Donut Family
AU
[Rebecca Sugar, plus Ian Jones-Quartey and herself. The character arcs aren't mine, but I'll be elaborating and/or simplifying others.]
I believe this expositions that Gems are a literal whole other race with their own culture and not some sort of civilised or sentient rock found on earth. It's also impossible to really SHOW without those vague murals of dog/lion/tiger things, so this is exposition of 'The Gems underestimate Steven and chaste him because they don't understand/give any serious shits about humans. (Seriously, they had their own reasons. *Looks at extended theme song.*)'
-More or less referring to the last chapter: most of my dialogue has no indicators because of speech pattern, speed, and chaoticness of the city and all of it's citizens.-
Tid-Bit Notes: Steven gets to show off the way he (exaggeratedly) didn't get to with the gems: 'Dang, Steven! That bag is so cooool!'
-artisticRadifyer
Ch. 3 Cheeseburger Backpack
"~Hey! Mr. Postman, bring me a post!~ Bring me the post that I love the most!~" Steven waited on the hood of Greg's van for a package he ordered online. The email he received early in the morning verified it's arrival was today. As Steven had wished in his song, a postman was seen strolling toward the Old Wash, a tad amused and confused from hearing the song from far off: "My song came true!"
"Hold on. Let me see what I've got here..." The young man rummaged and pulled things out to inquire about, "Did you order a loaf of bread with a stamp on it?"
"No."
"Are you R. J. Finkle, receiving jury summons?"
"That's not me. I'm Steven!"
"Oooh! Right, right! Steven!" Jamie found a medium sized box, "Here it is! Steven Universe, ordered a package from the Wacky Sacks company."
"Yeah! The gems want to take me on a mission later today, so I ordered this since my powers don't work well yet…"
"That seems reasonable."
"We're probably gonna save some people! Maybe even the world!"
"Well, do you wanna know how you can save my world?"
"Yes!"
"Sign here, please. Barb yells at me if I don't get signatures."
"But, I thought she was really, really nice!"
"I still don't like to make her upset. She's scary..."
"Yeah. I guess I can't argue with that."
Steven noticed Sadie stroll up the same path Jamie took, "Sadie's home! Now, I can show this baby off!"
"What is a Wacky Sack?"
"Stick around for another minute or so, you'll see!" Steven ducked around the back of the van to go in the back of the Wash. He donned his package in an enclosed curtain while notifying his other two caretakers to go help Sadie with the bags of groceries she had. He only followed them after they had fully gone outside.
Strutting out, Steven waited for someone to notice his awesome bookbag.
"Whoa, that's a nice bookbag ya got there, Little Man." Greg complimented.
Lars was unimpressed, "A cheeseburger?"
"Wow, Steven," Jamie said, "it looks really well made."
"Right! And it has so much space! Even the cheese is a pocket!"
"Darn." Sadie muttered, "Well, I know which one to get him now."
"You wanna put it to use?" Greg asked. "We could put some groceries in there."
"I don't want to get it wet, though. So no drinks that sweat wet!"
"Alright, then. I've gotta keep on my route. Bye!"
"Bye, Jamie! Thanks for my sack!"
"Anytime!"
The three adults stuffed Steven's bookbag with dry groceries and wandered inside to put it all up.
By advice from Sadie, who was home with him today, Steven began to pack things he thought he'd need for the trip the gems were to pick him up for. He had no idea what he was going to be doing, so he packed everything from a raft, to a Mr. Queasy. The latter in case he got bored and the former on Sadie's recommendation.
They were finishing up a leftover lunch when Amethyst waltzed in and ate the disposables the lunch was preserved in, "'m shwapos two piff upp Sheppen."
"Do you want the garbage too?" Steven suggested, not wanting to take it to the dumpster later.
"Eh, we can bring the bag to the temple. It's not always the best idea for me to eat before a mission."
Steven shrugged at Sadie's silent incredulous-ness, and pulled the garbage-can out of it's spot under a side-table, "You're carryin' it. I'm not gettin' garbage on my bookbag."
"Rad burger, dude."
"Yeah. I really like it already."
"When did ya get it?"
"This morning." Both of the mission members made their way out, and Steven called over his shoulder to the woman following them, "Bye, Sadie!"
"You got your phone?" Sadie scanned him over from the kitchen doorway, "I see your bag; but you need your phone directly on hand."
"It's in my pocket, Sadie."
"Alright, alright... Just...be careful, please."
"I will," the boy came back the few steps and hugged Sadie before catching up with Amethyst.
"Do you remember how to do this?" Pearl questioned loudly.
Steven was distracted from answering as his body tipped back and his head grazing the edge of the stream, "Whoa-ho-hooo!"
"Ah!" Pearl grabbed onto Steven to right him, "Keep your head in!"
The warp ends and Steven, still floating higher than the others in the stream, falls a short distance. The new place is surrounded in water falls, and is very corroded.
"The Sea Spire..." Steven connected the place to the name the gems threw at him earlier.
A piece of the Spire broke away as they took their first few steps closer. Each gem let a small noise of negativity at the sight.
"...It wasn't like this a hundred years ago..." Pearl referred to the piece.
Garnet was at the front of the group and gave her own assessment: "I'm sensing structural instability."
"That's never good," Steven says, as the ground he stands on cracks.
Pearl launched into the boy, saving and startling him in one instant, "Alright, hold on! We're taking Steven back!"
Steven's doll, Mr. Queasy, sounds a recorded message about the person disturbing him as Steven is being let down from Pearl's arms. Steven took the doll out on the look he gets from the white gem, "Sorry. He's in there in case I got bored."
"Steven!" Pearl admonished, "This is your heritage, I thought you wanted to help, but you've got to pay attention! Can you do that, Steven!?"
