VERTIGO

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries does not belong to me. Original characters are mine.

A.N. This takes place while Klaus and Stefan are looking for Ray. It is after Stefan slaughters the two women that knew Ray. Alert – if reading about dizziness, nausea or throwing up makes you queasy, skip some sentences.

As Klaus drove along, neither he nor Stefan was in a good mood. Klaus wanted Stefan to torture and kill a man just because he had annoyed him, Klaus, in the past, and Stefan did not want to do it because it had nothing to do with finding Ray, nor was he hungry. Neither of them was hungry because they had eaten a meal of regular food. Stefan felt that he had already proven to Klaus that he was willing to maim and kill for a good reason, but he stubbornly refused to do it on this occasion. He was not in the mood. In fact, now he did not feel well, which was odd.

There were times when a vampire felt ill, such as when exposed to vervain or when he was recovering from a serious injury, especially one that tore holes in the intestines, or on rare occasions when certain poisons got into their bodies. But they were not affected by diseases caused by germs or conditions like cancer.

Klaus was driving the newest of their vehicles and he frowned with annoyance as he growled, "Why are you being stubborn about this?"

"I told you. It has nothing to do with finding Ray. And besides, now I don't feel well," Stefan muttered. It seemed like his eyes were not focusing.

"Excuse me? You 'don't feel well?' What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I feel a little dizzy and nauseated," Stefan said, his eyes closed.

"And you expect me to believe that? Come on, mate, you can be more original than that. Since when do vampires feel dizzy and nauseated? You haven't eaten anything poisonous that would do it and no one has slipped you some vervain."

"How do I know you haven't?" Stefan muttered, a wave of nausea sweeping through him.

"I haven't got any, for one thing. For another, I want you to do this little exercise for me. You will do it, won't you?" His tone was slightly threatening.

"Pull over to the side of the road, Klaus. I'm going to puke!"

"No, you're not."

"I am, damn it! Pull over or I'll barf in the car," Stefan demanded and he was relieved that Klaus slowed and pulled over onto the grassy shoulder. He released his seat belt, quickly opened the door and vomited the lunch he had had an hour earlier. In a minute his stomach was empty. He pulled a tissue from the box on the console and wiped his mouth.

"All better?" Klaus asked sarcastically. He knew Stefan was able to vomit anytime he wanted to, and having eaten real food, it was more impressive.

"Not really. I still feel dizzy and sick. I'm not kidding, Klaus," Stefan said as he closed the door and re-snapped his seat belt.

"I don't believe you. You're not some kid who gets a stomach ache because he doesn't want to go to school. It's no big deal that I want you to kill someone. You've been doing it for weeks now." He started driving again.

"It's not that. I really don't feel right. I don't know why and I'm not pretending. The world is starting to shift around. Like vertigo. It's tilting!" Stefan said, alarmed, and he gripped the dashboard with both hands. "Stop the car again. Make it stop! Are we rolling over?"

"We're fine," Klaus said, looking at Stefan with a questioning expression. He pulled over to the grassy shoulder again and watched his younger companion. Stefan had a frightened look on his face and he swayed a little. His head turned back and forth at odd moments. In addition, he started moaning and gasping. His eyes were not focusing.

"Klaus, what's going on? Klaus!" Stefan cried in alarm.

"You said it's vertigo. Close your eyes and sit still. Maybe it'll pass."

"Everything's moving. We're falling over!" One of Stefan's hands reached up to press against the headliner of the car as if to brace himself.

"No, we're not. It's all in your head, mate. Nothing else is moving," Klaus said, beginning to think that Stefan was not pretending. This didn't make sense to him.

Then suddenly, the crazy sensations stopped and Stefan stared out the windshield at the road. He then looked at Klaus. "It's gone! Just like that, it's gone," he said, although he was still breathing fast. "I don't understand what happened."

"Yeah, sure," Klaus muttered and he started to drive again. There was no one else on this rural road except a car behind them a ways.

They came to the side road leading to the farm Klaus wanted and he slowed in preparation to turning.

"There's only one car behind us. If it turns in here, too, we'll turn around and leave. At least for a while," he said. He didn't want more people at the farm.

Stefan turned and glanced back at the car. As far as he could see, it was a white Toyota with one headlight not working. The other light was on, as many folks these days drove with their lights on during the day. After Klaus made the turn, Stefan watched in the outside mirror to see if the car followed. It didn't.

"It went on past," he said, even though Klaus could see that in his rearview mirror.

"Good," Klaus said, smiling as he drove along the bumpy dirt road.

"Klaus, the feeling is coming back!" Stefan warned as his vision became unfocused. He heard a slight ringing in his ears this time and the road ahead of them seemed to tilt sideways. Reflexively, he grabbed at the dash and the roof over his head.

"Be careful!" he yelped. "We're rolling over!"

Klaus slowed and stopped. He eyed Stefan critically and could see it was happening again. However, he was still not convinced that Stefan was not acting, determined not to carry out this assignment. He saw Stefan's stomach heave, bringing up some stomach juices that spilled over onto his chin and onto his shirt. Stefan's face was really pale and his breathing fast. He kept grabbing at things, as if to steady himself. There was nothing Klaus could do but watch.

