Everything near where Jasper used to live is destroyed.

Splintered, destroyed and positively obliterated debris is still falling in the air above us and I dare not move an inch. He's faster than sound, and even with his glow being bright enough to detect in daylight, it appears he moves faster than light allows for. It's like he's teleporting around me, bursting trees open with his might. He's merely phasing in and out of reality around me.

And then towering in front of me.

"I'm dangerous," He tells me seriously.

"Okay." What else am I supposed to say? Was I not supposed to guess that of the splintered mosaic in front of me?

His pink eyes fall to one of my hands, the one he grabbed earlier. "It would be so easy to hurt you. I'm out of control. And you should stay away."

"Diamond, I'm not going anywhere. You don't want to hurt anyone. You're just scared, yeah?"

He nods, his lips pressed together tightly. "Connie. What am I going to do?" His voice is so shaken and terrified. The ache of knowing you did something irredeemable like that has to be the most haunting feeling ever. The only comfort I have is knowing he feels like this about it.

"We can stay here. You were just pushed," I whisper, slowly approaching him. He flinches with every step and clenches his fist.

"Sure didn't take much."

I'm close enough to reach his hand, so I press it over my chest. "Do you feel that?"

His Adam's apple bobs and he glances to the side. "Your bo–?"

"My heartbeat."

"Oh! Yes! I... can." There I see a bit of my awkward boyfriend.

I snort and pat his hand. "If I were afraid of you it would be pounding."

He considers that. "It's not?"

"It is. But not for that reason. You're really tall. I'm not quite used to it yet." I drop my hand off of his and start walking in a random direction. "Come on then. Let's get to know each other better."

"Why are you still here?" He asks miserably. "I'm a burden as big as the world and ten times as destructive. Why do you stay, Connie?"

He grabs my hand, forcing me back harder than he needed to. He literally can't control his strength. "Be careful!" I rub at my arm as those wide pink eyes take me in guiltily. "I stay because you would do the same for me, and this is not making me as miserable as you think it is. You're not nearly as much of a burden as CRAM school."

He gives a strained laugh, and his form flickers as it grows a bit more genuine. This time, there doesn't seem to be any type of pain along with it. His laugh slows and he shrinks until he's my Steven, looking exhausted but in love. "I'll help you talk to your parents."

"How'd you know we were talking about school?"

"ESPN." His eyes lifted to the darkeneing woods around us. He looked annoyed but kept his tone light. "Why are we... here?"

"Diamond subconsciously warped us here." I wrap my arms around his hips and squeeze. "I think I actually helped him."

"D-Diamond?" Steven goes still, arms an inch from my back as he processes the words. "How?"

"I told him he wasn't a burden. He went glowy and switched but it was different both ways coming in and out it was all glitchy like it couldn't pick and then Nora—,"

"Nora?!" He sucked in a breath and peeled me off of him to look at me. "Like a girl?"

"Yeah."

He furrows his brows even though his cheeks go red. "Can– can I ask how you knew it was a girl?"

I stare at him for so long a bird lands nearby. "She had boobs, Steven. She was like, a set of triple D's. She was you, but feminine pretty instead of masculine pretty boy. She had calming powers too, and a gentle voice like yours. I think she's your caretaker but there's really not good news. She... she's a rouge. I couldn't help her when she–," I pause as I realize he's not really listening.

It's his turn to stare at me. His lips form the first word carefully, and then the rest rushes out. "Are... are you gay, Connie?"

I choke on my spit and turn away with a furious look over my shoulder as I compose myself. "No!" I hack for an embarrassing amount of time. I never expected him to ask, especially with such little context given.

"That whole fit didn't convince me. It's... it's absolutely okay if you are. We can still be–," I kiss him because I can and I missed how accepting he is.

"I'm bisexual. Not gay," I answer. "I think. I'm a teenager, and frankly I don't have time for figuring all that out as a for sure thing. Can I just enjoy that sometimes my boyfriend feels like a girl?"

His irises turned pink and met mine, but he doesn't speak another word to me for a while. He only takes my hand and escorts me deeper into the woods.

By the time the trees are beginning to thicken again, I see where he's taking us. A small clearing with a stone teepee and a fire pit. There's even a makeshift spitroast over the fire, meaning at some point he must have broken his vegetarian lifestyle out here.

"This is where you trained like a Quartz with Jasper." It's not a question, I know it to be true. "Er- I mean a Diamond."

He squeezes my hand. "Sometimes I don't know what I am. But I know without a doubt that I'm a pushover until you piss me off enough. I need to fix that."

I guess I don't realize the gravitas until he sits me down in front of the fire and leaves me there.

It takes me fifteen minutes to realize he's gone somewhere that's not here, but after I come to terms with that, he comes back with a massive backpack that looks far too heavy to carry for any human.

I forget he's not fully human sometimes. This is not one of those times.

"You left me here." I'm not mad about it, more annoyed he didn't bring me with. It's then I notice the bleeding of his knuckles. "What'd you do?"

He looks confused and glances behind him before his eyes drop to his hand. "Oh. Ran into Kevin on my way back to the temple."

