Again

“I know too much about the human anatomy, too much about drug schedules and which coffee machines in the hospital don’t eat quarters and where to get the newest magazines in what waiting room.”

Hutch shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out all the money he had with him, picking through the quarters and crumpled-up bills for nickels and dimes. He fed the appropriate amount of small change into the machine and pushed the second button for black coffee, remembering how the first one always over-filled the new size of cups. It wasn’t the best machine in the hospital – it wouldn’t even accept quarters the first time they were shoved in – but it was the closest to the nurses’ station and the ER, and the nurse had promised to come and tell him when he could take Starsky home. He knew that he was being placated because he was making a nuisance of himself, loitering around and asking too many questions, so he went.

The best coffee machine in the hospital was in the west wing of the first floor, near the ICU. It was ironic, but appropriate, he thought; those who came and visited their loved ones there most needed the small things to hold on to, the comforts, the niceties. It was the same reason that there were fabric-cushioned seats in the waiting room, instead of the hard plastic chairs and vinyl and chrome benches that were to be found in most of the rest of the hospital.

He remembered the people he’d met down there, the last time; the parents of the little girl who’d been brought in after the hit-and-run, the sad-eyed older woman who was watching her husband slowly succumb to lung cancer, joined every other day or so by some constantly-rotating member of the immediate family. The little girl was upgraded and moved to pediatrics – fifth floor – after four days; three days afterwards, when Starsky came out of his coma and was put in a semi-private room on the second floor, Mrs. Green was left alone. He’d meant to go back down there, but everything was so wild, so insane – between Starsky flat-lining and the slowly unraveling mess with Gunther, he’d just forgotten. A week later he dropped by again, but she was gone, and her place was filled with other wives and parents and wide-eyed loved ones who looked up at him in sympathy, wondering who he was here to see. He quietly left the flowers he’d brought at the nurses’ station and went to see Starsky instead, ridiculously grateful for the change in scenery that he didn’t know if anyone else even noticed.

Everything in ICU was somber, serious, hushed, and reverent. Things got brighter and noisier the closer you got to the top floor of the hospital, with more pictures and more vivid decoration, until, on five, brightly-colored murals adorned every available space with fairy-tale characters and animals to amuse the kids. Beyond that was the roof, where doctors and nurses and the occasional wayward visitor went to escape – for some “fresh air” and, more often than not, a cigarette. Hutch had found himself up there, one long night, bumming cigarettes and smoking them one after another while Starsky was in surgery, again, until a nurse came and told him Starsky was in recovery and would be fine, and he’d reminded himself just why he’d quit smoking in the first place.

“Detective Hutchinson?”

He stood up, an automatic response to hearing his name.

The ER nurse he’d talked to earlier stood in front of him. “The doctor is just about finished with Detective Starsky. You can go in, now.”

She led him to a curtained cubicle in the bustling ER.

“I’ve got a prescription here for a painkiller, and I can give you something to help you sleep, as well, if you’d like.”

“Believe me, doc, with these painkillers you’re givin’ me, I ain’t gonna have no trouble sleepin’ tonight.” Starsky, semi-high and with his left foot successfully plastered into a cast, grinned at Hutch when he walked in. “Hey, partner. Looks like I’m gonna live, after all.”

“Looks like,” Hutch agreed, with a forced smile. “Can he go, now?” he asked the doctor.

“Yeah. I’ll give this to you.” He handed over the scrip for the painkiller. “Just make sure he takes them – ”

“I know the drill, doc,” Hutch said, interrupting him.

The doctor pulled back the curtain. “Yeah, I thought you looked familiar. Judging from the scars on him, your partner here must have nine lives.”

“At least,” Hutch said, under his breath. He spied an empty wheelchair and brought it over to the examination table, helping Starsky down into it before pushing him out of the room. They stopped at the nurse’s desk to sign some papers and pick up a set of crutches, then wheeled out of the building to the Torino.

