[The digital art is different from the rest, I just wanted to try the paint brush style.]

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Chapter 8
 Convivial Mini Golf
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"AHHH!" 

The three Crystal Gems hug each other at the now giggling figure. Her playfully giggles were muffled in her white sleeves and the heart shaped pigtails bouncing in joy. "You found me! Boo!" She steps closer, causing the Steven, Amethyst, and Spinel to back away. 

The old Spinel look alike tilts her head in confusion toward the pink lion as the three gems take off. She shrugs, "What did I do?" Lion lets out a soft roar then her cartoonish eyes widen with happiness, "Oh! Hide and seek! Ready or not, here I come!" 

"Spinel?" Steven whispers while Spinel and Amethyst look at him from their hiding spot. "Do you know her?"

Spinel raises a brow at him, seeming less amused, "How should I know? I'm just as surprised as you." They all turn to look ahead and meet with big black cartoon eyes. 

"Found ya!" The heart pigtailed gem giggles and lands on her feet from hanging upside down. Her sweater sleeved arms tackle Spinel into a hug and their eyes meet. 

"It feels like FOREVER since someone came to visit!" The small gem says happily, then she's pushed a few feet away by Spinel's stretched arm. "Whoops!" She smiles sheepishly, "Boundaries. My bad!" A small purple bottle appears in her sleeved covered hands and bubbles are being blown in the air. 

Steven, Amethyst, and Spinel all take a glance at each other as the small gem waits patiently. "I guess we found out who stole from the Party Store." Steven says. 

~°♡°~

"Steven, what is going on here? Is that….another Spinel?" Pearl asked in dismay. "I know I've never seen one other than our Spinel…..it's….rare." 

"She said her name is Nelly." Steven shrugged, "At least that's all she said before humming to herself while we came back." 

The walk back to Steven's house wasn't annoying or anything, though the smaller Spinel wanted a piggyback ride which Steven had given into once she made puppy eyes. Garnet had given Nelly pieces of paper and crayons to entertain herself. 

Spinel, Pearl, Steven, Amethyst, Connie and Greg are all staring at Nelly from the staircase that leads up to Steven's room. They didn't know what to think and Spinel…..she did have a sense of….jealousy? She had no idea, but just the sight of Nelly kind of gave her a ugly feeling, but also guilt at these feelings. 

Lion was near the strawberry gem's side, sleeping as always. 

"Do you think she belongs to anyone?" Connie questioned. "I also don't see any gem." 

"Possibly, but this Spinel seems…..more aware. Even different from any gems, so if she does have a gem, then it is unusual." Pearl sighs stressfully at trying to find an answer. 

Spinel slightly smiles when her phone buzzes from an incoming message. Your message that said you will be stopping by Steven's around 5. Which was another hour. 'I can't wait! I hope she can stay longer again.' 

"Who are you texting?" 

The sudden voice said beside her, VERY close beside her. "Gah!" Spinel nearly drops her phone and clumsily catches it in time before it bounced down the steps. She rolls her eyes at Nelly. "Nobody." Spinel walks down the stairs and hears the squeaking footsteps following behind. 'Please leave me alone.' 

Now, everyone just watched as Nelly followed Spinel as they sat at the table. The strawberry colored gem looking up at Spinel with a happy smile and swinging her legs on the chair. 

"She likes Spinel." Garnet says after walking over. 

Steven hums, "I think she seems to like everyone here. Lion's fond of her. You know, I still can't understand why Nelly can go into Lion's mane, let alone put things in." 

"At least she seems harmless." Greg says and makes his way down the steps, "I'm sure things will be fine until we find out where she came from, right?" 

Pearl hums, "Maybe keep an eye on her. Until we find out."

The hour had gone by so slow for Spinel and eventually her and Nelly had gotten absorbed in the cartoons playing on Steven's tv. Both of them sitting criss cross on the floor and just leaning forward a little, their eyes never leaving the screen. 

