Archive of Our Own

It was a normal day and a normal study break for Connie Maheswaran. Brain filled with facts and numbers, she made her way down to the empty kitchen for lunch. Dad was snoring upstairs from a nightshift. Mom was at work. It was a usual lonely house Saturday, and Connie made herself something to eat like she always did.

She tried just snacking on an apple, but the effort of chewing did nothing but stoke her longing to go back to bed. She would have to cook something more substantial.

She cut a couple of slices of the bread she made herself, tossing it in the toaster while she sighed and grabbed the gorgonzola. Mom had shopped last, and despite Connie’s best efforts, Priyanka still didn’t understand the difference between the soft blue cheese that spread onto toast and the crumbly gorgonzola that was a hassle to eat. But her parents were trying, and that was what mattered.

Thinking about stuff like that always started a little bubble of anger building, so when she finished crumbling the cheese onto bread she sat down and started making up a fantasy, something Medieval where people ate bread and cheese all the time, and dashing knights carried these kinds of lunches wrapped up in a handkerchief that they later offered to their elegant princess.

Connie often told stories to herself. The world made sense in stories - there were rules. When Steven had first appeared, the magical boy with his bubble, she had rolled with it with poise and practicality (as was her place as a nonmagical person) up until she was about to die. She had never wanted the story to be that real, just for some adventure. To make things make sense. She was supposed to have a few scary moments with a monster, not face her inevitable death drowning or dying of dehydration at the bottom of the ocean.

That was the story she told herself now, at least, a lighthearted thing with no real terror. And then Lion raced down the stairs, turning towards her with his serious eyes and a little chuff that made her spring to her feet. She was about to leap onto his back when her cell phone rang, and she tugged it from her pocket as she raced to grab her sword without even checking the name.

“Steven? Are you okay?” she asked.

“It’s Sadie. Garnet said to call you,” came the nervous voice on the other end of the call. “She said you should go to Bismuth’s forge before heading to the lighthouse. Bismuth made you something to help with the fight.”

“The fight,” Connie murmured, racing to sling her sword across her back. She tugged on her bright red sneakers, the ones she could never seem to stop fighting in, and asked, “What’s going on? Did someone else show up from deep space?”

There was silence for a couple of seconds, and Connie bit her tongue to keep herself from demanding that Sadie hurry. Time was precious. Steven was in trouble. “Listen, Connie, I know you’re a good fighter, but you have to be careful. Steven made another monster, and this one’s huge. The gems don’t know how to take it down, I think. They look scared.”

She frowned as she hopped onto Lion’s back. “I have to help Steven. It doesn’t matter how dangerous it is. If Steven made the monster, it can’t be that bad.”

“I don’t know. Things are different.” Sadie hesitated, then said, “Steven’s been really angry lately.”

Connie remembered long discussions away from everyone else on the beach, Steven’s small face overflowing with so much anger and hurt it barely seemed to fit on him. She remembered feeling that anger, like a hot pit of magma flowing through their veins, when they fused to race Kevin - so much more volatile than her own. She rolled her eyes and laughed as her thighs squeezed Lion’s sides tight. “So what else is new?”

The connection cut off the moment Lion leaped through blue and white and skidded into Bismuth’s forge. She looked around, always a little awestruck. When she’d grown up telling stories, she never dreamed she would be so involved in one. The first time she went to Rose’s armory, she had been on the edge as she sorted out who she was supposed to be, who Steven was supposed to be, until the fireballs started and everything was gone in a flurry of don’t die . 

Still, Steven had pulled a sword from his noble steed Lion, so things were back on track. She had even helped. She thought must have been important, which, as a girl, could only mean one thing - she was destined to marry him. That’s why she had nearly kissed Steven when he fixed her eyes. That was what you did in a story, as the love interest. The hero was down and she would swoop in to cheer him up.

But then her eyes had been fixed. She was in the story now. The tropes would have to be re-calibrated accordingly. She was obviously a sidekick. And now, at the mostly grown age of sixteen, she was the one who rose the noble steed. She carried the sword on her own. She rescued him much more than he rescued her.

She was a knight, and Bismuth had made her armor. It was just a small breastplate, dark blue and emblazoned with a gold star that took up most of it. It was properly-rounded, to made blows skid away from her chest. Bismuth had a chest gem - she understood the value of keeping a sword from sliding to the center. Beneath that was a pair of pants, the material smooth like metal but as flexible as cotton. She tugged on the dark brown pants, regrettably leaving her own on the floor of the forge, then tugged the armor into place over her head.

There was some more armor laid out. A blue helmet, some heavier metal pants, and she really did appreciate the favor. But Connie had always fought with mobility, dodging hits she was sure she’d never be able to take. The more armor she put on, the slower she would be. And, at some point, putting on armor would only hurt her worse.

“Look who’s a proper knight,” she said, giving her chest a rap, then hopped up onto Lion’s back once more. She tangled her hand in his mane and whispered, “Come on, boy, let’s go get Steven.”

They vanished through another portal, and she remembered how wild it had been to truly feel like part of the story when she saved Steven as he fell from the sky. She had believed herself to be at least pseudomagic now, what with her being magically healed, and so her magic life had needed to be kept secret, especially because her parents might take Steven away if they knew just how odd and dangerous his home life was. And that had failed miserably because Steven couldn’t tell a lie, but it had worked out in the end.

