I Lie Awake

Chapter 4: It Makes Me Ill

The boys went off to practice, they got absolutely no breaks. The guys noticed that Lance was not looking too good, he looked exhausted, he was still a little bit sick anyways. After practicing for hours, they finally got a break... a five minute break, but at least it was something. They went to sit down on the floor, by a wall, and drink some water. "Are you alright, Lance?" Joey asked, a concerned look on his face. Lance shook his head no "I'm not alright but I guess there's nothing I can do about it." He shrugged. "Here, have some water." Chris told him as he handed Lance a cup of water. "Thank you."

The boys were talking about random things when suddenly JC felt a weight on his shoulder. Lance had fallen asleep and used JC's shoulder as his pillow. Surprisingly they found it kind of cute, they were chatting about it when suddenly they heard a scream from the choreographer that meant they had to come back to practicing. The scream, though, was not enough to wake up Lance, he seemed to be a heavy sleeper. Joey, Chris, and Justin stood up and walked towards where they were rehearsing, JC stayed sitting down while he woke Lance up. "Lance, wake up, we need to go and practice again." JC said as he shook Lance gently. Lance stirred awake and noticed he was sleeping on JC's shoulder, he blushed a bit as he got off of him as quickly as he could, that wasn't very fast actually since he was sick and felt exhausted. "Sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep on you." He said sheepishly. "It's okay, don't worry about it." he made a small pause, "Anyways, do you think you can keep going? You look pretty tired." "Yeah, I'm exhausted but I can just put in my best effort." Lance said as he stood up. JC followed after him.

After they started rehearsing, after about thirty minutes Lance could barely stand up. Then, he passed out and fell to the floor. They were all shocked, this had never happened to them before. Chris was the first to react "Justin, go get some water and a cloth. Joey, JC, help me set him over there." They did just what he said. The choreographer was suddenly nowhere to be seen... how convenient. Justin came back with the water and the cloth. Chris got some water on the cloth and started dabbing Lance's pale face with it. "Is he going to be okay?" JC asked. "Yes, he was just exhausted but if we let him rest he should be fine I think." "I feel like we should go home. It's better than having him rest on the floor of a warehouse." Joey suggested. "Yeah, I think we should go." Justin seconded what Joey said. The rest nodded in agreement and they left.

******** \[^v^]/ ********

Lance woke up tucked in his bed. He moved his head to the side to see if there was someone in the room with him, as he did that he felt the pain course through his head. He closed his eyes and brought his hand to his head, trying to make the pain go away, though it wasn't working all that much. Someone came in the room as he was doing this. "Hey Lansten." JC said softly. He put the glass of water he was holding down on the bedside table. He helped Lance sit up "Have some water." He said as he handed Lance the glass. "What happened? How did I get here?" He asked as he took the water.

"We were at practice and they wouldn't give us any breaks. You fainted, I guess from exhaustion but it could've been overheating." JC explained. "You should rest." He said as he took the glass from Lance and set it down on the bedside table. Lance nodded as he laid back down. JC grabbed the book he was reading and went to sit down on his bed. He would stay there in case Lance needed anything. He waited until Lance was asleep before starting to read.

Meanwhile, Justin, Joey, and Chris thought of ways to confront Lou Pearlman about what had happened. "What if we just tell him that he shouldn't make us practice like that?" Justin suggested. "That is totally gonna work." Joey said sarcastically. Justin just shrugged. "I don't know what we should do about Lou, but the one thing I know we have to do now, is not let Lance go practice until he is healthy." Chris said. Joey and Justin nodded in agreement. "We" Chris said pointing at them, and himself, "can focus on what to do with Pearlman, seeing that JC is taking care of Lance, besides, it's simpler that way because they're roommates." "Yeah. Anyways I had this idea..." Justin started, "I don't know if it's a stupid idea but I think that the next time he tells us to do something, for example if he tells us that we have to practice tomorrow, we should just refuse to do it and just walk away to do whatever we want to do."

"That idea isn't half bad, actually." Joey said, nodding. "I agree, we should do that. Oh, and we can't forget to tell JC about it." Chris said as he stood up, "I'm really tired, I'm going to bed." "Okay old man, good night." Justin laughed. Chris slapped him in the back of the head. "Stupid." he said as he walked away to his room. "I should head home." Joey said, "Goodnight Justin." Joey walked towards the door. "Bye Joey. Goodnight." Justin said as he locked the door when Joey got out. He, then, went to bed. The next day would probably be a busy one, again.