Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 00:19:10 -0700
From: asumark2000@yahoo.com
Subject: Blind Date Chapter 21

Blind Date Chapter 21

Hey all!  Sorry it's taken a few months for this chapter.  I decided 
I wanted to pick up the pace seeing how the last 20 chapters all take 
place in just a two week-ish period.  Hoep you enjoy the chapter.

First the dull, boring legal stuff:

Disclaimer: This story is not true. Its Fake. Pure Fiction. This 
never ever happened.  I don't know anyone in N'Sync nor do I know the 
sexuality of Lance Bass or Joey Fatone or any of the NSYNC guys. What 
I do know is that this story is mine. Please do not steal it. 
Everything in the story is (c) 2003 Mark Quigley. You must be 18 or 
21 depending on your local laws to read this as this story does deal 
with male to male sex at times.

That being said please enjoy the story and remember-Don't forget to 
write me and let me know what you think!  I love feedback; it's what 
drives me to continue!  ASUMark2000@yahoo.com is my email address and 
if you want to IM me on AIM/AOL, then my just email me and let me 
know and I'll give you my screen name!

In order to accommodate all the people who are asking me, about when 
the next chapter comes out, I've created a Yahoo Group (Oi, Yahoo is 
like the Borg!): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mark_writings This is 
the page of the group, If you would like to be notified when a new 
chapter gets posted please go join my group. {smile} I'll try and 
make sure there's fun stuff along with this.


Last time:
Breakfast went on as the guys had a couple more helpings, with Lance 
seeming to be eating the most.  Once everyone had their fill, 
everyone started to make their way to the elevators.  Two arrived at 
the same time, Mark and Lance got into one and were then followed by 
Joey.  The looks on the three faces must have been caught be everyone 
else as they went into the other elevator.

The doors closed and after a few seconds of silence Joey spoke up.

"Umm, Mark, I um, well, how come you didn't tell the guys that I hit you?"

The silence lasted a minute before Mark spoke softly.

"Because had I it would led to even more questions.  I promised you 
that I wouldn't tell the guys what I saw and I will keep my word. 
Lance knows because we don't keep any secrets, we discussed this and 
both agreed that we have to be open and honest with each other in 
order to make this work.  I'm sorry that I didn't think to tell you 
that Lance would probably find out when you asked me not to tell 
anyone and I'm sorry that you felt the need to knock my lights out. 
But most of all..."  The elevator doors opened and Mark and Lance 
started to walk out when Mark stopped at the doors and turned around 
and faced Joey.  "Most of all, I'm sorry that you put Lance in a 
position where he had to be torn between the love he has for his 
boyfriend and the love he has for his best friend Joey."  With that 
Mark stepped back to let the elevator doors close leaving Joey alone.



And now Chapter 21!

Lance stood there looking at Mark.  "Don't you think you were a 
little hard on him?" He spoke up once the two started to walk down 
the hall.

"Probably, but I felt it needed to be said."  Mark saw the look of 
disappointment in Lance's face.  "I'm not mad at him, really.  I can 
understand where he was coming from; hell, I was there once myself 
when dealing with my sexuality.  I'm more disappointed than anything 
else.  Just give me a little time and I'll talk to him again.  I'm 
not going to let this one setback ruin my friendship with him."

The two reached the door of the room.  Lance opened it, grabbed 
Mark's hand and pulled him into the room and in an embrace as he shut 
the door with a swing of his foot.

"Thank you. It means so much to me that you be friends with the guys. 
The group is the main part of my life and I want you to be part of 
that."

"Sweetie, I'll bend over backwards to be with you.  Joey's confused 
about himself right now.  I can't be mad at him for that."  Mark 
kissed him on the forehead.

Lance looked up,  "Bend over backwards huh?"  A smirk came across his face.

Mark laughed,  "Go get ready for your sound check you dirty old man." 
And with that he gave him a playful push towards the bedroom.

Lance started towards the bedroom, "Hey, who's the older one in this 
room?"  He padded into the bedroom before he could be hit with the 
sofa pillow that was airborne.

About an hour later everyone met up in front of the elevators where 
one of their guards was standing.  Apparently there was a large group 
of fans in the lobby waiting for the guys to head to the concert hall 
for their sound check.  Mark stayed up on the floor with Dale while 
the group went down to the basement and left via a service entrance.

Dale followed Mark back into his suite.

"So I understand you gave Joey a little dressing down this morning."

"I spoke to him briefly about how I felt, yes."

"From what little Joey told me it sounded a lot more than a brief 
talk.  He seemed upset about it."

