#||stormchaser

    Underneath the growling sky, the only other sound was the wet plaps of Howl’s shoes against the steadily flooding grass. The summer had been hot, even the day had been temperate and dry, so the ground was useless in absorbing the sudden storm. The only guidance back Home was the mix of muscle memory and the faint glowing of the porch light in the distance. Or, there should have been a faint glowing of a porch light. There was a hint of it, but even from this far out Howl could tell that there was something obstructing it, it wasn’t just burnt out or off. The hairs on the back of their neck stood on end and they moved a bit faster, dropping to all fours and taking new form in a momentary shift of white light that was all but drowned out by the heavy rain and the perfectly-timed flash of violet lightning.

Nimble feet rushed the mottled Gem through the long, wet, lapping grass towards their house, just out of sight and pawfalls hidden under the loud hiss of rain. Whatever the figure was, it was looming in front of the door and obscuring the light from inside. Once again, Howl bristled, this time close enough for a low growl to join the bassy grind of storm cloud against storm cloud. They’d nearly made it the entire way to their porch when--

      “--Howl!”

The familiar lilt of tone immediately melts the white Gem and after a stunned moment, they shift back to something more Gem-like. Another crack of lightning confirms their assumption, and another round of loud, wet footslaps rushes them up the stairs and flinging towards the Fusion. They collide, Garnet taking most of the brunt of the force and dispelling it in a spin and an embrace. She doesn’t care that Howl is rain-soaked. Neither does Howl.

    “Garnet!” They reply, just as enthusiastic (if not more so) than their impromptu guest. When the spin stops, Howl tightens their embrace and buries their rain-wet face into the top of Garnet’s chest. Garnet buries her lips and chin into the crown of Howl’s head. Neither of them speak again for a bit. They let the thundering of the storm and the closeness of their embrace speak for them. It’s time soon enough, though, to part, and Garnet begins to release just as Howl was starting to wane. She sets them down and re-adjusts her new, three-pointed shades. She’s smiling so wide it looked almost Comical. Howl is trying their best not to start crying.

“It’s been--”

“So long, I know. I wanted to come sooner. Ah’m sorry. So much’s happened, I don’t even know where to begin.” Garnet interrupts, but it doesn’t feel rude. It feels excited. It feels familiar.

“Well, coming inside out of the rain might be a good place to start.” There’s an awkward smile on Howl’s lips, crooked and small but genuine. They’re thankful that their wet hair is across their face. They’re not sure if there are tears or not as they move past Garnet politely and unlock their front door.

“I suppose that’s true. Very wise, Howl.” Garnet replies with a laugh on her voice. It’s warm, starkly so in contrast to the cool of the thunderstorm.

    Once inside, Howl was greeted by their several dogs. It had just been puppy season, late summer when the strays would have their litters and nobody would be around to claim them. It was just until they were old enough to be adopted out, Howl told themselves at the start. Now they weren’t so sure. Garnet ducked through the doorway behind them, gently turned the handle as she shut it, and then briefly crossed her wrists in front of herself. When she separated them, her Gems let off a soft glow which spread to the rest of her body, and in a flash the water that had been on her steamed and dried from the heat of her hard-light. Howl thought it was a neat trick they’d have to ask her about in the future, but now wasn’t the time.

“Please, get comfortable. You can stay for a bit, right?” They asks as they gently usher their several hounds towards their beds. As they moved through the room, they flipped on some of the lights though kept the ambiance dim and warm.

“Jus’ for a bit. Jus’ long enough.”

“...good. Is it alright if I make some tea?”

“Sure. Be careful, though.” Garnet warns as she moves into the living room and takes a seat on the edge of the sofa. Howl freezes in place.

“...why?”

“There’s still water in the kettle from las’ night. Take care not to tip it too much when you move it.”

    Howl smiles.

               “Alright. Thanks.”

   “So... she’s... NICE now?” Howl asks, only holding their cup of tea and not sipping it. Garnet, on the other hand, in hospitable solidarity takes a long sip of her own Earl Grey between words.

“Well... not yet, but she’s trying. They all are. It’s something brand new to them, but it’s happening. With Steven’s guidance, they’ll succeed. It’s over.” There’s a soft and serene, almost dreamy sound to the Fusion’s words that makes Howl wring their fingers along the handle of their mug. Something twists over Howl’s features and Garnet reaches a tea-warmed hand out to rest on their shoulder, ruby facets pressed flat to the still rain-damp fabric of their jacket. Howl raises their eyes from their reflection in the untouched tea to stare themselves down in Garnet’s shades instead. There’s a question they desperately want to ask but can’t. It’s trapped somewhere behind their gem.