"Well, I guess we found out what can distract them for a long time." Steven chuckles from the stairs while Garnet smiles. 

A knock on the door made the young teen skips down to open the door. "Oh! (Y/n), I didn't know you worked at Fish Stew Pizza." He takes the pizza boxes from you and gestures you to come in. 

You step inside and chuckle sheepishly, "No, I don't. I just happen to be doing a favor for this girl named Kiki? I mentioned that I was coming over here after I paid for my pizza, so she asked me to deliver this here." 

From upstairs, Spinel faintly heard your voice over the loud cartoon noises and she immediately zips over to the stairs, only to misjudge….more like tripping over her own feet and tumbled onto the floor like a pancake. Luckily landing on her back. Spinel groans and stars dance around her head.

"Oh gosh, Spinel!" You and Steven say in great concern. 

Though there was a difference. 

"Are you okay?" Steven looks down at her.

You help her sit up and checked her over, especially checking her gem in faint panic. "Nothing hurt too bad?" Your fingers run over her gem to make sure there were no cracks. 

"I'm….fine." Spinel shakes the dizziness away and she turns her attention to you with a silly grin. "Hi." 

You blink then shakes your head, sighing with a small chuckle, "Hi. Spinel, you need to be more careful, you clumsy." You pinch her cheek as she pouts, lightly slapping your hand away. 

"Stop that." 

"Come on." You chuckle softly and help her up, "What did you want to do tonight? I wouldn't mind if maybe Steven or Connie tagged along." 

Spinel hums and glances at Steven who just grins sheepishly. "Well, Steven does know his way around here more than I do. Wanna go along with us? You can bring Connie with you." 

"But where will we go?" Connie walks over after overhearing their conversation and lays her head on Steven's shoulders. 

You smiling softly at their interaction and thought they were quite cute together. There was a thought coming to mind when Spinel lays her chin on your shoulder and waiting for Steven's idea. Your gaze moves to a portrait above the door and trying to ignore a feeling in your chest. "Nowhere with any big crowds…...and loud noises….mainly yelling."

Steven and Connie looks at you and so does Spinel, all with questioning looks, but decide to go along with it. "Well, that crosses off Funland." 

Spinel pouts, but ignores the down feeling for you. 

Connie grins with an idea, "What about the Mini Golf Course. There's hardly anyone there and we'll practically have the whole place to ourselves." 

Nelly's giggles were heard from upstairs.

Everyone looks up at the stairs, except you. Your eye gave a small twitch and you forced a smile, "S-sorry, if it seems a little rude, but can we go now? A mini golf course sounds good though it won't stay open all night, right?" 

Steven grins and grabs a pair of keys from the table, "(Y/n)'s right. We should get going if we're going to make it. Anyone else want to go?" Connie takes the last pizza box before Amethyst could. 

"Nah. That place is so boring." Amethyst shoves three slices of pizza in her mouth. 

"Pearl and I will be babysitting." Garnet says and nods toward Steven's room.

"Alright. Let's get going." Steven spins the keys on his finger. 

"Be careful, Schtu-ball. Remember your seatbelts." Greg is fighting over a pizza box with Amethyst. 

~°♡°~

During the car ride into the tiny city, you were staring out the window and not really paying attention to Connie and Steven's conversation. Though it was amusing how you can see Spinel's reflection and she's staring at you.

Spinel wanted to make conversation with you, but the stupid awkwardness held her back. It didn't help that she was admiring you. Her hands kept pulling at the belt strap across her chest and silently growled as it kept slipping against her neck. 

Suddenly, your hands pull on the belt and you clip something onto where the straps meet. It slid to the side and made the belt strap move a good distance away from Spinel's neck. "Better?" 

A small blush appears on Spinel's cheeks and she smiles gratefully, "Yeah. Th-thanks." 

