Hey guys!
So, probably against better judgment, I've decided to continue this story. It will be short, maybe around 5 or 6 chapters, but I didn't just want to leave on a sad depressing note like that. Plus, some ideas came to me, and I decided to go with it.
Lord Razer and Ao Uta, thank you so much for your reviews! I'm glad you both enjoyed it so much and I hope you continue to read and enjoy. :)I do not own Steven Universe or the comic this was inspired by! All rights to Rebecca Sugar and Cartoon Network!
Warning *This chapter, like the one before, contains depression, thoughts of suicide, and hints at some language.*
General angsty feels abound!
Hope you guys enjoy, and I look forward to hearing what you think.
- Raven
She is floating alone this time, the hazy waters swallowing her up until she was almost drowning. But it was ok, because she knew how to breathe this water, letting it fill her lungs without panic and pushing it out with calm force. The bud between her fingers was down to a stub and long gone cold, but that was fine too, because she didn't really need it this time. Her thoughts were enough to keep her contained for some time, more than enough of a blackness that she didn't want to bring light to with the spark it would have provided.
She feels bad.
It's stifling, the feeling, and it is the very water that threatens to drag her under. She feels bad because of him. Unbidden, her eyes drift off to the side, lifting just enough to eye the empty loft above her. He is gone, but his presence still lingers in every facet of the house, every creak and furrow in the wood beneath her. She isn't sure how long he'd been gone for, (almost three days to the hour) or when he'd left (that Tuesday afternoon), but not having him there is both freeing and constricting.
She wants him back. She loathes the very idea of him. She needs to hear his voice again, to feel his silky curls against her cheek. She wants to drive her spear through his form and watch it shatter. Maybe then she'll get what she truly wants. Maybe then, She will be back, and everything will be as it was.
Her jaw clenches, a low noise rising in her throat that she refuses to let past her lips. A tear burns her eye and she turns her attention back to the window, watching the ocean. She wants to drown. Not this flood of emotions, of feelings. She wants to feel the salty mist collect and fill her lungs, wants to feel the pain it will bring when she gasps for breath, to let that release be so much sweeter as the darkness rises up to meet her. True darkness, where on the other side…nothing.
There will be nothing waiting for her on the other side, because She is still here. In him.
Another low noise, but it's distinctly pitched higher, a whimper instead of a moan. Her fingers clench around her knees and she can't. stop. Feeling. It's too much, it's too much, and when the wave breaks over her head she lets it, curling as tightly as she can into herself and shaking. The dead bud falls from her fingers, and the only reason she knows it is because the sudden loss of contact means her fingers are cold. Numb. She's making some kind of sound, she knows it, can feel the echoes of vibration in her skull.
It's loud, though. Too loud.
She realizes belatedly that there had been footsteps, but they had been too quiet to hear over the noises she had been making. But she knows there had been footsteps because there is a presence, and with that presence, a voice.
"Pearl."
A voice that echoes with two. That brokers no arguments. That is both piercing cold and searing hot. It's enough to rouse her, enough to force her head up from between her knees. But it's not enough to contain the water, to keep her from drowning. To make her care enough to meet her gaze.
"This needs to stop."
Oh, I agree, a part of her says snidely. But stop how, exactly? Stop what? Because I am more than ready to stop 'this.'
Her eyes drift out over the water again, and her fantasies drift forward again. Yes, she can stop. She can do that.
"Think of what you're doing to Steven!"
She stiffens, every inch of her body still and taut. Her head jerks minutely as she fights the instinct to whip it around and glare. Her jaw ticks, and she can feel it building inside her. A wild, untamed noise that she turns into a hiss so it doesn't come out the snarl it wants to be.
"What I'm doing to Steven?" She repeats lowly.
"Don't."
It's dark and dangerous, a warning. It's a warning it's a warning and she should listen she should stop she should stop now she should stop right now and.
"Of course, Garnet. Of course I should think about him."
"Pearl."
Stop please stop please stop.
"It's always about Steven, isn't it? It always comes down to Steven and his…"
There's a word. There's a word there, there's a word and it's vulgar and it's dirty and she can't say it she doesn't dare.
"Needs." She finishes in a growl, the word lingering in the back of her mind, at the trough of the wave.
"That's enough, Pearl!"
It's more heat than cold, she thinks at first. But then it hits her and no, it's a so cold it burns. There's a chemical…something human scientists used for…something. Nitrogen. Liquid Nitrogen. So cold it burns, and it's there in her voice now, beyond warning, beyond reasoning. She will drown in this chemical, and she isn't sure she knows how to care. Her hands move of their own accord, instinct, habit, the term itself doesn't matter. It's so engrained in her that when a fresh stick of drawn and lit, she breathes without fully knowing that she's done it.
It's an almost audible snap, and something heavy slams into her hand, freezing and stinging with heat all at once. There's a growl, and a dying hiss as it is crushed in a powerful palm, no match for the iron gauntlet that had been the source of its demise.
"This will stop. And it will stop now."
Please please please please.
"Or what, Garnet? What will you do?"
She didn't mean to be so defiant. Yes she did. No, it was just nature. It was what She had done, what they had done together. Just the two of them against the world. Against Homeworld. Defying was at the very core of her being. But it was hers, as well. Even more so considering that it was at the cores of her being, two beings, to be exact.
"Nothing. I won't do anything. You'll do it to yourself."
She hesitates then, a flicker of something unpleasant slipping into her mind. Was that a threat? Was it certainty? Had she Seen it?
She turns to ask, but she is gone, leaving only the soot stained indent in the floor where she had crushed her other bud.
The dying one.
The dead one.
Like Rose. And, like her.
