"So, you're a boy gem?" Steven gasped, pushing his face so close to Dipper's their noses almost touched. No, their noses did touch.
Dipper glared balefully at Mabel as she giggled behind a loose fist, having hastily retreated her hands to herself. "Yes," he sighed. "Yes I am."
"Whoah!" Steven exclaimed suddenly, startling him. "I've never seen another boy gem before! Did you chose to be this way, or… Are you actually a girl gem or… Hng, Pearl never explained this to me before!" he stopped, staring at his hands, before looking back at Dipper with a shy blush on his face. "Do gems even have boy and girl parts?"
Dipper and Mabel exchanged alarmed looks. "Yes!"
"Oh," the younger boy settled down. He sat down on the porch of the Mystery Shack then, legs crossed and a hand coming up absentmindedly to stroke Gomper's beard. He seemed quite content now with the twins' hasty answer.
"Um..." Mabel started. She had always dreamed of meeting other gems. Living in Gravity Falls all her life, the only other ones of her kind she had ever met were only Stan and Dipper, which were both… boys. She loved her family of course, but she had always wondered what other gems would look like. Would they be binary gendered like Grunkle Stan? Would they be like her (with her masculinity in gym) and Dipper (with his feminine wiles)? Would they be beautiful?
Well, the last one could be answered easily. Yes, Steven's guardians, Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl had no need for any sort of makeovers, no doubt about it. Mabel pushed down the budding feeling of lighthearted jealousy and attempted to make some conversation.
"So," she singsung, rolling her eyes for more effect. Within the blink of an eye she had changed to her slumber party position as if the hard dirty floorboards underneath her was her bed. Chin on palm, both elbows inevitably banged against the wooden panels, but Mabel didn't mind. Her eyes shone with curiosity. "Tell us about yourself. Please. And especially about your family in there. Wait, no. I changed my mind - Just tell us about your family."
Steven hesitated, stealing a glance at where the rest of the Crystal Gems gathered around Pearl's holo-map, taken from the radar picture she had studied so carefully back at the temple. Though even though it was out, and he could clearly see it from where he was sitting, Steven doubted anything they were talking about had to do with the radar at all, since the proof of its accuracy were sitting in front of him right now. No, the Gems were talking about something they didn't want him to know about, or something they thought he didn't know about (whichever), and whatever it was, was… silencing Amethyst, making Pearl even more nervous than usual, and put a grim yet frazzled look on Garnet's face.
"Kids!" Grunkle Stan emerged from the back door of the house with a Pitt Cola in hand, startling all three of the children and scaring Gompers away bleating. Even though it was in the middle of business hours, he was dressed in his out-of-work attire, consisting of his boxers and a worn, stretched-out wifebeater. Accompanied by the fez, of course. "The floor of the fit shop needs sweeping. Whoah! New customers?"
Dipper rolled his eyes, face flushing in embarrassment, and Mabel giggled. Before Steven could even open his mouth to ask what the old man meant, he had been pulled up and a large wrinkly arm was around his shoulders. "Step right up, sonny!" Grunkle Stan hollered merrily, brandishing his eight-ball cane at the door frame (despite the obvious fact that this was the backdoor that lead to the living areas of the house). "We've got every oddity here! More in a single tour than you can even dream of, right here in front of you in the Mystery Shack! For an entrance fee of ten dollars a person. Twenty, if you got it."
"Actually, mister," Steven stuttered. "I don't have a lot of money on me at the moment. My moms are over there, see? You can ask them!" he chuckled nervously and slipped out from under Stan's grip.
But the old man hadn't seemed to even notice. He stood stock still, tilting his head up just so that the sunlight would bounce off the lenses of his glasses and conceal his eyes from any of the kids. Slowly, the twins' amused smiles faded as they realised that something was wrong.
"Hey, kid," Stan said suddenly, startling Steven. "You're new around here, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you've met these magnets for trouble, am I right?"
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"Then go," he said quietly. Steven opened his mouth, salute still in place high on his brow, before taking the hearing equivalent of a double-take and fell silent.
"Grunkle Stan?" Dipper enquired.
Mabel continued, "What's wrong?"
"Sweetie, why don't you eh, 'hang out' with Steven for a bit, huh? DIpper, I'm putting you in charge," before any of them could react, Stan had crossed the porch and was now walking steadily over to the Crystal Gems, stony faced and serious. It was such a rare sight that neither of the Pines kids dared argue. Mabel took Steven's hand and lugged him off to the direction of the woods, after Dipper.