Night Guard

In the wake of the events of The Committee, Hutch asks for what he needs and receives an answer he didn’t expect.

This story was originally published in the zine Venice Place Chronicles, Volume VI, in 2006 by Keri T.

With the damp towel slung around his hips, Hutch stood before the closet, restless fingers flipping through his choices. White shirt or green. Jeans or cords. Shorts and socks in the bottom drawer of the dresser. The minutia couldn’t fill up his brain. Couldn’t drown out the hiss of the shower beyond the bathroom door. Two minutes, or maybe three, to make up his mind.

Decisively, Hutch closed the closet door, turned and moved with much less confidence toward the bedside table. He tightened his towel before he bent, slid open the drawer, and then straightened, stood staring down at the jumbled contents. The blue and white tube, depressed a little in the middle, cap slightly askew, stared back at him. It would be so damned bold, like the erection the towel attempted vainly to camouflage. An unmistakable statement of intent.

The shower went off. No more time to waffle. Adrenaline a dizzying rush more powerful than heroin, Hutch scooped up the tube, dropped it where it couldn’t be overlooked on the table, then sat down, solidly, firmly, on the edge of the bed. An immovable object prepared to meet his irresistible force. The wash of cool air drew his gaze down his own body to the gaping towel, the wide vee revealing one tension-taut thigh. The hem of the terrycloth flirted with his cock, replacing bold with blatant, bordering upon obscene. Hutch tugged at the cloth, pulling it more securely over his crotch.

“Maybe we should have invited Dobey out for a beer,” Starsky said as he appeared in the center of an escaping cloud of steam, one towel draped and tucked around his waist and another over his head. His voice was pitched to carry to Hutch, who was, of course, supposed to be in the living room. Or the kitchen. Or anywhere except perched on the side of Starsky’s bed. “He’s got to be feeling lousy about Fargo–”

The hair rubbing had stopped and the towel dropped, hanging haphazardly around Starsky’s shoulders as their eyes met. Hutch watched a myriad of expressions appear and fade from the familiar features, a rapid parade from surprise to hesitation to desire. Had there been a flicker of relief as well? Hutch couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter. The answer was yes. One more time, yes. Last time?

Hutch skittered around the question that tried to rob him of the sheer joy that swam into his veins as Starsky moved toward him, and allowed a flicker of sensual fear to invade him. Starsky was so dangerous when he prowled like that on the street, stalking, ready to spring no matter which way his prey might bolt. As dangerous as this was. Emotional nitro, shaken hard, then left to settle.

Hutch tipped his head back as Starsky approached, feeling the shower-moist heat of the sturdy thighs on the skin of his spread knees when Starsky wedged himself between them.

“You need a hair cut,” Starsky observed mildly, a brush to the lock above Hutch’s eye reinforcing the statement. The caress that followed, flowing from temple to jaw to cup his chin, at startling, gentle odds with the strong demand of the mouth that abruptly swooped down upon his.

Yes! It was yes. One more time, yes. Last time? Every time could be the last. The fleeting certainty of never again put an equal aggression into Hutch’s mouth, in the stab of his tongue eagerly accepted into Starsky’s mouth. A violent duel ensued of crushed lips and thrusting tongues, incongruously bracketed by the gentle hands that framed Hutch’s face.

Hutch’s lips burned and stung when Starsky lifted his head, aching from the last kiss, longing for the next. Starsky’s head turned, presenting a puffy-lipped profile as his gaze flicked to the bedside table, then returned to Hutch, probing, seeking silent answers to a question not yet asked.

“Fuck or fucked?” Starsky asked, the dispassion of the flat-toned inquiry contrasting sharply with the tenderness of the fingers that brushed Hutch’s ear, carefully tucking a wayward strand of hair behind it.

Either puckered Hutch’s lips but remained unspoken. He wanted both. To claim Starsky. Surround him, protect him. To be claimed. Feel Starsky’s strength and life pumped into him.

“Fucked,” he finally decided, and saw avid agreement glow in Starsky’s eyes before the dark fan of lashes obscured their eager message.

Hutch waited. His fate for tonight was now firmly committed into Starsky’s hands. He waited to be told to rise or bend or kneel, and received instead the careful brush of Starsky’s thumb across his bottom lip.

