Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 22:21:10 +0000
From: James
Subject: Boy Bands - On The Streets - Part 43

I don't know the Backstreet Boys, or N'Sync, nor is this story meant to
imply anything about their sexuality, their private lives or their life
choices. Please don't take any of this seriously, it is just a story,
nothing more. Nothing in this story is real, it is the product of the
author's imagination. That's enough disclaimers I think...

Now some suggestions, seeing as everyone else seems to be doing it. My
favourite stories are:
Forever (Kevin)
My New Life (Lance)
JC's Hitchhiker (JC)
Get Another Boyfriend (Kevin)
Whiplash (Kevin)
Blind Date (Lance)
My Surprise Romance (Lance)
Josh and Just (Duh!)
Lottery Winner (Joey)
Jamie's Romance (Justin)
Brian and Me (Brian)
Kevin and Dustin (Kevin) <- I just read this one, and I can't wait till the
next instalment, I can't wait to see what happens!
Justin's Dancer (Justin, sort of!)
Tales of a Real Dark Knight (Lance)
Good Life (Justin)
Under Management (Lance)
That's it, I know there are more I read that I haven't mentioned, but I
can't remember them right now, sorry! Well, it's the Queen's Jubilee over
here, so I thought I'd celebrate by writing a chapter for you guys! Here's
chapter 43...

On The Streets - Part 43

>>>Kevin's Point of View<<<

	That night we all hung around in the hotel, a bit too tired to do too much
- that show had been pretty tiring, but also really exhilarating. The
response to my song had been amazing, and the guys sung it so well. I hope
Jared understood I wasn't telling him off for running away, I was just
telling him how I felt, how it hurt me that he left. I think we still had a
few things to deal with, but they could wait, at least until we got back
home. We hadn't really had much of a chance to talk about anything. When we
went to bed, Jared climbed in after me, and he fell asleep so that his head
was on my chest. He's only ever done that once before, when we almost broke
up back in France. I guess he sees the parallel, that we almost broke up, I
had to go looking for him, and we got back together somehow. It was...
different to feel Jared's weight on me instead of the other way round for
once.

	We woke up the next morning, Jared's head was still on my chest. I guess he
was a bit too heavy for me to move much, so I had remained in the same place
all night, and I was feeling a  bit stiff. We had another concert today,
well not so much a concert, as a sort of just a show. It was gonna happen at
the Light of the World. This was a big thing for us, and we were all looking
forward to it. We hadn't really done this sort of impromptu stuff in a long
time. There wasn't gonna be a stage, just a few security guys to hold back
any maniacal fans. We had to be there in a couple of hours, so I decided to
get up, but I had to wake up Jared.

	"Jared...Jared? Honey?" I said quietly, hoping not to wake him too harshly.
I felt him mumble something against my chest, and he rubbed the side of his
face across my chest. "Jared. Wake up."

	"Uuh?" Jared looked up at me. He had drool running down the side of his
chin, and it was pooling on my chest. I rubbed it away, and rubbed away the
stuff on his chin. He blushed and smiled at me. "Do we have to get up?" He
asked.

	"Yeah, we need to get the guys up, we've got that show in couple of hours,
and the guys need food and we need to get them out of bed!" I smiled at
Jared. He nodded.

	"Do you need a hand?"

	"Sure, could you go wake them up while I order some room service?" I asked
him. He nodded, and pulled on a complimentary robe. He looked quite hot in
it. "Stop." I said to him just as he was about to walk out the bedroom door.
He turned around with a confused expression on his face. I jumped out of
bed, and kissed him. He wrapped his arms around me, and we stood there for a
minute, just kissing, making up still for all the time we lost. He pulled
back.

	"Ok, phone for room service." He said, a little out of breath. We both
smirked at one another, then he turned around and went to wake up the guys.
I phoned for some room service, and eventually Jared walked back in. "What
are you doing today?" Jared asked me.

