Deliverance - Hooch and Matt's Story (16 page)

“Coffee?” Matt asked, heading towards the door to the apartment. Even now, in the deserted post-holiday silence, not worth the risk to be seen from the parking lot, just in case. No longer paranoia, but the caution that bit into everything with Hooch’s career.

“Thanks.” Hooch followed Matt up the stairs. A subdued version of the Hooch Matt knew. Once upstairs, Hooch took a quick glance around, but everything was just like it had been as he left.

Matt fiddled with the coffee machine, producing two cups, the way they preferred. Making a point of using Hooch’s usual mug. “So,” he began, “Dan phoned you, I guess.”

Hooch’s gaze lingered a while too long on his old mug. “Yeah, he did.” He took the mug and then a first sip, looking at Matt from under his eyelashes as he glanced over the rim. “Told me I was a fucking idiot.” He ploughed on before Matt could say anything. “I don’t…don’t know…” and fuck, if that wasn’t exactly what he had been dreading. He huffed in frustration and grimaced.

“You don’t know what?” Matt prodded.

“Words. I don’t know how…shit.” Hooch set the mug down on the kitchen counter and dragged a hand through his short hair. “For two months I’ve been trying to find the words, but I’m no closer to finding them.”

More misery in Hooch’s dark eyes than Matt had ever seen, even more than after the torture. “I see.” Most, but not all, of the anger had burnt out of him, replaced by sadness and the Hooch-shaped empty space inside. “I know,” what did he know, really? He tried again. “What the hell did you think you were doing?” No need to specify further, they both knew what he was talking about.

“I wasn’t thinking.” Hooch gestured to the couch. “Could we sit down?”

Matt nodded, put his coffee down too and sat on the couch.

Hooch followed, but he was no less tense sitting, as he had been when standing. “I never tried to explain my masochism to you. Thought I’d deal with it on my own. I was wrong, I tried to ignore the need and I fucked it up.” Hooch sat straight, palms on his black clad thighs. How was he going to explain something so overwhelming—something he didn’t understand himself? “For the first time…” slight shake of his head, he tried again. “I was scared. I’d never been scared before like that. Not for me, but…” he looked up and at Matt. “It wasn’t just about me. I was scared to leave you, what it’d do to you. Scared, because I realized I had responsibility for someone else’s wellbeing, and that wellbeing was more important than anything else, and I had fucked it up. I was a selfish bastard and fucked it up.” Hooch looked down at his hands, fingertips lightly strumming on the denim of his trousers.

Matt blinked. Feeling what it must have cost for Hooch to say those words, more agonizing, he guessed, than any physical hurt that he’d ever suffered. The darkness in him, that he kept away from Matt—and truth be told—part of Matt had been relieved that he did. As though ignoring meant that he didn’t have to deal with it. “Yes, yes you did,” he said softly. “So what now?”

“I’ve been missing you.” Hooch said quietly, still looking at his hands. “I never felt like that before. Didn’t get better. It hurt, still does.”

Matt exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Hurt. And not the physical. Like how he’d felt inside. “I’m not sure I can do that again,” he said at last, “the silence, the brooding, the taking off, the not-knowing all night, and then finding you.” For all he loved that maddening bastard, there were lines he wasn’t sure he could cross again. “If…” he paused, “if you want me, like how we’ve been the last few years, we’ll need to work out how we deal with it.” And how that stuck in him, in a way he hadn’t realized, that there was something Matt couldn’t, or
wouldn’t
(where had that come from?) be for Hooch.

Hooch nodded. “Matt,” he lifted his head to look at him, “I am not making promises, because that’s not enough. What I will do is give you my word that I will never do anything like this again. I understand those words are hard to believe, but I don’t have anything more convincing, except for giving myself to you for the rest of my days, to show you that I mean those words.” Hooch paused, drew in a breath. “I will talk to you, try to explain, tell you what I need when…I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to do, but I will tell you.” He’d been thinking about this, plenty of time in the last two months. “Perhaps there’s a club or something, something safe, where I could go regularly. Perhaps that would stop the…the…” he still didn’t have a word for it, so he went back to one of the old ones, no matter how inadequate, “before the darkness gets too overwhelming.”

