My attention then turned back to Zac. "Wow! I didn't think it could possibly feel that good," he sighed as he pulled away from Tay, strings of cum stretching between us like some bizarre scene from "Alien".

The sweet smell of cum was strong in the room and acted like an aphrodisiac to me - I still hadn't gone soft yet, although that was probably due in no small part to the fact that Tay continued to squeeze down on my dick with his arse. I felt so good, so safe inside him. I simply never wanted to be away from him again, and kissed him on the neck.

It wasn't particularly comfortable standing as we were even though it did feel so damn good. I gently pulled back out of Tay, my dick making a slurping noise as I left him. Turning him round so that he was facing me, I looked deeply into his eyes and once again felt as if I was drowning in a sea of passion.

Inevitably, our lips drew closer and we kissed again. Every time we kissed was special to me, but for some unknown and inexplicable reason it just kept getting better and better: I simply couldn't get enough of him! I'd never grow tired of the feelings he gave to my cock as he squeezed on it with his arse, or to me in general when we kissed and touched each other as we did now, Tay's cum-covered dick and balls slipping over my own.

We cleaned ourselves up and, for "safety's" sake, got dressed again. Zac, Tay and myself then settled down for the evening with a few cokes and True Lies, me sat between Tay's legs on a bean bag, my head resting against his chest. Zac, sat on a bean bag all by himself soon got lonely and scooted over next to us, Tay pulling him in close.

The last thing I remembered was seeing Arnie and that fat bloke walking into "Omega Sector - The Last Line of Defence". I'd slipped into a deep, deep sleep...

I was woken up by the sound of a siren. As my eyes opened, I saw the trace of a blue flashing light flicking through the curtains. Tay stirred a moment after I did. "What the..."

He got up and pulled open a curtain just enough to peep through. "Hey, Dean - there's an Ambulance here! C'mon!" he said, pulling on his AirWalks and leaping out the door. Zac just stayed curled up, fast asleep on the beanbag. The evening's excitement must've been a little too much for him...

Sure enough, just outside was an ambulance, two paramedics legging it towards the stage entrance, Taylor and myself racing after them in hot pursuit. Once inside, it wasn't immediately apparent as to what'd happened. Ike was on stage, looking up into the gantries in the roof. "What's happened?" I asked.

"One of the lighting guys has fallen off of the catwalk and hit his head on a lighting bar - he's out cold..."

I leapt off the stage and ran to the cluster of people (including the paramedics) standing in the middle of the floor, looking up into the ceiling, trying to shield their eyes from the harsh fluorescent lights.

"...and he's the only one who can climb..." one of the riggers was saying.

"So how in God's name do we get 'im down, then?" asked one of the paramedics.

As my eyes became more accustomed to the lights, I could see a guy hung slumped in his harness. From what I could tell, he'd been working too far from where his rope was attached, slipped and swung pendulum-fashioned into one of the uprights, his head taking rather too close a look...

"Well I'm sure as hell not goin' up there! Gotta be at least forty foot..." the other paramedic said.

"You got a spare harness?" I asked.

"Huh?"

"I said, 'Have you got a spare climbing harness?'" I was met with nothing but silence and a couple of rather strange looks. "Well, do you have a harness or not?"

"Uh, yeah - over there by the side of the stage..."

I ran over to the bundle of climbing gear he was on about and pulled out a bright pink harness. MM., tasteful... Pulling it on, it soon occurred to me it was way too big for me to use safely. "Tay! Camera a sec..."

As Taylor approached, the look on his face turned from concern to disbelief. "You're not even considering goin' up there..."

"Shush for a moment and give me your belt."

"Huh?"

"Your belt! C'mon - if that guy manages to tip at all he could fall out of his harness! I need your belt!"

"OK..." said Tay, undoing the buckle and pulling it through the loops on his jeans.

Grabbing it from him, I looped it under one of the leg straps, round the waste band and round the other leg strap.

"OK - now pull it as tight as it'll go. I can't reach back there..."

As Tay pulled on the buckle, I felt the waste band and leg straps tighten to something that was near enough correct. For those of you who don't know, the best way to check if a harness is correctly fitted is to look at the size of the bulge in your trousers - honest! The leg straps tend to push your dick and balls forward if they're tight enough. Tay noticed this and just smiled...

I grabbed a couple of ropes, a climbing tail and two carabinas and legged it up the stairs at the back of the stage. Once up there, the only way I could tell where he was was by the group of people on the floor. I found a suitably secure mounting on the walkway and tied one end of a rope to it, chucking the rest over the side. My heart stopped for a moment as I thought the rope might hit the guy dangling like a worm on a hook - thankfully it missed, but only by a foot or so.

I wrapped the climbing tail round another support point and clipped one of the carabinas onto it, threading the other rope through it as I did so. With any luck, the guys on the ground could belay for me if the abseil rope decided to go for a holiday under the extra weight. Now I know these ropes can take the weight of a Volvo (don't ask how I know - I just do, OK?!) but the ones I was using looked decidedly worn. I wasn't going to put my faith in just one of them...

I hooked the abseil rope through the pan-handle on the front of my harness and tied the belay rope directly into the harness itself. I yelled over to the guys on the ground to grab the belay rope and hold on tight and be ready to grab it if I started to go too fast. Taking a deep breath, I climbed backwards over the gantry into nothingness, the nearest foothold now being forty feet or so below me... I moved my right hand away from my body, so allowing the rope to slide through the pan-handle and I started my descent.

