#sufeyfolkau

-

Of course, she doesn’t. Connie has always been inquisitive by nature, and it’s one of Steven’s favorite things about her. There’s nothing wrong with it, period, but it makes something like this… well, more than a little awkward.

“Describe what happened,” Garnet says in that stoic way of hers, and Steven feels his face heating.

“Okay, so!” Connie takes Steven’s hand in hers, a grin spread across her face. “We were just joking around, right? And I’d gotten a paper cut earlier today at school. And I complained about it to him, so he said he’d ‘kiss it and make it better.’ And then he did!”

“I’ve never heard of a fey healing a mortal with a kiss,” Garnet murmurs. “You weren’t using magic?”

“Garnet.” Steven laughs, high and awkward and nerves spiking. “You know I can’t.”

“All fey have access to magic.”

“Clearly that doesn’t mean me.”

“The skills you call ‘powers’ are all different forms of—”

“We’ve had this conversation!” Steven waves his hands, wildly, desperate to direct the topic elsewhere. “It doesn’t matter. It was a one-time thing, and it won’t happen again.”

He’s scared of what might happen if it does.

Garnet nods once, and though no expression forms at her lips or in her eyebrows, he wishes he could see past her visor to know what her eyes were saying. “We could ask Mother.”

Connie gasps, excitement bursting at her seams, but Steven pales. The idea of Sapphire finding out — she would take one look at him and know. He’s never been able to hide anything from her. She would probably ban him from every healing anyone ever again. Or maybe she’d be okay with this.

Or maybe Steven’s freaking out over nothing, because who knows if he got that paper cut from somewhere else that he just forgot about?

“I-I don’t know. Maybe this was just a fluke.”

“We could always test that theory,” Garnet suggests.

“Fine.” Steven knows he’ll regret saying it, but he acquiesces. “Let’s test it!”

He words it as a challenge, praying fervently that Garnet will read his mind and see that they should just drop this subject and leave it alone.

Garnet, however, is not, nor has she ever claimed to be, a mind reader.

-

“Ooh, this sounds like a fun experiment. And you are due for another sword-fighting lesson, Connie.”

Normally, Steven is ecstatic when Connie’s up for training with Pearl. She’s very much Pearl’s student, as graceful and diligent as her teacher. The brownie has always been willing to share the things she’s learned — not in terms of the skills she knows inherently, as a brownie, but the skills she learned and trained herself in and mastered. The two of them in the arena together are a brilliant, dazzling display.

But today’s lesson seems like it would be less for Connie and more for Steven.

“Don’t, uh. Don’t beat each other up too hard,” Steven says, as Connie follows Pearl to the fairy circle.

Connie laughs. “Oh, I’m gonna kick Pearl’s ass.”

“Profanity, young lady,” Pearl scolds.

It would get a giggle out of Steven if he wasn’t absolutely terrified.

-

“What are you doing in my room?”

“Go away.”

“This is my room.”

Steven doesn’t move. He stays exactly where he is, curled up behind one of Amethyst’s many piles of miscellaneous paraphernalia. Amethyst sighs, the sound so near a groan that he almost winces, and then he feels the shift of movement and cloth as she plops down next to him. He’s on his butt, knees up, arms wrapped around them and head pressed between, but Amethyst leans over him, almost on top of him. “What’s got you down, bud? What’re you hiding from?”

“Nothing, geez!”

“So you’re telling me that you’re in my room for no reason?”

“What’s the big deal? It’s not a full moon, is it?”

“Stop being obtuse, you dweeb.”

Steven groans. He shifts, pushing Amethyst off of him in order to look at her. “I just… well. Garnet and Pearl are training with Connie because they think it’s going to help me, but I’m pretty sure it won’t. So I’m hiding out in here so I won’t have to face them when they’re done.”

“Just tell them that.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Sounds like it is when you won’t tell me why it’s complicated.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Amethyst hums, but she sounds almost as if she’s bored. She isn’t; Steven knows her well enough by now, but as always, it makes his nerves spike. As if he’s burdening her by being here, when the very reason he’s here is because he knows she doesn’t see him like that and she never will. “Well, why don’t you ask Sapphire? Maybe her future vision can help out so you won’t have to say anything.”

Steven considers it. He has a feeling that Sapphire would be straight with him about it, but she would spell everything out, word for word. And he doesn’t know if he wants to hear her wise voice articulating the specifics of this strange new power.

-

Which is how Steven winds up in front of Ruby.

“What’s goin’ on, Ste-man?” Ruby asks, burning a Poptart in her hand right before she devours it.