Of course, even that magical moment saving Steven was tainted by an odd teenage bitterness now. The ocean had been stolen, and her parents were just fine with her spending all that time with Mr. Universe and the gems? And back then, when she’d thought of herself as nothing more than a love interest, it had been so confusing.

Were female love interests supposed to ride the noble steed? Were they supposed to catch the hero? Shouldn’t Pearl or someone have done it? But her little mind had rationalized that - Oh, but they were grown-ups , after all. That was the thing to remember - it was a story. Grown-ups were always useless. Of course, it had to be her. That had been one of her earliest recalibrations. She wasn’t the girlfriend - she was the sidekick.

But, oh, what she’d give for the days of alien stealing the ocean, but giving it back once you asked nicely. What she’d give for a few nerve-wracking hours of, “Will she give it back?” compared to the scene that stretched out before her now.

Connie was just past the Big Donut, but she could barely see it. The store was swallowed up in angry red-brown briars, pink and red roses cascading down the sides like waterfalls. The tangled thicket stretched up the hillside, grass, and concrete no longer visible under the dense forest of stabbing plant life that towered at least as tall as Garnet, with barely a path through, and nary a clearing for Lion to teleport to.

Ahead, up high on the hill, was another mess of thorns - pink-brown instead of red, tall as the tower, and roaring with a sound like Lion if he was large enough to blot out the sun and angry enough to swallow the world. Fear was there, lower and steady, but sadness blossomed before anything. Her heart ached as she stared, barely able to breathe a horrified, “Oh, Steven.”

Then Pearl was there, clutching her spear as she rushed up to Connie. “Thank the stars you’re here! Steven’s out of control! We don’t know what’s wrong with him! He made this monster and started growing all these bushes. We tried to make it through, but by the time we got to that beast we had-”

Amethyst slid up behind Pearl, having returned so fast she was naked with the clothes simply painted on, and lumpy like a mannequin doll, and Connie finished, “You lost. Nice new outfit.”

Amethyst ran a hand over her smooth form with a smirk. “Like the new threads? Everyone’s digging the clothes.”

Garnet’s voice behind her made her jump a little, and she swerved around to face her as the gem spoke. “Maybe you can get through to him. He won’t talk to us.”

She shook her head. “If he won’t talk to you, what makes you think he’ll talk to me?”

There was a moment of bated breath, Connie silently praying for the grown-ups to be useful, to know the problem, to promise to make things better and to promise that she and Steven could go home and sleep and try to get ready for the day when they would be the adults. But Garnet simply said, “Stevonnie.”

No. It was always up to Steven, wasn’t it? Sometimes her and Steven, as Stevonnie. The one thing she could never fit into her stories, no matter how epic and wonderful they were. How could she be there, after all, so perfectly brought into his life and equal and valued and seen? She was supposed to be a sidekick, but when they fused she knew he wanted her around. She knew he loved her as much as she loved him. They were friends and he loved her and her opinion of him was so important he’d lie about a book. But she was only Connie! She was no one, nonmagical and afraid to dance in a crowd and decidedly secondary.

Pearl's hand rested on her shoulder. "I know it's scary, but we’ve been through worse, right?"

"No," Connie said with a feeble smile. "It's not scary at all. I know this one."

"What?"

"The princess in the tower. The dragon. The knight." Her voice cracked with relief as she slid off Lion. "For once, I know this story. I know this one."

She turned to Lion and softly kissed his nose. She dreamed of something wonderful to say. She wanted to say, my dear heart or my companion or you noble beast but saying those sorts of things was too silly in front of the gems. That kind of talk was saved for giggles with Steven. Instead, she cradled his massive face in her hands and crooned, “Such a good boy you were today. Stay safe.”

Connie did her best to ignore his pitiful moan as she drew her sword and turned towards the brambles. “So, just cut through? Do our best to make it to the worm and stick together?”

“You got it, Connster,” Amethyst said with a friendly slap to her back. “Let’s go have ourselves a little rematch.”

Garnet ripped and Pearl stabbed and Amethyst whipped and Connie cut, and in no time at all, they were completely separated. She called their names, heart pounding as only silence returned. Around her, all around her, were the towering thorn bushes, making the world around her shadowed and hazy. Whenever she cut through the bush ahead, the ones behind seemed to close in behind her, so she never had more than a few feet of space.

She grit her teeth. “Pushing me away again , Steven?” Her grip tightened on her hilt, and she swung with all her might and heard the wood snap and tumble away. “Haven’t you done that enough?”

When the spaceship had come crashing down and he had pushed her away, her mind had reeled with confusion. She wasn’t the love interest, was she? She had known that. She had refused it. She was the sidekick, and he couldn't push her away unless... Unless she had done something wrong. Something to be bumped back to love interest? Or, worse, something worthy of being bumped out of the story altogether. She had refused to recalibrate that time as she ran through the shattered remains of alien technology. Steven had needed a sidekick now more than ever. She'd be one if it killed her.

After he told her what happened, she had realized being his sidekick might actually kill her.

Connie stopped herself before she used all her strength up on slashing through the briars. Slow and steady won the race, no matter how angry she was. And she was angry. Her face was still and she wasn’t growling or screaming, but that had never been her way. That was Steven’s way, and, when they were Stevonnie, it was her way a little too - all growls with sneering comments. Her way was a sword in her hands. Was that deep, still fury that she bundled up and locked away because screaming was very much not Mom-approved.