“—We don’t have her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not out there somewhere. Ah’m sorry.”

It’s not the answer Howl wanted, but it is the one they were expecting. A held and unnecessary breath released itself and Howl sighs out a defeated huff of a laugh before they bring their sleeve up to press at their eyes. There weren’t full on tears yet, but Howl knew they were there and didn’t want them to fall. Not in front of Garnet.

“There are still Gems we haven’t recovered, it’s a big, wide world. I’m sure we’ll find her.”  Garnet’s words should have been reassuring but Howl can’t shake the feeling that the Fusion knows something they don’t, which... she absolutely did. Whether or not Garnet would tell a lie like that to protect them, they weren’t so sure about. The pad of their thumb rolled over the lip of their mug.

“Thank you.” Was all they could manage at the moment. Garnet understood.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it right now. What have you been up to?” Garnet moves as she speaks, setting her now emptied cup on the worn coffee table and shuffling her hip so it was up against the stormy Gem. Howl tries to be present. The contact helps, but not enough. A gloved hand raises to Garnet’s face and, with a pull of her fingers in the air above her visor, it vanishes in a sparkle of dissipated light. Three gentle, loving, and knowing eyes fall on Howlite and they appreciate the gesture. It brings a weakened smile to their lips.

“Oh, y’know... Working at the library. Taking care of them,” Howl says with a loose gesture to the several dogs curled up in the corner of the room. The Mother is awake but her four puppies aren’t. “—nothing much. Definitely not fighting a Diamond Warship on Homeworld.” There’s another nervous laugh that passes over their Gem. Garnet’s brows screw up a little.

“Howl... I wanted to ask you something.”

It was a statement that should have been benign but brought with it an uneasy tension that Howl couldn’t quite place. It felt wrong to hear that Garnet had a question, they think. What could she possibly have to ask that she didn’t already know the answer to?

“Uhh...sssure?” Howlite replies, suddenly all but too overly aware of how they were sitting and the heated weight of the mug in their hands.

“With the Diamonds repairing what they’d done, there are a number of displaced Gems. They don’t want to go back to Homeworld. Earth is their home, but there are too many to house in Beach City.

    We can provide the materials to build, help set it up, but—“

“Wait, wait, wait— what are you saying? You want... to bring them all here??” Howl’s sitting up straight now, their entire body turned towards Garnet. They grip their mug so tightly that it cracks the glaze on the porcelain. They don’t notice.    “I can’t just... Garnet, there are SO many of them!!!” The look on their face is best described as ‘pleading and panicked’, made even more evident by the hand that had shot its way up to twist up a lock of their choppy white hair.

Garnet just smiles, raising her hand back to her face and summoning the half-star of her visor. Her smile spreads into a full grin as she does.

“And here I thought you enjoyed taking in strays~”

Garnet wouldn’t have asked if she’d known it would be a no, right? Howl sits there, staring for a moment, the weight of indecision and the twisting rivers of fate consuming them. They hadn’t been around too many Gems since their Kindergarten, they hadn’t had to mentor anyone about humans and life on modern Earth EVER. Were they the best person for this? Garnet must believe in them if she’s suggesting it at all.     Their mind ran a mile a minute as rumbling thunder sung out outside.

“...you don’t have to say yes, you know. That’s why it’s a question.” Garnet leans down as she speaks, her head tips, and she offers another soft smile after a far-to-long silence from the Howlite.

“—yes.” They reply curtly. It was instantaneous after Garnet’s voice stopped, it nearly cuts her off.

   “Okay, Well then, you can take as long as you need to t—“

“No no no, YES. Yes I’ll... I’ll do it. I... whew boy.” Their words lose steam and the devolve into laughing, a firm palm pressed to their forehead at their hairline lifting their bangs from their face as they stare headlong into the distance.    Garnet lurches forwards and hugs them tight. One of her hands comes to cradle the back of Howl’s head and she lets out her own happy bubble of a chuckle. “Thank you! It won’t be forever. Steven, Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot will eventually cooperate to create a safe-haven for Gems on Earth closer to the Temple, Ah’m sure of it! It’ll just be until then!”

Howl melts into the embrace, nodding where they can and trying to understand the scope of what they’d just agreed to. The mother dog rests her head over one of her puppies and settles down quietly. The steady static of the rain fills the comfortable silence of the farmhouse. Howl thinks that this is probably one of the last nights they’ll have to themselves for a while.

