Antidote

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Starsky’s little joke at the end of A Coffin for Starsky backfires spectacularly.

 

First published in the zine, Here With You, a Tribute to Kaye Austen Michaels.

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“Is that any way to treat a convalescent?” I spluttered through a mouthful of water.

“No, but this is,” Hutch grated out, and swung.

We’d been partners long enough I knew what that tone of voice meant; problem was, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I was still shaking my head, trying to blink my eyes clear, so I couldn’t get a good look at him until it was too late. I didn’t have the strength to block the punch, or the speed to dodge it. The best I could do was jerk my head back so his fist clipped my chin instead of breaking my jaw. Even that was too much for my shaky legs and sent me stumbling back, crashing into the swivel chair and from there sliding down to the floor.

When I landed, one of those damn cramps took me, and for a few seconds everything went grey. I curled up around myself, trying to breathe and keep from moaning out loud. It felt like little red pain worms crawling around through my gut, scorching everything they touched, leaving a trail of ash behind, like when you let a cigarette burn out in an ashtray. The first time it happened I’d even pulled up my shirt afterwards, expecting to see black charring across my stomach, like those grill marks on a steak. For a few seconds it was so bad I thought I might puke; I knew from experience it would make the spasms worse, but I wouldn’t be able to help it.

I heard Dobey yell “Hutchinson!” and the sound of scuffling on the other side of the desk. Something bad was going down, but I could hardly move my head enough to see what was happening, let alone get in the middle of it. When I did finally manage to focus, I saw Dobey had Hutch pinned up against the filing cabinet, one arm twisted behind his back. Hutch was struggling, but it didn’t do him much good. A lotta people, when they look at Dobey, only see the big belly and the grey hair, but in his day, he and Elmo Jackson ran the streets pretty much the way me ‘n Hutch do now, and there’s still plenty of that street fighter left under the captain’s suit. Hutch wasn’t goin’ anywhere unless Dobey let him.

That must’ve gotten through to him, because he suddenly took a deep breath and slumped against the cabinet. “It’s okay, Captain,” he panted. “It’s okay. You can let go.”

I managed to push myself up on one elbow. “Hutch, it’s a joke—” I started, but he cut me off.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” he whispered. “A joke? Yeah, I’m really laughing!”

No finger waving, no Hutchinson rant, just a soft, deadly cold voice slicing right into me. He looked scary: his face was real pale, and there was something wrong with his eyes. It took me a second to realize where I’d seen eyes like that before: on guys in combat—after a mission gone FUBAR. Dobey couldn’t see his face, which was probably why he relaxed his hold. One heartbeat was all it took. Hutch yanked his arm away from Dobey, elbowed him back and was through the door so fast neither of us even had time to blink. Dobey yelled “Hutchinson!” again, but it didn’t even slow him down.

With just the two of us there, the squad room suddenly seemed too quiet and too big. The pain in my gut had eased off, but usually I wouldn’t have tried to move yet. I knew my legs wouldn’t hold me. It didn’t matter. Seeing Hutch’s eyes get all weird like that scared the shit out of me. I grabbed on to the chair and tried to use it to lever myself up on my knees. I only got halfway there before my arms gave out, and I flopped back on my ass.

Dobey stood looking down at me, shaking his head, a disgusted look on his face. “Don’t waste any effort on me, Starsky,” he said. His arms were crossed so tight across his chest I knew he’d’ve popped me one himself if I’d been on my feet.

“It was a joke, cap’n. What’s wrong with him?”

Dobey rubbed his forehead. “That was your idea of a joke? Pretending to be sick?” He shook his head again.

I didn’t even get it for a second. When it finally hit me what they thought I’d done, the pain was worse than any of the cramps. It felt like my lungs had frozen.

“Oh, Jesus. You think I’m faking?” My voice sounded all weird and wheezy, and now I really did think I was going to puke.

“You’re not?”

No slack from Dobey, and shit, I couldn’t blame him.

“Huggy’s call was the joke. You ‘n Hutch were just supposed to get all steamed up about me going away sick, not, not—” I waved my hand helplessly.

“Not think you’re a lying son of a bitch who’s pretending to still be suffering the effects of poisoning so he can spend his comp time having a ball on the beach while his friends worry about him?”