“Sorry I hit you so hard,” Starsky murmured the apology withheld earlier in the day.

Hutch shrugged it aside. “Doesn’t matter. All healed up,” he reassured his belatedly contrite assailant, then winced when Starsky’s thumb pressed harder where his fist had split tender membrane.

“Liar,” Starsky chided. “I tasted your blood.” He paused, easing the pressure on Hutch’s lip. “Forgive me?”

Sincere and contrite. A true seeking of forgiveness. Didn’t Starsky know that Hutch would forgive him anything? Even the words that remained unspoken, uttered only silently between two pairs of locked lips or thrusting hips.

“I forgive you,” Hutch offered absolution as seriously as it had been sought.

It remained between them, unaccepted as Starsky continued to offer apology. His fingers swept down Hutch’s throat to shoulders and arms, plucking at his heart strings when they failed to pluck at his nipples. Despite the lust that had shone in Starsky’s eyes, these caresses weren’t sexual. A loving exploration instead, as if Starsky tried to imprint every arc and angle indelibly within his memory.

Recognition and possible reason worked through the sensual haze, jolting Hutch’s heart from thrum to panicked arrhythmia just as Starsky’s hand came to rest over it.

“Shhh,” Starsky hushed as if he could calm the galloping organ directly.

Hutch reached out, fear that this might be the last time goading him to grab at every moment and miser away his own hoard of memories. Starsky, however, evaded him, sinking to his knees, leaving emptiness where his flesh had been as he bent forward and nuzzled his face into Hutch’s belly. Warm lips pressed kisses into the bruise a thrusting elbow had inflicted, a mumbled “sorry” a comma between each cherishing caress.

He was going to come. Without a single touch to his erection still enshrouded by the towel, Hutch balanced on the knife-edge of climax, aroused to the threshold of no return by the tenderness of Starsky’s caresses. The love within the hands and mouth and the aching yearning within the muffled voice, disarming what few defenses his heart possessed.

“Stop. Please, Starsk. Stop,” Hutch begged, no more able to enforce his command than he could cause this moment to stretch out into infinity, as dependent upon Starsky’s whim as he was upon the march of time. He gasped when the dark head rested for a moment in his lap, cheek and chin pressed into his cock, before Starsky levered upright once again.

For a second time, Starsky grasped Hutch’s chin, fingertips balancing it while his thumb re-traced the wounded lower lip. Contrition was fading, making way for the eager desire that had leapt into the blue eyes when Hutch had made his choice.

“Apology accepted,” Hutch whispered hoarsely, the imperative easing as he anticipated his own opportunity to cherish.

“Mmmm,” Starsky purred, his thumb still stroking, eyes riveted upon the motion. “I’ve been thinking about that night guard you wear,” he said, eyes lifting, mischief sparkling within the lust. “‘Appliance must be soaked in a hot bath before each insertion,'” he quoted and eased his thumb between Hutch’s lips.

It was oblique, teasing, but it was also the first time Starsky had ever made a direct request, however obscurely worded. Hutch asked. Silently. Usually in a way far less overt than he had asked tonight. A way Starsky could ignore if he chose. He never had, but that he might was always the potential hazard Hutch faced. Tonight, Starsky had caressed, drawn friendship and partnership into this matter of the flesh with his apologies, and now asked directly. Holding Starsky’s gaze, Hutch sucked once, hard, hollowing his cheeks around the intruder in his mouth, then eased back, closing his teeth briefly over the tip before he released it.

Carefully, Hutch slid his fingers into the tight fold-over at Starsky’s waist, tickling it loose until he could peel the material back, holding it tight against Starsky’s ass while he feasted his eyes on the thick bar of Starsky’s cock. Arms spread to either side of them, Hutch drew the towel down, inch by inch, held taut to the swell of buttocks, then thighs, abandoning the terrycloth caress when he reached the back of Starsky’s knees.

“The instructions say ‘for three minutes.’ You only want three minutes?” Hutch challenged, wrapping one hand boldly around Starsky’s cock, reaching out with the other for waist or hip or thigh to steady him as Starsky gasped and swayed.

“I don’t think we have to follow the instructions to the letter,” Starsky growled, his fingers threading into Hutch’s hair. They tugged once, and then again harder, when Hutch resisted direction. “Do we?” he added, a plea in his voice.

