It happens at the most banal of times, the explosion.

It's during a random glance at a music store window or when hearing some stray dog howl, possibly wounded. It's while putting on some brand of aftershave few men prefer or as Sunday night's football game draws to an end.

It's at the most banal of times that Chris feels himself exploding within from feelings too new and too overwhelming to separate and recognize.

All he knows, all he's willing to admit to knowing, is that Blake and him, they're being smart and careful by not seeing each other right now, and he hates every second of it.

He sends Blake yet another text message which is several thousand words short of expressing what he really wants to say.

Still, sending something, anything, is vital to him.

Because if you stand too close to Chris at the wrong moment, you may catch fire.

It happens at the most banal of times, the explosion.

It's when a woman is randomly glancing at a shop window, or some stray dog stops to scratch behind his ear with his leg. It's when a kid stops to stare at a new flower that carefully starts to blossom or a guy picks his nose, thinking no one's looking at him.

It's at the most banal of moments that a bomb goes off and several people randomly, purposelessly, lose their lives.

The street is liquid red for a day or two. Then it's washed clean. It takes the memory a while longer but eventually, it fades away as well.

Somewhere, at some point, a phone is ringing. They call you up because you used to be such good friends. The conversation's somewhat awkward. You haven't seen the guy since he enlisted. So much has happened in your life since.

You close your eyes and think about the last time you two have spoken. He just called you up to congratulate you on making it to the final three on the show. He laughs and adds that yeah, he tells everyone here, in this shit hole of a base near Basra, that he knows someone on American Idol. He gets half his platoon to watch with him whenever they're not on some patrol or shit while the show's on.

You giggled and sort of said all the necessary things. You meant it, too. But it wasn't as close as you used to be. If it were, there'd be stuff you would share with him, about what made you happiest in that whole experience. About who made it worth your while. You figure, later. Later, when he's back and you can really catch up on each other's lives.

But here and now, the phone rang. And you answered the call. They don't invite you to the funeral. They hope you'll understand. There would be press, probably. They want to make sure it would be small and private. It's their pain that they're talking about in different terms. They don't want it exposed. You understand.

You do, but after you exchange the necessary, seemingly uncomforting words, followed by polite goodbyes and the receiver is back in its place, then it's pain once more, this time your own.

Johnny Cash is playing in the background. "Everyone I Know," he sings, but you don't want to listen to the next line.

You stand staring by the phone. Nothing in particular catches your eye. Or your mind. So you're not sure what it is exactly that you're doing when you pick up the phone. When you hear Chris' voice, though, you figure you should have guessed you would do precisely this.

There's no need for too many words between you. You know each other inside out.

Sure, you were being smart and careful by not seeing each other right then, but time and circumstances often change the essence of wisdom or what it is you should be careful about.

There's so little that you know, or are willing to admit to knowing, but his body between your arms, warm, whole and breathing, his face looking at you, a little amused, because this isn't like you, but he likes this anyway, that's the question that's burning within you now, demanding to be answered.

Utah? You're about to ask, Utah at Christmas? It's not too far off by now. But he beats you to the idea. And even though you don't want to, not at this time, you smile. No one's ever known you quite like he does.

It's never been banal between them. Sex, that is.

Chris was always too shy and never self-assured enough to have too much experience in this field, but he did fool around some, a bit with boys, another bit with girls.

He had one girlfriend, whom he had loved at the time, and she was the first one he went with all the way. It was bizarre, how alone it had made him feel. It was good, sure, but that was his experience, while she, well, he couldn't tell what she went through. It drove it home, how separate they were in this supposedly intimate act.

That was his first time, and he only remembers it in vague terms, as it semi-merged in his mind with every other time they've been together. Good and uneventful, good and alone. After a while, he wasn't so certain anymore that good was still the right word for it, or for them. However, when she would inquire about his state of mind, afterwards or when eating breakfast, during a movie they were watching or as they strolled along some row of shops.

Nothing like Blake, who made sex maddening hours before any article of clothing had been shed. Blake fucked him raw with his eyes on the stage, with who knows how many concert goers watching, leaving Chris feeling naked and vulnerable. And pleased, when at least half the girls in every stadium were screaming their throats out for Blake, while his boy only had eyes for him, on him, eyes undoing him.

And then they'd fuck wherever. Some backstage room, a hotel suite, the tour bus, a random diner's restroom, anywhere that enabled them to put 3 hours' worth of adrenaline into action. Sometimes Chris would take the lead, other times Blake would, but most often, one couldn't keep score.

Those are strange things to be thinking about during the taxi ride from the airport to their hotel, while passing through the lobby up to the suite Blake has already checked into and on the elevator ride, but Chris think about that anyway. Maybe because despite everything, he doesn't know what to expect from their vacation now. The good thing is, they have several hours to themselves before the rest of the Lewis clan gets there.

When the elevator door slides open, he's quick to the door, carting his luggage hurriedly behind him as he searches for the right number. He tries not to get frustrated just a few seconds before they actually meet, but suspects he can't help it. Sometimes, it's the world itself that's too slow for Chris' liking.

He finds the door and knocks on it, listening to the rushed footsteps he can hear from inside. The door opens up and he's there, Blake, just there, in the same simple manner in which on a clear day, the skies seem to stretch on forever.

