Steven Universe One-shots

Not-so-funland [Connie X Steven]

For my buddy pen_against_paper! <3 Love you, and I hope you like it~
sorry if it gets a little choppy at the end!! ;^;

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"Connie!" Steven grinned and ran over to the young girl, waving excitedly all across the boardwalk. When he reached her side, he braced his hands on his knees and panted. Connie pat his back while he wheezed for a moment before straightening up and hugging her. Connie smiled and hugged him back, blushing a bit.
"Hey, Steven!" Connie giggled and took a step back, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Ready to go?" Steven nodded eagerly. They were going to go play at the Funland Arcade, since Steven has recently restocked his token pile from his dreadful binge with Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl on the same day those drill parasites nearly destroyed Beach City and Garnet was entranced by the beat of Meat Beat Mania. The game had since been repaired, along with Teens of Rage and Punch Buddy.
Luckily, after a lot of cleaning and working at the arcade, Mr. Smiley agreed not to ban anyone, though he surely kept his eye on them whenever they were in the vicinity.
Steven and Connie promptly left for the arcade, the sun high in the sky and burning down on them. On the way, they stopped for fry bits and talked with Renaldo a bit before continuing towards the arcade.
When they finally got there, Connie turned to Steven. "So?"
"So what?" Steven leaned against the wall, trying to look cool. He missed the wall a bit and almost fell, but fixed himself hastily and attempted to be smooth by acting like he didn't even notice.
"The tokens?" Connie prodded, putting the side of her hand over her mouth to stifle her smile. "You did bring them, right?" She feigned concern, barely able to keep a straight face.
"Hmm...I dunno..did I?" Steven pretended to think about it before suddenly pulling a lump out of his pale red hoodie pocket. He shook the plastic grocery bag, and it made a loud, satisfying jingling noise. He handed it to Connie, beaming proudly. "Here you go! These are all yours!"
"Wow!" Connie gasped in awe. "Gosh, Steven, I bet it took forever to get all of these! Wait, where are yours?"
Steven pulled out another grocery sack and shook it around. It held a little less than Connie's, but Steven didn't mind. "So," He opened his bag up and took out two coins, fanning them from his fingers with a grin. "What are you gonna play first?"
"Hmm...I don't know! I've never been here before, so I--"
"Oh, yeah! That's right!" He gasped, "Connie," Steven whispered with so much urgency, Connie was sure he might just implode if he got any more excited. "We should play Meat Beat Mania together! It's so good...hmm..." He paused. "It's so good that all of Beach City was almost destroyed because of it!"
Connie tilted her head and blinked. "What?"
Steven shook his head and took her hand, dragging her to Meat Beat Mania. "Don't worry about it. Come on, let's play!"
Connie popped both off their tokens in the game slots and grabbed the chicken legs while Steven took the ham. The round was over easy (omg ost reference lololol) and it stayed that way until they got to the third rhythm. It was much quicker and involved a bit more complicated moves. But they managed to stick it out until the fifth song, when Connie lost the round.
A PLAYER TWO BARBECUE!
Connie giggled. "That was pretty fun! What's next?"
"Punch Buddy is pretty fun. Or there's skee ball, or Teens of Rage. And then there's also Road Killer, and some basic claw machines, and..."
"Punch Buddy sounds fun," Connie shrugged, absently counting her remaining tokens. They had spent ten tokens each just from those five rounds of Meat Beat Mania. Ten tokens wasn't too big of a dent in their token budget, but it did require some token spending plans from here on out. Or at least for Connie it did.
Steven nodded, "Alright, PB it is then!" He showed her the Punch Buddy machine, which had been pretty pricey to repair when Garnet "won." As Connie played various games with Steven, he told her the story of that very day when the drill parasites attacked. She got so into the tale that she forgot she was trying to wreck things in Road Killer and ended up wasting her allotted playing time on listening to Steven intently.
"Wow," Connie breathed as they strolled over to Teens of Rage. They had saved best for last, and they were out of tokens after this game. "That's really cool, Steven," She laughed and inserted her last coins. Steven did the same and they both moved up to the buttons and joysticks. They selected their characters and began strife, laughing to themselves and almost moving with their characters as they fought.
"Yeah! I win!" Steven raised his arms and cried victoriously. Connie chuckled.
"Good job," she clapped him on the back and beamed. "Hey, lets go cash in our tickets! I want that big bear!" Connie turned around and pointed at the huge teddy bear hanging on the prize rack. Steven nodded and they walked over. The man at the counter put their tickets in a counting machine and together they had enough tickets to get the bear, two sets of fake vampire teeth, and a bouncy ball.
They walked out of the arcade, still smiling and giggling. Connie bared her faux fangs and hissed through her laughter. Steven hissed back, spitting everywhere. "Tho where are we going nextht?" He lisped through the fangs.
"Maybe the Big Donut?" Connie suggested, tucking the fangs away. Steven did the same and started to bounce the ball as he wandered with Connie down the boardwalk. When they got to there, Steven ordered two chocolate donuts with a little cup of sprinkles and Connie got a cup of tea and a plain glazed donut. They sat at the table inside while they ate.
"Did you guys go to the arcade?" Sadie asked, trying to start some small talk. Connie nodded. "Wow, that's a big bear! You must've gotten alot of tickets for that."
"Yeah, we put both of our tickets together so Connie could get it." Steven said with his mouth full. Lars stumbled out of the break room, yawning and rubbing his eyes.
