This is part 2. I want to thank the people who have sent me positive responses. It really means a lot to me. As usual, this story is meant to be Fiction! It doesn't say anything that can damage anyone's career or life in general. It depicts romantic relationships between two men. If this material offends you or it is illegal to read it, go somewhere else.
"There was a kid who came on the show, just about 18 and having a blast," Joey continued. Then he paused for a minute. "The kid had boundless energy and enthusiasm. His name was Ryan and you just saw him, but he was about 25 pounds thinner and didn't seem so depressed. He said that he was a fan of us and BSB,"
"I KNEW it!" Lance shouted. "I told you that he's some crazed fan!"
"Whoa, Lance, calm down!" Joey tried to intervene, but Lance was adamant. "Lance, shut the fuck up!" Joey yelled. "Let me finish!" Lance gaped at Joey, speechless, and Joey almost laughed at how completely stupefied Lance looked.
"Now, he said he was a fan, but he wasn't a total fanatic. He said that he liked our music and our harmonies, and that the message really sang out to him." Joey smiled at the memory. "He also said that since I was a member of NSync, he decided that he wasn't going to sing his original song, since it was one of ours. So he sang `I want it that way' from Backstreet Boys. And Lance, he was awesome! He hit notes that I couldn't believe. He sounded like Nick, man." And then he laughed. "He even looked like Nick."
"Anyway, after he sang, all three of us gave him a perfect score. He knew all the words, he dressed real nice, his backflips and stuff were cool, and he hit every single note. We HAD to give him a perfect score." Lance saw the look on Joey's face, and his anger seemed to slowly melt away. He had started to get into the story, and after hearing me singing while he was yelling at Justin, he could believe what Joey had told him.
"When the second round, the Wheel of Death' came around, he hoped that he'd know the song. The girl before him had done a great job, and he was under a lot of pressure. He spun the wheel and ended up with I Drive Myself Crazy.' He breathed a sigh of relief and I got very interested. Before he sang, I had a word with one of the producers, and he agreed that at my signal, he would keep the music going longer than normal. I wanted to see how good this guy could be. He sang Chris's part..."
"Did someone say my name?" Chris asked, stepping into the bus with JC in tow. "You weren't talking about US behind my back, were you Joey?" he joked.
"Of course not, Chris," Joey replied. "Our bedroom antics are private." Then he smiled a huge grin and both of them broke out laughing.
"Oh GOD, not again," Lance joked along. "I'm tired of hearing about your sex life, guys. Besides, Joey, I want to hear the rest of the story." JC agreed with Lance, as did Chris. By now, Lance didn't seem angry at all to Joey, and he thought-so, he has the same effect on Lance, too.
But he continued, "he sang your part, loverboy," Chris giggled, "perfectly. His harmony with our voices was dead-on. When Justin's part was about to start, I have the producer my signal and he kept going. He was surprised, but he sang Joey's part very well. But I knew that the next part would be the hardest. I looked at Ryan and nodded, and he seemed to realize what I was saying. He took a deep breath and belted out your part, too, JC. He got all of it! I couldn't believe it. It was so cool. He got a standing ovation when he finished, even by us judges. He smiled shyly and looked to us for our scoring. He had two perfect tens, and I was about to give him my score when my cell rang.
"Everyone looked at me. It was embarrassing. When I answered it, it was Justin. He said, Joey, you have GOT to give this guy a perfect score! I've been watching and he's so good! Maybe he can join our group?' I told Justin I can't believe you're calling me with this right now! I'm about to give the kid his score. Can't you even wait thirty seconds? I'll talk to you later,' and then I hung up on him. I looked at Ryan with a smile and pulled out my scorecard. Instead of ten, I put two together and gave 100 for it. He laughed so hard he almost fell over, and naturally won the contest."
"Duh," Chris supplied helpfully.
"Thanks, Chris. Anyway, we got together after the show went off the air and talked for a while. He told me that he couldn't believe that I did that to him. He'd seen the show before and knew that they never do anything like that. We chatted away hours sitting on the beach. He told me about his family, his future, and other stuff like that. I asked him where he learned to sing like that and he said that he like being in musicals. He mentioned that his favorites were 'Les Miserables' and 'Jekyll and Hyde', but he only said he liked them 'cause they were serious and thought provoking. He asked about us and if we liked Orlando. I told him about where we live when we're not on tour and about all of us. He knew some of it, but he really liked the details, ya know?"
"Like what?" Lance asked, getting a little nervous. "We do have secrets, you know."
"Well, Lance, I told him that you grew up a deeply religious person and that you are really much deeper than you seem to be," Joey replied impishly. "He was really interested. We got to talking about the spiritual world and the differences in religions. He's really smart. Give him a chance, you might like him." Lance just shrugged.