"Look, Dale, what I said to him was between Joey, Lance and myself. 
But if you must know, I told him I would keep my word about the two 
of you and I told him that I won't keep any secrets from Lance. 
That's that."  Mark grabbed his bag and started to pack up his 
clothes.

"Going somewhere?"  Dale knew better from Mark's tone not to continue 
down that path.

"Well the guys leave tomorrow morning for Denver and I thought I'd 
get most of my stuff packed up now.  We've been invited to dinner and 
to tonight's show then Lance and I will have just a few hours till he 
has to get some rest and I'd like to spend as much time as I can with 
him."  Mark placed the birthday gifts into a duffel bag.  "We get a 
night here and then we fly back to Phoenix.  We'll hang out, I'll let 
you ride along with me on patrol and we'll finish out your visit."

Mark finished up his packing while Dale watched.  The two hung out 
around the hotel, did a little gambling, lunch and watched some 
movies.  Dinner was uneventful and both Mark and Dale enjoyed the VIP 
treatment they got at the concert.  The two made their way backstage 
towards the end of the concert.  Justin and Chris wanted to go out 
dancing for their last night in Vegas, Joey was reluctant as he 
wanted to be with Dale but ended up going out to keep up appearances. 
Dale ended up tagging along with the others as it was obvious that 
Mark and Lance wanted to spend the evening alone together.

Everyone went back to the hotel to get ready.  Lance and Mark had a 
more romantic night planned.  Mark sat on the bed as he watched Lance 
pack his stuff up.

"I'm going to miss you so much.  I really don't want to go."

"You have to, it's your job, your life and you and I both know you 
couldn't give it up even if you tried.  Besides, I don't think I'd 
want to be with someone that didn't stick with their dream.  We'll 
make this work if we both want it to and I know I want it."

"And I sure as hell want it too."  Lance stopped his packing and 
turned towards Mark.  "It's going to hurt not being with you. Lance 
walked over and hugged Mark.

"We'll make it work and we'll be together sooner than you think, 
you'll see, the days will fly by and then you'll be in my arms again."

Lance looked at Mark and nodded, kissing him gently.  After a couple 
of minutes of gently loving kissing Lance went back to his packing. 
Once he was done the two moved into the bedroom and ended up making 
love until about five in the morning when the two finally fell asleep 
intertwined with each other.

Eight o'clock came around all too soon and Lance found himself awoken 
by the phone.  It was Justin calling to let him know that they would 
have to board the bus at ten.  Lance managed to wake up Mark and the 
two showered and got dressed.  A knock at the door found that the 
rest of the guys had ordered breakfast for the two.

Eventually the time for Lance to leave came about.  Mark followed him 
out to the elevators where the others were waiting along with their 
manager and security group.  The group said their goodbyes and to 
Mark and Lance's surprise they all gave him a hug goodbye, even 
Justin and Joey hugged him.

Mark remained up on the hotel floor as there was a large crowd hoping 
to see the group as they left.  Dale came up to see theguys off and 
move into the suite Mark and he would stay in for the last night.  He 
said his goodbyes, shaking hands with everyone.  Once the guys got 
into the elevator Mark went back to the suite and out on to the 
balcony to watch the guy's bus leave.

As Mark looked over the railing of the balcony down to the street he 
saw a bus drive by and his cell phone began to ring.  He pulled it 
out from his pocket and opened it.  He didn't even need to look at 
the caller id to know that it was Lance.

"Miss me already?"

"I could see you from the bus."  Mark could hear sadness in Lance's voice.

"I had a feeling you might.  Hey, don't be so sad, remember we'll be 
together soon.  I don't have a job, so I am free for a while.  Which 
means I'm sure well find a way to be together."  Mark was fighting 
back the tears he could feel swelling inside.

The two chatted for about an hour with each other, mostly about what 
was yet to come and they both seemed to not talk about when they 
would be together as they could sense the sadness in each other. 
Eventually, the guy's bus had moved too far out into the Nevada 
desert and the cell connection was dropped.

Mark spent the evening exploring Las Vegas with Dale.  The two walked 
the strip visiting the various casinos.  They watched the pirate show 
at Treasure Island, viewed the water ballet of the Bellagio from the 
top of Paris's Eiffel Tower.  They even took in a show at Mandalay 
Bay.  Finally time came where the two had to fly back to Phoenix.

The flight back was uneventful.  Dale stayed for two more days with 
Mark.  The two hung out and just chatted about Mark's options.  Lance 
called like clockwork four times a day.  Mark always seemed to cheer 
up when it got closer to the times Lance would call.  Mark applied 
for his unemployment benefits and started checking the net and 
newspapers for jobs.  He placed his resume on several online sites 
and even faxed it to a few numbers that Lonnie and JC had given him. 
To keep busy Mark started to put more hours in with his volunteer job 
with the Tempe Police Dept.

