Steven's POV
"Wow Cactus Steven, you've really grown"
Reviving a plan wasn't planned but it seems to be alive and well
Guess plans are't always needed
Cactus - Thanks you for making me feel needed...
Steven - HUh? What did you just say? Uuuhm...
I'm getting teary for some reason
Cactus - Stevennn...Pull yourself together
I'm crying even more, I can't help myself. I don't know what's happening
Steven - ...W-what? ...Ha-ha! Why am I crying? *cries* I'm fine...I'm fine...Really I'm fi...
Cactus - Mmmh ...Want ...Hug?
At that, I laughed weakly while sniffling
"I know you like hugs, but thanks...haha ..hahaha...Maybe next time Cactus Steven... and maybe...maybe not a hug...you are kinda prickly"
Jamie POV (On phone call)
Otar : 'Wait so Riot and emerald appeared on graduation day? Wow'
"What the heck you mean wow? Where were you!?"
Otar : ' cool down. I am a traveler and I travel …'
"For a whole two weeks? We were worried you know, even visited you but it was locked down"
Otar : 'Well duh would you just leave your house open for intruders?'
"Even so, you could've at least told us you know?"
Otar : 'Uhm… sorry?'
" *sighs*…okay forget it. what were you even doing for all that time?
Otar : 'you remember us meeting the alternative pink diamond right?'
"Ouh right how is she and Pearl?"
Otar : 'They are fine, trying to find some trustworthy warriors and gems for now. I was trying to aid how I could with humans they have around.'
"And the diamonds?"
Otar : To be honest like in your timeline they are stubborn
"I see so nothing changed"
Otar :'Yet but we work on it. How are YOU doing though?'
"Aside from what I told you? It goes well. We get new students, Lars and off colors returned to spac-"
Otar : 'That's good to hear who knows if anyone else causes trouble like Riot or any other rouge gems
"We can't convince everyone Otar." I said
Otar : 'True but Steven did manage to bring Spinel to her senses, just like you brought Garny to her own. Speaking of it, does she still watches you sleep~ ' Otar teased at me
"What's that even supposed to mean?" I said blushing
Otar : Nothing~ gotta go bye!'
I put my phone into the pocket, a bit annoyed. Otar is a good friend but he sure can be a prankster like Amethyst.
3rd person
After a chat with Otar, Jamie decided to check on Peridot on his break time.
Thanks to her and Lapis, the plants and flowers and overall flora still flourish. In fact it serves the homeschool really well as an extra decoration, the environment is healthy…you can really smell a fresh air.
When possible he visits either Peridot's gardens, or Bismuth's forge or maybe Garnet's meditation classes and more. He tries to make time for each once his own classes are done.
So he makes his way to The Greenhouse which is the glass house where Peridot teaches her horticulture classes.
She also gets help from Lapis and Pumpkin. Jamie liked a pumpkin dog, it was very adorable. Well he can't deny that Lapis and Peridot are any less cute either.
Coming to his sense he enters the greenhouse, it was a full on plant shop with plants also seemingly hanging over the pipes from the ceiling.
And then he found Lapis sleeping with Peridot taking a nap beside her and Pumpkin also beside them.
Jamie : "Cute. They really look like a family this way. Though if we take these plants into account, it would look like a family picnic to some people.
Jamie inspected them, wondering if he should wake them up.
Technically gems don't need to sleep as he knew but then again maybe they have good dreams and he would interrupt.
Peridot did made some noises, mumbling words.
Jamie placed his hand under her chin to see if anything's wrong. It's silly but it doesn't hurt to check because if the gems do dream, they can also have nightmares.
Peridot POV
Sleeping was always a strange concept for me, along with many other earthly things. I managed to figure out some of them but dreams within the sleep still leaves some questions. From what she understood, a dream is a compilation of images, ideas, emotions, and experiences that usually appear involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.
At first I didn't like the idea around the time of era 2, especially after I called out to Yellow Diamond as a clod.
Steven taught me come interesting things when I lived with them in the bathroom. I wondered why was he laying on his bed motionless, I almost thought something bad happened.
When he woke up…okay when I woke him up in the middle of a night, he explained it as a 'human necessity to conserve energy'
I decided to try that for myself, curious for as to what can happen for a gem….. and then it happened, I had some very bad visions. Where Yellow Diamond stared at me dead in the eyes and she killed me, shattered me into pieces by her giant leg. I woke up thanks to Amethyst and she tried to comfort me.
So my time on earth was initially not so great with everything going on at the point, but it was eventally worth it.
Especially with Steven, Lapis, Pumpkin and Camp Pining Hearts.
Steven helped me even though I tried to kill him. I feel kinda bad about it but moving on, Lapis also had a hard time with me even breaking some of my stuff. Our baby pumpkin also gave me comfort when Lapis left us for a time and was what humans call our child and baby girl.
And it was camp pining hearts that introduced her to adventurous spirit and romance of this world.
I was honestly thrilled with the characters like Paulette, Percy, Pierre, Rosalina, etc.
I really enjoy the elements of this teen drama and soap opera set in a summer camp.
And now look at me, I can't believe we've come so far even now. From a homeworld traitor to homeworld teacher. From a starting meep morps to bigger meep morps.
Little homeworld is a masterpiece thanks to me and bismuth. All the gems now are free to do what they want, to learn here and be joyful of life…..well most of the gems at least. First with Spinel and her injector but she reformed, then jasper who is as stubborn as me, bluebird, emerald. Who else will it be? Doesn't matter we faced some things worse before and I know for sure we can handle it…Steven shown me as much.
But aside from all those rough gems, most of them are here with some human teahers like Vidalia, Jamie and all.
Vidalia gets along greatly with her students especially with Blue Pearl and that Yellow Dorito.
