down his face. "I knew you wouldn't like it, but I was just trying to help Connie! We won't fuse again if you don't want us to, I promise!"
She chuckles, calling on her experience in the pediatric ward. "Steven, you're very good at jumping to conclusions. I'm not angry at you, just... surprised."
He wipes at his eyes with his now overlarge sleeve. "So... you're okay with this?"
"You and Connie are teenagers, now." Well, he'd been a teenager for quite a while, but the point still stood. Even though he didn't look it at the moment. "It's completely normal for you to want to be... closer to each other. I only wanted to be sure that you weren't going too far, too fast."
Steven nods his head. "You don't think fusion is too far?"
"I'm not quite sure," she admits. "That's ultimately between you and Connie." She smiles, as genuinely as she can. "But it would put my mind at ease if I could talk to this... Stevonnie for a bit."
Steven wipes away the last of his tears, and in a pink flash, he's his sixteen-year-old self again. "Uh... sorry about that. Still not that good with shapeshifting. Sometimes I'm only as old as I feel I am."
Dr. Maheswaran chuckles. "There's a power I wouldn't mind having."
"I almost died of old age," Steven counters. Simultaneously, Connie says "He turned into a baby once."
She cringes. "... I'm not sure which is more terrifying."
"Neither of them are as bad as Cat Fingers." Connie interjects, unable to suppress a shudder. "thanks for dreaming about that by the way," she mutters, socking him playfully on the shoulder.
"You probably don't want to hear about the time travel fiasco either," Steven muttered.
Priyanka takes their word for it. "So... Stevonnie?"
They look at each other nervously. "Now?"
"If you're saying this process is something I shouldn't be seeing, maybe it is too far."
Priyanka gives them a soft glare. Steven seems to shrink half an inch, or maybe it's her imagination.
"We've never fused in front of anyone before," Steven explains.
"I don't like people watching me dance," Connie adds.
"It's a very intimate process."
Priyanka's glare becomes steely, and Steven amends his previous statement.
"Uh... not like sex. Totally not like sex, I mean we first fused when I was thirteen!" He winces, then slams his head into his palm. "That isn't helping things."
Connie jumps down from the bed and pulls Steven to his feet. "Can we get a little space?"
Priyanka moves back a bit to facilitate them, and Connie starts singing a simple melody, the lower half of "Heart and Soul." She starts with a simple two-step, until Steven joins in with the other half of the song, taking control and leading her in an odd sort of foxtrot. After another three or four measures, Steven spins her under his arm and they stretch apart, then Connie twirls back toward him, wrapping herself in his arm and ending with her back to his chest. His other arm goes around her waist, and the bright pink light flashes again.
When it subsides, the gem- Stevonnie- is standing there. Well, she's swaying in place, trying to hum both parts of the song at once. Steven's pink shirt and yellow star are complemented by Connie's canary blouse; The Gem's legs are covered by bell-bottomed jeans, the embroidered pattern at the ankles resembling that of Connie's khaki skirt.
Priyanka isn't sure what to do, so she clears her throat. Stevonnie jumps, snapped out of her... their... reverie, and looks down.
A beat.
"Well, er..." Priyanka begins, "that wasn't as... provocative as I expected."
Stevonnie snorts. "Steven doesn't have a provocative bone in his body." | "Yeah, we've looked."
A look of shock crosses Stevonnie's face. "That's supposed to be between u...me!" | "Only half of me has any experience lying to our-your- Connie's mother!" | "Well you didn't have to... blurt it out like that!"
Priyanka clears her throat again. "Please stop arguing with... yourself."
They quickly snap to attention again. "Yes Dr. Motherheswaran." They giggle at their slip-up.
"This is so weird." The doctor rests her head in her palm.
"Yeah it's totally weird," Stevonnie agrees. "But it's so much fun being me!" | "Steven's inquisitive and he's so sweet and funny and he sees the beauty in everything!" | "And Connie's so smart and cool and knows a whole bunch of stuff and have you seen them when they fight, cuz Connie's all like-"
They're about to turn a rather impressive cartwheel, but pause when Dr. Maheswaran raises her hand.
"Sorry to interrupt-" she really isn't- "but what exactly is happening here?"
"What do you mean?"
"This... talking to yourself thing. Aren't you a coherent... being? Or are you two?"
"No."
"No... to what?"
Stevonnie bursts into laughter at Priyanka's confused expression. "The mathematician's answer? Really?" | "Sorry, I couldn't resist." | "Okay, it was funny, but now it's time to be serious." | "Serious."
