Nick laid awake in the hospital room, bored out of his mind. He clicked through the channels on the television with little interest. His thoughts drifted from his own misery to the guys, wondering what they were doing. He wondered why no one had been up to see him, not realizing that they had been up several times during the course of the week. Nick was starting to feel homesick and lonely.
Fingering the IV that was attached to the top of his hand, he wondered if he could just get up and leave. "Why couldn't I?" he thought outloud. "I really don't feel that bad....or at least bad enough to be laying in bed." With the sentence uttered, Nick grabbed the IV tube and quickly jerked it from his hand. A hiss escaped his lips when he felt the quick sting as the needle was drawn out of the vein.
"That sucks," he muttered as he tossed the tubing aside. Once his eyes caught the sight of the blood that was pooling off his hand onto the white sheets, Nick instantly regretted his idea when he started feeling faint.
"Awe fuck," he mumbled as he looked away from his bloody hand.
"Nickolas Carter! What in God's name!"
Nick jerked at the voice and discovered a stout nurse standing next to his bed, a hand clamped ontop of the hand that once held the IV. She wasn't there two seconds ago unless he....
"You are bleeding, and you fainted, you must have bumped the IV," the nurse said as she continued to apply pressure to the hand.
'Crap....I fainted,' Nick thought dismally. He looked over to the nurse and quickly looked away when he saw the blood soaked bed linens.
The woman pulled the bloodied cloth away from his hand inspecting the wound. "Looks like the bleeding stopped. You're lucky I came in when I did, you have quite a mess here."
Nick watched the woman with a sheepish expression on his face. He could add this to the list of his ever-growing 'Nick fuck ups.' Fortunately for him though, at least he was the only one that knew about this latest fiasco. AJ would definately have a field day if he knew that he tried to leave the hospital only to faint from the sight of his own blood! Kevin would lecture him until his face turned blue. At least Kevin was good about things like that. No matter how bad he messed up he could always count on a lecture from good ole Kevin Richardson. He rarely teased but often chastized!
The nurse caught the expression on her young patient's face. "Nickolas, is something bothering you?"
Shaking his head no, he sighed. "I guess I miss my friends is all."
She set about her task of washing the blood stains from his hand with a warm wash cloth. "I'm sure they'll be back to visit you soon."
"I wish," Nick mumbled.
The woman patted Nick softly on the shoulder. "They will, don't be so negative."
"It's kinda hard when they haven't even called or stopped up to see me."
"Nonsense! They were up here this morning."
"They were?"
"You don't remember?"
Nick shook his head. "I haven't seen them since they dropped me off."
The woman sighed. "Oh Nickolas.....those drugs the doctor has been giving you for pain has really clouded your mind, hasn't it?"
Hearing the nurse's words had Nick's face turn a shade of crimson from embarrassment.
"They have been up to see you many times and they are very good friends from what I've seen....there is one of your friends though that I do not like and I usually don't say bad things about people unless I know them but that one man is a bad character."
Nick frowned upon hearing the woman. The only person he could think of was AJ. What had AJ done now to piss off a nurse? "Who was it? Was he really skinny?"
The woman shook her head. "No he was an older, sweaty fat man..."
Nick let out a sigh of relief. "Oh that's my manager, Lou."
"He is a sneaky man...he actually paid the nurses to keep quiet about the television show he did the other day....oh now I've said too much!"
"What television show?"
"I have charting to do, is there anything I can get you? I have a call in for the IV nurse to come up and restart your IV....Can I get you some juice or icewater perhaps?"
"No thanks....so what about the television show?"
"I'll check back with you later Nickolas," the nurse stated as she left the room, abruptly ending the conversation.
Sighing, Nick sank his head back into the pillow. He wondered what the television show that the nurse mentioned was all about. As much as he wanted to remember, he couldn't. He instantly chalked it up to being sick and decided he could ask one of the guys when they came up. 'If they come up,' Nick mentally shouted. Although the nurse assured him that his friends had been up to see him, once again, Nick found himself questioning if they truely had been up to see him since the day they dropped him off at the hospital.