I dropped my head into my hands.

Dear God.

Me and Hutch like to yank each other’s chains—sometimes kinda hard, too, or so it might seem to people who don’t know us—but that either Hutch or Dobey could think I’d do something like that—

“I’m not faking.” I swear I sounded like a six-year-old who just got his butt paddled, and deserved it.

“So what’s the real story?” Dobey wasn’t easing up an inch.

“Exactly what I said. The doc said I’ll be okay, but it’ll take a couple weeks for everything to get back to normal. And I can come back to desk duty. I can feel like crap just as easy sitting in a chair as lying in bed.” I usually wouldn’t have said that, but I figured I owed Dobey on this.

“And these?” Dobey picked up my pill bottles. “These are legit?”

I nodded. “The blue one’s for my kidneys, the brown and yellow one’s for my liver, and the white one’s a painkiller.”

“Painkiller?” Dobey frowned and looked from me to the bottle and back.

“Doc says my nerves are still a little fried. I get these…cramps, I guess. Like when the poison was in me…” My voice trailed away. When the poison was running wild through me, Hutch had been there, holding me when the pain got bad, talking me through, saying stuff I swear most of the time didn’t make sense, but the sound of his voice gave me something to focus on besides the way my body was being ripped at. Havin’ Hutch’s hands on me did more good than any of the stuff they injected me with. I knew I’d left bruises a couple times from grabbing his arm or leg so tight, but he never pulled away or tried to make me let go.

“Hutchinson’s right: You are a moron.”

I was gettin’ tired of having Dobey shake his head at me.

He leaned down and grabbed me under the arms and hoisted me up. I tried to stay on my feet, but couldn’t manage it. I ended up collapsed in the chair like a beached jellyfish, my head spinning.

“I gotta go after him,” I muttered.

I tried to stand up again, but Dobey’s hand held me still. Trying to shift away didn’t work any better for me than it had for Hutch.

“Please, Cap,” I said desperately. “I gotta find him. I can’t let him think I’d do that to him.”

“You’re going to sit your sorry ass down and stay there until you don’t pass out every time you try to move. I’ll have dispatch call him up.”

He grabbed the phone and I closed my eyes, drifting on the sound of his voice rumbling behind me. I didn’t move until I felt something poke my shoulder. Dobey was holding out another cup of water. Opening my eyes made me feel kinda queasy again, and I blinked hard and swallowed a couple times.

“Need one of these?” He held out the bottle of painkillers.

I did, but I couldn’t say so. The pills would cut the pain, but make me fuzzy in the head, and I needed to think more than I needed not to hurt.

“I’ll be fine. It wears off pretty quick these days,” I lied through my teeth.

I could tell Dobey didn’t believe me, but he didn’t call me on it. I closed my eyes again, and after a couple seconds, I heard him sigh, and then head over to his office.

I wanted so bad to get up and run after Hutch, apologize, explain, make it all better again. This whole mess with Jennings was so hard on him. Okay, it wasn’t any day at the beach for me either, but bein’ the one that’s doing the hurting is always easier than being the one watching the hurting. At least, that’s how it is for me ‘n Hutch. I remember after we had our little run-in with Ben Forrest, for about a month afterwards, I’d keep wanting to get up in the night and drive over to Hutch’s place. Not ’cause I was worried he’d be out looking for a score, but just because, well, I needed to make sure he was all right. A couple nights I ended up sleepin’ in the car out on the street. The second time he caught me, Hutch just said if I needed to baby sit him, I might as well come in and do it from the couch, so I wouldn’t be so grouchy in the morning.

So I did.

If it’d been anybody but me, Hutch wouldn’ta put up with it. He’d’ve figured it was about not bein’ trusted or some shit like that, and gone all cold and hardass like he does when he thinks he’s gotta prove something. But it was me, so he knew a lot of it was more about me than him anyway, and he let me come and sleep on his couch when I needed to, until the heebie-jeebies went away.

