She wasn't wearing the normal pink long dress he was expecting her to wear. Instead she was dressed like she was going to go out or go to a business meeting. She was wearing a white cut out top, with a black blazer over that. It went well with the black slacks that she was wearing and Peep Toe Bootie. In her right hand she was gripping a pink leopard print wallet, her left hand was on her hip as she was giving him a disapproved look. Her hair was still very long, and curly pink styled in thick, tube-like ringlets, they shook as she walked over to them. It looked like she walked in the sand with those heels a million times as it didn't take long for her to get over to them.
"What did I tell you two about roughhousing?" She asked softly, "I took an early flight back to surprise you, but Pearl called me telling me you were being disrespectful to her. Again. And I see this." She walked over to Jasper and flicked her in the forehead, she did the same to Steven. They both rubbed their foreheads with grim looks.
"Rose, listen to me, I was just taking pictures and he decided to throw his shield at me. He cracked my gem, then proceeded to think I was going to attack people. Then he told me you were dead, so if anything you should be talking to him." He stood there watching the interaction between his mom and Jasper, multiple thoughts went through his head. What did mom mean when she said take an early lunch break? Where did she work? Why was she so friendly with Jasper?
Rose looked at Jasper again, "If you give us a few minutes alone, I will be able to fix your gem, love." Jasper nodded and put a hand on Rose's shoulder, she took a side glance at Steven before walking away towards the temple. "I was told you went out drinking last night with Garnet? Come on, Steven, you told me you wouldn't get into any trouble when I was away." He just stood there staring at her, can't believe his eyes. He must have been dreaming still. Maybe he was in a coma and that's why this was all happening. It could explain why everyone is acting weird and mom being here, and Jasper.
"I-I didn't go out last night drinking … I was on a mission with the others … I was stuck with a gem shard in my chest … I must be in a coma." Rose looked down at him and clicked her tongue. She obviously didn't believe him. Of course she would, she was on a figment of his imagination anyway. He's just imagining that she would be strict with him like a regular parent. That was it. It had to be.
"Don't lie to me, Steven. I also want to talk to you about how you made Pearl cry in our room." Rose clicked her tongue and grabbed him by the wrist pulling him towards the temple. "I want you to go in there and apologize to her, I also want you to apologize to Jasper for cracking her gem. I have to go and fix that for her because of your mistake."
"Mom …" He whined as she pulled him up the stairs of the temple. "She tried to ground me from going outside and from the TV. That isn't fair, especially when I didn't do anything wrong." They stopped on the porch and she turned to face him.
"Don't mom me. It's a fair punishment for sneaking out and drinking, you should be glad that it isn't more scricter than that." She opened the door and held it open for him making a gesture for him to move quickly into the house. He did so where he almost collided with Jasper standing in the doorway. Jasper turned around and looked at him before looking at Rose, with one glance she moved out of the way. "Turn towards Jasper, repeat after me. 'I'm sorry, Jasper for cracking your nose and accusing you of wanting to attack children. I should have known better." Steven grumbled in response before getting a death glare from his mom.
"I'm sorry, Jasper for cracking your nose and accusing you of wanting to attack children. I should have known better." He repeated, Jasper nodded accepting the apology, she then leaned over and whispered something in Rose's ear. Rose whispered something back after the exchange of words, Jasper went over to the warp pad and left. Right afterwards, Pearl walked out of the temple and stared at Rose and him. She was standing up straight, her arms were crossed over her chest, smiling brightly at his mom, then it faded when she made eye contact with him.
Rose pushed him over towards Pearl until he was facing right in front of her, "Now, I want you to tell her 'I am sorry, mom. I was being highly disrespectful towards you when I knew I was in the wrong. I'll accept being grounded, and I'll do my homework. You are also as much as my mom as mama is towards me." His mouth fell open as he looked between both Rose and Pearl trying to comprehend all this. What was his subconscious mind doing to him?
He opened his mouth to protest but something told him to keep it shut. He repeated what his mom said before a question spurted out of his mouth, "What happened to dad?" Rose narrowed her eyes, and Pearl made a terse laugh, before his mom grabbed his wrist and look at the inside of his arm. She did the same on the other one, he snatched his arm back. "What are you doing?"
