reposting and reworking a headcanon ;
steven possesses an innate ability since he was a child ; the ability to foresee future events in the form of premonition dreams. while he is not a top tier psychic, like the twins or sabrina, and the ability is not easily controlled if at all, he is sometimes able to predict future events on said foresight. most typically it happens in the form of dreams, although after timeline divergence post RS arc, this ability has grown somewhat warped and will even come to him in the waking world. while proved incredibly useful, it's also got some major downfalls for him.
this ability aided steven and ultimately devon’s efforts when teams magma and aqua awakened kyogre and groudon to usher in their perfect worlds. as he was able to foresee such a calamity, and a way to end it, steven was also able to see and piece together what would happen should he successfully (or try to) stop it. in the meantime, devon came up with a prevention plan, but steven knew better ; his pragmaticism dipping into paranoia plagued him with the thought of "what if it fails." for he saw wallace standing over his body, heard the screams so loud it triggered some tinnitus in his ear. he saw the leaders absorb those orbs into their bodies, becoming one with the deities of the land and sea ; he saw ruby and sapphire. so he shifted his efforts to the choice he knew he would eventually have to make, always knowing in the back of his mind what would happen. he never told a soul, the outcome of it all.
the slight weakening of the fabric of space-time around steven and the several others who had perished that fateful day, brought back by celebi's manipulation alone has proven to make his ability that much stronger. capricious. he now no longer needs to sleep in order to dream of a future, it comes to him even while awake. it starts with ringing in the ears, like tinnitus, and it's not long at all before he's staring into a far-off place — detached and engrossed in what he's seeing.
he developed a habit of writing in a dream journal every morning, it's been that way since he was a teenager ; however he now keeps a notepad on his person at any point in time since RS's development. if he's able to catch the onset in time, he'll try his best to begin writing as his mind is taken somewhere else.
this also means he is quite connected with metagross, almost literally as well as metaphorically. there is almost a psychosomatic link between the both of them, and metagross is able to aid steven in figuring out dreams, in seeing even further and deeper than he could alone. only recently has steven been able to almost induce a vision with the help of his beloved partner, but this is not something he likes to do nor does it often.
in this ability and the strength it's gained after the calamitous events in RS, steven has some difficulty discerning what is real and what is not. the dreams would often get confused with the nightmares that followed short after said event, and it would cause him to increasingly become more and more confused as time went on. the events of ORAS has significantly exacerbated this as well, leading to a mental breakdown that happens immediately after.
thus, it brought about the migraines that plague him frequently, and he has resorted to seeing a doctor (he does not mention this to anyone) and receiving prescription medication to balance out the pain with some normalcy.
