Chapter Text
Connie held onto the boy for dear life. It felt as though if she let go, if she allowed him to slip out of her grasp, he would be gone forever. She had to keep him safe. She had to protect him.
The other him, the one with glowing pink skin and small glowing diamonds in his eyes, was crying. She was almost surprised to see it, but then, he was Steven, wasn’t he?
The gem’s face hadn’t contorted into any sort of distressed expression. He looked the same as before, an unreadable face with blank eyes that currently stared down at the boy Connie had her right arm tightly wrapped around.
The only differences, really, were the large pink tears that were welling up in his eyes and dripping down onto his other half. They splattered onto the human boy’s cold skin. It was almost like he’d borrowed the tears in order to do what he needed to.
They flooded his eyes for a few short seconds and then they were gone as surely as they had arrived.
With no small amount of trepidation, Connie allowed her gaze to slink back down to the one who she was holding. For a beat, he remained still. The moment seemed to drag on for an eternity, like all of time had been compressed and stuffed into those few seconds.
Then glow spread through his skin. She held her breath. His eyelids fluttered. He opened them wide enough to see her, and then they slid shut again.
She could feel his chest gently rising and falling again.
The relief had just washed over her when White felt the need to interrupt it. “What are you doing?! Pink Diamond doesn’t act like this! You are Pink Diamond!”
Her eyes shot up, venom tingeing her glare. “He isn’t When are you gonna get that through your head?”
But she persisted. “Pink, why are you doing this?”
The gem ignored her, instead gently sliding his hand under the human’s head. Connie watched him tug the boy towards himself, looking a bit perturbed. The human Steven was now pink as well, his hair a pillow of cotton candy colored fluff.
White let out an irritated huff. “Thousands of years old, and you’re still acting like a child!”
“He is a child!” Connie shouted, making her throat burn with the surprising volume that the words left her mouth.
A few beats passed and then, without looking up, the gem said to her in deadpan, “What’s your excuse?”
White stared, appalled. A pink color tinted her cheeks. The controlled gems surrounding them stood, surprised, as it spread through them. “What’s happening?”
“What is this? What’s wrong with them?” White asked herself, eyes sweeping the room as it was bathed in a rose-colored light. “They’re turning… pink. I don’t understand…”
“I’m in control… I…” The diamond gasped dramatically. “Something’s wrong… with me!” she exclaimed. “No!”
The gems surrounding them, once drowning in her suffocating light, were released from her grip and returned their original colors. They all fell to the ground, freed from the diamond's control.
The gem Steven was holding his human counterpart tighter now, and so Connie tentatively allowed him to take the boy from her grasp. He blinked and said, “Faulty,” to no one in particular. It was quiet enough to be a whisper, but he said it in his normal voice. It was like he had turned his volume down.
“What is?” she asked, trying to make her lip stop quivering and failing. He looked up. “Attempt failed. Organic matter is faulty.”
“What… do you mean?” She waited for a response, reaching out with trembling hands.
“Fusion is unachievable.”
Garnet staggered up to them. Her visor had been removed and she was staring with wide eyes. “Steven?”
Connie lurched forward and wrapped her arms around the two boys that made up her best friend. She could feel the conscious one of the two stiffen.
She didn’t know what to do. Was there anything to be done?”
She eventually loosened her grip on them and looked over at the crystal gems, who had congregated around them. The six of them had varying levels of panic plastered on their faces.
“What happened to him?” Lapis asked her, hands moving around like she wanted to do something but was unable to do so. Peridot was crying into Bismuth’s leg and Amethyst… well, she was just looking. It seemed as if she didn’t believe her own eyes, because she kept rubbing them, dumbstruck.
“He… he…” Connie choked back a sob. It was going to be okay, right? She had to believe it… she had to, but… “He died,” she forced the strangled words from her throat, and the tears started running. “She… she took his gem out and he healed himself b-but he…” She doubled over, head hung between the two Stevens.
“But he died! And now he's... he's broken up!” she wailed. She wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to have it together. She was supposed to be cool and collected and dependable for Steven.
But it seemed there was no Steven to depend on her. Only his parts, and now she was falling apart as well.
She stayed like that for a while before her sobs died down a bit. Pearl hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder. She glanced up to see that the crystal gem had tears streaming down her eyes as well. Still, she managed to speak to Connie with as level and comforting a tone as possible. “He’s going to be okay,” she told her, as if it were a fact.
“We’ll make sure of it,” Garnet said, crouching down. With an anxious smile, Amethyst took a step forward and nodded. “Yeah… yeah.”
She could figure this out. They could do it. They had to, for Steven’s sake.
Even if there was no more Steven, not in the way she had known him. Even if he remained like this. She had to find a way to help him how he helped everyone else.
The diamond that loomed above stayed silent, what was perhaps a look of dawning horror on her face. She was promptly ignored as Blue and Yellow Diamond led the ragtag team of once-rebels to safety, the boy that had come to be their leader broken into two.