"You... "ran into" Kevin?" I smirk and he throws a charming smile over his shoulder. "After saying you needed to stop being a pushover?"

"Yep." He offers no further explanation, so I make a guess. The warmest, kindest brown eyes I've ever seen off of him meet mine. "I beat the ever loving shit out of him because he was making a better door than a window."

"He wouldn't leave you alone?"

He shrugged. "He wouldn't get out of my way. It wasn't unprovoked." A finger grazed over a rapidly healing wound under his eye. It looks like he barely nicked him with a nail, a total bitch move. "I don't like hitting people."

"I know, Steven." I lean forward to rest my head in my hands, watching as my mentally ill boyfriend unpacks his mentally ill camping stuff to share with his mentally ill girlfriend. "What'd you bring us?"

"I learned everything I know from you. So anything you maybe would've brought, I brought two?" He sheepishly finished and looks over at my growing smile. "What's that all about?"

"I'm just in love with you," I state simply.

He blushes and glances around like we might get caught dropping the L word.

Again.

"I love you too. Aren't we not supposed to know what love is yet according to our parents?" He tugs out a huge sleeping bag and then another smaller one. "I also robbed your house. Your mom thinks you're at a CRAM school retreat and she works the next six nights. Dad has the Gems neutralized for now."

My heart swells. "You talked to your dad?"

"We are starting to become self aware. My hatred of my father stems from my sincere hatred of The Gems."

The first 'Royal We.' How long did it take? A month or so? "Do you guys still love them?" I'm eyeing that bigger sleeping bag and wondering if Stevens an idiot, because that's more than big enough for the both of us. Why exactly would he have brought one that big when I know factually he has a normal one on the shelf in his closet?

"Of course. Love and loathing can exist in the same room," He chuckles dryly.

Somehow I doubt that. It feels like he's lying to me. "Give me an example."

"Me and White Diamond in a room."

"So you'd be love?"

He snorts as he picks up a boulder with almost no effort to move out of our way. "No. White loves to be right, and if White was on  life support, I'd unplug it to charge my Wheelies."

"Steven."

He snickers. "I'm just kidding. Is this jaded? Am I jaded yet?" A lazy and playful look is thrown my way and it makes me blush. For a moment he looked just like Ruan. I'd never had the frame of reference before, but now the similarities are uncanny.

"Do you think I'm jaded?" I catch a granola bar he tosses me and he studies me.

"Permission to be frank, Admiral Maheswaren?"

"Granted."

"They completely fucking broke us. We're past the point of no return."

I recognize the wiseness of his words as another part of our childhood slipping away. May as well just lean into it at this point. "I don't know why you're kidding around with that smaller sleeping bag for me. If it's okay, I'd rather sleep with you."

He drops everything after a moment and comes around to crouch in front of me. "I'm not going to lie, I forgot to even ask you. I... figured you might so the second one is to drape over us in case we get cold."

"𝓟𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓮 𝓢𝓽𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓷, 𝓽𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓹𝓸𝓸𝓻 𝓰𝓲𝓻𝓵 𝓲𝓼 𝓭𝓻𝓲𝓿𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓯 𝓶𝓪𝓭 𝔀𝓱𝓮𝓷𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝔀𝓮 𝓽𝓸𝓾𝓬𝓱 𝓱𝓮𝓻."

"Sᴛᴇᴠᴇɴs ᴊᴜsᴛ sᴄᴀʀᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴡʜᴀᴛ sʜᴇ'ʟʟ sᴀʏ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴏʟ' Mᴏʙʏ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ."

"Did your DID thingy ever mention about being able to block out alters talking?" Steven griped. He slammed a hand over his mouth and stood, turning away as evident humiliation crashed down on him.

"Steven, I already know you hear them."

"'Hearing Voices' is the most mentally ill thing I've ever been diagnosed with. Congratulations, you've broken a record."

"I had a feeling," I say, admiring the way he's squatted. He's the first slim thick man I've ever laid my eyes on, and my entire being finds it fascinating.

"Excuse me for trying to hide something that could get me locked in a gem equivalent loony bin."

I scowl. "Are you hiding anything else from me?"

"Mentally? No." He stays turned away and digs into the backpack. A tinder ball, a reusable lighter and the sticks he gathered coming back fall into the fire pit.

"Is there a reason your back is to me right now?" I giggle.

He sighs and only acknowledges me with unintentionally longing eyes. "Why ask embarrassing questions if you know the embarrassing answers?"

"Because you need to learn to be comfortable and happy with your human anatomy, and clearly no one is teaching you that."

The tinder ball explodes into flame from no discernible source and Steven scrambles away. "Holy shit."

I crawl over to sit next to him and fawn at the fire. "It's pink."

"I think you just embarrassed an actual bit of Hell out of me," He mumbles with the slight quaver of a nervous laugh. "If I have fire powers now, that's not good."

"Nothing ever is."

For that, he turns and kisses me. "You're good."

"What's your definition?"

"Better than your predecessors." He sounds so much older.

"Are we ever better than our predecessors?" My lips brush against his as I openly let myself pine for another kiss.

"No. I was lying to you to make you feel better."

"It's not working."

"Give it some time."

This time when we kiss, he smiles into it and lets us fall back.