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The gems were poofed and the older version of himself was holding a knife right to his gem. Panicked, short breaths left his mouth as he stared between the tightly gripped knife and the 3 short inches of air between it and his gem. He had come guns-a-blazing into the house only minutes before, poofing the gems and trapping himself on the floor.
“P-please, why…why are you here? Wh-what are you doing?” He managed to get past shaky breaths, hoping to talk him out of this.
“I’m ending this, once and for all. I’m sick of being the Diamond’s plaything. I’m sick of having to be angry at them, cause I’m not, it’s you.” He snarled. “I’m angry at you!” The knife dropped beside him and rough hands gripped at his shirt and lifted him to face him.
“It’s all your fault that I was STUCK THERE!” He thrust him down, that back of his head crashing against the floor before being dragged back up again.
“You and you’re stupid ideas!”
Smack
“And your stupid morals!”
Smack
“And your stupid kindness towards everything!”
Smack
“And the way you always look for the good in people.”
Smack
“A-and the way you always took care of others.”
His head dropped instead of being smoked down, finally getting a break from being thrown around so dizzyingly.
“A-and your childish n-nature.”
He heard sniffling above him.“The carefreeness.”
Something wet landed on his shirt.
“The gems…”
“And Connie…”
“And Da-“
His sentence cut off and he was backing off from him before Steven realised that he had released his shirt. Sobbing hard into his hands only a few meters away from him.
“I-its so stupid isn’t it. You’re m-me, th-that stupid, careless, kind and l-loving kid.”
His hiccups disrupted his sentences.
“Why d-did I do it? Wh-why did I h-have to leave? Why did I-I think I c-could fix it?”
He continued sobbing as Steven carefully picked up the knife and moved towards the kitchen.
“I was 14.”
That caught his attention. Steven himself was turning 14 in less than 2 months, what happened to him?
“God it’s messed up isn’t it. I come here trying to ki-“ He took in a shaky breath, “kill you, and I can’t even do it.”
He placed the knife on the bench wrapped in a tea towel so as to not cause accidental injury later and carefully walked back over in front of the older him.“Why did I even bother? Of course, I couldn’t I’m so stupid for thinking I could be anything else,” his fingers tangled in his hair, “but a stupid, fucking, accident.”
Each word accented by a sharp tug. Steven reached forwards to try and loosen the hold. Only for the older him to flinch and skitter back. The look of surprise on his face quickly forming into anger and disbelief.
“Are you KIDDING ME? I just tried to kill you! I just said so! The gems are poofed, you were on the floor with a knife to your gem, I cracked the floor by smashing your head against it. Heh, AND YOU STILL TRY TO HELP ME?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
He screamed at Steven manically. Steven only responded by moving closer to him. The older Steven continued to move back as the younger moved forwards until he was backed against the temple door. The younger Steven got up from where he was scooting forwards and glared at the older version of himself, a worried smile coming across the elders face as they younger walked towards him.
“Yes! Finally, be mad, hit me! I just tried to kill you so wha-“ The younger leapt forwards to wrap himself around the elder.
“Stop being mad at yourself.” The elder just stared at him in shock.“No…no, no no no no No No NO NO NO NO! Stop it! Be mad! Yell at me! Hit me! Attack me! Don’t just stay there do something! A-anything!” His voice cracked, “You can’t be this nice. I j-just tried to kill you. Arrrgh! WHY DON’T YOU HATE ME?!”
“Because I’m you.” The insistent attempts to escape from his arms ceased. “I’m that stupid, careless, childish, kind and loving kid.” He felt more tears soaking the back of his shirt. “I’m always gonna be you, and you’re always gonna be me. You’re hurting, and it’s bad you took it out on yourself, it’s bad you took it out on me. But we can sort this out. Together.” That made the older throw him off.“YOU’RE 14! YOU SHOULDN’T DEAL WITH MY SHIT, YOU’RE A KID!” He stood up, towering over him. He faced him head-on. On the tips of his toes to try and reach his level.
“THEN GO TO SOMEONE WHO IS MEANT TO DEAL WITH YOUR SHIT!” He had a small feeling of guilt from swearing but it was quickly swamped by the continuing rage inside of him. “IF I CAN’T DEAL WITH IT, THEN THERE’S OBVIOUSLY SOMEONE ELSE OUT THERE WHO SHOULD! GO TO THEM, THE GEMS OR DAD OR CONNIE! ANYONE!”
“I can’t.”
“UGH! WHY NOT?”
“CAUSE THEY’RE DEAD STEVEN!”
The anger instantly drained from him, “They’re- They’re what?”