Matt nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a start, at least.” He paused, “I have missed you, but,” always but, “I think we might want to ease back into this slowly. Think it over. Weekends perhaps, and we see how it goes.”

“Yeah.” Hooch’s posture relaxed slightly. “It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to you during the past two months.” Everything else unsaid, but even though Matt could hardly believe himself, he saw pleading in Hooch’s dark eyes. Asking for understanding.

“No,” Matt agreed, and stopped. “One more thing, though. No sex for a while. We need to wait to see if you’re clear, and we’ve always just had sex

great sex

rather than sort out shit.” Much as he’d missed it, missed Hooch’s weight in the bed, the warmth of the body, this was important. It had always been too easy to just tear at each other like animals, forgetting everything else when they were sated and exhausted.

“Yeah, I understand.” Not just the safety part. “Guess I used it,” Hooch said hesitantly, “sometimes.” He ran a hand through his hair again, matter-of-fact in the face of the truly uncomfortable. “I went to a private lab, had tested what they could. All clear for STDs. Will go back in four weeks to get tested for HIV.”

Matt let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Good.” Hoping that the chances were good, that if the guys Hooch had been with hadn’t given him anything else so far, they wouldn’t have given him HIV either.

Getting to know each other again, Matt thought, without the sex that had been the beginning and the tie that had kept them together for so long

before the friendship, let alone the love, that was going to be different. His hand went to cover Hooch’s on his knee. The first time they’d touched for two months.

Hooch looked at the hand, hesitated for a moment, before he covered it with his own. It felt to him like the most romantic gesture he’d ever done in his whole life, and he lifted his head to smile at Matt. Tentative, but there. “I have to be back on base in three hours tops. Did you,” searching for normality, “did you tape the game by chance?”

The mountain of tapes of games that Matt rarely got a chance to watch before taping over them again, a private joke. “Yes,” he said, standing up and going to the TV cabinet to rummage through the pile, picking one more or less at random from the most recent and slotting it in. “Drink?” he asked, going to the fridge, looking at Hooch.

“No, still on duty. Got a Coke?” Hooch moved across to the part of the L-shaped couch that was facing the large TV screen. He had marginally relaxed, but only a hard physical session in the gym would get rid of all of the tension for now.

Matt nodded and got a coke from the fridge. Full-calorie, not diet.

Watching the game, unseeing, in silence. But a comfortable one.

They sat close together, almost touching but not quite, a synonym for their relationship.

* * *

The following Friday evening, a surprised but delighted Mandy saw Hooch enter reception, his daypack on his back, like he used to.

She looked like she wanted to give him a hug, but hesitated out of discretion, and settled for a huge smile. “He’s in his office,” she pointed in that direction. Continuing her discretion, she quickly vanished somewhere else in the gym.

Hooch nodded his thanks and went through to the office, where he hesitated. The door was ajar, but he decided to knock.

“Hey,” Matt looked up from the pile of accounts on his desk, “how’re things?” The little bits of conversation they’d rarely bothered with in the past.

“Hey.” Hooch stepped inside and let the pack glide off his shoulder. “Better than last week. I’m here.”

“Yes, you are.” A new awkwardness, as Matt shuffled the papers, then locked them away. “Up?”

“You want to order pizza? I got a six-pack of beer.” Hooch lifted the backpack and pointed at it.

Matt smiled. “Yeah…but pizza?” The uneasiness at this ‘new them’ obvious.

Hooch flashed a grin. “Come on, Matt, some carbs and a beer won’t kill you.”

Matt gave in with a chuckle, and they went upstairs into the apartment. When they got into the living area Hooch stopped, unsure where to put his pack. He decided to leave it at the door, then proceeded to pull out the beer.

“How was your week?” He handed a can to Matt, opened one himself. This small-talk thing was damned difficult.

