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Chapter Text

He does not scream. He does not rage. He does not beg.

In fact, he says nothing at all.

He hasn't said a word since the moment Odin opened his mouth and sold him, and he doesn't plan on breaking that streak now.

Not even as Odin takes him by the shoulder and walks him to his fate.

Not even as they make their way to that last empty hall.

Not even as a Diamond stands across from him, eyes as tunneled and dark as night and a face carved from stone.

(Not even as those eyes seem to burn straight through him and right into Odin himself.)

And then Odin lets go.

He lets go and starts to walk away.

...You sold me.

You sold me.

"You can't do this," he hears himself say.

But he has, hasn't he?

"You can't," he denies in spite of himself. "You couldn't-"

No. No, no, no, no-

"What did Mother say? " His hands scratch uselessly against the braces on his wrists. "She wouldn't have- you didn't, you couldn't, I-"

You can't, you can't, please, no-

No, no, no, no,

"I'M YOUR SON!" He cries out to Odin's retreating form. "I'M YOUR SON!"

He can't walk. He can't reach. He can't move.

All he can do is beg.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he begs. "I'LL BE YOUR SON! FATHER, PLEASE, I'M YOUR-"

But Odin is already gone.

"...I'm your son."

And you sold me.

A clawed hand curls on his shoulder, and he tries not to flinch.

"We should go," A Diamond's song softly whispers, and a hand strong enough to tear him apart gently herds him back.

"We'll be taking the direct warp to Little Homeworld," the song trails on, "but there's some things we'll need to do before-"

She pauses, suddenly scanning his body with an unsettling intensity.

"You're shaking," she notes with clinical eyes.

"It's nothing," he stammers, "I-"

An aborted sound strangles his mouth as the braces around his wrists simply vanish and she abruptly grabs his wrists with just enough pressure that his pulse hammers under her hands.

She mutters some foreign stretch of song to herself with narrowed eyes, before meeting his. "Have you ate or slept at all since that verdict?" His silence is apparently answer enough, and suddenly there's a cut of some strange fruit lying in his hands. "Eat, before you faint and someone has to force you to." 

He wants to say he isn't that hungry, but apparently that's a lie, because the moment he took a single bite of that fruit, he had to physically restrain himself from simply devouring the whole thing in a single bite. It was only mildly sweet, like a memory of rose syrup from the palace kitchens, but oddly dense, the way roots often were. Some bone-weariness leaves his body, and for a moment he was almost content.

But this new strength only gave his mind the means to remember the weight of what has just happened. To feel it.

There's something real in his shaking, now. (It feels like grief. It feels like tears.)

There's an all new kind of horror in his face, and when the Diamond's hand just barely moves toward him, he really does flinch this time. Tears start to well in his eyes.

"Oh, child," her low song wavers with some indecipherable note, "I'm so sorry."

And he cries. Silent and desperate and halting, but he cries.

A weight settles around him. Her cloak blankets his too-small frame as a strong, heavy arm curls around his shoulders.

When he finally, finally finds it within himself to look back at her, Asteria Diamond's face is only fixed determinedly ahead as she leads them onward.

All the while, there is something in those dark, open eyes that was almost deeply, profoundly sad.

Chapter Text

FACET FILE

FACET NUMBER: Jet Jotunn Facet-LK01 Terra-L135

NAME: Loki Ransom Liesmith (Self identified- possibly subject to change)

ASSIGNMENT: None pending

COURT: Aster Cerise

RESIDENCE: Terra, Little Homeworld, Obsidian Temple

AEGIS: [THIS JET IS CURRENTLY UNDER DIRECT AEGIS OF HIS RADIANCE, ASTERIA DIAMOND.]

HABIT: Standard physical competencies of species and age group.

CLOUDING: 

-Previously malnourished, treatable.

-Reported as frail of form to the standard of the species, disputed.

-Recent tenure of prolonged and unknown tortures. 

-History of long-term domestic emotional abuse by previous aegis.

-Possible genetic mental discrepancies, psychological evaluation pending.

-Paranoia. Compulsive psychological manipulation. One confirmed suicide attempt, semi-frequent inadvertent self harm manifested from nervous behavior.

ACCOMODATIONS: Evaluation pending.

[ANY AND ALL DEVELOPMENTS OR DISPUTES PERTAINING TO THIS INDIVIDUAL ARE SUBJECT TO THE DIRECT REVIEW OF HIS RADIANCE, ASTERIA DIAMOND.]

Chapter Text

Loki shouldn't freeze as much as he does when he comes out of the room he's been staying in and sees another person rooting around in the house. But he does.

There's a human, in this Diamond's house. A soft, plain looking older man with a scruffed beard, short wild hair, and pale eyes under thick brows. He wears soft clothes and soft shoes as he scuffs along the kitchen cooking some simple meal one-handedly.

His other arm is busy with some small, grey eyed child, looking curiously down at the preparation of eggs and meats from behind a dark, messy mop of hair that shone oddly purple in the light.

"You can come down," the human suddenly calls out to him. "We won't bite." The human spares a glance for the child in his arm. "Well, I won't. Jury's out on this one."

The long, rough claws of Loki's toes click dully on the wooden stairs. After the glamour was ripped off of him those months back, there hasn't been a shoe that fit him ever since.

(Not that it mattered. He was made to walk ice and snow. He had never needed shoes at all. Still, it was... a difficult adjustment.)

(It's nothing compared to the claws on his hands.)

"Did you have any breakfast?" The human goes on. "I can make an extra plate, if you want."

"I-" don't know if I'm allowed to refuse. "-I... suppose that's fine."

"Good, because I already made one."

"There's no need to-" But it was too late and there was already a plate on the counter. "-Ah."

It's some manner of toasted bread slices with a spread of cheese melted in between them. There's sausages and eggs on the side, and a separate bowl of some... red soup object. Hmm.

The human lays out two more plates, and a third portion in a container that he gives to the child as he sets them down back to the floor. "Go give that to your papa."

The child immediately skitters away in their oversized clothes into the part of the house that gives way to a stone temple, disappearing behind a strange, star-marked door opening to a pink, cloudy landscape.

"Where- where is that one going?" Loki finds it in himself to ask.

The human huffs a dry laugh. "Our resident Diamond forgets things like eating and sleeping after getting caught up in a big job. He hasn't left that room since you've arrived, I think he might have lost the time."

"I... s-see. Are you-" He looks the human up and down. There don't seem to be any signs of uniform, but... "Are you one of her servants?"

The human steps back with a few sharp blinks. And laughs.

"I fail to see the humor of my q-q-question," Loki flatly continues.

"Jesus," the human mutters as he wipes at his eyes, "I've been called everything from his son, to his pet, but never-" he breaks off into laughter again. "You got me good! That was a new one!"

"Then, ah- what are you doing here, if I may ask?"

"The only person I'm being paid to look after is myself. I don't work for any of these guys, I just live here. I'm part of the family is all." He regards Loki with an almost shrewd look. "That's you too now, it looks like. Might as well get to know eachother."

His laughter finally trails off as he pulls up a chair for the kitchen island.

"I'm Greg- I write music, look after the kids, make sure that guy," he tosses a quick eye back to the temple door, "remembers to look after himself as much as he does everyone else. I'm not really part of the Empire's machine, which means I'm actually around more often then they are. So I guess we're gonna start knowing eachother real well."

The human- Greg- pushes a little bowl of apple slices to him. Loki takes a bite and... it tastes like home.

"...these are Idunn apples," Loki whispers.

Greg absently scratches at his beard. "I don't know what that means, but, uh- sure? Heard you guys eat apples as a staple, so I cut some up."

"These are only grown in a single orchard in all of Asgard," Loki practically wheezes. "How in the Nine Realms did you even get these?"

"There was a tree in Steven's garden-"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU HAVE AN IDUNN TREE, DO YOU EVEN REALIZE HOW PATENTLY ABSURD-"

This confused tirade went on for several minutes.

And Loki became so absorbed with the absurdity of his breakfast apples that he forgot he was ever supposed to be upset at all.

Chapter Text

FACET FILE:

FACET NUMBER: Euhedral Riband Jasper Facet-B81 Kite-815

ASSIGNMENT: Champion of Aster Cerise, in perpetuity. 

-Currently deployed in extant special task force 9RA-C under Crimson Carbide Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1.

COURT: Aster Cerise

RESIDENCE: Terra, Little Homeworld, Carnelian Mountains

AEGIS: Asteria Diamond

HABIT: Euhedral-standard competency of a Quartz-type Gem.

CLOUDING:

-Previously corrupted.

-Previously shattered, rendered unbroken.

-Post traumatic stress, stabilized.

ACCOMODATIONS: None listed or required.

Chapter Text

Crimson Carbide and the Jasper were already familiar faces, but the five others were new- five identical stout red faces no larger than a child, all named "Ruby".

That is when Thor learned that Gems do not actually have names. Mostly, they just refer to eachother by Gem type, or by facet numbers if being formal or specific. Nicknames seemed to be an occurrence, but there was no apparent need for it.

It was a bit... difficult, to take the Rubies seriously at first. But then a demure looking one pulled a whip out of its belly and strangled an enemy combatant with a smile on her face, and that had been that.

Carbide and Jasper couldn't be taken anything but seriously. They were towering figures in their cloaks, and the horns of Jasper's helm were crueler than the curve of axes.

Then there was the wolf.

At least, Thor is reasonably sure it is a wolf. It looks like one. It looks like a war wolf, large enough that any aesir could ride it like a large horse, and even Crimson Carbide, who had some height over Thor himself, could ride the beast, and ride they did.

Thor had dared to ask what the blanket saddled wolf was actually for. And the Diamond prince had smiled completely seriously from under a black, gold trimmed, flat topped hat, red stone patterned shining along its band, and cryptically said that the wolf was their son.

They then proceeded not to elaborate.

The wolf, by the way, was called Wolf. Wolf acted much like the war wolves back home, which was unfortunate and reminded Thor of certain things he'd forgotten about the creatures. One of which was the habit of attempting to lick the inside of people's faces.

This would be less of a problem if Wolf was not the exact height that could reach everyone's faces.

Thor, Volstagg, and Fandral take a moment of pity for Hogun and Sif, who were just small enough that Wolf's tongue could swallow their entire face.

Just a bit of pity. As a respite.

If the wolf is distracted with the shorter people, it can't assault the taller ones.

Chapter Text

Moonstone Facet-G36S Crescent-4GK was making her usual rounds, prepping to steal (yet another) jug of chocolate milk straight out of Asteria Diamond's fridge, when she hears a clunking noise.

She gazes out into the darkness, and a pair of wide, glowing green eyes stares back.

=<>=

Loki would very much like to know who this random stranger is and what she's doing in his the Diamond's house.

"What are you doing here?" he half hisses.

"What are you doing here?" she hisses back, watery wings flaring with challenge.

=<>=

"There appears to be unusual activity within the house," SHELL notes.

Likely Amethyst or Vairam doing something odd in the middle of the night, but Steven decides to check anyway.

It was not Amethyst or Vairam.

He opens his door to see Moonstone and Loki promptly throttling eachother with rattling hisses that die down as they see him.

"Hello, Your Radiance," Moonstone smiles.

"There's an intruder," Loki blurts out like it explains anything.

"No, you're the intruder," Moon's song spits.

"Am not."

"Are too!"

"You're the one thieving around in the middle of the night-"

"I'll do as I please you ill-gotten Jet-"

Steven uses their distraction to turn around and walk back into his room.

Children, the lot of them.

Can't even be bothered.

Chapter Text

"So, uh..." Lars turns a lazy squint in the direction of the kid. "What's the deal with Smiles Jr. over here?"

"Hm?" Steven looks up from his donut, eyes clearing as he settles on the kid. "Oh! That's my son."

"Uhhh..." 

Tang ina, how long was I gone! Did I miscount something?

"I thought you would have waited until Connie finished college to, uh-" Lars coughs into his fist. "-have kids."

"It's not like that," Steven (unsuccessfully) reassures. "He's not... ours, like that." Steven's face sobers a little bit. "He's from New York."

"...Oh."

"He's..." Steven sighs. "He's like you. It was an accident, we didn't- I didn't realize how badly injured he already was. We tried to find his parents, but-" he laughs a little sadly. "It's hard, when the DNA just comes back me."

He can see it. He can see it in the oddly creamrose undertone of brown skin, in the purple shine of black hair. In the jumps that linger in the air, just a second too long, the way small footsteps don't quite sink into the shallow tide of the beach.

He can see it in that pure and simple love carried in Steven's eyes, as dark diamonds watch a child at play.

"Well," Lars whispers awkwardly into his drink, "he ended up with a pretty good dad anyways."

A creeping softness enters Steven's smile, and Lars tries not to get all red in the face as he looks literally anywhere else.

"By the way," Steven continues casually, leaning back into his seat, "you're the father."

Lars immediately suffocates on his drink. "Ex-fuckin-scuse me? "

"Legal father?" Steven continues, puzzling the word to himself. "Wait, no..." He finally snaps his fingers. "Godfather! That's the word. You're the godfather."

Lars wheezes to himself while Steven smiles on, entirely oblivious to the heart attack he just put Lars through.

"Fuckin' hell," Lars chokes out, "warn a guy next time."

Wait.

"Wait, goDFATHER-"

Chapter Text

"We're going out," the Diamond says as Loki finishes off a piece of bread.

She isn't wearing her cloak this time. She puts a flat-topped hat on her head as she walks by- white and almost austere, except for the shining sort of horns curling out of the band all angled like blades. (Two smaller ones, hardly noticeable, curl out of the inner band like tusks, just barely framing around her eyes.)

"Where exactly are we going?" he dares to ask.

"The Sky Spire, in Norway. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

They don't take a warp pad this time- instead the Diamond elects to ride her absolute massive lion mount, large enough to rival a chariot cat.

Loki is barely allowed to scramble up the creature's back before large hands simply hoist him up like a child, placing him right up against the lion's flower-scattered mane while the Diamond sits behind.

And then the lion elects to break the weave of space-time with but a roar. The blazing warpstream they leap through is chilled as the Bifrost, opening to the thin air of some floating mountainous peak. A brief chill of ice escapes his breath. He tries not to notice.

Eyes framed under the shadow of her hat, Asteria Diamond opens her mouth and sings. Well, 'sings.' She sings in the way that birdsong is singing- a piercing melodic noise, a struck bell carrying through the sky.

She sings, and five chirping songs answer back.

And the shape of a giant comes out of the distant fog.

Taller than anything but a fire jotunn, it lopes with unseeming grace on three uneven legs and five gargantuan arms like some great galloping spider.

