Seeking the Balance

by A. R. Moler

  “Considering it took exactly two hours for us to be provided with a car and not the hotel room, I think maybe we got the point across to Ms. Carthage,” said Cam.

  Mason noted the slight grin on his face. “Guess so. She didn’t even come to kiss us goodbye. Give me the keys.” Cam rolled his eyes and handed them over. “The guy with the head trauma and ruptured eardrum does not get to drive,” Mason said.

  “Thought you fixed the concussion part?”

  “Enough that you’re in no danger,” replied Mason, sliding behind the wheel.

  Cam got in the passenger seat. “Any idea how to get home?”

  “I think that’s what the GPS is for,” said Mason, pointing at the dashboard.

  “Are you really planning on driving all five or six hours home today?” Cam asked.

  “I’m not sure. Let’s get out of the city first.”

  Mason drove for two hours. Cam slouched on the opposite side of the car. The pilot had called Division P and told HQ that they were heading south, but weren’t sure exactly when they would make it back. Mason glanced at his partner after the call. His hand was cupped against his ear again and his eyes were alternating between unfocused and drifting shut. Mason stretched a hand across and touched Cam’s hand, where it lay loosely curled against his leg. Mason didn’t dare more than a cursory scan while he was driving, but he could tell the sharp discomfort had returned and was starting to generate a pounding headache in Cam.

  “You’re eavesdropping on me,” said Cam.

  “Yes. You have this really hard headed tendency to deny how much pain you’re in until it all but incapacitates you. Let’s stop and eat and I can at least shut down the pain for a while,” Mason chided him.

  Chapter 3

  It was after ten pm when the car reached the Division P complex. Cam’s glance at Mason told him that the doctor really could not have forced himself to drive much further. At least not safely. Cam was certain that they would be assigned a room for the night in the residential wing as soon as the inevitable debriefing occurred. Military, law enforcement, or federal, the demand for information about how the mission went never changed. Danny Valentine met them in the main foyer to the complex.

  “I heard things went sideways in Philly,” said the head field agent.

  “Yeah, you could say that,” replied Cam.

  “I’m assigned to debrief you. Mason’s getting sent off to see Vithoulkas. You okay with that?” Valentine asked.

  Mason nodded and headed in the direction of the medical wing.

  ~

  “You lost control.”

  Mason glanced up at Peter Vithoulkas. The senior healer was standing with his hands braced against the table in front of him.

  “Yes.”

  “I received a report that you lost control so badly your partner had to pull you away from the victim.”

  “I think that’s a little bit overstated,” replied Mason, his voice relatively level.

  “Bullshit! You’ve always been lousy at disconnecting when the job was done. We’ve been working on this for months! I thought you were getting better at it.”

  “His hand was blown off. He was in danger of dying.”

  “What’s rule number one?”

  “Protect yourself.”

  “You didn’t follow it. You put yourself at risk. Did his heart stop?”

  “No,” Mason said.

  “If it had, what would you have done?”

  “CPR and...”

  “And what?” Peter cut him off.

  “Tried to get it going again.”

  “How long do you think you could hold him on this side of death? Would you have followed him into the dark?”

  “No! I...”

  “Could you have not followed him? Damn it, what we do is a risk. A big risk all by itself! When you lose control, you skyrocket that risk! If Cam hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t known the signs, you could’ve gone into hypoglycemic shock. Been there, done that. It sucks! Big time! It can do permanent damage. If it was one of our people, if it had been Cam, I could understand, just a little. You still fucked up, but I could understand. You’re losing your objectivity. You’ve gone from just barely using your gift in careful controlled circumstances, to coming close to flaming out.”

  “I saved his life,” replied Mason, fighting the anger that welled within him.

  “Good! You still fucked up! You should have been using your healing skill as an adjunct to your medical knowledge, not the other way around. I spent a tour on a battlefield in Kosovo. The never ending flood of casualties almost killed me, but I finally figured out I couldn’t save everybody, and that sacrificing myself wasn’t going to help the situation. We have to solve this problem because I can’t be worrying that every time I send you out in the field, you might come back in a body bag. Our job is dangerous enough as it is. People don’t call Division P because their car won’t start.”

  “This was supposed to be a simple find the missing money job. I was expecting nothing more than to watch Cam do his thing.”

  “Uh-huh. And shit went wrong. You can bet that someone higher up on the food chain didn’t tell you the whole story either. Hell, you’ll probably never know the background details that might have prevented the whole thing.”

  Mason looked at him in stunned silence. He was willing to admit that he had screwed up, badly, but it had never occurred to him that the FBI might have intentionally withheld information. Fuck. He should’ve learned his lesson about that from the previous fiasco with the traitor inside Naval Intelligence.

