Chapter Text
Tim’s limp hand is pulled out of Danny’s grip, and he watches as the gurney and its passel of nurses and EMTs disappear behind the swinging doors. Danny stands there for a moment with his hand outstretched, then lets it fall to his side in the sudden hush of the hallway.
There’s nothing more he can do.
He kept Tim awake in the car as they raced out of the darkened campsite to meet the ambulance at the nearest stoplight. Someone in the next camp over had said someone died of a stroke last week just down the road because the ambulance couldn’t find them, so when shit went down, Danny knew they couldn’t afford to stay in place for help.
Tim was just fine earlier in the night. He was fine, talking and laughing through a card game and playing twenty questions with Danny at the picnic table near the fire, and then suddenly he wasn’t fine at all, and thank God one of the other campers noticed Danny’s panic. The man took one look at Tim, pale and sweating and swaying on the bench, and rushed over.
“I’m a nurse,” the man said as he placed a hand on Tim’s forehead and cursed. “What happened?” He asked, voice brooking no nonsense as he made eye contact with Tim.
Tim struggled upright and pulled up his shirt, showing off a bandage wrapped around his side, dark red in the middle and sickening yellow at the edges. The nurse cursed again and told Danny to call an ambulance immediately, lifting Tim from the bench and supporting him as he walked over to a nearby truck. The nurse drove them through the darkness to the stoplight with Tim in the front seat and Danny right behind him, holding his head up and keeping him talking. He asked Tim question after question, going back over the answers Tim had just given him during their game of twenty questions. Tim answered most of the questions right away, but his speech was slurred and his head leaned more and more heavily against Danny’s own.
They made it to the stoplight and the nurse helped Tim out of the truck as the ambulance pulled up beside them, headlights like spotlights in the dark. The EMTs wasted no time getting Tim onto a gurney. Danny jumped into the front seat of the ambulance without asking. There was no way he was getting left behind.
Tim stopped talking as soon as they loaded him into the ambulance, even though Danny could hear the EMTs asking him the same kinds of questions he’d been asking in the truck. The doors shut and the driver jumped into her seat, flicking on the siren as she stepped on the gas.
Tim didn’t answer a single question from the EMTs, and Danny could tell from their tones that they were stressed. They started talking about BPs and breathing and heart rates and Danny’s breath started to race.
“It’ll be alright,” the driver told him as she sped down the road, her voice soothing.
“Can you drive faster?” Danny asked instead of acknowledging the platitude, curling up in the front seat, feet on the seat and arms wrapped around his knees.
The lady floored it.
They raced through the gloomy back roads, siren wailing and lights flashing, and the woman radioed ahead. Danny saw police cars blocking back country intersections, and he knew that was a bad sign. The drive took an eternity and no time at all.
The ambulance screeched into the bright bay and Danny was out the door almost before it stopped.
He ran to the back just in time for the doors to open.
The first thing he saw was Tim’s bare feet.
His mind immediately flashed to toe tags on bodies, and his breath hitched painfully.
Then he was stepping back and giving the EMTs room as they rolled Tim out of the back, the legs of the gurneys snapping into place. He had a mask held to his face, a big rubber sphere on the end that someone was squeezing on a set rhythm. They ran him into the hospital, Danny right with them, grabbing Tim’s hand and holding tight.
His hand was limp.
And then he was gone, hand torn from Danny’s grip.
And now Danny’s standing aimlessly in the hospital hallway, staring at the doors as they fall still.
A hand on his shoulder makes him jump, but it’s just the nurse from the campsite.
“They need his information,” he says, and motions to a window in the wall, another nurse waiting patiently behind the glass.
Danny gives her as much of Tim’s information as he knows. The woman’s eyebrows raise at Tim’s full name, but she’s mostly professional, and she’s kind when Danny stumbles over a few important questions. He honestly doesn’t know that much about Tim, despite being his friend for a few months now.
This is only their first date, and while Danny thought a camping trip was a bit of a weird choice, Tim was adamant that it was the only way to avoid his family crashing the date. Besides, they were already friends, he’d said. They already knew they liked each other well enough to spend a weekend together.
Tim’s a bit of an all-or-nothing kinda guy, Danny’s finding out.
Apparently that goes for medical emergencies, too, Danny thinks, his typical morbid humor raising its ugly head. He shakes his head at himself, passing back the last bit of paperwork and standing aimlessly at the window.
“C’mon,” the nurse from the campsite says, leading Danny away. “The waiting room is over here.”
Danny lets himself be led to a little waiting room. There are two other people in there, and the nurse sits him down in one of the creaky chairs. There’s a TV in the corner of the ceiling, placing some asinine home improvement show, and the canned laughter and grating voices are the only sounds in the room. The nurse sits beside Danny, and doesn’t say a word.
Danny sits there and time seems to blur.
He keeps going over the night in his head, Tim’s happy voice, his eyes in the firelight, the way he suddenly went white as a sheet and sweat broke out on his forehead.
How could Danny have missed this? How could he not have realized Tim was injured?
Why wouldn’t Tim say anything? Why did he agree to come on the trip at all?
Danny’s thoughts keep circling, chasing each other around and around until they’re all he can hear.
He glances around the room, desperate for a distraction, and spots the door to the bathroom. He shoves up from his chair and rushes over, shoving the door open and wrenching it shut behind him, locking the door with a click that echoes in his ears.
He stands there for a second, his thoughts empty one second, racing the next. His head feels white and blank, then full of noise and words and static. He shuts his eyes against the sickening feelings rushing through him. His mind is screaming.
Danny punches the wall, just once, and pain barks through his knuckles, his wrist twinging.
He can feel the tears burning his eyes, and he gasps them back. If he starts crying now, he doesn’t know that he’ll ever stop.
He stumbles over to the sink. The water is loud enough to fill the tiny room, and Danny splashes some water on his face just for something to do. He shuts off the faucet with a rusty squeal, and snags a paper towel to wipe his face.
There’s a knock on the door.
“The doctor’s here,” the nurse says.
Danny should really try to get the man’s name, he realizes, but the thought is distant. He unlocks the door and pulls it open, the lights from the waiting room harsh on his stinging eyes. The room is empty save for the campsite nurse and a doctor with a clipboard at the other door.
Danny and the nurse walk up to him.
“His wound is septic,” the doctor says immediately.
The nurse sucks a deep breath through his teeth. Danny doesn’t know what that means, but it can’t be anything good.
“We’re only a level four hospital, so we’ll have to transfer him to a level one. There’s a helicopter on the way, but there’s a fog bank above us so they aren’t sure they can fly in.”
Danny’s mind goes white with panic. That’s really bad.
The doctor meets his eyes. “If you’re praying, pray harder.”
Then the man is gone, and Danny is frozen.
The nurse sets a gentle hand on his elbow and turns him, and Danny staggers back to his chair, dropping into it with a harsh thud. He puts his face in his hands and, for the first time since he died, prays.
He doesn’t know who he’s praying to, Clockwork or some nebulous idea of God or the Infinite Realms themselves, but he prays that Tim will survive this, because the longer Danny sits in the lonely waiting room the more his heart sinks with a horrible realization.
He’s in love with Tim.
He’s been in relationships before, gone through puppy love and little crushes and he’s hoped for more, but he’s never been in love before.
Not like this.
Danny's fallen in love with Tim and now he might lose him.
Danny prays harder.