lostcarnival | [OPEN-ISH]

Who: Steven, Greg, Peridot, Zecora, and OPEN.
Where: The Doctor's medical tent.
When: After the attempted agent kidnapping of him and Peridot.
What: Steven gets shot with a gun, and has to go to the doctor. It's upsetting.
Warnings: Gun wounds, the left overs of violence.

When they port back into their real bodies, it's like everything's started all over again. The hit his body takes from it is instantaneous - and now there is a pain in his mind along with it that hadn't been there before. It's like the echo of what happened to him in the Matrix has overwhelmed his mind, and that his mind has inflicted it back to him. The mind makes it real, or whatever. He's just glad that he's not a full gem, for a solitary moment, because if his mind did this to him now, he doesn't want to consider what could have happened to his physical form if it was entirely reliant on it.

He staggers down onto the grass, the exit wound in his back burning, and blood bubbling out of his nose. Transitioning through realities has just made everything even more confusing, and he doesn't take much initiative besides letting Peridot carry him. They're back at the carnival. But they're not home.

It isn't until they've made it to the medical tent that the adrenaline has faded and things start to hurt for real. With some of the shock beginning to pass, the pain and fear is quick to catch up with him. He really wants someone to hold him, but he knows that he has to have his injury looked after first. He doesn't even consider trying to act tough, this time. Instead, he whimpers and starts to cry a little once he's laid down, too confused and scared to reason with himself or do much about anything.

[The open portion takes place after he's been patched up a bit and is resting, for anyone who wants to check on him.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Very suddenly, the door to Steven's trailer flies open, slamming loudly against the wall with the force used to open it. One extremely distraught looking Lapis Lazuli enters, and she barely even spots Steven before she's on him, scooping him up in a tight hug that may or may not be uncomfortable.

"Steven! Are you alright? I heard what happened- I didn't know! I just got here!" Her words come out fast and a little loud, but her tone is absolutely laced with concern for him.

Steven was sleeping, so when Lapis blows right on in there it unsurprisingly scares the shit out of him. He jolts under his covers, looking towards the doorway with a horrified expression, but then she's already there and hugging him and he's lagging behind in processing exactly what just happened.

"Lapis?!" he gasps, not really managing to hug back but not objectively opposed to what's happening either. By now, the mossy green fur covering parts of his body has managed to establish itself, along with a set of lion-esque ears in the place of his regular ones. He's got a tail, too, but it's currently being crushed beneath the covers a little.

"Oh my gosh - you came to the carnival?"

"I did- I'm here. I didn't know- I just found out that you got hurt! Are you alright?" Lapis has very little idea about how humans work, but she knows how Gems work. "Is your Gem alright?" Not that he couldn't heal it, but.

Look, she's highly distressed right now, and she's not even going to let go of him to check. She's too busy more or less smothering him with a hug. "Greg just told me you got hurt."

Aw no. He practically melts at hearing how worried she is, and he really wants to know what he can say to made her feel better, but he honestly isn't sure what he can say. Besides to just claim that he's better now.

"I-I'm okay," he says, stammering a little with nervousness and pent up emotions. "It didn't hurt my gem, but... it kind of shook me up all over because I guess I got hurt in the brain which made me get hurt in real life??"

He shakes that off - no, that's a bad way to explain this.

"I mean -! No, I explained that bad, let me start over."

"I'm sorry. I wasn't here to protect you." She knows, super little about human anatomy, but Steven's stammering probably means very little good. Especially when he follows it up with the fact that his physical form was hurt. She'll pull away from him finally, but only just a bit.

"Alright." Is what she says, because she... just doesn't understand. She feels really bad about not being there to protect him, though.

That's what gets to him somehow. He starts crying - only a little at first but it will be quick to build. He rubs at his eyes, trying to will it away.

"You shouldn't have had to be here!" he insists, sniffling. "I should have been able to do it myself, but I couldn't! I messed it up and it was my fault."

His ears fold back as he hides his face behind his arm.

"My shield broke."

Oh no. A crying Steven. Lapis' one and only weakness.

She goes back to hugging him tightly because, well, she's bad at any sort of comforting. "It's alright, Steven. You- You can't do everything on your own?" She's trying really hard. The news that Rose Quartz's shield broke is a little.

Yikes.

She squeezes him a little tighter. "I'm glad you're okay."

He accepts the hug, staying silent for a few lingering moments before finally sniffing again. He rubs his nose, and then relents.

"I'm sorry. I'm... I'm really glad you're here. Even if... Even though I know you probably think it sucks."

"Better than a mirror." Lapis tries for some humour, and honestly it'll probably fail. But she gathers up Steven's tears with her powers, gently flicking them to the ground after she pulls away again.

"You're here. Peridot is here. It'll probably be fine?" Not that she's okay with it, but she's. Really trying for Steven.

He's sort of started to catch on to the fact that Lapis likes to make jokes about her imprisonment, which Peridot seems to get, but he is still uncertain about. But still, it seems to be okay to laugh at, so he does a little, but softly and awkwardly.

And then his tears fly away and something about that gesture makes him feel better. His tail escapes from beneath the sheets and flips around with interest.

"Haha... Did dad tell you can have a tail now? Look." He pulls it out to show her, not quite proud of it, but... something.

"So you do." It's really awkward to see, because every single part of her gem wants her to try and do something to help Steven revert his changes somehow. She just doesn't know how. Or even if he wants it. Peridot seemed to like hers.

"Peridot has one too. It's different than yours, though."

Of all the things he could have ended up with, he kind of likes it. He knew something was going to happen, and the anxiety of not being sure what it would be had been a bit worse than it actually happening. Moss and cat parts he can deal with.

"Yeah! And she said she can make fire with her fingers and melt stuff like her welder! I'm happy she's having a good time, anyway..."

He's proud of what she's done in the time she's been here - it feels like she's grown (figuratively) a lot since she first arrived on earth.

"I'm glad too." That Peridot has been having fun. But it also means that there isn't really anyone else she knows that completely laments and detests being stuck in this place.

"Are you alright with being here though?" Because she has to know. She's heard from Peridot that Steven doesn't mind so much apparently, but now he's been hurt, and Lapis wants to make sure.

Otherwise she'll kidnap him out of this terrible place somehow.

[OPEN-ISH]

sometime after he returns to his trailer and lapis finds out

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