Well Balanced

"I swear to God," I say in my sternest voice, "I will turn this van around and drop you all off in the gutter if you don't quiet down."

My mounting frustration is met with indifference for the most part, and a few motes of jeering. I focus on the road. Winding mountain paths, dusted with fine snow and ice, threatening to take us all into the valley to our deaths. My passengers don't mind. They'll take it all and bounce back like rubber balls. A few stitches, a splint or two, and they'd be off to do it all over again as I am shattered into a million pieces.

And the worst part is, I can't blame them. A working vacation, a perfect mix of business and pleasure, getting paid to board down a mountain and break their limbs. I'd be just as excited, wrestling and jostling and swearing and being as obnoxious as possible. I know the state, that bit of immaturity still strong mixed with the freedom to give into it and the energy to shrug off the worst of its effects. It led me to eating nothing but cheeseburgers for a month while tripping on shrooms and high off my gourd. They'll have a moment of clarity a bit down the line to snap everything into focus or they won't. It's out of my control. I can just seethe at it, rage against it, and maybe swear a little if I have to. It won't work. It never works. Their colliding musical tastes clash in the air and fight against my attention. I breathe. I have to watch my blood pressure, my heart rate, my chakra, everything I have in me.

I'm getting paid to hole up in a mountain hide-away, get out in the world and take pictures. That's what keeps me going as my stress keeps rising. It'll be fine. I'm making it out to be more than it is. Kevin's not helping me chaperon because he's asleep in the back. I'm half convinced that Maria and Hector are giving each other a handy under their shared blanket. And I know that Liam is going to get his nose punched in by Ryan if he doesn't knock it off.

But we have my favorite with me riding shotgun. Darian's being nice and quiet, staring out the window. He's just as excited, gazing up into the peaks and wondering how he'll do it. I'm back on the road. We're going to be fine. The pavement narrows for a good stretch and we're going to clear it. We're alone. I hear Ryan finally crack and someone gets a fist to the noggin.

"HEY," I yell, "Knock it off."

"Dad," mewls Liam, "Ryan hit me."

"Ryan, I will get my belt. Don't do that again. Maria, Hector, fucking stop. I will get both of you fixed. It's gross."

I catch Maria sticking out her tongue from my rearview mirror and giving me a flash of her tongue piercing. Hector has the good sense to look ashamed, hiding himself behind his glasses and looking out the window. The mountains won't judge him. They never do. I gather myself and flip on the radio. I can't silence them, but I can drown them out.

"I'm not listening to dad rock the whole time," says Maria, "Change the station. Or better yet, pass me the chord."

"No," says Ryan, "I will hit you next. It's bad enough that Liam is playing his stupid anime music."

"It's K-pop," whines Liam, "Completely different."

"Shut up," I say, "Just shut up."

That just keeps the temperature rising and I hate it. My blood pressure's rising, my temple vein's popping and its terrible, just terrible. We're going to crash.

"Guys," sighs Darian, "We're like half an hour from the place. I'm fucking tired and so is Ty. He's had like 3 of those trucker pills and I'm worried about it. Just cool it for thirty minutes so we don't crash. Please?"

"Fine, mom," Ryan sighs and turns away from his rival. The earbuds go in and I can see everyone's hands. My blood pressure's already dropping and the vein's going back in.

Darian doesn't even have to use his angry voice. He just sounds defeated and most importantly disappointed in his friends and how they've been behaving. I glance over and he's still looking outside. But I glimpse his reflection and mine in the dirty window. He's smiling, but I can see the jagged edges. He needs a good long time spent in bed, cuddled up with blankets and pillows until his cocoon restores him to full. He certainly looks better than I do.

---

This all makes the pain worth it. The chalet is quiet. There's a fireplace in front of me, a really good vegetable soup in my stomach, and a starry sky out the window. I wish I brought a book, but I didn't have that amount of foresight. I am imperfect and terrible and slothful and just old at this point. No aches and pains right now, to my surprise, but a bit of discomfort.

