lostcarnival | [OPEN] ASTRAL PROJECTING AND YOU

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[OPEN] ASTRAL PROJECTING AND YOU

Who: Steven and YOU!
Where: Various places, and in Steven's trailer.
When: During the latter half of performance week mostly.
What: Steven's astral form gets stuck in your dreamcatcher, because life is awkward. Also, Greg comes back to the trailer after getting attacked by lethifolds.
Warnings: IDK nothing probably.

► DREAMCAUGHT
Being told that following a set of rules will keep you safe is one thing, but believing it in your gut is another. Along with performing in front of an audience for the first time (as spaced out as they may be) and worrying about the mysterious repercussions of taking naps, anxieties of what might happen have been keeping Steven up at night. He's been spending large portions of each night with his eyes closed, wondering if the dreamcaters will work like they're supposed to, and how performances will go the next day. He's not sure how much he actually sleeps outside of muddled periods of missing time.

He can't help but worry what would happen if one of his own nightmares escapes - like the ones he saw when he was Stevonnie. In front of his dad. In front of everyone. He doesn't want to focus on that right now. He doesn't want to think about it. The point of all this was to get away, wasn't it? He needs to escape, just for a while.

And like in so many other situations, his stress and latent desires manifest them in the form of his powers taking over, outside of his conscious control. As if responding to that desire to get away from it all, his astral dream form leaves his body, made nearly physical by the neighboring Dream Realm. It feels like just another dream, as he rises up and sees the carnival from the air above. Without acknowledging that it's a dream, he lets his curiosity rule him and goes searching without another thought.

Except, in this form, it turns out that he counts as a dream just as much as any phantasm or nightmare from the Realm. Which means that as soon as he gets too close, the charms of protections cast on each dreamcatcher are fully capable of sucking him in too. He doesn't even get the chance to realize what's happened, before he abruptly finds himself tangled in one of their weaves, a strange mix of physical and spiritual.

And that's how you may find a miniature child stuck in your dreamcatcher like a fly in a spiderweb, kicking his legs uselessly.

"Help!" he'll eventually call out, his voice small to match his size. "I... I don't... I'm stuck! Please?"

► CLOSED TO GREG
He knows that his dad had a late work shift that night, but that doesn't stop him from sitting up long after he's gotten back to the trailer from his last performance, waiting for Greg to come home. It shouldn't be that late, he thinks, and given his anxieties about this current location, he doesn't really want to sleep alone.

He read a book, for a while, but eventually he gets too tired to focus on the words. Eventually he shuts off the main lights and just leaves on one of the lamps, staring up at the spaceships and stars the two of them decorated the interior of the trailer with, quiet worries about what Greg might be doing nipping at his insides. There's no reason to think that anything bad has happened but... he saw some of those nightmare guys, and they're scary. Maybe he should go out and look?

He doesn't have his pajamas from home, so for the moment he's using an oversized t-shirt from waredrobe instead. He's all ready for bed, except for the part where Greg is there.

He ends up falling asleep on the couch at around 1:30AM, too caught by surprise to be afraid.

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Once the pain had gone, Greg had started worrying about missing his shift, and if it makes sense for him to go back to it after this, or if he CAN go back knowing there's monsters out there waiting for him or for anyone and he can't keep counting on someone to take care of it... well, most of that train of thought peters out once he washes off the ungent.

The loss of those old burns isn't distressing so much as distracting. Greg keeps getting caught off guard by the glimpses of his arms or hands moving in his peripheral. It's just plain weird.

Once that registers, Greg's only interested in going back to his trailer. Over the last few hours, the realization that he nearly died has bubbled up and been repressed multiple times. Finally, he needs to just go back to his son and appreciate that he is, despite all odds, not dead.

It's past two in the morning when he enters the trailer, and instantly Greg's eyes are drawn to his son. Ah.

Without a word, Greg goes over, and gently picks Steven up to carry him to bed. There are a lot of strange things about Steven's stalled growth, but so long as it lets Greg carry him around a little longer he doesn't much mind at all.