"I want to know if you relapsed last night? Did you do drugs?" She looked him right in the eye then looked over at Pearl, "Did you check his arms last night for any marks?" Pearl nodded her head, "Steven, I need you to tell me the truth here. Did you do drugs with Greg last night?"
His eyes went wide, and he shook his head, "I don't know what you're talking about. When did Dad start doing drugs? When did you think I start doing drugs? I'm perfectly fine." Rose stepped aside to let Pearl put her hands on his shoulders, she had to look down a bit to stare him in the face.
Her voice was soft as she spoke to him, "We love you, baby, but how many times do we have to tell you to not call him 'dad.' He might be the sperm donor, but nothing else and nothing less." Rose put a hand on his shoulder as well and gave him a solemn look.
"My sweet boy, if he wasn't so persistent to see you all the time, you would have never met that low life. If we find out that you were doing drugs, we will send you to the monster that lives in the walls of the temple." He couldn't tell if his mom was being legit or not. Was there a monster that lives in the walls of the temple? Also, he wondered what his dad did to be the enemy in this situation? Did he really do drugs?
"Or just send him to Matt's room. That place is scary. I wish he just let me go in there and clean the place. It's probably where Amethyst gets it from, honestly." Pearl stated and giggled along with Rose, he opened his mouth to ask her Matt was, but soon closed it. It wasn't going to get him anywhere in this situation. If this was a coma, his subconscious mind was starting to scare him more than it should. He was starting to think this might not be his subconscious at all. Maybe he should ask Sapphire and get her to help him in some way or form.
"Sweetie, are you okay? We're not trying to be harsh, we have been so worried for you. We know how the incident affected you, and it affected us too. We loved her, she was a part of our family. If you ever want to talk about it with us you can." Rose gave him a bear hug, but he pulled away quickly.
"What incident are you talking about? What happened?" Rose and Pearl looked at each other as he asked the questions before Pearl changed the subject quickly not answering any of his questions. He slammed his fist against the wall and pain shot through him, but he gritted his teeth. "If no one tells me what's going on around this damn place, I will leave and look for the answers."
Rose and Pearl stood back, but was on alert the entire time, "How about instead we hang out as a family? Rose has been gone so much, and I-I think we just need some family time, yes?" Pearl offered with a force smile on her face. Steven's breathing was getting erratic, was she kidding him? "Should I invite the others?"
He yelled letting his frustration go, when the the temple door opened up. All of their eyes turned around to look at Sapphire. "How about you are you going to answer my questions?" Sapphire gracefully walked over to Steven and floated up towards his face, she cupped his face with her gloved hand and soothly ran her thumb on his skin.
"When the time comes. I will answer all your questions in the meantime, Pearl's suggestion sounds like a good play. I will go get Ruby and Garnet. Pearl will get the others." Sapphire floated down and walked to the warp pad with Pearl not saying another word. Steven growled and walked over to the couch sitting down on it, it was quiet. Rose didn't even say anything to him as she went into the temple he was left alone with his thoughts.
He didn't want to have family time, yeah sure it was great to have his mom with him, but he didn't like how everyone was acting towards him. As he sat there, he started to come to the conclusion that this wasn't his subconscious. Especially with Sapphire acting like that. He would have thought that the others would question why he was being so different, but they haven't said a thing to him yet.
Rose was the first one to come back into the living area, Steven had started to doze off when he was touched lightly on the face. His eyes opened and he freaked for a second forgetting where he was, Rose had stepped back a bit so she wouldn't get hurt. When he figured out where he was, he stared at his mother. She was wearing what was familiar to him, her long pink flower dress with no shoes on. He scooted up and moved his legs off the couch for her to sit down, he had noticed that there was a bunch of board games on the table. On top of the whole stack was a deck of Uno cards.
"I'll let you chose which game we play," she said softly,her smile was bright and put him to ease. He wanted answers, but he guess it wouldn't hurt to seem time with his mom even if it was all in his head. He picked up the deck of Uno cards and his mom grabbed them from him, "Ah, the game that ends friendships." Steven giggled and nodded knowing it was true. There was a time where he was playing with Amethyst and Connie and Amethyst was getting so mad because all she ever got was yellow cards.
