Work Text:
Chasing him around the house most of the morning was one thing, but the extra effort it took to run and slide through and over the snow was really having a toll on Steven. He could feel his limbs shaking both from the cold and exhaustion as he sledges past the snow boulders launched at him by Sardonyx. He had fallen into one of the built-up piles of snow next to one of the temple's fallen hands and sluggishly pulled himself out of the snow. He could see the mixed colour of who he assumed was Opal, his ragged breaths as he crawled out of the pile muffled from the rushing of blood in his ears. He felt snow splash back onto him as his head hung low, Garnet was next to him saying something. Eventually, the shaking got the better of him and his arms collapsed out from under him. He could feel Garnet’s hand on him and he wasn’t sure if she was tagging him or checking him but through heavy breathing, he was able to muffle out a plea to stop. He saw a bright light past his eyes lids but soon after that, there wasn’t much else. Just endless darkness and the rushing of the blood, but even soon after the noise seemed to stop as well. It felt like hours just floating in the dark void but eventually, he seemed to snap out of it. Slowly drifting back to the feelings around him he felt his head on something soft and a hand running through his hair. The muffled sound of voices around him seemed startled but soon quieted down as his meagre complaints. He felt the hand move from his hair to stroke his cheek, a gentle voice seeming to persuade him to open his heavy eyelids and look at them. Still fuzzy he was able to see the deep red and maroon, Garnet right. She was almost unrecognisable without the signature visor. He could hear her deep voice encouraging him to go back to sleeping, that he was alright and that they would figure it out. He wanted to argue against her and say that he could handle this, that he wanted to make sure thing went correctly and that, he knew what was going on in everything, he eventually succumbs to his exhaustion a feeling of guilt creeping in at his mistrustful thoughts of his own family.
He eventually woke later in his own bed, his bright, pink jacket handing on one of the knobs on his dresser, sandals placed neatly below it. He started to push himself up on violently shaking arms before the collapsed below him. God, he was so tired, even that just made him exhausted like he was running around earlier. Maybe those shakes weren’t all they were cut out to be anyway. Or maybe he wasn’t supposed to replace every meal with them. He started to care less about it anyways as he heard footsteps coming up and stopping just before reaching his bed. He felt a weight dip at the end of his bed as someone sat there.
“Hey Stev-o, you awake?”
He managed to grumble out a response as he felt the bed slightly shake with Amethyst’s laughs. She always did seem to have a full-body laugh.
“Well, that answers that. I take it you ain’t feeling too good?”
Same response as before, he couldn’t seem to focus enough to get his mouth to work. He was tilting on the fence of consciousness and just falling back into a soundless void but his innate need to not be rude and fall asleep while Amethyst was talking kept him on that fence.
“So, I’ll just leave you here. Give us a call if you need anything alight?”
He gave a sleepy nod as he felt himself being quickly pulled back into sleep. It eventually slipped from the soundless void to his regular nightmares. Anything from the gems being upset and angry because of him to White pulling out his gem, Connie breaking up with him after she found out how much he screws up, The gems throwing him out after he pushed them away one too many times.Honestly despite them looping over and over, night after night for weeks on end he never got used to them. He eventually stayed up later, working in bed on the next schedule, or the next project in Little Homeworld, anything to keep him from having to go back. He always fell asleep before 12, well except for recently but what’re a few all-nighters or 4 hour sleeps when he was doing so well before. His body eventually jolted awake, he pulled his phone off his bedside table to read…
7:43 am?!
He leapt out of bed despite his still slightly shaking limbs and quickly pulled on his jumper and shoes over some newly changed clothes. Running downstairs and passed the gems he smashed his hip into the kitchen bench but it wasn’t that bad. Really! He put on the shake maker and rushed back upstairs to grab his satchel only to be held back by Garnet grabbing the back of his jacket.
“Garnet?! Look I know you guys wanted to hang out yesterday and play around but it’s nearly eight! I woke up late and I still have to shift around the 3rd Quarter and I know you want to hang out but I’m already late and I have to get going or else-“
He felt another sharp pull and he was spun around to face the looks of three annoyed but concerned Guardians.
“Steven you were just asleep for over 18 hours and you want to go straight back to work. I understand about good work ethic but this is unreasonable!”
“Okay I was joking yesterday about you having a better life-work balance when the Diamonds were attacking, you actually had a life-work balance back then, all you do nowadays is work, work and more work dude!”
“Steven, Pearl and Amethyst are right. You’ve been working yourself too hard lately, let us take some of the load. We work at school too, we can help.”
He just stared at them gobsmacked. Let them take the load, no way, no way in hell was he going to put more pressure on them. If he was feeling this stressed then the gems have got to be feeling way worse and there’s no way he can put more on them. Just take a deep breath and smile. Make. Them. Happy.
“Nah, it’s all good! I really enjoy working on it. I think I was just really tired yesterday from al the running around. I’ve really got to get back to doing the reorganising anyways and,” he looks out the window to see the snow still piled up around the door, Little Homeworld probably wasn’t doing much better, “I’m not going to be going out anyways so it’s an easy day! You guys can still take the day off and I can still work on what I want to!” Or what he needs to, god he had really dropped the ball if this little stress got to him. “So you don’t need to worry, I’m fine, great! Really!” He slipped his arms out of his jacket and quickly ran over to the kitchen to grab his not full bottle, quickly screwing on the lid. He quickly ran by the gems before any of them could grab him yelling behind to them. “So if any of you need me I’ll be in my room, bye!”
He slammed the door behind him his face flushing pink, bottle dropped on the floor and his body soon joining as panicked breaths took over. That was close, he was so close to breaking in front of them. But he didn’t! It’s all fine, it’s all okay he kept it together and the gems still think he’s fine. He’s himself. He’s Steven Universe, the saviour of the galaxy. And if he can handle saving an entire galaxy from an evil dictatorship without causing harm to anyone then he can reorganise the third quarter of a school he made. It was all going to be fine. He picked up the satchel from next to the sliding glass door and quickly set to work on his bed going over what had to be shifted around and changed. The gems didn’t comment or at least he didn’t notice any comment as he came down later to pour the old shake down the sink and make himself some lunch.