Seeking the Balance

by A. R. Moler

  He paused at the stop sign without too much of a lurch. Pretend to be the cautious five year old, look both ways, make sure you’re in first and go. The engine grumbled like it was going to stall and he cranked the throttle a little.

  Too fast! Too fast! He groped at the controls, but not quickly enough. The front wheel hit the curb and he was thrown sideways as the tire slammed into the concrete and dumped him to the right. His right hand and elbow hit the sidewalk. Stunned by the event, he slowly realized he wasn’t really even off the motorcycle exactly. His right knee was on the ground, foot sort of under the body of the motorcycle. It wasn’t lying flat because it was against the curb. He floundered to his feet, suddenly mad as hell that he had done something so stupid. Fucking hell, he’d wrecked Cam’s bike.

  He stood there looking at it for a long moment, slowly aware that something was dripping down the back of his forearm. He twisted his arm to look. Just great. He’d skinned the crap out of his elbow and about halfway down his forearm and the blood was dripping. Nothing life threatening, just road rash. He would mend. He wasn’t so sure about the motorcycle. There was a piece lying on the sidewalk. What the hell was that that? Oh, the right front turn signal. Effing magnificent. Wires stuck out of the place where it was suppose to be attached.

  Cam was going to blow a gasket. Brand new bike and his boyfriend wrecked it! Mason wrestled the bike back upright and examined it. It was scuffed a bit along the front cowling and also little in front of the right foot peg. The front fender looked a little worse for wear, too. Nothing else seemed to be dangling or obviously broken. No leaking gas, no other shredded parts except for the turn signal. He picked up the piece and stuck it in his pocket.

  He was roughly a block and half from home. Dammit, he would get back on and go home and then have his nervous breakdown. He flung his leg over and nervously pushed the button to start it. The engine fluttered and sputtered and refused to catch. He double checked the clutch and brake and made sure it was in neutral. He tried again. The engine turned over and refused to catch. Damn. Shit. Fuck. He couldn’t leave it at the edge of the school parking lot. The wheels still worked. No apparent flats. He’d have to push it. It wasn’t that far.

  Twenty minutes, six hundred pounds of motorcycle and two tenths of a sweat soaked mile later, he pushed it into the driveway, put the kick stand down and staggered into the house. He needed to rinse out the scrapes and gouges in his arm before he could even think about having a go at healing them. He was still pretty lame at fixing himself. That was something that Peter was trying to help him work on.

  ~

  Cam had an uneasy feeling driving back to Mason’s house. He couldn’t put a finger on it, but something was wrong. Not God-awful things blowing up people dying wrong. Just wrong.

  He pulled into the driveway. The motorcycle was parked there. Mason must be home. It was only after he had climbed out of the car that he realized the turn signal light had been snapped off, and there were wires dangling. There were also scuffs along the body, and something dark smeared across the throttle. He touched it. Blood. He bolted into the house.

  “Mason! Mason! Where the hell are you?!” he screamed.

  “Master bathroom,” said a slightly muffled voice. He ran toward the back of the house. Mason had one hip leaning on the sink as he examined the damage to the back of his forearm in the mirror. Cam hastily wrapped an arm around his partner’s waist.

  “Jesus Christ! Are you okay?” he demanded.

  Mason let out a shaky sigh. “Yeah, it’s just skin. I screwed up your bike.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the bike! I can get it fixed. What the hell happened?”

  “I stopped at the intersection that leads into the school parking lot. When I started up again... Obviously I was going too fast and wiped out,” Mason said with a sigh.

  Cam rested his forehead against the back of Mason’s shoulder, both arms wrapped around his lover’s body, just holding him. Cam shouldn’t have pushed him to learn to ride. Cam shouldn’t have proposed swapping vehicles. Mason wasn’t ready. It had seemed so simple. Just let him cruise around the parking lot and residential street and get a feel for how the bike felt in a nice low speed, low traffic situation.

  “Hey, look at me,” Mason prompted. He turned within the circle of Cam’s arms and tipped Cam’s face up with a finger. “I’m okay. It’s just road rash. I was beginning to feel a bit too comfortable. I understand just a little why you like the stupid thing.” Mason gave him a lop-sided smile.

  Cam hugged him tightly. “I saw blood on the bike and about freaked,” he whispered.

  “I don’t suppose it occurred to you that if I was hurt very badly, the motorcycle wouldn’t have been parked in the driveway, banged up though it is.”

  “No, that part definitely didn’t cross my mind. Not too rational for a pilot,” he admitted. Mason kissed him softly. “Can you fix it?”

  “My arm or the motorcycle?”

  “Your arm, doofus. I’ll get the dealer to fix the bike.”

  “It won’t start,” said Mason. Cam just looked at him with a –say what- expression. “The bike – it won’t start. I screwed up more than the paint job and the turn signal.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’ll take a look at it later. Back to your arm. Can you heal it?”

