No Reason (Four and One)

Four times they did “it” and one time they didn’t.

The first time it happened was unexpected. They’d just cleared up a particularly gruesome serial murder case and were standing stove-to, as always, using their shared space to reconnect. He’d turned his head at the precise moment that Starsky had, and their lips had brushed, and society and convention and right and wrong went out the window. They went at it like ravening wolves, needing to connect with something warm and giving, something alive, something human.

Their clothes hung in tatters when they were done, and they sat against Hutch’s couch, heads leaning against one another, and just panted their way back to the land of the living and the human.

They didn’t talk about it; didn’t need to. They went back to their little black books, even sharing a girl or two when time and circumstance warranted it, but if the thought of what they had done that rainy night ever entered either of their minds when they were naked and fucking warm, wet holes, neither said.

The second time was sometime after Terry had died. Hutch had stood helplessly by and watched something in his best friend shatter. As he looked on, he saw something he would have sworn on a stack of Bibles ten miles high could not possibly ever happen: his friend was steadily spiraling into a suicidal depression. And in desperation, he gave the only thing he could; his body and his heart, showing his partner what it was like to be loved again, to be cherished again, to feel the warmth of another body anchoring him to the planet in the middle of the night.

That time, they talked about it. The conversation was brief, but intense. Starsky thanked him, with tears standing in his eyes. Thanked him for saving his sanity and his life. For throwing him a line that he could grab and taste and feel. For pulling him back into the light.

Things got better for a time, and then got worse, and continued getting worse until they were at each other’s throats, one step away from ripping them out entire.

They were rutting bulls, going after the only female in the herd in estrus. And when she turned them down, they went after one another, each vying for dominance and each failing until they were battered and bleeding and too sore to do anything but curl, dazed, on the dusty floor, licking their wounds.

Together, but completely alone.

And then things got better again, and suddenly they got almost as bad as they could possibly be.

Starsky lost his body, and Hutch lost his mind, but somehow they connected in the netherworld and came out of it more or less intact.

And things got better for Hutch and worse for Starsky. The nurturer was in his Heaven, and the stoic was in his hell. A hell of sweat and agony and tears. An agony of not knowing what lay ahead, of watching everything he had lived for, had worked for, circling the drain.

The fourth time it happened, it was again out of desperation. Starsky was already well on his way toward a miraculous recovery, and as such, his Physical Therapist had upped his training regimen just a bit past his limits. He spent half the night throwing up in the bathroom, and the other half rocking in his bed, moans locked behind his tightly clenched jaw. He’d refused all painkillers by that time and was determined to suffer in silence. Hutch wasn’t prepared to let him.

It started with a steadying, bracing embrace that led slowly to gentle caresses to cramped, scarred muscles. As Starsky responded, Hutch, helpless against the tide of his overwhelming affection, poured his love, his thankfulness, his entire being into taking away the pain in the most natural way possible.

And when they were done, Starsky lay draped over his chest, sobbing “Thank you, thank you,” into his ear over and over until they both fell asleep.

The fifth time was after the reinstatement party at Huggy’s. At Hutch’s insistence, it was non-alcoholic, so by the time they got back to Venice Place, they were sober as judges, but flying high on the joy of it all anyway.

The minute the door closed behind them, Hutch gathered his partner into a tight embrace, overjoyed at the ability to do so without the fear of causing pain. It felt so natural when he angled his head down toward those tempting lips, and his heart split in two when he felt a hand against his chest, gently, but insistently, pushing him away.

“What?” he said brokenly. “I don’t understand.”

Starsky’s hand was steady as he paused to gather his thoughts. Then he met Hutch’s eyes with calm determination. “I don’t,” he began softly, “want there to have to be a reason.”

They went their separate ways that night, but Hutch swore his feet never touched the ground. His cheeks hurt from the grin that beamed through the darkened apartment like a shaft of sunlight between lowering clouds.

If he had to live to be a hundred and forty nine, he would make sure that one day, there wouldn’t be a reason.

FIN