Disclaimer—the characters of coach, petey, sunshine, and alan do not belong to me, they belong to Disney. Now, for a little background into this story. It started out on Halloween, after jel and I had had a lot of sugar, and were bored online. I had a writing itch, but I didn't know what to write. From then, me'n jel's conversation went something like this:
Me: I still don't know what to write.
Jel: write about ryan getting hurt.
Me: alright.
And that resulted in what you see before you now.
So thanks Jel for the constant inspiration and help!
The ice-cold snow stung the back of Alan's neck as it smacked into him. Whipping around with a light of vengeance in his eyes, Alan turned on his attacker. He raised his arm to throw the snowball only to be met with J copying his action. It was a stalemate: they both stood there, ready to launch their weapons at any second. Defiantly, they locked their eyes with equally daring glares.
The stalemate could have lasted forever had not a pair of white, wet, cold mounds of snow collided with Alan and J's chests. Their heads snapped around to glower at their attackers, Petey and Sunshine. The pair stood to the right, holding their sides with all their laughter. With a glance and a grim nod, J and Alan reached down and formed balls of snow and hurled them at the pair. Sunshine and Petey were hit in the face, and it was J and Alan's turn to laugh. At the next second, it was all-out war. Naught could be seen except for the occasional flash of J's blood red hair through the flurry of snow being hurled from the ground to the nearest body. Finally, they all called it quits as they were beginning to lose the sun.
Alan was on his way home when he slipped on a patch of ice and hit the ground hard. Then there was nothing.
***
The head injury wasn't really anything to worry about, for it wasn't that bad, especially compared to the other countless wounds Alan had endured. It was the frostbite that had everyone worried. No one was sure how long Alan had been lying out there, but it was certainly for hours. The worst part was, the phone lines were still down from the snowstorm, and their road hadn't been paved. The ambulance couldn't get through. Well, maybe for a serious emergency, and after crunching his way to the hospital to explain Alan's injuries, then being rejected for not having anything life-threatening (it was a busy time of year, apparently) Coach was near livid. It didn't help that Alan hadn't even woken up yet. He returned to J's house (for she was the one who found him, and Coach had headed off to the hospital as soon as he saw Alan in such condition) only to decide that it was probably better not to move Alan any further. So the unconscious boy got to get acquainted with J's couch.
***
For once, his headache upon waking up wasn't that bad. That was a change, a pleasant one in fact. Alright...why did he feel like a marshmallow? Alan opened one eye just enough to see the mound of blankets pilled on top of him. Alright, that explained that. Now...where was he? This room was familiar. In fact, this couch was familiar. It was J's couch. What was he doing on J's couch? Alan mentally shrugged; he'd find out soon enough. All he knew was that the last thing he remembered was walking home. Which meant that he'd gone and gotten himself hurt again. He wasn't in a hospital, which was a good sign. That meant less emotional stuff to deal with. But he'd still managed to get hurt. Alan wasn't surprised at his apathy; really, it was all routine now.
Alan quickly shut his eyes when he heard footsteps. He wasn't in the mood for being fussed over just yet. It was hard to keep his eyes closed, though, when he felt J's hand against his forehead. He knew that hand. How could he not know that hand? He heard her sigh and call to someone, presumably her father, in the other room. "It feels like his temp's gone down!"
"Good!," came the reply. Yup, it was Gregory. "Try massaging that arm some more, though, the book says to do that frequently." Wordlessly, J obliged, extracting Alan's arm from beneath the mountain of covers and rubbing it firmly. Not able to take it anymore, for fear he might burst out laughing, Alan allowed himself to stir. He opened his eyes to see J looking at him, surprised.
"Oh, you're awake! Did I wake you?" Alan was unable to form a word answer. A laugh popped out of his mouth and he couldn't stop. Startled, J ceased rubbing his arm. "Alan, what is it?" Able to calm, Alan answered her with a smile.
"That tickled." J rolled her eyes and shoved him playfully on the shoulder.
"Idiot. For a second there I thought you'd hit your head harder than we thought." J glared motherly at him for one second until both of them collapsed in laughter. When the body-shaking amusement finally faded, Alan sighed and asked,
"Alright, what did I do to myself this time?"
"You made Jel very happy," J answered.
"Jel? Who is this Jel you speak of?" Alan asked, a sick feeling growing in his stomach.
"Why, the one that always beats you up," J answered, beginning to sound like one of those innocent villagers from Disney movies. Alan's eyes went huge and he pushed as far down into the couch as he could.
"NO!!! NOT HER!!! KEEP HER AWAY FROM ME! SHE'S MAD I TELL YOU, MAD! ABSOBALLYLUTLY MORBID!" He screamed and leapt from the couch and went running off into the night. Some time later, he was caught by men in white coats and was taken away. He currently resides in his nice blue-padded cell, with a twitching left eye. Constantly he mutters, "she's out to get me, OUT TO GET ME!" J goes to see him every Thursday, bringing him magazines and pudding.
The End.
This came end came about when I sent Jel the sentence, "alright, what did I do to myself this time?" Jel wrote back, "you made jel very happy." I found that so hilarious that I just had to write it. Check out the next chapter for an alternate ending to the story.
Oh and for those of you wondering, I do know that massaging frostbite only makes it worse. Well, I didn't know that at the time that I read this story, but my awesome friend Skitch informed me of that. In my Oregon Trail game, rubbing frostbite was listed as a cure, or at least I though it was…well I don't really wanna go back and change anything b/c the story worked out so well this way, so I figure maybe anyone reading could please just overlook that slight fact. Thanks!