  “Probably. At least enough to get me to work tomorrow and not draw too much attention. I had to come home and clean the dirt out of it first though.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Once I’m done with the clean up, I could do with leaning up against you while I do the healing thing.”

  Cam nodded and sat down on the toilet lid to watch Mason finish rinsing the dirt and gravel bits out of the injuries. God, it could have been so much worse. He’d had worse. Even if you didn’t count the near death experience after getting hit by the pickup truck, he’d wiped out himself. Road rash more than once, some evil bruises, and a sprained wrist fell in the category of motorcycle inflicted damage he’d suffered.

  “Okay, done as it’s going to get,” said Mason.

  They went into the bedroom. Cam leaned back on the headboard of the bed and Mason slouched between his legs, leaning back on his chest. Cam slid his arms around his lover and rested his chin on Mason’s shoulder.

  “This might take a while. Let me know if you want to get up,” said Mason. He closed his eyes and let his injured arm lie with his hand on his collar bone. Cam noticed a change in the soft energy vibration he nearly always felt when he held his lover. It was sort of like a change in tone. This was different from all the times Mason had healed him. Must have been something Mason was learning from Peter. He closed his own eyes just holding Mason and feeling his lover breathe. Half an hour ticked by. Mason shifted and drew a deep breath.

  “You done?” asked Cam.

  “For now,” replied Mason. He twisted his arm around trying to get a good look at his elbow. “What do you think? Feels sort of better. Less sting and all.” He held it up for inspection by Cam.

  “Yeah, definitely looks better. Can we not do this again any time soon?” Cam said. The skin was less red and torn, and more pink and scabby, looking several days old at least. He still felt worried about what had happened. “Do you always feel this way about me riding?” he asked softly.

  “Sometimes. I’m getting used to the idea, sort of. I guess it classifies somewhere in the same vein as worrying about you crashing the jet.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t really get it. I just didn’t get why you were so amazingly furious when I bought the new one. Now...” Cam blew out a long breath and ran his hands down over his face.

  “How ‘bout we forego vehicles entirely for the rest of the evening and go walk on the beach?” Mason suggested.

  “Sounds like a plan. Gimme a few minutes to put on some civvies.”

  ~

  In the late September dusk, the beach was moderately deserted. The height of the tourist season was winding down to a
close. Mason padded along the wet sand at the edge of the surf, cuffs of his jeans rolled up. His sandals were tucked under his arm. Cam walked beside him.

  “So, wanna tell me why you aren’t just absolutely about to blow a gasket wigged out by what happened?” asked Cam.

  “Cause it was my fault. I should have been more careful, and I wasn’t. It was a stupid maneuver and I lost control, so I’m mad at myself.” They walked in silence for another couple of minutes. “It doesn’t mean I’m not going to be shaking in my shoes, when I finally get up the nerve to try again.”

  “Everybody drops their bike sometime. Despite what happened, I’m still proud that you had the nerve to try.” Cam took Mason’s hand, threading his fingers in between his lover’s, and they kept walking.

  Part Two: Lack of Control

  Chapter 1

  Road rash hurt. Halfway healed road rash itched, burned and was a general pain in the ass. Or in the arm as the case might be. Dr. Mason Flynn rubbed at the gauze and tape that covered the damage to his elbow and a generous chunk of the back of his forearm. It was the legacy of trying to ride Cameron Bradshaw’s motorcycle. Badly.

  Mason fiddled with the sleeve of his dress shirt where he had rolled it up, trying to decrease the friction against the wounds. Tyra, one of the practice’s nurses and a good friend, caught him at it as she passed him in the hallway between exam rooms. She had been on vacation for the first few days of the week.

  “What did you do to yourself?” she asked, pointing at the bandages.

  “Something stupid. I sacrificed about six to eight square inches of skin to the gods of concrete,” he replied.

  “Yow. Out running? I thought you ran on the beach.”

  “Not running. Riding a motorcycle, or more precisely wrecking one.”

  “Jeez! I didn’t know you owned a motorcycle.”

  “I don’t. A buddy of mine convinced me to try his out. Would you believe I was going about five miles an hour pulling away from a stop sign and hit a curb?” Mason made a face.

  “Could’ve been worse. I hope you had a helmet on,” she said.

  “Absolutely. I may be a total klutz on two wheels but I’m not that stupid.”

  “Are you going to Steve’s party next week?” Dr. Steven Villetti, one of the other partners in the orthopedic practice, threw an annual fall party. It was a relatively big event.

  “Maybe.”

  “You could bring your boyfriend...” she said.

  Mason pressed his lips together. Tyra knew he was gay and was eternally trying to pry details of his love life out of him. “I don’t know. He’s...” Mason wasn’t sure what to say. It was an awkward situation.

  “Shy? In the closet? Married?”

