Deliverance - Hooch and Matt's Story (6 page)

He was going to treat this like any other mission, and to hell with everything else.

Matt let out a breath he hadn’t thought he’d been holding, and one of his motherfucking big smiles spread over his face. “Good.”

When they came back downstairs, Mandy had already been and gone. The table had been cleared of most of the clutter, and two bulging bags containing sandwiches (labeled with fillings) were in its place. A couple of bags of chips, two large bottles of coke with condensation dripping down their necks, and a couple of large paper cups, one filled full with ice, completed the arrangement. On one end of the table was a high stack of catalogues with pages helpfully marked with slips of paper.

Mandy wasn’t far, though. She was audible from the main area, doing an inventory of the deliveries and talking on the phone to suppliers. Clearly, Hooch’s life wasn’t the only one that was being ruthlessly, efficiently and cheerfully ordered into place.

They sat down to eat at the desk. Hooch in his customary silence, more thoughtful than usual, while Matt rifled through the catalogues and checked out Mandy’s notes.

“How old is she again?” Hooch asked eventually.

“Eighteen,” Matt grinned, “you can just tell she’s an Army brat, can’t you? Needs the job to pay her way through college, sounds like she doesn’t get along with dad’s new wife or mom’s new boyfriend. Most importantly, she’s a good deal smarter than Cheerleader Barbie she pretends to be.” He looked down at the empty bottle he was holding in his hands. “It’ll all be okay.”

“Good,” Hooch nodded, “and you should get her to enlist, she’d whip any platoon into shape.” He finished his coke and pushed the almost empty bag of chips away. Setting the bottle down with a thud, he turned and looked at Matt, fixing him with the intense stare that meant nothing else was on his mind, and nothing else mattered right now.

Hooch waited until Matt looked up at him, and then offered a half-smile. “Yeah, it will okay.”

Thanksgiving weekend, 1998, Flint, Michigan

Civilian air travel was awful at the best of times, let alone Thanksgiving, where it seemed that the entire country was on the move. Complete with screaming children, excessive luggage, and the inability to do anything so simple as read a schedule.

It didn’t help that Matt’s stomach was turning into knots. What had seemed like a fantastic idea only a few weeks ago now loomed far too close, as they headed to the taxi stand. It wasn’t helped by a usually quiet Hooch being positively silent and focused, as if preparing for a covert ops.

The streets flew by, at once familiar and alien, before stopping in the suburbs in front of a plain brick house with a high white picket fence. Matt let himself in through the gate but before they had climbed the stairs to the front door, it opened to a friendly looking woman with a huge smile of welcome.

“You’re here at last!” Matt’s mom pulled her son into a warm hug while nodding at Hooch, “and you must be Hooch. Welcome and thank you for coming all this way and bringing Matt with you.”

Hooch shook the woman’s hand. He’d done his intel, his recce, and brushed up on the lingo. He knew at least theoretically how he was supposed to behave. This included not packing any weapons

not that he’d been able to smuggle them through civilian air travel anyway. “Pleased to meet you. Thank you for having me here.”

Matt knew Hooch’s tone and the polite facial expression. It was the one that screamed ‘professional’ at him.

She led the way up the front steps, through the door into the house, and up the stairs. The two men followed in her wake, until she stopped in front of a door near the back of the house. “Just put your things in Matt’s room, we’re down in the kitchen when you’re ready.”

Behind the door was a small, tidy bedroom, spotlessly clean. There were little plastic figurines lined up on the windowsill, football trophies holding pride of place on the bookshelves, and Marines posters covering the walls, some looking rather tattered around the edges. The space was dominated by a large wooden bed that didn’t quite match the rest of the furniture: newer, and made up with crisp linens with the tell-tale sign of being freshly out of the packet and the first time through the washing machine.

“I’ve put the extra blankets and pillows on top of the wardrobe, if you boys are cold. Come down when you’re ready, everyone’s nearly here.” With that, Matt’s mother disappeared out the door and down the stairs.

Matt looked at his silent partner, who’d made a choking noise at the last sentence.