   That thought isn’t nearly as jarring or horrifying as they thought it would be.

    “Yo, chuck it at me I’m open!” Amethyst shouts with her hands cupped around her mouth. She’s shifted into a huge, burly beast of a ‘wrestler’ to assist with construction despite having the exact same strength in whatever form she took. She claps her hands against her hairy chest and assumes a kind of grappling stance.

“If you say so, small stuff!” Bismuth calls back with a raspy joviality to her voice. With a loud ‘hyup’ from Bismuth, a several-foot long and at least two-feet thick support beam is thrown like a huge, wooden javelin across the field towards Amethyst. The purple Gem growls as she prepares herself and, at the last moment, the thick ropes of her shape shifted fingers catch the lip of the pillar. In a quickly spat ‘yuh-oh’, Amethyst is ripped from her feet from the momentum of the support beam and goes, dragging, alongside it for a foot or two before she catches her footing and hoists it up over her head. “GOT IT!”

Bismuth smirks and claps her hands together a few times to knock the splinters free. “Good job! Who knows! Maybe next time I’ll finally get to use at least HALF of my full strength!”     Amethyst shouts a perturbed ‘hey’ before the both of them start laughing and whatever tension that appeared to be there was gone in an instant.

    “Hmm.” Pearl hums as she holds her chin between her index finger and her thumb. She’s looming over one of the many drafting tables, examining a set of the blueprints her and Peridot had drafted for the ‘temporary’ housing. “I, still, really do think that the center most window of the top floor should be moved at least three inches higher.”

Peridot gives a dry ‘ha!’ and twists her wrist dismissively. “See, the PROBLEM with that is that we have Gems who AREN’T freakishly tall like you needing to live in these homes! If it goes three inches higher, ME-sized Gems won’t be able to, oh, I don’t know, casually open or close it without the use of some kind of climbing device, and that defeats the entire purpose!” As she speaks her little green finger points at various bits of the blueprint to illustrate her point. Just as Pearl is about to launch her rebuttal, Lapis lands with a wet ‘flap’ and crosses her arm.

“Built-in stairs.” Lapis offers while giving the par a half-lidded glance. Her finger comes to rest on the floorplan before the window. Both of the ‘engineers’ give a momentary ‘I...’ before they return to looking at the blueprints.

    Garnet had been working with Steven to direct some of the Healed Gems to the places they needed to be, giving them directions and purpose. It was amazing how many of them wanted to help. More than a dozen partially-mutated Gems helped tamp the Earth and mark out where all of the interim structures would be. It was... overwhelming, to say the least.     Howl sits on their porch, leaning forward on their knees and watching the Crystal Gems do what they did best. It was no wonder Wulfenite had wanted to join them...

They hadn’t talked to anyone but Garnet yet, although they had waved when the Fusion brought her immediate family over to explain what was happening, that Howl had volunteered to house the new Earth Gems, and that ‘this is Howl. They are one of my closest friends and they are incredibly kind’. It’d made them blush a steely grey at the time. Twisted up their tongue.    “Hey! Iiiiis it okay if I sit here for a minute?” The voice catches Howl off-guard. It was loud, albeit friendly, and shockingly masculine in contrast to the majority of the Crystal Gems they were used to hearing. Their eyes turn to land on him, Steven Universe, the hybrid son of Pink Diamond, and all they can do is give a stiff, slow nod. Steven chimes a ‘thanks!’ and takes a seat on the wood of the porch. The Summer Heat is back and he wipes the sweat of his hard-work from his brow.

“It’s Howlite, right?” He asks with a charming grin.

“...just Howl.” They reply. Their voice is soft, unsure. At least they had their bangs to be thankful for, a curtain of protection against the oncoming storm of social interaction that was probably going to drain every last bit of ‘Daily Energy’ that they had. Good thing they called into work today.

“Howl. Gotcha. I’m Steven,” The half-Gem originally offers out his hand that he’d just used to wipe his forehead with before he realized it, drew it back with an ‘oh!’, wiped it furiously on his jeans, and re-offered it. Howl chuckles softly, taking his hand and giving it a firm shake. “--you’ve got a beautiful house here! Do you ever grow anything in these fields?”

“...no, not usually. Sometimes the neighboring farmer pays me to use the fields as overflow for their wheat but... I’ve never intentionally grown anything.” They’re half-mumbling which is frustrating them. Maybe Garnet shouldn’t have told them that Steven’s Mother used to be a Diamond. They were usually so personable... or at the very least, they had a good customer service voice. Neither of those things were coming to them now. Steven didn’t seem to mind, at least.