	"We have a mini-performance at the Light of the World, and then we've
basically got the rest of the day free, we might have a radio interview at
about 5, but I'm not sure yet, management hasn't phoned to confirm." Jared
nodded as he rested his head on my shoulder.

	"What's the Light of the World?" He asked me.

	"Do you not read the newspapers?"

	"What do you mean?" I looked at him for a second, to see if he was serious
or not.

	"Don't worry you'll see when we get there."

	We all had breakfast before leaving, and we chatted about what events we
were going to in the coming week or two. Unfortunately, I was going to have
to spend some nights away from Jared, leaving him in Florida, as it was
impossible for him to ask for time off now, as it was a bit too late, and he
had to work. We left about 10:30 in the limo, and arrived at World Plaza. I
remember when it happened, we had an interview in Canada a couple of days
later, and I got misquoted, and people accused me of being unpatriotic. The
attacks happened almost a year and a half ago now, but the memory remains so
vivid. I looked up at the result of the rebuilding. There was a large curved
building, which basically encircled the area where the twin towers once
stood. Right in the centre of this semi-circular building, there was a wide
open plaza area. In the centre of this was a flowerbed, I knew that in the
middle of summer, it would come into bloom, and it would look like the Stars
and Stripes, but right now, it was bare soil, and in the middle was a large,
stone sundial with the image of the twin towers on it. Behind the flowerbed
was what was impressive though.

	"What's that?" Jared asked. AJ took the queue.

	"You know those plasma balls you can buy? The ones you put on your desk,
they seem to shoot out lightning when you put your hand near them?" He asked
Jared. Jared nodded. "That's what that is."

	"But it's huge!" Jared said. And it was. About ten feet in diameter, the
Light of the World was very impressive. It was mounted five feet off the
ground, and when no-one was near it, it looked like a giant bubble, except
for the occasional lightning spark. "You mean as we go near that, it starts
shooting out lightning bolts?"

	"Well it doesn't hurt or anything, it stays inside the globe, but it looks
so impressive. The closer you get, the more intense the bolts become." AJ
smiled at Jared.

	"I didn't even realise this was here." Jared admitted. "Last time I heard
anything about this place, there were those lights, which shone up into the
sky so that it looked like the towers were still here." Jared said.

	"They're still here." I told him. "Look down." The lights hadn't been
removed, they had been sunk into the ground. Now they were lit up for five
hours every night, and lit up the New York skyline, literally.

	"Wow." That was all Jared could say. "Ummm, so when is your performance,
and where are you performing?"

	"In about half an hour, and it's right over there. We're just gonna be
performing in front of the flowerbed." I answered him.

	"Oh right, do you guys have to go get ready?"

	"Yeah. There's Mark, he's supposed to be taking us into the World Center -
they have somewhere for us to get ready in there." We started to walk
towards Mark, but I felt Jared pulling back a bit. I turned to look at him.

	"I'd like to...umm... have a look around, out here, is that ok?" I looked
at him for a moment, then nodded, and let go of him. We walked into the
building, and I cast a glance back at Jared as I watched him walk around the
flowerbed, reading the various inscriptions which adorned the stone base.

	We spent half an hour getting ready, and by the time we came out again, I
didn't realise it, but they had set up a small platform, about a foot high,
in front of the flowerbed. It had stools and microphones on it. There was
already a large crowd gathering outside, about 8 or 9 hundred people at
least, and it was growing all the time. Looking out the windows of the World
Center, I couldn't see Jared. I decided to phone him rather than risk going
out there to try to find him.

	"Hello, Jared?"

	"Yes Kevin?"

	"Where are you?" I asked him.

	"Well, where are you?"

	"I'm in the lobby of the Center." I told him.

	"Well, I'm in the lobby of the Center." That's when I looked over, and saw
him just turning around from reading one of the stone slabs with
inscriptions on it. He looked a little sad, but I guess that's to be
expected here. I walked up to him.

	"What are you reading?" I asked him.

	"It's an account, I guess, of everything that happened." He answered me.
There were about 300 stone slabs going around the huge lobby of the
building, and each had a section of description, describing what happened
here.