Several weeks went by as Mark applied for jobs, went on interviews 
and spoke with Lance on the phone.  Their love continued to grow even 
though they couldn't be with each other.

Mark had gotten a call back about a job with an airline and even 
though it paid a lot less than what he was used to he decided that 
since it had been the only offer in two months he would take it.  The 
only down side was that the job wouldn't start for another month. 
Mark decided he wouldn't tell Lance about the job until it started as 
he didn't want to jump the gun to early.  One of the nice things 
about the job was that after 15 day he would get free travel benefits 
on the airline and they flew to Orlando!

After talking with Lonnie, Mark discovered that the first weekend 
that he had his flight benefits would fall into a 3 week period that 
the guys would be in Orlando.  Mark decided he would fly out and 
surprise everyone, but it would still be 6 weeks before he could do 
that.



Five weeks later

Mark had started working for a Phoenix based airline as a ticket/gate 
agent.  It was busy work but it was a job and soon he would have his 
flight benefits to where he could fly for free on the airline and be 
able to surprise Lance.  Their calls had gotten more frequent and 
intense.  Lance had even tried to visit Mark one weekend but bad 
weather forced the guys to reschedule one of their concerts and 
rearrange their schedule.

Mark had the night off and was working on his volunteer job when 
Lance called him.

"Hey babe, how's it going?"

"Hey!  It's so good to hear your voice.  I've missed you."

"Same here I keep dreaming about you.  I still am sad we had to 
reschedule last weekend; I really wanted to fly out there."

"Don't worry about it, we'll be together soon.  So what are you doing?"

"Well, we're on break right now doing some rework on a few tracks in 
the studio.  Still have a couple of hours to go, should be done 
around 7pm.  What about you?  Find a job yet?"

Mark winced, he hated to keep his new job a secret from Lance.  But 
he really wanted to surprise Lance.  "No, not yet.  Right now I'm on 
duty on my volunteer job.  Should get off patrol about 2 hours after 
you get done, waiting till after rush hour."

"Everything going ok today?"  Lance always worried about Mark doing 
this volunteer job.  The guys even teased him a little bit about how 
he was a typical cop's wife.

"It's been a little busy, just got done clearing a 962.  Now I'm just 
patrolling around."

"What's a 962?"

"That's an accident with injuries."  Some idiot ran a red light and 
wasn't wearing his seat belt.  So he got ejected through the front 
windshield."

"Ugh, how gruesome, think we can talk about something else?"

Mark chuckled, Lance was always a little squimish.  He remembered the 
night when the two watched Thirteen Ghosts on HBO at the same time 
while talking on the phone and how Lance would get when the gory 
scenes popped up.  "Sure, we can talk about anything you want."

"Shit, Justin just popped his head into the room, they want us back 
in the studio so I have to go.  I'll call you when you get off duty."

Mark sighed.  "Okay, I love you and miss you."

"Love you too!"  Lance hung up.

Mark continued on his patrolling for a few more hours.  Things were 
pretty uneventful.  He still had about an hour left when he started 
driving up the northbound side of Price Road.  When he passed 
Southern Avenue he saw a car off to the side of the road with it's 
hood up.  Mark flipped on the patrol truck's light bar and pulled up 
behind it to see if he could be of assistance.  Before exiting the 
truck he grab the mic on his radio.

"Victor-425"  He radioed in to dispatch.

"Victor-425"  Was the response.

"585 Mary,  3209 North Price.  Tan Olds Cutlass, Arizona 972 Sam John Frank."

"Victor-425 acknowledged."  With that Mark got out of the truck and 
walked toward the disabled car.  He noticed that there was someone in 
front of the car and looked like there was someone under the hood on 
the passenger side as well.  Something didn't sit right in his gut as 
he walked closer to the car but before he had a chance to respond to 
that feeling the guy on the passenger side stood up and had something 
in his hand.

In a split second Mark saw what he had in his hand and that's when he 
felt the first bullet hit him in the chest, forcing him back with a 
force he had never experienced before.  Four more shots rang out and 
struck Mark, each one pushing him back and causing him to stumble 
towards the ground.  By the time the last shot's sound faded Mark had 
fallen on to the street.  The two guys from the car started to run 
away towards a local housing development.  Mark could feel the warmth 
of the black asphalt underneath him and his energy drained from him. 
Groggily he reached for his hand radio, managing to depress the small 
red button that was located on the front, then he stumbled his 
fingers to the mic key and managed to gasp out into the mic.  "Nine, 
Nine, Nine."

With that his world went dark.