She took a quick break to calm herself, sitting in her little clearing. She had been so happy to escape her boring mom and her boring rules, all starry-eyed as Pearl had agreed to teach her to fight. A sword was in her hand and all the tension in her unwound. It had been almost…blissful. The story was finally in the right place. Connie Maheswaran was Steven's sidekick, his knight.

It might kill her someday, and that was fine! She didn't matter. Steven was all that mattered. It has been a relief, honestly, after all the confusion. Earth was in danger. She was a knight. Steven could save the world. Perfect. She had known this kind of story by heart, and she could follow it to the letter.

She grit her teeth. Oh, she didn’t matter, did she? But she had mattered when Lapis stole the ocean. She had mattered when Steven tried to swear off a human life and what had Pearl done? She had lied. She was all too happy to drive Connie away, but here she was, begging her to come help. Always having her by their side. She had been a child and she was a child and no one had ever, ever said sor-

She smothered a shriek as she opened her eyes and found vines tightly wrapped around her ankles. The terrible thorns weren’t cutting, resting against her skin, and she forced herself still so she wouldn’t hurt herself in her panic. She whispered, “No!” frantically as she used her sword to cut them off. She couldn’t get stuck back here, so far from Steven, when he needed her. They were a team.

Steven had made her fight with him in the Sky Arena when Pearl told her she was nothing. He had made her feel like she mattered. She'd protect him with everything she had, but she wouldn’t throw her life away. His life still mattered more, of course . That was still a good story, a better story. Steven always told a better story.

“It wasn’t all bad,” Connie whispered, gasping as she stumbled to her feet. She looked around in the dark, talking to herself as she cut her way forward. “When I talked to Mom in the hospital after all the gem fusions, stuff got better, didn’t it? I mean, she never said sorry, but that’s okay, isn’t it? Right?”

The thorns loomed and a nervous cry slipped out, her eyes burning. “Steven, you always say you’re sorry. You care. It’s okay as long as you care. And I care about you, and we’re going to be okay. It’s always okay when we’re together.”

Connie had started to think she wasn’t a sidekick, for a little while. She had been really starting to believe that he wanted her to be his equal. Then he’d given himself up because of course he had. That was how stories went. She was stupid for ever thinking it could be anything else. That wasn’t how stories worked. She belonged in the ocean with the rest of the sidekicks and side characters and useless adults.

Steven had a big magical destiny and they weren’t really supposed to fight side by side. But he had said! And she had believed it! She had let herself believe that someone could care that she was his equal and it ended with her crying on her bed without her best friend because she was too stubborn to mind her place. Stories had rules.

When she made up with Steven, she was sure to be more careful about that. She had told the wrong story with Aquamarine. So she beamed her way through Homeworld. She cheered him up. She hid away her fears and insisted that everything was going to be okay, even when she didn’t know that it was going to be okay. She had to trust Steven. 

She had to hope it would be okay as long as they were together. That’s how the stories worked, right? And she was in a big fantasy story, exciting and wonderful and beautiful and not at all dark and thorny and scary. It was a fantasy story, and she was there, and it was going to be okay.

It was okay. Even when Spinel showed up, it was okay. That was how fantasy stories worked. New bad guys! Bigger adventures! She and Steven fought by each other’s sides!

And then he stopped calling.

The thorns were dark and thick and long as one of Lion’s claws.

"You always change the story!" she screamed, sword trembling in front of her. "Make up your mind! Am I supposed to be here or not? Do you want a sidekick? A love interest? A partner? Steven, you're so... You're so..."

She slashed through the thorns with a scream, wasting her energy again. "You don't even know! You don't know what you want. You don't know what you're doing! You don't know what you're supposed to do! You..."

Her knees grew weak and she sinks into the briars with a sob. "Why am I even fighting any more? I haven't used my sword since Spinel. I... I don't know what I'm doing either, Steven. I can't follow the story. I've been trying so hard but it doesn't make sense. It never makes sense. I just wanna make sense of it with you, please. I miss you. I’m out of my mind again."

The thorns shrunk away from her, parting before her, and a laugh burst from her throat. “Oh, is that all you wanted? Didn’t have to climb the beanstalk, huh? Just ask nicely and it’ll make an escalator to take you right up.”

But, asking nicely. That always seemed to work. She walked forward, and for every step towards the lighthouse, the thorns shrunk away as she chattered kindly to it, “I didn’t know you were alive and could hear me. Sorry if I hurt your feelings, and sorry for all the slicing. I thought you were just another dumb plant, but you’re very nice.”

She grinned to herself, speaking with a little more flourish, a touch of an accent, “My friends are trying to see Steven too. If you could let them through, that’d be very polite and courteous of you, dear briar rose. But if there’s an oven at the end of this path you’re making, I’m going to be very upset about the trick.”

There wasn’t an oven. There wasn’t Garnet, Pearl or Amethyst either. If they were coming, she couldn’t hear them at all - not even the sounds of shouting or slicing. Instead, there was the beast - his face as tall as her entire body. The rest of him slumped beyond - four powerful legs, a long tail that swung lazily and had long since destroyed the fence. Every time he breathed it was so hot and humid she suddenly felt like she was in a rainforest. A monster the size of an ecosystem.