A barreled chest splits down the middle like some morbid conjoined twin, and five round heads squint down at them, crowned by flowers and some sort of... tasseled, quilt squared, poncho thing around its many shoulders.

By the Norns. Asteria Diamond barely comes up to the leg of this beast.

"Hi, baby," she croons.

What.

This absolute giant falls down on crossed legs with a hearty thunk against the ground, and suddenly the Diamond is quite a bit taller than the last time Loki dared to blink, just tall enough to adoringly pet five faces purring in time to the subtle roll of spines all over its body.

"Hi mama," five voices chirp in unison. "Hi mama! Mama, mama..."

WHAT. "Um, what..."

The Diamond is abruptly small(er) again, like there had never been any change at at all. "My son," her song smiles easily. "This is Casimir."

Mother of monsters, indeed. "Are not all Gems your children in the first place?"

"Shared with the other Diamonds, yes. But, like this one, there are some that are mine alone."

The Crimson Carbide comes to mind.

"I see," he stalls diplomatically. "And why have you introduced us?"

"You live as one of mine, now. You'll need to know eachother. Casimir," her song softly trills as she looks back up to ten (10) black squinting eyes, "this is Loki, he's your brother now."

Brother?

"Lok... loku..." Casimir leans forward, propped by some tall shepherds' crook, and a large green hand pats at Loki's head. "Hi Lock. Hello Locks! Hello Casimir, hi."

Loki tries not to fall over from the gentle weight pressing down on him. "Hello... you." He dares to turn his head back to the Diamond herself. "Though I'm not sure why you bothered to introduce me as a brother, if I belong to you."

She simply raises a bemused brow. "If you're mine, you're mine the way that my Gems and Jets are mine, that my family is mine. We don't keep slaves, Ransom."

Ransom. His name warps along her song and sings son of my shield, deliverance.

How strange.

Before he can even think about what that means, Casmir picks him up like a cat.

"Baby."

"I'm older than you."

Casimir gently folds Loki into his quilted poncho with his massive arms. "Baby brother."

Loki turns to the Diamond. "Help."

Asteria Diamond smiles, soft and merciless.

"No," she gently rejects as she allows herself to be picked up in Casimir's other arms. "I don't think I will."

Chapter Text

The child (Morion, was it?) is running around the house at midnight. This is a common occurrence.

The child is singing. Also a common occurrence.

The child is running around the house at midnight, singing, trailing around these fanciful... strings of light, shaped like carved pumpkins.

"Boy and girl of ev-er-y age," the child sings, "wouldn' you like see something strange? Come with us and you willsee, this ou' town of Hal-low-een..."

"Child, what are you doing-"

Morion flails the lights around threateningly, draping them hapzardly over every surface. "THIS IS HAL-LO-WEEN! THIS IS HAL-OW-WEEN PUMPKIN SCREAM IN THE DEAD OF NIGH'! "

Loki is not disturbed. He is not.

"THIS THIS HALLOWEEN, EVERYBO'Y MAKE A SCENE! TRICK O' TREAT TI' THE NEIGHBOR GONNA DIE OF FRIGHT!"

Sweet mercy. What sort of depravity have they been feeding this child?

A tall, dark skinned lady peers down at them from the top of the stairs. "Mori, what are you on about?"

"He's been singing about gore and screams for the last ten minutes," Loki hollowly despairs.

"This is Hal-lo-ween! " Morion jumps up and down on the counter. "This this Hallow-een! "

"You see what I've had to deal with?"

"Halloween! " Morion repeats insistently.

The lady jumps off the stairs and rolls onto the couch with a fierceness in her eyes. "HALLOWEEN! "

They immediately launch into a tirade of nightmarish monsters and cult-like worship of "pumpkin jacks".

I'm going to die by the end of the month, aren't I?

Chapter Text

Connor will admit, in a private moment, that there are certain benefits to having Asteria Diamond as a teacher. Chief of which is hindsight.

Because Dad Az has nearly a full decade more of the very specific struggle that is So You're An Eldritch Diamond Hybrid Moonlighting As A Biological Abomination. And on top of that, he didn't have to have his Diamond backlogs removed, so he's got the full four gyrs of metaphorical tutorials rattling around in that head of his.

And so, Connor has a benefit that Az never had- learning from the mistakes of a predecessor.

Instead of having violent episodes of frightening unknowns, scrambling under the weight of a power no one understands, he has someone he can talk to when something gets weird. Who can tell him what to expect.

There's also the fact that Az will not be freaked out by any of Connor's more... esoteric questions.

=<>=

"We can set shit on fire, right?"

The socially appropriate response would probably be please don't or why do you want to set things on fire. The Asteria Diamond response is a barely fazed blink and a simple "Yes. Why?"

"Could I," Connor slowly enunciates behind tented hands, "entirely theoretically, smith metal with my bare hands?"

"Our bare hands can generate enough heat and pressure to create crude synthetic diamonds from a handful of soil."

"Hmmm."

The appropriate follow-up, probably, is now that you know, don't ever do that. Sounds dangerous.

Az's follow-up is a borderline coy smile as he says Would you like to learn how?

=<>=

This is, possibly, one of the best things Dad Az has ever taught him. He can just... forge things, literally anywhere. All he needs is a hammer, a flat rock, and a thing of water.

So when he's not punching people for the Asgardian government, or wrangling Rubies, he's making Connie and Adya some gifts.

Hair pins! Hair... sticks? He's not sure which it is. It's a Thing, and he sure is making it.

Those human Victorian ladies had the right idea. Be pretty and carry weapons in public. A useful tool to hold your hair and hats, and also to stab unworthy men who think they're allowed to touch you.

This is apparently kind of a problem, especially for people who are pretty. It is probably not a problem for Connie, who is stronger and taller than many men and very, very deadly. But it is probably a problem for Adya, who is shorter and softer and mildly blind.

And he imagines Adya must be pretty, in that human sense. He can't really tell, but she seems like she would be. She has a very nice voice. That's probably important.

So he is making pointy sharp things so they can be as pretty as they wish without consequence. It's a perfect idea. Honestly, why didn't he think of it before? In fact, if his own hair was a bit longer, he could probably...

...

Wait, hold on-

AD

DAD I'M GROWING OUT MY HAIR,

AND I WILL PUT DAGGERED HAIR PINS IN IT,

AND

THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

Okay! Have a good day at work!

NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

Have fun, vein my.

Chapter Text

jowa(?)

Lars.

Adma.

Nova sappho.

M'lieutenant.

this is a frightening order of words, steven

how many laws did i break while i was sleeping

Visit your parents.

mmmm

Love Your Family, Lars.

eeeeeh

Please visit your parents!

(Please stop using me as an excuse

not to visit, they think I'm giving you unfair work

hours and now when I visit sometimes

they talk about human labor laws.)

What if- hear me out- I Didn't

Stars, please I don't want to say

"Your son just doesn't feel like visiting you",

that is cruel. Please visit your parents.

mmm

I visit your parents more than you do, Stars.

myeh

Lars.

Stars.

Nova please.

They're either going to start thinking I'm a bad

boss or replace you with me as their son,

Please Save Me From My Fate.

eeh

Please, Stars.

For me?

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffine

Do you need me to come with you?

you don't have to

And yet here we are.

...yeah

Good! We can make one of those pumpkin pies.

i'm making the dough AND THE LATTICE,

this is non-negotiable

Understandable!

don't play coy, hayop if i leave you to

your own devices you'll make some kind of

cookie cat shaped war crime

I love you too, Stars.

Chapter Text

Steven tends to watch people's hands while they work. It's something he notices, now. His eyes wander to people's dexterities.

He notices Garnet's fingers clasped over her rings. He notices the playful flex of Amethyst's claws. The soft shift of Bismuth's tools. The delicacy of Pearl's fingers, playing piano for Vairam's smile.

His father's roughed palms striking old guitar strings. The slowly steadying roll of Connor's gestures. Jasper's claws, idly scratching open rocks. The birdlike dexterity of a melonsprite's crude wrists, the gentleness of a hedgewick's curled fist.

Connie's sword callused hands gliding along a blade as she cares for it.

So he watches Lars' hands. How could he not?

Lars has wide, flat, sturdy hands and slightly knobbly fingers- almost like they were too large for the rest of him. Thin wrists, but iron-hard ones, and he would have been willowy if not for the dense set of his forearms. 

These are the hands had once jerryrigged a Gem ship into something almost no one else could pilot. The hands that stole from the heart of Homeworld, the hands that flippantly dared an Emerald admiral to blast him to kingdom come.

Skilled, willful, daring hands, but... gentle. Mindful. Meticulous, almost.

"Yo." Lars waves over Steven's bowl of Definitely Way Too Much Pumpkin Pie Filling. "Lemme see what you have."

"Trying the unbaked product?" Steven gasps. "Scandalous."

"I need the flavor profile, dumbus. Get over here." Before Steven can even pretend to protest, Lars already snatches a spoonful into his mouth, quickly repaid with shock.

"Marscapone," Lars notes disbelievingly. "With ginger, and- where the fuck did you get goat cheese? "

"Casimir does keep goats, you know."

"You put goat cheese... in pumpkin pie."

"Works pretty well with chocolates, too."

"I hate you." Lars' voice rings with mock outrage. "I love you, but I hate you. I have to readjust the entire dough recipe now. You have almonds and rosemary sitting around here in your infinite kitchen somewhere or I riot."

"Both in the spice cupboard. You'll have to riot some other time."

"Watch me, you conniving fuck. I have to scale up this entire recipe to accommodate the new ratio and I will make this your problem."

Oh no.

A whole new stretch of time to watch you work with your lovely hands.

How torturous.

"Oh stars." Steven leans his head against his hand and smiles. "How terrible."

Chapter Text

The small Gem (Amethyst?) laughs under her breath as she lounges by the rocks of the inner temple. "Look at Steven," she snickers to Loki.

Asteria Diamond leans on the counter next to a large metal bowl as a rose-skinned man kneads at dough, and there's an almost casual adoration on her face as she watches him work.

Rosy skin and pale hair, the same as the Diamond's lion. He'd heard, in passing, that she could raise the dead, but that they would come back... changed.

(He looks at the child Morion, the pink underglow of his skin, the purple shine of his hair, and wonders.)

"Baba! " Nonetheless, the child trudges on without fear, climbing right up the Diamond's legs. "Appil pie?"

"No, pumpkin pie." Morion tries to reach for the... batter(?) as the Diamond pushes the child's face away. "Don't eat that, it's not ready. Who's been letting you eat unfinished food?" A mock grin crosses her face as she picks the child up. "Was it Garnet? I bet it was Garnet, she's absolutely soft for you."

She turns her focus back to the counter just in time to see Amethyst almost sticking her hand into the metal bowl of filling.

Loki's hands might also be in there, too. He was just following example. He didn't do anything wrong!

You can't even prove he did it.

What are you, a cop?

...This should, in all logical narratives, be the part where Loki spontaneously falls over dead.

Instead, it's how two minutes later, there are three more little pie molds set out, and three extra little squares of dough for decoration options.

"Because someone," the rose-skinned man frowns pointedly at the Diamond from behind his beard, "made too much pie filling with a different recipe than normal and I had to make way too much re-adjusted dough to compensate."

"How unfortunate," The Diamond leans down to give Morion a little kiss on the head from the child's new work station.

"I refuse to live in this kiss-elitist world," Amethyst's song mockingly hisses.

"Well then," the Diamond smiles as she kisses the other Gem's head, "we can't have that."

She walks behind Loki, and he doesn't even have time to lean away before he gets a small kiss of his own, a crackling sunlight warmth briefly travelling on his face.

"Tch." The bearded man looks sarcastically off to the side. "I see how it is."

She simply walks by to give him a kiss of his own, and Amethyst barks out a childish laugh as the man's pink skin goes absolutely red with embarrassment.

(And maybe Loki laughs too. Who can say?)

There's enough mirth in his body that it travels to his hands, twitching his long claws just enough to tear the dough in his palms.

Ah.

Oh no.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

He wasn't supposed to do that, he wasn't supposed to break it with his Hel begotten bear claws like he breaks everything else around him like some kind of unwieldy bilgesnipe-

"Oh dear."

Pink hands gently unhook the dough from the curl of his too-large claws and just... folds it all back together. Kneading it in her hands like it had never broken at all.

"See? That's alright. Nothing that couldn't be fixed."

But I still broke it. (But you still fixed it.)

Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry-

"Oh, woah!" The pink braided man steps back. "You've got frost on your eyes, what the fuck!"

Ah. That's why it feels like his eyes have been stabbed.

"...I think my eyes are frozen open."

"Oh no-"

=<>=

It takes all of five minutes for Asteria Diamond to cut past everyone's panic and shove her suddenly fiery hands right over Loki's eyes. Frightening, but effective.

Very slow, on account of her carefulness, but effective.

"You need an ice tutor," she finally says.

"Probably," Loki shamefully mutters.

"I overestimated your control, considering how recently you've been made aware of your heritage."

"Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, I should have arranged one earlier. It's my failing, not yours."

She even sounds like she believes it.

"I still disrupted your work," Loki tries to say anyway.

"Eh, we were almost done anyway, and Lars got to finish the rest of it."

A not quite uncomfortable silence reigns.

"Your pies were smaller, so they've been finished by now," she gently points out. "You wanna try it?"

"...Alright."

Chapter Text

REPORTING: TASK FORCE 9RA-C, In accordance to secondary mission objectives to gather intelligence concerning the Nine Realms, Asgard, and its inhabitants.

REPORTER: [FACET NUMBER REDACTED. DIAMOND GRANT CLEARANCE REQUIRED. PLACEHOLDER FACET NUMBER PROVIDED.] Crimson Carbide Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1

REGARDING: The Aesir and Vanir Physiology

The aesir and vanir differ in true from from the appearance they presented in the presence of humans. Their forms, in color and texture, lie along a stone-like spectrum, and are of a similar density and hardness. Even the most frail and elderly of their species is of a structural integrity comparable to ironwood. A full sandstone palette has been observed- reds, pinks, golds, earthtones, grayscales, blacks, and some like the prince display marbling of coloration.

The prince is storm pale, marbled with clouded veins of blue and grey, like the thundered skies of his godly titles.

The Allfather was said to be a stately gold in his prime- he has aged, now, into a bronze.

The aesir (and possibly the jotunn), like Gems, are of such a profound physical density that they cannot float in water, to the point that the act of swimming is a daring sport that few train or participate in. The only aesir that possess buoyancy are those of prodigious size and body fat. The ability to swim skillfully, much less float at all, is a rare but desirable skill for them. (The vanir appear to have a different structural composition and are capable of water buoyancy.)