	"We're going outside soon." I told him.

	"Ok, shall we go?"

	"Sure, come on." I took his hand, and walked out. His palms were sweaty,
but I left it. We took to the stage, to the cheering of the people who now
filled the plaza.

	Once we were in position, we got ready to sing, and we started. Everything
went as smoothly as it did on TRL, and it went great. Everyone was cheering
and clapping afterwards, and we were loving it. We were supposed to go up to
the crowd, once our bodyguard was there, and sign some stuff, or say hello,
that sort of thing. We did this for almost an hour, before our hands were
aching, and my feet were aching too. That's when I noticed Jared. He was on
the far side of the flowerbed, closer to the light, and he was wiping
something off one of the plaques around the edge of the flowerbed. That's
when I noticed he was crying. He was crouching down, but it was obvious. I
don't think he was actually sobbing, but just had tears running down his
face. I left the group, and walked over to him. I know it was a risk, and as
I left, I noticed about ten or fifteen people start after me. I hoped they
wouldn't approach if I was with Jared. I walked around the flowerbed, and
knelt beside him.

	"Jared?" I asked as I put my hand on his back. He looked up slightly, and
his eyes were red-rimmed. "What's the matter?"

	"I don't know Kev. I was just thinking about when all this happened, and
how it happened, and what went on, and I just started crying... I remember
how I was in London, and, well, when it happened, everything stopped in
London - the internet stopped working for about an hour or so, so nobody
knew what was going on. But there was an order to evacuate all the biggest
buildings in London, you know, just in case. There were thousands of people
on the streets, and everyone was terrified. Then it started, the whispering,
everyone was listening to everyone else trying to find out what happened. I
was close to this guy, and he was talking about his brother. He had been
talking to his brother in the North Tower when the plane hit. They carried
on talking for like half an hour, and then the guy in the tower said that he
had to go...about ten minutes later, the guy in the tower came back on the
phone, and said that they couldn't get out. This guy was talking to his
brother, and his brother was completely trapped, and about to die. I can't
even imagine what that's like. When we really knew what was going on, I
remember how upset I was. How could this happen? How could anyone be so
cruel, how could anyone hate anyone else enough to kill mothers, fathers,
children, brothers, sisters and friends? I don't know the people who died in
these attacks, but I know that the pain they went through was extreme, and
must continue to this day, and long into the future. It's not fair Kevin,
but what they've done here, how they've remembered everyone. It just shows
how people can look forward, how they can remember, but remember with joy
and hope for the future. This light, this plaza and these words on these
inscriptions, they're all so beautiful. It's amazing how something so
beautiful could come out of something so terrible." Jared had stopped
crying. I was taken aback, I wasn't expecting a whole sermon on the attacks,
but that's what Jared just gave. He spoke so truthfully, so eloquently. It
felt like he was talking directly from his heart. Jared wrapped his arms
around me.

	We had twisted around slightly as he spoke, and when he put his arms around
me, I noticed over his shoulder there were about twenty people there, at
least half of them had tears on their faces. A couple of them were holding
onto one another. They had been listening. They listened to Jared's whole
speech, and now they were still there. I let go of Jared, and told him to
turn around. When he did, a couple of them clapped, and then more joined in.
They got closer, and a couple of them shook Jared's hand. He was still
crying some, but it had mostly stopped. I think this was causing him to be
even more upset for some reason. Gradually the people thinned out, going
back to the other guys. Finally, there was only one woman left, and she came
up to Jared, and shook his hand.

	"You may not have known the people who died, but I knew at least a couple
of them." She said in a thick New York accent. "And I don't think I could've
expressed myself more eloquently." She smiled at him, and I noticed she had
more than a couple of tear trails running down her cheeks. Jared turned
around again and smiled. We kissed then and there, it was amazing.

	"Hadn't you better get back to your fans?" Jared asked.

	"Aah fuck 'em." I grinned at him. "We're gonna be doing so much of that
over the next couple of weeks, and frankly I just can't be bothered. Let's
just go inside." I took Jared's hand, and we walked back into the World
Center.

