21
Three longest weeks of his life; and they start now.

Chris looks at the clock in the airport as it ticks the moments away until he's sitting safely on a plane, headed back to Virginia. He doesn’t notice it at first, but the continuous glaring of the attendant of the VIP club makes him realize he is shuffling his feet to some unheard tune, and whichever it is, the melody sounds alarmingly similar to "goodbye".

20
He wants to get drunk when he wakes up in his room, God only know after how many hours of sleep. He wants to, but in order to do that and feel good about it, one needs friends around, and Chris really doesn't feel like seeing anyone right now. The original burst of joy he felt upon arrival in Virginia, the rush that he got from seeing friends, family and new fans, those have already calmed down. They brought him home and after several long hours, happy but exhausting ones, in the midst of the chatter created by the many guests packed in their house, Big Momma rubbed his shoulder in her gentle yet coarse manner, and hinted with a nod of the head and a smile that he should go to sleep while she stays to chat some more with his parents. He got up and excused himself, went into his own room and fell asleep on the bed without even changing his clothes. He's not sure what he dreamt about, but he knows his last incoherent thought before slumber was not a happy one. Now that he's awake again, all he knows is that he wants to get drunk.

19
The water trickles down his chest in the shower, and occasionally, he shoves his shaved head under the stream as well, and then pulls himself out, only to go in again. He is not quite cleaning himself up as much as passing the time between one thought and another.

It's been a while since he has been in a shower alone. Even that one time he nearly begged Blake to leave him be in there so they could make it to the studio on time, wasn't any different. Blake just looked at him with that mischievous gleam in his eyes, and Chris knew his amused smile in response was all Blake needed to ignore the request and make his way into the little shower stall. There was never enough space in there for the both of them, but Blake liked it that way and so did Chris after a while. The inevitable pressure of their bodies together as they struggled to soap each other made for a series of delicious hums from Blake, inducing a strong urge in Chris to capitalize on this by shoving Blake down and getting his dick down the guy's throat.

The thing about Blake that amazed Chris, that made his cock even harder, was that when Chris acted on this impulse, it only served to make that gleam in Blake's eyes shine brighter from where he was, down on his knees, grabbing at Chris' hips and looking up with his mouth hidden well out of sight by Chris' flesh. Even so, it was easy to tell he was still grinning.

18
Chris is at the gym, and it is very different coming in here with his status changed and with fans lining up his way to the door. Once he's inside, it's more or less the same old workout. Everyone around him is huffing and puffing, bad quality versions of up-tempo songs are blazing in the background. He's lifting weights and the world is back to normal for a little while.

Except today, even when he's done and is heading back home, he is still lifting weights.

17
Chris sighs and pulls rhythmically on the cock he's too lazy to free entirely from his pants. He has done this a lot over the past few days, and it's not getting any more fun or creative from one time to the next. It's just a necessity brought about by his wandering mind. His strokes are long and bored, and he hears rather than feels the effects of his hand against his skin.

"You're always so horny for me," Blake asserted when he stood in the doorway to Chris' room in the apartment allocated to them.

Chris had glanced over and blushed, letting a bit of air out of his lungs in what might have sounded close to a giggle or consent. It was certainly the way Blake interpreted it, because with only one hurried pace or two he was on the bed, on Chris, on his skin, sucking, then nibbling, marking the spots where their passions intersect as Chris tilted his head, allowing for better access. Blake's pants had roughly grinded against Chris' cock, fully erect and so sensitive for the touch.

He flipped Blake over to his back with just one move, and straddled him. "You really shouldn't be all that happy about it," Chris mutters, "I'm still in cowboy mode."

16
He draws Blake a flower. His pencil screeches against the paper, line after line. The drawing he made for Ellen is by his side, waiting to be presented, and though they seem quite alike, Chris can tell the difference.

15
"It's no biggie, right?" Blake had laughed and there was a hollowness to it, as he continued without waiting for a reply. "Just two guys with a healthy sex drive, right? Don't you worry yo' purty little head 'bout it. Now would you come over here and give me a help with this thing? Damn toaster, it's trying to assassinate me, man. I tell ya..." Chris knew that even though that was the last he tried to speak to Blake about what the hell they were doing together or were supposed to be to each other, it sure as hell wasn't the last time he wanted to.

They are all sitting together, back in their living room in Virginia, about to watch the first episode Chris isn't featured in. He snaps back to it just in time to hear Ryan finishing his monologue with his usual, "This is..."

