Steven Universe Tears Of Love · 5:09am Dec 20th, 2020
“Guys, we have to hurry!” Lars shouted, with Sadie and The Cool Kids following close behind.
“I can’t believe I saw Steven turn into a huge pink monster just a few minutes ago!” Sadie reacted.
Lars and the others wasted little time as they rushed to Beach City. They didn’t think any crisis would ensue, with the whole galaxy being officially in peace. Even with only a short amount of time between what happened and now, they're surprised that none of the buildings in beach city have been destroyed.
“It doesn’t seem Steven has caused any harm here.” Jenny said, looking at the buildings.
“How is it possible that he didn’t hurt anybody?” Buck added.
“His Gem friends must have taken care of it.” Sour added.
“At least he didn’t get seriously injured...I hope.” Lars finished.
After passing by multiple buildings on the way to their destination, they saw not only the citizens of Beach City, but also the gems from Little Homeworld by the Universe's beach house. It’s rare for a crowd to have normal citizens, with gem people by their side.
“Those must be the Diamonds!” Sadie pointed at Yellow, Blue, and White Diamond.
“They’re only here when Steven’s around.” Jenny commented.
As they ran on the sand on the beach, they went through the crowd of people once they saw the aftermath. It didn’t take long for the Crystal Gems and the others to get Steven back to shore. Steven is still letting out all of his emotions with tears still streaming down on his face. Lapis is helping him to walk while Bismuth and Lion prevent anyone from talking to him.
“Everyone! You need to give Steven some space!” Bismuth called.
“Trust us, he needs way more time to himself right now.” Garnet added.
“Wait!” Lars called as he saw Steven after his corruption was over. “I didn’t see what was happening during the whole thing.”
“You sure you understand how he’s feeling?” Pearl asked.
“I came here as soon as I could, when I got the message from the gems about Steven.”
“He won’t do anything of what just happened.” Sour added.
The Crystal Gems can trust Lars more than anyone since he’s officially a gem. Although they’re still unsure if he’s ever going to meet Steven again after what ensued, they give him the opportunity to speak to him.
“Steven?” He spoke, while taking notice of Steven's depressed face. “What happened?”
Steven sniffed his nose with his heart pound slowly to normal. “I...turned into...a corrupted...” He tried to finish his sentence while looking at Lars. It took time for Lars to get back to Earth while he was traveling with the Off Colors. From the way he saw Steven in tears, it was worse than what happened back on Homeworld years ago.
“Did you turn into a monster?” He asked.
“Like a huge monster?” Sadie added.
This only caused Steven to tear up, remembering what he caused recently, not long until Connie fills in for him. “Yes he did, but this is really personal between him and his family.” She spoke.
“Sorry you had to come from across space, we didn’t think you would arrive so soon.” Greg said, walking up to his son.
As much he’s disappointed about getting the message late, he’s not at all upset. All he was concerned about was finding out if Steven was severely hurt or not. “Is he hurt on the inside?”
“A lot.” Yellow Diamond answered.
“That’s fine, if he needs more time alone, it’s for the best.”
“By the looks of it, he went through so much stress.” Jenny replied.
“We’re gonna be taking him in our house, this isn’t the time.” Peridot said.
“Now would everyone please leave him alone? We’ve got everything under control.” White Diamond laying down the order to the crowd of humans and gems. The crowd took her word as they headed to Beach City and Little Homeworld, while Lars and his friends followed behind, while giving Steven one last look.
“When you're feeling better, you can come hang with us.” Sour waved.
“As long as your not...of what you turned into.” Sadie said, trying to keep it calm.
“My family has everything under control.” Steven smiled. “I’ll be better when I’m ready.” As he waves to the Cool Kids, Lars and Sadie before they leave.
Steven’s family and friends take him inside his beach house, whilst trying to cheer him up. When he saw the front door destroyed, he became ashamed after bottling up his emotions in the explosion of the aftermath. Bismuth and the others promised they would rebuild it first thing tomorrow. He took a seat on a cushion by the stairs while Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl sat by him.
“Do you need anything right now?” Greg asked, while looking through the refrigerator.
“Maybe ice cream, I haven’t had some in days.” He responded.
“It’s good, I’d been wondering why you haven’t been eating ice cream since I brought some.”
As Greg took the container of ice cream out, the other gems looked at the now broken, former corrupted gem. “Steven, I never thought that a corrupted gem would never have no limit to its power.”
“Well after all these centuries, fusion can make any gem bigger and more powerful, but not from a smaller gem like this one.” Garnet spoked.
“It seems you never put your feelings ahead of anyone else at all.” Lapis frowned while placing her hand on her hip. “When was the last time you placed your feelings first?”
“Uhhh...I don’t think I ever did since…” Steven tried to think of an answer for Lapis, but after everything he went through since his childhood, nothing changed his feelings during his adventures. “I don’t think I ever did.”