It's not until after he's already been settled onto the bed that he wakes up, the sensation of being carried having felt natural enough to be comforting. Yet, he's pretty sure that he fell asleep on the couch, and so the change is enough to draw his attention. His eyes flutter open half way, and he sees Greg there in the dim lighting. He smiles.

"You're back!" he says sleepily, something about this registering as strange to him, but nothing he can sort out at the moment.

"Yeah. Sorry I'm a little late." Greg smiles back, soft and weary and so, so glad to be here. He sinks into the bed beside his son and gives him a little pat on the shoulder. "Go back to sleep, bud. We can talk about it in the morning." Steven hasn't quite woken up all the way to notice his change, and Greg would like the extra few hours to figure it out himself. He takes a moment to double-check the dreamcatcher tied above the bed is in order. No blanket demons are getting them in here.

He yawns softly, and snuggles a bit closer to Greg, though his eyes haven't closed yet. As sleepy as he is, now that someone is here he's inclined to chatter, at least a little. He has a super busy, sort of stressful day himself. He figures things might be similar for Greg.

"Talk about what?" he asks, not really expecting it to be anything serious. Maybe there were just some extra damage or problems Greg had to take care of. He's more eager to let Greg vent if he wants than concerned about the details.

"Mmm. Ran into some weird folks during the shift." That's the mildest way he can put it, for now. No point dragging Steven out of a peaceful state to worry over him right now. Greg wraps one arm around Steven as he cuddles in. Despite his exhaustion, he's not sure he'll be able to sleep any time soon. "Got to meet some good people because of it, though. They really know their stuff."

Greg's description is innocuous enough that it drive Steven to wake up anymore than he already has. He'll be sure to ask him about it in the morning, he notes, but Greg is probably sleepy too. With his head against Greg's chest, he can't really see the parts that have been changed anyway. Though up close there is other sensations of note.

"You smell kinda funny," he mumbles with a tiny giggle, catching a subtle wiff of what remains of the ungent smell, among other things. But he's already nodding off again.

"Not a great choice for cologne," Greg murmurs. He strokes Steven's hair, lulling him further to sleep. In the morning, they'll talk. Steven will need what rest he can get.

Steven falls asleep again not long after that, not having much of a chance to further analyze anything that Greg has said. He sleeps okay - the time he spends awake is mostly with his eyes closed, and he tries not to shift around too much for fear of bothering his dad. It's been nice sharing a bed with Greg for the first time in a few years, but there are definitely simplifying aspects to sleeping alone.

The sun is just finished rising when he wakes up properly, and his hair is particularly poofy from the tossing he ended up doing anyway. He rubs it down, yawning loudly despite himself, and flopping back down on his back to idly stare at the ceiling and walls of their trailer. After a little while, he turns his attention to Greg - and something about the sight sticks with him immediately.

He stares for a while, trying to comprehend it.

Despite Steven's efforts not to disturb Greg's sleep, it makes little difference; he doesn't drift off for much more than a few minutes at a time.

Most of the night is lost staring into the darkness and replaying the events of the night over in Greg's head. What happened, what went wrong, how he could have avoided it or helped Sans more, how he could have screwed it up worse and not made it at all... finally, the sheer depth of unfamiliarity has sunk in. He's lived around magic most of his life now, but he's always kept a wall between it and himself, able to retreat when it gets too much. The wall isn't there anymore.

When light peeks through and Steven stirs, Greg takes a deep breath. He rubs at his eyes, props himself up at a pillow, and smiles at his son. "Mornin', kiddo. You sleep all right?"

He did, but that isn't the first thing on his mind. He blinks up at his dad, tilting his head a little.

"Yeah, but..." He pauses for another moment before finishing. "...Did your sunburns go away? You know... on your arms and stuff?"

"Mm... yeah..."

He rubs at his neck, looking down at his other hand. He spent a lot of last night trying to get used to it.

"Made a visit to the doctor's tent last night, she took care of it. New look, new me, right?"

Steven's eyes widen a little at the confirmation that it isn't really good makeup or some other misunderstanding, and he sits up in interest.