***

>>>Nick's Point of View<<<

	We flew back that evening, and I went straight home. I wanted to see Leo, I
hadn't had a chance to talk to him properly since Saturday morning.

	"Leo!" I called out as I entered the house. The lights were on, so I knew
he hadn't gone up to bed yet. "Leo?" I said as I entered the living room.
There he was, on the couch, feeding Laura. He turned his head around as he
heard my voice.

	"Nick!" He said with a grin on his face. He started to get up, but couldn't
adjust Laura properly, and fell back on his butt.

	"Don't get up! Do you need anything?" I asked him.

	"No, no, I'm fine. I'm glad you're home."

	"So am I." I answered him, then leant over and kissed him on the cheek.

	"I saw you on TRL." He told me.

	"What did you think?"

	"It was wonderful. I know you can't say me, as your 'love interest', but
saying Laura was the next best thing, and I love you for it." He leant over
and kissed me, and I felt a big grin come to my face. I'm gonna be the first
to admit it: Leo and I have a strange relationship. Let's take a look at
this... Leo lives in the same house as me, and we share a bed. We have never
done anything together. We kiss, though rarely on the lips. We have both
admitted we want more, but we haven't done anything yet. And finally, there
is absolutely no tension - most relationships I've been in, there is a
certain tenseness, and you're always worried about looking your best. With
Leo that just doesn't happen. We've both crossed paths while doing Laura's
nightly feedings, and seen each other with big bags under our eyes, or drool
hanging from the corners of our mouths when we first wake up. I was so glad
to be back to him.

	I watched Leo feeding Laura for a bit longer, and then decided to get up
and make something for dinner. "Where are you going?" Leo asked.

	"Just to make some dinner. What would you like?" I asked him.

	"I don't mind, whatever you're making." He smiled, then went back to
feeding Laura. I went into the kitchen, and pulled some pasta out of one of
the cupboards, and a jar of tomato sauce. I know, not very creative, but
what can I say? I'm tired! It's like 8:30, and I've had a performance today,
followed shortly afterwards by a long flight back to Florida. "Do you need a
hand?" Leo asked as he came into the kitchen.

	"Could you get the bread out?" I asked him with my arms full, heading over
to the stove. I turned the gas on under a saucepan full of water, and left
it to heat up. I felt Leo's arms go around my waist, and I twisted around so
that I was facing him.

	"D'you have a tiring day?" He asked quietly into my ear.

	"Mmm." I grunted back to him, I was feeling really tired, and resting my
head on Leo's shoulder wasn't doing much to wake me up.

	"Come on, you go sit down, I'll bring it out to you when it's ready." Leo
smiled at me, then pushed me out the kitchen. I sat down with my head on the
arm of the couch, and just relaxed. I twisted my head up when I heard a
gurgling sound. It was Laura, making small noises in her sleep. I twisted
onto my front, so that my chin was resting on the arm, and watched her. She
was so adorable. I just want to look after her, and hold her, and keep her
safe. The thought of her makes me feel all warm inside.

	"Nick? Nick?" I heard Leo say. I turned around, and there he was, with a
couple of bowls of pasta. It smelled great.

	"Thanks." I said as I took a bowl, and put it on the table in front of me.
We ate together, as we did every night, and afterwards, we curled up on the
couch together and watched TV. The next day was the release of the single,
'Same Old Problem', and for publicity, we were going to Miami, we were
basically going to stand there for the cameras for an hour or so in some
music store, and sign a few autographs. Boring. Anyway, I needed plenty of
sleep, so I told Leo I had to get to bed, he said he'd join me. We put the
dishes away, and carried Laura up to the newly decorated nursery. After
laying her down in her crib, and both of us kissing her forehead, we walked
out. We went to our bedroom, well, it was my bedroom, but it had the biggest
bed, so we kept it as ours. We both went to sleep shortly after, facing each
other, our arms and legs tangled together.

