Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2003 02:48:31 -0400
From: Thack <thack98@mindspring.com>
Subject: What I Feel For You 130-133

The legal stuff: This story is sexually-explicit, involving homosexuality.
Do not continue if this will offend you. If accessing this story causes you
to break local laws (village, town, city, county, province, state, or
country, etc.), please leave now. By continuing, you implicitly declare and
affirm under penalties of perjury that you are not a minor or in the company
of a minor and are entitled to have access to sexually-explicit material.
The content and opinions expressed in this story do not imply anything with
regards to the sexual preference of any member of 98 Degrees or any other
celebrities named herein. It is a work of fiction entirely.
Aargh!  I really didn't mean for this to take this long to write.  But, I
can blame it on technology.  My computer got a virus that literally wiped
everything off both of my hard drives.  Yikes!  I lost a lot of data but I
did have a backup copy of the story.  Still, I was without a computer for
over a week while I got it fixed.  Oh, and I was out of town part of last
week, too.

I know a couple of people had sent me emails that I never was able to
respond to.  Sorry about that but I lost all my saved emails.  If you were
waiting on a response from me, just send me a new email.

Thank you for Jase for putting up with me.  And, "you're welcome" for me
putting up with you.  LOL.  To the new guy in my life, I hope things work
out between us.  I still can't believe you want to spend time with me.

And now...on with the show.

Thack


The first thing I did was open my eyes but everything was
black.  I took a deep breath and felt pain race through my
chest.  I coughed and the sound echoed back, as if I were in
a canyon.  I tasted something metallic on my tongue.
Suddenly remembering where I was, I reached down and
unbuckled the seatbelt.  Only then did I realize I was
upside down.  I went crashing, landing square against the
roll bar of the Jeep and then hitting the ground.  I heard a
loud crunch as I feel onto the rough surface of the lava
rock.

"Fuck!" I said out loud, suddenly fully aware of what had
just happened.

As my eyes became adjusted to the light I blinked the dirt
out of my eyes.  They watered and I couldn't tell if I was
crying or not.  Reaching out to where I knew he would be, I
gasped when I saw the empty drivers seat above my head.

"Drew!" I screamed.

I waited a long second and heard nothing.  My mind replayed
the scene when he picked me up in Kona.  I agonized over
whether he had his seatbelt on but I simply couldn't
remember.

"Drew!"

Trying to compose myself, I reached down into my pocket to
grab my phone.  We needed help.

"Damn it!"

It all was swirling through my head but I remembered exactly
where I had left my phone.  It was sitting on the table back
at the hotel.  Then I reran the image of me smashing Drew's
phone against the blacktop back in Kona.  We were alone.

I needed to find Drew.  I needed to help him.  Looking
around, I saw the barren surface of the moon.  There were
white rocks scattered about the black lava.  I crawled out
from beneath the remnants of the Jeep.  As I pulled myself
through the window, I felt a searing pain in my right leg.
I screamed out in pain.  Seconds later I heard a muffled
call.

"Drew!" I called, once again.

I heard a low moaning and turned my head.  I tried to stand
but found I couldn't put any weight on my right leg.  I
struggled to ignore the pain as I crawled toward Drew.

"Hang on," I called.

Moving as quickly as I could, I inched my way across the
sharp edges of the lava.  I spit out a mouthful of what I
guessed was blood.  Behind me in the distance, I heard the
sound of a car flying by and I saw just the slightest
glimpse of headlights.  I weighed the option of finding Drew
or turning and crawling to the road to get help.  Then I
heard a cough and more moaning and I knew Drew needed me.  I
continued on, feeling the sharp edges of the ancient lava
rock cutting my skin.  I couldn't have traveled more than
five or six feet from the wrecked vehicle when I came across
a ditch in the lava field.  He was about three down and he
was motionless.

"Drew!"

I slid down the small embankment, wincing in the intense
pain I felt as I came to rest next to him.   He was lying on
his back, with his head turned away from me.  I reached out
and gently touched his face.  When his eyes opened I felt a
wave of relief pass through me.

"Alex?" he asked, looking up at me with dull eyes.

"Yes, baby.  I'm here."

"I don't think I'm gonna." His voice trailed off into
nothing.

Then I saw the blood.  I first noticed it on his khaki
pants.  Blood had soaked the waist all the way down to his
knees.  It was forming into a pool beneath him.  I pulled up
his shirt and saw the red gash that had sliced across his
abdomen.  I shuddered, wanting to throw up.  I swallowed
hard and looked up at his eyes rolling back into his head.

"Oh, God!  Drew!  Stay with me."

I reached down with both hands and grabbed his face.  He
blinked sharply, suddenly coming back to me.  I needed him.
I knew that on so many different levels.  But, the most
important one was I needed Drew the EMT.