“I gotta ask you for some advice.” The words sigh out him, almost like he’s deflating, as he plops into the seat at the counter.

Ruby blinks, stunned. Yeah, Steven isn’t surprised by that. The last time he went to Ruby for advice, she’d made him swear never to come to her again. “That’s Sapphire’s thing, I guess,” she’d said with a blush and a nervous laugh. But Ruby had lived for eons, just like Sapphire, and just because she didn’t have the korrigan’s future vision didn’t mean her insight wasn’t also valuable.

Especially when it came to said korrigan.

“So… how do you recommend approaching Sapphire when I don’t want to actually talk about something, I kinda just want her to know it?”

Ruby’s expression remains exactly the same. Stunned, bewildered. Steven’s wondering if he’s made some sort of mistake when Ruby says, “Sapphire… can’t read minds, Steven. You know that. Sure, she can see a bunch of different futures, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to know what’s bothering you right away.”

Okay, that makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s what he wants to hear.

“What’s up with my fave little man?” Ruby asks, hopping up onto the counter and swinging her legs over the side.

And, honestly? No one else is allowed to be so diminutive with him. If only because Ruby knows exactly what it’s like to be called that kind of thing, and she doesn’t get the privilege of growing up like he does. (Then again, she can choose whatever human form she wants.)

“Uh, so…” He knows Ruby won’t let this leak. Of all of them, she’s probably the most tight-lipped... except in her anger, of course. “Connie and I discovered a new power of mine, but… I don’t really know how to tell her that I think it’s got some pretty negative side effects? But she’s already working on it, so… I just wanna know if I should pretend it doesn’t work, or that it was a fluke, or whatever.”

“Huh.”

Ruby doesn’t say anything for a moment, tapping at her chin with a furrow to her brow. “Mind if I ask what kind of side effects?”

“Um…” Steven bites his lip.

Ruby sighs. “Well, if you’re not gonna talk about it with me, I don’t know how you’re expecting to talk about it with Sapphy. And Steven, we’re all gonna know sooner or later. Might as well rip off the band-aid now, y’know?”

She was right. Of course she was right.

“I guess I have the power to heal people,” he begins.

“Oh, like Rose’s tears!”

Ruby’s starry eyes make Steven laugh, tone high and awkward. “Uh, kind of. But through kisses. And it’s not just healing. I don’t know how Mom did it, but for me, it seems like… I can take on whatever injury they’ve got.”

“Oh.” Ruby’s expression changes immediately from one of excitement to one of concern. “You sure?”

Steven shrugs. “It’s only happened once and it was over a paper cut, but… yeah, pretty sure. Usually once a new power hits, I can kind of tell.” Emphasis on the kind of; they all remember when his wings manifested. That had been…

Ruby nods slowly, gears turning in her brain. “Well, we should probably tell people about this, right? You don’t wanna end up in a situation where you feel like you have to use it, and everyone’s expecting you to, only for that to hit the fan right then.”

“I-I guess?”

Ruby slaps his shoulder, and he yelps. Her touch burns his skin through his jacket. “C’mon, little man!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.”

-

“This assumption you’ve made is based on one single event.”

Steven nods slowly, though the lump in his throat is heavy. “Um… yeah. I would really rather not test it, if that’s what you’re about to suggest.”

Sapphire considers this. She is at about Ruby’s height — which is to say, she comes up this waist and no higher. He used to think that she used to look down on him despite this, and in hindsight, that’s pretty hilarious, because Sapphire doesn’t conceive of others that way. Korrigans are typically incredibly beautiful creatures, and though Steven would say that Sapphire fits the bill, many fey would not; for Sapphire, somehow, came into being with only one eye. Sapphire has been treated horribly enough by plenty of fey for that sole thing — Steven’s even heard someone claim she has “more in common with the monsters than with fey” — and while that almost made him go off, she insisted it was fine.

She even jokes that her future vision requires two, and her third is for sight. Steven isn’t sure what to make of any that, but he does know that she’s probably the least likely to look down on anyone else.

“We won’t do anything that cannot be swiftly remedied.” Despite the assurance, Steven finds himself hesitating. Sapphire gestures for him to follow her, so he does. “You know, Steven, that your mother’s healing abilities worked differently.”

He swallows. “Yeah.” Hers were perfect, infallible in every way. Her tears would heal injuries with absolutely no casualties. Supposedly she could heal fey on the brink of death — something quite difficult for fey to reach in the first place — and they would resurrect, good as new and fatigue restored.

Steven’s powers are almost always different from Rose’s somehow. Never quite as unique, never quite as special.