“Good, good, especially considering the weather.” Matt didn’t miss Hooch’s hesitation, felt equally awkward. “Yours?”

Hooch shrugged. “Long hours, I’m tired.” He took a long draught of his beer then walked over to the couch to sit down. He really was bone tired, but nothing would have kept him from driving back to the apartment. “What pizza do you want?”

“Anything, just no anchovies.” Matt opened his own beer and sat next to Hooch. It felt oddly surreal.

Like the ‘dating’ phase they never went through, retro—and ill-fitted now.

“Okay.” Hooch went for his cell and dialed the local pizza place he still had on speed. He ordered a classic one and a salad, the latter to appease Matt’s health concern. When he was done he turned to Matt.

“So,” Hooch stifled a yawn, “what now? Movie? Game?”

“Game?” Matt asked. He picked up the remote, flicking at random until something suitable came up.

Neither of them enjoyed watching war or action movies, except for classics: all the mistakes were too annoying. And stupid comedies seemed inappropriate.

Hooch kept stifling a yawn, but perked up during a couple of passes in the game, until the delivery guy arrived. He was ravenous, eating too fast and washing the carb laden food down with beer, until the pizza was finished. He slumped back against the couch, eyes on half-mast, trying not to fall asleep, but the drowsier he got the more his control waned, and he kept slowly sliding towards Matt.

A hand on his shoulder, firm and warm. “Hey, looks like you’re about to drop.”

Hooch, more asleep than awake, leaned into the warmth of Matt’s body, rubbing his face against Matt’s shoulder while sleepily mumbling, until he suddenly froze. Eyes open, he sat back up straight. “Sorry.” Matt wasn’t ‘his’ any longer, and Hooch felt the painful sensation of having intruded into territory he no longer had the right to. “Yeah, I’m tired.”

“Bed, then.” Matt stood and cleared away the boxes and the cans, then stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. “I’ve made up the spare room for you.”

“Yeah, okay.” Hooch acquiesced. He was too exhausted to argue, and he had expected it anyway. He had to give this time, this…them. Besides, wasn’t the spare room officially his anyway? “Thanks.” Without further comment, Hooch went to get his pack, then vanished in the bathroom, only to emerge soon after to head to the spare room. “Good night.” The door closed behind him.

Matt finished tidying the living area and went into their bedroom, closing the door behind him softly.

Even though he’d slept alone for two months, never had the bed felt so cold and empty.

* * *

Hooch woke with a start, the room dark and silent around him. Thoughts fuzzy, still caught in a dream woven from scary memories, his heart was racing and his mouth dry. Disoriented, as his mind frantically tried to supply where he was, and to gauge if he was in danger or not. Trained reflexes pushed him to high alert: this wasn’t his bunk, nor the shared bed, and he had no recollection of the place he found himself in. His hands searched blindly, and he almost knocked over the lamp when he finally found the light switch. He could make out the spare room in the light, told himself he was safe, but his heart continued to race for a while longer, and the sweat felt sticky on his skin.

There was no point staying in bed, so he got up and quietly made his way to the bathroom to wash his face, and then to the kitchen for a glass of cold water. The couch seemed as good a place as any, and in the gloom of the light coming from the open door to the spare room, he sat on the couch, head back, glass of water half-drunk in his hand.

The other door opened quietly. Matt, backlit from the lamp in the bedroom, stood in the dim light, dressed in long, loose pajama pants

another change, when he’d always slept naked before. “Hey,” his voice hung in the gloom, “the dream?”

Hooch looked up, letting his head turn until his cheek rested against the back of the couch. “Not sure.” He was about to shrug, but aborted the movement. “Disoriented.” He inhaled deeply, before slowly breathing out. “Matt…”

Matt came closer, and fumbled with the light switch on the reading lamp on the side table, before sitting down side-on to Hooch on the L-shaped couch. Elbows on knees, waiting for Hooch to continue.

“I can’t do this, Matt.” Hooch leaned forward to put the glass onto the table. “I can’t pretend the last ten years didn’t happen.”