We never really talked much about his life as an EMT back in
New York.  It was the job he had just before Nick called him
to join the band in LA.  The only thing he ever told me was
that he had "lost a few" patients.  That is all he would say
and I never pushed him to elaborate.  Suddenly, faced with
losing him I understood why he never talked about it.

"Drew!" I said urgently.  "I need you to tell me what to do.
I need you to remember and tell me what to do.  Think back
to your days in New York.  You're bleeding and I'm not sure
how to make it stop."

He looked up at me and smiled.  It seemed like an odd
reaction at first but he seemed to understand.  With a
shaking hand, he grabbed my arm and placed it on his wound.

"Press hard," he whispered, still trying to smile.

I did as he asked.  As I pressed he started to scream and I
quickly stopped.

"No," he coughed.  "That's the only way."

I saw the tears forming and I thought of how brave he was
being.  I bit down on my lip and pressed down on his
stomach.  He gasped for air, trying not to scream again.  As
I continued to apply pressure I leaned down, our faces just
inches from each other.

"I love you," he sung as he slipped away.


Scene 131


The next thing I knew I was being hoisted onto a stretcher.
I saw the flashing lights and heard voices but couldn't make
out what they were saying.  Everything seemed to be
happening twice as fast as it should have and I was
struggling to keep up.  I closed my eyes, wishing it would
all go away but when I opened them I saw the entire scene
once again.

I blinked hard, trying to get the grit and dust out of my
eyes.  There was a flurry of activity around me.  There were
flashing lights and people yelling.  I even thought I heard
the sound of a helicopter in the distance.

"You with me, bro?"

It took a second, but I realized he was talking to me.  I
don't know how I could have missed him.  Standing right
above me was a Hawaiian man who looked like a linebacker in
the NFL.  All at once he was intimidating but there was
gentleness in his eyes.

"I asked if you could hear me."

I nodded, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.

"I'm Iakona.  I need you to tell me where things hurt,
okay?"

I felt the stretcher being moved and noticed I was being
loaded onto the ambulance.  Once inside I stupidly thought
that Drew would be in there right beside me.  Then it all
became clear.

"Drew!" I practically screamed.

"Whoa!" the EMT yelled.  "Do you mind not doing that when I
got the stethoscope on you?"

I looked up at him and I thought I caught a wink.

"Listen, bro.  What's your name?"

"Alex."

"Listen, Alex.  Your friend Drew is in good hands.  The guys
taking care of him, well, I taught them everything they
know."  He smiled and winked again.  "They are going to do
the absolute best to make sure he gets out of this mess
okay."  I think he noticed the fear in my face because he
quickly added, "I mean that.  And what you did saved his
life.  If you hadn't have applied that pressure he would
have bled out."

Iakona began to check me over and I tried to piece together
the time from when I last saw Drew to when I was lying in
the stretcher.  The last thing I remember was Drew's screams
as I pressed down against his stomach.  Then he said he
loved me.  After that, everything was a blank.  In my head,
I knew it must have been bad if I had already blocked it
from my memory.  I involuntarily shuddered, almost afraid to
ask.

"Is he dead?" I whispered.

"Not that I know," was the grim response as the ambulance
started to leave the scene of the accident.

I felt the tears begin to fall and I reached up to brush
them away.  When I did that I saw my hands and noticed they
were covered in blood.  I didn't know for certain, but I
imagined it was Drew's.  Then I made the mistake of sitting
up slightly in the gurney.  I looked down and noticed my
right leg was at an odd angle.  Blinking to clear away the
tears, I then recognized that one of the bones in my leg was
sticking out through a major gash in my skin.

It was too much for me to take.  I began coughing and
seconds later I started throwing up.  I did my best to stop
it but it was no use.  I turned my head, but it was not a
pretty scene.  Iakona tried to make sure I wasn't choking
but I still began to cough.

"Hey, bro," I heard him yell up to the driver.  "This one's
going into shock.  It's not looking good.  He's got multiple
lacerations, a major compound fracture in the femur, and I'm
guessing at massive internal bleeding.  If we want to keep
this one you'd better floor it and call for a chopper."

When I was finished throwing up, I looked up at Iakona.  He
tried to smile but I knew things didn't look good.  I closed
my eyes and just drifted away.


Scene 132


I opened my eyes only to be greeted by what I thought was
the brightest light I'd ever seen.  I quickly closed them
and tried to reach over to what should have been the lamp
beside the bed.  At that point, I realized I wasn't in my
own bed and there was something horribly wrong.  Every
breath I took seemed labored and I felt as though a ten-
pound weight was lying on my chest.  I struggled to move and
regretted it instantly when I felt the pain shoot throughout
my body.

"Look who is back in the land of the living," I heard a
voice from across the room.

I carefully opened my eyes, hoping to see who I thought it
was.