Steven felt chastened even though he'd thought he'd been acting rather good so far and so stuttered out his compliance, "Y-yeah!" He put away Mr. Queasy.
"Enough. We have to move," Garnet ordered and then stopped them from continuing, explaining that there was a magic vortex at play which would pull them under water.
"Contradiction!" Steven coughed.
"What?" Pearl asked.
"I coughed. Sorry."
"You are excused." The bright gem dismissed him and got back to the problem, "...We can't jump across, then?"
"No."
After a pause, Steven kneeled and pulled out a few sweaters from his cheeseburger backpack.
Amethyst turned away from the problem to find out what he was doing, "What are those?"
"These 'sweaters' were for keeping warm, but, look:" Steven swings one end of the tied together sweaters into a hole, where it continues the swing back to Steven to grab. There was a chance this wouldn't work, because even the rock couldn't go through, but maybe the vortex didn't detect human things. He jumped as the gems shouted worry and negative orders, and rope climbed his sweaters onto the ledge they were attempting to reach. "Here," he threw the new device to the gems.
"Way to go! Come on, guys!" Amethyst used the sweaters to climb up as well, while holding the other two gems. "~Steven style!~"
"Never do that again!" Pearl ordered.
"...Sorry?" Steven apologized. Amethyst and Garnet gave him positive touches for the great idea: a ruffle of his hair and shoulder nudge, respectively.
Pearl relented as she followed her companions, "...But, it was pretty great."
The gems and Steven traverse the first half of the journey to the top of the spire while Pearl half-voices all of her observations, "Oh, no, no, no! This is even worse than the outside! Ugh. That's- Ooh... Oh! This didn't used to be so- Uhh! And the water damage! ...This pillar... Oh, and this had a head! Oh, Steven, once the statue is in place, it'll restore all of this to it's former gloryyYYII! AH! AH! AHHHHH!" The white gem sliced the headless statue and its companions into the vortex surrounding the place.
"What were those goobers?" Steven asked as Pearl pushed him back from the statue.
"Crystal Shrimp!"
"You guys!" Amethyst called from ahead, "We gotta problem!"
Pearl gasped as she arrived, "It's an infestation! And we have to pass through there to get to the top."
"Can't you just squish 'em?" Steven asked.
"Don't touch one; their shards are deadly!" Pearl checked to make sure he was doing as she asked and then began planning out their next move, "We need to clear a path. Amethyst, if you go around to the side and disturb them with a spin attack- And Garnet, if you move to the ceiling and strike this exact spot- Then I can advance with my-"
"Bagel sandwich!" Steven overrides Pearl's holographic instructions by throwing two of his sandwiches at opposite ends of the open room to draw the shrimp away from their path.
"Brilliant." Garnet praised Steven's newest idea.
"Oh, hey." Amethyst shrugged appreciatively, "Whattaya know?"
"Uh. I-I-" Pearl stammered. "How...did you know...that would work?"
"Well," Steven answered, "if I were a shrimp, I'd want real food."
Amethyst snorted as she followed Garnet onward, "You are a shrimp."
"I just want everyone to know: My plan also would have worked." Pearl reminded as she followed the group up the next set of steps.
Garnet threw her hand out to stop everyone, "Watch out!"
A wall of cracked stone burst water out and over the edge into the vortex.
"What're we gonna do?" Amethyst looked to Steven, and everyone followed suit.
"... What? ...Me?"
"What have you got." Garnet stated.
"Cheese-burger back-pack! Cheese-burger back-pack!" Amethyst goaded the gem next to her, "Come on, Pearl!"
"Oh, alright... 'Cheese-burger back-pack! Cheese-burger back-pack! Cheese-burger back-pack!'"
"I've...got a raft!?"
"Oh!" Pearl exclaimed, surprised at the maturity of the item. "Steven, that's so sensible!"
Steven threw the raft onto the racing water, and it shoots down the current and over the edge.
Garnet knocks out the bottom of a pillar and then elbows it across the new rapids, "Good idea anyway, Steven."
"Yeah." Amethyst comforts, "They can't all be winners."
The top is above the surrounding sea level and just as deteriorated as the rest of the structure.
"This is it:" Pearl announced, "the Moon Goddess Pedestal! And the moon is almost overhead! It's not too late to save this piece of history!"
"Steven," Garnet put out a hand, "the statue."
"What?"
Pearl came to stand in front of Steven, "The Moon Goddess Statue, I gave it to you at the temple?"
"...I was supposed to bring that?"
"Yes!"
"I just thought you were showing it to me since I was showing y'all my bookbag!"
"I gave it to you to put inside your bag!"
"How was I supposed to know that?!"
"There's no time!" Garnet shouted at them.
"What? Garnet?" Amethyst had been watching the exchange.
"Everyone, keep steady!"
The Spire fell, water flooded in, and the four beings fell into the sea.
Resurfacing, Steven apologized, "This is all my fault: I broke It!"
"No, Steven." Pearl admitted, "The Spire was falling apart when we got here. You handled everything well under pressure. You did great!"
Amethyst joined in, "Yeah, you got some great ideas in your head."
"I guess you're right," Steven agreed slowly.
The lost raft popped to the surface in front of them.
The gems congratulated Steven upon his thinking as they got in the raft.
"It's a three hour paddle to Beach City." Garnet informed everyone.
"...Uh. Wet bagel, anybody?"
Bonus:
"Steven! You stopped giving update texts and I waited a whole two hours, but your phone went straight to voicemail! ...Why are you wet?"
"Oh, um. My phone is waterlogged and has been for most of the trip back. We had to ride that blow up raft home."
"...We'll put it on rice and call the phone company tomorrow if we need to. We're buying more emergency supplies next shopping trip. And a book for how to use all of it."