One aesir among the prince's task force possesses buoyancy, and there is a vanir among their number, and this apparently esoteric skill adds to the prestige that has made them part of the prince's elite.

Chapter Text

"Brodir"

[krampus.png]

locks

locks what the FUCK is that

Crimson Carbide.

I am engaging in the human "selfie" culture.

Why do you insult my cultural forays like this?

Why do you wound me?

OH THAT'S YOU

on the thrones, what in the honest to stars flecks are

you wearing

I am engaging in the

Hallow'een costume tradition.

The child has insisted in my participation.

hmm

don't like it

Rude. You're supposed to ask me what I am.

It is tradition.

OK Mr. Loki Ransom Liesmith

Who Are You

I am the European demon creature that is Krampus.

...locks

locks that's just you in a giant sleeping bag

Is that what this is?

I thought it was some sort of strange ritual cloak.

this is just you, consumed by the great black void

of a sleeping bag

I think the horns really complete the demonic image.

it's the claws. look at the state of them

get some self care, locks

I did it for the monstrous aesthetic.

uh huh, i'm sure it's not just because you're too

embarrassed to ask az how to trim your own claws

You can't prove anything.

What are you, the einherjar?

you're being weirdly articulate over gemglyph text

considering you can barely read or write gemglyph as is

you aren't even texting me, are you

...are you using az's dictation machines

...No.

liar

Am not.

liar that can't read. baby liar

baby liar can't type with liar bear claws

must steal Mother's dictation machine

I AM NOT

PROVE IT, COWARD

I'LL STAB YOU IN YOUR SLEEP

BOLD OF YOU TO ASSUME I SLEEP, LOCKS

FIGHT ME IN THE PIT

MAYBE I WILL, YOU OVERGROWN CHARIOT CAT

FUCK YOU

Chapter Text

Crimson Carbide... probably enjoys their job. Thor can't actually tell.

They have a vigorous work ethic, a graceful enthusiasm for combat. (Maybe a little too much, but then again, Thor can't exactly judge that, looking at himself.)

They just don't smile much, sometimes. They have smiled, of course, but their resting expression leans more towards a pensive sternness than anything else. 

Carbide leans against their wolf, the projected screen on their hands casting a pink light against their face as they work with glyphs Thor can only just barely see.

"What manner of work is that?" Thor asks politely.

"It's not work," Carbide mechanically responds with their usual dead song. "I'm talking to my wife." They look briefly elsewhere. "Her name is Adya. She sings."

"Ah."

Thor will just have to silently file that away with all the other meager information he knows about the Gem.

-Has many knives.

-Has many children (?)

-A prince of some sort.

-Has a wife.

"I imagine you must have a very pretty wife," Thor honestly hypothesizes.

He really does mean it. He doesn't really know all that much about Gems, but he imagines Carbide must be of a pretty sort, frighteningly scarred as they are. Going by the way the Jasper in their group is treated by the others, there seems to even be an appreciation for such indicators of strength and experience.

"I guess, probably," Carbide answers neutrally. "I wouldn't know."

What. "What?" Thor splutters for a moment. "Why wouldn't you know?"

"I don't know what you think is pretty," Carbide shoots back with an exasperated confusion. "Stars knows what your people choose to think about when you look at someone."

"I suppose your wife must be very pretty to you, I mean," Thor flatly clarifies.

The Gem actually pauses at the thought- a slow, pensive blink as they straighten- and something almost soft passes over their dark eyes.

"Yeah," they finally whisper, "she is."

Chapter Text

REPORTING: TASK FORCE 9RA-C, In accordance to secondary mission objectives to gather intelligence concerning the Nine Realms, Asgard, and its inhabitants.

REPORTER: Euhedral Riband Jasper Facet-B81 Kite-815

REGARDING: The Sentinel and The Crown

The Bifrost Sentinel is of a tone so dark it is only matched by the dark marblestone of the Asgardian mountains themselves. His manner and form is of no aesir I have seen before or since. This post, it seems, cannot function under anyone else but himself, and he is not observed to eat or breathe or sleep. I suspect he is of an artificially constructed nature.

Further suspicion is to be cast upon the Odinson himself. He behaves and appears as an aesir, but his mastery of his storm element is quite apparently unprecedented even among his supposedly exceptional genetic line. He may be presenting some form of hybrid vigor due to the vanir mother, but he is of such an unusual level and form of power that I posit there must be some further hybridization or tampering involved in his creation.

Considering the definite refinement of process that the Odinson is evidence of, there may be others like him in the Allfather's past. Ones less perfect- ones more volatile.

At your leave, My Diamond, I would investigate this further. Naturally, this will be of secondary priority to the current presented mission, and I will take no action that could endanger the integrity of this campaign. Regardless, I advise this matter be looked after. Perhaps confer with the aesir that has joined the Empire- that soldier who stayed. Defected soldiers have loose tongues and long, bitter memories.

Chapter Text

There's a snake, under the porch. At least, it looks like one.

It's a massive, mossy thing with golden diamond eyes. It's tongue flickers curiously in Loki's direction, eyes gleaming from under the shade.

The eyes. They really are such an odd shape. Loki leans down next to the creature, trying to shift his own eyes to match, only to be met with a sharp headache for his efforts.

"Oh, dear. Are you alright, Ransom?"

There the Diamond goes again. The name Ransom warps along her song as son of my shield, and there's an honest light concern on her face as she looks down at him that shifts to a pensive, pragmatic squint.

He realizes, just a moment too late, that he didn't dispel his newly acquired snake eyes in time.

"You're a shapeshifter," Asteria Diamond softly notes. "Is that normal for your species, or is that something you learned?" She spares a brief blink of thought. "Unless that's some form of glamour."

"I don't know if it's normal for the jotunn," Loki admits. "But I was always good at it, illusion or otherwise." A bitterness leaks into his voice. "It was certainly unnatural for the aesir."

"That's too bad. It's certainly natural for us." He dares to blink, and the Diamond is suddenly a mirror image of Loki himself, colors and all. Her gem still shines the same as ever, and he sees dark diamonds peering out from the image of his own face. "Of course," she goes on, "we can't exactly pass for anything other than ourselves, but shapeshifting has plenty of practical uses here and there."

She leans against the railing, entirely herself again, like nothing had changed at all.

"Wouldn't you agree?"

Instead of trying to puzzle her question, he looks back at the snake. "Gave myself a headache trying to mimic the eyes. Is there some sort of enchantment on this creature?"

"On Dog?" She laughs- whether at the creature's name, or his honest question, Loki can't quite tell. "No, no. But for some reason, it's pretty much impossible for anyone other than a Diamond to try and have a Diamond's eyes. The Skrull had the same problem too. It's an interesting sort of puzzle."

"And yet this one manages it."

"I made that one. The rules are a bit different there."

"Hmm."

"You're certainly free to try as much as you like." She smiles, like there was never anything easier. "Amethyst would love to have another enthusiast in the house, I'm sure."

It's a cowards art, boy.

"It sounds unwise," Loki tentatively tests, "to give me free reign over something I could easily use to run away from you."

"Are you going to?" she politely asks.

There is neither anger nor judgement. Just the measured calm of an honest question.

"It's unlikely," he finally mutters.

"Then I don't see any problem with it. Just try not to scare the humans in the house, alright? Their hearts are fragile."

=<>=

Amethyst stretches her arm beyond all reasonable length to pull a mug from the cabinet.

The mug promptly turns into a snake and bites her finger. She tosses the snake away, but not before it turns into a crow and lands gracefully on the kitchen counter, quite literally laughing at her with smug green eyes.

Her gem glows with challenge. "Oh, you're goin' down, little man," she wickedly laughs.

Not even a second later, a purple cat is suddenly giving chase to a green and blue spider.

Chapter Text

Crimson Carbide squints at the incoming convoy. "What is that? Supplies?"

"Of a sort." Thor smiles with some secret joke. "The soldiers are ordering their own entertainments. A brief indulgence after the fight."

"And the... barrels. What is that, some form of food storage?"

"Firefly wine, I suspect." Thor allows himself a brief laugh. "We are in Alfheim after all." He pauses with a thought. "Have you ever had drink before? From what I understand, you don't have such substances among your own people."

"We have ambrosia, but that's about as far as it goes. Your poisons don't really work on us."

Thor spares a sympathetic glance to a gaggle of soldiers a little ways away, who have decided to challenge the Rubies to a drinking contest. A little less far away, Volstagg loudly challenges the towering Jasper while Sif and the other members of the Three spur him on. "Many people will be losing wagers tonight, then."

Carbide actually laughs at the prospect- a staggered, metal-strung sound. "It might actually work on me, if I let it," they hesitantly admit. "At least that's what Asteria Diamond says."

"Why don't we find out, then?"

"Sounds risky, drinking on the job like that."

"It's no trouble!" Thor claps the Gem on their thorn-scarred shoulder. "It'll all be over by morning anyway." A sly grin creeps across his face. "Besides, are you backing away from a challenge, just like that?"

The sharp curl of fangs flex into a wicked sort of smile. "Well, if you insist, Your Majesty."

=<>=

Thor suspects- maybe, possibly- that this might be a little bit his fault. Possibly.

"You're acting completely undignified," Jasper flatly intones as she looks down.

"Y-yoou're actin' undigif'd," Crimson Carbide stutters.

"Look at you," Jasper hisses, "you can't even stand."

The other Gem leans haphazardly against Wolf like a crutch. "Wh't're you, an Agate? I'll do what I want-t-t-t-" They almost fall before Wolf catches them, consolingly licking at their face. "Good boy..."

"Ugh, whatever," Jasper finally groans. "Sleep it off, boulder brain. If you aren't better by morning, I'm reporting you."

Crimson Carbide hisses mockingly at her retreating form.

"S'rry 'bout that," Thor manages to slur out.

"K-k-kk-kk-k-k-kssssssssshut up," Carbide agonizingly articulates.

"...I still won."

"You'rre on the ground, dumbass," the Gem squints laboriously in his direction.

"You can't even stand, shut up. I still won," Thor hazily insists.

"Y' didn' win slag, fuck off-"

Chapter Text

"Hey, Dad?" Steven hesitantly calls out. "There's someone who wants to see you."

"Someone I know?" Greg shoots back.

"...Kind of. Just-" There's an open anxiety on his son's face. "-try not to freak out until we explain everything?"

"...Alright," Greg slowly agrees.

Steven steps aside to the new Gem walking into view. Dense brows, round face, dark eyes, and hair that curled like the crown of a rose. A stone rested on their belly that could have been a Rose Quartz.

An old, tired phrase, but his mind can sing it again. Greg knows this gem- Greg knows this Gem.

"Dad," Steven's song nervously wavers, "meet Steven Universe."

One of these days, Greg morbidly realizes, I really am gonna have a heart attack.

"Well," Steven (his Steven?) goes on a little frantically, "Connor Universe, now. He used to be me, once, but... our time diverged when we were about twelve years old."

"I-" This new Steven's song is faltering, almost dead, and it kind of breaks Greg's heart to hear it. "-I lived... a different life. It wasn't a happy one. But that life is gone now, thanks to your Steven. Things are... better now." 

"Was I-" Greg stutters, if only a moment, "-was I your dad?" Did I ever even have the chance?

"I haven't seen you for almost ten years," Connor's song gently meanders. "I- I remember you, almost, but everything before I was ten, I-" He looks off to the side. "I don't really remember much, from before."

Greg briefly looks back to Steven, and his son gives the barest, grim nod. Missing memories.

"So I'm..." Greg trails off. "...I'm basically a stranger to you, huh."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I know I'm not-" Something clicks like a broken record in that song, before it settles again. "-I'm not your s- I'm not your... Steven, I just-" Connor's song shrinks down. "I just wanted to see you again, that's all."

Oh, Steven.

"Hey, come here for a sec." Greg reaches out his hands. "You're super tall and far away, get down here for a bit."

And when Connor gets curious enough to draw close, it's just enough for Greg to pull him down into as much a hug as his old man body can manage.

"I'm not your son," Connor tensely whispers.

"I know."

"You don't- you don't need to be my dad."

"I know." Greg's arm still wraps around Connor's neck anyway. "But I'm still here."

And slowly, gently- as if either of them were something fragile- Connor sinks down into that hold and haltingly brings his own arms up into it.

A dead song lives, if only for a moment- shaking and brittle and very, very small.

"I know," it whispers. "I know."

Chapter Text

Work Son

Do we own Mars

...

Actually, I don't know.

was thinking

We could terraform it

I think we'd have to bring it up with the UN.

Humans have already sent things there

for scientific purposes,

but there does not appear to be any

territorial claims.

Why do you want to terraform Mars, anyway?

idk might be a nice wedding gift

for Adya

Songs above, that's a bit drastic.

You'll frighten her.

Do something small, like a house.

Or a hammer.

...

How soon do you think i could drag

Bismuth and one of the Asgardian dwarves

into a joint project?

Depends.

How soon can you introduce them?

Chapter Text

AD

I remembered something.

you're old

you remember alot of things az

I remember something from your time.

shit

are you okay?

I know digging through that

alt time memory isn't really nice for your head

<Sten has a bit of a headache, but it's fine.>

(I'm fine.)

Okay, good

what did you find

You have a message from Connor.

From myself.

He left you something.

I only just remembered it now, sorry.

Difficult to sort through the alternate data.

What is it?

I actually don't know.

I haven't opened it.

Crimson Zirconia was... territorial.

And paranoid.

If I opened it, I don't think it would end well.

It has to be you.

...Alright.

stay with me when i do?

Always.

I'm not leaving you alone, not for something like this.

Thank you.

Chapter Text

"-Just give in, pet.-"

No. No, no, no, not back there, he can't, not again-

"She was shattered for her troubles, of course. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for you-"

This isn't real.

It isn't, it can't,

WE GOT OUT WE GOT OUT WE CAN'T

"It's kinda cute, isn't it? It still thinks someone's gonna come save them!"

"What's wrong, little monster? Are you crying for your Diamond? You want your freak hive mommy to come and save you?"

"You're lost, freak. Ain't nobody gonna be finding you here."

Stop it stop it stop it stop stop sttttttttttt

D-d-d-d-d-

"Please, please, STOP STOP YOU'RE HURTING THEM-"

"I'll stop when I want, you DUMB FUCKING ROCK! Take it back to medical! It hasn't learned to co-operate-"

"D-d-d-ddda-a-a-A-d..."

Connor?

No, no, no,

"Stop it, stop, make it s-s-t-op-"

Oh, stars,

You-

You're alright, you'll be alright, just,

please, stay with us,

"Dad..."

"It's okay." A wide, soft hand brushes against his face. "It's okay."

He feels

the grass under his hands

and the wind in the trees

and the light of a swirling, cerise sky.

