(trigger warnings in this chapter: Death; mentions of: blood, surgery, burns, mental illness; implied reference to suicidal thoughts)
Chapter Twenty-Four Word Count: 5580
It all starts with a fever.
When Niall and I arrive home from my mother's house, Ollie is asleep on the couch. This comforts Niall particularly because Ollie hadn't answered any of Niall's—quite repetitive—phone calls. However, when Niall goes upstairs to put G to bed, I notice something odd about the situation. Ollie's phone is laying on the coffee table right in front of him. I wouldn't think much of it if he wasn't so sick recently, but wouldn't his phone repeatedly ringing wake him up?
I walk quietly over to the couch, taking in Ollie's features as he sleeps. His face is contorted into a look of slight discomfort, a face I would expect of someone having a mild nightmare. He's breathing in a bit more ruggedly than I would expect, and his lips are this sort of off-color pale. It's a bit worrying, and I can't help but instantly fear the worst.
"Ollie?" I ask softly, not loud enough to wake him if he's truly alright. He doesn't move at all at my voice, but I begin to notice the sweat building on his face, the absolute exhaustion to his features. I crouch down next to the couch and curiously take in his appearance. He does look quite ill. I place my hand on his upper arm as if to comfort him if he were alert, but I pull my hand back instantly in fright. His skin is on fire. This fever is intense, warm enough for me to notice less than a second after touching his skin.
I place the back of my hand to his forehead then, worried immensely by the extreme heat. No matter what's causing it, this temperature needs to be lowered now. If he stays like this for much longer there's no way it could be healthy. Also, there's no way to tell how long he's had the fever in the first place. We've been gone for quite a while.
I decide to go get Niall immediately, taking to the steps as fast as I can and nearly colliding with Niall as he walks out of our bedroom. It seems as if he put G in our bed for the night. Niall seems startled to have run into me so quickly, and the confusion on his face is clear.
"Ollie has a fever. A bad one." I say right away, not wanting to waste any more time. Niall seems a bit confused for only a moment before he nods, and I follow him back down into the living room.
It doesn't take long for Niall to have picked up Ollie and carried him to the guest room. I help him get together a few ice packs and place them carefully along the most important areas of Ollie's body. Ollie is hardly alert. He whines in pain if we move him too much, but besides that he doesn't really seem all that present. He's disoriented and frightened, though, that much is clear, and there's not much we can do to calm him down.
His doctor shows up quickly, and I'm not even sure when Niall could have called him. It's not his standard doctor, of course, that one is in London, but this doctor is one of the best in America, and is in contact with Ollie's specialist and has been updated about his condition. Nonetheless, it doesn't take him long to figure out that Ollie needs to be admitted to the hospital yet again, and just as fast as we came in the door, we're leaving again.
...
Ollie is going to die. It's not quite as up in the air as it was last time. Most likely, he'll be gone by tomorrow morning. I don't really understand half of the things Niall's said to me about it. The large medical terms mean nothing to me, but what I do know is that his organs are beginning to fail. His body is shutting down one piece at a time, and there's not much of anything anyone can do about it.
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Without a Clue {Diall}
Fanfiction"It never leaves. It never goes away. Why won't it go away?" Niall's secretive, always has been, but no one could've ever guessed that he would hide something this big. It turns out trying to cope with your past is a lot harder when you're hiding fr...
