Hell and Back (EXO x Reader)

Past to Haunt (No Trials)

Word count: 1246

Chapter warnings: Mild language, strong themes

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"What's wrong with him?!" She asked frantically, trying to get a good look at Lay's face. He was drenched in sweat, and Kyungsoo was having a hard time keeping a hold on him.

"He's having a seizure- I didn't realize he was this sick, I don't even know how long this has been going on for, otherwise we may be able to tell what it is." Kyungsoo cursed himself. Suddenly, he realized something. "Y/N, you were with him the night after Tao disappeared, right?" Her head tilted, as she didn't see how this was relevant. They were wasting time.

"Did he seem ill then?" Thinking back, she tried to remember.

"Not... not really. He didn't eat much, but that was all."

"Do you remember why?"

"Why he wasn't eating?" Kyungsoo nodded. "He said his jaw was kind of cramped, I think? And at one point he was having trouble swallowing. I figured he just needed water, or-"

"How long ago was that..." Kyungsoo muttered to himself. Counting on his fingers, he started adding up dates of when Lay had started to get worse, the amount of stress, everything he could think of to go into the calculation. His eyes widened slightly. "It sounds... it sounds like he has tetanus."

"Tetanus?" She had heard the word before, but mostly just in the context of another shot she had to get to go to school when she was a kid. It wasn't a thing that people actually got. She didn't even know how one contracted it, much less how to deal with it.

"Yeah, you know, it generally gets into your bloodstream if you're cut by a contaminated object. That's why you're supposed to wear shoes outside and all that." At that moment, they both had the same realization.

"The nail." She said incredulously. All the way back in the solo trials, Lay had stepped on a nail as part of his little construction site stroll. "He healed that wound, though." She said aloud.

"He healed the flesh wound." Kyungsoo pointed out. "There's no guarantee he got all the bacteria out if he wasn't specifically worried about it."

"Well he's obviously too weak to heal himself now!" She said with worry.

"It's fine, we'll just take him to a hospital. We can tell them he stepped on a nail without mentioning the trials, that's not against the rules." He violently convulsed again.

"We'd better hurry." Standing and trying to sling Lay over their shoulders, all the boys helped carry him towards the initial entrance. Kai tried to insist that Y/N leave the boy to them, but she promptly refused, pressing her body up to his. Despite his sweating, his skin was chilly, and he was still convulsing at times. When they arrived where the door should have been, though, it was gone. The wall was smooth, the exit as if it had never existed.

"Shit!" She said, looking around. Had they gotten turned around at some point. "Kai, take my phone out of my pocket."

"Just give me Lay, I-"

"I said to grab my phone." Slightly put off by her commanding tone, he moved to her side. She felt his hand reach around her side, moving downwards until he found her pocket, pulling out the device. She gave him the passcode, instructing him to log into the app.

"Oh, fuck, no, no, no, no, no!" He exclaimed, tapping something else on the screen.

"What? What's the matter?"

"The rest of the trials are in this building. We're not allowed to leave until we're done."

"We're- what?! Lay needs a doctor, now." She was growing frantic.

"Can we do anything to cure him ourselves?!" Sehun asked Kyungsoo, unhelpfully shaking his shoulder.

"The treatments fro tetanus aren't even real treatments, your body deals with it by itself." Kyungsoo said grimly.

"Then he should be fine, right?" Xiumin said with worry.

"No, most people who die of untreated tetanus are actually experiencing asphyxiation because the convulsions halt their breathing, or sometimes cardiac arrest, stroke, any of the symptoms that come with it."

"Why is it just starting now?" She asked, noting how far along he was.

"People's symptoms are different-"

"Can we do anything? To stop the seizures?"

"I don't know, Y/N! I'm not a fucking doctor!" He snapped at her, nearly falling as Lay went into another round of shaking. They set him back on the ground, unable to continue holding him up as her flailed, liquid starting to drop out of his mouth. It was a gross, translucent mixture of blood and saliva, from which she didn't know the origin. He still seemed to be breathing, but he couldn't hear them, and he wasn't responding.

Kneeling around him, Kygunsoo held onto his shoulders to keep him steady, tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes. This was the most stressed he'd ever been in front of her, even more so than the incident with Suho. Maybe it was because he felt like it was his job to save the boy, and he was failing. Even though Lay was older than him, he still felt a sense of responsibility, especially with him in this state.

"Come on, Yixing, stay with me..." He was muttering, mostly to himself. "You can't fucking die on me now, not after all this." The use of his real name was concerning Y/N in regarding to Kyungsoo's health. Several of them had nicknames, mostly in case they ever made it big as a band. She remembered the conversations they'd used to have about their stage names. Kai was using just that- Kai- despite his real name actually being Jongin. It would be easier for them to remember, at least, since that's what they called him anyway. In the same instance with Chen, his real name was Jongdae, Kris's was Jiaheng, and Xiumin's was Minseok. Kyungsoo's stage name was going to be D.O. All of them had these names picked out in some form or fashion- all that to say, this instance was incredibly strange to her.

His convulsions began to slow down, his muscles relaxing, as he fell flat, no longer sustained on his side as Kyungsoo was too distracted to keep him up. He kept saying the same things over and over, begging Lay to hang on, to fight through it, to do something until they could get him help. He fell still.

"Lay. Yixing. Hey- talk to me, man, are you alright?" Kyungsoo was demanding. "Fucking say soemthin, dammit!" He was shaking the boy's lifeless body with all the strength he could gather up in his state. "Come on!"

"Kyungsoo, stop." Sehun said, the pain evident in his voice as he watched the scene before him. Beating up his body wasn't going to help.

"No! This isn't funny! Come on, Lay, fucking get up! Come-"

"Kyungsoo, stop it!" Kai and Kris both wrenched him away from the man on the floor, dragging him backwards as he kicked and screamed at them, not unlike a five year old throwing a tantrum.

"No! This isn't over yet! This isn't-"

"Yes it is, Kyungsoo." Kai said, looking over at Sehun, Xiumin, and Chanyeol, just staring at his form on the ground. Y/N made eye contact with him, gaze wide and full of uncertainty and fear. He wanted nothing more than to go tell her everything was going to be fine. He wasn't really sure it would be, though.