"Hey there." Dark diamond eyes gaze tiredly down at him, and there's a near desperation in Az's smile. "You alright?"

"What-" One last clicking gasp flies out of Connor's chest. "What happened?"

"It was rigged." He's never seen Az look so stern like that (not to him). "Our old buddy Crimson Zirconia left you a big chunk of data. His data. His memories."

"It was-" Connor's hands twitch with a violent shiver. "It was so cold..."

"You-" Az looks to the side. "His life had shaped him beyond recognition. He was always afraid. Afraid of the past, present, and future. Sharing this with you..." A shuddering, resigned sigh. "I guess he did think he was doing you a favor."

"Some favor," Connor manages to wheeze out.

Az looks back at the scattered mess. "I cleared out alot of the stuff myself after you went down. If there were any more surprises, I didn't want you to get hit with them. Most of it was fine. Clothes, a spare knife or dozen... a sniper rifle, for some reason. Songs knows why. There's a motorbike?" He stares off at some unseen memory. "I think he made that one, actually. I remember he was pretty proud of it."

Connor sits up, leaning his back against the tree of Lion's mane. "And the others?"

A tense line warps Az's smile. "There was some stuff I think you... stole, from that place you came from. I put it all in my gem. Gonna have to get that destroyed, it's not safe for a Gem to even be around some of that stuff."

And Az put it all in his gem. "Are you gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine," Az wearily smiles. "Are you okay? You got the highlights reel, but it's still five years of-" His head snaps back towards the box, throwing an arm in front of Connor. "Get back."

"Wh-"

"There's a Gem inside there, get back! "

They scramble back behind the nearest totem rock, watching with a morbid fascination as some clustered Gem starts to rise with light. He'd never seen a clustered Gem before, but he's heard of them. Unpredictable, violent things.

...This isn't a clustered Gem. It's...

...It's a Jasper.

Shoulder length hair, half tied back. A tunic shirt the same kind of wine red as his sleeveless shirt, tied by a belt just as dark purple as his own. Loose, white cuffed pants the same black as his own.

Broad, staggered stripes converging on the cut off sleeve of her left shoulder, on the welded sunrise of her gem.

She sways on her newly formed perch, swiftly sinking into a kneeling bow as she leans to face Connor.

"My Diamond," Sunrise Jasper's song shakes, "Give me an enemy upon which to release your fury."

Chapter Text

He says he has to go. He has a mission with Asteria Diamond.

Sunrise Jasper cannot come with him.

He'd never said that before. He'd never left her behind before. They'd always gone together. They were always supposed to go together-

It doesn't matter. She will do as he says. She will do as he has made her.

"Sunrise."

"My Diamond?"

His song has gotten stronger, as of late. It has lost its waver. (She hadn't realized how beautiful it was, under all those scars.)

"Would you do something for me?" 

"Anything."

" ...Anything?" He repeats.

"Always."

He pauses. "Sunrise." An unreadable smile passes over his face. (He rarely ever smiles.) "My blinding, beautiful Sunrise."

(He had never once called her beautiful. He had never once called her my.)

"Would you do this for me?" He asks once more, gently taking her hands, as if she could have ever found it in herself to refuse her maker. "Just this one last thing?"

"My will is yours forever."

"...Sunrise."

"My Diamond?"

The rising shine of his gem as he summons his sword casts a shadow across his smile.

"Close your eyes."

Chapter Text

She does not know this place. This endless field under a swirling cerise sky.

She knows Asteria Diamond, warily standing before her. Her mind knows him a tentative ally. A powerful unknown. Her Diamond had feared him, once.

Her Diamond.

=<>=

"Gems," Connor's song wavers. "I sent myself a Gem."

"Sunrise Jasper," Az whispers with a disbelief.

"I don't- you know her?"

Red eyes widen with a mounting sort of horror. "You know me," Sunrise shakily insists.

"I'm sorry, I-"

She suddenly stalks towards Az himself. "What have you done? " She growls accusingly. "Where is my Diamond?"

"He-" Az's eyes briefly flicker back to Connor. "He is your Diamond."

"No!" Her shoulder length hair tousles disgracefully with her denial. "Where's MY Diamond? What did you do? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HIM? "

"I-" there's an unsteady twitch entering Az's eyes now. "I-"

"You promised him," Sunrise hisses as she takes Az by the shoulders. "You said you wouldn't ever use the Hourglass like that again as long as he lived-"

"He's gone," Az's song breaks.

Sunrise's hold loosens with shock.

"He died." There's a hollow ring in his song, a hollow set in his eyes. "There was nothing I could do, I-" A discordant click shifts Az's words, his song flat with a memory no longer his own. "He knew it was coming. He asked me- he asked me to make sure it never happened. So I stole him. I stole him away, five years too early, and destroyed that time so they never could have existed. And when I brought him here, I destroyed myself to ensure what I'd done."

...Connor remembers this. He remembers a different Asteria Diamond, one who'd held out his hand to point Connor to Az, before breaking something in his hands and falling to the sands of time.

"...He's gone," Sunrise repeats.

"I'm sorry," Az hazily replies.

Shit.

Fuck, the time memories. He can't keep talking about this.

"Az," Connor slowly starts, "maybe you should step out for a bit."

"I-"

"I'll take it from here," Connor insists. "I think- I think it'd be better if I dealt with this, okay?"

"...Okay."

Az gracelessly staggers away, disappearing into the grass of Lion's mane, sparing one last look between them. Be careful.

Connor steels himself with one last breath. Time to be Steven.

"That was kind of scary, wasn't it? It was for me, kind of." He dares to take a step forward, and Sunrise dares to not step back. "I'm Connor, but I guess you already knew that, huh?"

"I-" A tenseness rakes through her form. "-Prove it."

He steps back. "What do you-"

"PROVE IT!" She drags her foot in front of herself and digs it into the ground. "If you wanna act like you're still my Diamond, then beat me and prove it! "

"Hold on!" He holds his hands up. "We don't have to-"

His song cuts into an aborted shout as she charges at her, just barely cloaking his arms with his aura in time to tank the blow.

"Please, listen!" He tries to say anyway. "You don't have to do this! We can just talk-"

Her hand lurches for his Gem. "MAKE ME!"

Alright, enough of this.

She's strong, and fast, but she does not have a Diamond's speed. It's barely a blink to her eyes before she's on the ground, and Connor kneels over her, his sword sunk into the ground next to her neck.

Right above the gem on her shoulder.

"Please," his song almost begs, "I don't want to hurt you. I just want to help."

She blinks. 

"...Help me?" Red eyes burn with rage, claws indignantly digging into the grass. "Help me? "

He moves back, but not in time.

"You made me!" she kicks into his chest. "Of YOU! FOR YOU!"

She stands over him, now.

=<>=

"And then you died," her song breaks.

He falls back down to the ground, barely propped up by his own arms, an honest to stars open shock on his face.

"You died," her song breaks again. A broken record, a broken Gem. "You left me and you died. And now," some despairing laugh bubbles out of her throat, "you're not even you anymore."

He stands, eventually. She attacked him, she knows. She lost, easily, for a moment. If he strikes again, she'll lose for good.

She tenses, waiting for whatever blow is coming...

...but it never does.

Just a stilted, soft embrace. (He was never taller than her, before.)

"My Sunrise," a Diamond's song whispers with some long forgotten grief. "I'm so, so sorry."

"You're not him," her song wavers as her head buries into his shoulder. "You're not him."

"I know." A large hand still gently cards through her hair, nonetheless. "But I'm still your Diamond."

"He's gone."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I know. But I'm still sorry."

"Don't," she whispers, "Don't."

"Someone has to," he whispers back.

Sunrise Jasper sinks down on her knees and cries.

Her Diamond does nothing more or less than kneel down with her, a soft hand against her head and a steady tide of song anchored against her tears until they finally subside.

Chapter Text

FACET FILE

FACET NUMBER: Sunrise Jasper Facet-CD1 Cluster-01

ASSIGNMENT: Currently deployed in extant special task force 9RA-C under Crimson Carbide Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1.

COURT: [COURT PREFIX REDACTED] Cerise

RESIDENCE: Terra, Little Homeworld, Caercagna

AEGIS: [FACET NUMBER REDACTED. DIAMOND GRANT CLEARANCE REQUIRED. PLACEHOLDER FACET NUMBER PROVIDED.] Crimson Carbide Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1

HABIT: Exceptional competency of a clustered gem. Full lapidary evaluation pending.

CLOUDING: Clustered gem. Evaluation pending.

ACCOMODATIONS: Currently listed as a minor. A minor cannot take solo missions of any kind, or be assigned as active combatant. All military roles must be support or defensive only.

Chapter Text

"Hello... you." Loki squints with a puzzlement he will later refuse to admit. "I was told I would find a Larimar here."

"Oh, yes." Black squinting eyes curl with a morbidly jagged smile. "I am little Larimar. You are the jotunn child, yes?"

"I-" am not a child. But, Loki concedes after a thought, many of the Gems here elder even the Allfather in age. To their perspective, he would be a child. "Yes, I suppose so. I am Loki."

Larimar's song rattles like metal and crickets. "Yes, yes. Her Radiance has told me about you. You are in need of an instructor."

"Unfortunately, yes. I was..." lied to as a child. "...never correctly taught to cope with my ice related powers, and they manifested late."

"A good time of year to start." Larimar's boots pat at the snow covered ground. "Plenty of materials, and we will not disrupt the natural climate."

"I see." He looks down at the child-sized Gem. "How did you come to learn of such magic, anyways?"

"It is the natural gift of my caste," Larimar cheerfully explains, "and I was an ice sculptor, in the old Eras."

"You can make sculpture with ice?"

"Oh, yes!" Larimar gestures in a pawing motion above the ground, willing the snow beneath to form a small castle. "Water is an excellent element. Changing, flowing, like it is alive. Ice is to make the change a tangible, weighted force that can be used for many things."

"I imagine it must have much use in combat," Loki grimly concedes.

"The ice is not here to destroy," Larimar gently corrects. "Only to change. It can carve valleys. Change rivers. Rise seas. Shift the tide of war." The snow thins into a fragile, latticed tower of crystal. "Or it can be a vessel for something beautiful, if you let it."

You are not here to destroy. You could choose to be something beautiful.

"Alright," Loki hesitantly asks, "where can I start?"

Chapter Text

A new Gem has returned with Carbide's entourage.

One of those "Quartz" types, Thor wagers. She's just as tall as Thor himself, and maybe a measure more muscled. Vivid red eyes peer under shoulder-length white hair half braided back, set against marbled stripes of skin- red, orange, and gold- seemingly converging to the welded sunrise of the gem on her left shoulder. A white cloak rests on her other shoulder, its jagged cut dappled with pink diamonds along its edge, its inner fabric a rich cerise.

"Odinson," Crimson Carbide begins without preamble, gathering the new Gem close, "this is Sunrise Jasper. I made her. By your words, you may think of her as my daughter."

"Ah. Who might the mother be?"

"I am."

"My mistake. The father?"

"I am."

"Ah. I see." Thor did not, in fact, understand at all.

"Yes," Carbide goes on. "This is my daughter, who I love very much." They smile serenely. "Touch her and I will skin you alive. Good? Good."

Sunrise Jasper looks aside with a rising blush.

"I will endeavor to avoid it, then," Thor diplomatically answers.

"Good." Crimson Carbide absentmindedly pats Thor's neck. "Have a nice morning."

With that lovely announcement finished, the Gem walks away with their daughter's hand.

"Alright, is no one else going to say it?" Fandral pipes up. "That smile was the most terrifying thing they've worn the entire time they've been here."

Chapter Text

The little Diamond had explained that his Sunrise Jasper was... new, and to have a measure of patience for her. She does not yet know the world.

Even still, the sudden appearance of red eyes beside her prompts a startle out of a Euhedral Riband Jasper.

"What are you doing?" Sunrise near interrogates. (She has yet to learn politeness or respect to anyone except the little Diamond. She'll need to learn it.)

Riband looks down at her hefty block of wood. "I am carving the wood into a shape." Carnelian's shape, but this Sunrise does not need to know that.

"What is it for?"

"I will place it in my forest the next time we return." Riband gestures to the hollow mouth. "The sound it generates will keep trespassers away, and the image will frighten them."

Sunrise squints at the worn material. "It will not last."

"Yes. The wear of the elements will change its structure and sound until it falls apart entirely."

"That sounds..." Sunrise trails off. "...futile. You will have to replace them many times. Why would you do that?"

"I do not make them to last." Riband carves an eye into the jaw of the totem. "They are subjected to the cycle of the forest, and their inevitable downfall will nourish the soil. In this sense, you could think of them as alive. They are testaments to the passage of time."

Claws gouge patterned stripes onto a curling, fanned tail.

"We may be unweathered, but the worlds we live in are not. Change comes for us all. Always respect that."

"Oh." Sunrise looks sober for a moment.

(Perhaps Riband had been harsh. Her Diamond had noted that her blunt character could grate on others.)

But then Sunrise shakes a large stick in front of Riband's face.

"Teach me."

Chapter Text

FACET FILE

HIS UMBRANCE, SUNROSE DIAMOND, SON OF THE THORN, SONG OF SWORDS, SHADOW OF STARS, SUNEATER

FACET NUMBER: AETERNA- Sunrose Diamond Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1 [Paragon Diamond Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1A] [Integrated Matrix Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1B]

COURT: Sunrose Cerise

RESIDENCE: Terra, Little Homeworld, Caercagna

DIAMOND GRANT ACCESS.

[REDACTED FACET NUMBER- Crimson Carbide Facet-AD1 Pavillion-1.]

[REDACTION LIFTED ON NEED-TO-KNOW BASIS ONLY, AT THE SOLE DISRECTION OF HIS UMBRANCE, SUNROSE DIAMOND.]

Chapter Text

Despite what evidence may suggest, Lars has not been staying at Steven's house. They've barely even dated, after all.

Besides, the Off Colors have their own house, and far be it from him to leave his crew hanging.

It's spacious, but filled- that's how it is with seven occupants (not even counting the fusions) and an absurdly leisured schedule. While Lars has been daylighting at Spacetries (and moonlighting being a little less of a coward), the gang has been touring settlements, taking classes at Little Homeschool, and generally approaching some Gem standard of cultured. Let it never be said the Off Colors are idle.

But today they're off attending some lecture about types of fusion, so Lars is home alone until the exact moment he opens the door and Steven is unexpectedly there.

"Lieutenant."

"St- Vendan?" Lars barely stops the wayward Diamond from simply meandering into the house, briefly puffing the snow off his body like a dog before getting in. "Were you walking around fronted like that?"

