Steven vs. Stephen

Little Man

"We should follow him." Pearl insisted to the others after Stephen left, still trying to fully regain her composure. Amethyst had been there when she bought the dishes and tried to convince her that there was no point in getting them since she hated eating anyway, but Pearl thought they were special. There was something about them. The roses were so pretty...

It took some convincing, but she managed to get the others to agree to follow Stephen. Though they thought she was just salty about her dishes.

The three gems followed Stephen on his way to visit Sadie and stood outside of the shop, peering in unintentionally ominously inside. When Stephen walked inside the Big Donut, he saw Sadie inside and smiled at her. "Heyyy!" He waved.

"Hey Steven!" She smiled back. The two began to chat for a moment about which kind of doughnut Stephen wanted that day, before Stephen's day was about to be slightly more inconvenient. Lars walked up to the two of them. He looked down at Stephen and said "Hey, little man!"

Stephen froze. Anger began to boil in his veins, so much so that his eyes began to glow red. He snapped his head over to look at Lars, a cracking sound echoing in the room as he did so. His voice suddenly dropped like 10 octaves. "What did you say...PUNK?!" His neck stretched out four feet so his face was centimeters from Lars', making Lars a bit uncomfortable.

Stephen stretched his neck back to normal and then proceeded to use his laser vision and completely obliterated Lars, turning him into nothing but ash. Sadie gasped in horror, as did the gems from outside. Pearl, Garnet and Amethyst ran in just as Stephen returned to normal.

"No, Lars!" Steven gasped, watching through the GoPro in Stephen's bellybutton. "And we were such good friends..."

Tears began to form in Sadie's eyes. "Oh Lars..." she began to cry. She never got to tell him how she felt. The gems looked amongst each other, unsure of what to even say. Except for Pearl, who had more than a thing or two to get off her chest. "I told you Steven wasn't himself!"

"Maybe you're right..." Garnet had to admit. Maybe there really was something wrong with Steven. Even Amethyst seemed a little stunned at the whole scene.

Stephen knew he might be in trouble, so he decided to use a backup plan he had in case things got spicy. He ran over and hugged Garnet tightly, sniffling slightly as he spoke with sadness in his voice, "G-Garnet, he was saying mean things to me... I-I didn't mean it..." Garnet's expression softened as she held him to her. "Actually, I think Steven is fine." She stated.

Pearl was in disbelief. A person was just disintegrated to ash and everything was fine because Steven was good at giving hugs. Amethyst seemed indifferent to the situation and commented, "Well, I mean if he was being a jerk then I guess that makes sense...I think..."

While the gems were debating over what just happened, with Garnet more concerned with consoling a sad Stephen, Sadie was quite busy. She had been quickly gathering Lars' ashes into a jar to preserve them, some of her tears mixing in with the dust. During her gathering, she accidentally inhaled some and discovered the taste was quite delicious. What started off as something unintentional became very intentional to say the least. Stephen and the other gems looked over to see her on the ground, sticking her hand in a jar filled with gray dust and consuming it like a pixie stick until nothing remained. She only stopped licking her fingers when she noticed everyone staring at her.

"Uhhh, did she just eat that boy's fuckin' ashes?" Amethyst questioned. "Language!" Pearl corrected her. "But yes, I think she did..."

Sadie began to feel shame for her vile act and quickly came up with a totally legit excuse to leave the room. "I have to pee." she said, quickly leaving.

Noticing the vacant counter, Stephen walked up behind it, gazing at all of the many different doughnuts. With Sadie gone, he could steal all of these for free, and was heavily considering it. As he was about to expand his cheeks like a chipmunk and suck up all of the doughnuts, he then realized the gems would find it to be a little too strange of behavior in a single day. Instead, he sighed and grabbed a single doughnut, smashing the rest of the others in the glass case. If he couldn't have them, no one could. He put the unwrapped doughnut, still gooey from just being made, into his pocket, not caring about the smeared icing. In fact, he was pleased, because his jeans would smell like doughnuts.

Stephen walked out of the convenience store, giving a wave to the shocked gems. Garnet, realizing the distress of the other two at Stephen's bizarre behavior, decided it would be best to take Stephen home for the day.

"Steven, we're going home." Garnet told him, grabbing his left hand. Stephen shrugged, content he just got his doughnut.