***

>>>Jared's Point of View<<<

	The next morning, Kevin had to leave early as the guys were going to Miami
for the record release. He called a cab to get to the airport as he had to
leave the car behind for me to get to work. He'd suggested that we should
get another car before for me, but I'd said it was a waste of money, I can
see now why it would've been useful. The Jive people had apparently been
pretty angry that I'd run off without telling anyone where I was going.
Kevin phoned them a couple of days ago, shortly after I'd come back, and
they said that they would accept me back, but there would be a temporary
dock on my wages. I accepted.

	I drove to work thinking about all the things I had to do today. I had an
N'Sync session, and one with 98 degrees in the afternoon. I had the normal
lunchtime sessions, and although everyone at the office had been told that I
was back, I wasn't sure if everyone would start up straight away again. I
also had to speak to Janet Dakes. I felt guilty about leaving her, now we
had one week less to deal with her weight problem, so only 7 weeks in all. I
hoped I was able to help her. We would sit down some time today and talk.

***

>>>Kevin's Point of View<<<

	Once we were down in Miami, the meet and greet was all set up, they would
escort people in, let them listen to some of our new music for a bit, then
escort them around to us, where they could get stuff signed. After an hour
or so, this started to get really boring. Then I looked up, and saw about 6
or 7 guys, all in their late teens or early twenties coming towards the
table. I think they saw the confused expression on my face, and they all
started laughing and giggling. My gaydar just went absolutely mad. They all
looked completely straight, but they were acting like the girl fans. The
first one came up, and looked straight at me, kinda expectantly.

	"Did you want me to sign something?" I asked him. His tongue just stuck out
slightly and wetted his bottom lip.

	"Errr...could I get two things signed?" He asked, then cast a look back at
his friends, and he smiled at them.

	"Sure." Most of the people had done, so why shouldn't he. He put a CD in
front of me. I signed the inside cover. "What else did you want signed?" He
looked back at his friends again. Then he reached to the bottom of his
t-shirt, which I noticed was very tight, and he lifted it.

	"This, can you sign right here?" He lifted up his shirt, and revealed a
very cut six pack - I think even Jared would have been impressed! I cast a
look up at the guy, and then over at the guys who were sitting next to me.
They hadn't been watching when the guys walked over, but now he'd lifted his
shirt, they were all watching to see what I'd do.

	I looked over at Brian, and when I noticed that even he was smiling, I
decided to just go for it. I reached across the table slightly. "Come
closer." I told him. And he did. He came so close that his legs were pushed
against the table, and I realised that his cock was slightly hard, and was
bulging out onto the table. I took the thick marker we used to sign stuff,
and reached out. I'd signed parts of girls' bodies before, why should this
be different? I started writing over his abs. This was easier than writing
on a girls' body - his abs were hard - rock hard. The only difficulty was
the deep cuts in between the muscles. Something told me he wasn't going to
get the other guys to autograph him, so I made my signature right across the
expanse of his ripped midsection. Once I was done, he carefully rolled the
shirt back down. The ink doesn't smudge - it's permanent - that was gonna
stay there for a while, but he was still careful.

	"Thanks man." He said with a big grin on his face. He was obviously a
college student, I realised that now. He held out his hand, and I shook it.
When he took it away, he'd left me his number in my hand. What an old trick!
I smiled at him, and put the number in my pocket. Hey, I can keep the guy
wishing can't I? Then, I noticed the guys laughing. I turned to them, and
looked, and they were all cracking up. I just smiled at them, and shook my
head, but AJ stood up, and walked over to me.