Rose handed him back the deck before getting up and grabbing the other board games, she walked over to the storage closet and put it on the top shelf in the back of the room. When she closed the door, the warp pad lit up. When the light dimmed down there was Amethyst, Jasper, Pearl, Garnet, Sapphire and Ruby. "I heard we are having family night, Peridot and Lapis are working so they couldn't make it. And Matt went had something to do, so he will be a bit late." Jasper said as she walked over to the table, and sat down on the floor near the table. "So, what are we playing?"
Pearl went over to Rose and kissed her, Steven watched. It was a bit weird to them together, but if they were happy then it was okay with him. He always knew that Rose and Pearl had a thing for each other, well at least Pearl had a thing for his mom. He looked away to watch the others sit down around the table. "We're playing Uno." He answered Jasper softly, He scooted closer to the other side of the couch as Rose and Pearl sat down together. "Everybody knows the rules right? I don't need to explain them?" They all shook his head and he nodded.
The game went by pretty quickly, there was yelling and laughter. He was sure that Rose was going to win until she had to keep drawing cards, then it was his turn. He only had one card left and it was the right color, he stuck it down and pumped his fist in the air. "Yes!" He giggled, but then stopped when everyone looked at him. "What …" He asked confused.
"It's just good to see you happy is all. You have been so angry with the world, lately." Pearl said with a smile on her face before getting up and stretching along with everyone else. "I think it's time for food, anyone else hungry?" Steven stared at Pearl, did she just asked if anyone else was hungry? Did Pearl like food? He watched her walk over to the fridge, but quickly shut it. Her body turned around with her hands on her hips and stared at Amethyst. "Did you and Greg it all the food last night?"
Amethyst looked up from her phone and stared at Pearl in confusion. "I know that we might have ate a lot, but we did not eat all the food. Ask Steven." Pearl looks at him and he shrugged and watched her sigh as she walked back over to the group.
As they were trying to figure out what to eat someone walked in through the front door. The others ignored the figure, but Steven looked over to see who it was. The guy had cotton candy color hair, and blue-gray skin and he was tall. He was taller than Pearl, but shorter than Rose approximately around 6'7 in height. He was wearing a white v-neck tee shirt that looked like it was a bit small for him, but it gave the effect of outlining his chest muscles. His pinkish purple gem was showing above the V-neck opening. He was also wearing a fitted blue jeans and what it looks like brown cowboy boots. Steven did a double take, a male gem other than himself?
The others finally stopped talking and turned towards him, "Hey you brought pizza! Yum!" Amethyst said, "Wait … Steven doesn't like Pizza."
"What you mean I don't like Pizza? I love Pizza." He said, and everyone stared at him again, and he sighed. "I had some last night, and it was good. I was actually craving some now." He quickly covered it up and smiled. Everyone shrugged and looked away from him. Finally, he hated when they stare.
He watched as Jasper walked over to the male grabbing the pizza from him. They exchanged a kiss and he frowned. He always assumed that Jasper would be a huge lesbian like the others, but apparently not here. Wherever here was. She walked back over to the table and set the pizza down, he didn't seem to be as hungry as he was before. The male gem followed and walked over to Steven and ruffled his hair like a little kid, "You look way better than last night. You were stumbling everywhere, talking nonsense. It was so hard to get you back home." He laughed before sitting down on the couch, his eyes shined a bright purple color as he grabbed a slice of pizza and started to eat.
"Yo, Matt, how was the job?" Amethyst asked sitting down on the couch next to him. So this was Matt that Pearl was talking about earlier? How did they know each other? And he wanted to know how male gems exist. All he ever known and saw was female gems other than himself, but he was half-human. Matt looked over at Amethyst and shrugged, they gave each other a look that Steven couldn't tell what it was. But apparently whatever this job was Matt didn't want to talk about it in front of everyone.