She tried to push that back, looking up at him. “No. Not a monster. Steven doesn’t make monsters, because Steven isn’t a monster. You’re… you’re a beast, but appearances can be deceiving. Maybe you’re a real beauty inside.”

He still wasn’t attacking her. Connie’s eyes flicked to the lighthouse door, and she started a slow walk over to it. “Anyway, since you’re such a gentleman, I can just-”

It snarled like a tiger, low and rumbling. Not loud, not deafening, just the warning of a predator that knew a growl was all it would take. She froze in her spot, gulping hard. Okay. So, a polite chat wouldn’t work. How did fairy tales go with big scary things? She remembered her dad telling her The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal , and recalled that, in most fairy tales, morality was very black and white, and tigers were not secretly very friendly. They wanted to eat you and, secretly, very much wanted to eat you, and had to be tricked into not doing so.

She took a deep breath. Still not attacking her. Connie babbled, making jokes as her mind worked. “O-okay. So what else could you want? I could guess your name and then you have to give me a prize. Worm Steven? Wormy Boi? Kaiju Steven? Godzila, with one l, to avoid copyright?”

He didn’t seem amused at all, just staring. His thorns were so huge. He could impale her right through her - no, she wasn’t going to think about that right now. She stepped forward nervously, and he didn’t growl. “So, maybe I can kill you with kindness? I could give you a kiss. Steven’s the princess, but it’s not like you’re secretly a prince or anything. We can be knock off fairy tale buds. Would you like that?”

Still no anger from it. As she crept closer, she could see nasty wounds all along with it from the gems, bleeding white. Plant latex. Plenty of plants made it, the bitter stuff that poured out, white as cream, when you sliced into a leaf. Well, he certainly wasn’t a rose, then, but it wasn’t like Steven’s magic had ever cared much for biology. Her heart ached for the thing, beat up and battered from his de facto grandparents. Fear eased as she stepped close to it, gently put her hand on its nose, and leaned forward to give it a kiss.

Nothing happened.

She sighed. “You deserved that anyway. You… you poor thing.”

Her hands came to her mouth, adrenaline bleeding away and leaving a slow-building ache in her muscles. “I know you’re scary, but did they even try to talk to you nicely? Did they just come up and start bossing you around? Stop being so violent. Stop being so mad. Stop roaring all the time. Just be a good little pet.”

She tried to laugh, but it sounded like she was crying so she stopped it. Connie stepped back, raising her sword to the beast with a furious, trembling hand. “Well, maybe I’m mad too! Maybe we should fight about it! They can’t ever save the day! They can’t do anything right! None of them went to save Steven when he fell out of the sky, did they? Peridot went with him to the Cluster, not them! Me and Steven found the kidnapped people! I gave Steven the book to go find the palanquin! I was with him in the tower! I was with him in White’s head!”

The monster roared at her and she screamed back. He was louder and deeper and drowned her out because he was Steven’s and she was only a sidekick, but she screamed her heart out anyway and screamed longer than it did. “Guess what? Steven can’t save the day today! He made you! And he’s stuck somewhere! And you won’t let anyone help him! So I guess everything’s ruined! 

“What’s Garnet going to do? Look into the future and make a bad guess? Oh, and I’m sure Pearl is just loving the chance to get beat up to look like she’s doing something important. And Amethyst? She’s already poofed once! She didn’t even bother coming back right! Just like always, all the adults have to go be stupid while Steven does all the work! Even when he’s the one who needs help!”

The monster’s mouth ducked down to snap at her blade, and she bellowed back as she dodged his gigantic maw. “No! I need it! This is how I help Steven! When he wants a sword he calls me! It’s mine! And this armor is mine ! And Steven is mine! You can’t have him and you’re going to let me into the tower right now or I’m gonna… I’m gonna…”

A sob tore from her throat and she sunk to her knees, sword falling to the side in front of the beast. “I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I’m sorry, Steven. I just… you didn’t call, Steven. You always call. I thought you’d always call. Even if you just wanted me to protect Beach City while you did the big stuff. That’s enough, I…

“I don’t know if you need me anymore. I don’t know who I am without you and…” She sobbed again, pressing her hands to her eyes. “I didn’t think you’d want me around. I didn’t know how to talk to you. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. I should’ve been there for you before it got to this. I should’ve just told you how I was feeling, and maybe then… We could’ve gotten through it. Together. Like we’re supposed to.”

She felt a huge face press against her, and she stumbled back, only for a massive paw to block her escape. She panted up at him, eyes wide at the towering beast. His eyes were black, shining pink beneath, and she couldn’t read an emotion in them. She tried not to scream, but her voice went hysterical and high: “I didn’t mean to raise my sword! I just lost my temper! I say things I don’t mean when I get excited and I know I shouldn’t but I just can’t think someti-”

The paw pushed her to the lighthouse door, pressing her softly to the wood. She held up her hands with a squeak, catching herself as the metal on her breastplate clunked against the door. She looked back at him, baffled. “I can go in?”

And, to her utter shock, it rumbled, “Good apology. Forgive you. Miss you.” And gently nuzzled at her back, just like Lion would. She was grateful for the armor because one of his huge thorns scraped against it with an awful sound and scratched the metal. She could only imagine what that kind of affection would have done to her skin.

