if we can call them friends then we can call them on their telephones

[fingersandteeth]

Who: Steven Durante + the other Rockets
Where: Various places in Goldenrod City + over poke-Skype
When: Late March/Early April
Summary: Steven has a few emotional conversations with his co-workers
Rating: PG-13, with the inevitable likeliness of some threads going up to R in terms of language and conversational subjects. Anything too wicked goes to an inbox.

[This is a catchall post for various inter-Rocket threads with Steven taking place at the end of March/first half of April, with the starters for those threads in their own comments inside.]

Comments

[fingersandteeth]

"You could," Steven agrees. "Unfortunately, there's a little thing called rule of law that we have to work around that keeps us from destroying bigots and assholes willy-nilly. And-- no, you haven't told me about Stevonnie. Who are they?"

[conniemaheswaran]

"Well..." Connie sighs, running a hand through her hair. This was going to be very difficult to explain to someone who had almost no context about how things worked on her world. "Back home, these aliens called the Gems were sorta like a second family to me. The had a bunch of weird stuff going on—sentient polymorphic space rocks and all that—but one of the coolest things they could do was fuse with one another. Like, uh... have you ever watched Wyrmsphere X?"

Probably not because the media of Connie's Earth is ever-so-slightly to the left (with the odd exception of Revolutionary Girl Utena), but it still stands.

"It's like that, except they do it for reasons other than beating the absolute shit out of their enemies. Although they do that too. For example, Garnet, one of the coolest people I know, is a permanent fusion between these two Gems named Ruby and Sapphire because they loved each other so much that they couldn't stand to be apart.

"I'm guessing off track. My point is, my best friend and..." Connie takes a deep breath. This is the first time that she's admitted it out loud to anyone. "...former boyfriend, Steven Universe, is half-gem. So he could fuse with humans too. I was actually the very first person he fused with, haha! And we were Stevonnie together.

"Stevonnie was... an amazing experience. Completely seeing and understanding Steven for the first time was part of the reason why we got together in the first place, really, and being someone else, someone outside everybody's expectations and the binary and... everything, it was. Amazing. I'm not kidding when I say that it changed my life."

[fingersandteeth]

"Noooooo... but it does sound like something from Dragonball Z," Steven says. "And that's-- wow. That's amazing. I mean, it sounds as crazy as all hell... but amazing too. And-- there's nothing wrong with falling for your best friend. I mean, honestly, I've never actually been in a relationship with someone who wasn't some kind of friend first." He's barely been in any relationships, much preferring to hook up with strangers he'll probably never see again, but sssshhhh. "I think I might have talked to your Steven once? On the network. And I, uh, ran into his dad at the curry cook-out when we were both looking at Mudbrays."

He shakes his head a little. "And-- god, I can see that, Connie. Seeing and understanding someone that deeply and having that same person see and understand you--it's hard not to fall in love in love with them. I'm sure that's when I..." His face heats up and he has to look away from the camera for a moment to get his composure back.

That was the second time he'd almost-- and it wasn't that he didn't think he knew his feelings. It's just-- it was so early. He shouldn't be feeling this way about someone this fast.

God, though, fusion as Connie describes it... it sounds like both the most terrifying and most wonderful thing in the world to him. That kind of deep understanding... the level of acceptance possible from it... what might it be like with Jack? What could it have been like with Charley?

He glances back at the screen. "Well. I'm not surprised it changed your life."