Feb 2006 - SPN - Bodies In Motion 1
Okay, so. I have this story that I've been writing little snippets of as I have time, at lunch, whenever. And it's a fun little story and I know where it's going, but the getting-there part is amorphous.
What better story to make into a choose-your-own-adventure?
Here's the deal: I post what I've got so far. There is a poll at the end of this section, which will stay open for a few hours (or all day, or whatever, depending on what kind of time I have during the day to get back to LJ). Everyone can vote in the poll, and I'll quite happily write whichever option gets the most votes. Then I write along till I get to another amorphous point, and then there will be another poll! Hopefully with even better options!
This may be a terrible idea, I have no idea. No one may vote at all, in which case I will cheerfully just write whatever I think will be the easiest. *grin* It may be inherently wanky and my wank-o-meter is busted, and everyone will be whispering behind their hands "oh my GOD, did you see what Pet did? Oh my god, she's so rude/stupid/conceited!" (um, I hope not. I have pure intentions! I do!). Everyone may think my options suck ass (this set probably does, they are rather hastily thrown together between breakdowns of copiers that I must go fix). I am okay with all of that, though I hope it'll be fun and entertaining and get me kickstarted on the darn story.
Anyway. Without further ado, here's the story as it stands, with a handy-dandy poll at the end for your clicking pleasure.
Bodies In Motion, part one.
***
It starts in the fifteenth hour of a twenty hour drive. They are somewhere in the middle of nowhere, absolutely nowhere at all, and Sam, so suddenly he shocks himself, slaps one hand against the dashboard.
"Stop the car." His voice is harsh and strange in his own ears, and the hand braced on the dash is shaking. "Dean, stop NOW."
One good thing about Dean; he understands the occasional need to do what he's told and not ask questions. Sam sends up a guilty thought of thanks to Dad for making Dean such a good soldier as the Impala squeals and fishtails onto the shoulder. Sam has the door open before the car even settles into the stop and he's out, walking away into the tall roadside grass, eyes on the ground, fighting the sick swooping sensation in his stomach.
"Sam, hey, SAM." Dean sounds worried and he's close behind, but Sam can't think about much besides the way everything seems to be lurching around him, and he loses the battle with vertigo and bends over just in time to vomit rather neatly behind a bush.
"I knew there was something weird about those eggs," he hears Dean mutter, and then there's a hand holding the watered-down remnants of this morning's fast food Coke in front of his face. It tastes like wax and warm paper and heaven, and Sam rinses and spits, rinses and spits, and then just sits down where he stands.
"It's not the eggs." He peers up at Dean, who looks huge against the flat blue midwestern sky, dark in silouhette. Sam blinks against the sun. "Motion sickness." The world dips and swoops around him again, and he closes his eyes, clenches his fingers in the hot damp grass, and holds on.
There's a brief fuzzy period, and Sam eventually ends up on his back, burning his eyes against the brightness of the sky, feeling the world loop lazily around him, like glue in a centrifuge. There's something wrong with his head, he thinks, there is something very wrong here, but it's a vague and fuzzy idea and he doesn't have any desire to think about it any more, so it goes away.
He has a vague impression of someone talking to him. Dean, he thinks, and almost manages to reply, but it's too much of an effort when the world won't stop moving and Sam just ends up closing his eyes and letting it spin him away.
Touch finally rouses him, a sharp tug on his arm, and he opens his eyes again. His back is damp from the grass and his own sweat, and he is almost blind from the way the sun has been shining through his eyelids. He can still tell that Dean is very worried. When he raises his arm to shade his eyes, his skin sparkles with what looks like water and...salt. Dean has been sprinkling him with holy water and rock salt, and Sam can almost smile at the thought.
"I'm not possessed, Dean," he says, still blinking stupidly. "'s just motion sickness."
"You've never been motion sick a day in your life," Dean answers, quick and sharp, but something hard and dangerous lightens in his face. "I call bullshit, Sammy. You're white as a ghost."
"Not funny," Sam grunts. "Ghosts aren't white anyway." He swallows hard, knots his hand back into the dirt, as everything lurches and wavers around him.
"Like that," Dean points out, but he sounds less triumphant than desperately, helplessly concerned. "What the fuck?"
"I think we gotta stop driving for a while," Sam gets out thickly, before he rolls on his side and throws up everything that's left in his stomach.
Dean finally chivvies, hauls, and harrasses Sam back to his feet, and gets one of Sam's arms around his neck, half-dragging him back towards the road.
"Wait, WAIT," Sam protests, digging in his heels, the moment he sees the sleek black hood of the Impala. "Wait, I'll walk, you go ahead." He swallows hard at the thought of getting back in that car.
"It's ten miles to the next town," Dean reminds him, face warning of rapidly fading patience. "You are not walking, I am not walking, we will both get in that car and drive there. It'll take five minutes."
