[OPEN-ISH]

[starseedling]

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.]

Comments

[fragileandsoft]

In the bright side of things, news of a bleeding child gets attention. It doesn't take too terribly long for someone to contact said child's father.

It takes considerably less time for said father to burst into the infirmary tent, pale faced and wild eyed.

"Steven?!"

Greg is by his side in an instant, grasping for Steven's hand. There's blood, oh there's blood and his son is bleeding.

"Steven. Oh my goodness. Steven, I'm--Steven, I'm here, I'm right here, it's okay, I got you."

[otoko]

[It is worrying, the state of things. Gongenzaka sits for some time outside the tent, looking rather like some strange guardian beast with his arms crossed sternly over a now bloodied shirt. (He did not carry the boy on his back after all, as much as the idea could have been there. That would have been dangerous, he was certain.)

But the fact that others are getting shot at-chased after, hunted down...he wonders-or perhaps even assumes-that Steven and Peridot may not be the only one to have experienced such an encounter.

He is patient, however. Waiting until Zecora approves visitors, briefly raising a hand to stop anyone from going in too early-but once he is allowed in he all but jumps to his feet, hoofs clopping in a way not unlike his old geta as he enters.]

....How do you feel? [He finds himself asking, despite knowing that the answer cannot be good. Physically, there may be very little now that Zecora is done of course. But otherwise?

He can't imagine anything else but 'horrible'.]

[drrdrrdrr]

He's been in the medical tent for a little while already by the time Amethyst hears about it, but she's scrambling over there immediately and slamming through the entrance in a frankly disruptive fashion. Nobody try to impede her she's Busy

"Steven?? Is Steven in here–?" Oh. He is. And he sure looks covered in blood. Amethyst's face falls, her one visible eye going super round, and she barrels over to where he's lying to get a better look. For a second she looks like she's going to put a hand on his arm – then she bites back a Steven-inappropriate cuss and curls her hands back against her chest. "What happened..?"

LATER, IN THE TRAILER, WITH GREG

[starseedling]

Steven doesn't have to stay in the medical tent for very long after Zecora has worked her magic. He's still healing, and he needs rest, but it's something that he can do in his comfort of his own 'home.' He most likely gets taken back while taking what is turning out to be a long series of naps, sleeping off the energy needed to heal and blocking out the many bothersome thoughts that come with being conscious.

He thought that things were going to be different.

It's a reoccurring thought, every time he's awake for too long. He'd been hoping that he could separate himself from everything back home. He'd been hoping he could move without that weight. Even more than being hurt, though, he's wounded by the fact that in the moment, everything that had happened to him was still dragging him down. He couldn't address it, and now he can't hide from it either.

He doesn't know what to do. He wants to be different, here. He wants things to be different.

And with that reoccurring thought, his body seems willing to oblige. Soon after Zecora's healing, changes have slowly been shifting into being - the fae kinds, that they've all been told to expect. He's barely noticed, but thin, mossy fur has begun to spread over his shoulder and around his ears, starting like a layer of velvet and gradually thickening. He can feel the discomfort in his spine of something growing, and a dull ache in his skull.

He doesn't really pay attention, and immediately following his injury, everything seems to fall into a despondent haze. He hates acting like this, he hates his own feelings, but for now it feels inescapable.

[pipers_son]

It's after Zecora has worked her magic- literally, literal magic, fae carnivals don't fuck around- that Joker stops in. With his added duties, the general lack of people in the carnival anyway, and other such factors, he's looking a little ragged around the edges even with his usual paint on...

But he'd still made sure he could come over the second he'd heard what happened, shoving what he could onto who he could in order to get over as soon as he could.

All the usual boisterous loudness that is generally Joker's very presence has been tossed aside completely as he comes over to the medical tent. In fact, even his footsteps are near silent as he gets the go ahead from Zecora, ducking over to where Steven is resting. His voice is soft and gentle, like something practiced a hundred times before. "Hey there, lad. Awake?"

sometime after he returns to his trailer and lapis finds out

[mirrortide]

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.