#dramaticfics

“Man… I can’t believe our parents liked the other version of us more than the real us…” Harold said quietly, as he sat in the treehouse with George.

           “I know…Do you think we’d be better off with that ‘Kid-away 2000’, or whatever it was called?” George asked, unsure.

           Harold only shrugged. Of course, he wanted to say, ‘no way! We’re amazing the way we are!’, but he the other half of him wasn’t so sure.

           “Well, it’s not like we can go get some more of that gas, anyway. Mr. Meaner is in jail- again. And he’s dumb again, too.” George said, giving up on his idea.

           “Do you think our parents will be mad that we’re back to normal?” Harold asked, scared of the answer.

           George was silent for a moment.

           They both knew their parents loved them. There was no doubt of that in their minds. And they both knew their parents had no idea they were under the influence of a hypno-gas, and not changed by themselves. So the only rational thought would be that their parents simply thought they were able to control themselves better, and maybe even learning to manage their ADHD. Their parents were proud of the other versions, which meant they loved them, and wanted them to be healthy and happy.

           But, as is the problem with many mental illnesses, you didn’t always think rationally.

           “What if we-What if we try really hard to study and focus?” Harold asked, wringing his hands.

           “But remember last time we vowed that? Our future selves were mean as Mr. Krupp!” George reminded.

           Harold nodded, still not completely convinced.

           “And it’s not like we don’t ever try,” George added, “We try all the time!”

           “But trying doesn’t mean anything if I’m dumb enough to fail the fourth grade!” Harold yelled.

           “You aren’t dumb!” George shouted back.

           “Yes I am!” Harold cried, suddenly curling into a ball on his bean-bag chair, head between his knees, “You know I am!”

           “No, Harold!” George said back, scooting over to Harold, worried, “I know you’re not!”

           “But you’re just saying that because if you really tried and studied, you’d be fine! You could’a been in the third grade when you were in kindergarten! But I… I can’t even finish the fourth grade when I’m in fourth grade…”

           George took a moment. Technically, that much was true. George was ‘smart’ enough to skip a grade (or three), when he actually put his mind to it. Albeit, kindergarten wasn’t necessarily challenging. And, yes, Harold did fail the fourth grade (in the other timeline, but still).

           “But you didn’t fail! Remember! Us from a day in the future came and took those surprise test things, and we both passed, and we’re both going to fifth grade!” George said quickly.

           “I’m sure I’ll be just fine in fifth grade…” Harold mumbled, hardly loud enough for George to hear.

           “I’m not too excited, either…” He nodded. Although he had the smarts to do it, George’s brain wasn’t any more willing than Harold’s.

           They sat together, Harold slowly moving to rest his head on George’s shoulder, in complete silence. When boys like them were silent for longer than two seconds, things were truly troubling.

           “Do you think we’ll ever outgrow having ADHD?” Harold finally asked, after their long silence.

           “I don’t know,” George answered honestly, “Dad has that book on ADHD, maybe that’ll know.”

           “I hope so…” Harold sighed, “I don’t wanna be dumb forever.”

           “You aren’t.” George said, but his voice was just as dead as Harold’s. He tried to deny it, but he was just as beaten up inside as Harold was.

           Harold leaned over, reaching to give George a big hug. George could hear him sniffle, and knew Harold was crying. But then again, George was pretty sure he was crying, too.

           George hugged him back, and both tried to hug away their fears.

           “You aren’t dumb, either,” Harold mumbled, finally separating.

           “You weren’t dumb in the first place,” George reminded with a sad, quiet laugh, “Remember what Dad said? We’re just extra creative.”

           “Extra something,” Harold sighed, though with far less sorrow in his voice as ealier.

           “Without people like us, there probably wouldn’t be any good jokes in the world,” George said with a faux-pride, starting to feel a little more like himself.    

           “Hah, yeah,” Harold nodded, rubbing the last bit of tears from his eyes, “’Cause people like us daydream up all the best ones.”

           “So what, we’re not perfect little robots,” George huffed, suddenly acting like the ‘other versions’ were just annoying jerks, “But I like us-us way better than them-us. We’re a ton more fun.”

           “My little sister would probably miss the drawings I give her,” Harold said, trying to add to their little comfort speech.

           “Yeah!” George nodded, “ADHD is what makes us special, not bad!”

           “And not dumb!” Harold said, balling his fists to force himself to believe it.

               Ding De-Ling!!!