Stefan gagged, but nothing more came up. He moaned, his eyes closed tightly, and he pressed his hands against his temples and his ears.

"Do you have a headache?" Klaus asked.

The ringing was so loud to Stefan that he wasn't sure what Klaus had said. Even with his eyes closed, his body told him he was falling over. He reached out to grab onto something. His left hand closed on Klaus' arm and his grip was very tight.

Klaus winced and tried to pry Stefan's hand loose. He was about to break the fingers when Stefan let go and grabbed for something that was not there, his arm waving in the air. Then Klaus watched Stefan slump against the door as he seemed to lose consciousness and saliva drooled from his mouth.

"Stefan!" Klaus said and he reached over and shook the younger man's shoulder. Stefan didn't respond. He would have sagged forward, but the seat belt held him. "Damn it!" Klaus muttered. "What the hell is going on here?"

He looked ahead down the dirt road, undecided about what to do. He would not be welcome at this farm. He had to attack and get control of the situation. He couldn't do it without Stefan's help and now his young partner had become very unreliable. Muttering curses, he backed the vehicle up until he came to the paved road. No other cars were coming either way, so he backed onto the road and then drove in the direction he had been going before. He passed the house next door and saw the white car there.

A short way down the road, Stefan stirred and woke up. He felt confused when he looked at Klaus. "Where are we?" he asked, straightening up.

"A little past the farm," Klaus said. "I'm very disappointed in you, love."

"I don't care, man. I want to know what the hell happened to me."

"I have no idea. Unless you were putting on an act, which I don't like at all."

"I was not putting on any act. I swear. Damn, look at my shirt! If I were acting, I wouldn't vomit on my shirt. It's disgusting."

"You have plenty of shirts since your buying spree." He didn't like the fact that Stefan had bought a bunch of clothes with his debit card. It was possible someone could track them because of the card. He had also broken Stefan's cell phone and made him get a new one so that the number wouldn't be traced. And he still wanted Stefan to wreak revenge on the man at the farm. "There's a town up ahead. We'll stop at a motel and get a room."

"Why?"

"Because our business here is not finished and I want you to get some rest and get a grip on yourself."

They came around a corner in the road and found themselves in a really small town. There was an old motel right on the main road and Klaus pulled into the parking lot. In no time, they were in a room that smelled of cigarette smoke and disinfectant.

"This is a crummy room," Stefan said, although he had stayed in worse. "It better not have bed bugs."

Klaus sniffed around the bed and the bottom of the nearest wall. The truth was that vampires could smell bedbugs because of the blood the insects ingested.

"No bedbugs. Roaches, maybe. Pick a bed and lie down."

Stefan wanted to argue with him, but he still felt shaky and a bit dizzy. In fact, the dizziness slowly increased as he lay down. He lay there swearing.

"What?" Klaus demanded.

"It's coming back!" Stefan said and he tried to sit up. He fell off the bed with a thump.

Klaus muttered a curse as he bent down and hauled Stefan to his feet and dumped him back on the bed. "You keep this up and I'll call your brother to come get you. Do you hear me?" he growled in a threatening tone. In truth, Klaus had no intention of doing that.

But Stefan didn't hear him because of the buzzing in his ears and the swirling of the world around him, even though he had his eyes closed. He was thrashing around and waving his arms around trying to get hold of something to stop the movement. He retched up some more stomach juice, but it was hardly more than spit that foamed on his lips. The attack so unnerved him that tears of fear and frustration came to his eyes and he cried out more curses. He was getting panicky.

Klaus stepped close to the bed and landed a hard punch to the side of Stefan's head. That stopped the whole episode because the younger man was out cold. Klaus stood in the silent room and wondered what he should do. Annoyed, he stepped out of the room to the covered walkway outside. One thing he spotted right away was the white car with the one headlight. Fast as he moved, the car sped away faster. But now he realized that whoever was in that car was probably a witch who was following them, perhaps someone hired to do so, who could cause seizures in Stefan.

Concerned and angry, he went back into the room and looked at Stefan. He was asleep or unconscious. Klaus shook his shoulder, but Stefan didn't wake up. It was possible the blow Klaus had delivered had caused a fracture or bleeding in Stefan's head, but it would heal, given a short time, so Klaus waited, not too patiently. He stood at the window and watched to see if the car came back or if a person on foot came to stare at the room.

Stefan woke up in five minutes. He had a headache, more from the blow than from the seizure. "Did I hit my head?" he asked, pressing a hand to the place where he had been hit.

"Yes," Klaus said. "You fell off the bed. Are you free of the vertigo?"

"At the moment."

"The white car with one headlight was out in the parking lot. It took off the moment I looked at it. It's possible the driver is the cause of your problem."

"Like a witch's power? Why? It's obviously aimed at me, not you."

"I don't have the answer, love. Every time you had an attack, that car was within sight, even though we didn't notice at first."

"It went by us at the dirt road," Stefan said, remembering. After that, he didn't remember seeing the car.