My assigned gaggle has drifted off to their own corners for once, drunk and high and probably getting laid. That's all grand. It'll keep them out of trouble for a few more hours until they disperse and make more chaos out into the world. That's for other people to deal with and for the magazine to pay for. Maria and Hector have their own separate cabin. Ryan and Liam are probably killing each other in theirs. Kevin lucked out on his own single and I have the terrible luck of sharing mine with Darian. I have truly been cursed with every bit of misfortune known to man.

Including this bit of somewhat unpleasant insomnia. Too wound up during the day, still processing the caffeine out, or maybe just not exhausted enough for it to matter. I have no clue. I don't care. This is for me and my own head.

I'm glad I came. There was a nagging bit of me that felt I was too old to have this much fun. I should just go on cruises and play golf or something. That's what my dad did while he marinated in the mind rotting 24-hour news cycle. That's what my uncle did too, but with an added bit of fishing to spice things up. I'm their age now, and that means I should probably adopt a bit of their lifestyle into mine. I'm too old to be vandalizing parking lots and doing something like shredding the gnar. I think even that phrase dates me as something out of time. I really need to get some sleep. There's still a full day of work ahead of us, as enjoyable as that work is. I cough and stretch, putting everything long until something gives and has me right at the edge of conscious.

Then something awakes, knocks into something else and I hear a loud swear.

Darian's swearing as he fumbles about in his space. I'm not too worried. He's tough, like a good sheet of rubber. Maybe not the most structurally sound thing, but it's hard to actually beat it down. He's getting loud as he stumbles along into our shared living space.

The poor thing's rubbing his shin. The chairs here are so low, the perfect height for the worst type of injury.

"First aid kit's in the kitchen," I yawn.

"I don't think there's a bandage to unbreak my shin," he hisses. A bit of effort has him hobbling towards me and then I have to act as his cushion.

Even on the mountain in the midst of a deep marrow chill, he doesn't like sleeping with too much on. He's been in my sweaters at least, but everything else is bare for me. I know he probably has boxers or something on, but his stolen treasure gives the impression that's fully naked underneath all that.

"You should be asleep," Darian says, matter of fact. I place my hands where I can, across his legs, and nod. He wiggles a bit and finds something on me to touch as well. His skin is so soft.

"And what about you?" I ask.

"Eh, probably. The bed's here suck. They're way too soft. I like yours with those weird pillows you have and those thin blankets."

"Benefits of knowing an alpaca farmer. I just can't do synthetics anymore."

He murmurs something dreamlike and shuffles into the couch covered in coarse fiber. It's hotel cheap, but serviceable. The cracks show when I look for them, chips in the paint, jagged edges of the tile, bits of water stains here and there on the ceiling. I keep my hand on his thigh, feeling the soft muscle underneath just rest.

His face is still caked in sleep, disheveled and ruffled, with his hair in dire need of a combing. He's not going to do that part, since it's just going to get shoved in a helmet and matted to a perfect dome at the end of the day. I don't have that problem anymore. I work my own legs and feel something snap underneath. That's another problem he doesn't have. I keep shifting as everything in me responds to the pressure.

"Knees acting up?" he murmurs.

"Little bit. Altitude and they've been tensed all day," I sigh, "it just comes with the territory at this point."

He hums again and I feel an odd knot in my stomach tighten and break. I open my mouth and find his words filling the gap I was making.

"No," he says, "We're not breaking up. I've decided that."

"How-"

"Because you always bring it up when we're with the rest of the team and you start feeling the age gap."

"And that still doesn't bother you?"

"Eh, not really. I know it bothers you and that's the part that bothers me. I just like you and the fact that you're you and not anyone else. And I think we've been together long enough to prove I'm not a divorce rebound."

"You were never that. If anything, this is a workplace romance that has escalated past the point that it should have stopped."

"Really? I know you. There's no way you'd be satisfied with a tryst in the supply closet at the Christmas party every year."

"I don't think I have any more than that in me anymore."

"You're hard, Ty, Its poking my legs. You'll be 80 years old and constantly hard as a rock, no pill required."

"I'll probably need pills for other things."

"Stop being such a downer. I know you're fishing for pity sex and you don't have to. Regular sex is more or less on tap."