Having to sit and wait was damn near killing me, but I knew I only had so much strength left, and I couldn’t afford to waste any of it runnin’ around in circles. When I went after him, I had to get it right the first time. So I kept my eyes closed, and breathed deep and slow, and concentrated on getting my muscles to relax and get stronger. Maybe some of that “cleansing your mind” stuff of Hutch’s could work for me. But what I kept seeing was Hutch’s face in the hospital, when they had me loaded on the gurney ready to take me upstairs.

He couldn’t stop looking and he couldn’t let go. And I didn’t want him to. I wanted to just soak him up for as long as I could, feel all that love giving me a little more strength and holding back the pain. The way he looked—I got the idea if I was a girl he’d’ve kissed me. All the way up in the elevator, until the drugs finally zonked me out, I’d been wishin’ he had.

Dumb, huh? I mean, Hutch has always been a ladies’ man, and they just love him, whether he comes on all uptown and smooth, or does the shy country-boy bit. Hutch kissin’ me, except as some kind of a joke, wasn’t in the cards. And why I’d started thinking about it—

Maybe the poison affected my brain too, and the doctors hadn’t figured it out?

“Starsky?” Dobey’s voice was quiet.

“Hutch—”

“He logged himself out, and he’s not responding to the radio.” Dobey raised his eyebrows. “If I put out an APB—”

“He’ll come back long enough to hand in his badge.” I didn’t have any doubt on that. Maybe I never went to college, but I’ve had a few years to get straight As in Blintzology. Hutch was feelin’ raw right to his bones, and if I played this wrong, I’d lose him.

Not in this lifetime.

I heaved myself to my feet. I still ached worse than after getting the crap pounded out of me by those body builders, but my legs were ready to at least try to hold me up, and I was gettin’ antsier by the second to be on my way. Dobey must’ve seen that there wasn’t anything he could say anymore to stop me, so he just nodded.

“You check in every hour, you hear me, Starsky? Or there’ll be an APB out on both of you. And I just might let you two turkeys sit in a holding cell overnight to teach you a lesson.”

“Yes, Cap’n. I’ll do that,” I said, and headed for the door while the going was good. But I couldn’t leave it like that.

“Uh, Captain?” I made myself look at him straight on. “I’m sorry.”

Dobey shook his head. “Tell it to the man who needs to hear it.”

Dobey’s a good man, and I knew a lotta the time when he hollered at us it was ’cause we’d scared the crap outta him. When this was over, we’d have to do something pretty nice to make it up to him. I didn’t even let myself think that there might not be a “we.”

It wasn’t until I was waiting at the elevator that I realized I still didn’t have clue where to look. Hutch’s house? The beach? Abby’s? Probably not—Hutch liked her, but not enough to go running to with something like this.

That really shook me. I know Hutch, I know what he thinks, how he feels, what he’s like inside, just like he knows me. Findin’ him shoulda been a snap. But then, I’d never known him when he thought I’d betrayed him.

Until a couple months ago, my first stop would’ve been Huggy’s. But since he lost the bar, it’s not the same. Kinda hard to drown your sorrows on a street corner. On the other hand, Hutch just might’ve been pissed off enough to go treat Huggy to some of the wrath of Hutchinson too. That made my mind up, just as the elevator dinged at me. I’d see Huggy, let him know we’d screwed the pooch big-time, and tell him to keep his eyes open for my blond thunderstorm. Having a plan made me feel a lot better, until I got down to the garage.

In all the confusion, the Torino had ended up back here at the station. Hutch had ragged me about havin’ to drive it, and how he’d never live down bein’ seen all over town in a traveling Coke can. But see, this is one of the things I know about Hutch: he needs to hold on to something when things feel like they’re flyin’ apart. Security blanket isn’t really the right word, ’cause it makes Hutch sound like a kid, and he sure as hell isn’t that, but it’s the right idea. The worse things get, the harder he tries to keep things stable. Doing something like driving my car is part of it, and so is bitching about driving my car. I’ve tried tellin’ him trying so hard can sometimes make things even worse, that sometimes you just gotta surf the waves and let yourself get thrown up wherever you land, but he doesn’t believe me. Deep down, Hutch still thinks he’s the one has to keep all the plates in the air, and if something breaks it’s ’cause he failed and not ’cause sometimes shit just happens, no matter how hard you try.

Which was why he took that swing at me in the first place, and why I didn’t hold it against him.