With Jamie? Well I Iike him, he reminds me of Percy in CPH. But he is kind of upright and sensitive like Pearl, then again I am like that too. But what interests me is his relationship with Lapis, Pearl, Garnet and everyone….
It's known as "open relationship" which is a bit unusual and unique relation between many sets of individuals, I asked Connie once about it and she said most of the time it fails due to indecisions on either sides leading to a disagreements. However it's possible if the trust and understanding between them is sufficient enough.
I'm not against that, I mean Lapis did offer me some place in that but I told her that it will take time. Why rushing it, me and Lapis didn't get on too at the beginning but look at us now. Just a little time.
We do tease each other from time to time. I tease him with my special poses which I looked in the PHC episode. It worked on Lapis and unsurprisingly it worked on him too as he just closed the door and ran away. That was so funny, I laughed for an hour... He did same tricks on me and I fell for it like a dorito.
We try to minigate that though because we mess up the schedule at homeschool.
Today however me, Lapis and Pumpkin fell asleep. We were watching out for little pumpkins which hidden everywhere around the greenhouse. We didn't anticipate that one of the poor plants we had gave off some sleeping gas.
I had a dream of me as Paulette with Percy as I fell down the river. Percy came to give me a hand as he looked at me in the face and right then my dreams were interrupted.
Feeling someone's hand on me, I slowly opened my eyes seeing Jamie in same position as Percy. I blushed and panicked
3rd person
Peridot yelled "WAOOUY!?"
Lapis woke up at the yelling hitting her head under the table she slept beside the plant above dropping on her Peridot's head.
Pumpkin also jumped up in response, taking down another plant hanging on the ceiling and creating a crack on the glass wall nearby in the process.
"What exactly were you doing?" Peridot said shakily
"Don't worry Peridot. It's not what you think-" Jamie said but was interrupted
"The hell am I supposed to think?!" Peridot answered
Lapis rubbed her head in pain but still chuckled "Wow so Peridot it's your turn now~?"
"Please not you too Lapis?" Jamie replied blushing
Pumpkin also joined jumping into his hands for patting
They then picked up the broken plates and luckily the damage of the glass isn't critical or wide, Peridot then commented on their ill stated plants
"Just great as if their hard shape wasn't enough now look at these struggling saplings." Peridot said looking saddened with Pumpkin trying to console her.
Lapis and Jamie looked at one another. Jamie felt somewhat responsible so he wanted to help, and Lapis had an idea.
"Maybe we can ask Steven for some of his healing abilities?" Lapis suggested
Peridot stood up from hearing that as she liked the idea "That's it! It worked on Pumpkin so there's a chance it can restart the growing process within the plants!"
Jamie decided to go to the beach house and Lapis offered him a ride.
She used her wings to fly us above beach city. It was beautiful like always. It's one thing thing to see everything from earth you climb onto and the other from sky and clouds above.
And when they reached the house it was only a half house with a giant hole in it.
They were surprised to say the least and went in to make sure that everything is okay.
"What happened here?" Jamie asked examining the smashed doorway.
"Steven used his spit on his cactus plant and it grew in size and uhh left a while ago" Amethyst explained in short.
"We are not sure why it became so aggressive on the other hand" Pearl added
"Doesn't Steven know?" Lapis asked
"He doesn't want to talk about it for now" Garnet answered "Let's give space to think"
For some reason, something told Jamie that wasn't the case...'I hope you ae okay buddy'
In Steven's garden
Steven - Hey guys, sorry it's been a while. I just couldn't- Huh?
Steven sees his plants were torn and dropped
Steven - Oh I guess I should've expected this.
Steven goes around and kisses each and every one of the plants he had in there
"Don't worry I've got you guys"
After he's done, Steven sits down
"Anyways, it's been slow lately. Well, for me. Everyone else is busy, even the gems..."
He lists by his fingers "Connie's visiting colleges in Empire City. She sounded so excited when she called! The campuses are really nice apparently.
He looks at one of the plants "Oh- sorry if that's awkward, Connie...Maybe I shold call you Connie 2 for something...I don't know"
Steven - Oh and I'm gonna hang out with dad this weekend. He says I should go out more and...
start...talking to some people. Heheh and you guys don't count, obviously heh"
Looking at the gaint scissors lying on the floor, Steven feels his heart slowly clenching within as his inner thoughts were infighting
*Sighs* Steven what are you doing?"
"You know what you have to do now"
He picked it up, part of him not wanting this but the other half wanted him to lsiten to his dad's advice
He chose t ostart with pink rose flower among them, as he beleived it's the best one he'd feel less bad about. It was all beautiful but it's all lies after all
But his emotions betrayed him, as when he started to cut it, he felt tears slowly building up
Snip! Snip! Snip!
Steven - Grrr No I can't do this!
His tears were now coming out uncontrollably
"If all of this- this stupid gem stuff hadn't taken over my life then maybe I'd feel okay... Maybe I would've had more time to just be a kid who hangs out with his friends and-
...I...and then MAYBE I WOULD'VE HAD TIME TO LET GO"
He continues crying
"...I didn't even have time to think about my future...What about my future?!...
...Now look at me. Savior of the galaxy, crying over a bunch of flowers...
'I'm pathetic...I'm just pathetic'
He's gone up to his room as he lays down to rest, hopefully being in better mood the next day
'You know, I thought I was ready to grow up. But now...I just wish I were a kid again. When things made sense...when I had a purpose...When...when I had a future...
I really felt it here with Steven. I may not understand what he feels completely, but a small chunk of my heart feels his pain...and I beleive his mother did too. And so did some in crewniverse and SU fandom.
Hannalt deez - Steven likes helping people. But the real one who needs help is steven