Time Is On My Side

For the LJ prs_fans monthly challenge - this month being an AU fic. Much thanks to cynic_fic because she's awesome and without her none of my fic would get anywhere. Any and all recognizable names in this work of fiction are not mine. The PS crew belong solely to themselves. I'm just playing with them. Enjoy!

Okay, guys, this is the last chapter. I hope you liked it and thanks to any and all who stuck around for the ride. There won't be an out and out sequel, but I will post little one-shots and drabbles or whatever strike my fancy at some point in the future, that I will only post on LJ. I have a couple of fics to get out of the way before that. Thanks again, everyone!

-VII-

Ryan is just barely hanging on when Sergey has his stunning realization. He jumps up suddenly, which leaves his vampire swaying rather unsteadily where they had previously been sitting together on the floor.

“Serge?” Comes Ryan’s weak reply, barely able to lift his eyes to track the younger’s movements across the room.

But, he’s already half-way to the door. “I thought of something. I’ll be right back, okay?” Sergey explains, and darts out of the room as quickly as he can. He doesn’t like leaving Ryan all alone right now, but if they’re doing something wrong and they can fix it, Sergey needs to be on top of it.

The library, he thinks, as he sprints -carefully- over icy sidewalks where the snow is finally just beginning to melt. He needs to get to the library.

When they were doing their history project, Ryan had shown up with quite a large stack of books. Some of them had been discounted as not relevant to their particular topic, but Sergey had skimmed a few of them prior to declaring them as such. One had mentioned some pretty out there theories on vampires from the 1950’s or so. He seems to recall something about what Ryan is doing to himself right now. Only… there was more to it.

With a bit of effort, he manages to round up the ten books Ryan found for the project. He rules out the books they did use, leaving him with four remaining choices. From there, by the time period dealt with in the book, he can exclude two more, and after skimming through both of the thick texts, he finds the one he’s looking for.

“If a vampire were to try this extreme method of transformation, it is imperative that it not be allowed to starve completely and that normal food and drink be given as sustenance in substitution of its normal diet.” The key paragraph indeed speaks to what Sergey had thought of. He goes about checking the book out and is out the door in just a moment more.

He needs to gets back to Ryan.

***

When he gets back to Ryan, the door to the room is open, and Eilfie is nowhere to be found. Ryan, however, is lying sprawled out on the floor.

He slides the last few feet of his mad dash into the room and to Ryan’s side, but by his side he ends up nonetheless, searching frantically for some sign that Ryan is still with him. “Ryan, come on. Wake up.” He begs, shaking the vampire’s shoulders roughly. “You were wrong. You have to wake up again, you were wrong. We can still fix it.”

There is a mumbled reply of, “Huh…wha?” That is slurred in response from the barely conscious vampire, but his eyes slowly track Sergey and finally they land on him.

Heaving a sigh of relief that Ryan is, in fact, still awake, he quickly tells the vampire of the information he found in the book. However, it becomes readily apparent that Ryan isn’t exactly up to eating anything at all. He’s barely up to breathing, it seems like.

“Where’d Eilfie go?” Ryan asks, trying to look past Sergey at the still open door.

“Dunno.” Sergey replies, absently petting Ryan’s hair. “She was gone when I came back.”

Ryan frowns. “Hate to tell you this, Serge. But I don’t think food is gonna help me out much right now. I don’t even think blood could help me now.” He closes his eyes for a brief second and watches the grief and sorrow already flickering across Sergey’s face and indeed he does hate that he opened his mouth to say it.

Before Sergey can do anything to respond to the vampire’s lack of hope, Eilfie and Dr. Young appear in the doorway, the latter armed with a bag full of medical supplies. “For the record, I think this is totally insane.” The doctor comments, as he drops to his knees beside his new patient. “He needs blood.”

“He doesn’t want blood.” Sergey says in his vampire’s defense.