               “Oh, its Mystery Girl!” Steven grinned, grabbing his phone as he ate some more of his breakfast. Yesterday, Pearl had texted ‘Mystery Girl’ all day through Steven (although she did try to text a few times towards the end), but eventually they got a text saying ‘its getting kinda late and I have work tomorrow so I gtg to bed. Night Pearl, ttyl’. Pearl had replied with something along the lines of ‘since I don’t consume energy I don’t need to sleep’, which got a reply of ‘lmao same’, and that ended that. But now it was a new day, with all new possibility.

               Also, they had gotten her name yesterday, but the name Mystery Girl had stuck with Steven, so he just assigned that as her nickname.

               “Already?” Pearl asked, surprised.

               Steven nodded, handing her the phone. He had considered asking his dad to get Pearl her own, since he had enough money now.

               “Oh, Steven, she sent a picture!” Pearl smiled, showing Steven the picture attached to the message.

               It was your typical selfie, nice filters, fading, and lighting.

               “She sure is pretty.” Steven said, shoving the last bits of pancakes into his mouth.

               “Yes…” Pearl agreed, almost lost in the picture.

               “Oh, Pearl!” Steven gasped, snapping Pearl back to reality, “You should send her a selfie, too!”

               “A what?” Pearl asked, already panicking. These human things were so bizarre.

               “It’s a picture you take of yourself,” He explained, taking the phone, “Here, I’ll show you.”

               Steven opened up the camera app, and showed Pearl as he held the camera up, smiled, and snapped the picture.

               “See, just like that! Jenny showed me this app where you can add cool stickers and words, too! There’s filters and other stuff you can change, too, but I’ll show you that later.” Steven said, showing Pearl the selfie in his album.

               “Seems simple enough,” Pearl nodded, taking the phone into her hands.

               “So you just hold it up like this?- and then…?”

               “Smile, and touch the little white circle button.” Steven answered, leaning back so he wouldn’t be in the shot.

               But Pearl would have none of it. She might be trying to woo this new human, but she wouldn’t ignore the opportunity to enjoy something with Steven. She pulled him back in by his shoulder, causing him to laugh, and she snapped the picture.

               It was a tad bit blurry, but it was clearly a capture of happiness. After all, who wouldn’t love a picture of Pearl and Steven laughing together?

               “Okay, now take one to send to her,” Steven instructed, still smiling.

               “Why can’t I send her this one?” Pearl asked. Was Steven upset with her?

               “Oh! Sure!” Steven said, smiling even bigger.

               He showed Pearl how to put a picture in a text message, and also added a caption of ‘Good morning!’ for good measure.

               Pretty soon, they got a reply.

               /aww, cute! He’s that kid from the party, right? I think I saw him?/

               /Yes, he’s steven! A family friend, basically/

               Steven told Pearl to just simplify it as that, since explaining their actual relationship would take way too long.

               /haha hi steven. Btw pearl, my shift ends at 1 so if you wanna catch coffee or something afterwards im free/

               “Pearl!” Steven grinned, kicking his feet lightly, “I think she just asked you out!”

               “How do I reply?” She asked, holding the phone out for Steven again.

               “Well, do you want to go out with her?” Steven asked, before anything else.

               Pearl opened her mouth to reply, but paused for a moment to actually think.

               “It’s a little fast… But I suppose it’s been long enough for me to get back in the ‘dating world’, as you called it. Are you sure it’s okay?”

               In an odd way, it was like asking your ex’s son if it was too early to date again.

               “Yeah, definitely!” Steven answered, nodding quickly, “She seems super nice! And she likes you, so I know she’s smart!”

               Pearl laughed at his joke, but couldn’t help but be flattered.

               “Alright, alright, let me try this,” She asked, picking the phone back up, and sticking out her tongue in focus.

               “How’s this?”

               /I would love to, although I do not drink coffee. Or anything. But I would love to go!/

               Steven giggled a little at her reoccurring hatred of eating or drinking, but nodded.

                 “Zero one eight nine?” Steven echoed, making sure he typed in the correct numbers.

               “Yes, that’s right.” Pearl nodded, folding up the small sheet of paper. She glanced over at Steven’s phone, looking at the numbers she just read out to him.

               “Alright! Let’s see… What should I put for her name? Did you ever get her name?” Steven asked, clicking on to the next bit of making a phone contact.

               “No, I didn’t.” Pearl shook her head, somewhat embarrassed. Gems didn’t ask each other for their names, after all, so she never really picked up the habit.

               “Let’s just call her Mystery Girl. First name Mystery, last name Girl. With a music note emoji since we met her at a concert!” Steven announced, proud of his well-placed emoji.

               “So what now?” Pearl asked, staring at the small machine.

               “Well, we can call her or text her. Which do you want to do?” Steven asked.