“But if you ever had the chance, why do you prevent yourself from doing it?” Spinel wondered.
“Because all of you seem way more important to me. You getting hurt seems a lot worse than showing the other side of myself.”
Once all the gems understood Steven’s point of view, they remembered that they once had another side of themselves. “We all have other sides of...bad and awful things.” Peridot confessed.
“But unlike other criminals, you never meant to destroy anyone, including Jasper.” Pearl responded.
“I might get through with her when I’m ready.” Steven receives a bowl of ice cream from his father. He took the spoon and ate a scoop of ice cream.
The Diamonds, from outside of the beach house, peeked through the damaged front door with Blue Diamond having a question involving Steven’s corruption. “Steven?” Steven and the others looked at Blue Diamond from outside. “I’ve heard from White Diamond that you took control of her gem by slamming her head through a pillar.”
“Yeah, he told us that before he transformed.” Amethyst recalled.
Blue then looked at Steven, with a particular question in mind. “Was it because of her pulling your gem out when you were a child?”
“Mostly.” Steven being honest. “Out of all the diamonds, I wasn’t one hundred percent on good terms with White.”
White Diamond then looked through the hole to confront Steven. “I'm the one who caused most of the crisis across the galaxy. Just as much as Pink Diamond.”
“Trust me, his mom is what caused his trauma to increase so much.” Connie responded. “Even if we haven’t heard about everything he went though, we could go to Homeworld to work this out with you.”
“If that’s final, we’ll make sure we’re civil with him.” Yellow Diamond smiled while looking at White. “We should head back to Homeworld now.”
“Wait!” Spinel shouted. “Before we leave, can I have a word with Steven?”
“Take all the time you need.” White called.
Spinel made her way to Steven with tears in her eyes. She couldn’t get over at the fact she erased his gem friends after realizing Pink Diamond rejected her. “You take this personally when you're distressed. Sorry for not helping you earlier.”
Steven grew a smile at Spinel while giving Spinel a hug. “We haven’t talked about our problems since we met. The next time I visit Homeworld, we should spend time understanding each other more.”
As he broke the hug, this gave Spinel a warming smile. “I’ll be waiting when you're ready.” She heads outside of the beach house, heading inside the Mega Diamond before launching back Homeworld. Steven is close to finishing his ice cream but even with that, he’s still in tears and in such a depressed mood.
“Steven.” Pearl spoked. “From what I saw, I thought you would have never turned back to your normal state.”
“Yeah, when we hugged you, it was the only thing we had and if it backfired…” Lapis stopped herself until Peridot chimed in.
“We thought your corruption was permanent and if we tried something else-”
“You would have gotten worse on the inside.” Bismuth finished.
Steven looked at his hands after listening to his gems friends. He remembered what it’s like when he became that monster that let out his dark side. It felt like his nightmare had come true was too unstable to break, far worse than anything he went through during his whole life.
“If I really went through all that, not turning back could have been deadly.” He spoked. “When I said I’m a fraud and a monster, letting everything out from my gem...I thought everything I worked for...disappeared.”
He began to cry again, sobbing slightly from before but not long until Garnet got up, leaned down in front of Steven, and placed her hand on his cheek. Steven looked at her straight in her eyes with a sweet smile.
“You deserve to be taken care of, even if we're moving on, we’re not leaving you forever.” She spoke with prue honesty. “As long as we’re close to each other, we will continue to support you after everything you did for us. And that’s our gift to you.”
She wrapped her arms around Steven with a hug full of warmth and love just like before only this time, in her normal form. Steven’s heart slowly pounds at an increasing rate, allowing his emotions to come out with no shame or fear. He wrapped his arms around his caring mother figure, with all of his gem friends adoring it with support.
“Once all of this is behind us, you will be back to being the good you.”
“And we will do everything to make it happen.” Pearl smiled as Steven sniffed his nose.
“I know.” He responded.
For the next ten minutes, all the gems head back to Little Homeworld getting back to their job in helping other gems. Steven decided to take the day off to rebuild his mental state until he begins his next step tomorrow. On the way up to his bedroom, Peridot and Connie follow from behind before they leave.
They enter inside his bedroom while they see his sliding window, still cracked after the incident Steven caused, but they ignored it to avoid setting Steven’s trauma off. As Steven took the time to put on his pajamas, Peridot and Connie stayed out of his room, trying not to peek at him.
“I got my pajamas on, you two can come in now.” He called while taking deep breaths. “It’s actually a good thing to rest here instead of helping at Little Homeworld.”
“It’s fine Steven.” Peridot smiled. “We have enough gems for one day.”
“And it’s better for them to realize you’re safe and sound.” Connie added. “Are you really that tired though?”