"Brother is being obtuse," Vendan flatly speaks through Steven's mouth.

"What are you-"

There's a blatant shiver of light before Steven quite literally falls apart in front of Lars, leaving behind two uncannily similar figures huddled tiredly together.

Sten is... creepily familiar, a dead color ringer for Lars himself, and Vendan's vibrant eyes stare balefully from freckled porcelain skin.

"He's exaggerating," Sten's high tenor rings. 

"Hmm." Lars can't quite suppress a shiver at the idle hum- now he knows where the basal power of Steven's song comes from. "Unruly as ever, brother."

"Are you- are you guys okay? I thought you couldn't unfuse without-"

"Dying?" Sten blithely finishes. "True, it used to be like that, but not anymore. My aeterna is free to betray me as he pleases now," his vibrato practically whines as he slumps against his brother.

"I refuse to enable you," Vendan gently insists, as if he were scolding a child.

It's weird to watch. Sten and Vendan are somewhere in between an old married couple and the kind of oddly synchronized twin that only exists on TV, leaving Lars as some kind of Schrodinger's third wheel just by proxy.

"Not that it isn't... nice, to see you guys," A bit more than nice, but Lars doesn't have time to unpack all that, "but why are you here?"

"Brother is cruel and unyielding and wants to leave me."

"Sten is refusing to sleep." Vendan's perpetually wide-eyed impassiveness almost looks annoyed, but a fond hand (unmarked- did Steven's tattoos split between them?) still run's through Sten's hair. "We need to review the electoral Gem candidates for the asylum colony Mar-Vell-"

"We can't- can't just sleep on the job, y'know," Sten stutters.

"And yet your exhaustion impedes my mental faculties even now." Vendan's face may not look particularly tired, but his song has a weary edge to it.

"Does this kind of thing happen often?" Lars hesitantly asks.

"Oh, not at all," Sten serenely half-slurs. Or maybe that was just his song- it had an oddly zen edge to it.

"A rare but frustrating  occurrence." 

Vendan leans over- and over and over, until one hand hovers over Lars' chest and their faces are practically an inch apart. (Lars is standing perfectly fine. He is definitely not red faced, and he is not backed up against the wall like it's the only reason he's still standing and you cannot prove this in a court of law.)

"We're going to sit down," Vendan whispers.

"Ooookay."

With that lovely testament to human personal space, Vendan promptly scruffs Sten by his shirt collar and drags him over to the couch with surprisingly little resistance, pulling his brother to his chest with a rough chuffing sound.

"Rude," Sten tiredly grumbles. Dark eyes hazily look back in Lars' direction. "Si' down, 's your couch."

Lars sits a little less close then he probably could. He's... sort of met the two before, but not unfused. Not like this.

"The house was too quiet," Vendan mutters to Lars' unspoken question.

"What about Connie?"

"C'nnie's got school," Sten slowly manages. "We can't..." His eyes drift shut.

"We won't disturb her. And it's..." 

Vendan blinks. His hand reaches, hesitant but gentle over Lars' hair. (The distant pulsing thrum of light hums through his palms.)

"...you're safe. That's all."

Oh.

"Well," Lars awkwardly blusters, "feel free to fall apart on my doorstep any time."

Impassively wide eyes soften for just a moment. An idle purr pitches with the barest trill, and it's almost like a smile.

Chapter Text

Almost Home

Are you going back home for your christmas

your home, i mean

i was going to but

patti

Hmm

Then where will you stay? connie said you can't

stay in the dorms over break

i know kahaani staying with parents

but for me i think bad to also stay

and they will feel sorry for me

they are also hurt from patti when they are young

be awkward

you could stay with us

steven is very nice but also his house very crowded

don't know if i can handle right now

no i mean

me

i have my own house

is that okay?

i don't want to take over your house when you not there

i'll be home

ah

besides

we're married

you can always

you're always welcome in my house

really?

besides, you've never been to my house before

i've never really had anyone over other than az

it

it might be nice, y'know?

yeah

yeah! is there anything i should pack?

idk, more snacks probably

cupboard's probably empty, we can get stuff together later

hey

thank you

My adma, you're always welcome.

Chapter Text

"I don't know if it's rude for me to ask, Doctor," the Diamond leans just slightly, "but I was wondering- is Happy his actual name?"

"Who, Mr. Forehead of Security back there?" Tony can't help but snort just a little at the thought. "I'm almost tempted to say yes, but no. I'm just a serial nicknamer, Stardust." He pats at a weirdly solid shoulder. "And you can lay off the doc talk, alright? If I can waltz around calling you every cosmic name under the sun, I think we're at a first name basis, here."

They blink slowly and smile. "Alright then, Anthony."

Wow, holy fuck, that's an emotion. "That's even worse, somehow," he manages to wheeze.

"If you say so, Anthony." A teasing tilt enters their smile. "You know... since you've been so kind with this tour, how about I give you a tour of my own?"

"You dragging me off to space again, Kirby? Careful, now. If SHIELD thinks I like you too much, they'll stop giving me excuses to spy on you."

"This one's a little more down to earth."

=<>=

"Oh, John Hammond's got to be rolling in his non-existent grave right now," Tony whispers.

"There's a human joke I'm missing, isn't there?" Asteria asks.

"You have no idea, Freckles."

Because lo and behold, Tony's just walked into some sort of weird hybrid of Jurassic Park and Journey To The Center Of The Earth. Gems and their drones crawl all over the sprawling, geyser pocked caves all lined with mountains of amber- like bees to a morbid hive. Burly laboring types claw at rock with literal pickaxes for hands, chipping at amber that's filled with-

"Is that a T. Rex? " He half wheezes.

"And still alive, if you can believe it!" A new voice shouts.

A soft-framed lavender Gem bounds barefooted into view, mottled tail practically trashing with excitement. The teardrop gemstone where a human right ear would be gleams a rich purple in spite of the distant sunglow of amber that permeates the mine, framed by humble horns and half-shaved hair.

"Iolite." The Diamond politely tips their white rider's hat (Tony should ask about the horns on it sometime). "What have you got for me?"

"We got 29 dinosaur specimens catalogued, 11 eggs, and, uh-" Iolite scratches at the ragged spikes along her shoulders. "Ay, Snowflake!"

A dark, burly, lion-maned Gem turns away from her icing work. "Yeah?"

"How many pterosaurs did ya nab down there in Branch 9?"

"One big mama and five lil' pebbles to go 'long with it!"

Iolite turns back to Asteria. "That! And the team Sapphire says there's a few more deeper down!"

"Sorry, can I backtrack a sec?" Tony cuts in. "You said these guys are still alive? "

Iolite's song giggles just a touch madly. "I know, right? Whole setup's more jacked than a Crazy Lace on sungold ambrosia!" She leans against the titular T-Rex slab of amber. "Take a look for yourself."

A bit of the creature's massive claw sticks out of the melted amber... and twitches.

"Holy fuck," Tony chokes out with a startled laugh. "How? How are these guys still alive?"

"It's the amber," Asteria sidles back in to the conversation, "from the redwoods up topside. Some property of it kept these plant and animal specimens alive in a suspended animation state for over 60 myrs. I'm trying to get samples harvested for medical research. If we can get it right, this would offer leaps and bounds for Jet medicine." A sober look crosses their face. "Songs knows how many organics die simply because they ran out of time to be treated."

Don't waste your life, a dead voice in an Afghanistan cave croaks.

"Yeah," Tony whispers hollowly, "who knows."

Yikes. That's enough emotions for the next year. He coughs awkwardly, tapping at the phantom tightness lingering on the reactor along his chest. "How has this knock-off pancake sauce been keeping the chickens alive, anyway?"

"Doctor Pines was positing that the donor trees have some sort of temporal distortion properties acquired from the inherent dimensional weakness of the area."

"Doc Sixer can fuck off with his voodoo science until he comes back with his thesis," Tony groans. "Let me have a few more months to say goodbye to normal, non-fucked science before he breaks it for the next twenty years."

"That's not what you said when he showed you his quantum destabilizer, Anthony."

"You're lucky I didn't tell SHIELD about that," Tony snarks forcelessly. "They would have snatched that guy years ago if they had a hint of him." He pauses to watch a geyser go off, and some hapless Peridot to fly off harmlessly in the jetstream. "Speaking of snatching, how'd you even get the permission for this dig, anyway?"

"I do own the entire planet, y'know," Asteria reminds with a raised eyebrow. "I don't actually need anyone's permission. The local authorities are properly notified, though."

"They didn't put up a fight?"

"I'm taking a future ecological disaster off their hands. These guys are gonna wreak havoc on the modern ecosystem if they get loose on their own, the locals were practically eager to let someone else take care of it."

"Oh, don't tell me you're gonna have to put down all these dinos," Tony half despairs with a longing look in a velociraptor's direction.

"Stars, no," Asteria gasps all scandalized. "That would be beyond cruel, in this case. We're transferring them off to proper storage until we can... modify them, so that we can safely release them elsewhere under the Empire's care without damaging local life. Took one out as a guinea pig for the process, it's got promising results."

Tony stops with a brief silence.

"Don't tell me you've got a magic space dinosaur running around somewhere."

"Alright, Anthony," they smile, "I guess I won't."

"Don't walk away, you can't tease a man like that-"

Chapter Text

"It looks like the little prince has made a friend," Volstagg laughs.

The 'friend' in question was a humble bird flitting idly around Crimson Carbide's shoulders.

"This thing has been following me for the last ten minutes," Carbide drawls, a sharp claw flippantly pointed at the arc of the flying creature. "I think it might be a spy."

"It's only a bird," Sif insists.

"A bird that could be a spy."

Thor idly remembers that Gems are shapeshifters, and suddenly the complaint makes a bit more sense. "It would be a poor shape for a spy to take, in this climate." Snow continues to fall around them. "More likely that it's simply seeking you out for warmth. You do run higher than any of us do, after all."

The Gem hums in response. "That makes sense. As long as it's just the one, I guess I don't have to mind."

But the bird simply did not leave, and with every passing dive the twitch in Carbide's eyes grew stronger until they gave up all sense of restraint and simply plucked the creature out of the air with their bare hand.

Gem eyes meet tiny bird eyes for a moment.

Carbide gently tosses the bird against the ground, and it hops away.

And then the bird came back with two more of it's like.

Over the next hour, five more such tiny white birds began to flock around Carbide. Not even the tall Jasper was safe- the two statuesque Gems were beacons of warmth to the poor flock of wintered creatures.

Despite both their impressive (and unsettlingly successful) efforts to snatch the winged things out of the air, the tiny things kept coming back. Some of the birds seemed to enjoy being tossed to the ground, against all good reason.

Eventually, Sunrise barges through the flock with a disproportionately vicious and rattling hiss.

"Leave him alone!"

Carbide raises a weary hand. "There's no need to-"

Sunrise kicks up snow swipes about with her claws. "HASN'T HE SUFFERED ENOUGH!" she growls.

"My, please-"

=<>=

Eventually, Crimson Carbide snaps.

"FINE!" They harshly stomp on the ground, leaving a literal flaming crater of cerise fire in their footstep. "Song's mercy. Are you happy now?"

The birds immediately fly away from Carbide and Jasper, flocking in a closely cuddled pile next to the improvised fire pit laid conveniently next to a tree.

Crimson Carbide pulls their black rider's hat over their head and harshly chuffs as they walk away.

Thor only laughs a little bit.

Chapter Text

Thor didn't talk much when they were in Jotunheim. He'd spoken a few words with the king and that had been all. Ice jotunn circled around their caravan until they crossed into the mountain ranges of the air jotunn. It was there, nestled among thin air and high stone peaks, that Thor dared to speak again.

"Where do you go, when we are on leave?"

"I go back to Earths' Gem capital. Little Homeworld. I have a house there- Caercagna." Connor spares an affectionate gesture for Sunrise's face. (Maybe one day she'll be less surprised to be loved.) "It's being expanded to accommodate the growth of my court while I'm gone. I'll have to return again soon."

"Is it nearby His Radiance's home?"

Connor leans back against Wolf. "Asteria Diamond does not live in the capital. The Obsidian Temple is by the shore, a small distance from there, accessible by warp. That's his house."

"Does Loki live there?" Thor asks quietly.

Ah. There you are, prince. Connor straightens with a blink. "He has a room there, yeah. Why?"

"I- well. It might be a bit much for me to ask, but I wondered how he fared."

All these months, and now he decides to care.

They live long lives, Thorn. I would have expected him to ask later.

I suppose we have been busy.

"Locks is alright, I think." Connor tears into his bread, sparing a piece for Sunrise's curious glance. "Had to teach him reading and writing to Gem standard, basic house chores." He squints a little disbelievingly. "Is it true you royals have people paid to look after all your house stuff for you? Kid didn't even know how to make his own bed."

Thor leans back all horrified like Connor's the weird one here. "You have him do servant's work?"

"We don't have servants, little prince. Never did. Even the Pearls and Pebbles didn't do things for Gems back in the old Eras. Don't matter the cut, everyone's got to look out for their own rock."

"I see." That cuts out whatever rising righteous anger Thor was building, leaving the prince with a bemused blink. "I suppose that makes sense, given what I've heard."

Connor claps Thor's shoulder. It's like gently tapping a rock- different than the hum of a Gem's form, or the give of human flesh. "Don't worry about it. His Radiance pretty much docked Loki as his new kid when the Allfather dropped him. Whatever's happening to him, it's the opposite of oppressed."

"Oh."

Thor balefully curls in under his cape in a way that makes Connor want to pull his own cloak in a little tighter.

Like a kicked puppy,

Well don't say it twice, Con.

"I'll be going back to Caercagna in two weeks," Connor casually remarks. "By then, the house will be big enough for all of mine and whatever guests I like."

"I thought Asgardian traffic in Midgard required His Radiance's permission."

"I am your permission." Connor doesn't quite smile, but his pensive stare gets a little less harsh. "It wouldn't be weird if I brought a war buddy back with me, and I can set you up if you want."

Thor lets out a weary laugh. "I'm not sure he'd even want to see me."

"You can still try. And if it doesn't work out, you can still visit those human friends we were talking about. We've got warps all over the planet."

"...Why would you do this for me?"

It's not even a suspicion. Just an honest-to-songs confusion as to why Connor would dare to help at all. 

Who hurt you, little prince?

I think we already know the answer to that.

"We're friends," Connor gently explains. "I'd like us to be friends, at least. Is it really so hard to help a friend?"

"I..." Something fragile forms in Thor's words. "...I suppose not. Thank you, Crimson Carbide."

"Connor."

Thor turns back to him, confused.

"My name is Connor. That's what my friends call me."

"...Then I'm glad to be one of them, Connor."