She laughed nervously, wiped her eyes. “Th-thank you.”

Connie was thankful that she lived in a world where tigers weren’t always tigers and stepped into the little house. It was dark inside, and she could barely see in the gloom as she made her way toward the back. She stumbled on something, hissing as she fell hard to her hands and knees. She grabbed for it, bringing it close to her face. Steven’s flip flop.

“Steven!” she shouted, winding her way up the lighthouse stairs. Still no response. The deeper she went in, the fewer roses there seemed to be. The reddish stems crawled the walls, mingled with half-dead green vines - their color already a sickly brown. Or a sleepy brown. She stopped to catch her breath, and her fingers slid over the woody lines, carefully dancing around the thorns with a thoughtful hum. She carefully nicked her sword into it and found the inside a healthy green. Not dead, exactly, or sick.

“You’re acting like it’s still winter,” she said to it, dropping the vine back to the wall. “It’s summertime. You should be back to flowering. What’s wrong with you?”

There was something terrible, something worse than the monster outside. She continued up the stairs, careful not to touch the railing with all the angry thorns around. Her footsteps should have echoed, she thought, as they did in the stories, but the lighthouse was so full of plant life the sound was soaked up, leaving her movements eerily quiet in the dim light.

The top of the lighthouse was brighter. Oh, it should have been storming or dark outside. Connie hadn’t even been fighting the whole day, somehow, though every muscle was aching. She searched in her head through countless stories, trying to figure out which one. Sleeping Beauty? Rapunzel? Snow White? Maybe some kind of combination of all those tales, some mix of their wild variations. Maybe Steven would be sleeping. If she was, she hoped a kiss on the cheek would be enough.

He wasn’t asleep, and her stories fell away again.

Steven’s breathing was labored and ragged, laid across the floor on his back, stretching for the stairs. Green vines patterned the floor like a carpet, the thorns ranging from the size of her thumb to tiny little prickles as they vanished into his dress. Her stomach turned at the thought of calling it that, but what else could it be? Roses mimicked the look of layered, poofed out fabric, a soft pink at the bottom fading into white. They spread across the floor, a dress too heavy to move an inch.

Well, Steven could have, if it wasn’t for the green vines that wrapped up his arms, up to his neck, across his head. Most of those were bloodred, spread around his head like a silken pillow. She gasped, and he tried to tilt his head to look at her. One eye shone pink in the hazy light through the windows. The other was covered by yet another rose - the bright pink blossom strapped across his face by yet another line of green.

She scrambled to his side, fell to her knees as she brought her sword to his arms. “Hold on, I’ll get you out of here!”

“Connie, you have to leave,” he rasped. His hand was barely able to touch her wrist, to push at her, all tangled with little vines that strapped him to the floor. “It’s gonna hurt you too. You can’t get it all off.”

Of course, she couldn’t get it all off. Steven Universe couldn’t get it all off, so what was she supposed to do? Congratulations, Connie, she thought, you know the life cycles of plants. No one ever had saved the day by knowing that roses were perennials. They saved it by knowing magic spells. By knowing the right weapons. By being something magical and special and important, instead of a girl studying for college without knowing what she was even studying for .

But she was here, not a grown-up in sight. Best friend or love interest or sidekick or knight, she was the one here. Something needed doing. She breathed deep, the cloying smell of roses nearly making her choke.

“I don’t need to get it all off,” she said, holding her blade at the vine on his wrist, but hesitating before she cut. The gems would have slashed through. They would have got him free. They wouldn’t sit there, trembling, waiting for permission. She blinked back a couple of tears. There would be time for that later. “Let me try to help.”

One eye stared up at her, and up close she could see the diamond shape of his pupil. She should have been afraid, but all it did was make her eyes burn again as he whispered, “I’m sorry, Connie. You have to go. I’m gonna hurt you.”

“It’s worth a little pain to help you get up again, so you can keep fighting.” She pleaded, “Just let me get your hands free. We’ll do the rest together, alright? Like we always do. You’re not alone.”

He mouthed “okay”, barely a sound sneaking out, and she brought her sword down. Careful, careful, never to prick herself. She wouldn’t mind the sting, but if all Steven worried about was hurting her, she had no idea what the sight of her blood would do. It was awful work. Vines were best cut with shears, not unwieldy swords, but it was what she had. All she could ever use was what she had, even if she never had the right tool for the job.

“I’m sorry I made you come out here,” Steven said.

“Don’t apologize. You’re hurt. You don’t need to apologize all the time.” The words were out the second he finished talking, more frustrated than she wanted them to be. She hoped she pulled off gentle, but she never felt like she was very good at that. She tried again, “I care about you. I want to help you. You don’t ever have to apologize for it.” 

The vines snipped free, letting him wiggle his fingers on his left hand with a pained hiss. Connie should have started with his right. Stupid. But his bound-up fingers were hurting him, so rather than move down his arm, she went to his other side and started cutting. 

His free hand kept flexing as he stared at her. “But you’ve got college prep to do.”

She laughed, shaking her head. It was such a long day, and she was so tired, and frustration and bitterness dripped out of her like a leaking faucet. “College prep. Yeah. That’s what I want to be doing on a Saturday night. Everyone else is talking about Harvale,” slice “and backpacking Europe,” slice “and getting a job,” slice “and here I am, studying for college and hoping some jerk with a superweapon shows up so I can feel useful again.”

