Note: twenty-something cohabitation fluff! Steven's a trans woman and a semi successful musician, Connie's a social worker who somehow managed to also get published.

Transcript of STEVEN Q UNIVERSE interview in full

Interviewer: So, Ms. Universe, we were thrilled to watch you come out, and we've avidly followed your transition throughout these past couple of years. We understand you chose to keep your birth name?

Ms Universe: Yep! It's the name my mom picked for me. It means a lot. It's part of who I am.

Interviewer: So having a boy's name poses no problems for you?

Ms Universe: [laughs] Steven isn't a boy's name! I'm a girl, and my name is Steven. See? So that makes it a girl's name, too.

Interviewer: We've never thought about it that way. Thank you for this interesting perspective, Steven.

Ms Universe: You're welcome! I have to say I've got a lot of amazing people to thank for my… pearls of wisdom.

Interviewer: Oh, yes, please tell us a little bit about your family! We've been fascinated.

Ms Universe: Okay, you probably know, my mom, Rose, gave up her physical form to have me. But I have my dad, and three other moms, or sometimes four, if they're having a really bad fight. Usually just three, though. [smiles] They're incredible. They taught me pretty much everything I know about music, plus some other stuff.

Interviewer: Speaking of your music, your newest single has made the top one hundred recently, hasn't it?

Ms Universe: Yeah! Bottom four of top one hundred, but that's still pretty great, right?

Interviewer: It certainly is! Can you tell us a bit about the inspiration for your music?

Ms Universe: Oh, well, lots of stuff. Like, my family, and the beach, and weird monsters, and donuts, and other kinds of food… But, uh, this song mostly exists because of Connie.

Interviewer: Aha! What can you tell us about Ms Maheswaran?

Ms Universe: [smiles widely] Connie is amazing! She's so… [long pause] I love her so much. She's just incredible.

Interviewer: The two of you are living together?

Ms Universe: We've moved in… I think two months ago already? We haven't unpacked all the boxes yet. There's not much motivation to, now that they've started making the bubble wrap thingies un-poppable. Did you know about that?

Interviewer: We did. We too still mourn that loss.

Ms Universe: Yeah. We try to do the right thing and unpack anyway, but Connie's really busy with her job and with writing, and I'm just really lazy.

Interviewer: Her second book comes out in January, doesn't it? Have you read it already?

Ms Universe: No! She won't let me! She says it's not done, and she doesn't trust me with spoilers.

Interviewer: Incredible. So there are no girlfriend sneak peak privileges?

Ms Universe: None!

Interviewer: Seems a bit unfair.

Ms Universe: [nods furiously] And I'm the one who brings her tea! And cleans up all the candy wrappers and noodle cups around the computer. Uh – sometimes.

Interviewer: Tragic.

Ms Universe: [sighs] My love for her is truly selfless.

Interviewer: We understand the two of you spend your downtime fighting intergalactic monsters?

Ms Universe: [shrugs] Only sometimes. Usually my moms handle all that.

Interviewer: It sounds exciting.

Ms Universe: Maybe. I used to think so. Now I mostly think it's pretty sad.

Interviewer: Why do you say that?

Ms Universe: Well, they're monsters, but they're not… bad. [pause] You know?

Interviewer: We're not sure that we do.

Ms Universe: [sighs] That's all right. I'm not sure I do, either, honestly. Anyway, we do our best to treat them right. We used to just keep them in bubbles, but now we use my mom's room to make them more comfortable. I told it to be whatever the monsters wanted, so they always have whatever they need.

Interviewer: We see. Thank you for this… confusing explanation, Steven.

Ms Universe: You're welcome!

Interviewer: Oh! We seem to be running out of time. Thank you so much for coming, we've loved having you here.

Ms Universe: Me too! Thanks for having me.

Interviewer: The inimitable Ms Steven Quartz Universe, everyone!

END TRANSCRIPT

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The moment Steven opens the door to the apartment, Lion is on her, the enormous fluffy bulk of him pinning her to the floor, settling comfortable onto her torso and face. She wriggles and spits to get the fur out if her nose and mouth, and dutifully scratches whatever areas she can reach.

"Why were you locked inside?" she asks him, giving his belly a pat. He rolls over her discontentedly. "Is Connie out?"

Lion makes a low growling noise, squashes her with one final roll, and pads out of the building.