               However, Pearl’s face told him she didn’t know what that meant.

               “We can talk to her like a normal conversation, or like… uh, send her a letter! Just they’re usually short and simple.” He explained, trying not to giggle like Amethyst was. She knew the most about human culture than any of the others, and even Garnet knew how to operate a phone, although Steven guessed that was with future vision.

               “Try sending her a text first, she might not even have her phone on her.” Amethyst answered for Pearl.

               “Sure!” Steven nodded, then faced back to Pearl, “What do you want me to say to her?”

               “Um… Hello?”

               Steven typed in “Hello”, ignoring Amethyst’s half-laugh half-sigh.

               “Anything else?” Steven asked.

               “What else should I say?” Pearl asked, genuinely confused on how ‘texting’ works.

               “Well let’s introduce you, since she doesn’t know my number. But, uh, let’s just pretend this is your phone, not mine. How does ‘Hello, this is Pearl, from the party! It was nice to meet you’ sound?”

               “That sounds nice.” Pearl nodded proudly.

               Steven made sure to lean towards Pearl to let her watch him type, so she could see how it was done. After he typed it, and checked for the final nod from Pearl, he sent the message.

               “I’ll even set up a special tone for her ringtone so I’ll now it’s her!” Steven smiled, setting up another pre-set tone for her text and call tone. He had special tones for Connie, Connie’s home phone, his dad (one of his dad’s songs!), and Sadie. Sadie sent him a text whenever they got a new special at the Big Donut, so of course that deserved a special tone.

               He played the tone so Pearl could hear the noise.

               “So your phone will play that if she answers, right?” She asked, double checking.

               “Yep! Now we wait!” Steven said, happily going back to the puzzle. Rock parties were fun, but in all honesty, he preferred a puzzle to breaking the law. Amethyst got bored pretty quickly and went back into her room.

               About an hour later- almost done with the puzzle!- his phone buzzed with Mystery Girl’s special tone.

               “Oh! Oh! It’s her!” Steven smiled, grabbing his phone. Pearl held onto his shoulder as she peered over, to see what Mystery Girl answered with.

               /Hey, nice to meet u too! Sorry I just woke up haha. So ur name is Pearl, right?/

               “Yay, it worked!” Steven clapped, shaking his phone around, and Pearl tried to follow it like a dog for a treat.

               “Yes! That is my name!” Pearl nodded quickly, pointing at the phone screen. Steven laughed as he held the phone away, like a bully holding away a kids lunch box.

               “Pearl!” He laughed, swept up in her enthusiasm, too, “You’re gonna break my phone! Let me type it!”

               Pearl leaned back, although still anxiously staring at the phone.

               “Okay, so how about this: Yes, that’s right. Did u enjoy the concert?” Steven asked, holding up the phone so Pearl could read it clearly.

               “Yes, but you spelled ‘you’ wrong. Steven, I know you know how to spell basic words.” Pearl scolded softly.

               “No, no, Pearl,” Steven giggled, “When you text someone, you can shorten your words! You can type the word ‘you’ as just the letter ‘u’! And ‘are’ can become ‘r’, and a bunch of others!”

               “That’s strange, but if it’s a human thing I suppose I can’t judge. Fine, type the wrong message.” She sighed, allowing Steven to send it.

               Steven could tell that she didn’t like it, so he went back and changed it. Might as well make it most Pearl-like, after all. Just pretending that Pearl was typing.

               /Yes, that’s right. Did you enjoy the concert?/

               “Thank you Steven,” Pearl smiled.

               “Hey, Pearl, why don’t you try typing the next message?” Steven offered, holding out his phone for her.

               “Me?” Pearl asked in shock, “I don’t know how to use a phone!”

               “It’s simple, really!” Steven encouraged, still holding out his phone, “All you do is type out the letters with your fingers, kinda like how you type on a type-writer!”

               He couldn’t remember if Pearl knew how to use a regular computer, but he did know she used a type-writer at least once.

               “Here, while we’re waiting for her reply, why don’t you test it out? I’ll just send it to myself!” Steven explained, exiting out of the message with Mystery Girl and typing in his own number.

               He handed his phone to Pearl, who tried to mimic how Steven held his phone. Her hands were a little larger, so she had to figure out how to hold it, but she figured that out quickly.

               “Just type with your thumbs, like you saw me doing!” Steven said, pointing to the keyboard.

               “Okay…” Pearl hummed, focusing on the screen. She typed incredibly slowly, and made several mistakes, but by the time she finished her message she had pretty much figured out how the keyboard worked.