Connie froze, her sword slipping through the last vines across his palm with a gasp. “Oh, gosh, Steven, I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.” There was no pained sound this time with his other hand. He stretched them with a sigh, eyes closing. “That’s so much better.”

“Let me get a little more.” She hurried to move down his arms. “And I meant I was sorry about the whining.”

“I know.” he laughed, a very short one, but still a laugh. It was such a relief to hear he could still manage that, even for a moment. “Sometimes you need to vent. At least I’m probably not going to tear down your house and start shouting all your embarrassing secrets.”

“Someone had an adventure without me,” she said with a little laugh. Her sword was easier to work with here, and she quickly had one arm freed. She groaned and moved back to his other side again. “Okay, better stop that kind of talk because something sneaks up here to eat me for being all jealous at you. The plants are going to try to tie me up again.”

“Jealous?” Steven’s arm stretched and moved over the vines, somehow never getting pricked despite his careless motions. He was able to turn, just a little, as her sword sawed through the thorns on his arms. The diamond eye stare was so intense, so needful and probing that the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up. What was he looking for? “You’re jealous of me ? But you’re living a normal life! You’ve got plans for the future!”

“My plan for the future was saving the world,” she said with a sigh. “And now that’s in the past. So… there.”

Her sword sliced cleanly through the last vine binding his arms to the floor, and he slowly propped himself up on his elbows. Roses shifted, a few tumbling down his chest to reveal patches of black and gold beneath. He groaned, reaching behind him to pick up a pebble from behind his back. “That was killing me.” Steven’s eye met hers and he swallowed. “You… don’t know what you’re doing in the future?”

She groaned, and closed her eyes. “No. It’s so pathetic. I spent my whole life trying to fit into your story, fight by your side, do whatever I had to. Now that it’s over… how am I supposed to go back to who I was? How do you do something that big and important and life-changing and then go back to… to not being needed?”

His hand grabbed frantically at her wrist. “You need to be needed?”

“Of course.” She opened her eyes, barely breathing as his rose-covered face hovered near hers, all wanting and needing and vulnerability. She barely managed not to lean away from it, whispering, “Doesn’t everyone?”

“I don’t know.” He snatched a rose from his chest and glared at it. “Maybe? It doesn’t feel like it. Lars is going off to space. Sadie is moving away with her partner. All the Cool Kids are doing stuff in their lives. And the gems are… I mean, they don’t really need me anymore, right? They’re doing so much better now. Pearl’s shapeshifting again.”

Connie hesitated. “This might sound harsh.”

He threw the rose and grabbed at a handful that still clung to his chest, ripping his shirt a little as he pulled them away. “It’s a harsh day. Go ahead.”

“You know that just because people don’t need you doesn’t mean they don’t need to be needed, right?” she said slowly. “You can’t be the most important person in everyone’s life.”

It was quiet for a moment, then he burst into giggles, covering his face. “ That’s harsh? Oh, geez. Harsh words for Steven Universe - you aren’t actually the center of everyone’s universe. They have lives when you’re not around.”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I don’t exist when you’re not around,” she said, then whispered dramatically, “I think the story is from your point of view.”

He grabbed another handful of roses, crushing them as he flung them, with a touch of pink coming to his cheeks. Not the nice pink - not that kind that was sweet and cute, but the kind of pink she had heard came whenever his temper flared now, as well as on a few other occasions. “I really am just like her.”

“Who?” Connie asked. Steven scoffed and gestured dramatically to his rose dress. It took her a second to remember the painting that had hung on his wall for years, the way Pearl had lovingly gushed over the outfit the love of her life wore every day for thousands of years. “O-Oh. Right. Your mom was really… a lot, huh?”

“That’s a nice way to say it,” he muttered. “You know, sometimes I feel like I could get through all of this if she could appear for a minute to say she was sorry.”

She leaned forward, grabbing a handful of flowers herself. Thorns cut into her hands and she ignored it with a scowl as she threw them away. “It wouldn’t matter if she showed up. You know adults never apologize to kids. Lapis is never going to feel bad for drowning us. Pearl is never going to say she’s sorry for how she trained me, or all the awful things she’s said to you.”

Steven looked uncomfortable, always hating to say harsh truths about others out loud. “They say sorry sometimes.”

“For hurt bodies,” Connie retorted. She tried to wipe the blood on the back of her pants where he couldn’t see it, holding her hand hard to the fabric so the pressure would stop it. “Not for hurt feelings. Do you know my mom has never once apologized for all the rules growing up? Never apologized for not letting me eat donuts. Never apologized for having super high standards for who I could hang out with. Never apologized for not letting me listen to music . Adults don’t say they’re sorry. That’s not how the story goes.”

“The story?” His nose wrinkled up.

“Fantasy stories. Kids save the world while stupid adults stand around, barely helping, and the kids have to be the grown-ups. That’s how they work, right?” She grabbed another handful off him, revealing his star in full with a heavy sigh. “You deserve all those apologies, though. You played mediator and babysitter for years. You saved the world. They should say sorry. They should thank you.”

He took her hand, prodding her to open her fingers, showing white petals stained red. His eye flicked up to hers. “Maybe we both deserve a little more thanks.”