“So I’ve been made aware. He needs a blood transfusion.” Topher clarifies, clearly having already heard about Ryan’s plan from Eilfie. “Can you hold him still while I do this?” He already has the supplies out. A needle to start an IV line and a several bags full of O-, the universal donor type. “We need to get him warm, too.” He looks to Eilfie on that request and the other vampire runs off to fetch supplies for that task.

Eilfie returns a moment later with several blankets tucked under her arm and a couple of hastily packaged hot water bottles. “Sergey?” She prompts, and he helps her spread one of the blankets out on the ground and shift Ryan onto it before Topher begins his procedure.

With another blanket draped over Ryan’s legs and chest, and the water bottles strategically placed in locations that heat most readily escapes from, Dr. Young makes haste in getting on with the transfusion.

“Hold his arm, will you?” The doctor prompts, as he prods at Ryan’s icy skin in search of a vein through which to insert the IV line. After much hunting and poking and several failed attempts, he finds one, and the line is hooked up to the much needed blood. Topher seems extremely relieved to have the procedure under way. He heaves a sigh and gives the bag to Eilfie. “Keep this upright.” He demands of her, and then turns his attention back to Sergey. “Does he seem any warmer?”

“…A little, I think.” Sergey responds, but Topher doesn’t look satisfied.

“Get under the covers with him.” He instructs, and drapes another blanket over the two of them once the younger has complied with his request.

With his arms curled around Ryan’s chest, he is as close as he can possibly get. “Is there anything else we can do?” Sergey asks, as the doctor inventories his supplies once more, no doubt prepared for everything short of the apocalypse.

Topher sighs solemnly. “All we can do now is wait.”

***

The effects of the impromptu blood transfusion take a disturbingly long time to begin to appear. Coupled with the still-low temperature that Ryan’s body is functioning on, Dr. Young explains, it’s hard to expect swifter results.

It’s somewhere around the time that Sergey’s attempt at sharing body heat first seem to be showing signs of working that Ryan first wakes up.

“Serge…” He mumbles, words slurred and barely understandable. He shivering slightly, and he tries with a surprising amount of conviction to tug at the IV feeding his system with the much needed blood. “Serge, make it stop.” Ryan says, and he manages to open his eyes enough to blearily search out Sergey who is nearer than he apparently expected.

Sergey catches the vampire’s hand and holds it tight to keep it from messing with the IV line. “No, no, come on. You have to leave that alone.” He counters, pulls the hand, still trapped in his own, away and settles their entwined fingers on Ryan’s chest instead. “Just a little while longer, okay?” He promises, and he really hopes it’s true.

With something that sounds almost like a whimper, Ryan gives in and doesn’t fight him anymore.

***

About an hour passes with Ryan once again soundly asleep, unconscious, whatever. They’re into the third bag of blood, and Topher is looking somewhat concerned by their lack of progress at this point. Granted, this is the first time that they know of that a vampire has tried this, and there has been some progress – via Sergey’s shared body heat, Ryan’s temperature is now closer to normal than a disconcerting level of freezing – but, it still seems like more should be happening.

Just as Sergey moves to extricate himself from the tangle of blankets, a loud scream pierces the silence of the room. Ryan’s awake again, this time a bit more violently. He startles in Sergey’s loosened hold on him, thrashing about and wailing at an earsplitting volume.

He tries to keep Ryan from injuring himself with his wild convulsions, pinning the vampire’s arms down and leaning across him to further restrain him.

“Serge...” Comes Ryan’s pleading voice, between screams.

“I’m here.” He assures the older boy, trying to calm him. “I’m right here, Ry. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine, okay? Just hold on for me.” He pleads in return. He looks over his shoulder at Dr. Young, who is scrambling through his medical bag in search of something. “Can’t you give him something to stop this?”

The doctor searches faster. “I have a sedative that should help, but, as I’ve said, I don’t know what is taking place during this situation, so therefore I don’t know what effect it will have on Ryan at all.” He warns, just as he produces a small bottle of clear liquid. He digs a sealed and sterile syringe out of another part of his bag and looks to Sergey for his understanding of that.

“Barring unforeseen circumstances… It’ll help, right?”