	"You think we're laughing at what you just did, don't you?" I nodded. He
took my chin in his hands and swivelled it around, so that I was facing the
way the queue was coming from. The other guys were still there, and they
were all holding their shirts up, revealing about six sets of washboard abs.
I leant forwards and rested my head on the table. Then I turned my head to
the side, and grinned at the guys who were approaching. The front one, who
was the only one who actually saw me do this, as they had got back into
single file, reached down and rubbed his crotch as I grinned at him. Wow,
these guys were all studs, and they all wanted my autograph. How cool is
that? I signed one after the other, and all apart from the last one gave me
their number! The last one was probably the youngest, about 19 probably. He
was slimmer than the others, and not as cut. I noticed he was so nervous, so
when he came up, I smiled at him really broadly, and he started to smile
back. When I signed his abs I put crosses at the end, like kisses, see what
he thought of those. He looked up at me, and smiled, and I could see his
eyes twinkling.

	The rest of the signing went off with a bang, towards the end,
unfortunately, that was a little too literal - a fire extinguisher near the
entrance to the store blew its catch, and the entrance to the store we were
in was flooded with foamy liquid. They managed to keep it contained, and we
finished the signing. I couldn't wait to get back home.

	Our damn flight was delayed. We arrived at the airport well in time to
catch our flight, and it was fucking delayed. I couldn't believe this! They
couldn't even give us an estimate as to when the next flight would be! About
the time our plane was supposed to be taking off, I called Jared.

	"Hello?"

	"Jared, our plane's delayed."

	"Oh, umm, well there's not much you can do Kevin, don't worry about it. If
you can't get up here tonight, book yourself in a hotel, you might as well
be comfortable. I'm really tired anyway, first day back at work and all, so
I'll probably go to bed early anyway."

	"Oh, well, I'll wait around a bit longer, see if anything comes up."

	"Ok, how did the signing go?" He was mumbling, he never mumbles. He must be
really tired.

	"It went pretty good actually. It was tiring, and there were a lot of
people, but it was...interesting." Suddenly, Nick grabbed my cell phone from
me.

	"Yeah, Jared? Kevin got...propositioned by like 6 college guys!" Nick
shouted down the phone. I quickly grabbed the phone back.

	"Jared?" I asked.

	"Yeah?" He was mumbling even more.

	"Jared, are you ok?"

	"I guess I'm just really tired." He sniffed. "Well, I hope you manage to
get up here tonight, but don't sleep in the airport or do something silly
like that, just get a flight tomorrow morning. Management will be okay with
that right?"

	"Yeah, they'll be okay with it. You should get to bed." I told him.

	"I think I will, I've already had something small to eat, so I'll just go
up now, if you get home tonight, wake me up, it would be nice to see you."
He said.

	"Ok, bye Jared, love you." I said down the phone with a smile on my face.

	"Bye Kevin." Then he hung up. I looked at the screen of the phone to check
it, but he had definitely hung up. Owch, that hurt, a lot. But I guess he's
tired, maybe he just wasn't thinking. Still...

End of chapter 43
TBC...

Ok, I've got to stop making those stupid pleas for people to write to me
about the story!!! Thank you to everyone who wrote, and I promise you I do
try to respond to some of them, but Chapters 40-42 have been a record set,
and I didn't actually realise that hotmail inboxes could be filled quite so
quickly. While I was checking the emails, another four or five arrived, in
the space of about twenty minutes!!! Thank you so much for appreciating
everything I've done, and I'll try to take some of the constructive
criticism on board.
There is something else I should probably say...this chapter touches on some
issues which I realise are pretty sensitive in the US. I said at the end of
my last chapter that what I said in this chapter was just my own views, and
I am very sorry if what I say offends anyone. The 'World Plaza', as I call
it in this chapter is only my view of what could be built on the former site
of the twin towers, and many people see various plans ranging from a park to
a collection of smaller towers with a smaller park. I hope that people
realise that what I wrote in this story is a fictional representation, and
the fear which terrorists incite all over the world is true no matter where
you are, that includes the UK. The events Jared talked about in London
really happened, people were evacuated out of fear for their lives. My own
heart aches to think of the families torn apart by the loss of a loved one
on that day, and I hope people forgive me if I haven't done justice to the
memory of someone they loved and lost by writing about the events in this
story.
Now, that I've said that... nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum
nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum nyum
nyum nyum... sorry, I hate to finish on a sad note...