Standing there with the keys in my hand, for the first time in my life I wondered if I was okay to drive. It’s not something a cop should admit, but I’ve been behind the wheel a few times so drunk I could hardly walk. It never seemed to affect my driving; my body’s got some kind of instinct that lets me handle a car no matter how wasted I am. But I remembered how that spasm put me on the floor, no strength in my arms or legs, no room in my mind for anything but pain. I’d do a real number on Hutch if I blacked out on the freeway and totaled the car on top of everything else.

For a second I stood there, just staring at the Torino, imagining myself calling a cab, trying to explain why I needed to be driven all over town, and act like I knew what I was doing in front of some stranger.

“Fuck it,” I whispered, and yanked the door open. I was just going to have to be able to drive and that was all there was to that.

By the time I got over to the travel agency, I was white knuckled and my shirt was wet all down the back and under the arms. That drive was a lesson in just how weak I still was, and it scared me more than I liked to think. The main roads weren’t too bad, nice and wide and everything moving along, but tryin’ to deal with traffic on the side streets was hell. I’d never noticed how many cars just stopped dead or turned without signaling, or pulled out right in front without even looking to see what was coming. Every time I had to put on the brakes, I was afraid that this time my foot wouldn’t make it all the way to the floor, and I’d just roll right over some little old lady in a Gremlin out for a run to the grocery store.

When I pulled up to the curb, I cut the engine and just put my head down on the wheel for a minute. Even though I was still damn sore and achy through my gut, all my body really wanted was to lean over right there on the seat and go to sleep. I could feel myself getting heavy and drifty, felt my eyes closing, and I panicked. I grabbed my right earlobe and pinched as hard as I could, until the pain sat me up straight and made my eyes water.

For a few seconds I held dead still, waiting to see if the cramps would come back—they did that sometimes if I moved too quick. This time, nothing happened, and I let out a long breath and dragged myself out of the car.

Inside, at the counter, Huggy was talking to a pair of real foxes, and he was turnin’ on the charm for all he was worth. His eyes flickered over to me when I opened the door, and then snapped back. I’ve always wondered if Huggy’s done time, ’cause he’s got that knack for being able to look at you from the side, and not miss a beat of what’s goin’ on straight ahead. If I didn’t know him so well, I woulda missed the way he stiffened up and changed gears, like a cat suddenly seein’ a dog walk by the window. The girls sure didn’t notice anything. Huggy came out from behind the counter and somehow got himself in between, an arm around each of them. His voice was all jive honey as he urged them toward the waiting area.

“You’ll have to excuse me for just a moment, ladies. I do believe I have a traveler’s emergency. Just take a few minutes to look over some of our brochures, and then I can assist you in deciding on a final destination.”

He jerked his head in my direction, and then looked toward a little desk over at the side, behind a big plant. I shuffled away from the door, managed not to hang onto any furniture where anybody could see, and collapsed into the chair in front of the desk, knocking over a whole stack of pamphlets on the way down.

I looked down at the splash of bright colors all over the floor. Caribbean vacations. People lying on the beach, splashing in the water, sailing, fishing, drinking fancy drinks with little umbrellas in ’em, dancing by the pool as the sun went down. Suddenly, it hit, really hit, what Hutch must have been thinkin’ and I put my hands over my face.

“Shoulda known better,” I mumbled.

“Indeed you should, m’man.” Huggy propped himself up on the edge of the desk and leaned over to take a closer look at me. “Shoulda stayed in bed, like any man with the sense the good Lord gave small furry animals. You look like you been dragged through a knothole backwards. And frontwards.” He leaned a little closer. “What’s gone down?”

I leaned my head back on the chair, and told Huggy everything.

By the time I finished, Huggy was shaking his head and looking just as guilty as I felt.

“Man, oh, man. I never thought—how in the hell did that go so bad so fast?” He gave my arm a quick squeeze. “You got any ideas?”

“I’ve gotta find Hutch. I’ve gotta make things right with him. I just—” I looked up helplessly. “I can’t think where to look for him.”

Huggy ran through the same things I’d thought of, and then snapped his fingers. “Seein’ as this is kind of about a case, maybe he went to his old TO. Seems to still be pretty tight with him, don’t he?”