***

Starsky fell asleep in the car on the way home, not stirring even when Hutch stopped at the pharmacy to pick up his prescription, or when he pulled into an all-night grocery store for something to eat. Knowing Starsky’s refrigerator contents as well as he knew his own, the only thing green he was likely to find there would be something that wasn’t intended to be green in the first place.

He managed to wake Starsky when they pulled up in front of his place, but he was still pretty much out of it, and incapable of the intricate maneuvering required to use the crutches. They eventually settled on having him hop on his good foot and lean on Hutch with most of his weight to get inside the house, and when he was settled on the couch, Hutch went out to the car and brought everything else in.

When he was finished, had stored the groceries in the fridge and read the instructions from the painkiller bottle, he found Starsky asleep, again, on the couch – foot up, head slumped over to one side, snoring softly. He knew he could just throw a blanket over him and leave him there for the night, but Starsky would wake up cramped and even stiffer than he was going to be anyway, and he’d rather deal with the grumpiness now than have to work the knots out in the morning.

“Come on,” he said, softly, a hand on Starsky’s shoulder, shaking him gently out of sleep. “Gotta get you to bed.”

“Mmm,” Starsky agreed, sleepily, and held his arms up, for Hutch to grab him and hoist him to his feet. Or, foot, rather; they got into the same position they’d used to get from the car to the house and moved slowly into the bedroom, Hutch bent over slightly to take more of his partner’s weight.

Hutch turned on the bedside lamp once he’d settled Starsky into the bed; his jeans were shredded up to the knee, making them easier to remove, although Hutch knew he could have just cut them off the rest of the way, if he had to. He stripped him out of his shirt and tee, too, and pulled the covers gently away. A pillow propped up on either side of his foot and he was tucked into bed.

“Don’t go to sleep yet,” Hutch warned. “You’d better take your painkiller now, or you’ll regret it in a couple of hours.”

“Yeah,” Starsky agreed, fighting sleep with a face-splitting yawn.

Hutch ran water in the bathroom, rinsing the glass until it ran cold, popped the cap on the prescription bottle and shook two of the white pills into his hand. He had to prop Starsky’s head up against his chest as he fed him the pills, and then settled him back into bed, warm and cozy. Starsky was asleep before he came back out of the bathroom again.

Hutch could have gone home, changed clothes and had a shower and maybe even a couple of hours of sleep in his own bed before Starsky woke again, but he knew he wouldn’t. He needed to be here, tonight at least, needed to make sure for himself that Starsky was going to be okay, that he wouldn’t wake up in a few hours and need something – more pills or help getting to the bathroom or just someone to be here with him. The nightmares were sometimes the worst when everything was still fresh; he remembered that, himself, from when he’d been shot. He couldn’t remember what it had been like the last time, for Starsky.

Of course, the last time, for Starsky, he hadn’t awakened for anything, not for days and days. The last time was Gunther. Now this – not nearly as serious, but another scar, another broken bone. And next – what?

“What will the next time be like?” Hutch asked his unconscious partner, mindlessly ruffling his hands through unruly dark hair. “And will it be the last time, Starsk?”

***

He made himself a sandwich – sprouts and lean ham on whole wheat – and took one of the three beers Starsky had in the fridge. Starsky wouldn’t be allowed anything alcoholic until he’d finished his painkillers, and Hutch thought the alcohol-buzz might help him sleep, or forget, or something. He felt jittery, like something was just hitting him; it was like the beginning of an adrenaline rush, rather than the end, though. Leave it to him to do this backwards – of course, he’d been running on instinct all day, so it was only fair that his brain finally kick in to process everything that his body had done on automatic.

That was probably the real reason for the alcohol; he didn’t want to think. Thinking involved analyzing, running through details, scenarios, what-ifs. What he could have done, what Starsky could have done, what the perp was trying to do. And none of it mattered; it was all done, finished, nothing could be bettered or changed or fixed now. Still, there was always a next time, and sitting here in the dark, in Starsky’s house, listening to him breathe and re-playing the day’s ‘game tape’ over and over in his mind was a ritual that went along hand-in-hand with all the others. There was a schedule to be followed: action and self-recrimination and some vows for the future, like a Catholic penance. Say a few ‘hail Marys’ and everything would be all right.