"It was in the next driveway. Either we need to catch this person or we need to change cars again."

"I'm all for catching the bastard," Stefan said. "I'll gladly kill him. Or her."

"I wish we knew the range of the witch's power. It seems to be at least a hundred yards or more. It could even be a quarter of a mile. That leaves you vulnerable unless we can outrun or evade him."

They talked for a few minutes, thinking of plans and giving Stefan's headache time to disappear. He put on a clean shirt. They decided to go to a café that was open practically next door. They both felt the need for a drink. They walked there without a problem. Stefan only took a few swallows of his beer, fearing an attack with more nausea and vomiting. While he stayed at a booth by the window, Klaus headed for the restroom toward the rear of the place, but actually he went out the back door to see if he could spot anyone.

In the meantime, Stefan told the waitress that he had been having seizures and that if it happened, just to let it run its course and not call for help. In fact, he said it loud enough that the three other patrons could hear. They all agreed not to call anyone. It was a good thing he had done this because not two minutes later, he felt the first wave of dizziness.

"I'll come out of it," he told those present as they stared at him. "Just let me be."

After that, he succumbed to the terrible vertigo and he thrashed around. The sips of beer he had swallowed came up, spilling onto his clean shirt. Suddenly, the symptoms ceased. He was momentarily too confused to think why. He was just glad it had stopped.

"Are you all right now?" the pale waitress asked. The other people had moved closer and were looking on with concern.

"Yes. For now," Stefan said, trying to stop the shaking of his hands. He used a napkin to blot at the sour beer on his shirt.

"Isn't there something, some medication, you can take to stop the seizures?" the waitress asked, handing him two more napkins.

"I don't have any with me. This was unexpected," he said.

"Your friend should be with you. Where did he go? He's been in the john a while," one of the men said.

"He also went out back to smoke, I think," Stefan said, adlibbing.

In fact, Klaus did walk in from the back door just then and came to the table. He was carrying a small dog. He certainly saw the group watching Stefan and assumed he had had a seizure. He knew it had stopped. He knew exactly when it had stopped. When Stefan looked at him, he gave a slight nod.

"Anyone know this dog?" Klaus asked. "I spotted him down that dirt path and the poor thing was limping badly. A broken leg, I think."

"That's Fred Clark's dog. I'll call Fred to come get him. The vet lives in the next town," one of the men said.

Klaus carefully set the dog on the floor, where it lay down, panting. Then Klaus sat in the booth and faced Stefan.

"Are you all right now?" he asked in a sympathetic tone.

"I seem to be. Messed up another shirt," Stefan said. He wondered if Klaus' caring tone was for show in front of the group or was real. "Let's go back to the motel."

"Yes. I have something to tell you," Klaus said. "Good news. And bad." He didn't say anything further as they walked back to the motel because three chatting people happened to walk right behind them to the same motel.

Once in the room, Stefan took off his soiled shirt. He headed into the bathroom and did his best to clean the stains from the two soiled shirts. He heard Klaus come into the bathroom behind him and felt the man run a hand down his bare back. Klaus slipped both arms around Stefan and drew their bodies together. Stefan didn't stop cleaning the shirt. After being together with Klaus for weeks, he was well aware that the hybrid liked intimacy with both women and men. The closest man was usually Stefan. It was something he had had to accept because he had put himself in Klaus' hands, more literally than he had expected.

"I apologize for doubting you," Klaus said softly in Stefan's ear. "Forgive me?"

"Yeah. Okay," Stefan said quietly. Bastard, he thought. He could have believed me to begin with. "So, what did you find out?"

Klaus told him that he had walked around in back of the café and behind the buildings on both sides of the street and he had spotted the white car parked on a side street. Then he had spotted a woman crouched down behind a bush, which was across the street from the café. He had then shifted place in a blur to get right behind the woman. She was concentrating so hard on the café, that for a second she didn't register Klaus' presence. Because the bush was in plain view of the café and was also out in the open, he didn't think he could hustle the woman away without a fight, so he broke her neck and left her there.

"So our chance to question her is gone. Sorry, love," Klaus said, his lips brushing Stefan's shoulder. He then let go and turned away back into the bedroom.

"You're sure she was a witch?" Stefan asked as he rung out the shirts. He wrapped them in a bath towel and rung again before he hung them on hangers in the tiny closet.

"I'm sure. Now we don't know if she was angry at you or if someone else is and hired her to torment you," Klaus said.

"Great," Stefan said, putting on a clean shirt. At least he didn't have to worry about that particular witch. "That dog, did you break its leg?"

"No. It was already limping when I picked it up. Look, I'll give you a break. For now, I'll let the guy at the farm go. We'll leave here and get on the road again if you feel all right now."

"I'm all right. No dizziness or double vision. Where are we going?"

"Memphis, to find our werewolf friend Ray," Klaus said with a grin and within a half hour, they were headed west.

"It's such a relief to know I won't have any more of that damned vertigo," Stefan said as Klaus drove along the highway. "I'm just glad I won't have to go through that again."

Too bad he was wrong.

A.N. What do you all think? Should I write some more along the same line? I have some ideas.