“Huntley?” I thought for a minute and then shook my head. “If it were something else, maybe, but Hutch doesn’t…” I trailed off. I wasn’t sure I should tell Huggy Hutch liked Huntley a lot, but didn’t think he had the stones for the tough stuff. I wasn’t sure if Hutch himself really understood that was how he felt. But I was damn sure the last person he’d talk to about what he thought I did was Luke Huntley.

Well, maybe not quite the last.

I knew it was a stupid idea, but once it got into my head, I couldn’t push it away.

“Huggy,” I said very quietly, as if that would somehow make it less real, “Could he have gone home? To Duluth, I mean?”

Huggy looked down at me for a minute and then just shook his head. “Starsky, Starsky,” he said in that voice that always sounds like he’s pretty sure I got rocks between my ears. “Did that poison mess with your brain? Think on what you’re sayin’, m’man. Hutch go runnin’ home to Mama? Man’s still got his pride.”

I nodded. Figuring out where Hutch wasn’t was gonna be a damn slow way to figure out where he was.

“Now the way I see it, our blond brother’s hurtin’. He’ll be hiding out like a lion with a sore paw, when what he really needs is some good old-fashioned TLC. Which is where you come in, Starsky.”

“He won’t want anything from me, except maybe another chance to get a punch in. I’d probably let him if I didn’t feel like shit already.” I thumped my fist on the chair. “At least I gotta apologize, let him know it wasn’t on purpose. He wants to pop me one after, I better just hope I can duck fast.”

“Now you know better’n that,” Huggy said. “My money would say a big part of the reason he’s hidin’ out is because he feels bad for slugging you. If he really thought what he did was righteous, he’d have tackled you and Dobey head on.” He grinned at me. “Ain’t like our Viking warrior ever had a problem speaking his mind.”

I nodded, and started hoisting myself to my feet. I was moving better than I had back in the squadroom, feeling a lot less shaky, even if I was tired. But I knew I had the same problem I’d had before: I had to find Hutch fast, or I wouldn’t be able to do it.

And no matter what Huggy said, tomorrow might be too late.

Huggy stood up too. He looked dead serious, one of the few times I’d ever seen him without at least a little attitude. “Go to his place. If he ain’t there now, he will be.”

“And if we’re wrong?”

He shrugged. “Life’s a gamble, Starsky. You throw the dice, you pay the price.”

“You make a lousy Baretta.” Bad as I felt, I couldn’t hold back a little laugh.

“You prefer, ‘don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time’?” He shook my shoulder gently. “Get outta here, Starsky. Go over to Hutch’s, and apologize until you get it right. And tell the man I’ll be by tomorrow to do my own share of butt-kissing.”

I nodded. When the man’s right, he’s right. Runnin’ around in circles wouldn’t get me anywhere. Sometimes you gotta give Lady Luck some room to work.

The drive out to Venice went a lot easier than the drive to Huggy’s. It wasn’t like I really knew I’d find Hutch at his place—Huggy’s good, but he’s no mind reader, and he’d been wrong before—but at least I didn’t feel like I was just closing my eyes and throwing a pin at the map. And the driving was easier too: either I’d gotten used to feeling like shit, or I had too much else on my mind to worry about crashing the car.

I couldn’t remember ever being so glad to see the squash squatting in its parking space beside the cottage. Hutch was there. He hadn’t run, he wasn’t hiding. At least I’d get a chance to say my piece. After that, we’d see how things shook out.

As I turned the wheel to pull in, the cramps hit me.

Hard.

I heard myself make a funny sort of squeak as my hands first clenched and then slipped off the wheel. I tried to jam on the brakes, but my legs had gone heavy and numb. If anything was happening down there, I couldn’t feel it. My gut felt like I was getting ripped open by shrapnel. The last thing I saw was the squash’s rear bumper, getting bigger and bigger dead ahead.

The next thing I knew I was sort of lying somewhere hard and uncomfortable. I was partway sitting up, with my back twisted, and some of the hard I was on was Hutch’s knees. He had his arms wrapped around me, rocking me back and forth, and babbling like a parrot on speed.

“Hang on, Starsk, just hang on, please, I’m sorry, hang on, I love you, buddy, oh, God, please, hang on.”