"No, no, seriously." Sam goes heavy against Dean, staggering them both, almost bringing them down. "Dude, I can't get back in the car!" Dimly, he realizes he sounds hysterical, ridiculous, but the car is almost vibrating in his vision and he can't bring himself to get any closer. Dread makes his feet drag and his head swim.
"Sam."
Sam's familiar with Dean, knows his moods and ways and all his voices. This is a voice he first heard when he was six years old, and decided that Dean's precious Matchbox car collection would look much better finger-painted. This voice says "we are not playing this game any more, so do what you're told." This voice has no patience, indulgence, or leeway left for Sam to play with.
Sam gets in the car.
***
Almost every town has one these days: a small community health center or clinic, somewhere just a little out of the way, where the poor people go because they don't have health insurance or any way to pay a regular doctor. Sam's jaw locks mutinously when they pull into the parking lot--all he wants is a room and a bed and to stop moving for a while-but Dean gets him out of the car and into the building with a minimum of fuss.
"Listen up, Sam," he grunts, hauling Sam bodily out of the Impala with muttered curses. "Did I not stop in at every cardio clinic in the midwest, just because you were freaked out?"
"That was different," Sam gasps back, not helping but not really hindering either. "You were almost DEAD."
"Well, you'll be dead too if you decide to tip over like that when we're torching a ghoul or something. Come on. We get you checked out, I swear to god we'll stay here for a couple days, take a break, okay?"
The promise of a few days without travel gets Sam moving like no threat in the world could do. He doesn't even bitch when they're stuck in the waiting room for a really long time with some really loud kids. Anyway, he’s always hated puking and doesn’t do it much, so he’s willing to see the doctor if it means he’ll either clear this up or give him some good anti-nausea drugs.
Two hours and the $50 flat fee later, they’re staggering out of the clinic, Sam with a prescription clutched in his hand, Dean looking deeply annoyed. “’Fatigue’?” he bites out, sliding into the Impala with a look that dares Sam to mention walking to the motel. “That’s something rock stars say when they’re going into rehab. You been shooting up on the sly, Sammy?”
“Yeah, in all my spare time,” Sam snaps back, fighting more dizziness as he crawls into the passenger side. “Don’t forget the low blood pressure and the sinus infection, it’s not just ‘fatigue.’ We’ve both had that for three months anyway, I figure.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Dean answers grimly, then pounds a hand on the steering wheel. “Two weeks? What the hell are we gonna do in this crappy town for two weeks?”
“Get jobs?” Sam suggests weakly, avoiding his eyes.
“Yeah, right,” Dean snorts, and slams the car into gear, pulling out of the parking lot fast enough that even the drugs don’t keep Sam from gagging at the sharpness of the turn.
***
And here we go!
What better story to make into a choose-your-own-adventure?
Here's the deal: I post what I've got so far. There is a poll at the end of this section, which will stay open for a few hours (or all day, or whatever, depending on what kind of time I have during the day to get back to LJ). Everyone can vote in the poll, and I'll quite happily write whichever option gets the most votes. Then I write along till I get to another amorphous point, and then there will be another poll! Hopefully with even better options!
This may be a terrible idea, I have no idea. No one may vote at all, in which case I will cheerfully just write whatever I think will be the easiest. *grin* It may be inherently wanky and my wank-o-meter is busted, and everyone will be whispering behind their hands "oh my GOD, did you see what Pet did? Oh my god, she's so rude/stupid/conceited!" (um, I hope not. I have pure intentions! I do!). Everyone may think my options suck ass (this set probably does, they are rather hastily thrown together between breakdowns of copiers that I must go fix). I am okay with all of that, though I hope it'll be fun and entertaining and get me kickstarted on the darn story.
Anyway. Without further ado, here's the story as it stands, with a handy-dandy poll at the end for your clicking pleasure.
Bodies In Motion, part one.
***
It starts in the fifteenth hour of a twenty hour drive. They are somewhere in the middle of nowhere, absolutely nowhere at all, and Sam, so suddenly he shocks himself, slaps one hand against the dashboard.
"Stop the car." His voice is harsh and strange in his own ears, and the hand braced on the dash is shaking. "Dean, stop NOW."
One good thing about Dean; he understands the occasional need to do what he's told and not ask questions. Sam sends up a guilty thought of thanks to Dad for making Dean such a good soldier as the Impala squeals and fishtails onto the shoulder. Sam has the door open before the car even settles into the stop and he's out, walking away into the tall roadside grass, eyes on the ground, fighting the sick swooping sensation in his stomach.
"Sam, hey, SAM." Dean sounds worried and he's close behind, but Sam can't think about much besides the way everything seems to be lurching around him, and he loses the battle with vertigo and bends over just in time to vomit rather neatly behind a bush.
"I knew there was something weird about those eggs," he hears Dean mutter, and then there's a hand holding the watered-down remnants of this morning's fast food Coke in front of his face. It tastes like wax and warm paper and heaven, and Sam rinses and spits, rinses and spits, and then just sits down where he stands.