14
The results show is on tonight, but Chris can't concentrate. He knows Blake won't be going home anyway. He has faith in his boy, and he knows better than anyone the infectious influence that Blake Lewis can have on a person.

They text message each other all the time, and in his mind, he can hear Blake through the letters onscreen, blazing with crazy energy, never stopping. They text each other all the time, sure. But he's uncertain whether it's a coincidence that phone call conversations are infrequent and almost without an exception, hurried and ended abruptly.

He sighs just as his mother steps into the room from the kitchen. She simply comes over and gives him a hug, like it's the most natural thing in the world, all of it, and he's more grateful than he could ever express. He settles for hugging her back.

13
He puts on the tape with Blake's performance again with the volume full on. He knows precisely which lines of the relatively obscure Bee Gees song are dedicated to him. Even if he didn't, Blake's intense gaze right at the camera is there to confirm it for him.

He remembers that look, he recalls it so vividly on Blake's face that first night they were together. He was sleeping in Blake's room, the way they have been crashing in each other's bed since practically the first day they became roommates.

Chris fell first on the bed, drained by rehearsals, arms spread wide to his sides, and his entire being sending out a message of fatigue. Then Blake was lying beside him, on his arm, and they were talking again, Blake was gushing about this thing or that, and he was chuckling to himself because it's funny and because he adored Blake, and he really wasn't all that tired anymore.

He freezes the picture on his TV set. Rewinds.

That look on Blake's face, when he turned his face close to Chris', when his stream of talk ran dry, when they were just looking at each other, nothing else.

He discovered that night there were many things he wanted and never knew he did, not until Blake made his own wishes overt. Things he would have firmly said "no" to in the past, when Blake asked them of him, he found he wanted to give them, for his pleasure as much as for Blake's.

It startled him a little, when Blake touched the corner of his mouth ever so tender, and then drew his thumb against Chris' lips, awaiting entrance.

Chris found himself opening up and letting Blake in. He sucked eagerly on his thumb and even discovered through some weird, distant echo that he was moaning, that he was rubbing himself against Blake, that he was rock hard and aching for more.

12
He can still sort of notice the place where he had "VT" written on the back of his hand. He's not sure if there's really something left or if it's just his imagination, but while fooling around with the kids he was baby-sitting for a friend, over their shouting, he thinks he notices the remainders of the mark.

Blake had walked into their living room and saw him by the table. Chris really didn't want to get anyone upset over him, but there wasn't much he could do to pull himself together. He was holding his head down between his hands and looking down at the floor as CNN's anchors kept mumbling in professionally concerned voices in the background.

"Is everything alright?" Blake asked, but he got no response. Chris tried to answer, but he ended up shrugging, because there wasn't much of anything he was capable of saying just then. He felt Blake's arms around him, he was being pulled up against a solid chest and a comforting hand rested on his shoulder.

"It's alright." Blake's voice was quiet and tender. "I'm here."

Chris looks at his hand, not minding the furniture that was being endangered by the children anymore. After he was done crying, Blake simply took his hand and a marker. "You know how I always make these small marks in case I forget the lyrics?" Blake asked and without even waiting for Chris' nod of confirmation added, "Well, tonight it's your turn to get a mark, so you don't forget to say something to the families of the victims out there." He pauses. "I know you want to."

11
Big Momma wants to hear Chris beat boxing too. He obliges, even though he's not in the mood. If Blake were here, they could do a beat boxing battle for her. A face-off, heh. Blake would love that idea.

Her eyes follow him as he beat boxes, similar to the way she used to look at him when he was a kid in church, searching to see if there were any signs that he had faith.

She gives him a nod to stop and says, "Now there ain't much that I know with certainty, baby boy, but I am saying this, and you better be hearin' me now. You be in a place where you're loved, where you're understood, and you will never have to feel no pain. You got that, boy?"

10
They're asking him about Blake in nearly every interview and there are so many things he wants to say, but he doesn't speak of what would truly interest them. He does take advantage of them though, because he does get to say that there's more to Blake and him than they would expect. He just uses the words that he knows they can't hear.

9
"This one is too much." Chris' father points out to his wife while she's making pies for the family gathering. She hums to herself and just goes on, reminding him he's better off taking care of all the duties he still has to carry out before the guests arrive.