“Hutch,” I said, or at least tried to. What came out was more like “Hesh,” but he heard me.

He made a little gasping noise, like he’d taken a good punch in the solar plexus and then the babbling started up again. “Oh, thank God, it’ll be okay, I’ll call the ambulance, just hold on a little longer, please.”

I was getting a little freaked. I’d never heard Hutch lose it like that.

“No . . . amb’l’nce. ‘M be okay.” I groped around trying to get hold of his hand, show him I was still alive and kicking. Sore as all hell and a little woozy still, but nowhere near as bad as it sounded like he thought I was.

“Okay?” That at least cut off the babbling, but the way his voice broke wasn’t any better. “You passed out in the goddamned car, Starsky! The engine running. Still in gear. Still moving! I heard…I saw you… If my car weren’t built like fucking tank all three of you would be at the bottom of the canal right now!” His voice kept going up and shaking harder until it cracked over the last word like a kid going through puberty. He took a couple of deep gulping breaths and said, “When I came out and saw—” and then his voice just quit altogether.

I turned my head a little so I could get a look at him, and my heart just broke. Bad as he’d ever looked during those twenty-four hours of hell we went through, he’d never looked so flat out wasted. He was white and sweaty, his hair plastered down to his forehead, and sticking up at the back. I could feel him shivering a little too, and it suddenly hit me we were just about neck and neck over who’d be going into shock first. There was something else too, something that wouldn’t let him look straight at me, even as tight as he was hanging on.

“Aw, Hutch, I’m sorry,” I whispered. “So sorry. Didn’t mean to do this to you.”

“You’re sorry?” He laughed a little, an awful dry sound. “I hit you. I did this—”

He touched the side of my chin. Funny, I couldn’t feel the bruise, but I felt his fingers, ice cold and shaking. That pulled me together fast.

“Not you!” I finally got a grip on his hand, and hung onto it for dear life. “Still the poison. Aftereffects. Doc said, probably a couple weeks, maybe even a month or two before everything goes back to normal.”

That didn’t help. I saw it as soon as I got my mouth shut, but by then it was too late. He’d been pale before, but now he went just grey, and his eyes were flat, almost grey too.

“I could’ve killed you,” he said blankly. “I thought—you never even tried to block the punch.” He looked away, but I could see him blinking like crazy.

“Hutch.” I sort of fumbled my other hand up. I meant to grab his chin, but ended up kinda patting at his face. My hands felt like I had on those big fuzzy kids’ mitts, but I managed to at least get enough leverage to make him look down at me.

“My fault.” I said it real slow and clear. “Got that, pal? Mine. Made a stupid joke. Didn’t think about how it’d look from your side.”

He shook his head, slow at first, then faster and faster. “No. No. I hit you, didn’t even think.” He was almost back to the wired-up babbling. “Gotta go. Gotta…”

He started squirming backwards, like he was trying to pull himself out from under me. It didn’t work too well, ’cause he was trying not to hurt me, and the second I realized what he was doing I dropped all my weight down onto my back, trapping his legs. Hutch wasn’t getting away this time, not unless he was up for peeling me off like Saran wrap.

Still, he gave it a good try. He tugged at the hand I was holding, and pushed back with the other one, and managed to wiggle one leg out from under me. I damn near panicked, because I was sure one more good heave and I’d be lying on the ground watching a cloud of dust on the horizon. I hung on harder, and managed to get my other hand on the back of his neck.

“Don’t try it, Hutch!” I wasn’t up to yellin’ yet, but I managed to put enough steel into it that he froze. “I swear I’ll come after you, even if I’m crawling.”

When he looked down at me, I finally figured out what else it was I was seeing in his eyes.

If anybody had told me six hours before that my partner was in love with me, I’d’ve laughed like a hyena. If anybody had told me I was in love with him, I might’ve popped ’em one. Not because I didn’t love the big lug, but because there’s lines you don’t cross, and things you don’t think, even if you know them. They’re there, but you pretend you don’t see them, even when you’re dodging around them like glass posts in a sidewalk.

Nearly dying hadn’t made me look at those glass posts, but it looked like watching me dying had made them real clear to Hutch. No, what it took to get my head out of my ass was watching Hutch just about turn himself inside out feeling guilty over me.

