Review. I own nothing. Not even this computer. AU thingy.
"I'm not going to sleep." Steven said as he plopped down beside Amethyst as the television set continued to blast utter nonsense at increasingly louder levels. Amethyst glances over at the sixteen year old headmaster of the intergalatic school.
"Cool. Not sleeping is great. If you stay up late enough and long enough you start to feel like jello." Amethyst said with a smirk as she flipped through the channels. She finally settles on her favorite one. The static channel. Steven glances between the purple gem and the gray, white and black squiggles on the TV.
"Is this what you do whenever I'm asleep? Just stare at the TV static? Doesn't that get boring?" Steven asked as Amethyst just shrugged in response.
"Eh. Not really. I also watch other shows. Or eat out of the nearest dumpster. Or just you know...sleep." She said with a shrug before glancing at the yawning young man.
"Why aren't you sleeping anyway? I thought you loved sleeping." Amethyst asked suspiciously. Steven seemed to visibly relaxed when he was asked that. As if that was all he had been waiting to hear.
"Well...I've been having really really specific...nightmares. And I don't like them, and they keep on coming harder and harder. And they're...well they scare me." He was clutching his belly button through his yellow pajama's. Amethyst gazes at her good friend nervously. Sure Steven had grown a lot over the years, from the snot nosed twelve year old who moved in with them, to the snot nosed fourteen year old who for some reason expected to solve all of their problems, to the snot nosed sixteen year old who somehow against all odds and logic united the intergalactic government and managed to save the earth a couple of times.
"Hey. Stevie. Buddy. You can talk to us about anything. You know that right?" Amethyst asked the young man. He nods gratefully before rubbing the back of his head and yawning again.
"I know. But is it okay if I stay up with you a little bit and-"
"Tomorrow night. I promise you. Tomorrow night we are going to eat raw coffee beans, watch a bunch of super badly written movies and stay up for a solid thirty six hours. But right now you should go to bed. And guess whose coming with you." She said before clenching her fists and morphing her body, turning it into a purple haze before reforming as a small stuffed bear with a mohawk and a chain around her neck.
"Recognize this guy?" She said making a dramatic pose with a smirk. Steven groans in embarrassment. Covering her eyes trying not to look at the ridiculous small purple being beside her.
"Oh man! Come on Amethyst! Do I really have to-"
"It is scientifically proven that sleeping with a friend transformed to look like a stuffed animal drastically reduces the amount of nightmares that you have. Do you want to make science into a liar Steven? Huh? Do ya?!" The bear said aggressively poking Steven in the gem before he began chuckling and picking her up.
"Okay okay, we can try it your way for a night at least. If you don't mind sharing a pillow." He chuckles.
Amethyst shrugs her small stuffed bear shoulders in response.
"Dude I sleep on a pile of rotting garbage and scrap that I found lying around town. Sleeping in an actual bed sounds pretty cool to me." She said as Steven hiked back up the stairs to his room. He slide underneath the covers as Amethyst transforms to a slightly large size. He glances at her through a cracked eyelid before chuckling.
"This isn't even the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me. What even is my life?" Steven chuckles as he yawns again.
"A pretty cool one that's what." Amethyst responds before yawning herself. She blinked a few times before glancing down at Steven. "Hey steve-o, before we get started promise me that you won't accidentally drag me into your dreams or something by accident okay? Because I feel like that is something that could totally happen." Amethyst yawns again.
Steven grumbles something as he falls asleep. Amethyst is quick after him. She wonders for an instant why she feels so sleepy and if Steven has anything to do with that. He does have an absurd amount of powers so she wouldn't be surprised if 'making people sleepy' was one of them.
Amethyst blinks herself awake and sits upright. She glances around herself in confusion.
"Did I leave the sink on again?" She bubbles out through the water surrounding her. A tiger shark swims by and she pulls at her collar, Pearl was going to kill her if she had flooded the house and ocean life had moved in.
"No. No please not again." A familiar voice cut through the gloomy underwater world. Amethyst squints through the grit before she finally found who it was.
"STEVEN! Dude! What did I tell you about dragging me into your dreams with you!" The grape colored gem complains as she marches to where the yellow clad young man was squatting on the ground. Her irritation was instantly replaced by concern as she drops beside him and wraps an arm around his shoulders.