Only, this time, there was something else underneath it all. Anger was neither unfamiliar nor unexpected, but it was the kind of anger he felt that startled him. Anger at the perp was a given, and always fleeting, because none of them ever deserved that much of him or Starsky. They were transient and interchangeable and they followed in line, one after the other, they took what they wanted and ultimately paid with their lives, in some way, and that was the way that it was. The anger at himself – slow reaction, lack of premonition, the general failings of his feeble attempts at omnipotence where Starsky was concerned – that was normal, too. It lasted longer – some of it always lingered, on the periphery – but it eventually faded to a light gray color on the very edges of his self-esteem.

This anger was different, sharper, harder to swallow. He tried pushing it away, but it had a grip on him and wouldn’t let him free, taunting him, daring him to unleash it, to strike out with it.

Hutch crept over to the bedroom, and stood in the doorway, watching. Starsky’s form was a dark shadow in the bed, and he’d pulled free of most of the covers from the waist up. One of the pillows had slipped free, and was lying on the floor. Hutch bent to pick it up and rested it beside Starsky’s head, untangled the blankets and re-settled them, smoothing them over and over. He had to force himself away from the bedside, make himself go into the living room and sit down, and breathe very deeply to get his heart and head to stop pounding.

“It wasn’t his fault,” he said to himself. “He doesn’t do this on purpose, doesn’t throw himself in front of the bullets. It just happens to him. It isn’t his fault.” He spoke the words vehemently, as if force could make himself believe them.

***

It was pre-dawn when Hutch heard Starsky get up; he’d yet to sleep at all. He waited for Starsky to call out to him, but no summons came, so he just sat, and listened.

The trip from the bed to the bathroom was only a matter of a few feet; Hutch heard him hop a couple of times, his tread heavy in the quiet house, and then slump against the door. About a minute later there were a couple more hops, and then there came the sound of a healthy piss into the toilet. A flush, water running in the sink, and a couple of hops back out again, right into the living room.

“You still here?” There was no surprise in his question.

Hutch nodded, even though it was semi-dark in the room. He figured that Starsky’s eyes had adjusted; he sounded remarkably awake, despite the painkillers and having had only four or so hours of sleep.

“Why are you sittin’ in the dark?”

Hutch shrugged. “Just thinking. It’s easier in the dark.”

“Okay.” Starsky turned, about to go back into the bedroom.

The words came out even though Hutch didn’t intend to speak them out loud; he knew that, once unleashed, nothing could be unsaid, not in the condition that he – that they – were in. “Starsk?”

Starsky turned back, balancing himself against the back of a chair. “Uh-huh?”

“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” Hutch said, amazed at how even his voice sounded to his own ears. He took a pull off his beer, warm now in the can. “I really don’t think I can.”

“Do what, blintz?” Starsky hobbled over to the couch, and set himself carefully down.

Hutch flinched as if he’d been slapped as soon as the cushion shifted beside him. “This,” he said, standing. He ran his fingers through his hair, and paced from the couch to the far wall, unable to make himself look at Starsky as he talked. “This – taking care of you.”

Starsky frowned. “You don’t have to – ”

“It’s too hard,” Hutch continued, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “I know too much about the human anatomy, too much about drug schedules and which coffee machines in the hospital don’t eat quarters and where to get the newest magazines in what waiting room. I know the nurses’ schedules and the pattern on the furniture in ICU and I noticed that they changed the style of scrubs in the ER, Starsky – and that, that’s just not normal. That’s not something that anyone should know, okay, unless they work there and I don’t work there, Starsk.”

“But you do know all of that,” Starsky said, softly.

“I do. I don’t know how to un-know it, either. I just – ” Hutch shook his head, deflated. “I’m just tired, I think.”

“You need some rest.”

