“Joshua,” whispered a soft, gentle voice and Joshua forced his eyes opened so that he could stare at his lover.
“Sleep,” moaned Joshua.
“No sleep,” chuckled Lance as Joshua buried himself in Lance’s neck.
“Please?” whimpered Joshua.
“Josh,” warned Lance playfully.
“Fine!” sighed Joshua pouting as he looked up at Lance.
“Don’t be that way,” smiled Lance kissing the pouting lips. “You don’t know what I have planned for today.”
“Something planned?” asked Joshua with interest, causing Lance to chuckle. The young prince was just so cute at times.
“Yep,” replied Lance with a smile. “So we need to get up and get dressed.”
Thirty minutes later, the par were riding on top of Freelance with Joshua sitting in front of Lance, Lance with one arm wrapped around Joshua’s waist, the other arm was guiding Freelance.
“Where are we going?” questioned Joshua as Lance slowly guided Freelance over the terrain.
“You’ll see,” chuckled Lance as he led Freelance along the river which led from the lake next to La. The lake, which Joshua and Lance had spent the entire yesterday next to, as they explored each other’s bodies.
An hour later Lance halted Freelance a top of the edge of a waterfall
“Wow”, sighed Joshua breathlessly, hopping off Freelance and leaning over the edge of the waterfall. The view was incredible.
“There’s a path nearby, leading down to the base,” explained Lance with a smile. “I thought we could go down there, relax and eat the lunch Britney packed for us.”
“Sounds good,” smiled back Joshua as Lance helped him back up on Freelance before they began the twenty-minute journey to the bas of the waterfall.
When they finally reached the bottom, Lance spent another ten minutes taking care of Freelance, while Joshua unpacked the lunch Britney made for them.
“This is nice,” sighed Joshua happily, leaning up against Lance when they had finished eating. “I wish it could always be like this.”
“I know,” replied Lance. “But that’s impossible. Pearlman will always be after you. Moments like this will be rare.”
“Lou can’t win,” whispered Joshua sadly.
“Does that mean you’ve decided?” asked Lance gently. Sure he wanted to bring down Lou Pearlman but he wasn’t going to force the prince into anything he didn’t want to do. At one point, yes, he would of done anything to convince Prince Joshua to unite the rebels, but so many things had changed since then in only a short amount of time.
“Yeah,” nodded Joshua slowly. “Taylor’s dream was bring peace to the land. I need to do it for her . . . and for the people. They deserve a better life then what they’re living.”
“All right then,” Lance gently replied hugging Joshua tighter.
*~*~*
“We’re lost, aren’t we?”
“We’re not lost! We just don’t know where we are!”
“Nice observation there Nick,” replied AJ sarcastically, he had been the one to ask whether they were lost or not.
“Both of you, shut up!” snapped Brian. He was tired. They all were actually because they had ridden all night and he didn’t know how much more he was going to be able to put up with AJ and Nick’s bickering.
“Come on Brian,” whined Kevin. “We’ve been riding all night, let us rest for an hour or two.”
“Kevin’s right,” added Howie. “Or do you want to spend the rest of the journey with AJ and Nick fighting like five year olds?”
“Fine!” sighed Brian loudly, stopping his horse. “We’ll camp here for a few hours but if we miss them because you guys needed a rest, it’s your fault and I’m taking the blame for it!”
*~*~*
“We’re lost, aren’t we?”
“We’re not lost! We just don’t know where we are!”
“That’s stupid Justin,” replied Joey. Like the BackAlly Boys they had been riding hard since they left O-Town following Chris’ lead. Unlike the BackAlly Boys however, they realized it was useless to try and travel during the night, so they had stopped for a few hours.
“We’re not lost!” protested Chris, riding ahead of the other two, while looking at the ground. “I just haven’t found what I’ve been looking for yet!”
“And what that?” asked Joey with a sigh.
“A creek,” replied Chris. “It leads from the lake by La. The lake has a spring in it which produces water, sends the water down a river to a waterfall and below the waterfall the water is then sent in various directions into other rivers, creeks and streams. We follow the creek and we’ll be there in no time.”
“So what’s the problem?” asked Justin.
“Well it’s the dry season,” admitted Chris. “I didn’t really think about that when we left.”
“What exactly does that mean?” asked Joey, raising his eyebrow at Chris.
“It means that the creek might be a tad smaller than normal, if it’s there at all.”
“Chris!” exclaimed Justin in shock while Joey merely groaned.
“Don’t worry!” replied Chris, as he continued to look at the ground. “It’s around here somewhere!”
“We should have just taken on the BackAlly Boys,” grumbled Joey to Justin.
“I know,” whispered back Justin.
“Here it is!” cried Chris up ahead of them and the two younger men quickly rode up to him and looked down at the small stream Chris was pointing to.
“No wonder you didn’t want us to travel at night,” grumbled Joey. “You barely found it in daylight.”
“Like I said it’s the dry season,” shrugged Chris as he once again took the lead as they followed the stream. “Don’t worry though, we’ll be at La in a few hours.”