Xiumin couldn’t help but constantly fret and worry about Luhan during the latter part of their performance that night. Their usual shining girly deer who had all of the fan girls swooning dramatically over looked quite frankly like hell.

Luhan was pale, his eyes red with constantly shedding tears and it was a miracle that his knees hadn’t buckled yet and sent him crashing to the floor. Xiumin knew that being the leader of EXO-M, filming and touring all at the same time was taking a massive toll on Luhan and it was visibly showing to everyone just what state he was in. Suho had positively looked livid earlier one when he had spoken to the management in an attempt to make it so that Luhan could have the night off to rest and recover in the hotel room but had been told the usual ‘no’.

For a while Suho had not wanted to talk to anyone and had even locked himself in his room, leaving Sehun in the lurch until the beagle line had taken him in out of sympathy.

Xiumin could understand why though, it had only been eighteen months since they had lost Kris on that fateful night and no one wanted to go through that again. Especially not when it was so clearly visible that Luhan was sick. How the company were being so blind to the deathly appearance was beyond the young Korean to understand because even the fans were complaining about it but it seemed that no one in the management was prepared to listen in the slightest.

As they were finishing up their final song, Xiumin saw Luhan wobble a bit and moved quickly to grab the deer boy by the arm to help him to stay upright. Kyungsoo moved almost at the exact same time to hold up his other arm and gently reached across to whisper something in Luhan’s ear which made the elder nod slowly and half slump against Xiumin.

Worry immediately gnawed at the two, Kyungsoo visibly biting his lip before looking up at Xiumin to mouth the words, “Get him off stage.”

“Trying,” Xiumin said, wrapping an arm around Luhan’s waist and tugging gently in an attempt to get Luhan to walk off but instead found himself momentarily paralysed as his fingers brushed lightly against the skin on the others waist. Luhan was boiling hot, which was to be expected given that they had been dancing and singing for the past two or three hours but this was a different kind of heat. This was the type of heat that could have been used to cook eggs and it was not right in the slightest. Luhan’s head lolled to the side, his breath sticky on Xiumin’s neck and the other was beginning to shiver which was not a reaction that made Xiumin feel any easier.

Without pausing to think of who he was, where they were or what was going on, the Korean reacted fast and hoisted the Chinese man into a bridal style hold and got off stage as fast as possible. He could hear Kyungsoo following him in a controlled panic and wasn’t surprised when the smaller man overtook him at a dead run to get one of the sofas cleared of their junk in the green room so that the deer could be laid down carefully.

Their manager did not look happy, “You three need to be back on stage.”

“He’s sick!” Xiumin shouted, maybe a little needlessly but unable to contain his frustration, “He needs to see a doctor! He’s burning up right now and going back onto that stage is not going to help him.”

The man looked down at the clearly unwell boy and sighed, “I’m sorry but…”

“No buts!” Kyungsoo shot towards the man, “We’ll go back on stage but Luhan is staying here and you’ll fetch a doctor or someone because I am not having what happened last year happen again!”

The silence that followed that statement could have been cut with a knife but the manager relented and allowed them to go back on stage whilst calling for a SM medical rep to come and check on Luhan.

Even though the sofa was fairly hard, Luhan was glad to be resting on it because he just felt so heavy and unbalanced right now that he wasn’t even sure if he could have walked in a straight line. All he wanted to do was to sleep and not have to worry about being in this airport for this time or on this flight or remembering which song they were supposed to be singing. He just wanted peace and quiet but he knew that it would not be forthcoming in the slightest.

The pounding in his head got worse, causing tears to escape from his eyes and roll unchecked down his cheeks but he couldn’t even will himself to voice out his pain and frustration right now because that required energy and he had none of it left. Though for a second or maybe longer, he wasn’t sure, Luhan felt as though the world had suddenly become a whole lot lighter as a cooling, calm hand gently ran from the top of his head and down his spine with such feather like movements that it was almost unreal for it to happen. With a struggle he pushed open his brown eyes and looked to see who was comforting him only to feel a chill when he found that no one was there.

But he knew that touch, knew it well.