Hutch nodded. “Yeah. I should go home and sleep. You’re okay to stay here alone. I should go.”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Starsky insisted. “You’re dead on your feet, Hutch. C’mere.” He held his hand out, and even though Hutch knew that he could just leave and Starsky wouldn’t stop him – couldn’t really, not with a lame foot and the crutches still more of a hindrance than a help – he walked over, and took that hand, let Starsky pull him down into the couch, close. A little too close, maybe, but that was the way Starsky wanted it, and Hutch didn’t have anything in him to fight against it.

He was warm, and his warmth made Hutch shiver, violently. Starsky had put his broken ankle up on the coffee table, on a small cushion, and he tugged Hutch’s head down into his lap, stroking his fingers through fine blond hair in much the same way Hutch had touched him, earlier. It was an instinct to comfort they shared – touch had always been a galvanizing force between them, something base and primal and inherent, and it had never frightened Hutch before.

Right now, this close, it was scaring the fuck out of him.

Starsky sensed the steadily welling panic in him, though, and his hand tightened on Hutch’s shoulder, as if to hold him down should he attempt to bolt. It was a good decision, because it made Hutch realize that he couldn’t make any sudden moves without the very real possibility of dumping Starsky on his ass on the floor as a result. That was unthinkable, in his current condition. It would mean hurting him, and he didn’t do that – at least, not on purpose, not knowingly.

“You can tell me, you know,” Starsky said, and his voice was still soft and slightly rough, like there was something inside him that he’d been holding back, too, and it came out in his voice whereas Hutch’s came out in the fine trembling of his limbs. “Right now, I’m the closest you’re ever going to get to a captive audience.”

Hutch laughed, but it was strangled and it hurt both of them; Starsky winced, just a little, but his hand’s rhythmic carding through Hutch’s hair didn’t stop.

“Tell me,” Starsky said, then, “tell me what you want to say, Hutch.”

“Don’t you think, under the circumstances, I’m the captive?” Hutch asked, and instantly regretted it when Starsky raised both hands away from him, and held them up in a gesture of surrender. He wanted those hands back where they’d been, but he couldn’t just say that.

He was going to leave, he really was; he made it all the way to his feet, but Starsky spoke.

“I’ll stop,” he said. “Stop gettin’ hurt, I mean. I don’t know what it is I do, but I’ll figure it out, Hutch, I will, I swear I will and I’ll stop doin’ it. Just don’t – don’t you stop – ”

“What?” Hutch asked. He was still standing, with his back to Starsky, eyes shut tight and hands clenched into fists, his entire body clamped down, hard, against – something.

“Bein’ my partner,” Starsky said. “You don’t have to take care of me,” he added. “You shouldn’t. I’m not a kid, not your kid, an’ it ain’t your responsibility to take care of me – ”

Hutch turned around, but didn’t sit. “What is my responsibility, then?” he asked. “Nine to five, ride along in the car beside you and drive whenever it’s my turn and do my half of the arrests and my share of the reports, then walk out at the end of the shift and that’s it until the next morning?” Starsky opened his mouth to speak, but Hutch didn’t let him. It was too late to stop; it had been unleashed. “It’s never been that, ever, before – even before we were partners, remember? Remember when we were in the Academy? We were friends, even then, right from the first, and nobody could ever understand it. Nobody ever knew what it was about you and me that just went together, but we did. We were a team, partners.” He swallowed. “Closer than anyone ever has been, Starsk.”

Starsky’s eyes were wide, and watchful. He didn’t blink, just nodded. He didn’t try to speak again.

“Even Van,” Hutch continued. “She knew it, I think – she must have. She always told me there was only so close she could get, and I didn’t see it – didn’t see what she was really trying to tell me, and of course she wouldn’t just say it for me.” He laughed, bitterly. “She didn’t have any interest in making it easy for me. Probably thought it would be better if I just went along, unconscious, unseeing, for the rest of my life.” He sat down, hands clutched in front of him. “She could only get so close to me, because there was already somebody there, somebody who was closer to my heart, and keeping her from moving all the way in.”