"Anyway, to cut a long story short, I told Ryan that it was really cool to hear him sing and that he was really good. I also said that if he wanted any tickets to a concert or anything, to call our management and I'd arrange for it. You know the drill."
"Mmm hmm," Lance said. "So what is he doing here? He didn't come with tickets or asking for them."
"I don't really know. He asked for a job, but he definitely doesn't need one for the money. My guess is that he's almost looking for a place to hide."
"Hide?" Lance exclaimed. "You think he's done something illegal? We can't get involved with anything like that!" Chris tried to calm Lance down, but got a death-stare. He held up his hands and backed away. JC wisely stayed out of the whole exchange, although he looked like he wanted to say something to Lance.
"No, Lance," Joey replied calmly, "I don't think he's done anything illegal. He seems sad more than afraid. I think he's in some trouble, yeah, but not legally. Besides, he's a friend. We need to help him."
"Well," Lance acquiesced. "Maybe you're right. Let's go have a look and see how those two are getting along. But Joey, if he's any trouble..." he trailed off ominously. Chris just grinned. "Great! Now I get to see who you've been talking about for the past half-hour!" "Yeah," JC agreed. "I want to see who can sing ANYTHING in the awesome way that I do!" The rest of them just giggled.
The four of them walked towards the back of the bus and slowly opened the door. They stared at Justin's helpless look as he held me with my face buried in his shoulder, crying uncontrollably.
CHAPTER 3
Justin already knew Joey's story, since he'd made Joey tell him when he called back, so shortly after Lance had led Joey out, Justin asked me what was wrong. Looked at him in his yellow t shirt with a black fork on it and smiled. He was so cute! So I told Justin that I was not exactly the same person that I was a couple of months ago.
He'd seen me on MTV, of course, and was shocked when he saw what I had become. Besides being heavier and more muscled, my eyes seemed less bright and my whole body seemed tight. Everything about me seemed to be the opposite of what I had been before, and he wanted to know why.
I told him, "I had gone to the Isle of MTV as a graduation present from one of my aunts, and when I got back, my whole family was going to have a huge graduation party for me. I couldn't wait. Everything was going great and I was having a fun time. And when I got home, we prepared for the party. It took a while, since everyone was going to show up, but by the end of the week everything was ready. It was great to see my cousins and friends and other family coming by to congratulate me on getting out of school and doing well at it. They were really pleased that I was going to a great school in Atlanta for college and wished me the best of luck. Around noon, my parents started getting everything ready for dinner at about six-thirty. They turned on the oven, the stove, and the warmer. I helped with some of the preparations, since I love to cook when I get the chance. But at about three o'clock, we ran out of veggie dip and I had to run to the store to get some more. I guess I was lucky. My parents had gotten too involved in catching up with their friends and forgot all about the food. So when one of my aunts pulled out a cigarette, no one paid it any mind...
"I was on my way home, about two minutes away when I saw an enormous fireball shoot upwards. I said "Holy Shit! What the hell was that?" and floored the car in the direction the inferno came from to see what was going on. As I pulled up to my house, it wasn't there any more. Everyone had been inside, and all that was left was a crater in the ground. Most of the cars parked in front of my house were flaming husks, and I suddenly realized that I was all alone in the world." Here, my voice cracked, and I had to swallow a few times to be able to go on.
"My life was a mess. I was 18, so I didn't need to be placed under protective custody, but I also had no family left to live with. I called my friend Tom and told him about my problem. Tom had been my only friend not at the party, since his graduation party was the same day. His mom said I could stay with them until I figured out what to do. So I went to live with my last friend. In the meantime, I had lots of paperwork to deal with. I had to arrange for the funerals of over seventy people, and there wasn't even anything left to bury."
When I said this, I broke down and Justin instinctively reached forward to comfort me. He held me close until I started to calm down, and when I did, all I did was notice how great it felt to be held by him. "Go on," he said, "I'll be here for you."
So I continued, "but the strangest thing is that since everyone else had died, I was the sole heir to about 50 or 60 wills. I got property, money, cars, everything. I didn't want any of it, though, so I decided what I was going to do with it all... I sold it. I got money from the insurance companies for my house, all the cars, and all the life insurance policies. The police questioned me because I had so much to gain from this, and they thought that I'd planned it. It was horrible. They finally believed me when the fire marshal said there was no evidence of wrongdoing, and I told the police I would sue them for harassment." I smiled wanly, "it was an empty threat. I was just so pissed.
"So, as I was saying, I sold everything, collected the money, which you saw earlier and got ready for my new life. I bought my dream car, a black '99 Mustang GT convertible and some clothing. All black. I was still in mourning. I also went and bought a few other things to help me confront my demons," I added.