Chapter Text

Adya has been to Steven's house before. She'd seen that sprawling Obsidian Temple and its molten marbled veins as far back as the wedding, and she'd gotten to see the humbler but equally disorienting interior this last Thanksgiving.

Connor's is not like that.

It's smaller, for one- at least on the outside. Where the Obsidian Temple was the titanic image of some godly figure, Caercagna was the stout stone form of a wolf, sat at attention. The house next to it was built less tall than the beach house as well.

But the interior was still this sprawling thing. The kitchen, living room, and dining area were all haphazardly fused together in the open space as the earthly sections of the house gave way to a stone wall with a single door. Connor pauses briefly to dock a childish carving of a wolf along a wall shelf.

There's also a wall of knives. And swords. She doesn't know why that surprises her.

"That's the rooms," Connor gestures to the door. "And up there," he points to the staircase, "is my, uh- office. It's up in Caercagna's head, so if you're outside and you see the wolf's eyes looking kinda weird, that's where I am."

Wolf lumbers up the staircase and plops himself on the giant dog bed set out near the office door, looking down on them while he idly thumps his tail on the floor.

"Can we go to the rooms so I can put down my things?"

"Right, yeah." Connor dangles a chain necklace into her hand, or something like it. It's pendant is a red diamond shape, engraved to look like a wolf's head. "Gem tech can't be activated by organics on their own, so this is basically your room key."

Even still, it's Connor who opens the door. His gem glows, just barely, and the door burns away like fire.

Once more, there's a few swords mounted on one of the walls, but the walls themselves were a whole other beast. Images of wolves and dragons crawl and carve around the space amidst creeping scrolls of gemglyph.

Connor looks around with a shy sort of laugh. "I was... stressed out, one day. Took it out on the walls." He slides open a mostly empty closet. "I keep most of my stuff in my gem, so you can use this to keep your stuff."

Wait. She squints at the round, soft, low set bed on the floor, and the red quilt folded neatly on top of it. "Is this your room?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sleeping in your room."

"...Yeah?"

"But..." she sputters uselessly for a moment. "...there's only one bed."

"Well, yeah." Connor blinks. "I don't need to sleep that much, and even when I do, it's not for very long. You wouldn't be taking out from my sleep," he assures, as if that's what Adya was worried about.

"But what if I'm sleeping and you need to sleep?"

"I can just wait?"

But what if you can't wait? " Adya presses.

"Then we can just sleep together?" Connor responds confusedly.

"YOU-" Adya can practically feel her face catch on fire. "-have a point, I guess, that's probably fine."

Just. Sleep with her best friend. Who is also her wife.

Together.

Where there is only one bed.

This is fine.

This is fine.

(I'm going to die by New Year's, aren't I?)

Chapter Text

Someone opens the shower curtain.

"Hey-"

Adya screams at the blurry shape.

"Adya," Connor flatly cuts in, "Adya do you-" 

"DON'T LOOK AT ME!"

"Stop screaming," he blankly shoulders on, "it's me." One hand still curls on the curtain. "I'm going to the bonemarket and they have a pasta printer. Do you want pasta?"

Oh my god, he can see everything.

"Yeah," she squeaks, "that's fine."

"Okay." He seems to squint for a moment. "You okay? You're looking kind of red."

"I'm fine."

"Alright."

With that, he lets go of the shower curtain and walks off like nothing happened.

Adya takes a moment to lean on the shower wall.

"He saw everything," she wheezes into her hands.

Chapter Text

Adya may be legally blind, but she isn't blind.

She isn't totally lost when it comes to Gems. She'd had Gem friends back in India, and Cinna and Moonstone had wormed their way into her life whether she liked it or not. Compared to a normal human, Adya knows quite a lot about Gems.

Connor isn't like other Gems.

He is tall and strong and willful in a way other Gems are not. His song does not ring the same as theirs. It is deeper, richer, despite the impassive note it often takes.

He said he was a soldier and a smith. But he is a soldier and smith that leads campaigns. Is tasked with diplomacy. Plays host to people like Thor, and is trusted with people like Loki.

...Gems don't talk about the Diamonds very much. Not to humans. Not to outsiders. And Adya does not want to presume because however little she knows about the Diamonds, she knows that they lie somewhere between cherished mothers and exalted gods, and Adya isn't too keen on finding out just how sacrilegious it might be to flat out accuse Connor of being one.

But Connor is her friend, and a terrible liar.

"What are you to the Diamonds?" She isn't asking it in English, and maybe he can tell, the way he tilts his head at the sound of her voice. As much as she wants to keep up her practice, she can't afford to be anything less than completely clear, so her Tamil crawls down her throat like an old friend. "I know you're important to Steven, but how?"

"I-"

"If it's something you aren't allowed to talk about, that's okay. It's just..." Adya runs a hand over her braid. "You know so much about me, but I barely know anything about you. I know you, but I don't really know who you are."

Connor doesn't say anything, not at first. His claws curl around the strings of his guitar and Adya almost wants to drop the conversation entirely-

"I wasn't supposed to exist."

"...What do you mean?"

"There were only supposed to be four Diamonds," Connor's song shakes. "I wasn't supposed to exist, I- I was supposed to be him." I was supposed to be Steven. "It's not his fault," he bites with a sudden conviction. "He didn't know- I didn't know. I'm just... a cast shadow, that's all."

"You're a Diamond," Adya whispers.

"Not Diamond Authority," Connor sullenly sings on. "I'm- I'm really, really young by Diamond standards. I've barely hit two decades while they've got their billions in backlogs, and I-"

His claws flex as he looks away.

"When a Gem is made," Connor flatly recites, as if speaking someone else's words, "it's for a reason. They are born with the skill and purpose they need to be a full-fledged Gem. But I wasn't made like that, I was born with nothing. I had to learn everything from scratch, I'm still learning everything from scratch. I'm just barely starting to build court, but it'll be a long, long time before I can sit the throne."

"So you've been passing yourself off as a Crimson Carbide."

"There's no such Gem type. I'm the only one that uses that name. Az gave it to me as a public placeholder until I'm ready." His song trails off to a murmur. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"Why didn't you?" she gently asks.

"...The humans are afraid," Connor whispers. "They're always so afraid, and I- I didn't want you to be scared of me."

Is she afraid?

Here, of Connor, curled up in his seat, half hugging a guitar like it could take him far away from this place, like he's the one that's really scared?

Is she afraid?

...

"What's your name?"

A surprised chirp cuts past whatever threat of tears was starting to show on his face. "What?"

"Crimson Carbide's not your name, so... what's your name?"

"Sunrose," sings the smallest song Adya's ever heard from Connor. "Sunrose Diamond."

"It's a very beautiful name. But," she shyly dares to smile, "I think I still like Connor more, you know?"

"Yeah." There's a ghost of a glow on his face, fading into the shyness of his smile. "I think I do, too."

Chapter Text

Even knowing of Loki's true form, having seen it with his own eyes, Thor still has to take a moment before he recognizes the odd barefooted jotunn as the very same person he grew up with. Loki recognizes Thor far more quickly, faltering with the misty fog of his magic and accidentally coating the stage he was standing on in a thin layer of frost.

"I'm sorry, Director," Loki nervously apologizes.

"I told you, you can call me Jaime. It's no big deal," a willowy olive skinned human with hard-set legs quickly reassures with a wave of his hand. The human even squints appreciatively at the new coating along the wood. "This is a pretty neat visual effect, actually." He cranes his thin neck to the back of the stage. "Can we get a few Gems over here?" Jaime turns back to Loki and soothingly pats his shoulder. "Take a break for a bit while we test the stage ice. We might be able to use this for prop moving and stage effects. I'll call you up if we need a refresher and we'll have some Rubies clean it up afterward."

"Alright."

With that Loki silently gestures to one of the front row seats, and Thor can take the hint well enough.

"I never knew you to have a passion for theatre," Thor awkwardly starts.

"I never knew you to be able to tie your own hair back, Your Majesty," Loki easily replies.

Thor uneasily runs through his loose ponytail. "Brother, please. You can call me by my name."

"I am not your brother." Despite his words, there is no cruelty in Loki's voice, no anger on his face- only a grim melancholy that isn't even unkind.

Thor isn't sure if this hurts less or more than any betrayed accusation Loki ever could have rendered.

"We were still raised together," Thor tries to insist, "even if not by blood."

"Together," Loki concedes. "But not as brothers. From the moment you met me to the moment he sold me, I was never meant to be your equal, Thor."

"I know," Thor shamefully admits. "I know that now. But I loved you as a brother, nonetheless."

"Do they even know?" Loki whispers. "Do they even know what happened to me?"

Thor's heart sinks, just slightly. "I..." He leans back into his seat, watching a Pearl glide along the ice on the stage. "...I told Baldur."

"Baldur would have had no words for you," Loki points out. "Not since he fell into his sleep."

"He still hears us, I think. He deserved to know, and... I visited him often, after you fell. His company was a comfort, even if it was a hollow one."

"And the others?" Loki quietly continues.

"Hodur heard about Father's actions through word of mouth, but... Vidarr and Vali are still out viking elsewhere with the Einherjar. I'm not sure they ever even found out about your disappearance when you fell from the Bifrost."

"F- the Allfather never bothered to tell them that their brother was a lie?"

"You know that Father does not keep their council," Thor wavers gently. "I'll have to tell them myself when we next cross paths."

"You don't have to do that to yourself."

"Someone has to. Someone has to tell them."

"...Would you visit Baldur for me?"

"Of course."

Chapter Text

Gems are apparently more immune to the elements than Loki estimated. It is snowing in winter on a sunny day, and the Diamond has elected to fall asleep on the porch chair outside, entirely unbothered by the elements.

The Jasper's footsteps are more silent than her size would presume as she stalks silently up the wooden stairs. He's not particularly surprised to see her- she was one of Her Radiance's own Gems, as far as he understood.

And then the Jasper picked her sleeping Diamond up into her arms and started walking away.

"Amethyst?" Loki calls into the house.

"Yeah?"

"A Jasper seems to be kidnapping Her Radiance."

A brief pause. "Is it the big one with the horns?"

"Yes, and the green scars."

"That's fine," Amethyst says after a moment.

"Where is she even going?" Loki asks.

Amethyst simply shrugs.

"You're really letting her just..." Loki vaguely gestures at the now empty seat. "...abscond with the royalty?"

"She'll give him back in a few days, it's fine."

"What do you mean, a few days-"

Chapter Text

Lars always knows where Steven is. It's something he knows he knows, now that he's been staying on Earth. He won't dare call it a Sixth Sense like Ronaldo might, more like a compass. A vague magnetism he could follow anytime he wanted.

Like now.

He'd wondered at first if he overshot it, when he walked out the other side and found nothing but woods. But the pull was insistently strong- Steven was somewhere nearby, and the sudden large noise breaking through the treeline only proved him right.

A fight of some kind? Lars reluctantly rushes towards the sound. He might not have much authority, but he's got a shout big enough to break fights, and he can make one hell of a getaway car if it came down to it. He finds the source of the commotion and hides up in the branches of a pine tree while he looks.

This... this isn't a fight. This is a brawl.

Jasper stands tall, ducking and weaving while some other large shape zips around her. Her wolfish eyes briefly catch Lars for a moment, and her fangs curl with something cruel.

"Come on!" The drum of her song rattles along the leaves. "Don't crack and coddle me all the sudden. What are you, a-"

The thing she was taunting crashes into her with a flying kick, knocking her through a good number of trees before stopping at a rock.

And Steven stands, right at the start of her crashing trajectory, and smiles.

When they were kids, Steven had really big smiles. Wide shining things. As they got older, and Steven was finally allowed to be a little more honest with himself, his smiles got smaller. Softer.

Steven doesn't smile like he's looking for a fight.

But when Jasper charges back up and rolls into a a fiery dash that knocks him into the ground, his brief cough peters out into a breathless, boyish laugh until it warps into something manic.

And then there was a violent flash of light. When Lars finally blinks the blindness out of his eyes, Jasper is gone. All that's left is the crater where she once stood, the gem in Steven's hands, and a long, low hum that rings with cerise.

Lars dares to blink again.

Glowing pink eyes suddenly manifest a few spare inches from his face, white diamonds rendered blind tunneling crosshairs, and Lars steps back.

It was barely a flinch at all- barely even a twitch, but it was there, and Steven stops dead in his tracks. Dead in the most total way possible- the hum, the sound, all trace of Steven's song, cut off like a needle lifted off the record.

"Steven?" It shouldn't be a question, but it is.

"Lieutenant." His song rings odd, more like Vendan than anything else, face betraying nothing at all.

A shivering cloud flies from Lars' mouth, and Steven's eyes... they don't quite soften, not the way they normally would, but it shifts. The crosshairs of his eyes grow less defined.

Falling snow hangs in the air- hangs off of a ringing, orchestral hum of song still rattling like a struck bell.

With one graceful flourish, the gem in Steven's hands is bubbled, and white claws still linger around the phantom shape after sending it away.

"It's cold," Steven finally whispers, like the winter around them was only an afterthought. "We should come inside."

It's not an invitation, but it's not a dismissal, either. Steven's footsteps just barely hover above the snow, like the ground itself was afraid to touch it, and Lars' black boots sink into the snow as he follows.

They don't leave the forest like Lars thought they might. Instead, they venture further along the heart of it. A slow radius of worn craters, felled trees, and gouged rocks starts to emerge and intensify until they reach a wide stretch of ground, barren except for the painted stones spitefully embedded in the surface.

For some reason, Lars always assumed that Jasper had lived with Steven. But this place could not have belonged to anyone but Jasper.

It must have been a cave, once, but clearly someone decided otherwise. This strange temple in the middle of nowhere is thoroughly brutalized into the fearful symmetry of some monstrous fusion. Golden glass eyes loom along the jaw of an otherwise entirely eyeless face, a beakish curling maw crowned by a very familiar gem on its nose. Four polished horns curl outward in unspoken promise, and the rocky render of cloudy curls crawls defiant with vines and flowers against the harsh winter.

A dead tree strung with eye-marked lanterns rattles behind like the flag of a wide, fanned tail, and four massive paws frame a heavy, curtained entrance tasseled with pink diamonds.

Impossibly light footsteps linger past a threshold of fallen logs. Steven pauses by the entrance, holding open the curtain with some unspoken invitation, and Lars dares to step inside.

Lars has had a good eight years to get used to the general... fuckery of Gem architecture, but some part of his ancient monkey brain is always a little surprised when the interior of something is bigger on the inside.

As harsh and borderline monkish as Lars knows Jasper to be, the interior is surprisingly soft, somehow.