"Dude? You alright?" She asks nervously as Steven shakes. He looks up and grabs a hold of her with desperation.
"Amethyst! Oh man! I'm so sorry for dragging you in here with me! It was an accident! Please don't be mad! I was just-"
"Calm down, and let's think this through dude. Where are we? What normally happens in these dreams of yours, and how can we-" Steven winces as the water ripples around them.
Amethyst frowns before looking back at Steven.
"How long have these dreams been going on? This doesn't feel like a fun happy Steven dream." She said in amazement. Steven shrugs before rubbing the back of his head.
"Oh jeez. I don't know. A few days? Three or four at most." Amethyst nods as she starts to grind the gears in her head. It was always irritating to have to think things through, but it looked like she would have to use her smarts to save the day this time.
"Okay...So I don't think that this is a you thing." Amethyst said as she starts walking again. Steven scrambles up and follows quickly after her, looking around himself nervously. She glanced over her shoulder and sighs. She always got self conscious over how tall he got since she first met him. She knew that was something that humans did, but it was still irritating to be shorter then a guy that you used to babysit.
"Well if it isn't a me thing then what sort of thing is this?!" Steven demands as they pause, the water continues to flow around them. It was at that moment that they both realized that they had walked over a precipice in the water. They slowly began floating downwards as Amethyst shrugged in response.
"I must be doing something...Wait! This is sort of like my dream jumping, you know how I can go into people's minds whenever I am asleep, or when they're asleep or something." Steven said smacking his hands together.
"Okay, but then whose dream is this? And why am I here?" Amethyst said in annoyance, she hated being dragged into some weird dream shenanigans without her permission.
"Probably because you were sleeping next to me. I must have accidentally dragged you in too. Sorry." Steven said with a chuckle. Amethyst shrugged in response.
"Meh, no biggie. It happens." The two landed on a wet disk that was slowly rotating. It was a disk made out of water, or at least more solid water then the dream water around them. Amethyst stood up and helped Steven up, the two wobbled before clutching each other.
"It's like standing on a water bed." Steven stated the obvious. "Okay so if this isn't a me dream then whose dream is it?"
The water around them began to spin faster and faster as Amethyst threw up her hands in amazement.
"Dude! Who do you think? Who is the one gem that we know that constantly is associated with water?"
"I just never took her to be the dreaming type. Or the nightmare type." Steven said as they watched a school of fish float by, chopped up like they had been caught in a blender.
"Dude gems can stay awake for years and years, and then sleep for days and days, and when we gems sleep. We sleep hard." Amethyst said as she pulled back from a decapitated fish head, it's mouth still flapping in and out helplessly. They both shivered as they saw something splash far away from them.
"What is that?" Steven said starting to walk towards the thrashing thing. The water around them seemed to be filled with more and more things. Things that Amethyst could only partially see. SHe squinted and tried to make out the stuff through the haze and the rubble and all of the dead sea creatures floating in the water. It sort of looked like a battle ground. Amethyst stepped away from Steven and pushed through the watery wall and stepped onto dry land.
She blinked and glanced around.
"Steven? Uh oh." She mumbles.
"Lapis? Is that you? Don't worry...It's me...It's Steven." Steven said gently as he walked closer to the thrashing thing. It's arm shot up from the water. It was almost as if the water was holding it down, giving it a second of relief before releasing it. Like a sock in a washing machine or a rat caught in a whirlpool.
"Don't worry! I'll get you out!" Steven said as he reached for the hand that was thrashing at the water. He stops and frowns as he gazes into the depths.
"Wait a second...You're not Lapis...And this is the part that something big and terrifying grabs me and pulls me underwater." He grumbles, genre savvy enough to know when his dreams were going to try and ruin his life.
The hand popped out of the water, the digits were thick and firm and gripped his wrist hard enough for him to yelp. If this wasn't a dream he would have broken his wrist.
"Whoa...Is this...Am I on another planet?" Amethyst asks herself as she looks around in amazement. There were strewn wrecked wooden domes everywhere, many of them still on fire. A pile of burnt corpses were piled next to a weird line in the dirt. Amethyst gagged at the stench. Someone was sobbing behind her. Amethyst turned and gasped.