"We have to stop meeting up like this, Alex.  It's not
healthy," Mike said, trying to smile as he stood above me.

I tried to speak and realized I had a tube coming out of my
mouth.  I quickly realized it was a breathing tube and began
to panic.  Mike saw it in my eyes and grabbed my left hand.

"Relax," he commanded.  "I'm going to call for a nurse,
okay?"

I blinked, not knowing how else to communicate.

"I will be right back, I promise."

I carefully nodded my head every so slightly and he dashed
out of the room to get a nurse.  Somewhere in my mind I took
that as a good sign.  Clearly I couldn't be in that bad a
shape if they weren't monitoring my condition that closely.
I glanced around, trying to figure out where I was.  The
hospital room looked remarkably like the one in Minneapolis
but despite Mike's presence I new I was still in Hawaii.

In just a few seconds, Mike returned with the nurse.  She
smiled at me and then I noticed she had a needle in her
hand.

"This will let you rest," she explained as she administered
the drug into my IV.

I couldn't say anything because of the breathing tube, but
at that point I didn't need to rest.  I needed answers.

She turned and walked out after Mike thanked her.  He walked
over and gently sat down on the bed next to me.  He grabbed
my hand again, squeezing it tight.

"I know you're confused, Alex.  I can see it in your eyes.
You need to get some rest.  Go back to sleep.  I promise you
that you will be fine."

I blinked and carefully nodded.

"Chances are you're not going to remember what I tell you,"
he began.  "You and Drew were in a car accident two days
ago.  You've been drifting in and out of consciousness since
then.  I won't get into the details right now.  But, you're
in a hospital in Honolulu.  They airlifted both of you
here."

At that point I was struggling to stay awake but the
medicine was taking over.  It wasn't until he said his name
that I remembered about Drew.  I felt tears slipping down
the side of my face.  The last thing I remember is Mike
gently brushing them away as I drifted back into the dark
world of my dreams.


Scene 133


I woke up again and guessed it was sometime in the middle of
the night.  There was no sunlight from the small window
across the room.  Without thinking, I took a deep breath and
quickly realized the breathing tube was gone.  I tried to
speak but my voice faltered, obviously still sore from
having the tube down my throat.  I glanced around the room
and saw flowers and plants everywhere.  There was a stack of
cards on the small table next to the bed.  Then I noticed
that my leg was in a huge cast and it was in traction,
elevated above the bed.

I struggled to clear my thoughts, trying to escape from the
grogginess of the medicine I was on.  My first attempt to
sit up was my last because tremendous pain shot through my
body.  All at once I felt my leg begin to throb and the
right side of my abdomen felt as though it had been kicked
several times.  Just as I was about to attempt to get to the
call button to find a nurse I heard voices outside my room.

"Damn it, Nick!  I can't take your money."

"Why, Mike?"

For some reason it stuck me as funny that they addressed
each other by name.  Honestly, I was so drugged up at that
point I may not have been able to recognize the voices if
they hadn't.

"For starters, you've already paid for my plane ticket.  I'm
afraid to ask how much a last minute ticket to Honolulu in
the middle of winter costs.  Let alone a first class
ticket."

"Don't worry about that," Nick replied.

"Don't worry about it?" Mike responded, raising his voice
slightly.  "I can't afford that."

"That's the point.  And you can't afford being here and not
working, can you?"  There was a moment of silence.  "That
didn't come out right, Mike.  I'm not trying to make you
feel bad.  It's just I know that you can't afford to not
work.  As a trainer, you're probably not getting much unless
you actually have clients.  Right?"

"True."

"And we both know he needs you here.  So, that means you
take the money and be able to pay your bills while you are
here.  You're not going to lose your job if you don't go
back right away, are you?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Then it's settled.  Just take the money and help me.  I
don't think you realize how much of a help you've been over
the last day."

"I haven't really done much."

"You have, Mike, even if you don't realize it."

"Thanks.  Alex is like family to me."

"And that makes you part of my family, even with all the
problems he's been having with Drew.  That's why I'm glad
you're here.  I'm just not sure how well he is going to take
the news about Drew.  I'm scared, actually."

"We'll handle it.  Alex is one of the strongest people I
know."

"He's going to have to be," Nick said so quietly I almost
didn't hear him.

"Why did this have to happen?" Mike asked.  "Out of anyone,
why did this have to happen to Alex?  Hasn't he been through
enough?"

I laid there motionless for what seemed like an eternity.  I
didn't know if I should try to use my voice again but I was
paralyzed with fear.  Seconds later Mike and Nick walked in
through the open door.  They both saw the look on my face
and froze.  In the dim lighting I saw tears start to role
down Mike's face.

"He's gone, isn't he?" I whispered.

To be continued.

Feedback to: thack98@mindspring.com