He'd be damned if he could remember.
There was one thing that Louis J. Pearlman prided himself on and that was the ability to remain calm in any situation. Even when the situation involved an angry Kevin Richardson. Pearlman calmly walked over toward the wet bar, tossing ice cubes into the stout glass.
"I was just about to have a scotch, would you like anything?"
Kevin trained his emerald green stare at the obese man. "No," he replied crisply.
Pearlman nodded his head to indicate that he heard the man's refusal on the offered drink and slowly poured the liquor over the ice. "So what brings you up to my suite?"
Kevin looked around the room when Pearlman called his hotel room a suite. It was suddenly starting to add up to the eldest band member. They were living out of their suitcases, doing show after show without a break while this man was living it up, expenses weren't an issue for him!
"We need to talk about what you're doing to Nick!"
After dropping his heavy frame onto the plush love seat, Pearlman took a large swallow of his drink. "Doing to Nick? I don't have a clue what you're talking about."
"Cut the shit!" Kevin growled. "You know exactly what I'm talking about!"
Sticking an index finger into the drink, the manager push an ice cube around absently. "I'm not doing anything to Carter."
Kevin stood in front of the manager, glaring down at him. "That poor kid is laying in a hospital because he was too scared to say anything to anyone when he first got sick!"
Pearlman took another sip of the liquor. "Not my fault the kid is stupid."
"Nick is far from stupid Lou! Nick is a very intelligent young man....it's just that you have him so scared that he is afraid of what you'll threaten him with when he does admit when he is sick."
"Carter whines so much you get a little sick of it," Pearlman defended.
"Appendicitis wouldn't be something that any one person would whine about."
"Did he even say anything to you when he got sick?"
"Not at first, but it all made sense to me once he finally admitted to feeling bad I just didn't see the signs and I blame myself for that."
"Quit trying to act like a martyr Richardson. That Carter kid is a hypochondriac and pretty soon we all get sick of hearing how sick he is. Half of Carter's problem is his stomach and what he eats and when he eats it's too much. Nothing but junk food at that."
Kevin dragged a hand through his hair in an effort to try to calm himself. Staring at the fat man sitting in front of him, Kevin wanted more than anything to grab him by the shirt and punch him in the face!
"You are trying to avoid what I'm talking to you about!"
"That Carter whines 98% of the time? I don't think I've been avoiding that topic," Lou replied with an eerie calmness.
"God.....would you just shut the fuck up and listen to what I'm trying to tell you?" Kevin hissed. The words that he had chosen got the manager's attention. It was a rare thing when Kevin would utter the word 'fuck' and this time he said it with emphasis. "I know that you had that poor kid on live television yesterday afternoon!"
"That's absurd!"
"You had the fucking audacity to have a live feed from his hospital room to MTV and you threatened people to keep their mouths shut!"
Pearlman's face grew red. "Who told you that nonsense?"
"It doesn't matter, that fact is I know and I'm going to my lawyer and tell him all about the little games you've been playing since day one! Your hold over Nick is going to end today!"
"You're just going on hearsay and that my friend will not hold up in court," Pearlman replied calmly.
"I have witnesses--"
"Sure you do and I'm the King of England," Pearlman hissed. He motioned with his hand for Kevin to walk away. "Now if you don't mind, I have work to do so please close the door softly on your way out the door."
Kevin shook his head. "You're unbelievable. Didn't you just hear that I said I have witnesses?"
"Do you think that Backstreet is the only band on the face of the earth? All the bands out there have had worse things go on in their little circle. You'd be laughed out of court Richardson." Pearlman struggled up from the loveseat and waddled toward the entrance. "Now you can leave the easy way or I can place a call to hotel security...."
"Don't think this will be the last you've heard about this," Kevin promised as he opened the door.
Pearlman closed the door and smiled as he drank the last of the liquor in his glass. "I wouldn't expect anything else."