“I – ” Starsky swallowed, hard. “I never meant – ”

“I know!” Hutch said, and laughed, again. “Do you think either one of us knew any of this, planned it, wanted it? For fuck’s sake, Starsky, it was never part of my life’s plan to fall in love with my partner!”

He could feel Starsky staring at him, but couldn’t make himself lift his head, and he thought that maybe Starsky didn’t want him to, either – that maybe looking at each other would be the final straw. It was all tumbling down, all the facades were shattering, and there was nothing left inside but anger and hurt. He _hurt_.

He didn’t realize he was crying until Starsky’s warmth pressed up against his back, and then those hands were there, again, touching him, wrapped tight around his chest. He wondered if Starsky could somehow just hold him together, all the breaking pieces of him, while he sobbed.

And there it was, the patterns they had forged over so many years: Starsky holding him while he cried over something that went terribly wrong in his life, him waiting for Starsky to be put back together after something had been broken. Give and receive. Starsky and Hutch. He didn’t think his name even existed any more without the “Starsky and” in front of it.

He was saying all of this out loud, with Starsky holding on to him. He couldn’t stop himself from talking, even though his breath hitched from the exertion of his tears, even though Starsky was soothing him, rubbing small circles into his back, still with that ever-present warmth. He kept talking and talking and talking, afraid to stop until everything had been said.

Almost everything.

***

Hutch took the tissues Starsky offered him and rubbed his eyes and blew his nose, drained and exhausted. He barely had the strength necessary to straighten himself up again, and lean back against the couch. Starsky’s hand rested on his thigh – the heat seemed to burn him, but it was welcome. He felt – ephemeral, like he’d gotten rid of everything that was inside him for so long that there just wasn’t anything left anymore. It was all gone.

They sat for a long time, side-by-side, without speaking. Hutch couldn’t fathom ever saying anything again – words were beyond his mental capabilities. Besides, there wasn’t anything left to say, was there?

Starsky obviously didn’t think so. He hadn’t said anything at all – but Hutch hadn’t expected him to. As meaningless as the stereotypes were, and as much as they’d both always fought against them, the fact remained that he was the one who intellectualized, while Starsky reacted. Hutch the thinker, Starsky the doer. So he waited for Starsky to do something.

What Starsky did startled him. He put one hand on the arm of the couch, the other still flat on Hutch’s thigh, and pushed himself up, leaning heavily on his good leg – and waited, hand outstretched, expectant. Hutch stared at it for a good minute before taking it. He used very little of Starsky’s weight to pull himself up, not wanting him to over-balance and fall.

Starsky didn’t speak at all, might not have, except that Hutch didn’t move when he started to hop towards the bedroom. Starsky stopped, turned, and looked at him. “Bed,” he said.

“Starsky – ”

Starsky shook his head, frustrated and yet resigned to the fact that Hutch needed him to explain. “Been in love with you, since – forever. Since the first day.” His voice was hollow, like he’d wept right along with Hutch, and yet was full of everything, too. “Like you said, since we were at the Academy. An’ you were always mine – I always knew it, even when you were with Van, or with Gillian, or with anyone. So I – I never hated them, Hutch, not really, ’cause I knew that they’d never have you, not like I did, not all of you. Now I want all of you.”

“You’re hurt,” Hutch said, meaning, somehow, “no” and “yes” and “maybe” and “wait.”

“I’m always gonna be hurt without you,” Starsky said. “That’s always been the part that’s missing – the part I been wantin’. I need you.” He reached out a hand, burning with warmth, and slid it down Hutch’s cheek. “Come with me,” he said, soft, and low, half command, half plea.

It was Hutch’s turn to nod, wordless, and follow him.

***

The bed was rumpled and unmade, blankets and pillows strewn about, and that somehow made it easier and even more inviting. Starsky fell back into it, with a laugh, and pulled his bad foot up gingerly. Hutch was still reluctant, but Starsky sensed his need for coaxing, and drew him in.