The doctor nods, as confident as he can be of that. “Hold him still for me.”

Sergey complies with the order, but the screaming stops before the needle touches him, and Ryan’s struggles stop almost as suddenly as they began. His arms go limp where Sergey is holding them and his eyes close again. “He’s… out. Again.”

Topher puts away the medicine.

***

He notices the changes even before he opens his eyes. The sounds he hears – subtle things he’d been hearing for so many years – are muffled and much less audible. Things he’d been so familiar with – heartbeats, the constant hum of the lights above him, breathing, sounds of passing cars on nearby roads, Sergey – they’re all… not there. He smells virtually nothing anymore, and he inhales sharply through his nose in an attempt to find something familiar.

Touch is another thing that’s changed. He can feel a hand gripping his own, both rested on his chest. Only…. It doesn’t feel like fire. It feels just the same as his does.

Finally, close to the edge of panic from all the dramatic absence of sensations, his eyes fly open.

Blurry. Unclear. Clouded. It’s not that he can’t see. It’s just that there’s so much less detail. So much less clarity in all the little things he used to be able to spot. His eyes move slower, too.

“Ryan?” A familiar voice. Finally, something even slightly familiar. “Ry, you okay? Talk to me.”

“Mrngh.” Is all he manages to get out. He tries something else. “Ser…” There’s suddenly a sharp pain in his stomach, it goes from there up to his head, where it settles in right behind his eyes. Headaches? In his first moments as something other than a vampire? Awesome.

Then it hits him.

He’s human.

***

As it turns out, the pain in his stomach is a result of a very human need for food. Real food, not blood. And the pain in his head is a very persistent and unrelenting hunger headache.

He’s still weak, and not quite up to moving about just yet, so Dr. Young sends Eilfie off to find some human food while he looks over his newly human patient.

“So, you’re human again. What’s that like?” Sergey asks with a smile, a hand rubbing soothing circles on Ryan’s back.

“It’s weird.” Ryan answers honestly, eyes still moving about and taking in the distinctive changes in his perceptions.

Curious as well, Topher is the one who further questions the ex-vampire on the matter. “Good weird or bad weird?”

“Good weird.” Ryan quickly clarifies. “The changes are just going to take some getting used to, is all.” He’s already explained the significant decrease in his senses. “And I doubt I’ll be any good at stalking you across campus or jumping out of windows. Might even need a ladder now.” He hums in thought. “On the plus side, it’ll take a lot more effort if you ever want to get rid of me. You can’t just tell me I’m not welcome now.”

Sergey rolls his eyes, but can’t help the smile that crosses his features. “Oh, you’re not getting rid of me that easily, either, don’t worry.”

Momentarily ceasing his intense examination of all the things that have changed as a result of his transformation, his eyes settle on Sergey. A fang free grin takes over his features, and Ryan slings an arm over Sergey’s shoulders as well. He shifts enough to be partially facing Sergey and presses his lips against the younger’s.

Eilfie returns then, bursting into the room via the door, which slams open and hits against the wall behind it. “Oh, ugh, my apologies?” She smirks, and deposits a large bag filled with various human foods by Topher’s side. “Come on, Doc. We should probably leave them alone.”

The doctor, who had been fancying himself invisible, nods, gathering up the bag. “Yes. I, ugh, I’ll go see what I can do with the food.” He eyes its contents warily. “Though what I’m going to do with… pickles, bread and peanut butter escapes me entirely.”

“What? You mean that’s not a universal human thing?” She asks, looking genuinely confused. At Sergey and Topher’s twin looks of disbelief, she quickly explains that her boyfriend happens to like said food items, and such a mistake can be blamed entirely on his apparently obscure tastes .

Nonetheless, Topher excuses himself, and follows Eilfie out of the room with the bag in hand.

Alone now, Sergey asks the question that’s been on his mind since the change occurred. “So, ugh. You don’t regret it do you?” He inquires, in all seriousness.

Ryan leans over to kiss him again. “Wouldn’t trade it for anything."