"It's not the eggs." He peers up at Dean, who looks huge against the flat blue midwestern sky, dark in silouhette. Sam blinks against the sun. "Motion sickness." The world dips and swoops around him again, and he closes his eyes, clenches his fingers in the hot damp grass, and holds on.
There's a brief fuzzy period, and Sam eventually ends up on his back, burning his eyes against the brightness of the sky, feeling the world loop lazily around him, like glue in a centrifuge. There's something wrong with his head, he thinks, there is something very wrong here, but it's a vague and fuzzy idea and he doesn't have any desire to think about it any more, so it goes away.
He has a vague impression of someone talking to him. Dean, he thinks, and almost manages to reply, but it's too much of an effort when the world won't stop moving and Sam just ends up closing his eyes and letting it spin him away.
Touch finally rouses him, a sharp tug on his arm, and he opens his eyes again. His back is damp from the grass and his own sweat, and he is almost blind from the way the sun has been shining through his eyelids. He can still tell that Dean is very worried. When he raises his arm to shade his eyes, his skin sparkles with what looks like water and...salt. Dean has been sprinkling him with holy water and rock salt, and Sam can almost smile at the thought.
"I'm not possessed, Dean," he says, still blinking stupidly. "'s just motion sickness."
"You've never been motion sick a day in your life," Dean answers, quick and sharp, but something hard and dangerous lightens in his face. "I call bullshit, Sammy. You're white as a ghost."
"Not funny," Sam grunts. "Ghosts aren't white anyway." He swallows hard, knots his hand back into the dirt, as everything lurches and wavers around him.
"Like that," Dean points out, but he sounds less triumphant than desperately, helplessly concerned. "What the fuck?"
"I think we gotta stop driving for a while," Sam gets out thickly, before he rolls on his side and throws up everything that's left in his stomach.
Dean finally chivvies, hauls, and harrasses Sam back to his feet, and gets one of Sam's arms around his neck, half-dragging him back towards the road.
"Wait, WAIT," Sam protests, digging in his heels, the moment he sees the sleek black hood of the Impala. "Wait, I'll walk, you go ahead." He swallows hard at the thought of getting back in that car.
"It's ten miles to the next town," Dean reminds him, face warning of rapidly fading patience. "You are not walking, I am not walking, we will both get in that car and drive there. It'll take five minutes."
"No, no, seriously." Sam goes heavy against Dean, staggering them both, almost bringing them down. "Dude, I can't get back in the car!" Dimly, he realizes he sounds hysterical, ridiculous, but the car is almost vibrating in his vision and he can't bring himself to get any closer. Dread makes his feet drag and his head swim.
"Sam."
Sam's familiar with Dean, knows his moods and ways and all his voices. This is a voice he first heard when he was six years old, and decided that Dean's precious Matchbox car collection would look much better finger-painted. This voice says "we are not playing this game any more, so do what you're told." This voice has no patience, indulgence, or leeway left for Sam to play with.
Sam gets in the car.
***
Almost every town has one these days: a small community health center or clinic, somewhere just a little out of the way, where the poor people go because they don't have health insurance or any way to pay a regular doctor. Sam's jaw locks mutinously when they pull into the parking lot--all he wants is a room and a bed and to stop moving for a while-but Dean gets him out of the car and into the building with a minimum of fuss.
"Listen up, Sam," he grunts, hauling Sam bodily out of the Impala with muttered curses. "Did I not stop in at every cardio clinic in the midwest, just because you were freaked out?"
"That was different," Sam gasps back, not helping but not really hindering either. "You were almost DEAD."
"Well, you'll be dead too if you decide to tip over like that when we're torching a ghoul or something. Come on. We get you checked out, I swear to god we'll stay here for a couple days, take a break, okay?"
The promise of a few days without travel gets Sam moving like no threat in the world could do. He doesn't even bitch when they're stuck in the waiting room for a really long time with some really loud kids. Anyway, he’s always hated puking and doesn’t do it much, so he’s willing to see the doctor if it means he’ll either clear this up or give him some good anti-nausea drugs.
Two hours and the $50 flat fee later, they’re staggering out of the clinic, Sam with a prescription clutched in his hand, Dean looking deeply annoyed. “’Fatigue’?” he bites out, sliding into the Impala with a look that dares Sam to mention walking to the motel. “That’s something rock stars say when they’re going into rehab. You been shooting up on the sly, Sammy?”
“Yeah, in all my spare time,” Sam snaps back, fighting more dizziness as he crawls into the passenger side. “Don’t forget the low blood pressure and the sinus infection, it’s not just ‘fatigue.’ We’ve both had that for three months anyway, I figure.”
“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” Dean answers grimly, then pounds a hand on the steering wheel. “Two weeks? What the hell are we gonna do in this crappy town for two weeks?”
“Get jobs?” Sam suggests weakly, avoiding his eyes.
“Yeah, right,” Dean snorts, and slams the car into gear, pulling out of the parking lot fast enough that even the drugs don’t keep Sam from gagging at the sharpness of the turn.
***
And here we go!