Cuddling and Acceptance
It isn’t until night has well and truly fallen, until Steven’s had his dinner and huddled down with his pillow and caterpillar sleeping bag on the couch in the barn’s loft, that he speaks up. “Garnet?” His voice is small, but certain.
Garnet doesn’t respond right away. She’s been scouring the myriad of futures for a good way to build and conduct this drill plan ever since Peridot told them about the cluster, but she always makes sure she hears his voice. Still, her mind is reeling a bit from being yanked from the future so quickly, and she has to take a moment to reestablish her equilibrium before replying, “Yes, Steven?”
Steven shifts, kneeling upright in his sleeping bag and facing her straight on. Garnet is standing at the top of the ladder leading into the loft, her arms crossed in front of her chest and her shoulders angled so she can look at Steven as well as the work Peridot, Pearl and Amethyst are doing on the drill on the hard-packed soil in front of the barn. Gems don’t need to sleep, so they will be working through the night. Even if they did need sleep, they would be working in shifts anyway; the Cluster is too big a threat for them to stand idly by even for a few hours.
“What Peridot said to you earlier today, about unfusing. Did that bother you?”
Garnet lets out a long, slow breath through her nose. Her arms unlock and drift to her sides. Of course Steven would ask about this with such concern in his voice—he’s Steven.
The gems will be fine without supervision for a couple of minutes. Garnet’s just here to haul equipment and crack her knuckles menacingly whenever it looks like Peridot is becoming insubordinate, anyway—she doesn’t have any proficiency in tech construction or operation. Not like Pearl does, at any rate.
When Garnet sits on the couch, the old springs creak under her weight. It’s all the invitation that Steven needs to shimmy out of his sleeping back and plop himself in her lap. There is no trepidation in his young eyes; to him, she isn’t a war machine or a shameless display. She’s just Garnet.
Times like these Garnet has to wonder why she was ever so afraid to tell him more about herself. Steven is his mother’s son—compassion and acceptance might as well be his middle names.
It doesn’t seem to bother Steven that she mulls her answer over first. Rather, he sits comfortably across her thighs, expression open and waiting as he watches her.
“It surprised me,” Garnet says at length. It really shouldn’t have, all things considered, but in the thousands of years the Crystal Gems have been alone on Earth she seems to have forgotten to anticipate the way that Homeworld thinks.
“I don’t think Peridot understands fusion,” he says. “I mean, I can tell she knows how it works, in theory, but I don’t think she’s ever done it before.”
“You’re probably right.”
Garnet doesn’t see the hug coming, but it’s all the sweeter for that. Steven has thrown his arms around her neck and pressed his nose into her cheek. She smiles softly as she holds him around his little torso. He feels so much sturdier these days. More gem, less human.
Steven doesn’t say anything. With the way he squeezes her—he’s a lot stronger than he was a year ago—he doesn’t have to.
Peridot must have said something while they were at the Kindergarten, because this sort of response feels like too much for the one remark she made in Garnet’s presence today. Come to think of it, Amethyst was acting off before the drill malfunctioned, too. She was back to her usual self after Peridot pulled her off to the side around sunset, but whatever Peridot said initially must have really been hurtful.
It’s really not hard to imagine what she was running her mouth about. Garnet wishes that Steven never heard it, but there’s no changing that now. As much as she hates to admit it, they can’t protect him from everything.
“I think you’re great, just the way you are,” Steven mumbles. The words aren’t muffled because he doesn’t want her to hear them, but rather because he is hasn’t let her go even a little bit, and so he is speaking into her skin.
Garnet has swum through lakes of lava, but nothing has made her feel quite so warm as the amount of love and acceptance that’s currently radiating from the child in her arms. She lets out a small chuckle as she strokes Ruby’s gem down his spine in a slow, rhythmic pattern. “Thank you, Steven,” she says.
Steven just nuzzles into her neck and hugs her a little tighter.
They don’t talk any more after that. Instead, Garnet holds him and rubs his back until his body slumps with relaxation and he falls asleep with his face smeared over her shoulder. It’s a quiet moment, one that doesn’t require her full attention, but she doesn’t use this opportunity to look into the future. Instead she stays here in the present, actively aware and fully engaged as Steven settles into a REM cycle. Only when she knows he’s sleeping too deeply to feel it does she zip him into his sleeping bag and climb down from the loft to get back to work.