lostcarnival | [OPEN-ISH]

Entry tags:

[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.]

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Greg stares at Peridot for a moment. Any other day he'd be ready to assure her she did her best, that it's not her fault. Today he's just too scared, too confused.

Steven's murmurs draw his attention back before he can push her for anything more.

"I know, bud. I know. It's going to be all right, okay, I'm gonna be right here. Nothing's gonna hurt you while we're all here."

Steven whines, sobbing quietly, the action shaking his injuries but also completely unavoidable at this point. He just feels miserable. It's not often that he allows himself to just feel utterly shit, but it's all he's got in him right now. Once he has a better handle on himself he'll be able to comprehend and take real comfort in Greg's words, but right now he's as overwhelmed and narrow sighted as a child suffering from their first flu, never imagining that things could be this bad.

But he grips his dad's hand as hard as he can, regardless. He could hear that Peridot was talking before, but he's not sure where she is now. She's in the room, isn't she? He tries to sit up a little, and mostly fails to get off his back without making things worse.

"Peridot..." he ventures, finally. "Are you okay?" He doesn't really mean it in an emotional sense, he just isn't totally clear on whether she got hurt too or not. She hadn't been the one to carry him in, though he new she was around, and he's unsure of what exactly happened.

"Now you should scurry,
And give me room in a hurry," Zecora said as she stepped away from the back bench, a potion clenched between her teeth (and somehow not interfering with her words in the slightest). Despite her choice of words, the zebra was calm and collected, almost cheerful as she stepped up.
"You should not talk
Or try to walk.
Instead, I think
That you should drink.
This will sedate you
With almost no wait, too."

Peridot looked, for a moment, like maybe, maybe, she would at least respond to Steven -- but then Zecora steps in, and she uses that as an opportunity to shut down again and disengage from the conversation. It's probably for the best. What would've come out of her mouth just would've been a lot of incoherent distressed noises, anyway.

"I'm not going anywhere."

He says it to Steven, in those same reassuring tones, but his voice is a tiny bit clearer, a tiny bit louder, just in case anyone else needed to hear.

"Everyone's okay. Doc's gonna take care of you, don't you worry, Steven." He glances up at her, quietly begging for any explanation. "It's gonna be just fine."

Steven will accept whatever potion Zecora is offering. He'll drink it haltingly, especially if it tastes weird, but with a bit of patience he'll choke it all down. There's blood in his throat, and on his tongue. Any potion might be a relief in comparison.

"I'm sorry," he babbles, holding Greg's hand even tighter, though the sedation effect of the potion is fast acting indeed. "I thought I could..." He closes his eyes tight, a few more tears rolling down his cheeks. His words trail off, getting softer and more sleepy. "I can't..."

"You don't need to leave,
But if you don't wish to grieve,
You will make me a place,
And give me some space."

All-business now, Zecora delivered that imprecation quite firmly as she looked at Greg -- even as she stepped away again.

"The prospects are least stark
If I make it dark," she said, beginning to extinguish the fires and burners beneath her cauldrons.

As Steven fades out of consciousness, Greg wraps both his hands around Steven's and murmurs to him as he falls asleep. "It's okay, Steven, it's all going to be okay."

Once his son is out, the shaking really sets in. "Doctor, it's--it's an easy fix, right? With, with all your magic, and the potions, and--he's going to be fine."

Steven's faced so many dangerous and terrifying things without ever blinking. Greg knows his son has taken plenty of nasty hits and suffered some serious damage before. He's never seen Steven come back like this, though. Gems don't use guns.

Zecora paused before the last cauldron flame, turning to look over her shoulder at Greg.

"Not easy. Not simple. Certainly not fun.
But none of that matters. It shall be done."

She doused the final flame, then turned towards the central light that illuminated the tent as a whole.

"If you wish to stay near
You must vow not to fear."

He straightens up, staring at her. He can't tell if he's more scared or angry--his emotions are too tangled to parse.

"Not to fear? He's been shot! What are you going to do?!"

His voice cracks, and the indignation falters. He knows she's doing her best, he just... "Just tell me what's going on, please."

She truly didn't intend to be creepy. But shadowed as she was in the depths of her cloak, with her eyes gleaming a flat yellow out of their depths, she couldn't really help it.

"In this dark hour
I will need my full power.
Lying is not my way
I will make him okay.
But with magic, belief
Can bring joy or grief.
To help him, you must
Extend me your trust.
And again, to stay near me
You must not fear me.
Time is short, so
Can you do that, yes or no?"

Greg looks between her, and Peridot, and back.

"Okay." He holds onto Steven's hand, and looks away from her. "Okay, okay."

She's a doctor. He knows she's good at what she does. He can trust her. He can accept that she'll do right by Steven. He can do all that while still being afraid for Steven.

At that, Zecora killed the last light, plunging the tent into pitch-black darkness.

The soft thump of a cloak hitting the floor offered one second of warning before a tangle of smoky grey lines shone in the darkness. They added no light to the room, illuminated nothing, simply clung to an invisible figure like a cloud wrapped in spider webs and shot through with veins pumping fog. A low chanting filled the air in the zebra tongue, and with each syllable the fae marks expanded outwards to fill the air around them.

For one precipitous second, everything stood in perfect balance as if on the edge of a razor -- then a feeling of suction dragged abruptly though those present, not physical but spiritual, drawing towards where the table with Steven must surely be in the dark.

Then the chanting stopped, and the pressure, and the lines all vanished like neon lights with the power cut. A moment later, artificial light flooded the tent again as the fixtures came back on again, revealing Steven's healed form lying before them -- and no Zecora? No, that must have been a trick of the light, an afterimage that only made her seem like her form had collapsed into being out of so much smoke and shadow next to the table again.

Steven shifts, then, wrinkling up his face as if there is an itch he wants to scratch but can't. He's not fully conscious, yet, but the magic going through him has wound something up, at the very least. The wound has sealed, and while it's still very much there, it is only shade of what it was before. Bruising and soreness may last, but it is no longer bleeding, and no longer a risk.

His fingers twitch around Greg's as he makes a soft, sleepy sound, somewhere between a grumble and a sigh, like you do when you are waking up but don't really want to. Sleep will be really attractive for the near future, with or without sedation.

In its most familiar forms, magic has appeared as something bright and beautiful--regardless of its intent. By Greg's experience the sparkling and elegant force has been just as likely to be used for violence as to heal.

So even as the room fills with oppressive darkness and his mouth runs dry, Greg keeps his hold on Steven's hand and reminds himself, repeatedly, that no matter how it looks she's a doctor, that she's helping, that it's going to be fine.

Then the air clears, the light returns, and Greg's breath catches as Steven shifts.

"Is--" He looks to Zecora, heart in his throat. "Is that it? It's okay?" What he would give for a straightforward answer, just this once.

"It would be best
For him to rest," Zecora said, standing perfectly still and with her eyes shut. A faint rasp at the very bottom of her voice made the rhymes sound rough and jagged.
"But be reassured at last.
The danger is past."

His shoulders finally loosen, and he lets himself breathe. Steven's been through a lot, faced more than Greg can claim to know. All he can do now is what he always does, and trust.

"Thank you, Doctor." He bows his head and leans heavily on the bed by Steven's side. He feels pretty tired himself. "Thank you."

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