Sadie chuckled. "Good morning, sleeping beauty." She teased. Lars grunted and punched her in the arm lightly. Connie giggled to herself and stood up to throw her trash away, taking Steven's while she was out it.
"The bear was, like, a thousand tickets!" Steven breathed a sigh, "So many tickets."
"I think it was only five hundred, Steven," Connie corrected, sitting back down. Steven shook his head.
"No, I know it was one thousand! I remember!"
Connie frowned. "I'm pretty sure it was five hundred..."
Sadie, sensing the building tension, glanced at Lars. He snickered and Sadie shot him a glare.
"Connie, I've been going to the arcade forever! I know it was one thousand tickets!" Steven crossed his arms, trying not to be too annoyed with her. However, he was certain it really was worth one-thousand tickets.
"Yes, but I had my eye on the bear for a really long time!" Connie huffed and hugged the bear tightly, looking away. "Look, I don't really want to argue about it."
"Well, hey, um, guys, why don't you...just go...check at the arcade..." Sadie trailed off and Steven and Connie gave each other the cold shoulder. Obviously no one heard her. She grimaced. "...that way no one has to be angry with one another..." She sighed.
There was a moment of awkward silence until Connie stood up, taking her phone from her purse. "Well...I'm going to head home now, Steven..." She waved goodbye half-heartedly, already texting her mother to tell her she was coming home early. She was supposed to spend the night with Steven tonight, but she wasn't really feeling it anymore...
Steven sighed and put his head against the table, guilty that he had made her upset. Sadie padded over and pat Steven's head sympathetically. "Aw, don't be so down, Steven. I'm sure everything's okay. You and Connie will make up in no time." Steven looked up at her, blubbering a bit. "It was just a silly squabble, that's all." Steven rose and scuffed his feet.
"Thanks, Sadie." He trudge out of the shop, calling a goodbye to Lars on his way. He drug himself all the way back to the temple, where Pearl was busy washing the dishes and Amethyst was eating chips on the couch. Lion, whom had been laying on Steven's bed, jumped down and nuzzled him. He could tell something was making him upset. Lion purred with distress, nudging Steven and nearly knocking him over. Steven buried his face in Lion's mane and groaned.
Amethyst finished the bag of chips and nodded in greeting. "Hey, lil' man. What's got you so down, guy?"
"Connie and I had a fight," Steven mumbled.
Pearl set turned her head, still scrubbing a plate as she looked at him. "A fight? Whatever about?"
"The amount of tickets a teddy bear cost."
Amethyst snickered and smirked. "That's awesome, dude. Sounds like me and P."
Pearl rolled her eyes and set the dish down, turning to face Steven while she dried her hands. She went to Steven's side, smiling reassuringly. "Steven, why don't you and Connie sit down and just talk about it? That's an extremely silly thing to fight about, you know."
"I know," He moaned and gave Pearl sad puppy eyes. "I feel really bad. But she left and she was calling her mom to come pick her up already. I guess she's not staying the night."
"That's preposterous. Why don't we call her mother right now and ask if she can come back over so we can talk it out all together?" Pearl pressed he hand to her gem adorning her forehead pulled out an ancient little flip phone in a shimmer of light. Steven couldn't help but giggle at the fact that Pearl had an old cellphone stored in her gem, but he didn't say anything about it.
He took the phone and dialed Connie's number from memory. It rang for a moment until Connie finally picked up.
"Hello?" She sounded a little glum, but not too depressed about their dumb squabble.
"Connie," Steven breathed, "Has your mom picked you up yet?"
"No. She can't leave work right now so I have to wait for a few minutes at Big Donut with Sadie and Lars." Connie sighed, but said nothing more.
"Well, um, do you think you could come back over? I want to say I'm sorry. It was pretty stupid to fight over that."
"Uh," She hesitated.
"Please," Steven begged, his voice cracking.
"Okay. I'll call my mom. I'll be over at the temple in a few minutes." She hung up.
Steven huffed and handed the phone back. "She's coming over." He murmured, still pretty guilty.
Pearl nodded and straightened. She looked around and frowned. "Wherever did Amethyst get off to?"
Steven just shrugged and left her to finish the dishes while he waited on the temple porch, watching the seagulls. When he finally saw Connie's figure on the beach below, he grinned, forgetting that they had fought at all. As he ran down to meet her, though, he remembered and slowed down, stopping a few feet away. Connie rubbed her wrist nervously and lowered her head.
"Um, Connie. I'm really sorry I--"
"No, don't worry about it. I was really immature. It's not your fault."
"Still, I shouldn't have made a big deal about it."
"Actually," Amethyst interrupted, jogging over. "Both of you were wrong." She grinned. "The bear was one thousand five hundred tickets."
"Oh." Steven and Connie said in unison. They blinked, and then, all three of them laughed.
"It really was dumb then!" Connie giggled and hugged Amethyst, thanking her. She turned to Steven and embraced him as well.
Amethyst put a hand on her hip. "You guys are doofs." She shook her head slowly. "Have fun at your sleepover." Amethyst waved and walked off, presumably towards the Big Donut.
Steven and Connie hugged one more time before running to the temple. They gushed about todays adventure to Pearl and Garnet over dinner, and then went up to play in Steven's room.
Steven was still grounded from TV, so they pulled out Checkers and set it up. Halfway through the game, Connie looked over at Steven and smiled to herself.
"Hey, Steven?"
"Huh?"
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"For giving me some of your tickets so I could get the bear. And for today in general." Connie snuggled her bear and giggled. She leaned over and pecked his cheek. Steven blushed brightly, ducking his head.
"I had a lot of fun today. We should play at the arcade again soon."
Steven nodded. "Yeah," He beamed happily, pressing his palm to his cheek. "Today was great."