Chris smiles. "Hey, boiii," because he expects Blake can hear the special pronunciation of the word they reserve for each other.

What he doesn't expect is the crushing kiss bestowed upon him, and the way Blake is sucking Chris' lower lip, or biting, it's hard to tell, because either way, it's bruising. Chris anticipates being flung against the door or guided to bend over a nearby table and he braces himself for it, but Blake steps back instead, breaking contact and looking at him.

It feels to Chris like several minutes or eras of staring, before Blake reaches out and takes both of Chris' hands in his, leading him to an adjacent bedroom, never breaking eye contact.

He's led right up to the bed, when Blake stops dead in his tracks. No further movement. Chris can't help himself, so he smiles and kisses Blake softly, thoroughly, from the outside in. His hands are already in Blake's hair, playing and tugging lightly, then pulling them apart again just long enough for him to lean into Blake's ear and whisper calmly. "I want you to fuck me hard," he gives the permission he's aware Blake would not dare to ask for at this moment, "fuck me 'til I scream, 'til I can't sit down and I can't go out there, because anyone could see, anyone, that I'm your boy, that I'm your slave, and that," he hesitates but for a brief second, "I wouldn't want it any other way."

Chris' legs give in to the sudden pressure of Blake practically pouncing on him. He's tempted to joke about the eagerness of the act, but Blake's biting his neck at the most sensitive of spots cuts off any coherent thought in favor of an unabashedly wanton moan. Licking at the marked spot a second later doesn't help either.

"I want to see you naked," Blake's whisper is demanding and Chris would follow his orders to the letter, but Blake is a greedy bastard and his hand is already beneath Chris' shirt, massaging a nipple and getting in the way.

Alternating between kissing and unbuttoning, grinding and unbuckling, scratching skin and pulling at cloth, kicking off shoes, twisting in each other's arms to reach organs and last unnecessary garments, they're panting, but soon enough, they are naked and Chris is writhing again under the combined assault of Blake's mouth and hands.

Blake has him mapped out, the little combinations that drive Chris insane, gently lapping at his ear, delicately blowing cool air on it, only to watch for the second when Chris' grip tightens in his hair and there's a beginning of a tremble and add, exactly then, a tweak to the nipple and a meeting of Chris' instinctive thrust upwards with a counter grind.

His Blake is quite the talented boy indeed, moving on down and taking his time to explore his downward migration with a dedicated oral dip into the small of his neck or an appreciative grazing over taut abs, never failing to find ways to draw out different gasps from Chris.

Then it begins, Blake's descent along a trail of pubic hairs and it's so near to Chris' member that it's a promise, a cruel one, since Chris knows better than to think that's where Blake is headed, not today.

Sure enough, his legs are being spread and his legs are lifted, one by one, over Blake's shoulders. He feels a last, deep kiss being sealed into his inner thigh, right where it would make him twist out of Blake's grasp if he weren't fighting that urge, and maybe that kiss is a plea for forgiveness, because this, this is going to hurt.

Blake isn't lubed and he doesn't prepare Chris before he positions his cock at the muscle ring and shoves right past it and not too deep in, to the sound of Chris' stifled pained groan. Blake waits a second, Chris knows even that takes a lot out of him, but only a second and then he's moving again, a little bit out, as much as he can in, against the tightness of the months they've spent apart, and the deeper he gets inside Chris, the closer he lets his head fall to Chris' mouth, breathing in and out as regularly as possible in order to lessen the aching intrusion. Blake's hands support his weight on either side of Chris' head when his wrists are grabbed, he's nearly all the way in, and this new grasp makes him unintentionally stop and look right into the green eyes beneath him. He sees the single tear that broke loose and was trying to make its way down Chris' cheek. He lowers his lips and suckles on it. It tastes more like love than anything else he can remember. He takes a minute, repositioning himself and lifting Chris' hips a bit. The next motion brushes against the prostate and he watches as the change in sensation spreads across Chris' face. Like a revelation, Blake thinks and he picks up the pace once more.

Blake hits the spot with nearly every thrust now, but it matters less, he couldn't stop even if he tried, his head sloping into the side of Chris' neck, he can hear cries, of ecstasy or of pain, he can't be sure, but he is certain that he's close and judging by how much tighter Chris seems to have gotten, he's not the only one. He tries to drive himself further forward, deeper inside Chris, closer to his skin, to kiss it, to suck, to bite into the meeting of neck and shoulder one last time before he shoots himself into his boy.

One load, a second, a third, Chris doesn't know if he’s counting his spurts or Blake's, but he's rather sure being filled by Blake, semen meeting him inside, when everything's so sensitive, makes him shudder all over again.

They're slumped together, sweaty and slick, and in a second or two, Blake will roll off, to let Chris breathe again, and then he'll kiss him, and maybe they'll talk, or maybe they'll nap a bit together, but just before that, Blake doesn't have to think of the people he's known, all the people he's known, but of those who know him. The man who knows him, who holds him, who lets him hurt.

Blake rolls off of him, and Chris can breathe again. There's no need for too many words between them. Enjoying the lingering sensations in his body, he knows he's not alone when he and Blake are fucking. Yeah, it was never banal between them, but it was still hard to grasp how deep it was at times. He touches the spot below his eye where his skin is still damp with his tear and Blake's saliva.