Soon Steven parks in front of the Mini Golf Course place, not perfectly, but enough to be in the lines. "Here we are! And I also have these!" Four pieces of paper with the words, '$5 off'. "This time I just took the coupons off the cans of creamed corn, instead of eating all the corn." Steven seemed to recall the moments that happened after eating four cans of creamed corn and shivers. "Mini Golf!" His mood changes. 

Once the four of you received your own golf clubs of your choice on color, you all walk up to the first course which was just a straight line. The other courses were all ranges of random twists, turns, and moving machinery. The lights were colorful too. 

Steven and Connie seemed to be enjoying themselves and following the course by number, but you and Spinel were bored. 

You grab Spinel's hand and dragged her over to one of the complicated courses. 

"Aren't we supposed to start at the lower courses?" Spinel asked.

The golf ball is placed on the fake grass and your favorite colored golf club raises up. "You don't have to start there. This place is made for everyone to have fun, so…" Your position wasn't even one that matched a golf stance. More of a baseball player. You just take out another golf ball from your pocket and tossed it up before swinging the club like a bat. "FORE!" 

Spinel's eyes widen as the ball shoots at the moving machinery and it ricocheted back toward you two, making you both duck. 

The ball continues to bounce off of everything and flies up to randomly roll into a hole on one of the courses. 

Spinel's bites her lip then bursts out laughing and you do the same. "That was CRAZY!" 

"Crazy FUN." You corrected then grin mischievously and held out another golf ball to Spinel. "I know you'll do better than what I just did. Give it a shot, Bunches." You lean on the club and toss it. 

Immediately, Spinel swings and her magenta club hits the ball up into the sky. When it comes back down, she skillfully twirls the club like a professional majorette and the end of the club makes a dink noise as the ball races across the course. 

There's a lot of ringing game sounds comes from all the machinery when the ball goes inside all of them. Almost like the golf course was a giant ping-pong machine. 

You and Spinel cheer though the gem didn't see the ball ricochet very hard on a wall and shooting in line of her heart shaped gem. 

Spinel couldn't comprehend at the slow seconds in that moment. She watched you with wide eyes as your hand shoots out at a blinding speed, catching the ball a few inches away from her gem. 'Whoa….' 

You clear your throat at the now awkward silence and tossed the ball in a random direction, "That was a close one." You chuckle sheepishly.

"Yeah….very close." Spinel glances away timidly. 'It was really close. Oh my stars, my gem could've cracked!!' She gulps.

For the remainder of the time, you and Spinel just made things better by trying to keep the golf ball from touching the ground by tapping it up in the air with the end of the club. You were having a great time and eventually the game ended up with both of you climbing on the fake landscape houses and such. 

Resulting in being kicked out of the place. 

Though at one point, Spinel made herself seem like a golf course. Stretching and twisting her arms and legs in many twists and turns so you could make it into all the golf course holes. 

Now, you two were giggling and snickering at the trouble you had gotten into. 

Connie and Steven looked like a disapproving mother and father at their kids. That made it more funny and caused more laughter. 

On the car ride back, the radio played easy going songs as the couple up front enjoyed the peaceful quiet. In the back, the pink hearted gem happily smiled out the window and loved this new memory she made today with you. 

Spinel went to talk to you, but she stopped to see your closed eyes and even breaths. A more gentle smile came across her face and Spinel stretched a hand over to you, making it a little bigger to pillow your head comfortably. You were lucky that she did or your head would've hit the window with every bump on the road. 

It felt nice. 

Nothing to worry about.

Not thinking about anything. The Diamonds, the bad thoughts, homeworld, the crystal gems. Feeling like another being with these humans. Just free from everything. 

Spinel looks out the window and gazes at the starry night, breathing out a relaxed sigh.

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Looking through the back window, the strawberry gem hums cheerfully and sits back up on top of the car. The wind moving her heart shaped pigtails. She had escaped out of Steven's house and followed you four to the golf course. 

Her black eyes gaze up at the stars and her smile was small. 'I wish you were here.'