  “Navy,” said Mason, looking at the ceiling. He didn’t want to destroy Cam’s career, but damn it was hard to be someone’s dirty little secret.

  “Oh. I heard that the whole 'don’t ask, don’t tell thing' doesn’t work as well in practice as some people hoped... Listen, Jason Ambers is waiting in exam three with his mom. Are you going to trade him off to an oncologist?” Tyra asked.

  Mason drew a deep breath. Jason Ambers was four years old. His mother had gotten a referral from the family GP to the orthopedic practice when Jason’s broken leg seemed to be healing excessively slowly. Mason had known the first time he touched the little boy, that it was bone cancer. Being a psychic healer could be amazing. Sometimes, it absolutely sucked.

  “Not yet. I have a consult with a pediatric oncologist guy named Santos first. I want to pick his brain some before I present options to the parents.”

  ~

  Wan dusky evening light filtered through the kitchen window of Mason’s house. He tossed his keys on the counter and picked up a pencil. On the calendar on the wall, he scrawled -- 1pm Oncology -- in the block for Friday. Not an appointment he wanted to miss. He sagged onto a chair, exhausted. Monday was the first time he had seen Jason. He had poured a vast quantity of energy into the boy that day. Today, two days later he had done it again. Was there any improvement? Any stalling of the deadly disease? Maybe. He needed an assessment from the oncologist and then maybe one from Peter Vithoulkas, senior healer for the top secret organization known as Division P. If things were slack at Division P, the other healer might even be willing to work on the boy himself. However, Peter’s first priorities were always the psi population of the agency.

  ~

  Lt. Cameron Bradshaw swung his motorcycle toward the ocean front of Virginia Beach. Riding through the near darkness, he was thinking about dinner with Mason. He hadn’t seen the man since the weekend. Their schedules had been at odds. He pulled into the driveway of the house that was a couple of blocks from the beach.

  He opened the front door with a key and walked inside. There was a light on in the kitchen and Mason was standing at the counter, chopping broccoli. His dress shirt was untucked, sleeves were rolled up, and he was barefoot. Cam thought he looked delicious, and dead tired. Cam walked up behind Mason, wrapped an arm around his lover’s waist, and slid his hand up under the fabric of the shirt to lie flat on Mason’s stomach.

  “Hey,” Cam said softly.

  “Hey to you. I’m sorry I didn’t return your text this afternoon. I got side tracked,” replied Mason.

  Cam rested the side of his head against the nape of his partner’s neck. “It’s fine. I figured you were busy. You look wiped.”

  “Long day. Is the bike running okay? Scuffed and all.” Mason’s tone sounded guilty.

  “No problem. The new turn signal’s on order. And you know I worry more about the fact you scraped up your arm than about the bike. I like the bike, but it’s just hardware.”

  ~

  Post dinner, Cam and Mason were slouched on the sofa, while the pilot pointed out the features of a motorcycle being reviewed in a magazine. Mason rested his head on Cam’s shoulder, only halfway paying attention.

  “Steve Villetti’s throwing his annual football and beer bash next weekend. Wanna go with me?” asked Mason.

  Cam looked up from the magazine and Mason could sense a thread of apprehension. He knew the party was an iffy proposition at best. Being an active duty Naval Officer, Cam’s willingness to be seen in public together was always dependent on how much risk he thought was involved Yeah, people knew they were good friends and made the assumption that it stemmed from Mason saving Cam's life after a devastating motorcycle accident. A few people in Division P knew the depth of their bond, and a couple of Mason’s friends, but none of Cam’s, so far as Mason knew.

  “And just exactly what does this party entail?” asked Cam.

  “Tons of food, good beer and college football on the TV. He usually invites fifty-some people. It’s a sort of all day, come when you can thing. We could go for just an hour or so,” replied Mason. He could almost see the internal debate in Cam’s eyes, always wondering if his secret would destroy his career. “Steve knows I have a partner, and Tyra pries details out of me with the finesse of a Spanish Inquisitor,” continued Mason, naming people who were part of the orthopedic practice. “As long as I don’t grope you over the beer cooler, nobody else is liable to think twice about two single guys hanging out together with a bunch of other people watching football.”

  “I guess I can let you drag me along for a little while,” said Cam.

  “Good.” Mason cupped a hand behind his lover’s head and pulled Cam into a kiss. He was exquisitely pleased that Cam had agreed to the party idea. “You staying tonight? Or heading back toward the base?”

  “I’ll stay. I’ve barely seen you this week,” replied Cam.

  Mason smiled. He’d only in the past week convinced Cam to leave some clothes and other essentials at his house to streamline things when Cam spent the night with him.

  “I’d promise to molest you except I think you’re too tired to enjoy it.”

  “Mmm, yeah,” admitted Mason. Sitting here against the warmth of his partner’s body was lulling him toward falling asleep.r />