“The spirit, not the letter,” Hutch agreed and bowed his back, lips spreading willingly to enclose the swollen tip of Starsky’s cock. Sliding down, tongue tip and pallet finding the sharp male salt beneath the lingering chemical of soap, Hutch fought to conquer nature and allow the throbbing bulk to come to rest in his throat.

Hutch swallowed, heard the startled shout from above him, and felt the stroke of trembling fingers on his throat. Starsky was petting him, as if the caress might coax the muscles to yield more easily. Hutch’s heart slipped its moorings.

“Christ. Oh, sweet suffering…” Starsky panted, the benediction choked into a strangled, wordless groan. “Again. Do it again and I’ll….”

Unwilling to be robbed of his choice, Hutch retreated, tongue swirling, tasted the bland, neutral wash of pre-come and began to bob his head, taking up the rhythm Starsky had taught him the first time. The first time the answer had been yes.

“‘Nuf, babe.”

It was a reluctant request, but Hutch obeyed it, lifting his head, leaning back to look up into the passion-sharp planes of Starsky’s face. He must be looking as smug as he felt because Starsky’s lips quirked and then lowered to his. Hutch felt those never-spoken words pressed into his mouth, tasted them on Starsky’s tongue. The answer would always be yes. Whenever Hutch found the courage or sufficient cause to ask, the answer would always be yes.

“How do you want me?” Hutch asked when his lips were returned to him.

“Assume the position?” Starsky suggested with what might have been a smirk if his eyes hadn’t been so soft, his lips so swollen.

Hutch rose on shaky legs as Starsky backed away and turned to retrieve the lubricant. About-faced, Hutch stared down at the towel left behind and let cool logic intrude while he calculated the bend of knees and spine required to accommodate their height difference. Where to lay his forearms and brace his elbows to best present himself for his lover’s pleasure.

Lover. At this moment, others in the past, more in the future. Starsky was his lover.

“Oh, God.”

Starsky’s exclamation was a startled, hungry growl that tickled Hutch’s bowed spine and squeezed the weight of his balls where they hung between his wide-spread thighs. A ghostly caress, echoed by the trembling hand that laid proprietary claim to the cheek of his ass.

“Sexy son of a bitch,” Starsky indicted him in that same starving-wolf snarl.

Hutch opened his mouth, the intended self-defense becoming a groan when the sudden sharp cold of the lube was smeared on his anus. Again Hutch fought nature to suppress the instinctive rejection of the startled muscle and allow himself to be pierced.

“Let me in,” Starsky pleaded, the pressure of his fingers gentle but insistent. “Oh, baby blue, let me in.”

Aching to be filled, Hutch pushed back, aiding and abetting his own impalement. Breached at last, the probe of Starsky’s fingers inside him brought with it a sweet melting that flowed like warm honey over the demon of terror that had gripped his bowels when he realized Starsky’s cover was blown. Deep. Deeper. Almost deep enough.

“More,” Hutch groaned, needing the hot lance of Starsky’s cock inside him to cauterize the wounds left behind by the demon’s claws, to drive the bastard back into its cage in his gut and slam the gate.

Another growl and then the soft, warm weight of Starsky’s hairy chest and belly against his back, the scratch and tickle of the coarse pubic thatch against his ass. Hutch felt the blunt tip of Starsky’s cock probing, pressing, and fought the anticipation of that first stab of pain/pleasure until Starsky gave it to him. He wallowed in it as it pierced his brain and then faded, all of it pleasure now as Starsky filled him, stroked fire into his belly and balls with ever-quickening thrusts and withdrawals.

“With me, babe,” Starsky grunted the demand, his left hand, that could draw, aim and fire in one smooth motion, fisting around Hutch’s cock with that same easy competence.

With him. Always with him. The right bought and paid for a hundred times over in blood and sweat and worry. The same currency with which Hutch had paid his dues.

“Love you,” Hutch whispered what he longed to shout, the two syllables drowned out by the slap of their bodies meeting in their frantic race for completion.

Then, abruptly, the finish line was reached when Starsky went suddenly still. The thump, thump, thump of his cock against Hutch’s prostate as it spewed the hot proof of life demanded that Hutch echo it, the insistent stroking of Starsky’s fist ensured it.