“This…” Hooch finally said, pointing at the bed, “isn’t your bed. Is it?”

“Um, no.” Matt shook his head as he dropped his bag on the ground. “This is new from last time. I used to have a single.”

“Your. Parents. Bought. A. Double. Bed. For. Our. Visit.” Hooch pronounced every word very carefully, staring at the offending piece of furniture as if he was looking through the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. “Oh fuck.” He dropped his backpack and scrubbed the heel of his hand over his face. He hadn’t expected that; hadn’t even expected to stay in the same room as Matt. And now, not only in Matt’s old room, looking like it probably had before he’d joined the USMC, but a bed that had been specifically bought for two men to sleep in. Two men. Matt and himself. Fuck. That was too much too soon. No closets to hide in here.

“I told you that they know,” Matt felt slightly defensive, “and considering how many people have got to be here this weekend, it’s a damn sight better than the floor or the couch in the den.” He sat down experimentally on the bed, the mattress was firm, and there was a thick goose feather pad on top. “Everyone’s used to not asking.” He wasn’t sure whether this was to reassure Hooch, or himself.

“Yeah, I know they know. Confronted with the practicality it throws me for a loop.” Hooch sat down next to Matt. “I’ve never been part of a family like yours. The ranch is big, maids, gardeners, the lot, and my parents played the socialite hosts. I haven’t got a fucking clue how to fit into a real family, least of all as part of a gay couple.”

Matt smiled, trying to be encouraging. As much as he’d pushed for this, the reality was something else. He’d always thought that he’d be able to come out as soon as he’d left the Marines, that his family could stop having to tiptoe around certain things. But now, since he was with Hooch, all those years of family conspiracy would have to continue for a while yet. “You ready to face the horde?”

“Give me five minutes and that patented smooch of yours and I’ll be as ready as I’ll ever be.” Being on a mission was one thing, but having to show more than just a blank game face was entirely another.

Matt chuckled and obliged with the kiss, which, though it didn’t last quite the five minutes, was still entirely satisfactory.

He stood up, waiting for Hooch to collect himself, and then exchanged one last look before heading out the door and down the stairs, where a small, fast-running object attached itself to Matt’s leg.

“Uncle Matt!” The little boy got everybody else’s attention, and they were immediately swamped by what seemed like a never ending herd of very tall, very loud, and extremely friendly people, all trying to hug Matt, slap his shoulder, introduce themselves to Hooch and drag them both into the dining room simultaneously.

Hooch suffered through the onslaught of boisterous, welcoming, and most of all
tactile
people with what he hoped was a friendly smile plastered across his face, which might or might not have had more in common with rictor mortis. He kept checking Matt’s position in the room from the corner of his eyes, keeping him in line of sight at all times. Just like he’d do on a mission.

Eventually, they were separated, and Hooch had to fight on his own in the middle of the family that kept asking him questions, one talking over the other; telling him stories, welcoming him into the family and pushing beer into his hand, while wanting to know how long they’d been together and what he was doing in his job and and and and…until Hooch was ready to jump up and run. Holding the beer bottle in a white knuckled death grip, his dark eyes wildly searching for the exit. He couldn’t answer those questions; couldn’t bear the close proximity of all those strangers. He knew they meant well, but he couldn’t cope with.

“Hooch, dear,” came a voice, “I wonder if I could trouble you to give me a hand with something?” Matt’s mother, who’d appeared out of the midst of people around Hooch.

“Ma’am?” Hooch looked up, disoriented for a split second, and wasn’t that a shit reaction time for an elite soldier. “Yes, of course, Ma’am.” He stood up immediately, relief barely disguised on his features, and followed her less like an obedient puppy and more like an eager IED sniffer.

She led him into a small room off the kitchen, where a couple of trestle tables was laid out. They sat down at one which had plates with cute rabbits on them. Since not everybody was going to fit onto the table in the dining room, clearly these ones had been set aside for the children.

A tumbler with something stronger than beer materialized in front of Hooch. “It’s Anne,” Matt’s mother smiled, “Ma’am makes me feel old, much as I adore hearing it in that Texan drawl.” She paused. “Forgive me, but you looked a little overwhelmed with my brood.”