"Like what?" Justin wanted to know.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it," I avoided his question. "Anyway, I went to live with Tom and my days went by in a haze. I didn't sleep for more than two or three hours a night, so I'd wake up at 6 a.m. and work out lifting weights until Tom woke up at about 11. I'd been taking martial arts for a few years-"
"I noticed when you came down the hill," Justin interrupted.
"Really?" I looked at him confused. "I don't remember using any of it."
"On the security guards." He affirmed. "But don't worry about it. Get on with the story."
"Oh yeah. Sorry. Tom was much better at it than I was, so after he woke up, we'd spar for hours and hours. At first, he'd kick my ass every time, but my intensity helped me a lot, and so did my added muscle, I guess. And after sparring until about 4 or 5, I'd go to the YMCA and swim some laps and soak in the jacuzzi for a while. I'd get back to his house at about eight and we'd work on my weapon techniques for a couple more hours. Then we'd play some D&D."
"D&D?" Justin asked. "What's that?"
"Well, it's a role-playing game that's kind of hard to explain," I told him, "but it involves characters out to save the world and they can do things like magic and thievery-like characters on video game RPG's," I added. "But all of it is completely in your mind. Everything that occurs you have to see in your imagination. This helped me a lot, since I could lose my anger and pain in my character. When he fought monsters and demons, I was fighting them and letting everything go for a couple of hours." I looked at him sadly, "Then it'd all come back."
"Oh," was all he said. But he pulled me even closer and hugged me tight for a second. I knew he didn't really understand, but I didn't care-it felt so good to be comforted for a change.
"It went on like that for two months," I continued my story. "But I knew that it had to end soon. Tom had to go to college, and I decided that even though I could afford it, I wouldn't. Not yet. So when I heard that you guys were having a concert, I threw all my things together and drove out here, hoping that maybe I could hook up with Joey, get him to remember me, and live on the road for a little while. I'm decent with electronics and I know my way around a stage, so I figured that it could serve as a distraction and give me a chance to start over. You know?" Then I got really quiet. "I've gotten used to having money and stuff, I've gotten used to being away from home and on my own, but you know Justin, I've never gotten used to being so alone." And with that, I fell to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably. I was crying so hard, I didn't notice the rest of the group come in the door. Justin pulled me forward into another hug, and after crying for twenty minutes or so on his shoulder, I fell asleep.
Chris, Lance and Joey all noticed this last part and watched silently as I fell asleep. Joey looked at Justin with a question in his eyes, but Justin just shook his head slightly. Once I was asleep, Justin lifted me up very gently and put me in his bunk to rest. Then he came back in to where the other guys were waiting.
"Well, Justin," Joey asked impatiently, "what'd he tell you? What's going on?"
Nearly crying himself, Justin told the others what had been going on.
Lance and Joey both broke down in tears, and Chris and JC looked around uncomfortably. That's when Chris sited my gym bag that I'd brought with me. "What do you guys think he has here?" He asked the others, weighing the bag. "It's really heavy."
"I don't know if maybe we should," Justin hesitated. "It wouldn't be right. Especially not after trusting us so much."
"Trusting YOU, you mean," Lance countered. "He hasn't really shown US anything like trust. I feel for the guy, but I still am a little uncomfortable about him being here. I think that we should open it and find out. We won't take anything," he said very quickly, noticing that Justin and Joey objected, thinking about all the money in the four-foot-long black bag. "We'll just have a look. The way he wouldn't tell you what he bought makes me curious."
"I still say no." Justin argued. "Let's wait for him to show us if there's anything of interest. And besides, he hasn't really trusted you 'cause you haven't trusted him! If you weren't so hard on him, you'd understand that he only wants to be friends!"
"I agree." Joey added. "We have no reason not to trust him."
"But," JC began when they heard "NOOOOOOO!" coming from the bunks. Justin and Joey ran to see what was going on. They ran to Justin's bunk and saw me thrashing around, crying out over and over again "Mommy... please... no..." Justin reached in to hold me and rubbed my back. I started to calm down, and Joey looked at Justin curiously. "I've been doing it all day," he answered the unspoken question. "Once more couldn't hurt." Joey just shrugged and the two of them headed back to join the others.
As they entered the back room, they heard a gasp. The rushed in and saw Chris pulling a long, slightly curved object out of my bag. As it came out with a steely hiss, the bright and exquisitely sharp blade gleamed.
As a group they all muttered "Holy Shit!" and stared at it, feeling very uncomfortable all of a sudden.
- That's it for part two. Sorry that the conversations seemed to go on forever. I tried for some realism, and sometimes I like to talk. Next time, there'll be more action, I promise. Again, thanks to those who have helped me with this story. I really appreciate positive reinforcement.