“Love you,” Hutch repeated as the last weak pulse drained him and he collapsed, his face pressed into the mattress to muffle the confession. The words echoed in his head in time with the beat of his own heart and the one whose rhythm throbbed into his back.

Almost over. In a few moments, when a little strength had returned to depleted muscles, Starsky would retreat. Not too far. Just enough to withdraw from the channel that still spasmed weakly, to straighten his own bowed spine and offer his strength to Hutch to do the same. Aftermath was almost over, but there were still a few moments of afterglow left to gather into memory.

Hutch groaned twice as the anticipated scenario played itself out, once from the heart when Starsky’s cock slipped free, and a second time from protesting muscles.

“You okay?” Starsky asked when they lay side by side, the sweat-slick skin of their shoulders and calves pressing, holding open their connection. Point of contact, that was never quite severed no matter how many miles came between them.

“Destroyed,” Hutch admitted with quiet satisfaction.

There was a smirk in the silence that followed Hutch’s confession, but accompanied as it was by the hand that found his and laced their fingers, he wasn’t inclined to object. He could cut Starsky’s ego down to size later with a well-aimed verbal probe or a smirk of his own. He had only a few minutes left to soak up this time, and it might be a long wait until next time.

“Aren’t you supposed to wear that night guard every night?” Starsky asked.

There it was, Hutch’s signal to exit stage right. Over. He had to get up, dress beneath Starsky’s watchful gaze, find a friendly good night, and go. The first time, he had started this at his place. Lying in the wreck they had made of his big brass bed, Hutch had promised never to do that again. It had been too painful to take on the role of silent watcher.

“So the dentist said,” Hutch admitted and began sending preliminary commands to his sprawled muscles. Tighten, roll, get his feet under him. Find the clothes he had earlier rejected and….

“Do those things cost a lot?” Starsky asked, unexpectedly rolling onto his side, one elbow under him, while a hairy thigh settled heavily over Hutch’s legs and his hand came to rest firmly on Hutch’s chest, enough pressure behind both to be a deliberate restraint.

“Not that much,” Hutch said, searching the face above him, watching Starsky struggle to overcome the firm belief that a soapy scene was going to be the death of him. “Why?”

“I was just thinking. Maybe you could get another one. Keep it here,” Starsky suggested hesitantly. His fingers pushed in a little harder on Hutch’s chest and his leg tightened. “What do you think?”

The translation was instantaneous. Stay. Come again. No more finding excuses. No more wondering. Everything Hutch wanted desperately to hear. But Hutch wasn’t accustomed to life handing him his heart’s desire. He was too used to a fate that gave with one hand and took away with the other, not to be wary.

“Why?” Hutch insisted, demanding Starsky come out from behind his walls, or invite him in in unmistakable language that required no interpretation. To pay the final installment of vulnerability that he asked of Hutch.

Dark lashes came down, veiling the expression behind them, but then lifted, the blue eyes meeting Hutch’s. Naked. Starsky’s heart as naked in his eyes as the body that held Hutch captive.

“In the bar when I hit you, it was like I’d hit myself,” Starsky confessed. “An elbow in the gut that knocked the wind outta me, and a bust in the mouth that dumped me on my ass.”

“That was the plan,” Hutch reminded him gently, remembering, nevertheless, the pain of the blows, made infinitely sharper agony by the identity of the man who had delivered them.

“It was never part of the plan that hitting you would break my heart,” Starsky countered. “I don’t ever want to hurt you.”

It still required a little interpretation, a little reading between the lines, or maybe between the lashes and lips and the limbs that held Hutch tenaciously. A little more effort to find the “I love you,” but Hutch was willing to do it now and look forward to a someday when he could throw away his Starsky decoder ring.

“Yes,” Hutch said simply, smiled at the puzzlement that came into Starsky’s face and then gave him the answer he needed. “Yes, I think I could get another one.”

Half a dozen heartbeats passed, then Starsky grinned his understanding. It blazed over his face for a moment, then was abruptly extinguished. “What about tonight?” he asked uncertainly.

And Hutch’s heart found its moorings at last, tied up right along side Starsky’s. He pulled his lover down to him, cradled the dark head on his chest where Starsky could hear the happy beating of his heart.

“I think I’ve got all the night guard I need for tonight.”