"Really? You mean she used magic and stuff? That's so cool!" Even if Greg seems kind of nervous about it, Steven thinks its great. His dad has had the pink spots for so long he's almost as weird looking at him without it as it would be seeing him without a beard.

"Kind of... yeah. It was sort of an accident, actually."

Greg sits up a little more as well, and runs his hands over each other, watching them carefully. Then, he folds them and looks over to Steven, expression set.

"Last night, I... things got pretty intense while I was working. There were some nightmares, and... well, I didn't go to the doctor just to take care of some sunburns."

Steven freezes, the meaning of those words taking a few moments to sink in. There were... nightmares? His eyes widen.

"You got hurt?!" he gasps, sitting straight up. Greg didn't usually just get hurt like that - not while Steven wasn't there. Usually, if Greg was off doing his business he'd be okay. It's only just occurring to him that he isn't the center of the danger, here.

"Don't worry, I'm all right now." Greg spreads his hands, placating. "Someone from the carnival helped me out and everything."

He then looks at his pale hands, still spread, and chews his cheek. Again he folds them, running fingers over each other.

"Truth is... that magic the Ringmaster taught me, it... it was a big help. It might've gone way worse, if I didn't have that in my pocket. So..." He rolls a shoulder, offering Steven a wavering smile. "Thanks, Steven. For looking out for me, again."

"Dad..." Tears bead in Steven's eyes as the implications begin to sink in, and he launches across the bed to wrap his arms around his dad's chest. He's here. It's okay. Whatever happened last night is over. It's the same kinds of things he's told himself about his own endangerment and injury, over and over again.

He didn't even know this was happening. He shivers after latching on - it wasn't often that Steven has to be the one to worry about Greg.

"A-And... and the doctor ended up curing the sunburn too?" he manages a difficult moment later, unable to describe what exactly he's feeling and so attempting to ask a practical question instead.

After a night of dwelling and thinking and obsessing over the moments, Greg thought he'd pulled himself together enough to make it through this conversation. As Steven latches on, Greg's restraint withers. He clutches his son, and begins shaking.

All those times he waited, desperate and afraid Steven wouldn't make it back to him... he can't believe he almost did the same to Steven.

It takes a second or two for Greg to reply after Steven finally speaks again. His voice croaks. "Yup. Used some kinda magic goo to clear it right up... it's no healing spit, but it did a pretty good job, ha..."

Steven takes another few moments of his own, trying to think of how to steer the conversation so that Greg doesn't feel worse.He must have been really scared. His dad isn't used to constant danger the same way that Steven is.

"You said that someone protected you, right? So... so they wouldn't just let that happen without helping." He swallows, and looks up a little, mostly getting a view of the bottom of Greg's chin. "...I'm sorry that happened to you, Dad," he says.

Greg wipes at an eye, nodding gently. "Yeah. Yeah, everyone... everyone here looks after each other." A few veterans had said it before; they were sort of like a family. Still, he hadn't realized he'd become part of that.

"It's okay, Steven. It's... pretty much the sort of thing you and the Gems do all the time, right?" If he keeps that in mind, that this sort of thing was always happening around him anyway... it's not so scary...

"Yeah..." Steven agrees softly, nodding his head against Greg's chest. "Yeah, it is." And that makes him feel better about it, in a lot of ways. Him and the gems always make it through, and so will this place. He stays like that for a little while, just enjoy the comfort of the embrace, before eventually looking up to his dad, smiling, and then opening up into a yawn.

"Man, I want to go back to sleep," he says.

The contagious power of the yawn catches Greg a little off guard himself. As tense and anxious as he is about everything, putting it out there to share with his son is a bit of a load off.

"Some shuteye does sound tempting." Any shuteye after last night would be a good idea before another day at work. "I kept you up pretty late last night, after all."

"Yeah," he agreed, cuddling up to his dad like he's fully intending on snoozing just like that. "But that's okay."

It was going to be okay, and he had to be sure of that.

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[OPEN] ASTRAL PROJECTING AND YOU

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