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“HELP! HELP! HELP! AHHHH!”
“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck?! Was Chester okay?” Parker thought as he awoke due to the commotion. He knew that fish was no good… and despite his friend’s foolish persistence to order it, he couldn’t bear to let him get hurt or possibly KILLED by it.
He quickly snatched the recording camera, and raced across the hallway, while screaming to the camera “Yo! Yo! I hear Chester screaming!!” He tried to keep his composure, and his nonchalant persona up, but he was shaking.
“Chester! Chester, you alright man?!” he frantically asked when he opened his bedroom door. His room was pitch black, and there was a mysterious black-brownish streak leading from the bottom of his white fluffy sheets into his bed leading to where he lay.
…
Did he shit himself?
“There’s something in my bed!” Chester screams. “Something’s wrong! SOMETHING BIT ME!” his still-spectacled face contorts into fear, unlike Parker had seen in even their most risky escapades.
“What’s wrong bro? What are you talking about?”
“SOMETHING BIT MY LEG, DUDE!” Chester yells as he lifts up his comforter to show the grotesque injury. It was gorey, and splattered in a black sort of pus/ink that the fish may have injected into him.
“OW FUCK! Do you need me to take you to a doctor?!” Parker asks, although the clear answer is “ Yes, absolutely,” he can’t help but examine it. He’s sure their subscribers would be intrigued by it, too, so he zooms up on it. “Can I take a look?” he asks as he climbs onto the bed.
“Yeah.. FUCK, it hurts,” Chester answers, and his breathing starts to speed up a bit as Parker approaches. “Y-You might want to turn off the camera for this… it may be serious,”
Parker was a bit skeptical about that, as they had found a plethora of LITERAL CRIMINALS, and a fish bite seems small in comparison, but if Chester finds it important he’ll stop. Despite how they may act a bit distant in videos, their bro-mance transcends all other love. Maybe even platonic love, or so Chester might sometimes wonder, but Parker isn’t gay… At least he doesn’t think he is. Even if that were the case, they’d somehow gained a pretty… unwelcoming audience to that kind of thing, so he’d better not explore that on camera, and especially not with the guy he was usually sharing the camera with. “Uh, yeah, okay I can do that,” He replies as he shuts it off of recording mode. He crawls closer to Chester, and realizes in his haste he was right above him.
“Can you show me it, again?” Parker asks.
“...Yeah,” Chester flushed.
Parker tries to back away a bit to give him some space, but ends up sitting right beside Chester’s legs. When he leans over to look at it more, he’s hit with a sudden realization:
That fucking fish might see him being gay as hell with his bro. Not that Parker was gay, of course! But who knew what evil fish off the dark web would think is gay? Would it blackmail him? The aquatic asshole could be selling every second of this to the press!
“Wait, is it still here?” he rummaged through the blanket, and all he found was a suspicious inky stain near Chester. “Uh, okay it seems to be gone, dude. Your bite is serious, so I gotta take care of it first…”
“Yeah… Yeah, okay, go ahead,” Chester gulped and took a sharp inhale as Parker’s fingers brushed along his leg.
Was that because of the pain? Or… something else? Chester wondered. FUCK.
Why am I thinking about this? Parker and I are just good friends. I'm probably just scared about the massive open wound on my leg. That makes sense. Chester reasoned with himself, even though he knew damn well he was blushing now because they were in close proximity… and his heart was already racing due to adrenaline… and maybe he was a little turned on by his friend clinging onto to his bare skin.
Hey, you can’t judge. Everyone likes a little hurt/comfort.
“I’m gonna… get some, uh first aid for this… You’re bleeding fucking everywhere, man,” Parker explained, and exited the room as quickly as he could without making the decidedly non platonic thoughts in his head obvious to Chester. He walked (ran) to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet under the sink in a very calm, collected, and NOT AT ALL anxious speed. Sudden romantical thoughts for sure don’t help when you’re trying to save someone’s life. After some digging around, he found Chester’s knight in shining armor… A shitty bright red first aid kid bought from none other than ACE Hardware.
After Parker had located the godsent plastic receptacle, he decided to dial 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” inquires a nasally feminine voice on the other end.
Parker responds in a shaky voice, “I- My… roommate he, um, he has a large wound on his leg and he’s losing blood really fast…”
“What is your location?”
“[ Obviously, we don’t know their address.] ”
“When was this injury obtained?”
“Oh, I think… maybe 5-10 ish minutes ago?”
“You will be redirected to a hospital. Please wait.” The voice says.
“Hello, Cleveland Clinic Hospital on the line,” informs a deeper voice.
“Hi, um, my roommate has a large wound and he’s losing a lot of blood–”
“Are you able to transport him to the emergency room?”
“Y-Yeah, I am.”