“Anne. Got it.” Hooch nodded, then allowed himself to take in a deep breath, slowly expelling it as he accepted the tumbler with a thanks. “I’m not used to…” hesitating, “family. I’m sorry.” He took a mouthful of the brandy, relishing the burn down his throat. “I’ve never been to a Thanksgiving dinner.” He couldn’t call the formal affairs at the ranch Thanksgiving dinner, and he’d been avoiding them for ages.

There was compassion in her eyes. “Then we’ll just have to make sure you have a good one this year,” a pause, “and you’re family to us now, too, even if you’re far away in Fayetteville.” She didn’t reach out to touch him, as though she knew he wasn’t tactile the way Matt was, that he’d be uncomfortable with the contact. “Matt sounds like he’s very happy there.” There was a way that she’d said it, both an inquiry if he chose to answer, or an observation if he didn’t.

Hooch drained the brandy to give himself some time. If he was ever going to be successful on this mission, he had to continue the recce to know where he stood. “Matt…” Hooch trailed off, then made a decision and looked at her. “What has he told you?” The ‘about us’ implied.

If anything, her smile broadened.

“Oh, Matty. You wouldn’t think it, but he’s always been very careful with what he says, what he does. He’s never made a decision lightly, and most certainly not in who he loves.”

How it had broken her heart for all those years her Matty had been caught between the man and the job that he loved. At first, she’d thought that it was a civilian, and it had been the strain of a dual life on and off base. She’d had her suspicions for the last couple of years, but when Matty had called her to say that he’d quit the Marines and was moving to Fayetteville, she’d realized that she was way off the mark.

Hooch nodded. “He’s the one who’s always known what he wanted.”

She inclined her head, “and no matter what he’s said in the past, it was obvious what you are to each other the moment you walked up that drive.”

That hit Hooch like a sideways punch. “It is? What is it that gives it away?”

She almost said, ‘because mothers just know,’ but held back, given what Hooch had said earlier, and how his own mother likely did not know. “A feeling, I suppose. It’s hard to put into words. The way you look out for each other, how you don’t take your eyes off him for very long, how you two need to almost remind yourselves to stand a little further apart.”

“You think strangers would notice, too, or is it a family thing?” Hooch asked.

She chuckled, warm and motherly, refilling his glass. “Neither. It’s knowing Matty, and knowing what I was going to see. I wouldn’t worry too much

people see what they expect to see, after all. Even Matty’s pop was shocked, when he told us he was gay, just before he enlisted. To this day, I don’t know what took more courage. Besides,” the very slightest pause, “if Matty was old enough to go to war, he was old enough to decide who to love.”

Hooch nodded, and with the brandy refilled, he kept drinking. He’d barely known this woman for more than an hour and he felt more comfortable with her than he had with anyone other than Matt for a long time. Or perhaps it was the brandy talking on an almost empty stomach.

“Welcome to the family,” Anne raised her own glass, “we’re all so glad that Matty’s found someone who appreciates him.”

“What’s not to appreciate about Matt? He’s remarkable.” Hooch smiled his half-smile, took a last mouthful, and felt his tongue loosened. As far as missions went, he was well and truly outclassed by this woman. “I was worried,” he spun the empty glass in his fingers, “cradle snatcher, not house-trained nor socialized.” He paused, “one could think that of the two of us I was the tougher one, what with my job, but it’s
Matty
who always knew what he wanted. Took me torture to figure it out.”

Her eyes had widened at the mention of torture, but she didn’t say a word. It was not the time, nor the place, not here, not how. Instead, a rueful chuckle. “Ah, ‘Matty’, yes. It’s so easy to forget, with him being the youngest. He’ll always be my baby, even when he’s long outgrows the old names.”

“Yeah, and he’ll always be the kid to me, because I’ll always be ten years older.” Hooch felt comfortably mellow. He hadn’t been able to drink anything stronger than weak lager for so long, thanks to medication, the brandy was having quite an effect on him now.