The walls are gouged with small echoes of kindergarten exit holes. Bigger ones are slotted with wood and used as shelves, while smaller ones are filled with candles, adding to the gentle sungold light of high, eye-shaped windows. Carpets aggressively patterned with all the colors of a sunset pad the floor, while others still hang along ceiling rafters, joined by nested clusters of antlers and bones.

A pair of unreasonably large cushions linger haphazardly around a fireplace, and when Lars looks back the way he came, there's half carved wood lingering near the entrance. A large, mossy python drapes carelessly among the carpet littered ceiling.

(Lars cannot help but notice that the place has the unshakable vibe of some romantic cabin retreat, and suppresses a hysterical laugh.)

Steven spares a considering glance for the bubble hanging along the claw-riddled bear skull on fireplace mantle before gracelessly sinking into the cushion in front of it like it was an armchair.

"There's pine tea on the kettle with honey and lemon." There's an oddly breathless quality to Steven's song now. "If you want." 

A lot of things in this place came in twos- two logs outside, two cushions by the fireplace, two ceramic cups on an exit-hole shelf. Lars pours out the tea of the fireplace kettle into both cups and sets them down on the table.

The hum of Steven's body hasn't quite gone down, and the diamonds in his eyes are wide against the glow still streaking across his face.

"You have... questions," the Diamond breathes. "It's okay. You... can talk."

"You... kind of killed Jasper?"

"No-" A sharp note cuts into the cold before composing itself. "No, no. She's alright. Not not not- dead. She... asked me to." Diamond eyes flicker back to the bubbled Gem. "She would have reformed by... now, usually. She asked... me to bubble her afterwards, until tomorrow." A rolling flex of claws. "She wanted to meditate... on being formless."

"I saw-" Lars curls his hands against the rough ceramic of his cup. "-I saw you fighting."

"Oh." The white glow of tunneled eyes gazes distantly past him. "She didn't do anything wrong. This is... just something we do sometimes."

"Never, uh- never took you as a guy for fight clubs."

"It's not about the fight," the song whispers on. "We need- I need to... I need to burn out, sometimes."

"That was pretty intense for a burning out," Lars awkwardly whispers.

Pink scattered eyes look away. "...I'm sorry." A clawed hand drags unsteadily over a freckled face. "We always... keep this away from... other people. I know it's scary."

We know it frightens people.

We didn't mean for you to see it.

=<>=

"I wasn't-" Lars coughs past the crack in his voice. "-I wasn't scared. Not really?"

"You don't have to lie to me," Steven smiles hazily. "It's ok-kk-k-k-k-k-" Something brushes at his arms, and Steven's song cuts off into a staggered line of clicks as his vision briefly tunnels with pink. When it passes, Lars is... a lot closer than he was before. "...What are you doing?"

=<>=

"Not being scared of you, dumbass." Lars traces at the red render of flowers on Steven's hands. "Did you really think you could run run me off that easy?" A daringly caustic smile crosses over his face. "You can't just hide from me like that. We can't both be cowards here."

"You d-don't-" Steven's song unravels with an aborted laugh, "you don't... have to deal with me like this."

"I know. But..." Lars' hands hover uncertainly. "...can I see?"

The blank slate of Steven's expression relaxes into... relief? Resignation? Lars isn't quite sure. But a large, freckled hand uncurls to show its palms nonetheless, and Lars takes the offered hand.

The claws don't feel sharp, not really. Large, unyielding things that flex outward when Lars presses into the odd softness of those palms, and when he trails up to the wrists he can feel the low hum of song that still remains. A distant, tidal noise, the barest parody of a heartbeat.

Lars probably has some kind of death wish, considering his next move right after that is to go for the jugular. Steven freezes for a moment, rosecurled scars slithering uncertainly under Lars' hand, before leaning in to the touch.

Here, that ringing hum rattles under the skin, creeping into Lars' bones.

"How long does this last?" He dares to ask.

"Half an hour... this time, I think." The roll of breathless, languid song echoes up Lars' arm and right into his head. "But the wind down is longer." Steven's eyes are almost back to their usual darkness, still wide and scattered with pink.

"Not gonna lie, you look kind of out of it," Lars mutters against all better judgement.

A long, lazy note rings around them. "Things can get kind of dizzy afterwards," Steven admits.

"You okay?"

A heavy hand gently jostles through Lars' hair. "I'm alright, I just..." Steven's eyes start to drift. "...I think I need to sleep..."

He really must be out of it, the way his bone-tiredness projects so hard that Lars can feel his own eyelids get a little heavy in response. "Shouldn't you unbubble Jasper first at least?"

"She said tomorrow." With that, Steven leans far back enough to lie down, practically dragging Lars down with him until they've somehow become eachother's mutual teddy bears. He really should try to pull away, in some effort to avoid Jasper's eventual wrath when she finds him in her house, but the staggered wave of exhaustion Steven's tired purrs project is kind of contagious.

"Jasper's gonna fucking kill me," Lars tokenly protests into Steven's vest.

"Not 'f you stay quiet," Steven half slurs, hand tiredly wandering through Lars' braids.

"Yer askin' for th' impossible here."

The barrel of Steven's chest just barely jostles them both with staggered laughter. "You're not allowed to die, Stars."

" 's that an order?" Lars tiredly mutters past closed eyes.

"I suppose it is," Steven's song trails off with sleeping purrs, "my Lieutenant."

Chapter Text

In Little Homeworld, Gems are fond of the Christmas season.

Well- Gems are fond of holidays, and excuses to decorate and frolic and party. But Christmas in particular is a rather special one. There's that peculiar human Christmas tradition of hanging mistletoe on entrances, and any two people who pass under such an entrance should kiss.

Gems have always been free with their kisses. So why not?

And it is very, very easy for Connor to simply lean down and give Adya a little kiss on the head for every little entrance they pass in the market. Because Adya is his friend, and what else could he do other than love his friends with every possible excuse he has?

She gets this rosy little giggle on her face every time he does. It's nice.

=<>=

Connor looks up at the entrance of the Little Homeworld mailing office. "Oh."

Cinna raises her eyebrows. "Oh, indeed."

There is a small, innocently perched mistletoe on the mantle of the door.

"Well, what do you want?" Connor sarcastically drawls. "A hug and a kiss?"

Cinna punches him in the shoulder with her tungsten arm. "How's that for a kiss?"

Connor shoves her away with enough force to knock a normal human into a wall, just enough to make her sway. "Fuck you, too."

=<>=

"Baby brother."

"I'm older than you," Connor mutters past Casimir's quilt.

"Baby brother."

=<>=

Sunrise Jasper has never been kissed.

But every time she passes through a door, there's always a stray Gem to ambush her with a little peck on the cheek. A thousand Gems and a thousand variations of friend-vein-cherished-kin-Gem-happy-to-see-you-to-be-with-you.

And maybe it really is contagious, that lingering rosy glow on her Diamond's face that isn't quite from the cold, the easy simplicity with which he simply cranes his head down just enough for the smallest line of song to brush past her mind.

My Sunrise.

It's a thousand hugs, it's a thousand kisses, it's an electric, crackling warmth that settles on her gem until it bubbles into her song and the unsteady happiness that breaks through and she almost laughs.

=<>=

"Uh oh," Amethyst teases, "someone's under the mistletoe."

Loki stares at the "Cat Steven" in his arms, and the mistletoe above him, and sighs, laying a very small kiss on its head.

The cat purrs happily and gently licks his hand with nine different tendril tongues.

=<>=

"Where did you get all of that chocolate?"

Moonstone tosses another chocolate kiss into her mouth. "It's mine now."

Connor squints. "Did you steal that?"

"You can't prove it."

"I'm pretty sure-"

Connor's song cuts off with a shocked, high-pitched trill as Moonstone unceremoniously stuffs a chocolate kiss into his mouth. He stares back at her in wide eyed silence. A silence that doesn't seem to be lifting any time soon.

Cinna looks back at him. "Oh my God, I think you broke him."

"Good."

"One of these days," Cinna sighs. "One of these days, I'm gonna see you on the other side of a prison box, and I want you to know that when that day comes, I don't have bail money."

"I would simply escape."

"Sure, hun."

=<>=

Morion paws up at Steven and Connie with his hands. "Littol ki'?"

"Well, alright then, Vairam." Steven picks up the giggling child into his arms, going in for a kiss, but tiny hands push his face away. "What?"

Morion points at Connie and taps both his cheeks.

Connie laughs. "Okay you little cuddlebug."

Steven and Connie both lean in to kiss Morion's cheeks... before the kid suddenly leans back, leaving Steven and Connie to accidentally crash into eachother's faces. Connie can feel the surprised chirp humming down her throat before they both pull away with a bit more blush between them than a married couple deserves.

"Trick treat!" Morion giggles.

"How dare!" Connie mockingly gasps. "I'm gonna have to..." she suddenly pokes at his belly, "...kill you! "

"No! "

"Yes-"

=<>=

Adya looks down at him from her standing perch as he sets the hot chocolate on the table and sits down next to her. "You're the short one now."

"Well, yes, that's what happens when people sit-"

She cuts him off with a kiss on the cheek.

"...down."

She lets herself have a smile for the slack shock on his face. "That's your payback all the mistletoe kisses."

"...Oh."

That plaintive sound makes her laugh until she can't breathe, and the simple sight of Connor's rosy, starry-eyed shyness follows her around for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

"Doctors!" The Diamond cheerfully shouts across the dock.

From a stately little trawler named the Stan O' War II, two identical older humans clamber down onto land. They had the same square face, large nose, ocean dark eyes, and tree sturdy bodies.

"Greetings." A rich voice hides behind square glasses as a spidery, six fingered hand stows a red-skinned journal into a coat. "I trust you've been well."

"It seems you've been doing well yourself, Dr. Pines." Asteria turns to the other, longer haired twin. "And congratulations to you, Dr. Pines. How's the thesis been treating you two?"

The longer haired one slaps at his brother's shoulder. "It's been a real clusterfuck trying to get McGucket and Poindexter over here translated into words non-wackjobs can understand, but it's been good so far. We're really gonna fuck up all the science nerds when we shove magic in their faces." He fiddles at his gold earring. "Soos' taken to the Shack pretty well, last I heard, and uh-" He punches into his hand. "Oh, yeah!"

The man lets out a sharp whistle back towards the direction of the boat. The talons of some... small, feathered, dragon-like thing click happily onto the dock before bounding right up the Diamond's waiting arms and right onto her shoulders.

She glides a finger over opalescent black feathers. "Compy's doing well, I take it."

"She seems to be stable," the softer voiced man cuts back in, "and hasn't manifested anything beyond what we originally expected. I think it's safe now to repeat the process to the others in storage."

"Good, good." The Diamond takes a moment to contemplate the snow around them. "I'm being rude- we shouldn't be standing out in the cold like this. You wanna head into one of the venues or back to my place?"

The rougher voiced twin sighs longingly. "Me and Stanford haven't seen the inside of a house in ages. As long as you've got something to drink, I'm game."

Asteria laughs briefly. "We don't keep much of your kind of drink, Stanley, but Greg did make some hot cider the other day."

"Works for me."

"And Ransom?" Diamond eyes turn straight to the cat that had been innocently lounging on the bench. "You're free to join us. I know you were looking forward to the cider."

The cat on the bench squints its green eyes as it shakes the lingering snow of its body, and moves to follow.

Chapter Text

Hello, hello? Is this thing on? Pssh, what am I talking about, of course it's on. You're listening to it!

I was gonna write you a letter but Uncle Az said you're not very good at reading yet. So I'm leaving this on a tape recorder!

Anyway, Mx. Loki! I was gonna call you mister but the TV people call Az mister, so I don't really know if they got it right? I've never actually met you so I don't know if you're a Ms. or Mr. Or a Mx.! Do you know what a Mx. is? It's one of those "neopronoun" things that have been going around on the internet for pronouns that aren't boy or girl and I wanted to be properly polite and-

Sorry, I got off track. Oof. Forgot my meds today.

So, uh- I'm Mabel Pines. Uncle Az- uh, that's Asteria Diamond to you, I guess, I don't know what you call him- he's an uncle on Mom's side? So we're basically cousins! I've never had alien cousins before! It's pretty cool! I sent this along with my Grunkle Stans since I know they're stopping by Beach City.

This is basically your first Christmas, right? I don't know if they have a Christmas back where you're from, but I'm pretty sure this is your first Earth Christmas. So I made you a gift? I made you an Earth sweater. I'm really good at making sweaters. It should fit, but feel free to call me if it needs to be adjusted.

...It must be scary having to be in a new place. I don't really know much about what's been going on at your end, or what things used to be like for you before, but I know it's hard, being away from everything you used to know.

My parents sent me and my brother back to our Grunkle Stans' old place for Christmas, and... we're not coming back until summer. They said we don't... we don't fit in anymore, ever since we came back. It's not just our magic, it's everything else, too. Maybe they're right. I don't know. We're supposed to finish the school year in Gravity Falls to see if it's a "better environment" for us.

Oof, that got kind of heavy. I didn't mean to talk about myself for that long. What I'm trying to say is... I kind of get what you're going through. You've been through things that changed you and now you're stuck away from home. So I guess I wanted to give you something, y'know? To show that someone cares about you. Sometimes it can get hard to remember that.

You better wear it for Christmas! I'll know from the family photos!

Anyway, feel free to call me up if you want another sweater! Or if you want to make a sweater! ...Or maybe just wanna talk. It'd be nice to have a penpal to teach you words and internet stuff.

Maybe we could both use a No Home Boy kind of friend.

This is Mabel, signing off.

Chapter Text

Amethyst inspects a large, spiraling horn. "Is this one of those Bilgesnipe things Loki was telling me about?"

"I fought it," Jasper says matter-of-factly, "and it lost one of its horns. I kept the other one. It's got a good texture."

"Nice! "

=<>=

Apparently addressed to him, Loki is now in possession of a weirdly polished ball of colorful clay. It sits on a small stand in his room, catching like crystal in the light.

=<>=

Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl have their own suspicions as to who exactly gave Vairam a bundle of deer knuckles, but Steven quietly thanks Jasper anyway. Vairam seems to be having fun at least.

=<>=

"I stole this knife from an elf I didn't like."

Connie runs a hand on the elegant, glowing blade edge. "What did they do?"

"He talked at me like I was an idiot. Didn't like it."

"Fair enough."

=<>=

Somewhere, five Rubies tear apart a large bag of cinnamon candy while an Aquamarine looks on in morbid intrigue.

=<>=

"You look nice."

Golden eyes flick sharply to the side, pale claws scuffing at the popped white collar of a green sleeveless cropped jacket. Its opened diamond shape frames the low sharp neck of her pink top. "That's what happens when I've had more than 5 minutes to figure out what I'm gonna look like."