After a while everyone started to ease back into conversation, they ate and joked around, it was so strange to him. How everyone was getting along, there was no fighting, no arguing, just jokes and laughter. It felt like he was home, like he belonged here in this place. Where ever it was, he sat on the floor with his head in his mom's lap, Pearl was sitting down next to them. It wasn't until around Midnight that mom thought it was a good time to wash up and lay down. Amethyst had to leave thirty minutes beforehand, Matt and Jasper went to the room they apparently shared in the temple. Ruby and Sapphire along with Garnet went to their rooms.
He gotten ready for bed, when both of his moms walked up to the loft to wish him goodnight. It was weird to know that his mom was still alive, it was a good feeling, but at the same time he felt like this shouldn't be happening to him. They were too good to the Steven, they thought he was. He felt bad,he wanted answers but he didn't want to explain to them. Plus they probably wouldn't believe him anyway. His mom moved his hair out of his face and kissed his forehead, he loved the fact that even if he was supposedly seventeen they still treated him like he their little boy. Pearl whispered goodnight, and walked out of the loft with Rose.
Steven had laid there for a few with his thoughts before he was finally able to fall asleep. He'll get answers tomorrow. Hopefully. The next morning was rough, he didn't sleep very well. He kept having dreams of that mission when he was struck with a bunch of gem shards. So, the bags under his eyes were a bit heavy than normally when he got out of bed with the smell of food filled his nostrils. Looking over towards the kitchen, he saw Pearl cooking breakfast, no one else was there. He quickly got dressed, put his hair inside a man bun and walked down to the kitchen.
He sat down at the bar right when Pearl sets a plate in front of him. "I thought you might have been hungry since you have only ate pizza last night. A young man like yourself should always have a big meal." She smiled brightly at him, it was a warm motherly smile. He started to scarf down the food not realizing how much he was hungry until now. When he was finished is when more gems started to come out of the temple it was only Garnet and Rose though. "Hi, dear." Pearl greeted Rose and gave her a kiss once they pulled away, she handed Garnet a plate of food who accepted it.
Steven stood up with his empty plate and walked over to the sink, he could feel the eyes of Rose and Pearl on him as he washed and dried the plate off. He stuck it back into the cupboard before turning around. "Thanks, Mama for the food." He politely said and gave her a hug who she slowly returned it. When he pulled away he walked over to Rose, "Hey mom, I know I was bad and all, but can I got outside for just a few please?" He asked and looked at Pearl then back at Rose.
Rose stood there looking at him, before looking at Pearl, they exchange some mental thoughts before Rose looked back down at Steven. "Sure only if Garnet goes with you. But only for a few hours." Garnet almost choked on her food when she heard what was going down. "Isn't that right Garnet? Do I have to get Sapphire and Ruby?" Garnet quickly shook her head before finishing her food and sticking the plate into the sink. "Good, while you are out Pearl and I have a mission to do. It's not a very important one, so do not worry."
They kind of just sat near the rock cliff that was next to the temple. It wasn't much fun when none of them were talking to each other. He made drawings in the sand as he listened to the soft clicking noise of Garnet texting someone. "Who are you talking too?" He asked her trying to start conversation, she had just shrugged and kept texting. "I wonder what Connie is doing right now … I miss her." He heard the soft clicking noise go away and he looked back at her. She was staring at him, but he couldn't read her face expression under her visor. "Are you always like this?"
"What do you mean, Steven?" Her voice was softer than before as she stared at him. He wondered what suddenly changed, it had to do with something about Connie. That's when her tone changed is when he had mentioned her. He mentally shook off the thought and answered her back.
"I mean like are you always on your phone? We barely talked to each other this whole time." I shrugged, "Just thought we might get to know each other more … is all ..." He trailed off when he was interrupted by Ruby calling for Garnet. Garnet gave him a soft smile before running towards her mom leaving him alone. He wasn't alone for long when he spotted Amethyst in the distant, like before she was also on her phone probably texting Greg. "Hey Amethyst!" He called running towards her. "Do you want to build a sandcastle with me? It looks like the perfect day to do so."