"What?" Chris remembers how he dropped the headphones and looked at Blake, who was playing editor with their sex tape. On the screen, some guy is riding another man, who is bound and blindfolded, and Chris only picked up on the image from the corner of his eye, but it made his breath catch in his throat.

"This one is too much, maybe we should erase it." Blake's fingers fidgeted with a pen, and he seemed so far from ease, Chris felt a bit of a chill run through him.

"Whatever you think, man," he said and put the headphones back on, drowning all reservations he might have had in the unnerving call back to the wild of Metallica's last album.

8
There are crickets in Virginia. It's funny, the time it takes Chris to learn things about himself, like that there are doors he didn't slam, when maybe he should have, and that there are crickets in Virginia that one can hear at night, while there are none in LA. It's so easy to miss them when in LA, and it's easier still to only learn this when one is back in Virginia, listening to those crickets.

7
And he's safe. There's a collective exhale of relief in the Richardson living room. The shock at Melinda's elimination comes later, along with discussions and evaluations of each contestant's chances to win the finale, but at that first moment there's just that letting out of air and Chris is reminded of how much his family cares and joins in when things really matter to him, even without him asking.

6
Some neighbor is on the piano, picking on some random note, hitting it over and over again, as though unsure they're playing it right. Man, he thinks, Blake at the piano. He can see the silhouette of nimble fingers across the keys and lips drawn a little tighter together than usual. The virtuoso in Blake comes out when he's at the piano, not at his computer. That's where he truly works his magic, but Chris knows that when he's not around, there are few people, if any, who see that.

Their neighbor strikes one key or the other a few more times and without any ceremony abandons the task at hand.

5
He realizes it's going to get a hell of a lot worse before it will get better when he stops himself from closing the tap in the bathroom all the way, listening to the rhythmical tapping of water drops.

4
Chris chooses noise, chooses the loudest albums, chooses the rock music that will have him thrashing his head against a wall of air, because the beat, because the beat, because the beating in his head just keeps getting stronger, louder.

This is the danger zone.

3
Blake chooses silence. Two more days to go, but he can't concentrate on anything. He skips dinner and shuts his cell phone off. Everyone is calling, and not one of them is the person who would make him want to answer. He sits in his room, curled up in an armchair, cock flaccid from too much masturbation this afternoon, window dark and dim city lights crawling their way in, but somewhere on the blackened horizon, he could swear he sees green eyes staring right back at him, wordless.

2
The whole world is in a frenzy and they all pass him by, doing something, saying something, patting him on the back. He can't figure out whether he's talking to them or they're talking to him. They've become spots basically, intermissions between one singing rehearsal and the next, and they're working extra to buzz in his head. He did not answer his phone all day yesterday, and today it's compensation time. There are so many things to catch him up on, so many details they have to share, instructions they must impart, and he could swear this is some kind of test if he could only figure out what would be its purpose.

He stays two extra hours in the studio, skipping dinner again, and when he's finally done, he goes up to his room, to drink something and collapse on his bed.

He would have done it too, but the newest of his ring tones goes off, and he smiles. Just as the notes of an initial melody they laid down together dictate, he hasn't got anything to lose, so he answers.

Chris' voice is a warm river, floating towards him through the phone, calming everything down in and around him. "You just make sure you enjoy this, alright?" he says with that laid back Southern drawl of his before the conversation is over, and for the first time in three weeks, Blake feels he can.

1
It's not the performances that he remembers, or the judging, the way he carried himself on the stage, or even the defining moment in which he doesn't win. It's Chris' face in the crowd, beaming at him even through tears, and the way his boy exhales in his ear in the urgency of their coupling in some marginal backstage room, when they both fumble between pleasure and pain, sound and numbness, repeated thrusting and the clenching of strong thighs around a waist line, holding on for dear life, thoroughly milking the movement of opposing hips of everything it's got and then still going.

It feels like madness, like crossing some dark line, because it's so intense, it's too intense, it's lips on nipples and nails scratching on skin, it's perfecting the thrust until it will hit one's insides to encompass an entire body within it, it's not stopping even through spasms, it's not relenting even when coming, because it's too good, and it can't end, it shouldn't.

When it's closest to quiet, they tremble, those three simple words. He relishes on the moment as he gets to say them back, because he does, he really does. And even though he can't see down the road, even though he has no clue what's in store for them or whether they even have a chance to make it, he doubts he will ever stop.