“Please do that immediately. I am going to hang up now,” the voice said, and Parker heard a drawn out beeeeep .
Meanwhile, Chester lay confused alone on his bed. What was that about? I know I have an open wound, but that was really weird, even for Parker. He thought. Might as well take off my glasses, not like our subscribers will see any of this anyways. He neatly folded them, and tucked them in the neck of his shirt.
Parker raced back to Chester’s room with the newfound savior, flicked on the lightswitch, and hopped up onto the bed again. This time at a… Somewhat reasonable distance from his bro to be considered platonic, although both these men’s veils of ‘heterosexuality’ are sad, tattered curtains that shield neither light, nor sound. He cracked open the kit and put some antibacterial ointment onto a gauze pad before gently wiping some of the blood and ink off of Chester’s wound.
Chester winces, and groans a bit at the contact. It hurts like hell.
The gause came back almost completely soaked in blood and fish pus… this was bad. For more reasons than one. Parker quickly unwrapped another wad of gauze, dabbed it in some hydrogen peroxide, and applied it to the bite again. Parker remembered his mother disinfecting a cut he had gotten as a kid with that shit, so it should help Chester’s wound.
[Unfortunately, he is fucking stupid, hydrogen peroxide on an open wound like this hurts more than it helps, and burns like a man of war.]
Chester cried out this time at the contact, sitting up. It STUNG– stung like a bitch when directly placed on it, no not stung, FELT LIKE THE FIREY PITS OF FUCKING HELL (okay maybe he was overreacting a bit, but damn .)
“Fuck, I’m sorry Chester. I-I didn’t want to hurt you any more. I thought this stuff would clean it out…” Parker said, his thick brows creased in worry. His voice was softer than usual, and decidedly absent was the confidence he tried to portray on camera. Even the more toned down version of his YouTube personality Parker presented to everyone offline was a pretty self assured guy who knew what he was doing.
Everyone – but Chester.
Chester’s eyes widened at the soft tone, and his heart might’ve skipped a beat. True sincerity is not something often shown to others by Parker, but Chester decides he wants as much of it as he can get from now on. Despite the still throbbing pain in his leg, he’s filled with the overwhelming urge to:
Kiss him.
Wait.
Kiss him?????
Okay, maybe it was time for Chester to admit to himself that he had always kinda wanted to kiss him. Maybe more than kinda, and he’d be lying to himself if the…Uh… Added pressure in his shorts wasn’t due to his friend being on top of him…
BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT RIGHT NOW… he thought to himself. He needed medical help, stat, and there was time to unpack the decade of gay thoughts somewhere else. Sometime else.
Alas, Chester, like Parker is a fucking idiot, so he tries to sit up and get his face closer to the very same idiot who had given him very ill informed – yet well intentioned – medical assistance just a minute ago.
Parker squints down confusedly at him, and produces a small (but largely embarrassing) gasp as his friend falls backwards onto his pillow again. Apparently the blood loss had weakened him considerably.
“You alright?” Parker asked.
Chester hissed at the pain in response.
“Uh- Okay it’s clear you aren’t… I’m going to try and help you up, if that’s okay,” Parker said, as he slid one hand underneath Chester’s back, and the other under his neck, lifting him up. Now that Chester was sitting next to him, they were… very close. Parker quickly glanced at his “friend”’s lips – okay, maybe he was staring, but that’s neither here nor there.
Despite almost passing out, Chester was awake enough to notice Parker’s stare lingering. Light blue eyes caught dark brown, and despite the absolute blue eyed stare Chester unknowingly gave Parker, he seemed to notice something else between the two. An understanding of sorts, that: This may not be as platonic as it might have seemed.
“Can I kiss you?” Chester blurts, breaking the silence that had grown. He immediately regrets it. Dammit, why wouldn’t I think about that first! Parker’s not gay. He would have told me so… right?
He quickly adds: “If- If that’s alright with you, I mean, you can say no, don’t- don’t feel forced or anything, bro,” this time, in a much quieter tone.
Parker’s brows lift, almost comically, and his cheeks become scattered with a light blush. “Are you really sure you want to do this… Chester? I- I’m not sure if blood loss affects your thinking…” he rambles.
Fuck. This is so stupid of me, to think Chester would want to do anything like this in his right mind. Parker thinks.
“I don’t know if it does… but, to be honest I’ve thought about it…” his voice hightens. “Um, a lot, so… Can I?” Chester asks once again.
“YES,” Parker exclaims, and realizing his volume turns his face even redder than before. “I mean, uh, yes, that’s, um, okay with me.”
Chester chuckles a bit at the slip, and leans in, closing the little space that remained between them. Even after Parker had taken what felt like years to answer him, Chester’s a little taken aback by Parker leaning into him, and presses his back into the pillow to keep steady. Maybe I am a little weakened by the blood loss, but, honestly? Worth it.