I didn’t even bother to think about it. I made my neck stretch up as far as it would go, and kissed him. It wasn’t the world’s best kiss: bad angle, really bad leverage, and my neck and shoulders were still weak and sore enough I could barely keep any pressure on. But I held it as long as I could, tasted everything I could. This was our first kiss and I was gonna make damn sure Hutch never forgot it.

When my muscles finally gave out and I slumped back down, Hutch had gone from grey to pale pink. His eyes still looked one step away from panic, but he wasn’t trying to pull away anymore. In fact, he was holding my hand so tight I was pretty sure I was gonna have a bruise.

Fuck it, I figured. Small price to pay.

“Starsk?” His voice was so soft I could hardly hear him. “Why?”

“You really gotta ask?” I gave him my best eyebrow waggle. “You think I go around kissing guys all the time?”

He shook his head and repeated it. “Why?”

“You tellin’ me you didn’t want that?”

He nodded this time, like he’d taken a sucker punch and wasn’t sure how he was gonna keep his head from falling off.

“No,” he said. “No, I can’t say that.” His voice was still funny, so confused and wound up it hurt me to listen to him. “But how can you? After I blew up at you like that?” He looked away, his face went pale again except for bright red patches on his cheeks. “Hit you?”

“I told you. That was my fault.” I looked down, feeling just about as guilty as I figured he did. “I knew this was rough on you. I shoulda known you wouldn’t get over it just like that.”

“Better ways to deal with it than a fistfight.”

“Better than going on a bender. Or a resignation letter.” Cops burn out damn fast, and with what the two of us have been through, I’d almost been afraid Hutch might decide he couldn’t hack it any more. Hell, the first few days after, I was wondering if I could.

Hutch gave another one of those dry little laughs. “Not sure a pity fuck’s much better.”

I couldn’t manage a swat, but I did give him a little thump on the shoulder. “That’s not what this is about, and you know it. It’s me and thee.”

“Still trust me?” he said shyly.

I nodded. “How ’bout you?”

He didn’t say anything, just leaned down so his forehead was resting on mine.

I’m not sure how long we stayed like that. At first, I was still too weak to move even I’d wanted to, and I sure as hell didn’t want to. But eventually, the weakness started to wear off, and the muscle pain that came along behind it warned me that if I didn’t get up soon, I’d be in trouble. I remembered my painkillers were still sitting back in the squadroom, and figured Hutch didn’t need to see me hurt worse than I would anyway.

“Tell you what, blondie. How about we move this some place where the neighbors won’t be sellin’ tickets?”

Hutch’s head jerked up, as if it had suddenly just hit him we were sitting in the gravel outside his house, in front of God and anybody who wanted to take a peek out the kitchen window.

“Can you move?” he asked.

“Won’t be pretty, but if you give me a hand, I can manage.”

“You’re sure you don’t need an ambulance?”

“I’m fine.” I had a feeling I was going to be repeating that a lot in the next few weeks. “Could use something soft to lie on, though.” I tried a little wink, and got another blush out of him.

He leaned down to rest his head against me again. “We gonna make this work?”

There were all kinds of reasons to say no, and our jobs and Captain Dobey waiting back at the station were just the first and maybe the least of ’em.

“We’ll make it work,” I said, and right then I didn’t have a minute’s doubt. “C’mon, partner, help me up.”

Hutch let out all his breath, long and slow, and he grinned. Kinda shaky, but definitely a smile, and it made me feel warm right down to my toes.

“Oh yeah, partner,” he said softly. “I will definitely help you up.”

When he followed that up with a wink, I felt myself go red in the face for the first time in years.

I was right, getting up wasn’t pretty, but finally we wobbled upright, leaning on each other, nearly pulling each other over a time or two. When we were finally on our feet, we just stood there a minute, making sure we were going to stay there and getting used to the feeling of leaning on each other in a whole new way.

“Shall we?” I said, and gave Hutch a little nudge with the arm I had around his shoulders.

He gave me another smile and a nod, and tightened up his arm around my waist. As carefully as if we were still dancing around those glass poles, we headed to the front door and the life on the other side