               /Heello,, I an Pesrl/

               “Well, it’s a start.” Pearl sighed, handing the phone back to Steven.

               “If you want, I can turn on auto-correct? It fixes anything you spell wrong. I turned it off since half of the gem-related words I know aren’t in the dictionary.” Steven laughed to himself.

               “No, no, it’s fine, I’ll figure it out.” Pearl answered, determined.

                 Obsidians were mapmakers. Cartographers, specifically. Each subspecies of Obsidian had their specific jobs. Mahogany Obsidians made maps of “waterways”, even if they were made of lava. Any liquid paths were under the Mahogany Obsidians jurisdiction. Some Obsidians, such as Snowflake Obsidian, made adaptable maps. Snowflake Obsidians made maps that took into account the effect of planetary weather. Some planets had dangerous types of rain, like glass or hail. When a planet has rain, even non-harmful rain, it can affect the land around it. Mudslides, erosion, the works. They were useful in war, because they could create maps that gave military advantage. Unlike Sapphires, who had a psychic power to see into the future, Obsidians were simply advanced in their sensory abilities. They could detect subtle changes in air pressure, temperature, and tectonic movements. Basically, Obsidians were their own weather-vane.

               During the war over earth, Rose had a Snowflake Obsidian of her own, nicknamed “Snowflake” accordingly. Snowflake was friendly enough, but was almost always engulfed in her work. She was convinced to join Rose’s forces because Rose told her that she wasn’t just the quality of her work. Snowflake had made a few mistakes in her past involving her work, which placed her as lesser value than others. That gave Rose a chance to speak to her, since she was easier to access than the elite. Rose told her that even though she made mistakes, she wasn’t a mistake. Rose gave her a second chance to do something great, and Snowflake took it.

               The biggest problem was that the Diamonds had Obsidians as well. Any advantage that Snowflake could provide to Rose’s army would be matched by the Diamonds. Both sides knew of the potential changes in the battlefields.

               Then one day, Rose knew where Snowflake Obsidian could fit in, and still provide an advantage.

               Not long before she recruited Snowflake, Rose had also claimed a new Bismuth. This Bismuth was an astoundingly powerful asset to Rose’s forces by enhancing all weapons, even creating new ones. The only problem was that to have access to running lava to quickly forge weapons, one had to be in an active volcano. And when in an active volcano, the volcano can erupt. While Bismuth herself was in no risk of danger from the lava, all of her hard work could be melted immediately. After one minor eruption, which made quick work of her stash of swords and spears, Rose assigned Snowflake to work as an “assistant” or sorts under Bismuth. That way, Bismuth would be able to move her weapons once the volcano erupted. She even worked as an actual assistant to Bismuth from time to time, holding up sides of metal for her to do specific work to.

He felt lied to. Bismuth had seemed so welcoming, so open-minded. Pearl and Garnet were so excited to see her, too! Sure, she seemed a little too rowdy for Steven’s taste, but who was he to judge? He could have been too soft for her, after all. But anyhow, she seemed like a fine member to the team! Even though he only knew her for a short time, he still felt so lied to!

               To think, a member of the Crystal Gems would be willing to shatter gems like a fly with a newspaper! More than just willing, she was enthusiastic to shatter them. Shattering gems was the equivalent of killing them, getting rid of them forever.

               But that wasn’t even the worst part.

               He couldn’t believe it, but that wasn’t the worst part.

               No, the worst part, was that he felt lied to by Rose.

               He felt like his own mother lied to him.

               All of the stories he heard of her, she sounded like a perfect leader. She seemed graceful, in control, and understanding. Forgiving. Truthful.

               But this whole ordeal was the opposite of truthful. This was a pile of lies on top of each other.

               Bismuth lied. Rose lied.

               Bismuth had created the weapon of mass destruction, the weapon of “ultimate power”. Twice, in a manner of speaking. Once to Rose, and once again, to Steven.

               And Rose just stopped it, but didn’t tell anyone. None of Bismuth’s friends knew. None of the Crystal Gems knew. Pearl and Garnet lived for years, thinking that Bismuth was just lost in a battle, and they never knew what she had done. Rose lied to all of them, and Steven felt lied to as well.

               Rose told all of the gems a lie about what happened to one of their friends. Bismuth knew all of them, from the sounds of it. And Rose let them believe she was simply lost in a battle. No closure, no truth.

               Bismuth was willing to shatter tons of gems, who could have very well been innocently following orders. Like Centipeetle, who was kind and fun. If Bismuth had succedding in creating the Breaking Point, Steven could have never met Centipeetle, or her lovely crew.

Rose fought one of her own soldiers. Bismuth fought her own leader.