"Aren't you too old to build a sandcastle, Steven?" She mumbled looking up from her phone with a disinterested look. "You're seventeen, grow up man." She went to walk away, but stopped in her tracks with the next thing he had said.
"I'm never too old to build a sandcastle, maybe I'll just call Connie later. She'll build a sand castle with me." Amethyst slowly turned towards him and gave him a almost worried expression mixed with grief on her face. She shook her head, put her phone in the back of her pocket and ran towards the beach house. What did he tell her to make her run away from him all of a sudden? It had to be the subject of Connie. Did they not like her or something?
It wasn't until a little bit later around lunchtime was when he had saw Amethyst again. She was with Matt this time as they walked out of the beach house and stood on the porch. He was in one of the beach chairs reading a comic book when he looked back up. "I want to go into town, but my mothers aren't here right now to tell me I can go or not. So can one of you just go with me?" Amethyst and Matt looked at each other giving each other a look of uncertainty.
"Are you looking for a certain friend or do you just want to go into town, Steven?" Amethyst asked uncertain, she looked like she was worried about something.
Why was there so much uncertainty? He watched what he said carefully, "Um … no. No one in particular. Just kind of want to go into town. Probably stop at the Big Donut and get something to eat."
Amethyst nodded, walking towards the stairs. "I have to meet somebody anyway." she mumbled. He guessed she was the one going to take him. He looked at Matt once before getting up and walking towards Amethyst who was descending the stairs. It was quiet on the walk to town, they didn't say much, which was a bit awkward for him. "Okay, look, if you don't tell anyone, you can go off by yourself. Just meet me back here in two hours." He gave her a thumbs up, she nodded and walked away.
Once he was in town though, he didn't feel like going to the big donut after all. He kind of just walked around town, it wasn't much different than what it was normally. Mostly quiet though. No one was really out and about, it was a bit lonely. After about an hour of just walking around, he found a bench to sit on. Looking down at his hands, he noticed how large they were, it made him feel more like a giant than he really was. He was knocked out of his thoughts when he heard familiar laughing and giggling. In the distant, he had saw Jamie and Garnet holding hands, his heart sped up. Were those two dating?
He got up and walked over to them, Jamie's face fell and he hid behind Garnet just a bit. Was Jamie scared of him? "Hey Jamie! Hey Garnet! What are you two doing out here?" Garnet slapped Jamie on the arm who was trembling, he tried to stand next to Garnet straight, but he looked like he was going to piss his pants.
"We're on a date, Steven. Why are you here? Did Rose and Pearl give you permission to be out here?"
"Well, not exactly. I was with Amethyst but she had to visit someone. Just don't tell Rose and Pearl please." He begged, and Garnet nodded. Steven looked over at Jamie, "Hey Jamie are you okay, man?"
Jamie nodded quickly, "Y-Yeah Steven. I'm okay. Can w-we talk later? I don't want to upset you or anything, but I have what you want." What he wanted? He was so confused, but he just nodded.
"Alright, that's cool dude. Well, it's good to see you two dating. I wonder if Connie knows about this. I can't wait to tell her, she would be so happy to know that you two are dating." Garnet whispered something to Jamie who nodded and walked away towards Fish Stew Pizza. Garnet looks right at me and took her visors off.
"Are you okay, Steven?" She had asked him, his smile faded to a frown of concern. Why was she asking him this? Was it about Connie again? Why was everyone so concerned all the time?
"Yes … why?" He asked slowly, looking side to side like something was about to happen.
"You keep mentioning Connie. That's why I asked. I mean I know you miss her and all. We all miss her, bud, but you need to stop acting like she is here. She isn't coming back." His heart started to skip a couple of beats and his breathing went erratic, he felt like his throat was closing and his lungs were going to collapse.
It took him a few minutes to respond, "What are you talking about?" The next couple of words hit him like a brick was thrown at his face. They stared at each other while his legs wobbled underneath him, his voice was caught in his throat. He wanted to say something, anything, but nothing came out. Please tell him that the words he heard was not true. Tell him anything but this. How could this be? How could this have happened? What kind of sick joke was this. He slowly went numb after a few, the words continuing in his head as he didn't want to move.
"Connie's dead, Steven."