She let the flowers fall with a grin. “Oh, it’s easy to say when it’s someone else’s problem, right?”

“Uh, yeah.” He grinned back. He dotted her hand with gentle kisses, and she tried not to read anything into it. He healed her. And, yes, they were in a story and yes the knight who rescued the princess always got a kiss at the end, but they were never that kind of story.

Connie just shook her head with a sigh. “Yeah.”

Their gaze met for a minute. There were still only three eyes, and she wanted to ask if she should rip it off, or what was underneath, but they were smiling. Why ruin it? They looked down at the same time. Her hands and his hands dug into the flowers that kept him trapped with a wild, giddy abandon, throwing them off him with near-hysterical shrieks.

“ This one is for never caring about my video games!”

“This one is for saying I don’t matter!”

“This is for calling me her !”

“This is for calling me pet !”

Flowers showered around them as they stripped Steven of his dress. Alone in the lighthouse, not an adult to be found, there was cursing. There were insults . Whispered at first, shaking hands and shaking voices daring to say that maybe, just maybe, there had been some mistakes made by the adults in their lives. Maybe they had deserved better. Maybe they still deserved better, and some time to figure things out.

When the flowers were clear, he jumped to his feet and dragged her up too, and they danced and spun around the light in the center of the room, whooping and cheering and screaming things about their guardians they could only say out loud when they were alone together, could only dare to think at their angriest and most hurt, when all the lights were out and they were craving something more than responsibility and pressure.

They fell down together, breathless with laughter as they sat back on the pile of roses. Her fingers slowly reached up, breathless and nervous, to the last flower on him. “Does this one hurt?”

“A little,” he murmured.

Thorns crept in from the walls and she scooted closer with a nervous laugh. “Uh, hey there Pinocchio, let’s not lie today.” 

“A lot,” he confessed quickly, and the growth stopped. His own hand reached up to blossom, and he closed his other eye. “It started here. I got out of control. I know we said all that stuff about the gems, about my mom, but… Connie, I’m just like her. I’m throwing tantrums. I’m hurting people around me. I want to keep everyone from moving on without me, I… I’m a Diamond. I’ve even got the eyes.”

“Is that what you think? Steven…” She shook her head. “You’re human . All your friends except for me are older than you. The gems are way older than you. You’ve spent your whole life comparing yourself to people who got at least a five-year head start. It’s okay to miss them. It’s okay to be scared and want them to stay. It’s even okay to get mad . You just need a way to cope with it.”

He groaned. “Like what? Don’t say gardening.”

“Uh, yeah, you bring plants to life with your emotion-based powers. You shouldn’t be gardening ,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Steven looked very sheepish, and she decided she’d have to get the story out of him later. “Meditation. Jokes. Getting some alone time where people don’t chase you around, harassing you about your life.” She rested her head on his shoulder with a sigh. “A break, maybe. Lots of talking about what bothers you. A friend.”

“I thought I wasn’t the center of the universe,” Steven teased.

“Not everyone’s.” She grinned up at him. “Just mine.”

He turned a very different shade of pink as she giggled, and looked away. “I can’t hold you back too. You’ve got stuff to do.”

“Like?”

“College.”

“There’s warps. Lion. Your Dondai. We live in Delmarva, Steven, you know all the good stuff is relatively nearby right?” She shrugged. Of course, she didn’t even know what college she wanted. What she wanted to do in college. But it was on the table, so it’d be silly to reassure him that she wasn’t going anywhere. Though, of course… She side-eyed him. “You know you could come , right? Your dad is loaded. You could get in anywhere, especially if you prepped for the tests.”

He laughed. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m… I’ve got responsibilities!” he said, looking a little frantic. He looked around the room like there would be something there to prove it, then looked down at his hands in defeat. “Garnet and Pearl and Amethyst are all here, and I set up Little Homeschool. I mean, I’m taking a break but I’ve got to get back to it. What if the gem colonies have questions on how to run things? The older I get, the more my life is gem stuff. The humans in my life are moving on, and I’m… I’m still fixing the mess my mom left behind. I’m Pink Diamond.”

“You’re Steven Quartz Universe,” she said, almost insulted by the idea of him being anything else. Her hand curled around the rose, and he whimpered a little, but she tugged regardless. With a yank, the flower fell away. One brown eye, one pink, and she smiled as she looked into them. “You’re something amazing , gem and human. Saying you’re just gem is too confining. Saying you’re just human is too normal. You’re you, and that’s just… right. Be who you want to be.”

“But I don’t know who that is.”

“Me neither. Or who Connie is. We’re not like regular gems. We’ve got to figure it out.”  She put her hand over his. “We should’ve hung out with more humans, I think. Maybe we need some more practice at it.”

“At being human?” He hummed. “Okay. What do humans do?”

“Well, at our age I think there’s a lot of stupid stuff,” she said. “Going off of young adult fiction and teen dramas and anime, of course-”

“Of course,” he agreed with a grin.

She giggled, curling her knees to her chest as she stared off, telling herself (and him) another story. Stories were always better with an audience. “So, of course, we go to school. And while we’re at school, everything is very exciting. All of the things we do are constantly the center of attention, good or bad. Everyone is very concerned with what’s going on in our lives, and it’s mostly stupid. We use illicit substances and it’s very troubling, because we do things like mess up someone’s carpet, or accidentally murder a man.”