Holy shit, maybe I am gay. Parker realizes, although the metaphorical glass closet has already been through 17 nuclear bombs, and a plethora of life-takingly horrible natural disasters, and has shattered past any possible repairs. With this new-found realization, he decides to make do with it and rests his hand on the side of Chester’s face. Chester pulls just a little bit away, leaving about an inch or two between them, and Parker finds himself again looking into his definitely-no-longer-friend’s blue eyes.
“I-I’m sorry, was that too much?” asks Chester. Ugh, why can’t I calm down? He probably didn’t even realize I wanted to do that until now, and I’m just rushing into it.
“Oh– no, uh, I wasn’t actually trying to stop… I should get you to the ER soon though, I should have done it, like, right when you got bitten.”
“Hey, it’s not a big deal. I can wait a minute… Or 10…” Chester suggests.
“Well, I can’t . I don’t want you to, like, lose your leg or something,” Parker argues.
“Why don’t we make a compromise?” he offers, weakly.
“I can offer you five minutes, if you let me take you to the hospital right after…”
“That’s fine with me,” he says, the corners of his mouth forming a slight smirk, and Parker tucks a strand of dirty blonde hair away from Chester’s face and leans in to meet his lips again.
- - -
After about five minutes pass and Parker helps him down the stairs and into a familiar old black sedan, he and Chester set off to the hospital.
“Do you want to listen to something?,” Parker asks, handing his phone over, “Here, you can pick something if you’d like.”
Chester opens the most recent thing Parker’s listened to, a playlist titled number 42069 probably . He taps shuffle, and some song called “My Kind of Woman” plays. Usually, Chester doesn’t like much besides rap or hip hop, and R&B is about as far as he’ll stray from those two. And while this song is no exception to that rule – it sounds like dogshit to him – but it’s special to him, for no reason other than it’s special to Parker.
I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful to be at a hospital. I could tolerate that first song for Parker, but the next was almost unbearable – I mean, what the hell kind of a band name is Car Seat Headrest??
Damn, is there even a single parking space here? Parker wonders, driving around the ER lot.
I don’t know where to go if there isn’t a spot here, and he can’t even walk over there himself… he worries, before spotting a space in the very back. It’ll be a bit of a walk, but while Chester may not remember that year at camp, Parker still knows how to help an injured person walk.
He parks the battered car and hits pause on High & Dry . He always thought that one was a bit of a deep cut, not a song many other people liked from The Bends .
[Again, Parker is fucking stupid. High & Dry is a very popular song, as is My Kind of Woman.]
Parker goes around to the passenger side door and helps Chester out, almost forgetting to take a black backpack with some cash, a small first aid kit, and a couple things he had thrown in there last minute before they left.
“Shit, Chester, you look terrible…”
“Thanks…?”
Parker quickly realizes how rude that sounds.
“No, sorry, I meant… I… It’s good we got here when we did, you’re clearly still losing blood, let’s get in this place as quick as we can,” Parker adds.
“Yeah –” Chester winces, and takes a sharp inhale, “we would already be checked in if I hadn’t suggested we…. Uh…. fool around for five minutes…” It feels like every remaining drop of blood rushes to his cheeks after he says that out loud. It was true, but maybe a bit soon.
“Yeah, fool around,” Parker replies a bit distantly, and puts his arm around Chester so he can lean on him. They walk a bit slowly into the ER, and find a desk manned by a tired looking nurse.
“Hello, what is the nature of your emergency?”
“Uh- My friend got bit by a-a dog on the leg, and it’s, uh, gnarly. He’s bleeding a lot,” Parker lies. There’s no way this lady would need to know, they were on the DARK WEB! And she wouldn’t even believe him if he said it was, what even was it? An evil fish? Some octuple-appendaged nightmare fuel?”
She shoots Parker a weird look, like she doesn’t quite believe him, but it’s not weird enough to say anything about it. “What is your friend’s name?” she asks.
“My- My name is Chester Beckington,” Chester says, weakly.
“Okay, Mr. Beckington. You two can wait over there,” she says, pointing to the mildly depressing waiting area, “Help will be over shortly.”
“Thank you,” Parker replies.
He helps Chester over to the back corner, where about as far away from the other patients as they can get in the crowded ER, stand two bleak-looking light blue chairs. They sit down next to each other and Parker brings out a pair of shitty wired headphones from the backpack and offers one to Chester.
“You can pick the music this time.”
Chester smiles weakly at that.
“Can you play some Tyler?”
“Sure.” Isn’t that the gay one? I guess that’s fitting.
He then closes his eyes, and leans his head on Parker.