I grip his thigh and feel him shift around me. Even through the sleep, that gets a reaction. A fold of his sweater jumps and he gives a sleepy little titter. He may have a point. I can pull sensations from him so easily and that is a tent that I don't think is going away. He grinds into me as a smile breaks through the haze of exhaustion.

To my surprise, he isn't wearing anything underneath the sweater.

And all that time doesn't matter anymore. Seconds between, stretched to decades and it all just crumbles away like ash until we are here, now, together. And he is hard underneath the one thing he decided to wear, eager and willing and perfectly ready for whatever we want to do in the moment. I'm the same way. I'm perfectly ready for him and his needs. All that cloying insomnia breaks away. I am still tired, still desperate for a bed and a blanket and so much more, but this is nice. All of his weight presses against me and back into my hand as he chases me up. But we can't have that. We can never have that. As good as he is to me, absolutely perfect and wonderful, he deserves the joyous torment of my hands never being exactly where he wants me to be.

We're too late into the night to get his full excitement vocalized. It's just shifting whimpers and pleading lips. I take my other hand to his face, gently stroking his cheek and making sure that he doesn't have exactly what he needs. I touch him, feel all of his softness spring back into my palm. He whimpers something as I play him. And that's what I need. More of him twitches. He squirms and I try to break him even more. I decide that I want his legs open and free. He resists me at first, but once an idea snaps through those tried little eyes, he agrees that I am right. He should be how like him to be.

He twitches again once he's free and his sweaters all ridden up. He's eager, so eager for whatever I have planned. It's mostly for me. Whatever he gets out of it will just be a fun side effect.

I have to free myself and that's terrible. That's his responsibility, but we can live with it for the moment. I can't be demanding this late in the night. My length springs free too and he feels my warmth in full as it pierces through the gap I've made. Ita takes another moment for the tried thoughts to come together and by that time I've already shoved his legs into his vice for me.

He mewls and shudders again. He knows my size and that gap between us. That's much more important than the time we can't make up. I've eclipsed him, even through the space we make up. He shivers again.

Darian opens for me, but I close him down. We don't have the energy for the full act, especially me. And he has work tomorrow. He needs to be beautiful and perfect and amazing and he can't do that if he can't walk. I just take his thighs, all that smooth warm skin for me to play with and there is enough contact for him to get his.

He moves his thighs and it's the best thing he can do. He knows his body and so do I. His art requires it, such minute motions. I feel them all. He crosses his legs and gives me a tighter vice. He then decides that it is time to move his hips. He can be obedient and anticipate my needs if he has half a mind.

Lazily, sleepily, soaking in my heat, he moves. I keep touching him, the soft outlines of his body as I probe deeper to his harder muscles. He's eating better. I've made sure of that. The poor thing can't run off fast food and energy drinks forever. It's my job to make sure he can perform his art and that requires proper consideration for his tools. He gives me this I return, riding with a similar grip that is just as good as anything intended for the purposes.

I am so generous, taking my hand to his own length and pinning us together. Another whimper, sweet as a dream, and he moves again, bucking into my palm and against me. I set my breath deep in my chest and lay my head back. There are lights outside under the cold moon, bright and shining and shining underneath my eyelids.

We don't have the energy to be intense and neither one of us really wants that. He's slow and careful, pulling at me and moving with my hand. I do the same, rolling my hips and making sure we have perfect contact. His hands ball the sweater into tight knots as I keep spreading myself long. I need everything stretched and broken free of the chains of work. I feel every muscle fiber snap and twinge as it aligns into a more perfect set. I flex and tense and break everything in me down. Darian keeps bunching up, stacking his body to the act and making sure he does not become unwound.

He sits up and folds into my arms, his hand joining mine to sharing our pleasure, His lips bury into my neck and gently press at my skin. It's rough and unkempt. I've let myself go it seems, ragged edges and crumbling dust. He is there to hone me back again. I shift my own posture so he can nestle in me and feel the warmth he needs.

His thighs are so soft, so tight around me. Every so often, I feel the press of cold air glance across my tip until he drags me back into him and his body's warmth. He circles and dances on me and I feel every slight shift of our passion. I can't kiss him and that's the one bit of complaint I have. Everything else is perfect. Everything else is exactly what I need. I stroke his hardness and force him faster.