“Dead. Gone. Never coming back. A fucked up fusion of millions of gem shards exploded the Earth killing everyone. Everyone except me. Cause I decided to follow the magic, pink lion with Connie beside me, into the desert find a giant pair of legs and wanted to fly them around before showing the gems. But no, I zoomed off to another goddamn planet. Got picked up by the Diamonds and was kept as their damn pet after they found out that my mom was Pink Diamond. Yeah, congrats our mom’s a fucking bitch, who ditched her title as a Diamond so she could frolic around on this God-forsaken planet and started a fucking war against herself so she wouldn’t have to be responsible for any of it. No instead she gave birth to us for us to clean up her fucking mess. Do you know what it’s like to stay locked in a tower for DAYS at a time, without water or food? It’s hell! Now imagine that every time you try to do something you enjoy. No singing, no dancing, no ukulele, no talking about Earth because guess what? It’s gone, dead. A hunk of good for nothing rock. And can you imagine what that's like for Connie, cause I can't, I haven't seen her for years! She got shipped off to a human fucking ZOO, and do I know what it's like there? No! Two years, never seeing her once! We stand there, we look pretty, we lie to the gems, we get put in our place like the fucking bitch we are. All because our damn mom couldn’t stand up for herself.”
He was breathing heavily, his legs were still shaking and his jaw was stiff with tension as he ranted in front of the younger version of himself.
“I had one chance to fix this,” The purple glow beside him lit up both of them, “And I can’t even get that right.”
Amethyst quickly leapt and knocked him hard onto the floor. Before Steven could protest, she had summoned her whip and hit him hard on the side of the face before throwing him to the side and lassoing him back, effectively wrapping him in her whip. She gave him another hard know in the middle of his face with the handle of her whip as a good nature to knock him out, before turning with a worried expression to Steven.
“Steven oh my god, are you okay? Did he hurt you? He just burst in and-” She cut herself off pulling him into a hug and nearly cutting off his airways.
“Amethyst, Amethyst I’m fine,” He responded, hitting his fists against her chest. “Let me go!” She released him watching with worry as he ran over to the older version of him. Her eyes widened and she roughly grabbed his arm.
“Dude what are you doing! He just poofed us and I’m pretty sure he tried to kill you.” He thumb pointed at the wrapped knife on the kitchen bench.
“Yeah, he did,” Steven agreed, “But he’s really messed up Amethyst, and you just messed him up a little more, no offence.”
“None taken but, seriously Steven, I get the whole ‘everyone has some good in them’ but is his good really worth it?” She cringed looking back over to the stranger who was not, in fact, knocked out but instead lying on his side, staring blankly at the floor as blood dripped from his nose, quick crooked nose.
“He’s me, Amethyst. We’ve gotta help him.” At that information she released him.
That was Steven? The lovable, carefree, goofball in front of her, right now, turned into someone who without mercy poofed all four of them and tried to kill himself in some sick twisted suicide.
“Fine, we heal him, but he stays tied up, got it? Steven or no, he’s a danger especially to you.”
“Cool, cool, lemme just.”
Steven licked his hand and placed it on the elder's nose, he barely flinched in response as the glittering ceased to show a repaired nose, not with only a drying line of blood coming from it.
“Okay, Amethyst can you help me move him onto the couch. I don’t want him to stay on the floor.”
She nodded and wearily carried him to the couch as Steven collected Pearl, Ruby and Sapphire’s gems.
“Okay, the gems are off the floor, knife is tucked away, Steve on the couch and Amethyst is back. What now?”
He saw the older version of himself lift an eyebrow in question.
“You tried to kill me, we can’t both be Steven, so you have to face the name change.”
“I’m just going to leave anyway, why bother?”
That caused a shock alarm on both Amethyst and Steven’s face.
“You’re going to leave? You’ve barely been here like an hour.” He saw Amethyst nodding in agreement.
“Yeah, I mean like, you’re a serious danger to our Steven and I absolutely don’t want you anywhere near him, but…you’re still a Steven and honestly dude, it hurts to see you this way. When or wherever you came from, I’m not sure if I want you going back there if you’re this messed up from it.”
“It doesn’t matter they’ll look for and find me. They did the last time why would this be any different.”
“Would they though?” Amethyst interjected, “You can in here through a magic portal from who knows where and that thing seems pretty gone to me. You’re in a different time,” Steven added, “and in a different place!”
“Yeah! How on earth would they find you, dude? You’re like, completely off their radar unless they got another of whatever got you here?”
His eyes widened and it took a few second for a small smile to lift at the edges of his mouth.
“They- they don’t. It was era 1 technology. It was stored away, files deleted because it had no use…no use for them…there’s no way to find me.” His breath seemed to pick up and it almost seemed manic when looking at the pink glow spreading across his face and tears streaming down his face.
“I actually got out! I don’t have to go back! They can’t find me here! They don’t know where I am- I got off just before arriving at the Zoo, I was on a dead planet-…I’m gone, completely gone.” The light breaths quickly turned into sobs and Steven quickly ran over to the older boy, there was a lot of crying going on this afternoon it seemed. Amethyst walked over as well and was relieved to see that ‘Steve’ wasn’t having a panic attack but just couldn’t seem to contain his emotions very well. Her whip dissipated as Steven and Amethyst wrapped his arms around him. He hugged them both back tightly.
“I-I *sniff* I missed th-this so much. I-I missed y-you al-ll s-s-so much-ch.” His voice wavered and hiccupped between words, but the sentiment was met all the same. This was definitely their Steven; they had seen him cry enough times to recognise each individual sob over the near 14 years he had been on this earth.
The next problem came from Ruby and Sapphire reforming, but Garnet seemed more relieved that Steve wasn’t tied up anymore. She was tense around him but Steve was just happy there were no more hits to the face.