[OPEN] ASTRAL PROJECTING AND YOU

[starseedling]

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.

Comments

I GUESS WARNING FOR BOOB-JOKES FOR THIS THREAD???

[insidescoop]

[Carly has been doing her best for the last number of days when it comes to sleep. She's been prepared-prepared to the max, especially after that one brief scare where there was a BABY floating around from her dreams.

That sure was awkward.

Snoring away as she is, it takes her a bit to wake-Steven's voice is faint in her ears, even when she finally manages to pull herself from a groggy daze. Even then, it takes her a while to locate the source...of course, when she does-] Heh... ...Did I have a Steven dream again..?

[She kept thinking about how to glitter up a good costume for him, so it wouldn't surprise her...

The dreamcatcher, and as a result, the tiny steven, sits just over her chest, the girl sitting up to stare.] Wait...

[Ah. Now she's awake.] EH?! Stuck?! Isn't that the point of these things..!?

[fragileandsoft]

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.

[mossbuds]

Lars hasn't exactly been dozing peacefully. The dread of his new reality has been gradually wearing on him, as has his grief and mourning of his few friends and family—especially since he's much better at making enemies than friends, something he finally fully understands. It's been days of turning and tossing and being paralyzed by terror. Somehow, though, the dam hasn't quite broken; he mostly channels all this into a simmering, constant low boil of anger. But it's getting harder and harder to push down.

Currently, Lars is haggard; his health has never been amazing, really, but he looks like a mess (understandable, as people didn't tend to look great at rest, but it's been a look happening for the last couple days). He's in anxious cold sweats, and keeps teetering between sleep and wakefulness, catching about thirty minutes to an hour before he's awake for about the same amount of time.

This time, he's woken up with a low, long and miserable groan. His eyes hurt and he's too hot. He kicks off his blankets fitfully, frustrated, and rolls to his side. His finger pads graze across the sides of his head as he curls a little, pressing his weary eyes shut. Then he hears a little voice, and his eyes snap open. He pauses, and hears it again, so he sits up. He looks over his shoulders, his fingers anxiously curled near his chest as he listens for it again.

His voice raised in an anxious mumble. "Holy crap, am I hallucinating?" Wow, he really needed to figure out how to get some decent rest...

[faking]

It's been about two and a half hours, despite dawn's close approach, so it figures something would rouse Alois from his fitful nap. He hadn't meant to sleep quite so long in the first place—he's been wearing himself out, doing his damnedest to run on as little rest possible—so he isn't irritated when he wakes up. Well, perhaps at first blush (or just first anxious flush); before his eyes even focus properly, he has a dazed scowl. But as his consciousness catches up with him, Alois gasps a bit, floundering awkwardly in bed, belatedly reacting as though he's been jerked awake instead of just called with a little cry.

"What," he mumbles, cotton-tongued, mouth dry. Is Silver already up for the day? That's a blow to Alois' weird pride; it means Silver will have seen him sleeping. Alois sniffs a bit, shifting in bed, tousling his own hair and rubbing his face. "What?" This time it's a yawn, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. It hasn't quite hit him, sleepy and vacant as he is, that someone is calling— someone nearby has called for—

His eyes snap open, and he jerks his hands away from his face so he can look around, a frantic vigor. "What?" he demands, now slightly shrill, suddenly kickstarted into liveliness. He twists in his bed, tangling himself in the sheets. "What is that?"

[fourthscribe]

Tanyuu has been...well, she gets her sleep, at least. Maybe not as much as she should, being a little bit too worried about the implications of falling asleep within a dream, but enough. And always with a dreamcatcher nearby, out of that exact same neurosis that has her up half the night in the first place.

The bed around Tanyuu is crawling with strange, shadowy things, most of it what looks like strings of written kanji that crawl over any available surface, up walls and over sheets in a tangled mess. Seeing those her first morning had been more than enough of a fright, but the fact that the dreamcatcher sucked them in just like any other phantasm was relief enough for Tanyuu to only find them a nuisance this far into the carnival's stay. She shifts and grumbles, still coiled under the light blanket as she brushes a few of the creeping lines out of her face and peers around.

"What...?"

Something woke her, and a glance to the small clock near her bed tells her it wouldn't be Ginko--he's off feeding the menagerie their breakfasts right now. Did Sans find his way in...?

Another blearly glance around, and it's at that point Tanyuu catches the slight swinging movement of the dreamcatcher. She looks over and startles to see Steven struggling in it. She recognizes she boy from working on his makeup and hair, even if she hasn't had much of a chance to get to know him yet.

"Steven?! How did you--?!"

[puddingemote]

Tamaki's been practicing pretty hard for the performances, and performing his best. He's still a beginner at being an acrobat so his shows aren't too thrilling yet (although the dreamers seem to like them well enough), but he still works hard enough to wear himself out.

He's coming into his trailer after one such performance, ready to crawl into his bunk and pass out for a few hours, when he hears a little voice and notices a very, very small person stuck in Mitsuki's dreamcatcher.

"Huh?"

He leans down a little so he's more or less eye level with Steven, tapping his chin.

"Whose dream are you?"