He laughed. “Uh huh. That sounds like normal human stuff.”

“Everyone has crushes on everyone,” she said. Her throat closed up with nerves and she cleared it. She never liked talking about those sorts of stories. But that was pretty normal for most teens, wasn’t it? No good reason not to bring it up. “And it’s very confusing all the time, and it’s all you really have to worry about. Just… who you’re going to end up with. Everyone knows what they want to be. They have goals and plans, and people are mean about them following their dreams, but they do it anyway.”

His fingers laced into hers. His head tapped against hers. “We got it backward.”

Her heart stuttered as she looked up at him. Backward. No plans. No goals. No confusion over who they had a crush on, though? Steven did always seem to know about his feelings. He loved love. He loves weddings and cakes and maybe, just maybe, he loved her even though she didn’t care much for those things. Connie tried not to stutter and failed immediately. “You think so? I-I mean, I think so.”

He swallowed. “That’s nice though, right? I think I’d rather be confused about my future with you than by myself with a job to do. But I kind of need to be needed.”

“I still need you,” she whispered, finally looking up at him. It was a new look, the heterochromia, but it was Steven still. Her Steven. Hadn’t she screamed about how she was his? How desperately she needed her best friend? And maybe she wasn’t useful, but… “I know… I know you don’t really need a knight anymore, or a sidekick, but if you’ve got room for one more anyway?”

They both moved at once, neither quite sure who started it, as their lips suddenly met for the first time. Connie had never kissed anyone before, but it seemed like an appropriate end for rescuing a princess. Though, in fairy tales, kisses were supposed to be chaste. They didn’t talk much about being so scared your body started to ache and tremble. They didn’t talk about it not feeling real to have someone radiating heat so close to you, into you as you pressed up against them. They never talked about the noise, how rapidly things turned to heavy breathing.

Steven laughed a little breathlessly. “I didn’t think the first kiss was going to be this much.”

“I think that’s what happens when you wait nearly six years.” She tugged him backward into a pile of roses, happy to have him crush down on top of her in a ridiculous mess. This was so wonderfully stupid, so wonderfully awkward as they fumbled in a pile of flowers with only the occasional rusting of clothes and plants, the occasional hollow thunk from the armor she still had on.

After some time, and she was giddily unsure of how much it was, Steven said awkwardly, “Uh, as nice as this is and, believe me, I’d love to spend a few hours yelling about our families and being scared about the future and kissing a lot, but, uh… is anyone else coming?”

She smirked up at him. “Mmm, no. I don’t think so. That dragon is a real hassle to get past.”

“Oh no. What’d you have to do? I didn’t mean to make him. I was just trying to save this little-” He looked worried, eyes wide. She regretted her phrasing a little, but, to be fair, it was practically impossible to say anything without Steven feeling a little guilty.

Connie’s hand clamped over his mouth. “You really want to know why no one’s showing up?” He nodded, moving her hand with his head, and she burst into giggles. “If you want him to let you in, you’ve got to apologize for hurting your feelings, Steven.”

Her hand fell back to her chest, and he joined her in giggles. “And you’re the only one who’s figured it out?”

“It wasn’t so much figuring it out as having a full mental breakdown in front of your kaiju son.” She sat up with a groan. She’d have to fill him in on all of those issues later. Much later. “But, you know we have to go talk to them, right? Tell them how we’re feeling? All that mature adult stuff you used to topple an empire.”

“Yeah, but it’s so much harder when it’s the gems,” he said. Another chuckle, this one sounding strained. His hand clutched hers. “Are you going to be there?”

“Yeah, just like last time. Screaming common sense statements and sass until they get it.” She smiled, mentally noting that if her parents were involved in the talk there’d be a lot less sass and a lot more awkward, but even talking to her parents seemed like something they could do as long as her hand was in his.

“One problem.” He pointed down. “My legs are asleep. I sat back down and they died.”

“That’s alright. It’s not the first time I’ve carried you, princess.” She grinned, scooping him up bridal style. She staggered just a little as the day caught up with her and flushed. “Uh oh.” The burden in her arms lightened slightly, and she glanced at his smug face. She tried to pout at him, but a smile broke out instead. He managed enough happiness to float . “You’re hurting the pride of your knight.”

“It’s not a fairy tale.” He winked and tapped her nose. “We’ll do it together, right? Just like everything.”

She carried him down from the tower, wrapped around her shoulders with his weight on her back to make it easier. Bridal style was very cute, but stairs were very dangerous. It wasn’t quite the romantic ending she had expected. There was no swelling music and Steven refused to sing anything heroic for her and she stumbled every so often and he kept whispering terrible jokes in her ear so she couldn’t even look serious about the whole thing.

But as she caught sight of the gems and her own parents, relieved and happy to see them, Steven’s weight settled heavy on her back again. No more happy floating. No more light burden. But that was alright. She could carry him, couldn’t she? His arms squeezed her tighter. “Ready for another dragon?” he whispered.

Connie swallowed hard. “The fight was long, but our true heroes knew the dragons were gentle giants with hearts of gold.”

He nodded and slid off her back to take her hand. Side by side, no weight on each other’s shoulders, they finished the story their way. No princess. No knight. Just best friends. Just soft enough for only her to hear, he squeezed her hand tight and prayed, “And then they lived happily ever after.”