The next second the heat and the pain returned full force and Luhan actually let out a wail which startled the staff who were lingering around into actually doing something but the singer was so far out of it at this point that he could not even remotely focus on what they were doing or saying to him in the slightest. After a while he presumed that the show must be over because there was a feeling of more people being around than there had been before and fretful, worried voices came across his hearing sometimes though he could barely respond.

Sehun worried his lip as he ran his fingers down the side of Luhan’s face, “Why isn’t he at a hospital?” he asked aloud, clearly worried for his best friend, “He should be at a hospital.”

“He’s only got a fever,” the manager said dismissively, “He’ll get some medication and he’ll sleep it off tonight and he’ll be fine in the morning.”

The rage that was virtually washing off of Suho for that comment was tangible but thankfully Chen, Lay and Tao were quick to grab onto the leader and make him calm down because they didn’t need an argument going on with the management right now. Though undoubtable Suho would be speaking to them again in order to try and get the young man some time off. This was insane, it really was but there was nothing that they could do about it right now.

Sometimes it was too easy to wish for the fact that their resident dragon was around in order to intimidate the managers into getting what they wanted. A sting which everyone felt now and again because it just wasn’t fair.

About an hour later they were finally allowed to leave but no amount of coaxing would make Luhan stir from his heat induced slumber and Chanyeol was the one to pick him up to carry him back to the waiting vans. The tall goofy giant did not say a word to anyone the whole time that they were on the way back to the hotel, just merely kept a safe hold on Luhan and made sure that they were both securely clicked into the back seats. No one questioned why he was doing it, the worry on his face was more than obvious and Xiumin remembered the long nights when Chanyeol had come to him in the wake of Kris’s death to damn himself for not doing anything useful in the slightest.

Xiumin did not fully understand why Chanyeol blamed himself for not responding to Kris’s situation earlier but he respected the fact that right now their tall giant wanted and needed to do something else his heart would never be fully satisfied in the slightest.

The ride back to the hotel was mainly silent, everyone worrying over Luhan and not having the strength to speak anymore and when they got there they merely headed up the stairs to bed. Xiumin had to take over carrying duties seeing as Chanyeol was in a different room on a different floor though the massive troll looked like he wanted to stay on and help.

 “You’ve done more than enough, Chanyeol, thank you,” Xiumin said, hoping to appease the man a little and watching with a smile as the other leant forward to place a kiss onto Luhan’s forehead before turning and heading away to his room

Chen and Baekhyun weren’t far behind, whispering probably very rude things into the Chinese male’s ear that would have been playful threats for what they would do if he wasn’t up and about with them tomorrow to cause more mischief, mayhem and fun. Lay and Suho helped Xiumin up to their floor, the two maknae’s trailing behind them with worry clearly etched onto their tired faces before they were chased off to bed not before they both gave Luhan a gentle hug apiece and whispered their own little things to him.

Tao had to virtually drag Sehun off of Luhan with the promise that everything would be okay.

Kyungsoo popped up seemingly out of nowhere with some bags of herbal tea which he had been reliably informed by a Noona in the local chemist would help the fever to go down and offered to help Xiumin at least get Luhan out of his sweat clothes and into bed.

Lay nodded and gave Luhan a quick kiss on the head before Suho stepped forward with a very scared look in his eye, “Don’t go, Luhan-ge, please don’t.” Lightly he extended his hand over the others heart, glad to feel it still beating away in his chest and closed his eyes.

Lay pulled Suho into a back cuddle, his chin resting on his shoulder, “Come on, Joonmyeon, Lu-ge is not going to go anywhere. We’re all together and we’re going to be fine okay?”

Slowly Suho nodded and pulled his hand away before bidding the final to a goodnight and heading to his room. Though for a second he stopped, freezing as his eyes drifted towards the end of the corridor where there stood a tall figure with messy blond hair and a white suit that looked awfully familiar. With a blink of his eyes though, the figure was gone and Suho passed it off as being nothing more than an illusion caused by extreme worry and exhaustion.