“Oh! That’s smart.” He says with a nod. Steven rests the palms of his hands on the wood of the deck and leans back on them with his heels dug slightly into the dirt, stretching out his hot and sore legs. He gives an over-heated sigh.

“Y’know, it might be nice for them to see that the Earth can grow and change. If you want, Peridot and Lapis grow their own small farm at their Barn. I can have them show everyone how to tend to things like corn, and pumpkins, and sunflowers. It might be a nice thing for everyone to do together.” As he talks he’s looking out at the group of his friends, some old and some new, and he has a kind look of Love across his features. It makes Howl feel a little less tense. “--I mean! If you want to do something like that! Oh, geeze, look at me: making plans for someone else’s property. It’s already so great of you to have them all come live here, you don’t--”

“--It sounds nice.” Howl interrupts warmly. Steven just smiles with his brows twisted in apology. “Maybe... we could sell what we grow in town. Get people used to seeing them as something friendly for a change.”

Garnet had explained that the only Gem the nearby town was used to seeing was Howl, and that a rampaging Gem Beast had torn through these grounds back when she first met them, so the hesitation made sense to Steven. He gave a nod. “That sounds great! I’ll talk to Lapis and Peri as soon as they’re not busy.” Steven motions towards the three standing around the drafting table with a gesture of his head. Howl smiles softly.

“...thanks.”

    At some point the Sun started to go down and construction was halted for the evening. By that time, Howl had retreated into their house to tend to the dogs that were going a little stir-crazy and shaken up by the sounds of hammering and nailguns. Garnet had joined them, and eventually so had Steven (who was a much needed breath of Excitement for the house-trapped hounds). Now that evening was falling, Amethyst and Pearl had also made their appearances. It was... strange to have their house so full. They didn’t have enough mugs for everyone to have their own tea. Garnet and Amethyst offered to go without to help with this. Pearl offered to bring more mugs. It was... nice.

“--and then, right as we thought we were done for--- WA-BAM! Smokeyquartz~” Amethyst recounts for the group. As she says ‘bam’ her fist hits into her other palm, breaking into a wiggling ‘sparkle’ of her fingers at the reveal of the Fusion’s name. It’s Steven’s turn to join into the story now, and he just as enthusiastically stands up to tell his part of how Smokey Quartz defeated Jasper, and eventually how Sardonyx had held a kind of ‘talk show’ to introduce herself to Smokey.     Howl does their best to listen, even laughing and taking their turn to tell stories they hadn’t told in thousands of years. It was... nice. It was, as they thought it would be, exhausting, but in a good way. The same kind of exhausting as tending to the puppies was, or helping townsfolk when they needed a hand with something no Human should be doing alone. It was a sleepy exhausting, not an overwhelmingly drained one.

Boastful and loud stories turned into subdued talking and more serious subjects, though nothing that crossed the line into upsetting Howlite (thank the stars). It’s around midnight when Pearl suggest that the Gems head home. Amethyst initially whines about the decision, but when she sees the bags under the half-human’s eyes and the look of tired in Howl’s, even she agrees.     Goodbyes were said, thanks were exchanged, and the Crystal Gems assured Howl that they’d be back to help with more construction tomorrow and that they’d keep an eye on things while they were away at work. Everyone filed out except for Garnet, who waited just inside the doorway for everyone to step out so she could have a word alone with her friend.

“...Thank you.” Garnet says in a low, honeyed tone. There’s a slight smile to her lips, one that might go unnoticed by anyone but Howl.

Howl brings up one of their hands to worry at the back of their neck, a soft laugh flowing over their Gem. “Don’t worry about it. They’re... nice. I’m glad I got to meet them finally. They’re everything you said they’d be, maybe more.”

Garnet hums a laugh. “You’re welcome at the Beach House whenever you want. M’ sure the Gems wouldn’t mind. Door’s always open to family, after all.” The way she says it almost makes the words missable, but that was the point. She was already walking towards the door by the time Howl’s mind had wrapped around them entirely, leaving the stormy Gem standing somewhat wide-eyed and stunned.     One of the Fusion’s hands meets the doorknob as she steps through the frame and out onto the deck.

“Goodnight Howl. Love you!” She says with a grin before shutting the door behind her softly as not to wake the puppies.

Howl’s hand twists the fabric of their shirt over their chest.

Family.