The guy I was aiming for was now about five feet directly below me. I slowly approached him and with my free left hand, grabbed his supporting rope. As I got level with him, I suddenly realised that this guy was not much older than myself, I'd have said seventeen-ish. He wasn't half bad looking either - ear-length dyed blonde hair (the roots were starting to show) in a centre-parting and a couple of earrings were the first things I noticed, shortly followed by the square jaw line. There was quite a gash on his forehead where he'd decided to argue with the support strut, and a couple of bruises on his arms. Apart from that, he looked OK, but I couldn't tell if he'd broken anything. I pushed my two forefingers on to the artery in his neck and felt a good, strong pulse. His breathing was slow, but regular. At least he was alive...

I clipped the second carabina onto his belt, and then clipped his existing one onto mine. We were now literally joined at the hips. Gently, I undid the precarious knot that was holding his entire weight. He suddenly dropped by about 8 inches as the slack was taken up by our respective harnesses: I was ready for this but the blokes on the ground were not - a sudden gasp going up.

I checked the ropes one final time and released the rest of the knot that was supporting him - he was now resting completely on my rope. I gently moved my right hand away from my body again and began the agonisingly slow descent to the floor. Under normal circumstances this would've taken about ten or fifteen seconds if I were by myself, but with an extra passenger (possibly a badly hurt one) a much leisurely descent was called for.

A couple of minutes later as my feet were approaching head height I heard Ike's voice.

"Oh my God.... ANDY!!!"

"OK, guys, get ready to take his weight - he can't stand up by himself at the moment..." It needed saying as everyone was still slightly shocked. The paramedics soon came round and supported his body as my feet touched good ol' Terra Firma. As soon as I could, I wrenched the harness off my hips - the combination of it being the wrong size and Andy's weight on the front had cut off the blood supply to my legs...

I handed the belt back to Tay. "You'll have to teach me to do that some time,"

"Abseiling's easy..."

"No, I meant show me how to put a harness on," he said, discreetly cupping my crotch. It was all I could do not to moan out loud...

My mind was brought back to reality by the sound of Ike's obviously concerned voice.

"He'll be OK, won't he? Jesus, Andy..."

Just as he said that, Andy moaned and twitched a bit. "He's coming round," yelled the rigger, the paramedics giving him a real good no shit, Sherlock sort of look. "What's his name?"

"Uh, Andrew. Andrew Birkett..."

"Andrew? Andrew, can you hear me?"

"Mmmmmph..."

"Andrew, I want you to open your eyes for me..."

"Nnngh, just another five minutes, dad? Pleeeese...."

The paramedic gently opened each of his eyes, shining his pen torch into each of them to check for a pupil reflex.

"They're slightly dilated, but responding normally enough. Nothing's broken. We'll take him in just in case he starts to show signs of concussion."

"Can I stay with him?" asked Ike. He really had gone pale as if all the life'd been drained from his very soul. He knelt down and took Andy's hand, squeezing it and talking to him to let him know he was there.

I suddenly realised the mental torment Ike was going through: Secretly, he'd loved Andy and he'd never told him so. He could have lost him. Forever. I looked over at Tayler and I could see from the expression on his face that he'd realised exactly the same thing. Yet another bond was formed silently between us. Neither of us had realised true love until we'd lost it (albeit only temporarily as Tay went back to the states) but now, each of us witnessing a potentially more tragic situation as third parties, we realised it must never, ever be allowed to happen to us...

The paramedics carefully loaded Andy on to a stretcher and wheeled him out to the ambulance, Ike in tow.

Back in the trailer, we found Zac still fast asleep on his beanbag, looking as cute as ever. "Look's like Psycho Boy's had a bit too much fun for one day..."

"Does he try to be cute, or can't he help it,"

"He hates being called cute," smiled Tay.

"Yeah, but how can he deny it?" I said, looking his face all over. I noticed that his nose was ever so slightly crooked - hardly enough to notice, but he was under my microscope at the moment... "Did he break his nose or something?

"Uh, sort of..."

"How d'you mean?"

"It was my fault - I'd been watching the Animaniacs and decided to try their 'rock on the end of a see-saw and jump on the other end' thing. Works quite well. The only problem was that Zac caught the stone with his face..."

It seems strange, but it never even occurred to me that Hanson was, in reality, just a bunch of kids like me. They fooled around, played games, impersonated their favourite cartoon characters... I was surprised, but pleasantly so. An anecdote as simple as that put a whole new perspective on them: they played music - it's what they were good at and loved to do - but they just happened to be famous at the same time!

I picked Zac up and laid him on Tay's bed (I reasoned that as it was a cold night he'd probably get cold and join us at some point anyway) and pulled off his shoes, socks and jeans and then puled the duvet up around him. Tay and myself then undressed and got into his bed, Zac to my right, Tay on my left. Tay wrapped his arms around me and we kissed lightly, safe in the feeling of our togetherness.

The aftershocks of my abseil, the shopping trip and "everything else" had left me very tired, and I slowly slipped into a deep, contented sleep, an equally tired Hanson on either side of me. I'll be with you in your dreams...


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