Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 22:03:38 -0500 From: Dale E Wright <bwicub@hotmail.com> Subject: "The Lottery Winner" Chapter 44 Hi everyone... In order to accommodate people who are asking me about notification lists, I've finally created an YahooGroup (Gods, Yahoo is like the Borg!) to do so: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Dale_writings ****** As always, Gabriella is my main cheerleader. Mark has also been great. I've even inspired him! Check out his story "Blind Date", it's also here in the Boyband section. I'm a bit nervous--so if people could please e-mail me at bwicub@hotmail.com--I'd really appreciate it. I love e-mail!! My story is hosted on another website. Here's it is: http://railwayshoes.net/hosted It's partway down the site, just look for "Lottery Winner". There's lots of other great stories there so check them out. DISCLAIMER: The names of the people are fictional (well, except for the members of the group). This is a fictional story that came right out of my own mind. I have no knowledge if any member of N Sync are gay or whatever. That being said, please enjoy the story and remember-- write me!!! (Especially write me if you're a member of the group! GRIN) Thanks guys and gals, Hope you like it. Dale --THE LOTTERY WINNER...Ch 44-- "Oh my fucking god. That movie was so bad!!!" Joey threw popcorn at the TV as he got up. "I'm refilling, anyone else want anything?" My head jerked up. Why am I so damn tired? I was sitting on the floor of Mark's living room, Joey and I had been curled up with each other while Mark and Lance were sitting on the couch. "Could you get me some water baby?" Joey smiled and nodded. He gave Lance a look as he left the room. I hit stop on the DVD and began switching to the other movie we'd rented. Lance cleared his throat. "Hey Dale?" "What's up Lance?" "How long has it been since you went to the doctor?" I sat back down and waited for Joey to return. Without even looking at Lance I replied. "When you guys took me after I flew back to Orlando." That pretty much killed conversation until Joey came back into the room. He handed me my water and snuggled back up in front of me. I was just getting ready to hit play when Joey told me to hang on a second. "Dale, I think we should take you to the doctor tomorrow." "I feel fine Joey. Why should I waste a doctor's time?" I took a sip of water and closed my eyes briefly because I felt the headache from earlier coming back. "To the rest of us it seems like something is wrong. We've all noticed odd behavior lately. We're just worried and want to make sure you're okay." Mark lapsed into silence after saying that. He nervously took a sip of his soda as I glared at him and Lance. "Is this about the camping trip? I told you that I was fine." Lance got up and started walking around the room. "Dale, don't you get it? You're obviously not fine. Sitting on the edge of a cliff crying your eyes out and not remembering getting out there? There's also your weird mood swings. We're going to take you to the doctor because we have to know you're okay." "Lance, I'll handle this." Joey glared at his bandmate as he stood. "Dale, baby... I love you and I'm scared. You haven't been yourself lately." He held his hand out for me. I stood without taking it. "Well excuse the hell out of me. I've been through a lot lately." I started walking from the room. "Where're you going?" "To the bathroom, is that okay dad?" Nothing else was said as I left the room and headed to the bathroom. I felt like a sewing needle was pushing against the back of my left eye. FUCK, that hurts. I closed the door and noticed that I was seeing double. I turned on the cold water and splashed it on my face. I tried focusing on my image in the mirror, but couldn't get it to clear up. After a few minutes of shaking my head and breathing deeply I was able to get things to come into focus. Taking a couple of cleansing breaths I dried my face off and headed back to the living room. The three of them were talking about something, but shut up when I came into the room. I didn't say anything as I sat back down, this time in I was in front of Joey. I didn't say anything as he wrapped his arms around me. He gently kissed my forehead. "Damn Dale. You're burning up. You feeling okay?" I tried answering but couldn't. I just nodded. I could tell he didn't believe me, but I didn't feel like getting a lecture. Partway through the movie I excused myself to get some more water. "Don't worry about pausing it, I'll just be a second." I was partway to the kitchen when the world turned on its side. I saw a blast of white, which spiraled to darkness. Then nothing. "I knew it. All we've managed to do is piss him off." Joey let out a snort of disgust as he took a drink. "I didn't want to push him away or alienate him, I just want to get him to the doctor." They all jumped at the sound of shattering glass in the kitchen. Joey was the first of the three to make it to the kitchen. Dale was on the floor and he looked like he was having a seizure. Joey screamed for Mark to call 911 and fell to his knees to hold Dale. "Hang on Dale... help is coming." A tear slid down his cheek as he looked first down at his lover, then over at Lance. In the distance, a siren could be heard. Joey raised a stink when he