They were side-by-side facing each other and Starsky was grinning at him when Hutch accused, “You’re stoned.”

“Un-unh,” Starsky said. “No more’n you, anyway.”

“I had one beer.”

“And my last dosage was four ‘r five hours ago, right?”

“Doesn’t your foot hurt?”

“Uh-huh. Don’t care.”

“This can wait – ” Hutch said, pulling away.

“_No_,” Starsky said, suddenly vehement. “I don’t care what we do, babe, but you’re staying right here. I’m sick of waitin’ – this ain’t fast, it may be the slowest goddamn courtship in the history of the world, an’ the first night of the rest of my life starts now.” With that, he reached out a hand and rested it on Hutch’s temple.

And then they were kissing, and Hutch wondered if he’d leaned in or if Starsky had drawn him in, and decided that it really didn’t matter, because everything about that kiss was right – it felt right the way his lips slid across Starsky’s, bottom and then top, and his tongue pushed inside Starsky’s mouth and they were crushed together and it wasn’t until Starsky betrayed a small sound of pain that he pulled back again.

“I’m hurting you,” Hutch accused himself.

Starsky sighed. “Let me get on my back,” he said, giving in a little. “Put the pillows around my foot, again,” he directed, as Hutch obeyed. “Now,” he said, when he was propped up and comfortable, “you’ve got too many clothes on, babe.”

And the way that he said that final word took Hutch’s breath – even though Starsky had called him ‘babe’ maybe a hundred times before in his life. He wondered if he’d just never noticed how much of a verbal caress there was in those four letters as spoken by David Michael Starsky.

“Starsk – ” he said, voice cracking.

“Clothes, Hutch,” Starsky said, and waited.

He had to look down to unbutton his shirt, unable to do it while meeting Starsky’s eyes. He paused a good long while at the button of his jeans, until Starsky made a small, impatient noise in this throat. It wasn’t until he was down to boxers – and they were ‘even’ – that he managed to look up.

Starsky’s smile was lazy, and yet there was a catch in it, too – something almost proprietary. “If you lie down here,” he said, patting the mattress on his right side, “and do most of the work, I think we can just manage this.”

“What?” Hutch asked, as he settled on his side.

“I don’t know. This?”

They kissed again, and it wasn’t so different, this sort of touching. Was it more startling because of that – or less, perhaps? Hutch found himself wondering how he’d never reacted this way before when Starsky had touched him, with this steady flare of desire. He had been in this man’s arms so many times and never thought – or, maybe, had always thought, and never just let himself feel.

He let himself feel Starsky’s fingers on his nipples, let himself echo that touch, tentatively, and then move lower, through chest hair and the scattered darkness that dusted his navel. When his hand slid under Starsky’s boxers, he drew another gasp – not pain, this time, and complete with a warning that if he stopped, he’d regret it. He smiled into Starsky’s eyes and didn’t stop, grasping a hardness that leapt to his touch, stroking it until Starsky groaned and his eyes closed and he came, biting his lower lip.

Hutch didn’t think he’d ever witnessed anything more sexy in his life than watching his partner come, until Starsky retrieved his hand and licked it clean of his own come. The feel and the sight of him doing that was nearly enough to make Hutch come, too, but he held back until Starsky could touch him in return, jerking his cock less than a dozen times to bring him off. Starsky licked his own hand clean, too.

When Hutch kissed him again, he tasted on Starsky’s tongue the subtly mingled flavor of both of them, and again, it was just somehow right. And when they lay, side-by-side, Starsky’s hand on his bare thigh and one of his hands on top of it, Hutch realized that the fear was gone.

“Can hear you thinking,” Starsky said, long after Hutch thought he was asleep.

“Not thinking,” Hutch said, and meant it. He wasn’t thinking anything at all.

“No?” It was a sleepy murmur, through closed eyes.

“No,” Hutch said. “Go back to sleep.” His fingers tightened even as Starsky’s grasp on his thigh went slack, to keep that touch warm against his skin.

A pattern, indeed.

The end.