"It suits you. The, uh-" Diamond eyes shutter as he tilts his head. "-pink is new."

Jasper chuffs. "Don't ride my gem over it. Have this." She suddenly places a box into his hands. "Be careful, it's alive."

He opens it slowly. "Jasper, what are you-" It's a veritable bouquet of different kinds of mushrooms. "Oh!"

"You were going off about intercropping, so-" She scratches at her broken horn. "-went and found some for your garden."

He nearly laughs. "So you were listening after all." He leans just close enough to quickly kiss her hand. "It's lovely, my. Thank you."

"Tch. Whatever."

Chapter Text

"This one is for Connie, and this one," he delicately hands over a well padded box, "is for Morion."

"I hope it's not something sharp," Steven notes as he takes in the faint rattle of the box. "Because then we'll have to wait until he's a bit older."

"It's just a little toy I picked up from Vanaheim."

Steven smiles for a moment. "I'm glad you're having fun on the job."

"It can't all be fights," Connor smiles wryly. "There's actually been a lot more downtime than I expected? So, uh... I've been making things, y'know? Like, uh-" He coughs awkwardly, gesturing to the wooden shape at his side.

"Oh, wow. Is that for Greg?"

The wooden frame of an electric guitar is carved with a roaming horned serpent, riding the waves with knotted scales, spitting with nacred fangs and hollow eyes.

"I took apart a guitar and made a new body for it," Connor shyly explains. "The aesir soldiers were talking about their gods, mentioned a giant cosmic snake. Seemed like the kind of thing Greg would have said would make-"

"-a good album cover," Steven finishes with a laugh.

"Yeah. I made two."

"You don't have to make him two guitars-"

"No, I mean..." Connor's eyes dart quite literally anywhere else as he reveals his final gift from out of his gem. "...one of them's for you."

This one is an acoustic guitar, all inlaid with roses carved cherry reds and nacred whites and scratch pad blacks. The rosette is patterned with Diamond's colors- all of them, the white, yellow, blue, pink, and red- and framing a baroque, layered soundhole.

...How much time would Connor have had to spend, to make something like this?

"Like I said," Connor stutters, "I had alot of downtime, and- and I wasn't making a whole guitar, just... putting something a little extra on the body." A bit of an embarrassed blush crawls shamelessly across his face. "Is it too much? I know- I know we're not that close, but-"

Hey." Steven adjusts the grip on the guitar just enough to free his hand and pat at Connor's face. "We are that close. Just because I haven't known you as long as other people in my life doesn't mean you mean less."

"I- I know," Connor concedes with a confidence he clearly doesn't quite feel, "it's just- it's just hard sometimes."

"It's a very good gift. They all are." Steven tilts his head in question. "Are you sure you don't want to be there? I know Vairam would want to thank you in person."

"I know," Connor repeats. "But I- I just can't be around them yet. Stars, I-" His song hitches. "-I almost ran into Pearl the other day and I couldn't even breathe. I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm just..." He trails of with a whisper. "I'm just not strong enough."

"That's okay. You don't have to be okay around them."

"It's stupid. They never hurt me," Connor quickly excuses, "I wasn't around long enough. Not like-" His song cuts off.

"...with me?"

A subtle, shameful rosy glow crosses over Connor's already panicking blush. Steven sighs and sits down, gently pulling Connor down with him.

"They grew," Steven starts awkwardly. "They changed. They kind of learned on their own not to hurt me." Despite it all, a sadness manages to break through. "They were almost perfect parents for two years before I fell apart from all the years they weren't. And when I left... I left as totally as possible. Out of the state, then out of the planet, then out of the galaxy."

He stares up at the ceiling.

"By the time I came back," he whispers distantly, "I hadn't seen them for over a year. And I was still halfway to a panic attack when I finally got to talk to them all at once again. It took a long, long time for me to be okay with what happened, and sometimes I'm still not, even now."

"I wasn't around long enough to live the worst of it," Connor insists. "The worst of my nightmares come from... that place, where me and Sunrise were before you pulled us out of time." His claws curl into the black fabric of his pants. "So why do I still..."

"Because it was still bad. You didn't have to live through the worst of what I did," Steven gently jostles Connor's shoulder, "and in a lot of ways I'm so, so glad you didn't. But we both lived those same twelve years, Connor. Maybe it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but... we didn't deserve that. We really didn't."

"Every time I see them, it's like- like none of it was real. Like the last ten years never happened. Like-" a brittleness shakes in Connor's words. "-like I never happened."

"...I want you to be able to face them one day- for your own sake, if nothing else." Steven runs a hand over Connor's hair. "But it's okay if you can't, Connor. You don't have to be ready for that."

"I don't- I don't know if I'll ever be ready."

"That's okay too." Steven dares to pull them close with a hug. "But if you ever are, I'll be right there with you, adamas."

Connor freezes- he often does- but a little less so, every time. One day he will be less surprised to be so loved- someday, but not today.

Today, he'll lean back in, curl one arm back around Steven, and that will be enough. It will always be enough.

Chapter Text

(Mufasa voice) SIMBA

I'mma head out soon

like out on the town head out or fucking off to space head out

back to Space

wanna set up a trade deal with asgard

get those Alien Spice into my undead hands

when

idk some time after new years probably

cool

how'd steven take it

mm

ah

you see

funny you should say that

You Told Steven, Right

eeeeeeeeeh

You're Going To TELL HIM, RIGHT

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh

TELL HIM YOU'RE LEAVING, COWARD

i was GONNA text him when i left, honest!

Bitche? you gonna ghost him Like That?

It's NOT ghosting

ghost coward. coward. coward ghost coward

AM NOT

FUCK OFF

you just leaving??? without a goodbye???

ghost bitch

i don't wanna plant myself here forever

i got shit to do

we been knew???

say goodbye like a proper boyf

COWARD

listen

COWARD

i have zero (0) willpower for him

okay

if he looked at me all sad i would Not Have A Choice

i would like to Maintain my willpower, thanks

...bitch

ugh FINE

i'll Call him

Happy?

say goodbye in person, HAYOP

fuck you don't say my own words back at me

do it hayop

no i'll just tell him from space

...i'm gonna tell him

DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE

My Hand Is Hovering Over His Contact Information As We Speak

nO

i'm doin it

SWEAR TO FUCK I

what

what you doing

lars

lars where did you gjieofemceojeiofjsefjeclmmzmmlzmc

Connie's thumb spasms wildly across the screen as she clutches her phone in surprise.

"...How did you know where my dorm room was?" she finally manages to ask.

"I..." Lars looks around at the small space. "...I kind of didn't? Honestly I panicked."

Connie blinks. "Well, it's great you're here," she smiles as she goes back to her phone contacts, "because now we can both call Steven-"

"Don't-"

She stretches her cursedly long arm out of his reach. "Too late, coward. I'm already doing it!"

"Gimme-" He leans in to try and reach past her shoulders. "-the fucking-"

=<>=

It was less the result of any (openly) romantic intentions and more the unfortunate consequence of simply putting these two against eachother.

Here's the thing. Lars has been what is essentially a privateer for the Gem Empire for a few years now. He's been in a lot of hairy situations, and over time he's developed certain... habits. Instincts.

In life, he'd practically had a talent for taking things too far, getting under people's skin, making them uncomfortable. In this literal cosmic afterlife, he'd weaponized it.

There's a reason that he's starting to develop a reputation outside the Empire. After all, a kiss is a very fast way to catch someone off guard.

So Lars, faced with an unsolvable problem and a few years of gut instinct, kissed Connie as he finally got to her phone.

Connie, very used to kissing her way out of consequences (where Steven is involved), kissed back.

It was the kind of brief thing that made sense until the exact moment it was over.

The kind of thing that would make you go wow, what the fuck.

"What the fuck," Connie whispers.

"Fuck!" Lars scrambles back with all the grace of a gangly spider. "I, uh-" He flounders with the phone now irrevocably in his hands. "-fuck, I. Jesus, I don't know what the fuck that was, I'm sorry, I-" He leans against the door with a staggered gasp. "Oh, fuck, that was bad."

"...You kissed me."

"You kissed back," Lars helplessly wavers.

"Yeah," Connie whispers, "I guess I did. Do we... do we need to talk about this?"

"Oh shit," Lars wheezes with a crushing realization. "I k-kind of assaulted you, Jesus fuck. I- I shouldn't have done that."

"I mean- yeah? Probably not?" Connie scrunches up her face. "But that was a bit of a two-man tango, right there. I played into it, too." The smirk on her face has a sardonic edge to it. "Seriously, if I wasn't at least a little on board with it, you would have been a dent in the wall, no joke."

She pauses.

"I never-" She tucks her hair behind her ear. It's this oddly shy motion that he's never seen her do before. "-I, uh- didn't think you ever kind of saw me that way?"

"No!" Lars' face cycles through way more emotions than it needs to. "Maybe?" He roughly drags a hand across his beard. "Tang ina, I don't fucking know! Don't get me wrong, you're, uh- kindahotiguess, but-" A small blush briefly breaks out on Connie' face, and a single hysterical sound flies out of Lars' mouth. "-aw jeez, this is so weird! "

"You're literally dating my wife, Lars. You know, the alien hybrid fusion? It's already weird."

"I know!" His voice absolutely does not crack. "Just- fuckin' hell. This is crazy territory for me." He backtracks at Connie's unimpressed eyebrow. "I- I get that I kind of signed up for it- I'm just- uy, it's been like, five years since the last time I even attempted an actual relationship, let alone something like-" He waves his hands uselessly. "-this."

"I get that. This is, uh- kind of out of nowhere for me, too. I haven't really put that much thought to other people since getting into college."

"Yeah." Wait, fuck. "Fuck, you're still in school." Jesus. He remembers school, vaguely. (Fucking hell, did he even finish high school?) "That's probably," he dares a short laugh, "that's probably not ideal for someone like me to get all up in the equation."

"I mean..." Connie idles her head from side-to-side. "It's- it's not a hard no. Just a not right now? Because, y'know, college-"

"Yeah, yeah-"

"-and you're literally about to leave for space again. We're not gonna be able to hash out what the fuck this is in three days. So, not a no, just... a raincheck."

Not now. But sometime. All they've got is time.

"Okay," he breathes, lungs full of air he no longer needs. "Okay." He coughs awkwardly and sticks out his hand. "Then let's just agree to not talk about this again until we've forgotten how awkward this got."

"You know what?" Connie's sardonic tone fades out as she shakes his hand with more gravitas than the impromptu contract deserves. "...Fuck it, that's fair. Let's just not regret what happened and forget about it for later."

"At least until it keeps one of us up at fuck o' clock a week from now."

"God, that's a mood."

jowa b (?)

did you talk to steven yet coward

GOD I'M GETTING THERE GET OFF MY DICK

cherish our wife, lars

excuse me that's YOUR wife

bold of you to assume steven isn't two steps from being your wife

I CAN HANDLE EXACTLY ONE ROMANTIC CRISIS A MONTH, CONNIE

GET OUTTA HERE WITH THAT SHIT

no

god d a m n i t

Chapter Text

"You know," Adya honestly says, "half I was thinking you would have given me a knife."

But he didn't. He gave her a neatly folded powder blue scarf of tassels and paisley.

"I kind of did, too," Connor slowly admits. "But I saw this, and we- I just thought of you, that's all. There's, uh- there's another thing inside it." Connor blinks. "If that's not too much."

"A gift inside a gift," she laughs.

"Yes, well- can't be too careful with this one."

As Adya slowly unravels the scarf to its shawl-like size, it slowly unveils a small white wooden barrette. A longer, decidedly more metal hair pin passes through it, decorated with a shining red butterfly of its own at the tip.

"I made it while I was away," he softly explains. "Ended up with a lot of time on my hands."

The scarf drapes around her shoulders like an old friend, and the barrette slides into place like had never belonged anywhere else. She sees herself through her phone camera, wearing the gifts that have been given to her, and a fragile note enters her voice.

"...Oh."

Connor looks off to the side. "You don't have to like it."

"No," Adya cuts with a sudden strength. "Back off, I love them."

"It's okay if you don't-"

"I'm going wear them 'til the day I die. Too late. No refund."

"Oh, please don't," he wavers.

"Too late," she insists. "I live forever and you never get back. Mine now."

They both glare at eachother with mock animosity before falling back to silly giggles.

"I really do love it," Adya insists. "So thank you."

Connor's song is soft and subtle and almost alive- alive like the sudden creeping trill of chiptunes, alive like the wide-eyed shyness of his smile. "I'm glad."

Chapter Text

"Y'know," he slowly starts, "you're actually the first person to call me Lars."

"I am?" Steven confusedly parrots.

"Hah, yeah. I told you I was Lars before I ever even told my parents I was Lars." It's strange, how he can look back on those times now. How it doesn't hurt the way it used to. "And back when you still forgot things, I'd have to tell you my name every day."

"I'm sorry it took me so long to remember," Steven soberly apologizes.

"That's just who you were back then. Just like I used to be Laramie." Lars almost laughs under his breath. "It's funny. I think the fact that I kept having to introduce myself to you kind of helped me figure out I was Lars. You just... never questioned it, and- well." He scoffs dryly. "If you can call yourself a guy every single day and not change your mind, there's probably some truth to it after all. My job at the Big Donut was paying for my meds, even. I think that's when I started to realize it was real."

He watches Rhodonite coach Chert and Flint where to stow everything on the ship.

"I wouldn't be where I was if I'd never met you. I don't know if I would have ever even been Lars. So, I... thanks. For everything."

"Hey." Steven gently paws at Lars' shoulder with a closed fist. "Give yourself some credit. You're the one crazy enough to put your foot in the door for Gem trade out there."

"And you're the one crazy enough to let me," Lars shoots back.

"Fair enough," Steven laughs. "How long do you think you'll be gone?"

"A month. Maybe two." Lars tosses his braid back behind him. "I'll try not to disappear for a whole year this time."

"Oh, I don't know." Dare it be a teasing tilt to Steven's smile now? "I'm sure you'll find some sort of terrible accident on the way home."

"Well if that's the case," Lars says as he wanders closer, "I should give you something to remember me by."

And Lars does nothing more or less than grab Steven by his tie and kiss him for the second time.

He feels a briefly shocked chirp wind to a hum down his throat. He feels lightning crack behind his eyes, the arms that pull him closer, the simple surprise of the song that rolls against his mind- I love you I loved you I love you still.

There is no charge, no desperation. It just is.

"Don't you forget about me," he whispers past his smile as he finally walks away.

White fangs smile after him. A layered melody of song whispers back and sings,

My Stars.

I could never.