lauramcewan:



bridge foreigner acknowledge/d fry/ing

Some Comfort Here
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He stroked the blonde waves that drifted around his face with every breath, the streetlamp setting the strands aglow in the dark.

She'd brought him home rather than rent one of the many cheap rooms at their disposal; a compassionate bridge between the strained facts of their chosen professions, making him feel important and cared for rather than an unknown foreigner just wanting a blow job from a pretty girl.

He knew she'd dreamed of being with him for the past few years; he acknowledged that if she'd only given it up, found a real job, that he would have gone to her on first night home from whatever position she'd found. Sweet and warm and kind; she deserved better than a whore's life.

He shivered and pulled her closer, soothing her as she seemed to nearly wake, until her breathing evened out and his mind took him to a different room, sterile and white and cold.

He should be at the hospital, he knew, but the hours he'd already spent weren't enough, hadn't brought the man he now loved out of the dark and distant sleep that the doctors couldn't say he'd ever awaken from. His brain could be fried, his mind gone, they didn't know, couldn't say, wouldn't presume, never promised.

He'd wandered the city at sunset and found Alice at Tony's bar, nearly crumbling beneath her tender touch and softer voice, her "Handsome Hutch" a benediction of sorts, for he felt ugly and dark and alone. A failure as a friend, as a would-be lover, for if he couldn't stay at Starsky's bedside, what sort of man did that make him?

"You're only human, Handsome Hutch," her gentle voice whispered into his ear. She cuddled her nude body closer to his. "It's okay to need something for yourself."

"I need him, Alice. Oh, god, I need him."

She pulled his head to her soft breasts, fluttered her fingers beneath his eyes, stroked at his hair and kissed him. "I know you do, baby. I know you do. And I'll take you right back to him in the morning, but you need to try to sleep now." And as she hummed to him, rocking him as if he were her infant needing a lullaby, he wrapped his arms around her and cried.