To Be Named At A Later Date

"Very emotionally heavy. We've all been there. I'm sure we can all think of a time when our relationships looked messier than they should," Sardonyx chattered on while the band looked mildly uncomfortable.

It wasn't like they'd forgotten, not at all possible with the way the video had ended. Alex had held the camera in POV of the girls taking three separate shots of the men breaking in one way or another as they cried in unison, "Veronica, don't make me come in there, I'm gonna count to three!" With each number they tried a bit harder to get the door open. "One! Two," on the last word they had little time to actually do as they promised and Jacob and Steven had perfected how it went.

Hazel bashed the door open with his shoulder while Adam watched without sympathy and surged in after him.

Jacob had slid a key in and pushed hard enough to knock the bedside table in front of the door over and shattered the glass panel on it.

Stevens was just as disturbing, but more visually appealing. His glow, diamond eyes and horns had caught a lot of commenters in a weird place between understanding the pain of self loathing and thinking it was kinda hot. Steven had snapped the knob off with his bare hand and the door slid open for him without hesitance.

It was near violent in its manner, but after it had gotten one hundred million views and tons of comments, it became pinned to the top of their channel permanently. They couldn't ever dream to beat numbers like that again.

The part that really got to them was how their counterparts had done so well with the acting. The men took it especially hard, a bit of pushing and pulling had resulted in three of the three relationships fighting for a brief amount of time over it. The guys wanted the girls safe, and the TokTok had made them realize how unsafe they could be at times even if it was incredibly dramatized which Connie had pointed out over and over.

Every once in a while someone in the commune would still come to Steven with a splinter in their foot. Connie would get it out, and Steven would kiss it better. That was as far as they'd gone with talking about it.

"Anna, you're up next!"

Anna scanned the crowd before she landed on a group of teens in the dead center. "If you guys can pick a question together, I'll let you ask it."

They huddled and argued for a short moment, all seemingly on the same page. "Are you going to play a new song tonight?"

She tried to hide it but the grin burst through. "Damn it. Sorry guys, the gig is up."

"We tried," Steven sighed as they all stood and stretched a bit. "Alex, use your core strength." He picked up Alex so he was balancing on his shoulder to sit him on Sardonyx' desk. He didn't even seem to notice being manhandled. Did he really ever? Most of them could safely guess no, since he was treated like a tsundere prince.

They dug behind the couch for their instruments as Sardonyx rambled about sponsors and the next show starring someone else.

"You think they'll like it?" Steven asked Adam.

"I think if the lights work with us, we might get some heavy tears."

"This is probably the most visual song we've written so far," Anna added as she tugged up hers. "It's supposed to be powerful, and you wrote the best parts."

Connie nudged him with her shoulder as they walked onto the stage and the audience turned to face them. "What they're trying to say is yes. It's going to be amazing, Biscuit."

They looked to Alex to see him holding up his camera with a thumbs up as Peridot and Lapis dimmed the lights to near complete black like they'd asked. They had an exact write out of how they wanted it to go, down to the word and notes where things should happen. They'd gotten one practice with a few fails, so they could only hope to at least be a bit memorable with it.

Steven was front and center vocals for this one, since it was near and dear to him. It was his very own birthday song, and yet, almost a release of even wishing he really had one.

Adam held the mixing table, Anna had her keytar and Jacob had actually proven to be good at piano so that's where he sat while he occasionally took harmony. Hazel manned the drums, Jasmin sang backing vocals for bit of a soulful feel, and Steven and Connie had their matching pink and royal blue acoustic and bass guitar.

He took a deep breath as the backing track started playing sounds of a babbling brook and forest sounds filled the near hushed room. For the briefest second before he could start strumming, he saw the illumination of faces staring back at him as they recorded the performance. They all looked so hopeful and intent, and absolutely thrilled to be here for the release.

He opened his mouth and poured his heart, soul and life into his words.

"Look inside of me and see that I am not afraid
To walk inside the void like a kid inside a cave," He was already feeling the rise of wanting to cry.
"Discovering the patterns of my soul and where it's placed
I've been mapping many caverns but it still feels like a maze." He was constantly in a maze it seemed, he'd only really seemed to find the way out twice but always walked directly into another, bigger maze with more threats.

The screen behind him flickered with the visualizer of a boat rocking back and forth in a tumultuous river as a storm started giving warning flashes of dangerous lightning. Every flash made his skin burn with the invisible touch of light trying to coax out his alien one. Truth be told, he was tired. But he was so happy too. He was fully in control of his own life, and that made him smile huge as he ceased strumming. "I know I'm made of clay that's worn
Blighted by imperfect form.
But I know I'm the artist molding me..."

It went completely dark. The reverb echoed as they sat a split second before Hazel walked them into the chorus with the bass pedal and a slam of the cymbals that timed perfectly with the Diamond glow he emitted. The crowd was shrouded in pink as the monitor behind him showed his face a bit closer.

"I am creation," Lights on his left only came on in 'his' color and he turned away from it, momentarily letting his skin lose the light before it caught it again on the next beat.
"Both haunted," On his right the pink came for him again and he avoided it. A public denial of his intense and genuine hatred of being a Diamond would've been as clear as day to anyone who knew him. And every single one of his friends did, which was more than good enough. "And holy.
Made in glory," They came at him from every side and he rejected it every time, letting a flash of anger roll across his face. Behind him, the screen flashed with jagged letters, 'ꪗꪮꪊ᥅ꫀ ᧁꪮﺃꪀᧁ ꪻꪮ ᥇ꫀ ᦓꪮꪑꫀꪻꫝﺃꪀᧁ
ꫀ᥊ꪻ᥅ꪖꪮ᥅ᦔﺃꪀꪖ᥅ꪗ.'
"Even the depths of the night cannot blind me
When you guide me," Maybe it was perilously stupid, but he'd added a few candid flashes of his mother from his VHS tape. It didn't feel disrespectful at all, but more like a 'Thank you, but I don't need this anymore.' More like a release.

"Creature only."

He told them with passion about how he felt his soul was like the ravine now showing again behind him, and how they weren't alone. Every good person deserved to sit on a throne, everyone deserved to have control in their life and they did have it. He believed it with his entire being as he raised his arms through the chorus and shut his eyes, letting his tears find the dirt onstage and grow deep pink roses and thorns in their wake.

It was glorious. Everything was.