It's Becoming Crystal Clear (Jasper x Reader)

Chapter 1: Home Alone

Initially you had laughed at the emails which kept appearing in your spam folder. The email address was gibberish, and there was a spelling mistake in the topic line. The text informed you that your great uncle, Abdul-Aziz Horatio (L/N), had passed away, leaving you $250,000 in his will, along with a house on a large plot of land in Beach City. This last detail particularly tickled you - of all the locations they might have chosen, the scammers had selected the fictional setting of your favourite cartoon, Steven Universe. You almost worried that they were accessing your search history.

It was a little odd that the emails contained no attachments, no requests for money, and no demands for personal information, but you ignored them nonetheless. Then the phone calls started. You blocked the number. This was getting out of hand. You could no longer ignore it when an older woman knocked at your door, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.

As it turned out, it was all true! Abdul-Aziz was originally from England, and was named Byron Horatio (L/N) before converting to Islam some time after moving to America. A wealthy and successful but depressed and lonely man, he had fallen out of contact with all of his relatives. After being diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer, he used Facebook to try to track down family members, finding you. He had meant to send you a friend request and message you, but he was too embarrassed, realizing that his decades of isolation would have made him nothing more than a stranger to you. Hopeful for your future, he had put you in his will, though he sadly died shortly after without ever getting back in touch with anyone.

About a month later, you had moved away from home and were now living in Beach City. Your house was two storeys tall, of simple design, and painted white. Immediately in through the front door was the living room; beyond the living room, occupying the back portion of the first floor, was the long, narrow, yet reasonably spacious combination kitchen/dining room, the kitchen area on the right and the dining area on the left, with the back door in the middle of the back wall. Off of the living room to the left was the parlour, a room which saw very little use owing to your less-than-vast social circle in the area. Running up the left living room wall, starting just past the entrance to the parlour, was the stairwell. A door built into the side revealed the stairs leading to the basement. The only things down there were a laundry room, the pellet stove which heated the house during the winter, and a rec room you mostly used for storage due to its impractically low ceiling. Upstairs, the main bathroom was immediately on the right. Down the hall to the right on the right side were two bedrooms, one quite small. The hall turned to the left just past the second door; on the left side there was another bedroom and a closet with access to the empty attic. At the end was a linen closet. On the right was the master bedroom and attached bathroom, which had an additional door connecting to the hall.

Outside was a small garden, several large, exotic trees (which probably shouldn't have been there, legally speaking, but oh well), and a small pond with a simple wooden bench at its edge. To the north and to the east lay a vast wooded area full of hilly terrain. Only part of it was technically yours, but no one really cared about the property lines back there. Someone had even pulled up some of the markers and tossed them aside at random, just to tick off the land surveyors.

Your house sat on the outskirts of Beach City, which had more of the feel of a small-ish town than of a city. And everything in it was exactly as you knew it would be... well, except for Ronaldo's tourist information kiosk. That was new. And probably bad for the tourism industry. Newcomers like yourself were seldom made to feel welcome by "Ronalphlets" warning of evil time-and-space-travelling aliens from the Beryl Empire. Not the Diamond Authority - this was something different, according to him. You had a pretty good guess what the next season of Steven Universe would centre around.

It was a curious thing; apparently everything and everyone was real, yet none of the craziness (even the honest-to-goodness ALIEN INVASIONS) had ever made it to your local news station before you moved there; and how had all of these events been recorded and translated into their popular animated form, even in instances where no one who would logically be talking to human writers was present? You decided not to think about it too much, for fear that doing so might create a rip in the time-space continuum - or worse, the continuity!

The most uncomfortable thing was probably social interaction. You weren't crazy about it as it was, but it was all the weirder to know everything about people meeting you as a complete stranger. But you managed for the most part, and explained the situation if things turned awkward; most people were fairly understanding (if rather confused). During the week, you worked behind the counter of the general store owned by Mr. Mulligan, about whom you had no previous knowledge. He must have been a background character. You didn't exactly need the money, but it kept you busy and forced you to get out of that big, mostly empty house sometimes.

You encountered the Crystal Gems around town, especially on the waterfront, fairly often. Your interaction with them was sadly far more minimal than you would have liked, for while their presence always filled you with childlike excitement, you were usually too afraid of embarrassing yourself in front of them to even acknowledge them, though you got over this somewhat as time went on. You highly respected Garnet, but felt intimidated by her and unnerved by her lack of emotional cues, even though she was nothing but polite to you. You rather admired Pearl, but you simply had too much in common with her to maintain an energetic conversation. You would exchange pleasantries, then both sit in well-mannered silence. Not exactly your ideal vision of "hanging out." You enjoyed Amethyst's energy and free-spirited nature, but her uninhibited personality ironically made her the one around whom you most feared embarrassing yourself. Where did she draw the line with things? She could pick her nose, but could you scratch your butt in public? She could eat expired food, but could you pour milk in your bowl before cereal (although obviously not - there's a line between being a slob and being a monster)? You enjoyed Steven's company well enough, but had little to talk about. He was everything you wanted to be but were not. He was outgoing where you were reserved. He was youthful while you felt far older than you actually were. He was optimistic while you tended to see the glass as half empty with the saliva of whoever drank the other half floating in the water. He accepted the whole world as it was while you were full of a million questions. He loved and cared about everything and everyone, while you... you could claim to love many people, but rarely yourself.

While the friendships you made were at best awkward, they were the best part of your day. Going home every evening became something you looked forward to with a heavy heart. You were a bit of a pack rat, but most of those huge rooms sat completely empty. The sound of a pin dropping would echo through the whole structure. You would lie splayed out on your queen-size bed staring at the ceiling. Sometimes you'd put on the news or some game show for a little while. You tried to keep that to a minimum, though, as it made you feel like an old person. You used to watch Steven Universe at that time of day, but doing so just felt weird now. When you had the energy, you'd select a book from your overflowing bookshelf, put a CD from your near-bursting CD stand (which contained an odd mix of classical music, classic rock, a couple of film soundtracks, a single album of twangy country for some reason, and a few discs of one of the only decent pop singers of the modern day) in your stereo, and read and listen to the music until you fell asleep, usually well after midnight. Sometimes you would wake up in the middle of the night. Whenever you did, the emptiness of the place and the loneliness you felt would hit you like a ton of bricks. There was nothing to be heard but the sound of your own breathing. When you became used to that, you would hear only your heartbeat. Your brain would even tune that out after a minute or two. The silence was deafening.

Author's note: Yes, I know nothing really happened in this chapter, and that the main gem focused on by the story hasn't even appeared yet. Have patience, this was just a bit of setup. Things will get started in the next chapter.

(L/N) - Your last name/family name