  “You think they told you everything?" Peter continued. “FBI, CIA, NSA, they all tell selective truths as best suits their purpose. Returning to the problem, your problem. I want you to run rescue for a couple of months. I’ll make arrangements for you to ride along as a trainee with one of the local EMS squads, once a week. Doing the dry run and practice crap here at the complex obviously is not doing the trick. I want you to spend twelve hours a week using ten percent of your gift and ninety percent of your knowledge. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get out of here. Eat. Get some sleep. See me in the morning for details,” and with that Peter literally turned his back on Mason and went to sit in front of his desk. Mason walked slowly out of the room.

  ~

  Outside an igloo in a raging blizzard or just sitting on a concrete bench in the dark courtyard of the Division P residential wing, Cam would always be able to find his lover. His own debriefing had been fairly short, heavy on facts and pretty much exactly what he expected from Danny Valentine. An hour later, when Mason still hadn’t made his way to their assigned quarters, Cam decided maybe he should look for his partner. Not that he had any belief that Mason was in danger, not here.

  Walking across the chilly expanse in the dim outdoor lighting, Cam saw his lover, sitting with his arms crossed and long legs stretched out in front of him, fifty foot stare in the ten foot space between him and the nearest tree. Cam settled on the bench beside him.

  “I kind of wondered where you’d got to,” said Cam.

  “I needed a little down time after getting reamed a new one by my boss,” Mason replied.

  “That bad?”

  “Yeah, that bad. I knew he’d be pissed but... I guess I underestimated to what degree.”

  “So I guess you never got around to talking to him about the little kid with cancer.”

  “Nope. It’s usually bad form to ask for favors when you’re getting your ass chewed,” replied Mason.

  “Mmm, yeah. It’s kind of cold out here. Can I convince you to come inside? Like maybe before you catch pneumonia?”

  Mason nodded faintly and followed Cam inside.

  The room they had been assigned was essentially no different from any other they had used in the complex on other occasions. Cam watched his lover sit on the bed to untie his shoes. His movements were bone-tired slow, but the brooding tension was apparent too. Cam could sense the frustration level. Mad
at himself, annoyed with the situation, feeling overwhelmed by the layers of responsibilities, it would be a toss-up over whether exhaustion won out or if Mason tossed and turned all night.

  Cam pushed Mason backward on the bed. His partner offered no resistance as Cam straddled his thighs and folded forward to catch himself on his hands. He stared down into the blue eyes of his lover. It was getting late, pushing midnight. In theory, they both had to be at work tomorrow, though maybe not first thing in the morning. And it wasn’t like he was going to be doing any flying for the next few days anyway.

  “How much do you trust me?” Cam asked softly.

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “Just a question. How much do you trust me?”

  “I trust you with my heart,” Mason replied.

  That was not the answer Cam had been expecting.

  “You took a risk this morning for me, when you kissed me in the FBI offices.” Mason’s fingers ghosted lightly across Cam's mouth. “I know how hard it is for you.”

  “I think it was worth it. I was... I was going to suggest something to take your mind off what went on up there. The bad stuff, not the Branch Director’s sexual intentions.”

  Mason’s mouth quirked a little in a half smile. “What did you have in mind? Something involving your body and mine?” He scooted up toward the top of the bed, so his legs were no longer hanging off the end.

  “Yeah, sort of, it’s a little more complicated than that. I, um, would you let me tie you up?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, actually I wasn’t. Not anything that causes pain. I’m not into that, and as far as I know, neither are you. I just... I have a tie in my luggage. I thought maybe you would let me bind your wrists to the headboard. I had a girlfriend a while back who thought getting restrained was really hot.” Cam could feel his face heating in embarrassment, but he kept going. “I know you like to be in control, but when you lose it, you tend to lose it in big time dangerous ways. I thought we could play a little, where you have basically no control. But something relatively safe.” The look Mason gave him was very uncertain. “No safe words. If you tell me to untie you, I will.”

  “Cam, I...” Mason trailed off, looking ashamed.

  “It’s okay. If it’s not your thing, that’s fine.”

  “You think I don’t trust you.”

  “No. I think you don’t trust yourself, to lose it just a little. It’s okay. Really.” Cam lowered himself down to lie on top of his lover. He kissed Mason softly. “I do still want to make love to you, any way I can get it.”

  Mason’s arms wrapped around his body, pulling him down tight.