They make an odd 'flattening' motion with their hands, neutralizing their expression.
"Sorry about that. They can get carried away having fun when they're me."
"Now it's they?" Priyanka shakes her head. "This is like dealing with a non-binary patient."
Which was technically true, she figures.
"To answer your question properly ," Stevonnie begins, "the way Garnet explained it, I'm not two people, but I'm not one person either. I'm... an experience ."
They raise an arm, summoning Steven's shield, and do a little twirl before striking a heroic pose, hair billowing out dramatically.
Priyanka blinks, slowly becoming inured to the silliness. And yet... "Where is that wind coming from?"
They stare back at flapping hair. "I'm not sure, actually. Steven does this weird floaty thing sometimes so it might be related to that?"
"So Steven was the one in charge of that... display?"
Stevonnie looks up in thought. "Maybe 70%. 80 tops." Stevonnie shrugs. "They don't really decide. They both have to want me to do or say something for me to do it; otherwise, I split apart."
"But earlier, Steven said something that Connie didn't want me to know."
"That's true on the surface, but Connie- both of them, really- also wanted to reassure you that they weren't sexually active yet. That's what you seemed most concerned about, and Steven rushed into explaining at the first opportunity. Connie just... didn't expect it to come out like that."
"But you're, er, they're in the same body!"
Stevonnie shakes their head. "But not the same mind."
"This is making my head spin."
"So you're suffering from con fusion ?"
She wants to glare, but she can't hide the smile on her face, so she sighs and rolls her eyes. " Steven ."
"Connie thought of that one, actually. Steven just helped with delivery." Stevonnie's eyebrows narrow skeptically.
Priyanka resists the urge to take a step back. She's seen that expression before. The 'Serious Steven' face. The boy usually employed it when monsters were afoot, but if by some miracle (or whatever the logical opposite of a miracle is) someone managed to get him angry, this countenance made him the most physically imposing thing in the room. Even though everyone else was at least a head taller than him.
And Stevonnie is actually taller than her.
"W-What is it, Stev...onnie?"
"You think Steven is taking advantage of Connie." They sound like Steven, mostly, but somewhere in the background, is the tone Connie takes when someone's hurt her feelings.
Priyanka can't deny it. Whether out of fear or respect, she isn't sure.
"H- how dare you? The fact that Steven and Connie can be me in the first place is because of how much they care about and trust each other!" | "We've known him for three years! You think he's that kind of person?" | "Even if I was, Connie's like seven times smarter than I am! Why would I even try it?" | "Steven, you shouldn't be selling yourself short like that."
Stevonnie's chest heaves as they take in a deep breath. "And another thing-"
They cut themself off before they can continue ranting. "I think I'm done yelling at my mom now." | "Well, I'm not , so if you don't mind..."
In a flash, Steven is standing in front of her, holding Connie in a bridal carry. He sits her gently on the bed, but when he turns to Priyanka again, his rage is cooled.
"Fusion isn't about controlling each other. It's about sharing and acceptance and communication. I... I love Connie, and if you think I would use her feelings against her like that, then you don't know me at all!"
He leaves the room at a brisk pace.
Both are still reeling from Steven's words- Connie because they'd just gotten to "like" not three hours ago, Priyanka because of the utter sorrow and dejection that had taken the place of his rage.
"Steven, wait!" they yell together.
He's already halfway down the stairs. Connie tries to catch up to him, but the waistband of her jeans drops, tripping her up. By the time Priyanka helps her up, Steven has mounted the Lion, and the great pink creature roars a portal out of thin air and leaps through.
Connie shuffles up to her, too late to stop it.
They both stare at the empty spot in the yard.
"Put on some proper pants and get in the car." Priyanka orders, after a while. "I have to fix this, and I'll need your support."
"On my way."
"Wait... how did you..." She gestures vaguely at Connie's torso, the waistband of her- no, Steven's- jeans gaping around her and held up with a length of coil she must have found somewhere.
Connie looks down as well. "Oh... sometimes things switch when we un-fuse."
A beat. "That boy really knows how to rock a skirt, doesn't he?"
"Where do you think Stevonnie gets all those curves?"
Priyanka tries not reflect on how bitter she sounds about that.
***FFN LINE BREAKS AREN'T WORKING RIGHT NOW***
A/N: You are all imagining Steven in an embroidered khaki skirt yelling at Dr. M. Maybe that justifies this fic's continuation?