We don't drag this particular game out. We don't need to. As he said, we can do this whenever we need to. Our particular professions just have suggestions for start times, a nebulous cloud of hours needed and no one with enough authority to change anything. We bow to the sun and its light and nothing else. So, we still need to get up early and figure out where we need to hit first.

Darian's hands claw along my shoulders and that's the last little bit of pressure I need to send me over the edge. I feel his hit too, hard and swift, but not unkind. He tenses again as my leg stretches out and kicks the coffee table away. He's murmuring something into my collar bone as I bring it all down and toss us to our shared climax.

I feel his warmth spread across the back of my hand as it flows to his stomach. One of us, I'm not sure who, had the good idea to roll up his sweater so the future is just a bit kinder. His release hits his chest and slips between my fingers. One last bit of pulsing tightness and I am with him, aimed to join his flow and mark him as mine. He's whimpering again, clawing from something to hold him still. He has my chest and my back and my hand. I pull more from him and from me, gritting my teeth and staring at the void.

Our release pools in his thighs. He keeps whimpering and twitching. Soft tremors, gentle tremors, I play through it all under the minutiae of his body. Such small things to a grand end, he keeps moving, flowing from one state to the next where I stay rooted, pulsing heavy and long, blanking out that eh worry and exhaustion until the edges of my reason come back to me like a pencil marking paper.

I get his cheek first, my lips pressed against it, murmuring just as sweet nonsense as my sleep deprived mind can allow. He's just whimpering and shaking, desperate for the safety of my body. His is still ongoing, weak pulses just flowing over my hand and falling to the sea we made. I just breathe with him. He's right there, almost through the worst of it and then we can finally fresh.

Darian comes out of it by kissing my chin, gently climbing up until our lips meet for a brief moment. it's just a second to have clarity, to seal the pressure we've been giving and receiving. One last little capstone to our night before we pass the point our bodies can carry.

"There," Darian yawns, "I fixed your ego. You're welcome."

"You did," I murmur. His yawn sets me off and I am fighting off a heavy wave of fatigue. We still need to get clean. We still need to get to bed. We still need a bit more work before we can fall. He's already dozing, head against my shoulder.

Of course, Darian has left me to clean up his mess.

---

Hell, I am in hell. Well rested, sure, taking a healthy dose of caffeine so that everything's alert, but cold down to my marrow, bright light searing my retinas even behind the tinted glass and worst of all, the height. Miles above the ground, and even more so above sea level. Ice and rocks and perilous drops, a sea of broken limbs and mangled bodies just waiting to happen. Our creaking ride does nothing to soothe my panic, especially when the wind picks up and sends us swinging. My companion just makes it worse.

"Darian," I say, stern as a disappointed teacher, "If you don't stop fidgeting, I will throw you off this thing."

"You're no fun, Ty," says that terribly adorable friend, "What's the point of a swing that stays still?"

"Darian, it is moving. It's just not swinging. We can live with that. Just stay still until we can get off."

"But it's fun. C'mon. Try it."

He swings his legs out and the momentum carries us forward. The return has us staring at a patch of rocks that are perfect for cracking skulls. Our helmets would do nothing, goggles even less. My heart jumps into my throat and back as my hand braces against his slight shoulders.

We're both hidden beneath layers and layers of puffy jackets and thermal underwear. He's wearing pink laced with black, a jagged heart on his chest, eyes behind heavily mirrored glass. I can't see his expression and he can't see mine. I'm much more conservative, earth tones and plain matte black. He stops. That one hand makes him stop and for that I am eternally grateful. He can be reasonable, but I just have to drag him to that point. My own panic is declining and I'm left with a general dread that I have nursed since we've gotten on this mountain.

It's a good idea, I'll give the magazine that much. A little bit of cross promotion, something to expand the market, something a little different. And I get a free chalet out of it with meals paid and a lovely view to enjoy. In my bed. With my coffee. Not hung preciously from a ski lift that's older than I am and might actually be older than the mountain it's on. Ty's getting antsy again. I calm him down. We'll get to tuckering him out soon enough when we hit the snow and I start taking pictures.