“What you may not have known is that they affected mortals differently than they did fey.”

He blinks. He looks up, trying to catch Sapphire’s gaze, but she’s too many steps ahead. He recognizes this path well; she is leading him to the fairy circle. When he was young, they built the house around it. Apparently some of his mother’s magic was able to make it so that this particular circle could only be accessed by those with the proper credentials, though Steven hasn’t the foggiest idea about how any of that works.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that this circle is not composed of typical mushrooms, but of eternal fairy roses. Her namesake.

“Can you, um… elaborate?”

As they come to the circle, she extends her hand to him. He takes it, and together they step into the circle. A moment later their house is gone, their surroundings morphing into strange and new shapes until they settle on a familiar scene:

His mother’s fountain. Its water seem higher than ever as they exist the fairy circle, the statue of her higher still.

“Your mother’s powers were regenerative with injured fey; their heart would cease to beat, and your mother’s tears would inspire it to continue on, as if it’d never stopped. Broken bone would mend, lost limbs would regrow. But with mortals, it was very different. Their limbs would remain lost, her magic only causing the skin to heal over exposed bone. Their stopped hearts, when awoken, would be marching to an entirely new rhythm.”

Unease settles in his stomach.

“I’m curious to see if your power behaves the same on mortals and fey, or if it too finds different purpose in our differences.”

Steven stops.

They’ve come to the edge of the fountain. Sapphire smiles, and with a burst of magical energy, a dagger appears in her hand.

“N-no, Sapphire—”

“Easy, now.” Sapphire presses the dagger into the tip of her index finger. Steven watches, horrified, as her blood pools there, before slowly dripping to the stone floor in red speckles.

His stomach lurches again. He feels bile rise and he pushes it down, down, down. It’s just blood. There’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s just blood. And he can fix this.

The dagger disappears and Sapphire beckons him closer with her uninjured hand. Obediently, he comes to her side, but when she extends the injury to him to heal, he freezes. He stares at the blood, still dripping ever so slowly to the floor below.

 What, you can’t handle a little blood, Steven Universe?

“Let’s… just use Mom’s fountain. Okay?”

Sapphire pauses. Something odd crosses her face and Steven squeezes his eyes shut, begging her to do literally anything else but push her injury in front of him and insist.

“Okay.” His eyes fly open to see that Sapphire has turned from him, already dipping her finger into the pond; he nearly misses the shimmer from the water, and when she pulls her hand away, the injury is there no longer.

“I-I’m sorry.”

“I should have asked if this was something you were comfortable with before I insisted. Forgive me.”

Why does he feel like he’s just failed her?

-

He’s lying face down in his bed, curled up under the covers, when he hears a knock at his door. He shoots upright, untangling himself from the blankets as quickly as he can and ends up on the floor with a thud. “U-uh, come in!”

He’s just barely on his feet when Connie comes in, bruises all over her and a look of concern on her face. “Steven?”

 Oh.

In his haste to throw a pity party, he totally forgot that he’d forgotten he’d agreed to try to heal Connie’s training injuries. He scans her for a moment; she’s got a particularly nasty bruise on her elbow, but otherwise her injuries don’t seem too bad. She’s probably sore — will he inherit that, as well, or will he be spared it? If it’s just this one time, then this is probably fine, right?

“Yeah. C’mon in.”

She shuts the door behind her and comes in. He sits on the bed and she moves to sit beside him. He’s already taking her hand and bending down to kiss it when she puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him back. He looks up, startled to see that concern still there.

“Steven… Ruby and Sapphire told us about it.”

“Us?” he squeaks.

“Pearl and I. I’m assuming Amethyst and Garnet probably know, too.”

His face burns. “Oh.” Slowly, Steven lets her hand drop, and he pulls his hand away from hers, sitting it back in his lap. He stares at them, fidgeting them while the silence grows. Connie seems to be expecting something from him, but he doesn’t know what it is.

“Steven…” Connie sighs. “Next time, please just tell me. Please just tell me something like this would hurt you, okay? We can always just go to your mother’s fountain. Or not! I don’t even go there half the time after training because these aches and bruises are earned, you know? So I don’t even need healing!”

He nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

Another beat passes. Connie gives a soft, gentle sigh, and she curls her hands around his face, pulling his eyes up to meet hers. “Steven. If healing someone is going to put you at risk, then we’ll just bandage things up and let them heal the old-fashioned way. Okay? Let me care for you.”

Steven presses his forehead against hers and offers her a slow, hesitant smile. “Okay.”