#timloch

No answer. Just Lochlan's head lolling against Timothy's shoulder, his feverish gaze focused on a spot in the distance. There's nothing outside but palm trees and scattered houses rushing by. Timothy's stomach drops. He shouldn't have waited for the poison to wear off on its own, should've called an ambulance, should've done fucking something.

"Can't you go faster?" he urges the cab driver who grunts and lets the engine howl.

Lochlan used to get terrible colds when he was little. Infections that had his lungs rattling and his entire body shaking with fever. This is similar. This is worse. He keeps thrashing around in Tim's arms, his lungs heaving against his birdcage chest with tremendous effort. When Tim pushes some curls out of his son's forehead, the pale skin is clammy to the touch.

"D'youhearthat," Lochlan pants.

"Hear what, son?"

Lochlan, too weak or too breathless to say more, doesn't elaborate. Just keeps staring through the cab window, something strange flitting over his face. Wonder. Recognition. Fear.

"It's him," he croaks, "he's calling for me."

Tim follows his gaze against better judgement: there's still nothing out there. Something cold and dreadful takes hold of him and he tightens his grip on his son's trembling body as if it might help. As if he can keep him here, in the land of the living, by sheer force of will.

"Just a little longer, Lochy. We're almost there."

But when they finally pull up in front of the hospital and the driver kills the engine, it's as if all sound has been sucked out of the world at once. Everything's quiet besides Timothy's raging pulse in his ears. His insides go cold and he knows. Knows what he'll find before he even looks down.

Lochlan⸺clutching-the-hem-of-Tim's-shirt-and-pattering-after-him-on-toddler-feet Lochlan, always-a-little-too-quiet Lochlan, "I think I could live without any money" Lochlan⸺Lochlan lies limp in his arms. His thrashing has stopped. There's no whimpering, no teeth-chattering. No breathing.

Too late. Too late. They're too fucking late.