Title: Fifteen Minutes
Genre: Romance/Angst
Pairing: Timmy/Chester
Rating: T
-----------
The battle was over. They had won.
Those were the thoughts running through AJ's mind as he surveyed the damage. Still he couldn't quite put together what exactly the maniacal vampire was doing there in Dimmsdale, and why Timmy seemed to know exactly what his being there meant, but like he said, the battle was over. The vampire had been hauled away by police in strange pink and green uniforms and most everyone had already left the "battlefield", which was really just the playground of the school.
But wait; there was a blob of pink near the sandbox. A familiar looking blob of pink that got more and more familiar looking as he got closer.
Timmy sat huddled against the side of the sandbox, holding something very fragile-looking in his arms.
With a look that would break even Vicky's heart, Timmy's blue eyes met AJ's chestnut ones.
"The vampire bit him," he whispered, the words seeming to choke him. Chester lie unconscious in Timmy's arms and as AJ knelt down on the ground beside Timmy he saw his blond friend's familiar features twisted in pain.
"AJ," Timmy whimpered, his eyes glassy, "help him, please."
-----------------
"It hurts," Chester whimpered. The three of them were now in AJ's bedroom, though the only thing that was 'bedroom'-like about it was that there was a bed in the corner of the room. This bed was currently occupied by Chester. Several small indentations wrapped in bloody cloth spotted his neck and arms, always in pairs of two, and pools of blood flowed from these. His bloodstained clothing lie on the floor as he lie shirtless under the light of the florescent lights that lit AJ's small room.
"I know, baby," Timmy whispered, pushing the blond's bangs off his sweaty forehead with one hand while the other one was in Chester's tight grasp. He let out another choked gasp of pain and Timmy gently squeezed his hand.
"It'll be alright," Timmy insisted. AJ was unsure whether he was trying to reassure himself or Chester but neither seemed to be convinced by this statement. It was almost certain that Chester would not be alright. The vampire had bit him at least four times, injecting enough venom in each one to kill three bodybuilders, let alone one rather weak teenager.
"I'm working on an antidote as we speak. The only question is whether we can get it into him in time," AJ reported.
"Ah!" Chester moaned, clutching his arm. Timmy winced as the hand came back soaked in blood. The blood was beginning to soak through the cloth bandages.
"I would suck out the venom if I thought it would save you," Timmy insisted.
"Don't you dare," AJ ordered. "You wouldn't be able to suck all of it out and I don't need to deal with two injured friends." Timmy was grateful that he'd chosen 'injured' rather than 'dying'. The last thing Chester needed to hear was how close to death he really was.
"Right, sorry," Timmy absentmindedly answered, his wide, worried eyes locked on Chester's wincing ones.
"The antidote should be ready in fifteen minutes if I've calculated correctly. Keep him stabilized until then," AJ ordered, and then returned to his computer, typing commands rapidly into it.
Timmy really wished he hadn't been so critical of all of the health classes he'd been forced to take in school, and all of the remedies that Wanda had tried teaching him. He couldn't remember being taught a thing about how to stabilize someone who'd been injected with vampire venom, however, so he went by pure instinct.
As Chester's trembling lips gasped for air, Timmy leaned in and captured them with his own. It was this that had calmed Chester down during those nights they stayed up whispering their most hidden fears and aspirations, this that had woken him up every morning (well, more like afternoon), and it was this, Timmy hoped, that would relax him enough to keep the venom from spreading, or whatever the hell it was doing that put his lover through so much pain.
At first he wasn't even kissed back, which worried him immensely, but then Chester finally reacted to the kiss by pressing his lips against Timmy's, gently at first, but Chester could never just leave it at that. His hands gently guided Timmy's body closer to his until Timmy was lying next to him on the large bed; their bodies interlocked in a delicate embrace as they clung to each other, Chester holding Timmy like a lifeline and Timmy holding Chester as though it might be the last time.
They were so caught up in each other that they barely noticed AJ until he cleared his throat and held up a syringe.
"Do you want the antidote or not?" he demanded, and Chester allowed Timmy to slip out of his arms and held out an arm, closing his eyes tightly. He'd never much liked needles.
"I'm sorry, but I have to inject it into the same places that the venom entered," AJ apologized. Chester was about to ask why he was apologizing when AJ injected the antidote in through one of the wounds. Chester's entire body jumped and he let out a sharp cry of pain.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," AJ insisted, but it wasn't Chester whose eyes had tears pouring out of them, it was Timmy, standing on the other side of the bed, who collapsed to the ground with tears pouring out of his eyes.
"It's not right," Timmy murmured after several minutes of the only sound being Chester's pained cries, "that he should suffer when it was me who the vampire wanted."
"What's truly right about this world?" AJ replied, and Timmy nodded weakly.
"This is the last one," AJ promised, and Chester let out a wail for a few moments and then his entire body relaxed.
"Is he okay?" Timmy demanded, leaping to his feet and clutching Chester's hand.
"He should be fine," AJ answered, and it was true, Chester's features slowly relaxed and a peaceful smile came across his face.
"He'll be okay," Timmy insisted after a while. "He'll never forget the feeling of that vampire's teeth ripping into his flesh, or the time he had to lie there alone and bleeding while he waited for me to find him, but he'll be okay."
"How do you know?" AJ wondered aloud.
"Because," Timmy replied, "I'm going to make him be okay. If it takes every last strain of my being, I'll make sure he's okay. Goddamn it, he's the sweetest kid in the whole goddamn universe and he doesn't deserve to be hurt like this."
"Timmy," Chester whispered, and Timmy stopped mid-rant to look at him.
"Yes, baby?" Timmy answered in a voice that could just shatter your heartstrings.
"Hold me," he pleaded, and Timmy obediently climbed onto the bed and wrapped his arms around him, humming a gentle, peaceful melody and whispering sweet words in his lover's ear.
AJ watched this scene unfold and smiled.
"Yeah," he decided, "he'll be okay."
------------
A/N: Hooray for angst! Anyway, I've been thinking about this one ever since Wishology came out. Just finally got around to writing it. Hope you enjoyed it!