Kyungsoo and Xiumin managed to get Luhan to his hotel room and even though the latter was virtually unresponsive like a rag doll, they were able to get him out of the sweat soaked clothes and used a towel to clean him up as best as they could. A shower would have probably been preferable but with Luhan being this unresponsive they didn’t want to risk it. Pulling and tugging him into a fresh pair of pyjamas, Kyungsoo gently laid the elder down into the bed whilst Xiumin covered him with a blanket.

“Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” Kyungsoo asked, looking up with concerned eyes towards Xiumin who was clearly close to breaking point right now.

For a second the boy thought about it, puffing out his cheeks cutely before deflating and nodding, “Yes please, it’d make life easier.”

“Okay,” Kyungsoo said, gently petting Luhan once again, “I’ll just go and get my stuff and then I’ll be right back.”

Xiumin nodded but did not offer any words as the youngster scurried off. Instead he just looked down at Luhan, noting the soft whimpers which would escape him everyone once in a while and felt his heart break as he lent down, “Keep fighting, Luhan, please. We’re here for you and Suho’s going to go and box the ears of management in order to get them to give you time off. Please, just stay strong okay?”

Gently he placed a kiss onto the others cheek before pulling back with a sigh in order to get himself changed and sorted before Kyungsoo came back.

Lying on the bed, Luhan fought to try and scream because the pain in his head was so bad. It was like all of their concerts were playing out constantly in his brain, at full volume with no respite in the slightest and it just made him want to throw up and hide. But he couldn’t move, couldn’t respond to the soft touches and kind words of his fellow band mates and more than ever before he wanted nothing more than to be curled up safely in the arms of his mother and father. Only more tears crept down his face and he could do nothing to remove them.

This was hell, this was a torture that would not stop and there was no way out. No possible thing that could have been done in order to release him from the pain of living in the mortal world. His heart beat raced, the burning heat in his body became so unbearable and all he was able to do was let out a slight hiccup sound that was easily lost in the buzz saw drill of the two people snores who were sharing the room. This was all far too much, beyond anything that he could honestly say that he ever wanted to survive and just the thought of having to try and fight back against it all was impossible.

He wanted to scream, shout, thrash about, and alert someone, anyone to the fact that something was very very wrong with him but he just couldn’t. Couldn’t open his eyes, couldn’t scream and couldn’t do anything else.

There was a sudden painful and very deep thud in his chest and then everything went quiet.

All of the pain, noise, heat and inability to move just disappeared and Luhan found himself willingly letting it all go.

He felt relaxed, free and light as a feather for the first time in months and a deep, long breath of relief escaped him as his eyes open and he rose up. For a second he thought that the herbal tea must have worked more so than ever before but as he took in his surroundings, Luhan realised what had happened. Slowly he turned back, seeing the small window that led to the human realm where he could just see his form, no correction his body, lying there on the bed, unmoving and unresponsive.

A large hand with dexterous fingers gently engulfed his smaller one though no surprise or fear came to Luhan as a deep voice said, “I’m so sorry Luhan.”

Strangely a smile came to Luhan’s face as he continued to stare at the body before turning back to find himself looking at the tall man who had once been his friend, “It’s not your fault, Yifan.”

“I didn’t want you to go like this,” Yifan said, eyes cast downwards, “Not in the slightest.”

“No one wants to go like this, but I’m here now,” Luhan said his voice soft and low and worried, “You came for me?”

Yifan nodded, “Yes, they said it’d be easier if you had someone you knew to guide you.

Even though he felt sad to say the words, Luhan knew that he could not linger with that pain anymore, “Then guide me, I am ready.”

Looking into those pale brown orbs, Yifan sighed and nodded, “I already knew that.” Gently he wrapped his arm around the spirit and led him out of the room, past the sleeping members and into a place that no one ever returned from.

Luhan only cast one glance back over his shoulder, just to catch a fading glimpse of Xiumin and Kyungsoo who were still asleep on their bed, “I’m sorry.”   

authors babbling

yeah taking it in a slightly different way in comparison to Heart Attack but I think this makes sense and I'm so sorry to those of you who'll I'll have in tears over this fic already. I can offer you hugs, tissues and chocolate to make up for it. 

Hope you enjoyed and there's still more to come so don't worry about that.