"Ruby? No..." A ruby, not Garnet's Ruby, was squatting and holding the shattered remains of another ruby. Amethyst covers her mouth in horror. Shattering was awful, and permanent and scarring. And the scattered shattered forms were still trying to make a form. The sobbing ruby, her gem where her nose should be was grinning helplessly.
"That's right, come on. Please. You can do it. Do it. Please..." The ruby said in desperation as the shards let out pained screeching noises.
"It's a waste of time." A gruff voice chewed out. Amethyst turned with a scowl. Standing behind her was Jasper. The biggest baddest most powerful single gem that Amethyst had ever met.
"No one asked you!" Amethyst and the ruby snapped out at the same time. Jasper smirks and takes a step forwards her helmet forming over her head.
"She was too weak! She was pathetic! She was...was..."Before Amethyst's eyes Jasper was falling, her body reflecting light and turning into thousands of tiny shards, each one chanting weak. Amethyst glanced at them before hearing a voice boom through the sky.
"WEAK! Pathetic! Worthless! Abomination!" Amethyst glanced around, she was in a gem court, a pretty fancy one too.
"Affirmative." Jasper said where she stood in front of a high ranking court gem. The gem was walking around her. Screaming at her. Amethyst saw Jasper's face. There was a hardness there, and beneath it a helplessness. It wasn't the look of a killer, it was the look of someone that knew they had no choice but to stand there and take what another person said about them.
Amethyst took a step forwards and found herself swimming upwards, the water was strong though, and pushing her down, downwards, always downwards. She struggled and felt something grab her leg.
She looked down, and there was Jasper, submerged and screaming. Normally Jasper had two looks, irritated boredom, or sheer ruthless excited fury. She was almost like a tiger that way. But the look on her face was terror. Empty, shocked, traumatized terror.
And it was the most horrifying expression that Amethyst had ever seen. Amethyst saw someone through the water, reaching down, trying to help her.
She lashed her hand out and gripped the wrist so hard that she threatened to pull Steven in under the water with her.
"She's drowning! We need to get her out!" Amethyst shouts as Steven drags her out.
"What? Who? Is Lapis down there?" Steven asks in confusion as he splashes down next to Amethyst.
"NO! Dude! It's Jasper! We're in Jasper's dream! And I think she's going through some stuff!" Amethyst shouted as she grabbed Jasper's limp hand. The orange themed gem gazed blankly at the two of them as they yanked and pulled, she was limp beneath them, dead weight and she was pulling them down. Amethyst could see chains made out of water dragging her down, further out of reach.
"COME ON!" Amethyst roared. Steven ground his teeth together and they yanked with all their might. Jasper splashes beside them, on her hands and knees hacking up water. Her eyes wide and pathetic.
"What...Jasper...Where's Lapis? What's happening?" Steven asked in confusion glancing around.
"There." Jasper said gazing upwards, her hair sagging against her face.
Amethyst looked around before finally gazing up. Lapis Lazuli's face filled up the sky. She looked down on them with complete indifference. Like they were bugs she had just caught in a jar. Her hand raised up, and then slowly came down.
Globes of water floated around them, and then came crashing down. Steven screamed and covered his head as a pink bubble formed protectively around him and Amethyst. Amethyst turned to Jasper who was sinking again even faster under the hail of giant raindrops.
"Lapis!" Steven shouted out.
"Jasper!" Amethyst cried before gripping Steven by the shoulders.
"Steven! STEVEN!"
"STEVEN!" Amethyst shouts sitting upright in bed. Steven gasped and clutched his chest and began to breath deep and fast.
"Hey! Steven! Calm down! It's okay! It's all okay! It was just a dream!" Amethyst said as she grabbed his shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. The sixteen year old boy groaned and blushed in discomfort.
"Amethyst! I'm not a kid anymore!"
"Shh...Shh...This is for me too dude." She said simply as the two sat there in Steven's bed breathing as the sun rose.
"This has been going on for how long?" Amethyst asked warningly.
"A few days." Steven replied.
"As bad as this?"
"Yes."
"Well...I know who we've got to see today. About dreaming too hard."
Review. I own nothing. Not even this computer.