was told he couldn't ride in the ambulance. Mark told him that he'd drive all three of them to the hospital. Mark ran back into the apartment to get his keys, and noticed Lance on the phone. "What's up Lance?" "I called JC and Justin to help me deal with Joey. We don't have security with us and he'll probably not be in the mood to be discreet." Lance headed to the door at a run. He grabbed Joey and herded him to Mark's jeep. When they arrived all hell broke loose. The emergency room staff was more concerned with fawning over the celebrities than telling them what was wrong with Dale. Lance and Joey finally got the people to realize that they were more concerned with their friend than signing autographs or being overly social. Just as a doctor was coming over to talk to them about what was going on Lance's phone started ringing. "Hello?" "It's JC. How's things?" Lance walked slightly away from everyone. "Where are you guys?" "We don't need a major scene there with all of us. You'll be able to handle Joey just fine." "Dammit JC, why didn't you tell me this earlier?" "Lance, do you really think that we would be any good to you right now? Hell, Joey barely listens to us where Dale's concerned. You at least he listens to. We'll stay out of the way on this so it's easier to handle him." "Yeah fine, whatever." Lance hung up the phone and headed back to where Joey was talking to the doctor, Mark standing behind him with his hand on Joey's shoulder. "As I already told you repeatedly. You cannot go back to see him. You're not immediate family." Joey looked like he was going to rip the head off the man, Lance stepped forward and put a hand on Joey's arm. "Sir, we're good friends with him and are very worried. Can you please tell us what's going on?" The Emergency doctor let out a sigh of disgust. "Look. I know you guys are like celebrities and such... but we have rules and regulations that I can't just throw away. I can tell you that we need to get in touch with someone who has medical power of attorney. Mister Wright is in very serious condition. If you know who to call that would be very helpful. If they are not nearby and they tell us it's okay to we can tell you what's going on... but we have to talk to them first. "Great sir. Give me five minutes and I'll have you in touch with her." Lance grabbed Joey by one arm and Mark grabbed the other. They spent a few minutes looking around and found an empty room where they could have some privacy. The sigh that Joey let out as he flopped into a chair was so heart-wrenching. Mark went over and sat near him. "Joey, do you want to call Dale's mom or do you want me to?" Joey took a couple of deep breaths, and muttered he'd do it. He pulled out his cell phone and hit a speed dial number. "Chris? Oh, Deb. Is Chris around? It's Joey." He sat silent for a second. "Chris. Hi it's Joey..." That's as far as he got. Tears fell from his eyes, and he tried keeping it together but lost it. "Oh god Chris. Something's wrong." Joey's whole body shook as he finally let himself fall apart with worry. Lance grabbed the phone from Joey. "Chris? Hey it's Lance." In a calm and collected voice he told Dale's mom about everything that had happened. Finally he told her about how the doctors wouldn't tell them anything. He had to giggle when she began going off on them because of Dale and Joey's relationship and how Joey had every damn right to know what the hell was going on. "Chris, remember no one knows. All they know is these guys want to know what's going on. I dunno, hang on I'll find out." Lance left the room for a few minutes, then came back with a piece of paper. He rattled off a name and two phone numbers. He told her goodbye and hung up. "Okay. She's going to call the ER and let them know that it's okay to talk to us. She's also going to fax them some papers." The cell phone in Lance's hand started ringing so he answered it. "Hello? Hi Chris. WHAT? Okay, see you then." He hung up and looked sadly at Mark. "That was Dale's mom. We're all set. She's flying in. She'll be here in about 6 hours. Mark can you pick her up at the airport?" Joey stopped crying. "Why is she coming in? What'd the doctor tell her?" He got up and left the room at a pretty fast pace. Lance and Mark put the room back the way it was and left. They saw Joey down at the end of the hall talking to the same doctor from earlier. They heard him bellow the word "what" then saw Joey turn and walk out of the ER entrance. "Mark, go keep an eye on Joey. I'm going to talk to this man and meet you out there." Mark nodded and walked out the front door just as Joey told some girl to shut the fuck up. "Keep an eye on him. Yeah, uh huh. Right. This should be fun." Mark got to them just as Joey apologized for going off on the girl for asking for an autograph. "I'm sorry. A close friend of mine isn't doing too well." She seemed to understand, and after getting her autographs she quietly walked away. Joey sat down heavily on the sidewalk, using the tire of Mark's jeep to lean on. "Joey. What's going on?" Joey didn't answer for a minute. Then softly started talking. "There is some type of mass that showed up on the head CT they ran. They're doing more tests but it appears to be a very bad thing. He mentioned something about surgery but I couldn't listen to anything more."