“Not really, but going somewhere won’t make any difference to what I’m feeling.” Steven responded. “I’ve been going from place to place, planet to planet and it only made my situation worse and worse over time.” As he slowly tucked into bed, Peridot walked up to him.
“Today was far from stable, resting is all you need to start fresh until tomorrow.” She said.
“Don’t worry Peridot,” Steven said, lying down on his bed. “Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll help you with the Greenhouse incident. It may have caused a lot of destruction, but I can only hope it won’t happen again.”
“We can only hope.” Peridot placed her hand on the bed. “Every day in the future is always a new day to move forward.” She then heads her way out of the bedroom before turning her head to Steven. “Make sure you're totally awesome in front of every gem.”
“There will be no surprises.” Steven responded as the lime green gem left the bedroom, heading to the warp pad back to Little Homeworld.
Before Connie leaves to get back to do her final exams, there is one thing she wants to give to Steven. Since the day he proposed to her despite being both underage, everything finally came to her. She sat down by Steven on his mattress with Steven taking notice.
“Remember when you proposed to me a few days ago?” She asked.
“Yes.” Steven felt ashamed of himself.
“I understand you want to have a better future, but it’ll only make your situation worse.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“My mother wouldn’t approve of the idea of being in a fusion of Stevonnie with you. Being a gem and going on an adventure is bizarre, but living in a normal life in a neighborhood isn’t.”
Steven had to face reality from what Connie is coming from. “You're right but I had...an argument with my dad about being a Universe. I’ve never had a life like yours.”
Connie took a deep breath to understand what Steven was trying to say. “You didn’t like the fact you spent most of your life handling the mess your mom caused?” All that Steven did was nod in response. “You need to understand that’s completely ungrateful. If you really had a life similar to mine, it won’t be convenient to overlook the negatives.”
“I do understand, when I met your parents for the first time. It’s just I never saw so many families outside of the ones I’ve come across in Beach City. Do you have any idea how different my life is?”
This causes Connie to remember the journeys she went with Steven years ago. “Yes, and I enjoyed it. But from what I’ve learned after all this time, it’s nearly impossible to overlook everything, especially when we head to a different planet.”
Steven looked up at the ceiling, not even looking at Connie, knowing her life is less complicated than his. “If you were in my position as a Gem, you wouldn’t have become an expert at exams at school. You could have dealt with dangerous obstacles, even with any powers you obtain. Being a swordfighter isn’t the same as magical powers.”
A silence hung in the room, after the years of knowing each other's lives. Connie couldn’t even imagine the life she would have if she was a Gem, but she isn’t. However it didn’t stop herself from overthinking it with how her life went with Steven. It never stopped her from remembering all the great times she had with him.
“Steven, please look at me.” She called to which Steven listened to by looking at her. “If you were in my life while I was in yours, nothing would have changed.”
“Like, everything?” Steven blinked.
“I know it’s hard to believe, but no one would act differently if Pink Diamond turned into a human. Even if it’s a boy or girl, there’s no way I’ll ever stop myself from turning into a giant monster. Stress is never an emotion to bypass.”
“You’re right. If I confronted you, I would have done the same thing.” Steven said, being honest. “I can see how there’s no other way to fix this.”
Then Connie placed her hand on Steven’s which made him blush. “There’s nothing wrong with talking about your problems. And feeling remorse after all this time.” She then lowered herself while puckering up, pressing her lips on Steven’s for the first time.
Steven’s heart pounded and his eyes shot open. He can’t even change his position from the way Connie is kissing him. But not soon after, he slowly melts into the kiss, but with tears coming out from his eyes. He may have to wait until he and Connie get older to get married, but he knows it’s really gonna happen when the time’s right.
After fifteen seconds, Connie broke the kiss while witnessing the tears from Steven. “Thanks Connie...That felt...beautiful.” He blushed more.
Connie gave Steven a heartwarming smile. “And for me personally, these aren't tears of happiness.” She wiped the tears from Steven’s left eye just like before with her eyes shining in glee. “They’re tears of love.” Upon hearing that, Steven continued to tear up, happy from what he heard from Connie. “When we get married for real, we’ll have everything under control.”
“We can work on it.” Steven smiled.
Connie then got off his mattress. “I’m gonna leave now. Text me on how you're doing in the morning.”
“No problem.”
Connie then heads out of Steven’s bedroom, not long until she gets onto Lion by teleporting her back to her house. Steven covered himself with his blanket with a feeling he’s thankful for. Today was an unbelievable day, but at the end of it all, it all worked out with the gems, his father, the diamonds and Connie forgiving him. And the kiss he received from Connie.
“There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.” He wiped his tears with his finger. “I love my family, and my life.”
I appreciate you writing a story that takes place between I Am My Monster and The Future. At least we get to see Steven finding closure with Spinel and the Diamonds.