Steven gets up and walks into the apartment, not bothering to lock the door. Lion comes and goes, and there's no reason to make things more complicated for him. Their landlord is a devoted cat lady, and she adores Lion, so it's not too much of a problem.

The apartment is completely dark, but all the windows are open, and some rain got in. Steven mops everything up and closes the shutters, and heads to the kitchen to make something junky and comforting for Connie when she gets home. But then Steven passes through the living room, turning the light on, and there she is, still in her work clothes, hair sprawled out everywhere: Connie, curled up compactly on the sofa, sleeping soundly.

Steven bites her lip, doing nothing to suppress the huge smile taking over her face, and goes in search of a blanket. She fishes one out of a cardboard box sitting in the bathroom, for some reason, and returns to throw it over the gorgeous, lumpy, softly snoring ball that is her girlfriend. Connie curls tighter under the blanket, hidden beneath it up to the nose, and Steven lets out a soft chuckle.

Connie frowns, eyes still closed. "Whh," she says from under the blanket.

"Nothing," Steven whispers to her. "Please dream about fun shit for me. But don't tell me about it later, because dream stories are boring."

"Okay," Connie agrees, and starts snoring again.

Steven goes to the kitchen to proceed with her original plan. Junky comforting food is just as good for waking up as it is for coming home. And it's pretty tough to be a musician mostly-full-time, but it's even tougher to be a social work intern actually-full-time, and a writer on the side. Hopefully waking up from a couch nap to waffles and ice cream and grilled cheese will be a nice and relaxing experience.

Steven hums to herself as she pulls the waffle maker out of the cabinet (it was one of the first items to get unpacked) and sets about making the batter from scratch. She stops in the middle of whisking to jot down some lyrics on the nearest available piece of paper, which happened to be a washing machine manual (she isn't sure why? They don't even own a washing machine), and strums a few notes on the guitar leaning against the kitchen counter, then gets back to the waffles.

The waffles are done and the grilled cheese is sizzling in the pan when Connie, yawning and shuffling her bare feet, comes into the kitchen wrapped in the blanket.

Steven flips the sandwiches a final time as Connie shambles up behind her, resting her forehead against Steven's nape and slumping onto her back.

Steven laughs and turns off the gas.

"I've just napped for more than an hour and I still feel like death," Connie mumbles into Steven's hair. "Being an adult sucks."

Steven transfers the grilled cheese onto two mismatched plates (one of which might be kinda dirty? But it's fine). "Luckily for you, I've made extremely un-adult food," she says cheerfully.

"Mm, I love you," Connie says and nuzzles the back of her neck. "Your hair smells weird."

"The hair and makeup guy put something in it," Steven tells her. "It looked really nice, though."

"Your hair always looks nice," Connie says dubiously. "I like your hair."

"I do too," Steven agrees, picking up the plates and turning toward the table. Connie remains glued to her back, and they waddle awkwardly all the way to it. "Can I turn around?" Steven asks.

"Mmmaybe," Connie says, linking her fingers together over Steven's stomach, letting the blanket drop, but taking a step back, giving her some room.

Steven turns around within the circle of Connie's arms, and Connie's hold immediately tightens again. At least in this position, Steven can hug back. "Work was hard?" she asks.

"I cried so much today," Connie sighs. "But it was really good, other than that."

"You wanna eat now?" Steven offers, absentmindedly rubbing the space between Connie's shoulder blades.

"I wanna hold you now," Connie replies, giving Steven a squeeze and laying her head on her shoulder.

They hold each other as the food gets cold, but it's fine, because Connie's tousled and snug in Steven's arms, and hot food is overrated, anyway.

Connie sighs after a while – a happier sigh, this time, Steven's pretty sure – and picks her head up and moves back and looks Steven up and down. "Your hair does look nice," she admits with a smile. "Thanks for letting Lion out, by the way, he wouldn't stop mewling and I couldn't get the energy to get up and all the way to the door."

"You'd think as a magical lion from another galaxy, he'd find a way past an old deadbolt by now," Steven says.

Connie snickers. "He's too polite for sonic teleporting in the middle of a nice neighborhood."

Steven smiles goofily. Connie leans in and kisses her.

"I've missed you," Steven tells her, slipping her fingers in between Connie's.

"How unfortunate that we live so far apart, huh?" Connie replies, grinning, and they sit down on overturned plastic buckets to eat their cold breakfast-for-dinner one handed.