  “Need you,” was the husky murmur from his partner. Cam could feel the want, the tension bordering on the edge of tears and the iron fisted control choking them down. Cam began to kiss his way down the side of his lover’s neck. He pushed back upright, hands tugging on Mason’s shirt, pulling it loose at the waist, unbuttoning it. Cam’s fingers grazed across dark silky curls of chest hair, tracing the muscles of his partner’s chest. Mason’s body was fairly well defined, tall, relatively thin, a runner’s physique, which was appropriate, considering Cam knew Mason ran on the beach three to four times a week. His ribs seemed to show a little more sharply than usual. It was probably a result of the sheer quantity of energy he had been putting out lately.

  Cam leaned down and drew his tongue across the dark rose of a nipple. Mason drew a slow uneven breath in. It wasn't quite the response Cam was expecting. He left a trail of kisses and soft nips down the center of his lover’s chest. Although Mason’s hands were stroking softly down Cam’s back, the rest of his body gave little response. As Cam skimmed his hand down across Mason’s crotch, there was no sign of arousal. All Cam could feel was the stress radiating from his partner. The man was just wound so excruciatingly tight, but only some of it was in his body, the rest was in the churning of his mind. Cam slid off his lover’s thighs and stretched out on the bed beside him, leaving an arm draped across Mason's body.

  “Talk to me,” he prompted.

  Mason was usually more easily verbal about emotions than he was.

  “I... My life has gone from calm and sane and borderline boring, to... I’ve gotten shot. And I killed somebody. And people are getting blown up. And my talent has been unleashed. And so has my control. And, and, and...” The words stopped. Cam could almost see the dam disintegrating. Mason rolled away, burying his face against the edge of the pillow. Mason's hands were clenched under his arms as hard, barely suppressed sobs were shaking his body.

  Cam carefully grabbed his lover’s shoulder and tried to turn him back toward him. Mason resisted, so Cam tried a different tactic. He spooned up against his partner’s back, sliding one arm under Mason's neck to snake down across his chest and wrapped the other arm around his waist. Cam held Mason tightly in silence and let the storm rage.

  After a number of minutes the sobs dwindled to snuffling gulps. Only then did Mason let Cam turn him to face into Cam's shoulder. Cam also grabbed a wad of tissues out of the box on the nightstand and handed them to his lover. Mason blew his nose.

  “Shit,” Mason muttered. “Trust the gay guy to end up crying when the going gets tough.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. It beats the alternative. Half the guys I work with think drinking themselves stupid and getting in a fist fight is the best way to deal with major stress. Either that or screw the nearest willing female.” Cam brushed his thumb across Mason’s tear stained cheek. He would do anything he could to comfort his lover.

  “God, wasn’t that where this was supposed to be heading? Before I decided to have a meltdown?” whispered Mason. He looked acutely embarrassed.

  “You better be talking about the screwing part and not the fist fight,” Cam teased gently. “And there’s nothing female about you.” He scraped a fingernail across the dark beard stubble along Mason’s chin. This was one of the times when it just astounded him that his lover was a guy somewhat in need of a shave with blue eyes, blood shot and red rimmed. Mason's breathing was still broken by occasional hiccupping gulps. Cam kissed Mason tenderly.

  “Love you,” he whispered. Mason’s hand clenched softly in the fabric of Cam’s shirt, his eyes squeezed shut. “Mason, look at me.” Cam waited for his lover to open his eyes and a long moment passed before Mason did so. “You don’t have to pretend for me. If you’re falling apart, I want to be the one to put you back together. Never be afraid to cry on my shoulder. Okay?”

  Mason gave him a minute nod and Cam kissed him again. This one was not brief.

  ~

  Mason could feel Cam’s hand cradling the back of his head, the other hand between his shoulder blades, holding him. Mason opened his mouth to the gentle assault on his lips. His lover’s teeth nipped carefully at his lower lip and Cam’s tongue swiped slowly along his teeth before exploring the depths of his mouth. Oh God, how Mason loved this man: strength and confidence; fierce passion and gentle affection. His breath hitched. Oh please, don’t let me start crying again, he cursed himself. He must have tightened up, because Cam’s hand began rubbing circles down his back.

  “Relax,” murmured Cam.

  Mason gave in to the sheer comfort of feeling his lover’s hand on his back. Strong fingers traced down his spine to his waist, then skimmed down over his belt and drew a random pattern at the base of his spine. That spot always made him feel like a cat, arching into the sensation. Cam’s mouth moved to his throat, sucking and licking at the skin there. He nuzzled into his lover’s temple, the short military haircut prickling at his nose and mouth. Hands kneaded into the muscles of his buttocks, pulling his hips in tight to Cam’s. He could feel the hard bulge of his lover's arousal pushing against the inner edge of his hipbone. The care of Cam holding him close, snuggling, kissing, loving him, was slowly stoking his own desire.